29 ms·

Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

456 points by freddyym 6y ago

LeviIsaac 6y ago
*"PRIVACY" IS LIKE "the environment" – it's about too many things to be useful, so everybody ends up trampling it for a host of petty reasons. Leading to a world that's degraded and hostile, and that would never have been chosen had the consequences been made clear.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Also, everyone has something to hide.
- freddyym 6y ago
  Or, perhaps: "YOU don’t get to decide that you have nothing to hide when you give up your privacy."
- standardUser 6y ago
  In a constantly changing society, we don't even know what needs to be hidden.
bad_alloc 6y ago
Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward and inappropriate.
- newlikeice 6y ago
  you hit the nail on the head.
- DoubleGlazing 6y ago
  I like to counter the "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" argument with... "If I have done nothing wrong, then no one has the need to take an interest in my personal affairs."
  - arvindamirtaa 6y ago
    Sarcasm ahead But we don't know that you have done nothing wrong. Why don't we just take a quick peek and we'll leave you alone until we randomly decide to do this pointless exercise again?
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    This doesn't strike me as a very compelling response. If someone is arguing for dragnet surveillance with the idea that it only really impacts the guilty, and you respond by pointing out that you're innocent so there's nothing to gain by surveilling you, you haven't refuted their position at all. edit I see we're retreading an exchange (between others) from a few months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709602
    - DoubleGlazing 6y ago
      But if someone is Okay with a dragnet approach to find criminals, it also means that they are Okay with the government knowing every little detail of their life. And I would assume most people have things they would rather other people or government not know about. Everyone has secrets they want to keep.
- plaxitogrip 6y ago
  Right. And one notices that such people already implicitly value privacy since they talk to their husband or wife or close friend very differently depending upon whether others are present.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  As seen in a recent comment here, you might add: 6) Let the toilets door open, after all we all know what you're going to do there.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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- vntok 6y ago
  Most people understand that there is a distinction between having nothing to hide from randos on the Internet asking about my life and having nothing to hide from the legal system of my country. Your line of questioning is not an argument for most people.
  - pacamara619 6y ago
    These randos on the internet are people. And who works in government and/or the justice system? You guessed it! People! The govermnent is not some sort of abstract infallible entity. It consists of regular people. And giving those people deep access to your private and personal life is going to be abused more than it will help. Have we already forgotten what disastrous consequences moving toward such a totalitarian government has? Have we already forgotten about the horrors of the second world war and its aftermath?
    - pc86 6y ago
      Whether your argument is correct or not doesn't change the fact that it's not an argument worth making to most people. Rather than try to get them to begrudgingly accept that your original argument is a worthy one, it's a better use of energy to just find the argument that works the first time. > The govermnent is not some sort of abstract infallible entity. Most people agree it's not infallible, but a lot of people view it as an abstract entity and not just a group of different people.
    - vntok 6y ago
      > These randos on the internet are people. And who works in government and/or the justice system? You guessed it! People! That is not a persuasive argument to anyone who understands that people working for governments/justice systems are much more keen to be bound by... laws... than randos on the Internet. > Giving those people deep access to your private and personal life is going to be abused more than it will help. Yeah, I'll need a pretty convincing citation about that because it sounds like a load of misinformed nonsense to me. At the very least, you ought to segment your argument based on regional zones. As an example, in the EU governments do collect quite a lot of deep information on their citizens (their finance, their health, their skillsets, etc). They can then use that information to give out unemployment insurance, support education, tackle the best part of healthcare costs and so many other things that have a truly positive effect on people. > Have we already forgotten what disastrous consequences moving toward such a totalitarian government has? Have we already forgotten about the horrors of the second world war and its aftermath? Wait, is your argument that citizens in the US, EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. will experience a shift of their government to totalitarian states in their lifetime? If so what are you basing this belief on?
- glenstein 6y ago
  This is an important phenomenon that I think is really tricky to tackle. Because, I think your observation is 100% true. But, it also comes off as rude. But it really is probably the case that most people making general statements to the effect of "I've got nothing to hide" don't actually believe what they are saying, or they haven't fully worked out the implications.
- mewpmewp2 6y ago
  You could argue that there are some obvious things that should be kept secret, but not what can be tracked on the internet etc for purposes of providing you better recommendations or improving your life in general. That being said I'm a very private person and I wouldn't want to give out any data, but just playing a devil's advocate here.
  - jsinai 6y ago
    I hear you and understand where you are coming from. This is the reason many websites use cookies and many of these cookies may be functional in that sense. However a grey line starts to emerge when companies use the argument “tracking to make better recommendations and improve your life in general”. This may be innocuous on the company’s part, eg “we just want to make a better recommendation out of the hundreds, maybe thousands or millions of products we have”. And yes it may improve my life in so far as consumer satisfaction is able to momentarily or even permanently do so. However there is a weight of responsibility here, which other comments also refer to, and this that in totality the privacy cost may actually be so invasive and so easy to aggregate in the wrong hands, and so difficult for individuals to have control of, that “make better recommendations and improve [consumer] life in general” becomes hard to justify.
- bluetomcat 6y ago
  The creepy stuff is when bits of such "knowledge" are taken out of context and used to compile a personal profile of you, for purposes from marketing to content recommendation to social and political engineering. Someone has those partial "facts", but are unable to extract your true motivation for your behaviours and can draw very wrong conclusions.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  What is more insidious is that by itself some small portions of information are not private. But collectively they are. Some portions of information seem innocent too like 'how much is in your account' could mean the difference between if someone tries to target me or not. Say I owe 500 bucks and have 10 in the bank and they may not bother. But say something like I have no debt and have a million in the bank and suddenly I am a very attractive target. That is for both 'good' and 'bad' actors. Something as simple as giving your email to someone can tie you into yet another ad network. Which has already profiled you. What is the worst of it is, I really do not care if you had the information. I do care if you use my information to mess up my life or harass me endlessly. So my default position is 'sorry I am not telling you that'.
- raspyberr 6y ago
  This approach is one of my biggest annoyances because it's not the same. You're asking for them to give you something but they're not getting anything in return. When people use Facebook/Google etc. they get a service that they end up valuing very highly in return. That common argument of "Give me your phone and PIN" is so pointless because people wouldn't even give that stuff to Facebook if it didn't give them anything back. We've got to find a better set of arguments that we can use to convince people. I'm very strongly into privacy rights and I'm not convinced by this argument. Why would someone who doesn't care be convinced?
  - dontchooseanick 6y ago
    - Post pictures naked ? - You close the door of the toilets. You do have something to hide (we all know what you're doing. you're hiding anyway) "I don't need privacy because my actions are questionable, but because your judgment is" (think dictatures, wrong guys at the top of the decision pyramid, 2nd world war ..)
  - Tokelin 6y ago
    Just change the hypothetical into: "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" Yes, it's a bit long, but it takes into account your concern of giving data and not receiving anything in return. And Facebook/Insta/Social media in general is very similar to having a newspaper available at your coffee table each day.
    - vntok 6y ago
      > "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" If we're entering a valid contract under the justice system of our country of residency, why not? Similar services already abound, in particular around people who contract to visit and attend to older citizens.
      - Tokelin 6y ago
        This is a valid argument, which leads me to the thought that the laws need to be updated. I personally wouldn't be okay with my own premise. I have a person coming over to clean, but I am always home and I can check if I am worried about something.
- cortic 6y ago
  Posted this five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument; Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surly you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don't you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from some rich mobsters with kidney problems.. we don't know who are any of these things. So we should protect ourselves from all of them, in effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.
  - CaptArmchair 6y ago
