6 ms·

Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assu

by harry8 5y ago

Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assumption to think that you can count on that being true forever. Imagine you witness a murder in a restaurant, cold blooded and it's dirty cops working for a three letter institution that did it. You want to give evidence like a law abiding, upstanding citizen with nothing to hide. Suddenly you have something to hide despite having done nothing wrong. "Nothing to hide" means nothing to hide from all current and future humans who control some small aspect spying on you. Even just control access for 30 seconds. It's nuts. Even if you think every single last one of the current guys are honest and completely competent despite the head of them criminally lying, while under oath, in answer to a question with notice in legitimate oversight. Who is going to infiltrate that power in 10 years? Radical anti-fa is impossible? White supremacists impossible? Religious cultists? Organised crime? People flipped to work for hostile foreign nations? "I have nothing to hide" is is gradeschool silliness to be treated with contempt every time it comes up. It needs to be ridiculed as anyone suggesting it is an idiot or just totally and knowingly dishonest. There are just so many ways it is completely wrong, the only debate is which of the ways it is false and a con is more important than the other.

BoorishBears 5y ago
Except in that case you don't know you have to hide and 101 other things you do make you easier to track than this. And odds are you're not turning off your phone all the way every single time you change locations to start so... I have nothing to hide is different than "I literally need to hide".
- harry8 5y ago
  Yep "I have nothing to hide" is always completely false. "I literally need to hide and I'm also aware of that change" might be true or might be false. You might "literally need to hide" and not know it while the so-called "nothing" you had to hide is used against you when you have done nothing morally or legally wrong.
colordrops 5y ago
Fully agree. This idea that "individuals arent spied on in America" is absurdly naive and ignorant of seemingly common knowledge of past events. Furthermore it's kind of implicitly supremacist - "only those foreigners do that sort of thing". Police regularly bust young Chinese for marijuana possession by reading their chat messages. And we are just as human and no more special than the Chinese. A friend of mine was taken into an unmarked van and questioned after some tweets he made while at an Occupy Wall Street protest. The motives absolutely exist in the US.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Especially with the still recent insurrection/coupe attempt by a fascist leaning politician on American soil. It's actually pretty scary. Democracy is not as assured as some people seem to think and shouldn't be taken for granted.
esoterae 5y ago
Yeah. I've also heard it likened to "Who needs freedom of speech? I have nothing to say"
jollybean 5y ago
The 'Dirty Cop is Gonna Get You' is the 'gradeschool silliness' here. It's 1000x more likely that the criminals who did the murder want you killed because you're a witness. Witness intimidation is widespread and 'default' in some communities ('snitches get stitches'), and while the 'Dirty Cop' thing does happen in reality, it happens mostly on Netflix, and there's a difference between overzealous prosecutors/cops and 'dirty cops'. Also consider that tech will exonerate as much as otherwise: for such and such murder, the 'background use' of the tech would be to provide you with an alibi. Forensics have generally improved Justice I think, not the other way around. In the end I think Apple's issue should be one of transparency and privacy and we need to push them towards that.
- harry8 5y ago
