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Posted this two years and five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument; Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from

by cortic 4y ago

Posted this two years and five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument; Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? surely 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 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. edit; let me just add the obvious, that the government and police, Google and Facebook, are made up of many someones.

BurungHantu 4y ago
Thanks for posting this, cortic. I hope you don't mind that I've published your argument here: https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.privacytools.io/
- cortic 4y ago
  I don't mind, help yourself.
dionidium 4y ago
I would turn this argument around on itself and say, yes, of course I have things to hide, but none of those things need to hidden from 1) authorities conducting legitimate searches; 2) mass surveillance programs that are looking for terrorists; 3) advertising trackers; 4) and so on. You're absolutely right that who and what matter here, but I find the typical who and the typical what to be entirely unobjectionable. It's telling that the best arguments the privacy activists have are all slippery slope arguments. Of course it's easy to think of hypothetical policies to which I'd object; the point is that I don't object to any of the actually-existing programs as currently constructed. If Gmail wants to scan my mail, I don't care. If the NSA wants to drop in on my phone calls every once in a while to see if I'm affiliated with ISIS, that's fine with me. If Facebook wants to keep a log of my activity on the site to better target ads, then they should go for it. The only way to get me to agree that a policy is odious is for you to make up some hypothetical policy that doesn't exist and say, "but what if that happened?!!" And I just don't find that very compelling. In summary, you're absolutely right that, "nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence." The complete sentence is this: I have nothing to hide from any of the people currently looking in any of the places they're looking.
- tekknik 4y ago
  currently being the key word there. can you guarantee you will feel this way for the life of your data? if suddenly you become concerned with those collecting the data what do you do with the historical profile they’ve built for you?
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >It's telling that the best arguments the privacy activists have are all slippery slope arguments Here's one that isnt: it's none of the government's business! >the point is that I don't object to any of the actually-existing programs as currently constructed. If Gmail wants to scan my mail, I don't care. If the NSA wants to drop in on my phone calls every once in a while to see if I'm affiliated with ISIS, that's fine with me. If Facebook wants to keep a log of my activity on the site to better target ads, then they should go for it. You may not care, but I do care, and lots of other people do too. My right to privacy is inherently linked to my dignity as a human being and the neither the government, or anyone else, has the right to violate my human dignity no matter how important they think it is or how inconsequential the details of what I want to keep private are! If you have different ideas about human dignity and privacy, and you want to share all of the intimate details of your life to every government and corporate entity on the planet, more power to you. Perhaps you want to put a webcam in your bathroom, so all the people of the internet can watch you eliminate and perform your daily cleaning rituals, and you have absolutely no problem with that (many people don't!). Some of us do have a problem with that, solely for the (completely valid) reason that we value our privacy and what we do in our bathrooms is not the government's business, or facebook's business, or the business of anyone else, no matter how vehemently they claim they need to peer into our bathrooms for "national security" reasons or to target us with ads. The same goes for the rest of our lives.
  - dionidium 4y ago
    > Perhaps you want to put a webcam in your bathroom, so all the people of the internet can watch you eliminate and perform your daily cleaning rituals, and you have absolutely no problem with that (many people don't!). Nobody is doing that. Nobody is suggesting we do that. Again, if things were different, then they'd be different, and I'd have different opinions. But things aren't different. Things are as they are. Just more evidence that every privacy argument starts with, "but what if..."
robswc 4y ago
Perfect rebuttal, imo. Everyone has something to hide. It doesn’t mean you’re actively committing crimes… those who say they don’t care the NSA are reading everything they write lack imagination, imo.
youerbt 4y ago
I have even more trivial examples: love letters, nude photos, political articles you don't intend to publish, medical records, attempts at poetry, porn collection, business plans, drawings etc Plenty to hide from basically everyone.

by cortic 4y ago

BurungHantu 4y ago

Thanks for posting this, cortic. I hope you don't mind that I've published your argument here: https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.privacytools.io/

cortic 4y ago
I don't mind, help yourself.

dionidium 4y ago

I would turn this argument around on itself and say, yes, of course I have things to hide, but none of those things need to hidden from 1) authorities conducting legitimate searches; 2) mass surveillance programs that are looking for terrorists; 3) advertising trackers; 4) and so on. You're absolutely right that who and what matter here, but I find the typical who and the typical what to be entirely unobjectionable. It's telling that the best arguments the privacy activists have are all slippery slope arguments. Of course it's easy to think of hypothetical policies to which I'd object; the point is that I don't object to any of the actually-existing programs as currently constructed. If Gmail wants to scan my mail, I don't care. If the NSA wants to drop in on my phone calls every once in a while to see if I'm affiliated with ISIS, that's fine with me. If Facebook wants to keep a log of my activity on the site to better target ads, then they should go for it. The only way to get me to agree that a policy is odious is for you to make up some hypothetical policy that doesn't exist and say, "but what if that happened?!!" And I just don't find that very compelling. In summary, you're absolutely right that, "nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence." The complete sentence is this: I have nothing to hide from any of the people currently looking in any of the places they're looking.

tekknik 4y ago
currently being the key word there. can you guarantee you will feel this way for the life of your data? if suddenly you become concerned with those collecting the data what do you do with the historical profile they’ve built for you?
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>It's telling that the best arguments the privacy activists have are all slippery slope arguments Here's one that isnt: it's none of the government's business! >the point is that I don't object to any of the actually-existing programs as currently constructed. If Gmail wants to scan my mail, I don't care. If the NSA wants to drop in on my phone calls every once in a while to see if I'm affiliated with ISIS, that's fine with me. If Facebook wants to keep a log of my activity on the site to better target ads, then they should go for it. You may not care, but I do care, and lots of other people do too. My right to privacy is inherently linked to my dignity as a human being and the neither the government, or anyone else, has the right to violate my human dignity no matter how important they think it is or how inconsequential the details of what I want to keep private are! If you have different ideas about human dignity and privacy, and you want to share all of the intimate details of your life to every government and corporate entity on the planet, more power to you. Perhaps you want to put a webcam in your bathroom, so all the people of the internet can watch you eliminate and perform your daily cleaning rituals, and you have absolutely no problem with that (many people don't!). Some of us do have a problem with that, solely for the (completely valid) reason that we value our privacy and what we do in our bathrooms is not the government's business, or facebook's business, or the business of anyone else, no matter how vehemently they claim they need to peer into our bathrooms for "national security" reasons or to target us with ads. The same goes for the rest of our lives.
- dionidium 4y ago
  > Perhaps you want to put a webcam in your bathroom, so all the people of the internet can watch you eliminate and perform your daily cleaning rituals, and you have absolutely no problem with that (many people don't!). Nobody is doing that. Nobody is suggesting we do that. Again, if things were different, then they'd be different, and I'd have different opinions. But things aren't different. Things are as they are. Just more evidence that every privacy argument starts with, "but what if..."

robswc 4y ago

Perfect rebuttal, imo. Everyone has something to hide. It doesn’t mean you’re actively committing crimes… those who say they don’t care the NSA are reading everything they write lack imagination, imo.

youerbt 4y ago

I have even more trivial examples: love letters, nude photos, political articles you don't intend to publish, medical records, attempts at poetry, porn collection, business plans, drawings etc Plenty to hide from basically everyone.