    I tend to go into a different direction: "Sure, you don't have anything to hide today. But what about tomorrow? Or next year?" Did you know that law enforcement and justice can request and will try to gain access to data you share with any company? "Oh, but I have done nothing wrong." The definition of "nothing wrong" isn't set in stone. It's always up for interpretation. You might feel you're doing nothing wrong, but that doesn't mean authorities will always see it that way. Remember, in some countries, authorities use your social media to monitor against tax fraud. [1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/11/tax-authority-will-look-at-taxpayers-social-media-in-fight-against-tax-fraud/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/11/tax... There's always that probability of a change of political or judicial direction towards more invasive measures in your personal life using the data you share with third parties. You can't predict with certainty that in 10 years time you won't be earmarked as a "subversive element" as a result of mass data mining of the same data you happily share on line. Never assume "it won't happen to me."
    - mtgx 6y ago
      That SHOULD be a powerful argument, too. Unfortunately, most people tend to roll their eyes when you start suggesting that the government might use such powers against them in the future. They ultimately just "trust the government" to do the "right thing" no matter how flawed that thinking is. This is partially the fault of the education system and them not "knowing their history" that well. It's only when such abuses of privacy happen to them personally that they become ultra-privacy activists. We've seen this even with politicians that fought to expand mass surveillance powers and then did an 180 when they saw those powers were used against them, too (who would've thought?!).
- meowster 6y ago
  Instead of those questions, just ask them if they have blinds or curtains on their windows at home. It's better to show that they already take steps to be private rather than asking privacy-invasive questions. One of those makes you the bad guy, the other shows that they actually do value privacy.
  - piyh 6y ago
    Or the more direct, "Do you shit with the door open?"
    - electrondood 6y ago
      This is the most succinct expression I've ever seen of the only counterargument you need.
  - dionidium 6y ago
    We don't have curtains, actually. We have some pull-down blinds that are almost always in the up position. And I have to be honest: I only care about walking in front of my windows naked to the extent that it would bother my neighbors. I couldn't care any less. I only ever pull them down to spare my neighbors any embarrassment. Which is just to say: a lot of privacy talk is mere question-begging. It's assumed we all feel the same privacy-based emotions (and pro-privacy arguments like yours attempt to appeal to those emotions), but I find that I rarely share my interlocutor's intuitions on this topic, so your argument is still ahead of you.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Yeah I have blinds. But not because I am paranoid of peeping toms but because I like to sleep without the sun in my eyes.
- snarf21 6y ago
  Exactly. Anyone who says they have nothing to hide, I ask them for their unlocked mobile.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- treis 6y ago
  I don't mind people seeing me eating a meal in a restaurant. I'd have a problem if someone pulled up a chair and started staring at me. You can't use intensive actions to show how minor ones are objectionable. And further, as a rule of thumb if someone is dealing in hypotheticals it means they don't have actual proof of harm. You'd never make an argument like this if you could point to Bob Jones and say "X happened to Bob Jones and it could happen to you."
  - electrondood 6y ago
    The claim "I have nothing to hide so I don't care," is actually the claim that privacy is not intrinsically valuable. I think you can absolutely use an intensive action to show that lesser ones are objectionable. "If privacy is not important in itself, why are you covering your body with underwear and pants? Why don't you put cameras throughout your house, including your bedroom?" Clearly our actions reveal that we DO think privacy is important in itself. What "I have nothing to hide" really means is "I have not yet been personally affected, so I don't care." It's apathy, not a value statement.
  - smaryjerry 6y ago
    Reminds of me a child getting super close and saying “I’m not touching you.” They could touch you if they wanted or may touch you by mistake which makes it frustrating, it’s a kind of power. I think we need to understand with private knowledge comes power. We can’t trust normal people we don’t know with that power. People who are just working a job. Hell even most people don’t trust the opposite political parties president with power let alone corporations. To limit that we have to move them away and not even give them the chance to abuse it.
- rolph 6y ago
  in addition "lets go over to your place i want to have a look around"
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  Not really a fair set of questions, since at least (3), (4), and (5) can potentially lead to others accessing/taking my stuff (bank accounts, home, etc.) rather than just knowing about me.
- gambiting 6y ago
  Well, I tried using this exact argument on someone, and their reply was "I'm happy to provide all of these, and more, to any law enforcement agency that needs it. I'm not worried about government abusing this, and I don't understand why you do. I'm also not worried about stealing this information, because it simply won't happen to me". There's no point in arguing with some people. The logic just doesn't work.
- game_the0ry 6y ago
  Usually when people tell me that line, I ask - can I see the browsing history on your phone? Usually, it gets the point across.
- mackrevinack 6y ago
  I don't really think that argument holds any water though people are ok with giving away some of their privacy because they believe that companies and governments are trustworthy and that they will not abuse it. asking them to give you their password isn't the same thing. you are not an "official" person that is bound by any company rules or laws and you could easily spend the rest of the day/week/month going through their emails wreaking havoc if you really wanted to. if a government official or police officer had access to their credit card number there is much less of a chance of them abusing it compared to someone they know or some stranger in the street. even people that are aware of their data being collected probably know that there isnt someone in a van or an office cubical reading through every email they send/receive. its all just bulk collection and someone only looks at it if you get flagged for some reason.
- IndexPointer 6y ago
  “can you tell me your email password? I wanna check something in your emails..."
solarhess 6y ago
We want a society that respects free will and freedom from coercion. Privacy is necessary to achieve that end. Let's focus on achieving that end. Security experts spent 2 decades arguing for privacy. Very little has changed. For most people, privacy is not an end in itself.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > Very little has changed. What were you hoping for, exactly? https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certificate/all/y https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certif... https://letsencrypt.org/stats/#percent-pageloads https://letsencrypt.org/stats/#percent-pageloads https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email/overview?encrypt_in=start:1388534400000;end:1607990399999;series:inbound&lu=encrypt_in https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email/overview?e...
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inanutshellus 6y ago
I really like Social Cooling's take on privacy (http://www.socialcooling.com/ http://www.socialcooling.com/). SC's take (paraphrasingly, of course) is that without privacy, you're only rewarded for astroturfing your life & feigning a blandly successful life without pot holes. The Social Dilemma (Netflix docudrama)'s take on it -- that facebook-et-al don't sell "your data" they sell "a guaranteed change in your behavior" -- is also a pretty damn powerful message. This website's "nobody cares but they shouuuuuld!" baseline argument is not very effective, IMHO. These guys have the right idea -- giving access to privacy tooling -- but this post should've been more focused on education from the get-go. e.g. "We know you feel powerless about privacy. That's why we built [x resource]. Claw control back."
- tolbish 6y ago
  I do not think it is a given that the general public feels powerless about privacy. Why would someone take steps to empower themselves if they see no need for such power?
  - inanutshellus 6y ago
    Well, let's build something here. The current article argues in its opening that "nobody cares" ... The immediate retort to any "nobody cares" statement -- before one even finishes the sentence -- is "then it's probably for a good reason." It's counter-productive and frames your argument from the "weak outsider" perspective. So if we ought to frame our argument from a position of competence rather than insecurity (my original point) and assuming people care is incorrect (your point), what ought we say to help people protect themselves?
    - brnt 6y ago
      If the subject comes up, I ask the question: "how to you think Facebook makes money?" I try to educate them on the business side of their social media: what does it look like when you start a Facebook ad-campaign? Select users by criteria, sometimes very complex and precise criteria. How do you feel about an advertiser selecting $subgroup-closely-resembling-partner-in-conversation? I don't think I'm changing many minds, but I do try to offer a view most will never encounter themselves.
lawn 6y ago
I've started to ask "What about others? Don't they have the right to privacy?". For example if you're gay you might not want everyone to find out. Or if you're into some weird kinky stuff. Or even better if you live with a hidden identity because you've witnessed against organized crime. It's fine to give away your personal privacy, but it's harder to throw other people under the buss (if you're capable of empathy as most of us are).
- TT3351 6y ago
  And the more of us who don't feel the explicit need for privacy who are willing to speak up for those we know who do need it, the better
mark_l_watson 6y ago
Some people act like the war on corporate (and government) surveillance capitalism is lost. I think that is the wrong attitude. Create friction by whatever means fit with your life style and work flow. I do simple things like delete all cookies in all of my devices at least once a week, use the Duck Duck Go browser on iOS and iPadOS (I only use laptops for coding so I just use Safari and Firefox on my Mac and Linux laptops), disable location tracking as much as possible, and I use ProtonMail and Proton Calendar. As someone once said, if you have nothing to hide, then you don’t have a life. Personally, I believe that surveillance capitalism, with creeping neoliberalism and neoconservativism pose an existential threat to any semblance of democracy. Maybe democracy is a lost cause? I don’t believe it, and I am willing to put up some fight to at least try to preserve it.