  I wish I could live in a world where I can sustain the fantasy that power will not be abused whenever the abuser can get away with it. The power is asymmetric. The NSA, CIA, FBI, Apple, Google, Police have a lot of power so they need to be very, very transparent in its use and oversight. You do not have that power, privacy is the only thing you can have to protect yourself from abuse. The other point about about not having to worry about it as an individual is equally wrong. The equivalent argument is that you aren't a doctor so you don't need to worry about a purge of all doctors if one were proposed. Whereas obviously you do need to worry if anyone you care about ever gets sick. So it goes with standing up to corruption. Even if _you_ never stand up to it, your life is greatly adversely affected the harder that is for genuine heroes who make the sacrifice to do it because its the right thing. "If you have nothing to hide you have been conned."
- saagarjha 5y ago
  I suspect you live in a country with a low corruption index.
heydabop 5y ago
You don't even have to get that radical with "nothing to hide". Next time someone says that ask if they use blinds in their house/apt, if you could setup a webcam in their living room, or if you could just read some texts between them and a significant other. Or ask for their passwords, date of birth, SSN, credit card numbers, pets' names, and parents' names. Simple things like this are why I talk to people via Signal and why I'll never get a Ring/Nest doorbell, or any other 3rd party owned internet connected camera.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Signal is centralized and is an obvious target for surveillance so I would not even remotely rely on it.
  - beckman466 5y ago
    And most devices have backdoored CPUs too (Intel ME) I wonder what the next Crypto AG (CIA front) will be
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      I guess "Intel" is a sufficiently ironic name.
    - thefr0g 5y ago
      > I wonder what the next Crypto AG (CIA front) will be NSA: VPN and "secure" webmail providers CIA: They don't need fronts anymore, they have CISCO, Juniper, Netgear, etc.
      - beckman466 5y ago
        many argue that silicon valley firms are de facto extension of the US government [1]. a swiss army knife (haha) in their toolkit that allows complete control over the flow of information. i mean seriously, just look at how fast the Crypto AG story was forgotten. only this Dutch article [1] and a handful of others properly dives into the profound impacts that the CIA backdoored Crypto AG devices likely had on world events in the past 50 years. [2] so yeah if SV firms were not extensions of the US govt. (hardware firms too, not just software), they would have already been broken up years ago. the senate hearings are just a charade used to stroke the ego's of the 'visionary' SV tech bro CEOs. they also show us how tech illiterate the working class has been made. [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pVfYmttcag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pVfYmttcag, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9oMYL2M_tE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9oMYL2M_tE [2] https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/onderwerpen/cryptoleaks/2020/de-cryptoleaks-van-cia-en-bnd.html https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/onderwerpen/cryptoleaks/2020/... [3] https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitalism-smith https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitali...
phist_mcgee 5y ago
Tangentially related to events you may not consider to be relevant now, but become so in the future is Roko's Basilisk. Reader beware. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk
- tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
  I'd call this a stupid idea, except Roko's suggestion is exactly what the "communists" did in my country when they came to power.
tejohnso 5y ago
> "I have nothing to hide" is is gradeschool silliness to be treated with contempt every time it comes up. It needs to be ridiculed as anyone suggesting it is an idiot or just totally and knowingly dishonest. That might be an aspirational sentiment, but given most competent adults are in the "I have nothing to hide" category, I don't think it's true at all. I don't think these people are idiots, or dishonest, just ignorant. And it's not even their fault. Now I say most adults are in that category, but I don't have data on that. I'm going by observed behaviour. We don't see a massive push against tracking / spying and even when it's thrown in our faces (eg: Snowden, Manning) we respond with a collective shoulder shrug.

