8 ms·

Giving Up on Privacy (2011)

33 points by mhb 4y ago

Jorengarenar 4y ago
TL;DR: I have nothing to hide
jacquesm 4y ago
This is pretty naive. Privacy is a great good and what parts of your privacy you give up and when should be up to you. I've written two articles about my position on this, way too long for a comment here. https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/ and https://jacquesmattheij.com/trackers/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/trackers/ The latter got made into a play and still results in regular mail. "Giving up on Privacy" is the easy way out.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  Your first article is interesting, I'd like to point this[0] out to go along with it. It's not just data that can give away information about us but metadata as well. [0] https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Yes, intelligence services spend a lot of time on traffic analysis for that very reason. Metadata tends to be easily gathered. Much easier than the contents themselves and very amendable to network analysis. That's why each and every online provider would love to have access to your phone's contact list. edit: fantastic article you linked by the way.
    - ttyprintk 4y ago
      I think we should ask the author if the people in his contact list would object to him making it public. Does he apply his personal approach when handling my mother’s maiden name, my birthday, etc.
      - jefftk 4y ago
        For information about other people I try to do what's normal and expected unless I have information and what they specifically want. This often means running blog posts past my housemates, or phrasing experiences in ways that reduce identifiability or at least give plausible deniability.
noman-land 4y ago
This could only have been naively said 12 years ago. To me, this is cowardice. Edward Snowden summarized it well. "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
- waboremo 4y ago
  Jeff Kaufman has also repeated this, as of very recently. [1] Stating, he would like to see more people take this approach to their privacy. What's interesting is he generally is aware of groups of people that should not do so, like those who are abused, but does not consider the possibility that everyone can become a target (through regime change for instance). I suppose the most frustrating part is his example of employers turning down people for sharing too much on social media, which should be normalized, but someone not sharing on social media should be penalized for hiding. It's a tad concerning, especially as we're coming to terms with the real damaging effects of social media mentally. [1]: https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs
  - tharne 4y ago
    > What's interesting is he generally is aware of groups of people that should not do so, like those who are abused, but does not consider the possibility that everyone can become a target (through regime change for instance). This is exactly right. You can hold a view that is perfectly acceptable within mainstream society right now, and find that 10 years from now that view is considered extreme or dangerous. If you have a public and searchable history espousing that view, you could suffer very really consequences as a result, even if you no longer hold that particular view.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      > You can hold a view that is perfectly acceptable within mainstream society right now, and find that 10 years from now that view is considered extreme or dangerous. If you have a public and searchable history espousing that view, you could suffer very really consequences as a result, even if you no longer hold that particular view. I think you would have a pretty hard time finding examples of this in somewhere like the US: * Few things go from 'mainstream' to 'extreme' anywhere near that quickly. * If something does make that transition, there would be hundreds of millions of people who previously held the view and millions of people who previously endorsed it publicly. * People care about your current views, especially on topics where lots of people have changed their minds. In cases where I wrote about something and then later retracted it, I've never had anyone treat that as if I still hold my previous view.
jefftk 4y ago
This was probably submitted because I linked it in yesterday's https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs: Personally, I've gone a pretty different way: I've generally given up on privacy. After considering the ongoing effort necessary to get actually useful reductions in the level of risk from realistic threats, I think most "private option" recommendations are very far from worth it for me. Instead, I default to public: I'll include even somewhat personal details in blogging if they seem like they'd be helpful to others, draft company-internal emails as if they may someday be leaked, and try hard to make choices such that if they became public I'd be comfortable standing behind my actions. This approach isn't for everyone, and I'm glad there are people working on various privacy technologies, but I think it would be a better fit for a lot more people than currently practice it.
- ttyprintk 4y ago
  Has your stance changed over the past decade? People have mentioned Snowden. The Electronic Frontier Foundation must now maintain tips for security and privacy for those visiting abortion clinics: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/security-and-privacy-tips-people-seeking-abortion https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/security-and-privacy-t... Have you seen any change in the relationship between security and privacy based on political landscape?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I think the Snowden revelations were a good illustration of how we often have much less privacy than we think, and the risks of relying on what privacy we might believe we have.
- seti0Cha 4y ago