_iyig 6y ago
>Our privacy is eroding. [...] The war is not lost, however. Steven Rambam would probably disagree. He's a private investigator who's given many excellent talks on privacy at Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHwl6AyL6js&t=10m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHwl6AyL6js&t=10m20s He goes into exquisite detail on the ways in which private info is shared, sold, amalgamated, and analyzed by private and public entities, and how law enforcement uses (and abuses) these resources. That particular talk is from 2016, so things are probably even worse now.
pantelisk 6y ago
(from FabioAEsteves). "Don't confuse privacy with secrecy. I know what you do in the bathroom, but you still close the door."
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Not sure if it's the same though. It doesn't work for me. Why do we like to defecate in privacy? What is the evolutionary reason? Animals do this too. Dogs only get to business when you give them some privacy and they like to get in the bushes if they can. I would assume it's an instinctive drive to get away from the community, to go somewhere with little social activity, so we don't make our living spaces dirty and infectious with our feces. I don't think this is the same kind of thing as trying to keep one's political opinions or salary private.
  - etripe 6y ago
    > Niemals do this too You probably misspelt "Animals", but "niemals" is German for "never" or "no way". Gave me a chuckle in context. On topic: there's probably more to it in humans, because animals don't have cultural phenomena like shame about their sexual organs, making embarrassing noises or smelling bad. I would say the parallel with defecating in private is valid, as it can lead to the same perceived loss of social status as "not earning enough" or "having an unacceptable opinion".
    - bonoboTP 6y ago
      But why are those noises and smells embarrassing? It's not an arbitrary cultural construct but has roots in the behavioral immune system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_immune_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_immune_system
  - pc86 6y ago
    > I don't think this is the same kind of thing as trying to keep one's political opinions or salary private. Not only that, but the community isn't better served by someone shitting in public. You can make the argument that if everyone's salary was public information the community as a whole would be better off. Yet we still have people at all points on the income spectrum hiding their salary for various reasons.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
Many a man that says he cares about privacy also doesn't really care, to be honest. One thing that has always irked me is the carelessness by which a man may give out, and is expected to give out, his full name. Almost everyone has accepted that this is a bad idea on the internet, but in corporal social interaction full names are given out as if they be blowjobs, and so much information can be uncovered from a man's name. It needs some serious revisiting and consideration how this works and I think in today's modern æra we probably need to do away with a single unified name for all purposes and allow citizens to operate under pseudonyms depending on the setting, at a minimum to keep one's professional and social life more separate. Another issue is visible faces in public. My jurisidiction on the eve of the corona pandemic actually passed a lot to ban full-face covering, worded neutrally, but everyone knew it was about certain Islāmic garments. Supposedly it was necessary that every citizen's face be publicly recognizable, yet now we all cover it with masks to no problem whatsoever. Even without a pandemic, a man should have the right to obscure his face in public and be unrecognizable for whatever reason he might desire.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  It's expected that not much embarrassing information would be out in the open under a person's full name. I have nothing against giving my name to in-person acquaintances, simply because they don't have access to the right resources to dig under the surface of my public image. If they do have access to such resources, I trust them anyway to not pry too hard.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    Many companies publish various details about their empoyers under their name which an employer can't refuse; the same for a university. My master's thesis and place of employ can freely be retrieved from my name and there is nothing I can do to hide this.
    - selfhoster11 6y ago
      What professionally inappropriate information do you have published about you by academic institutions and former places of work, or alternatively by you in your masters thesis? I am not a proponent of "if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" (quite the opposite, in fact), but disclosure of your information under academic and professional context is not only unavoidable, but actually beneficial. As long as the information is reported honestly, it serves as a public record of your positive reputation. This allows all the participants of the job ecosystem to make better decisions about hiring/accepting job offers, because it reduces the risk of the unknown. It's to be embraced, not avoided.
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activatedgeek 6y ago
Wow! Black Mirror's Nosedive (Season 3 Episode 1) [1] is straight out of reality. [1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/
hooande 6y ago
The point is that the majority of people live boring lives and don't have enough wealth to be a valuable target. I certainly fall into this category. I'm not important or interesting enough that anyone is going to look into me. It's possible that one day I'll become very important and then I'll wish that I had kept various embarrassing things from getting out. It's also possible that I'll become a billionaire. Neither outcome seems likely enough for me to change my daily behavior. People are generally not willing to endure even the slightest inconvenience for the sake of a philosophical concept like privacy. I've seen people make big changes in response to widespread negative outcomes (ie, coronavirus), but I couldn't imagine a similar response to an intangible issue like potential privacy violations.
- pksebben 6y ago
  the point of making a philosophical argument about it is to avoid the inevitable practical problems posed. We're there already, too. Adtech data has been bought by the Pentagon for use in targeting individuals overseas for military operations. This is quite literally not a drill. Whether or not you believe you have nothing to hide is immaterial, too; there are some people in the world who might disagree with you (for religious, political, or moral causes) and they could potentially be very interested in your data. Do you think the people who worked at the world trade center felt they had anything to hide? how about the folks at the Olympics in Munich? Hell, I bet the people we (US) drone strike don't feel like they have anything to hide; after all, they're the good guys, and those invading Americans are the aggressors. This is far more complex than "I'm not valuable". Perhaps, philosophically, if you lived a perfectly saintly life and never made any enemies or had an opinion that upset anybody ever, you could say you had nothing to hide.
  - novaRom 6y ago
    It also works in reverse. I argue many politicians are being controlled, mostly unconsciously, or with gentle hints.
tolbish 6y ago
If you have Android, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Permission Manager and double check the permissions granted to the apps on your phone. You would be surprised at what is there...why does a musical tuner app need to know my location??
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
They are absolutely correct, as was a commenter that explicitly described what "privacy" means. The issue is that corporations, like Facebook, have some very sweet "desserts" to entice people to abrogate their privacy. Alternatives have always given great privacy (spinach), but little in the way of a replacement for the "candies" that Facebook offers. Facebook is incredibly valuable, and can afford to hire vast armies of engineers and psychologists, all dedicated to getting their "product" (that's users) to make themselves more "productive." Think farmers, giving hogs higher-protein, better-tasting food. Until alternatives can provide a better "dessert" experience, and only offer spinach, then the vast majority of users won't come to them.
k__ 6y ago
Interesting topic. I think, most people have something to hide but they think they could hide it even if the circumstances getting harder. If things are hard to hide and you can still manage to hide them, you will be questioned even less. Because who would go through all that trouble?
matz1 6y ago
I would rather privacy to not matters, why? Because hiding information incur cost and inconveniences. The only reason i may care about privacy is because the information can be used to hurt me. What need to be solved is the issue of "information used to harm" instead of hiding the information(privacy) What is the real issue of want to lock my bathroom door? Because someone could hurt me while I take a shit, but if that issue can be prevented, I wouldn't need bathroom door to be locked.
- pc86 6y ago
  This is just absolutely wrong. I don't close the door when I use the restroom because I fear physical harm. I just don't want someone walking in while I'm using the commode.
  - matz1 6y ago
    >I just don't want someone walking in while I'm using the commode Door is not the only way to solve this issue. The question can be asked, why would someone walk in if they can see you using the commode ?
    - pc86 6y ago
      Okay so I misspoke. I don't want anyone to see I'm using the commode. That's why the door is closed. I've lived places where the bathroom door is open most of the time, so just closing it is sufficient. I've lived places where it's closed all the time (e.g. pets) so it gets locked.
      - matz1 6y ago
        >I don't want anyone to see I'm using the commode so then why ? maybe because of shame. So then its the shame that need to be fixed.
        Rooster61 6y ago
        Or maybe its none of yours or anyone else's damned business. Point is it's not incumbent on a person to explain WHY they need or want that privacy.