by harry8 5y ago

BoorishBears 5y ago

Except in that case you don't know you have to hide and 101 other things you do make you easier to track than this. And odds are you're not turning off your phone all the way every single time you change locations to start so... I have nothing to hide is different than "I literally need to hide".

harry8 5y ago
Yep "I have nothing to hide" is always completely false. "I literally need to hide and I'm also aware of that change" might be true or might be false. You might "literally need to hide" and not know it while the so-called "nothing" you had to hide is used against you when you have done nothing morally or legally wrong.

colordrops 5y ago

Fully agree. This idea that "individuals arent spied on in America" is absurdly naive and ignorant of seemingly common knowledge of past events. Furthermore it's kind of implicitly supremacist - "only those foreigners do that sort of thing". Police regularly bust young Chinese for marijuana possession by reading their chat messages. And we are just as human and no more special than the Chinese. A friend of mine was taken into an unmarked van and questioned after some tweets he made while at an Occupy Wall Street protest. The motives absolutely exist in the US.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Especially with the still recent insurrection/coupe attempt by a fascist leaning politician on American soil. It's actually pretty scary. Democracy is not as assured as some people seem to think and shouldn't be taken for granted.

esoterae 5y ago

Yeah. I've also heard it likened to "Who needs freedom of speech? I have nothing to say"

jollybean 5y ago

The 'Dirty Cop is Gonna Get You' is the 'gradeschool silliness' here. It's 1000x more likely that the criminals who did the murder want you killed because you're a witness. Witness intimidation is widespread and 'default' in some communities ('snitches get stitches'), and while the 'Dirty Cop' thing does happen in reality, it happens mostly on Netflix, and there's a difference between overzealous prosecutors/cops and 'dirty cops'. Also consider that tech will exonerate as much as otherwise: for such and such murder, the 'background use' of the tech would be to provide you with an alibi. Forensics have generally improved Justice I think, not the other way around. In the end I think Apple's issue should be one of transparency and privacy and we need to push them towards that.

harry8 5y ago
I wish I could live in a world where I can sustain the fantasy that power will not be abused whenever the abuser can get away with it. The power is asymmetric. The NSA, CIA, FBI, Apple, Google, Police have a lot of power so they need to be very, very transparent in its use and oversight. You do not have that power, privacy is the only thing you can have to protect yourself from abuse. The other point about about not having to worry about it as an individual is equally wrong. The equivalent argument is that you aren't a doctor so you don't need to worry about a purge of all doctors if one were proposed. Whereas obviously you do need to worry if anyone you care about ever gets sick. So it goes with standing up to corruption. Even if _you_ never stand up to it, your life is greatly adversely affected the harder that is for genuine heroes who make the sacrifice to do it because its the right thing. "If you have nothing to hide you have been conned."
saagarjha 5y ago
I suspect you live in a country with a low corruption index.

heydabop 5y ago

You don't even have to get that radical with "nothing to hide". Next time someone says that ask if they use blinds in their house/apt, if you could setup a webcam in their living room, or if you could just read some texts between them and a significant other. Or ask for their passwords, date of birth, SSN, credit card numbers, pets' names, and parents' names. Simple things like this are why I talk to people via Signal and why I'll never get a Ring/Nest doorbell, or any other 3rd party owned internet connected camera.

ekianjo 5y ago
Signal is centralized and is an obvious target for surveillance so I would not even remotely rely on it.
- beckman466 5y ago
  And most devices have backdoored CPUs too (Intel ME) I wonder what the next Crypto AG (CIA front) will be
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    I guess "Intel" is a sufficiently ironic name.
  - thefr0g 5y ago
    > I wonder what the next Crypto AG (CIA front) will be NSA: VPN and "secure" webmail providers CIA: They don't need fronts anymore, they have CISCO, Juniper, Netgear, etc.
    - beckman466 5y ago
      many argue that silicon valley firms are de facto extension of the US government [1]. a swiss army knife (haha) in their toolkit that allows complete control over the flow of information. i mean seriously, just look at how fast the Crypto AG story was forgotten. only this Dutch article [1] and a handful of others properly dives into the profound impacts that the CIA backdoored Crypto AG devices likely had on world events in the past 50 years. [2] so yeah if SV firms were not extensions of the US govt. (hardware firms too, not just software), they would have already been broken up years ago. the senate hearings are just a charade used to stroke the ego's of the 'visionary' SV tech bro CEOs. they also show us how tech illiterate the working class has been made. [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pVfYmttcag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pVfYmttcag, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9oMYL2M_tE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9oMYL2M_tE [2] https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/onderwerpen/cryptoleaks/2020/de-cryptoleaks-van-cia-en-bnd.html https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/onderwerpen/cryptoleaks/2020/... [3] https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitalism-smith https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitali...

phist_mcgee 5y ago

Tangentially related to events you may not consider to be relevant now, but become so in the future is Roko's Basilisk. Reader beware. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk

tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
I'd call this a stupid idea, except Roko's suggestion is exactly what the "communists" did in my country when they came to power.

tejohnso 5y ago

> "I have nothing to hide" is is gradeschool silliness to be treated with contempt every time it comes up. It needs to be ridiculed as anyone suggesting it is an idiot or just totally and knowingly dishonest. That might be an aspirational sentiment, but given most competent adults are in the "I have nothing to hide" category, I don't think it's true at all. I don't think these people are idiots, or dishonest, just ignorant. And it's not even their fault. Now I say most adults are in that category, but I don't have data on that. I'm going by observed behaviour. We don't see a massive push against tracking / spying and even when it's thrown in our faces (eg: Snowden, Manning) we respond with a collective shoulder shrug.