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Authoritarian, or utilitarian?

• mindslight 5y ago
  Authoritarian - a corporation is directed in a completely top-down manner, with singular authority vesting in the executive. They obviously exist within a larger society where workers are free to quit, have some rights that can't be taken away, are bound by agreements, etc. But the organizational structure itself is strictly hierarchical. The problem comes when these assumptions are baked into systems that are supposed to serve wider society. A corporation can tell their employees that they must use only certain computers to do their work, modify those devices, revoke access on a whim, etc. Whereas in wider society, relationships should be that of independent peers interacting through well-defined protocols, with each party free to make their own choices.
  • md_ 5y ago
    Oh, for sure that‘s true (with respect to telling employees “use these devices or you’re fired”). But I thought we were talking about the corporate relationship with society and the company’s users/customers. In that broader context, I’m surprised that so many folks in this thread are arguing, essentially, that companies have a strong incentive to push (potentially needless, or costly from a privacy-perspective[1]) features on their users. Historically, my feeling—-and I think that of many in the security industry—-was that the market does not reward pushing security, especially not security that customers can’t see; as a result, there’s some chunk of security theater, but real security features are often under-rewarded. shrug [1] To be clear, I disagree that most of these things have a severe privacy cost, hence my point that FIDO allows strong pseudonymity.