pg_bot 6y ago
A better way to get the point across with people who claim "they have nothing to hide" is to ask them "do you want to give away your ability to hide something". Everyone's future is uncertain, and even the most transparent of people among us may come into circumstances where they would want some information to remain private. If you give away your privacy you don't just give it away today, it's gone forever.
- wegs 6y ago
  My respect for privacy went up when I went through my first litigation. I then saw a few other people go through litigation, and learned more about the legal system. It turned out that when people are trying to cast doubt on you, frame you, or otherwise are in a fight with you, knowledge IS power. There's a misconception that you need to do something wrong to be punished: * In a civil suit, a judge determines who is more likely to be right, and that can be based on gut feelings, circumstantial evidence, or fabricated stuff. * Criminal law suits have a higher bar, but at the end of the day, the policeman and prosecutor get evaluated based on whether they threw someone in jail, not whether they threw the right person in jail. To do that, they need to convince a jury. * Even if you're not throw in jail, a 2-year criminal investigation which costs you $200k in legal fees and eats up all of your mental cycles can leave you financially and emotionally debilitated. All that takes is some government employee having enough to be convinced there's something worth investigating. * Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion. Our legal code is long enough we ALL break laws we don't know about. If a prosecutor or policeman believe you deserve to be in prison, they'll work really hard to do that. An email where you misphrase yourself, a record of where you were on some date, or otherwise can all come back to haunt you, even when you've done nothing wrong. It's better to keep that stuff private. Disclaimer: I've never personally been through a criminal investigation or prosecution. I've been through a couple civil cases. I was threatened with a criminal prosecution once unless I ceded ground in a business transaction. I didn't do what the other party threatened to accuse me of (and they knew it), but: 1. Evidence was enough messy evidence that I think they could have gotten a criminal investigation going. 2. Threatening criminal prosecution as leverage is extortion. I didn't know how far the other party would go. Would they fabricate evidence? I spoke to a very good lawyer. Their opinion was that this would never make it to court -- even with if the other party faked evidence -- but that the time and cost of handling a criminal investigation would far outweigh any upsides. They advised me to fold. I folded. In retrospect, I'm glad I did.
showmypost 6y ago
What I often miss in privacy matters conversations is a little talk about how we think about the future when data collection is happening today. We assume that we keep progressing and not stepping back into our dark past. But is that realistic? The person you are today might be respected and legal (in the sense of a country's law or society). But within the next 5 years, there could be a different kind of government, one that gradually reverses your rights. And suddenly the facts about you (each one of them already collected today through your browsing habits or followings/followers interests) can expose you, your family or friends, and even worse they could put you or them in danger.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
The worst part about the concept of having "nothing to hide" is in the US you get tried by a jury for certain criminal cases. If you have something that a lawyer can't paint as illegal but clearly is not, it doesn't matter what your rights are. The jury is sending you to prison. Even if you didn't commit a crime.
pw6hv 6y ago
Nothing to hide is a very relative concept. How many times it happens that something a famous person says or writes is completely decontextualized and thus the message that passes from their words is not what they wanted to convey? The same thing can happen to anyone of us if our private life is looked with the eyes of another person.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
A rather perfunctory post in my opinion, it doesn't offer much insight into how we should think about privacy. If you don't mind a heavy-going read, I recommend these papers by Solove: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [0], Conceptualizing Privacy [1], A Taxonomy of Privacy [2]. See also this HackerNews discussion on the nothing to hide argument from a few months back. [3] [0] https://ssrn.com/abstract=998565 https://ssrn.com/abstract=998565 [1] https://ssrn.com/abstract=313103 https://ssrn.com/abstract=313103 [2] https://ssrn.com/abstract=667622 https://ssrn.com/abstract=667622 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23707411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23707411
- freddyym 6y ago
  Sorry if the post comes off as perfunctory, my last post on the topic had the opposite affect [1], so I tried to tone it down a little. Also, as the author, I whole-heartedly recommend reading the aformentioned papers. [1] https://lobste.rs/s/mrlfwh/why_privacy_matters_even_if_you_have#c_dkiryo https://lobste.rs/s/mrlfwh/why_privacy_matters_even_if_you_h...
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    That page links to [0] which is a broken link, is it no longer available? [0] https://write.privacytools.io/privacy-simplified/why-privacy-matters-even-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide https://write.privacytools.io/privacy-simplified/why-privacy...
    - freddyym 6y ago
      Ahh, yes that link is broken. Here is an archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20191224125253/https://write.privacytools.io/privacy-simplified/why-privacy-matters-even-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide https://web.archive.org/web/20191224125253/https://write.pri...
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
        There are some good points made there, but I found some of the points to be weak. Some hopefully constructive criticism: > Why would you not care about one of your human rights? That's essentially an appeal to authority or appeal to the majority argument. You haven't shown why I should care about privacy, you've only stated that the current consensus is that privacy counts as what we call a human right. > it's not that I have nothing to hide, I simply don't have anything I would like to share, especially unknowingly. Not really. I have plenty to hide, but that doesn't mean I've done anything wrong. I wouldn't agree to a camera in the bathroom, despite that I don't use the room to commit crimes. It's not that I merely don't care to have a camera, I would consider it a violation for there to be one.
jccalhoun 6y ago
I ambivalent about online privacy. One one hand, I use ublock origin and privacy badger but on the other hand, last year facebook suggested I join a group for progressive asian christians. (I am not asian or religious) and although I've had an Amazon account for years, their recommendations to me are still terrible (I have turned off adblocking on facebook and amazon because I've ran into issues using them with it enables so I just gave in). So all the data they have on me doesn't seem to have done them much good.
- soupson 6y ago
  This is an interesting argument. It seems to boil down to, "I don't see the effects of this surveillance, so the trillion dollar corporations who employ thousands of engineers to design the systems must be wasting their time." I have a hard time squaring that circle. Entire industries have deluded themselves in the past, but I'm not willing to be my future behavior on it being the case this time.
maram 6y ago
> The overwhelming majority of people do not care about privacy. They ask why they should care if they have “nothing to hide”. This is what I kept hearing from many people repeatedly. And I did a little experiment. I bought an aged twitter account just to tweet a thread about privacy and see whether people care! )before iOS 14 was released) And I got 55,000 total engagements! Some loggers are even selling (blogs with paywall) steps to turn off privacy settings!
mmillin 6y ago
One of the most effective pieces of media I’ve seen in favor of privacy is Surveillance Camera Man [1]. While I don’t support what the guy behind the camera is doing, the videos he has evoke a stronger reaction than any logical argument I’ve heard against “having nothing to hide.” [1]: https://youtu.be/mP5ZVPwP7bg https://youtu.be/mP5ZVPwP7bg
- meowster 6y ago
  Does he explain to his victims what he's doing? If not, isn't what he's doing to just for the benefit of the voyeurs(?) watching his videos?
- shard 6y ago
  I guess what sets people off was that he was being super in-your-face and creepy. I did street photography for a while and a lot of it was about approaching people nicely and asking, or surreptitiously taking photos. I try to observe photography laws and made sure any photos of private buildings were taken from a public street, although I did get asked by the security guard at a mall to please move to the public sidewalk one time when I walked onto a parking lot to get the shot I wanted. As I understand the laws in California at the time, photos taken from public property do not need releases from the property owners nor from people unless you intend to use the photos commercially, although I did not explicitly research the laws myself.
chrisweekly 6y ago
See also Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" book series -- esp the new one, "Attack Surface". It provides a rare combination of accurate technical details, fairly plausible scenarios, and approachability / suitability for a broad audience.
- freddyym 6y ago
  Pretty much all of Doctorow's work is worth a read, as a matter of fact.
Razengan 6y ago
"What do you have to hide" is such a bullshit form of victim blaming, thrown around by entities who don't understand or value the concept of consent. No I don't fucking like you looking up shit about me that I didn't explicitly mean to share, and I don't owe you an explanation.
nineplay 6y ago
> The overwhelming majority of people do not care about privacy. They ask why they should care if they have “nothing to hide” I have never heard anyone say this though it's a common internet strawman. Certainly there are people who don't care much about their browser cookies or the information they share on Facebook, but it doesn't mean they have 'nothing to hide'. They just disagree on what they need to keep private. I can't say I worry about cookies at work where I'm only browsing tech sites.
deleted 6y ago
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456 points by freddyym 6y ago

