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Maybe there should be three terms acknowledged in the study of privacy: Public Obscure Private For the longest time we have interpreted obscurity as privacy

Maybe there should be three terms acknowledged in the study of privacy: Public Obscure Private For the longest time we have interpreted obscurity as privacy. Such as what your house looks like. Or how many people know of your legal immigration status. There are very few pieces of information that are truly private, like social security number, health records (known only by Healthcare providers), and the actions you did in secret where no one was present, and maybe even the thoughts you have and the writings of your journal.

darepublic 7y ago
I sometimes wonder about the day when even thoughts won't be safe from outside scrutiny.
Avamander 7y ago
> There are very few pieces of information that are truly private, like social security number Most countries don't have such a number with such high value.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  How do those countries handle taxes, public services, and credit?
  - Avamander 7y ago
    Those countries do have a number, but it's not SSN it's a National Identification Number and its usually not considered valuable or secret information.
  - eximius 7y ago
    They have similar IDs, but they are IDs not authentication methods in and of themselves. SSNs are Bearer IDs that the knowing of is proof of identity, which is dumb.
saagarjha 7y ago
> There are very few pieces of information that are truly private, like social security number, health records (known only by Healthcare providers) Knowing the security of the organizations that handle these, I don’t really think so.
sarah180 7y ago
> the writings of your journal …unless that journal is electronic
alexwasserman 7y ago
I think this starts to get at it, but missed the lopsided situation we're in today. In the small town he mentions, yes, there's little privacy, but it's constrained to the small town, and largely equal. Everyone knows about everyone. If someone from outside showed up to ask questions the town would likely protect your privacy, but also let you know someone was asking questions. Instead today there are corporations (some public, some very secretive) gathering vast amounts of information and it's impossible to know who knows what about you. That information is also much more easily tradable, so it spreads. For example, in the small town, pre-IT, it was hard to produce consolidated, and deep reporting of who's buying what, beyond the memory of the staff. Now Target, Amazon, etc can know not just what you're buying, but what you're looking at, and correlate it with information from other sources, and it can be easily correlated with public records, and other information on a scale that's just wasn't ever possible historically.

darepublic 7y ago

I sometimes wonder about the day when even thoughts won't be safe from outside scrutiny.

Avamander 7y ago

> There are very few pieces of information that are truly private, like social security number Most countries don't have such a number with such high value.

lonelappde 7y ago
How do those countries handle taxes, public services, and credit?
- Avamander 7y ago
  Those countries do have a number, but it's not SSN it's a National Identification Number and its usually not considered valuable or secret information.
- eximius 7y ago
  They have similar IDs, but they are IDs not authentication methods in and of themselves. SSNs are Bearer IDs that the knowing of is proof of identity, which is dumb.

saagarjha 7y ago

> There are very few pieces of information that are truly private, like social security number, health records (known only by Healthcare providers) Knowing the security of the organizations that handle these, I don’t really think so.

sarah180 7y ago

> the writings of your journal …unless that journal is electronic

alexwasserman 7y ago

I think this starts to get at it, but missed the lopsided situation we're in today. In the small town he mentions, yes, there's little privacy, but it's constrained to the small town, and largely equal. Everyone knows about everyone. If someone from outside showed up to ask questions the town would likely protect your privacy, but also let you know someone was asking questions. Instead today there are corporations (some public, some very secretive) gathering vast amounts of information and it's impossible to know who knows what about you. That information is also much more easily tradable, so it spreads. For example, in the small town, pre-IT, it was hard to produce consolidated, and deep reporting of who's buying what, beyond the memory of the staff. Now Target, Amazon, etc can know not just what you're buying, but what you're looking at, and correlate it with information from other sources, and it can be easily correlated with public records, and other information on a scale that's just wasn't ever possible historically.