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When someone asks me why privacy matters, usually followed by "who cares about the details of my life?", or "I have nothing to hide", I ask them if they know wh

When someone asks me why privacy matters, usually followed by "who cares about the details of my life?", or "I have nothing to hide", I ask them if they know who Milly Dowler was. Milly Dowler, was a 13 year old girl who was abducted and murdered on her way back from school. It took months to find her body. During this time her family keep leaving desperate messages on her phones answering service. What they didn't know what that, news papers had hacked her voice mail and listened to and printed their pleas for her to return their calls. When the voice box eventually became full, the reporters deleted messages from the phone service so that they could get new materiel. When the family noticed that the voice box had been emptied, it gave them hope that she was still alive and was listening to her messages. Much later they where devastated to learn the body had been found. If you would have asked anyone in the Dowler family the day before Milly's disappearance if they where worried that some one might hack their voice mail they would probably have replied "No, Not really, we have nothing to hide and who would really care to listen to that?"

thdrdt 7y ago
A simpler example is what a blind programmer once posted on HN. As I remember he wanted a job and wanted to hide the fact he is blind because most companies just turned him down immediately.
stevenicr 7y ago
Only way I've been able to get older people to pay attention is by telling them that agreeing to the terms along with your other friends and family collectively, you all have gotten your kids to use and accept those terms, now all of your daughters pics are autouploaded to fbook (not just the ones you chose to share, all photos on the device) - you agreed to those terms of access remember? and lots of enginerds get to see them. microsofts drive app autodetects nude and almost nude pics and sends a copy to humans for verification automatically. snap gets lots of pics that your kids are trying to hide, and keeps a copy for thousands of people to access behind closed doors. Same with instagram, which also allows us to buy pics of your kids and use them in ads for dirty dating sites and herpes commercials.. since you don't use signal you are making your children's texts, pics and videos less safe. Oh, and the banks auto sell your shopping buys to groups of us enginerds. we may have you or members of your fam on the list of buyers of 'massagers' from certain stores.. we love those walgreens points cards, and so does google and fbook who also collect your offline purchasing data and share. thanks for participating in our surveillance economy, we love to watch, and we give you cheaper things for letting us. its win win. don't believe me? call your bank and ask them if they share your debit card purchases with me. have a nice day.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
So... given the Milly Dowler example... why does privacy matter? Did the family suffer harm through other people listening to their messages? The false hope is unrelated to a privacy violation; it came from unauthorized message deletion. It would have happened equally if messages had been deleted unheard. And, for related reasons, there are already laws against this type of conduct which do not draw on the privacy concept. ("Ownership" is sufficient.) Was the family interested in hiding the fact that their daughter was missing? That they were desperate to get her back? How would more privacy have helped? The argument that 1. A bad thing happened; 2. Behavior X occurred while it was happening does not actually show that behavior X is bad or had bad consequences. And a case in which all the relevant parties were intentionally publicizing their affairs seems like an odd vehicle to draw privacy concerns from.
- boomlinde 7y ago
  > The false hope is unrelated to a privacy violation; it came from unauthorized message deletion. It would have happened equally if messages had been deleted unheard. You are using a unique definition of privacy here to say that meddling with data you have understood to be private is not a privacy violation. > How would more privacy have helped? Unscrupolous journalists would not have had any reason to hack the phone to listen to and delete messages. Ultimately, because there wouldn't be any messages or because their storage was encrypted and guarded beyond reasonable means to access it without permission.
  - fragmede 7y ago
    The false hope in the Milly Dowler story is deeply heart-breaking, but a privacy violating system that couldn’t generate false hope would still be bad. If the phone company mailed copies of every phone call made by the family, to reporters, I think we can agree that would still be gross.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > You are using a unique definition of privacy here to say that meddling with data you have understood to be private is not a privacy violation. I'm saying that meddling with someone else's data isn't a privacy issue in the same way that if I enter your home and cut your table in half, the destruction of your table isn't a privacy issue. It's a destruction-of-property issue.

thdrdt 7y ago

A simpler example is what a blind programmer once posted on HN. As I remember he wanted a job and wanted to hide the fact he is blind because most companies just turned him down immediately.

stevenicr 7y ago

Only way I've been able to get older people to pay attention is by telling them that agreeing to the terms along with your other friends and family collectively, you all have gotten your kids to use and accept those terms, now all of your daughters pics are autouploaded to fbook (not just the ones you chose to share, all photos on the device) - you agreed to those terms of access remember? and lots of enginerds get to see them. microsofts drive app autodetects nude and almost nude pics and sends a copy to humans for verification automatically. snap gets lots of pics that your kids are trying to hide, and keeps a copy for thousands of people to access behind closed doors. Same with instagram, which also allows us to buy pics of your kids and use them in ads for dirty dating sites and herpes commercials.. since you don't use signal you are making your children's texts, pics and videos less safe. Oh, and the banks auto sell your shopping buys to groups of us enginerds. we may have you or members of your fam on the list of buyers of 'massagers' from certain stores.. we love those walgreens points cards, and so does google and fbook who also collect your offline purchasing data and share. thanks for participating in our surveillance economy, we love to watch, and we give you cheaper things for letting us. its win win. don't believe me? call your bank and ask them if they share your debit card purchases with me. have a nice day.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

So... given the Milly Dowler example... why does privacy matter? Did the family suffer harm through other people listening to their messages? The false hope is unrelated to a privacy violation; it came from unauthorized message deletion. It would have happened equally if messages had been deleted unheard. And, for related reasons, there are already laws against this type of conduct which do not draw on the privacy concept. ("Ownership" is sufficient.) Was the family interested in hiding the fact that their daughter was missing? That they were desperate to get her back? How would more privacy have helped? The argument that 1. A bad thing happened; 2. Behavior X occurred while it was happening does not actually show that behavior X is bad or had bad consequences. And a case in which all the relevant parties were intentionally publicizing their affairs seems like an odd vehicle to draw privacy concerns from.

boomlinde 7y ago
> The false hope is unrelated to a privacy violation; it came from unauthorized message deletion. It would have happened equally if messages had been deleted unheard. You are using a unique definition of privacy here to say that meddling with data you have understood to be private is not a privacy violation. > How would more privacy have helped? Unscrupolous journalists would not have had any reason to hack the phone to listen to and delete messages. Ultimately, because there wouldn't be any messages or because their storage was encrypted and guarded beyond reasonable means to access it without permission.
- fragmede 7y ago
  The false hope in the Milly Dowler story is deeply heart-breaking, but a privacy violating system that couldn’t generate false hope would still be bad. If the phone company mailed copies of every phone call made by the family, to reporters, I think we can agree that would still be gross.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > You are using a unique definition of privacy here to say that meddling with data you have understood to be private is not a privacy violation. I'm saying that meddling with someone else's data isn't a privacy issue in the same way that if I enter your home and cut your table in half, the destruction of your table isn't a privacy issue. It's a destruction-of-property issue.