*"PRIVACY" IS LIKE "the environment" – it's about too many things to be useful, so everybody ends up trampling it for a host of petty reasons. Leading to a world that's degraded and hostile, and that would never have been chosen had the consequences been made clear.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Also, everyone has something to hide.

freddyym 6y ago
Or, perhaps: "YOU don’t get to decide that you have nothing to hide when you give up your privacy."
standardUser 6y ago
In a constantly changing society, we don't even know what needs to be hidden.

bad_alloc 6y ago

Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward and inappropriate.

newlikeice 6y ago
you hit the nail on the head.
DoubleGlazing 6y ago
I like to counter the "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" argument with... "If I have done nothing wrong, then no one has the need to take an interest in my personal affairs."
- arvindamirtaa 6y ago
  Sarcasm ahead But we don't know that you have done nothing wrong. Why don't we just take a quick peek and we'll leave you alone until we randomly decide to do this pointless exercise again?
- deleted 6y ago
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- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  This doesn't strike me as a very compelling response. If someone is arguing for dragnet surveillance with the idea that it only really impacts the guilty, and you respond by pointing out that you're innocent so there's nothing to gain by surveilling you, you haven't refuted their position at all. edit I see we're retreading an exchange (between others) from a few months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709602
  - DoubleGlazing 6y ago
    But if someone is Okay with a dragnet approach to find criminals, it also means that they are Okay with the government knowing every little detail of their life. And I would assume most people have things they would rather other people or government not know about. Everyone has secrets they want to keep.
plaxitogrip 6y ago
Right. And one notices that such people already implicitly value privacy since they talk to their husband or wife or close friend very differently depending upon whether others are present.
jmnicolas 6y ago
As seen in a recent comment here, you might add: 6) Let the toilets door open, after all we all know what you're going to do there.
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vntok 6y ago
Most people understand that there is a distinction between having nothing to hide from randos on the Internet asking about my life and having nothing to hide from the legal system of my country. Your line of questioning is not an argument for most people.
- pacamara619 6y ago
  These randos on the internet are people. And who works in government and/or the justice system? You guessed it! People! The govermnent is not some sort of abstract infallible entity. It consists of regular people. And giving those people deep access to your private and personal life is going to be abused more than it will help. Have we already forgotten what disastrous consequences moving toward such a totalitarian government has? Have we already forgotten about the horrors of the second world war and its aftermath?
  - pc86 6y ago
    Whether your argument is correct or not doesn't change the fact that it's not an argument worth making to most people. Rather than try to get them to begrudgingly accept that your original argument is a worthy one, it's a better use of energy to just find the argument that works the first time. > The govermnent is not some sort of abstract infallible entity. Most people agree it's not infallible, but a lot of people view it as an abstract entity and not just a group of different people.
  - vntok 6y ago
    > These randos on the internet are people. And who works in government and/or the justice system? You guessed it! People! That is not a persuasive argument to anyone who understands that people working for governments/justice systems are much more keen to be bound by... laws... than randos on the Internet. > Giving those people deep access to your private and personal life is going to be abused more than it will help. Yeah, I'll need a pretty convincing citation about that because it sounds like a load of misinformed nonsense to me. At the very least, you ought to segment your argument based on regional zones. As an example, in the EU governments do collect quite a lot of deep information on their citizens (their finance, their health, their skillsets, etc). They can then use that information to give out unemployment insurance, support education, tackle the best part of healthcare costs and so many other things that have a truly positive effect on people. > Have we already forgotten what disastrous consequences moving toward such a totalitarian government has? Have we already forgotten about the horrors of the second world war and its aftermath? Wait, is your argument that citizens in the US, EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. will experience a shift of their government to totalitarian states in their lifetime? If so what are you basing this belief on?
glenstein 6y ago
This is an important phenomenon that I think is really tricky to tackle. Because, I think your observation is 100% true. But, it also comes off as rude. But it really is probably the case that most people making general statements to the effect of "I've got nothing to hide" don't actually believe what they are saying, or they haven't fully worked out the implications.
mewpmewp2 6y ago
You could argue that there are some obvious things that should be kept secret, but not what can be tracked on the internet etc for purposes of providing you better recommendations or improving your life in general. That being said I'm a very private person and I wouldn't want to give out any data, but just playing a devil's advocate here.
- jsinai 6y ago
  I hear you and understand where you are coming from. This is the reason many websites use cookies and many of these cookies may be functional in that sense. However a grey line starts to emerge when companies use the argument “tracking to make better recommendations and improve your life in general”. This may be innocuous on the company’s part, eg “we just want to make a better recommendation out of the hundreds, maybe thousands or millions of products we have”. And yes it may improve my life in so far as consumer satisfaction is able to momentarily or even permanently do so. However there is a weight of responsibility here, which other comments also refer to, and this that in totality the privacy cost may actually be so invasive and so easy to aggregate in the wrong hands, and so difficult for individuals to have control of, that “make better recommendations and improve [consumer] life in general” becomes hard to justify.
bluetomcat 6y ago
The creepy stuff is when bits of such "knowledge" are taken out of context and used to compile a personal profile of you, for purposes from marketing to content recommendation to social and political engineering. Someone has those partial "facts", but are unable to extract your true motivation for your behaviours and can draw very wrong conclusions.
sumtechguy 6y ago
What is more insidious is that by itself some small portions of information are not private. But collectively they are. Some portions of information seem innocent too like 'how much is in your account' could mean the difference between if someone tries to target me or not. Say I owe 500 bucks and have 10 in the bank and they may not bother. But say something like I have no debt and have a million in the bank and suddenly I am a very attractive target. That is for both 'good' and 'bad' actors. Something as simple as giving your email to someone can tie you into yet another ad network. Which has already profiled you. What is the worst of it is, I really do not care if you had the information. I do care if you use my information to mess up my life or harass me endlessly. So my default position is 'sorry I am not telling you that'.
raspyberr 6y ago
This approach is one of my biggest annoyances because it's not the same. You're asking for them to give you something but they're not getting anything in return. When people use Facebook/Google etc. they get a service that they end up valuing very highly in return. That common argument of "Give me your phone and PIN" is so pointless because people wouldn't even give that stuff to Facebook if it didn't give them anything back. We've got to find a better set of arguments that we can use to convince people. I'm very strongly into privacy rights and I'm not convinced by this argument. Why would someone who doesn't care be convinced?
- dontchooseanick 6y ago
  - Post pictures naked ? - You close the door of the toilets. You do have something to hide (we all know what you're doing. you're hiding anyway) "I don't need privacy because my actions are questionable, but because your judgment is" (think dictatures, wrong guys at the top of the decision pyramid, 2nd world war ..)
- Tokelin 6y ago
  Just change the hypothetical into: "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" Yes, it's a bit long, but it takes into account your concern of giving data and not receiving anything in return. And Facebook/Insta/Social media in general is very similar to having a newspaper available at your coffee table each day.
  - vntok 6y ago
    > "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" If we're entering a valid contract under the justice system of our country of residency, why not? Similar services already abound, in particular around people who contract to visit and attend to older citizens.
    - Tokelin 6y ago
      This is a valid argument, which leads me to the thought that the laws need to be updated. I personally wouldn't be okay with my own premise. I have a person coming over to clean, but I am always home and I can check if I am worried about something.
cortic 6y ago
Posted this five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument; Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surly you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don't you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from some rich mobsters with kidney problems.. we don't know who are any of these things. So we should protect ourselves from all of them, in effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  I tend to go into a different direction: "Sure, you don't have anything to hide today. But what about tomorrow? Or next year?" Did you know that law enforcement and justice can request and will try to gain access to data you share with any company? "Oh, but I have done nothing wrong." The definition of "nothing wrong" isn't set in stone. It's always up for interpretation. You might feel you're doing nothing wrong, but that doesn't mean authorities will always see it that way. Remember, in some countries, authorities use your social media to monitor against tax fraud. [1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/11/tax-authority-will-look-at-taxpayers-social-media-in-fight-against-tax-fraud/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/11/tax... There's always that probability of a change of political or judicial direction towards more invasive measures in your personal life using the data you share with third parties. You can't predict with certainty that in 10 years time you won't be earmarked as a "subversive element" as a result of mass data mining of the same data you happily share on line. Never assume "it won't happen to me."
  - mtgx 6y ago
    That SHOULD be a powerful argument, too. Unfortunately, most people tend to roll their eyes when you start suggesting that the government might use such powers against them in the future. They ultimately just "trust the government" to do the "right thing" no matter how flawed that thinking is. This is partially the fault of the education system and them not "knowing their history" that well. It's only when such abuses of privacy happen to them personally that they become ultra-privacy activists. We've seen this even with politicians that fought to expand mass surveillance powers and then did an 180 when they saw those powers were used against them, too (who would've thought?!).
meowster 6y ago
Instead of those questions, just ask them if they have blinds or curtains on their windows at home. It's better to show that they already take steps to be private rather than asking privacy-invasive questions. One of those makes you the bad guy, the other shows that they actually do value privacy.
- piyh 6y ago
  Or the more direct, "Do you shit with the door open?"
  - electrondood 6y ago
    This is the most succinct expression I've ever seen of the only counterargument you need.
- dionidium 6y ago
  We don't have curtains, actually. We have some pull-down blinds that are almost always in the up position. And I have to be honest: I only care about walking in front of my windows naked to the extent that it would bother my neighbors. I couldn't care any less. I only ever pull them down to spare my neighbors any embarrassment. Which is just to say: a lot of privacy talk is mere question-begging. It's assumed we all feel the same privacy-based emotions (and pro-privacy arguments like yours attempt to appeal to those emotions), but I find that I rarely share my interlocutor's intuitions on this topic, so your argument is still ahead of you.
- umvi 6y ago
  Yeah I have blinds. But not because I am paranoid of peeping toms but because I like to sleep without the sun in my eyes.
snarf21 6y ago
Exactly. Anyone who says they have nothing to hide, I ask them for their unlocked mobile.
- deleted 6y ago
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treis 6y ago
I don't mind people seeing me eating a meal in a restaurant. I'd have a problem if someone pulled up a chair and started staring at me. You can't use intensive actions to show how minor ones are objectionable. And further, as a rule of thumb if someone is dealing in hypotheticals it means they don't have actual proof of harm. You'd never make an argument like this if you could point to Bob Jones and say "X happened to Bob Jones and it could happen to you."
- electrondood 6y ago
  The claim "I have nothing to hide so I don't care," is actually the claim that privacy is not intrinsically valuable. I think you can absolutely use an intensive action to show that lesser ones are objectionable. "If privacy is not important in itself, why are you covering your body with underwear and pants? Why don't you put cameras throughout your house, including your bedroom?" Clearly our actions reveal that we DO think privacy is important in itself. What "I have nothing to hide" really means is "I have not yet been personally affected, so I don't care." It's apathy, not a value statement.
- smaryjerry 6y ago
  Reminds of me a child getting super close and saying “I’m not touching you.” They could touch you if they wanted or may touch you by mistake which makes it frustrating, it’s a kind of power. I think we need to understand with private knowledge comes power. We can’t trust normal people we don’t know with that power. People who are just working a job. Hell even most people don’t trust the opposite political parties president with power let alone corporations. To limit that we have to move them away and not even give them the chance to abuse it.
rolph 6y ago
in addition "lets go over to your place i want to have a look around"
warkdarrior 6y ago
Not really a fair set of questions, since at least (3), (4), and (5) can potentially lead to others accessing/taking my stuff (bank accounts, home, etc.) rather than just knowing about me.
gambiting 6y ago
Well, I tried using this exact argument on someone, and their reply was "I'm happy to provide all of these, and more, to any law enforcement agency that needs it. I'm not worried about government abusing this, and I don't understand why you do. I'm also not worried about stealing this information, because it simply won't happen to me". There's no point in arguing with some people. The logic just doesn't work.
game_the0ry 6y ago
Usually when people tell me that line, I ask - can I see the browsing history on your phone? Usually, it gets the point across.
mackrevinack 6y ago
I don't really think that argument holds any water though people are ok with giving away some of their privacy because they believe that companies and governments are trustworthy and that they will not abuse it. asking them to give you their password isn't the same thing. you are not an "official" person that is bound by any company rules or laws and you could easily spend the rest of the day/week/month going through their emails wreaking havoc if you really wanted to. if a government official or police officer had access to their credit card number there is much less of a chance of them abusing it compared to someone they know or some stranger in the street. even people that are aware of their data being collected probably know that there isnt someone in a van or an office cubical reading through every email they send/receive. its all just bulk collection and someone only looks at it if you get flagged for some reason.
IndexPointer 6y ago
“can you tell me your email password? I wanna check something in your emails..."

solarhess 6y ago

We want a society that respects free will and freedom from coercion. Privacy is necessary to achieve that end. Let's focus on achieving that end. Security experts spent 2 decades arguing for privacy. Very little has changed. For most people, privacy is not an end in itself.

dane-pgp 6y ago
> Very little has changed. What were you hoping for, exactly? https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certificate/all/y https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certif... https://letsencrypt.org/stats/#percent-pageloads https://letsencrypt.org/stats/#percent-pageloads https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email/overview?encrypt_in=start:1388534400000;end:1607990399999;series:inbound&lu=encrypt_in https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email/overview?e...

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inanutshellus 6y ago

I really like Social Cooling's take on privacy (http://www.socialcooling.com/ http://www.socialcooling.com/). SC's take (paraphrasingly, of course) is that without privacy, you're only rewarded for astroturfing your life & feigning a blandly successful life without pot holes. The Social Dilemma (Netflix docudrama)'s take on it -- that facebook-et-al don't sell "your data" they sell "a guaranteed change in your behavior" -- is also a pretty damn powerful message. This website's "nobody cares but they shouuuuuld!" baseline argument is not very effective, IMHO. These guys have the right idea -- giving access to privacy tooling -- but this post should've been more focused on education from the get-go. e.g. "We know you feel powerless about privacy. That's why we built [x resource]. Claw control back."

tolbish 6y ago
I do not think it is a given that the general public feels powerless about privacy. Why would someone take steps to empower themselves if they see no need for such power?
- inanutshellus 6y ago
  Well, let's build something here. The current article argues in its opening that "nobody cares" ... The immediate retort to any "nobody cares" statement -- before one even finishes the sentence -- is "then it's probably for a good reason." It's counter-productive and frames your argument from the "weak outsider" perspective. So if we ought to frame our argument from a position of competence rather than insecurity (my original point) and assuming people care is incorrect (your point), what ought we say to help people protect themselves?
  - brnt 6y ago
    If the subject comes up, I ask the question: "how to you think Facebook makes money?" I try to educate them on the business side of their social media: what does it look like when you start a Facebook ad-campaign? Select users by criteria, sometimes very complex and precise criteria. How do you feel about an advertiser selecting $subgroup-closely-resembling-partner-in-conversation? I don't think I'm changing many minds, but I do try to offer a view most will never encounter themselves.

lawn 6y ago

I've started to ask "What about others? Don't they have the right to privacy?". For example if you're gay you might not want everyone to find out. Or if you're into some weird kinky stuff. Or even better if you live with a hidden identity because you've witnessed against organized crime. It's fine to give away your personal privacy, but it's harder to throw other people under the buss (if you're capable of empathy as most of us are).

TT3351 6y ago
And the more of us who don't feel the explicit need for privacy who are willing to speak up for those we know who do need it, the better

mark_l_watson 6y ago

Some people act like the war on corporate (and government) surveillance capitalism is lost. I think that is the wrong attitude. Create friction by whatever means fit with your life style and work flow. I do simple things like delete all cookies in all of my devices at least once a week, use the Duck Duck Go browser on iOS and iPadOS (I only use laptops for coding so I just use Safari and Firefox on my Mac and Linux laptops), disable location tracking as much as possible, and I use ProtonMail and Proton Calendar. As someone once said, if you have nothing to hide, then you don’t have a life. Personally, I believe that surveillance capitalism, with creeping neoliberalism and neoconservativism pose an existential threat to any semblance of democracy. Maybe democracy is a lost cause? I don’t believe it, and I am willing to put up some fight to at least try to preserve it.

_iyig 6y ago

>Our privacy is eroding. [...] The war is not lost, however. Steven Rambam would probably disagree. He's a private investigator who's given many excellent talks on privacy at Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHwl6AyL6js&t=10m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHwl6AyL6js&t=10m20s He goes into exquisite detail on the ways in which private info is shared, sold, amalgamated, and analyzed by private and public entities, and how law enforcement uses (and abuses) these resources. That particular talk is from 2016, so things are probably even worse now.

pantelisk 6y ago

(from FabioAEsteves). "Don't confuse privacy with secrecy. I know what you do in the bathroom, but you still close the door."

bonoboTP 6y ago
Not sure if it's the same though. It doesn't work for me. Why do we like to defecate in privacy? What is the evolutionary reason? Animals do this too. Dogs only get to business when you give them some privacy and they like to get in the bushes if they can. I would assume it's an instinctive drive to get away from the community, to go somewhere with little social activity, so we don't make our living spaces dirty and infectious with our feces. I don't think this is the same kind of thing as trying to keep one's political opinions or salary private.
- etripe 6y ago
  > Niemals do this too You probably misspelt "Animals", but "niemals" is German for "never" or "no way". Gave me a chuckle in context. On topic: there's probably more to it in humans, because animals don't have cultural phenomena like shame about their sexual organs, making embarrassing noises or smelling bad. I would say the parallel with defecating in private is valid, as it can lead to the same perceived loss of social status as "not earning enough" or "having an unacceptable opinion".
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    But why are those noises and smells embarrassing? It's not an arbitrary cultural construct but has roots in the behavioral immune system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_immune_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_immune_system
- pc86 6y ago
  > I don't think this is the same kind of thing as trying to keep one's political opinions or salary private. Not only that, but the community isn't better served by someone shitting in public. You can make the argument that if everyone's salary was public information the community as a whole would be better off. Yet we still have people at all points on the income spectrum hiding their salary for various reasons.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

Many a man that says he cares about privacy also doesn't really care, to be honest. One thing that has always irked me is the carelessness by which a man may give out, and is expected to give out, his full name. Almost everyone has accepted that this is a bad idea on the internet, but in corporal social interaction full names are given out as if they be blowjobs, and so much information can be uncovered from a man's name. It needs some serious revisiting and consideration how this works and I think in today's modern æra we probably need to do away with a single unified name for all purposes and allow citizens to operate under pseudonyms depending on the setting, at a minimum to keep one's professional and social life more separate. Another issue is visible faces in public. My jurisidiction on the eve of the corona pandemic actually passed a lot to ban full-face covering, worded neutrally, but everyone knew it was about certain Islāmic garments. Supposedly it was necessary that every citizen's face be publicly recognizable, yet now we all cover it with masks to no problem whatsoever. Even without a pandemic, a man should have the right to obscure his face in public and be unrecognizable for whatever reason he might desire.

selfhoster11 6y ago
It's expected that not much embarrassing information would be out in the open under a person's full name. I have nothing against giving my name to in-person acquaintances, simply because they don't have access to the right resources to dig under the surface of my public image. If they do have access to such resources, I trust them anyway to not pry too hard.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  Many companies publish various details about their empoyers under their name which an employer can't refuse; the same for a university. My master's thesis and place of employ can freely be retrieved from my name and there is nothing I can do to hide this.
  - selfhoster11 6y ago
    What professionally inappropriate information do you have published about you by academic institutions and former places of work, or alternatively by you in your masters thesis? I am not a proponent of "if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" (quite the opposite, in fact), but disclosure of your information under academic and professional context is not only unavoidable, but actually beneficial. As long as the information is reported honestly, it serves as a public record of your positive reputation. This allows all the participants of the job ecosystem to make better decisions about hiring/accepting job offers, because it reduces the risk of the unknown. It's to be embraced, not avoided.

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activatedgeek 6y ago

Wow! Black Mirror's Nosedive (Season 3 Episode 1) [1] is straight out of reality. [1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/

hooande 6y ago

The point is that the majority of people live boring lives and don't have enough wealth to be a valuable target. I certainly fall into this category. I'm not important or interesting enough that anyone is going to look into me. It's possible that one day I'll become very important and then I'll wish that I had kept various embarrassing things from getting out. It's also possible that I'll become a billionaire. Neither outcome seems likely enough for me to change my daily behavior. People are generally not willing to endure even the slightest inconvenience for the sake of a philosophical concept like privacy. I've seen people make big changes in response to widespread negative outcomes (ie, coronavirus), but I couldn't imagine a similar response to an intangible issue like potential privacy violations.

pksebben 6y ago
the point of making a philosophical argument about it is to avoid the inevitable practical problems posed. We're there already, too. Adtech data has been bought by the Pentagon for use in targeting individuals overseas for military operations. This is quite literally not a drill. Whether or not you believe you have nothing to hide is immaterial, too; there are some people in the world who might disagree with you (for religious, political, or moral causes) and they could potentially be very interested in your data. Do you think the people who worked at the world trade center felt they had anything to hide? how about the folks at the Olympics in Munich? Hell, I bet the people we (US) drone strike don't feel like they have anything to hide; after all, they're the good guys, and those invading Americans are the aggressors. This is far more complex than "I'm not valuable". Perhaps, philosophically, if you lived a perfectly saintly life and never made any enemies or had an opinion that upset anybody ever, you could say you had nothing to hide.
- novaRom 6y ago
  It also works in reverse. I argue many politicians are being controlled, mostly unconsciously, or with gentle hints.

tolbish 6y ago

If you have Android, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Permission Manager and double check the permissions granted to the apps on your phone. You would be surprised at what is there...why does a musical tuner app need to know my location??

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

They are absolutely correct, as was a commenter that explicitly described what "privacy" means. The issue is that corporations, like Facebook, have some very sweet "desserts" to entice people to abrogate their privacy. Alternatives have always given great privacy (spinach), but little in the way of a replacement for the "candies" that Facebook offers. Facebook is incredibly valuable, and can afford to hire vast armies of engineers and psychologists, all dedicated to getting their "product" (that's users) to make themselves more "productive." Think farmers, giving hogs higher-protein, better-tasting food. Until alternatives can provide a better "dessert" experience, and only offer spinach, then the vast majority of users won't come to them.

k__ 6y ago

Interesting topic. I think, most people have something to hide but they think they could hide it even if the circumstances getting harder. If things are hard to hide and you can still manage to hide them, you will be questioned even less. Because who would go through all that trouble?

matz1 6y ago

I would rather privacy to not matters, why? Because hiding information incur cost and inconveniences. The only reason i may care about privacy is because the information can be used to hurt me. What need to be solved is the issue of "information used to harm" instead of hiding the information(privacy) What is the real issue of want to lock my bathroom door? Because someone could hurt me while I take a shit, but if that issue can be prevented, I wouldn't need bathroom door to be locked.

pc86 6y ago
This is just absolutely wrong. I don't close the door when I use the restroom because I fear physical harm. I just don't want someone walking in while I'm using the commode.
- matz1 6y ago
  >I just don't want someone walking in while I'm using the commode Door is not the only way to solve this issue. The question can be asked, why would someone walk in if they can see you using the commode ?
  - pc86 6y ago
    Okay so I misspoke. I don't want anyone to see I'm using the commode. That's why the door is closed. I've lived places where the bathroom door is open most of the time, so just closing it is sufficient. I've lived places where it's closed all the time (e.g. pets) so it gets locked.
    - matz1 6y ago
      >I don't want anyone to see I'm using the commode so then why ? maybe because of shame. So then its the shame that need to be fixed.
      - Rooster61 6y ago
        Or maybe its none of yours or anyone else's damned business. Point is it's not incumbent on a person to explain WHY they need or want that privacy.

pg_bot 6y ago

A better way to get the point across with people who claim "they have nothing to hide" is to ask them "do you want to give away your ability to hide something". Everyone's future is uncertain, and even the most transparent of people among us may come into circumstances where they would want some information to remain private. If you give away your privacy you don't just give it away today, it's gone forever.

wegs 6y ago
My respect for privacy went up when I went through my first litigation. I then saw a few other people go through litigation, and learned more about the legal system. It turned out that when people are trying to cast doubt on you, frame you, or otherwise are in a fight with you, knowledge IS power. There's a misconception that you need to do something wrong to be punished: * In a civil suit, a judge determines who is more likely to be right, and that can be based on gut feelings, circumstantial evidence, or fabricated stuff. * Criminal law suits have a higher bar, but at the end of the day, the policeman and prosecutor get evaluated based on whether they threw someone in jail, not whether they threw the right person in jail. To do that, they need to convince a jury. * Even if you're not throw in jail, a 2-year criminal investigation which costs you $200k in legal fees and eats up all of your mental cycles can leave you financially and emotionally debilitated. All that takes is some government employee having enough to be convinced there's something worth investigating. * Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion. Our legal code is long enough we ALL break laws we don't know about. If a prosecutor or policeman believe you deserve to be in prison, they'll work really hard to do that. An email where you misphrase yourself, a record of where you were on some date, or otherwise can all come back to haunt you, even when you've done nothing wrong. It's better to keep that stuff private. Disclaimer: I've never personally been through a criminal investigation or prosecution. I've been through a couple civil cases. I was threatened with a criminal prosecution once unless I ceded ground in a business transaction. I didn't do what the other party threatened to accuse me of (and they knew it), but: 1. Evidence was enough messy evidence that I think they could have gotten a criminal investigation going. 2. Threatening criminal prosecution as leverage is extortion. I didn't know how far the other party would go. Would they fabricate evidence? I spoke to a very good lawyer. Their opinion was that this would never make it to court -- even with if the other party faked evidence -- but that the time and cost of handling a criminal investigation would far outweigh any upsides. They advised me to fold. I folded. In retrospect, I'm glad I did.

showmypost 6y ago

What I often miss in privacy matters conversations is a little talk about how we think about the future when data collection is happening today. We assume that we keep progressing and not stepping back into our dark past. But is that realistic? The person you are today might be respected and legal (in the sense of a country's law or society). But within the next 5 years, there could be a different kind of government, one that gradually reverses your rights. And suddenly the facts about you (each one of them already collected today through your browsing habits or followings/followers interests) can expose you, your family or friends, and even worse they could put you or them in danger.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago

The worst part about the concept of having "nothing to hide" is in the US you get tried by a jury for certain criminal cases. If you have something that a lawyer can't paint as illegal but clearly is not, it doesn't matter what your rights are. The jury is sending you to prison. Even if you didn't commit a crime.

pw6hv 6y ago

Nothing to hide is a very relative concept. How many times it happens that something a famous person says or writes is completely decontextualized and thus the message that passes from their words is not what they wanted to convey? The same thing can happen to anyone of us if our private life is looked with the eyes of another person.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

A rather perfunctory post in my opinion, it doesn't offer much insight into how we should think about privacy. If you don't mind a heavy-going read, I recommend these papers by Solove: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [0], Conceptualizing Privacy [1], A Taxonomy of Privacy [2]. See also this HackerNews discussion on the nothing to hide argument from a few months back. [3] [0] https://ssrn.com/abstract=998565 https://ssrn.com/abstract=998565 [1] https://ssrn.com/abstract=313103 https://ssrn.com/abstract=313103 [2] https://ssrn.com/abstract=667622 https://ssrn.com/abstract=667622 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23707411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23707411

freddyym 6y ago
Sorry if the post comes off as perfunctory, my last post on the topic had the opposite affect [1], so I tried to tone it down a little. Also, as the author, I whole-heartedly recommend reading the aformentioned papers. [1] https://lobste.rs/s/mrlfwh/why_privacy_matters_even_if_you_have#c_dkiryo https://lobste.rs/s/mrlfwh/why_privacy_matters_even_if_you_h...
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  That page links to [0] which is a broken link, is it no longer available? [0] https://write.privacytools.io/privacy-simplified/why-privacy-matters-even-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide https://write.privacytools.io/privacy-simplified/why-privacy...
  - freddyym 6y ago
    Ahh, yes that link is broken. Here is an archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20191224125253/https://write.privacytools.io/privacy-simplified/why-privacy-matters-even-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide https://web.archive.org/web/20191224125253/https://write.pri...
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      There are some good points made there, but I found some of the points to be weak. Some hopefully constructive criticism: > Why would you not care about one of your human rights? That's essentially an appeal to authority or appeal to the majority argument. You haven't shown why I should care about privacy, you've only stated that the current consensus is that privacy counts as what we call a human right. > it's not that I have nothing to hide, I simply don't have anything I would like to share, especially unknowingly. Not really. I have plenty to hide, but that doesn't mean I've done anything wrong. I wouldn't agree to a camera in the bathroom, despite that I don't use the room to commit crimes. It's not that I merely don't care to have a camera, I would consider it a violation for there to be one.

jccalhoun 6y ago

I ambivalent about online privacy. One one hand, I use ublock origin and privacy badger but on the other hand, last year facebook suggested I join a group for progressive asian christians. (I am not asian or religious) and although I've had an Amazon account for years, their recommendations to me are still terrible (I have turned off adblocking on facebook and amazon because I've ran into issues using them with it enables so I just gave in). So all the data they have on me doesn't seem to have done them much good.

soupson 6y ago
This is an interesting argument. It seems to boil down to, "I don't see the effects of this surveillance, so the trillion dollar corporations who employ thousands of engineers to design the systems must be wasting their time." I have a hard time squaring that circle. Entire industries have deluded themselves in the past, but I'm not willing to be my future behavior on it being the case this time.

maram 6y ago

> The overwhelming majority of people do not care about privacy. They ask why they should care if they have “nothing to hide”. This is what I kept hearing from many people repeatedly. And I did a little experiment. I bought an aged twitter account just to tweet a thread about privacy and see whether people care! )before iOS 14 was released) And I got 55,000 total engagements! Some loggers are even selling (blogs with paywall) steps to turn off privacy settings!

mmillin 6y ago

One of the most effective pieces of media I’ve seen in favor of privacy is Surveillance Camera Man [1]. While I don’t support what the guy behind the camera is doing, the videos he has evoke a stronger reaction than any logical argument I’ve heard against “having nothing to hide.” [1]: https://youtu.be/mP5ZVPwP7bg https://youtu.be/mP5ZVPwP7bg

meowster 6y ago
Does he explain to his victims what he's doing? If not, isn't what he's doing to just for the benefit of the voyeurs(?) watching his videos?
shard 6y ago
I guess what sets people off was that he was being super in-your-face and creepy. I did street photography for a while and a lot of it was about approaching people nicely and asking, or surreptitiously taking photos. I try to observe photography laws and made sure any photos of private buildings were taken from a public street, although I did get asked by the security guard at a mall to please move to the public sidewalk one time when I walked onto a parking lot to get the shot I wanted. As I understand the laws in California at the time, photos taken from public property do not need releases from the property owners nor from people unless you intend to use the photos commercially, although I did not explicitly research the laws myself.

chrisweekly 6y ago

See also Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" book series -- esp the new one, "Attack Surface". It provides a rare combination of accurate technical details, fairly plausible scenarios, and approachability / suitability for a broad audience.

freddyym 6y ago
Pretty much all of Doctorow's work is worth a read, as a matter of fact.

Razengan 6y ago

"What do you have to hide" is such a bullshit form of victim blaming, thrown around by entities who don't understand or value the concept of consent. No I don't fucking like you looking up shit about me that I didn't explicitly mean to share, and I don't owe you an explanation.

nineplay 6y ago

> The overwhelming majority of people do not care about privacy. They ask why they should care if they have “nothing to hide” I have never heard anyone say this though it's a common internet strawman. Certainly there are people who don't care much about their browser cookies or the information they share on Facebook, but it doesn't mean they have 'nothing to hide'. They just disagree on what they need to keep private. I can't say I worry about cookies at work where I'm only browsing tech sites.

deleted 6y ago

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