  > draft company-internal emails as if they may someday be leaked, and try hard to make choices such that if they became public I'd be comfortable standing behind my actions A lot of people here are reacting to this post based on political considerations. I think people are missing the personal and moral aspect. I don't expose my life to the internet unnecessarily (my username here is courtesy of pwgen), but I do practice, as best I can, the principal of trying to never do things I would be ashamed for others to know about. I don't mean in terms of kinks or whatever, but in terms of how I treat other people. In particular, I try not to say things about people that I would not say to them directly. This pushes me to more considerate when talking to other people about someone not present, and more open when talking to that person directly. It also minimizes painful blow-back when my words reach further than I intended. There are certain things I say that I don't want people to associate with me, not because I'm ashamed of them, but because I know I would either be misunderstood, or harmed by people with different morals than myself. But even so, I try to express these things in such a way that I would not be ashamed to have said them, consequences aside.
anonym29 4y ago
Fantastic strategy for a world with no politics where people aren't punished for bizarrely benign activities like having an abortion.
ryukafalz 4y ago
This is the same old "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" argument and it falls flat for the usual reasons. The first footnote describes a proposed solution to losing privacy from an abusive ex-spouse, and that might work if perfectly implemented, but it's far from the only domestic scenario where privacy is important! Consider LGBT youths who are closeted and whose parents would not not approve. Consider those with abusive current spouses who feel trapped and need support without their spouse interfering. No. We still need privacy.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  We need it more than ever before because the cost of breaching it is dropping all the time.
- eternityforest 4y ago
  They seem to very much recognize that having nothing to hide is a privilege and are not arguing against the right to privacy, just arguing that it's really convenient to make use of that privilege personally. Hardly anyone besides an accessory to the abuse would argue that someone shouldn't have ready access to privacy from their abuser. The problem with spying is when you don't have a choice in the matter.
tppiotrowski 4y ago
I think this is a good approach. Make your Facebook public and assume all your messages will be read by your mom one day. As the author alludes, if your mom wouldn't approve you probably shouldn't say it. When is comes to privacy: Hope for everything. Expect nothing.
yikesonbikes 4y ago
"So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it." Good boy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship
photochemsyn 4y ago
> "So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it." So, no online banking of any sort, because if your account number and passwords became public, that would be bad? No use of credit cards for the same reason? This however is interesting: > "Applicants with very little information available might come to be the ones that employers and schools worry about: what are they trying to keep us from finding out about?" In espionage-thinking, this is a known issue and calls for the creation of a cover story, i.e. spies 'hide in plain sight' by constructing apparently normal lives that raise no red flags even upon extensive background investigations, and conduct all their covert activities using offline channels. Keep on with this and you end up with Gestapo/STASI run societies, in which even family members and neighbors living side by side view one another with distrust and suspicion - because everyone is doing something or other that might be construed as illegal under a system of selective political prosecution. As the head of Stalin's secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, said: "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime."
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Tangential but it is already the case that if you don’t give up privacy (by opting to have your financial transactions tracked by credit agencies) you’ll be regarded with suspicion by banks and some employers (because your credit score will not be very good). Plus you have to give your PII up to these credit agencies who will completely halfass securing it.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > So, no online banking of any sort, because if your account number and passwords became public, that would be bad? No use of credit cards for the same reason? No, I do use secrecy there. Defaulting to public is compatible with having a few specific small pieces of information secret (passwords, the pattern on my house keys, the numbers on my credit cards). I don't expect these to remain private long term, for the same reasons I've said above, so we'll eventually need to move away from these as the attacks get cheaper and easier. I already use securitykeys on my most important accounts, credit cards are switching to chips when possible, RFID keys are replacing traditional ones etc; this process is already in progress.
magic_hamster 4y ago
>Sometime around middle school I gave up on privacy. [...] So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it. This is great when you're in middle school and your biggest concern is maybe how to talk your parents into buying you a videogame or ask out your first crush. But in the world of grownups we are sometimes pulled into serious situations and we have to do these things. Sometimes we can only choose the lesser evil. And then privacy is all you have. In today's world where basic human rights are questioned, abortions aren't legal everywhere and some people lose their minds when confronted with different opinions, privacy is about the only thing you have to protect in order to get through life without being constantly troubled.
jmnicolas 4y ago
When I meet someone like the author, I always ask them if I can search their house, after all they have nothing to hide. Somehow nobody ever accepted my offer. When I see how authoritarian tendencies thrived under the COVID "episode" I'd rather go more private than ever!
- tharne 4y ago
  > When I meet someone like the author, I always ask them if I can search their house, after all they have nothing to hide. Somehow nobody ever accepted my offer. I do the same thing with their phones. I ask them to unlock their phone and then hand it over to me so I can look through it. Oddly enough, none of these folks who have "nothing to hide" have ever handed over their phone to me. Watch what people do, not what they say.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Maybe because you don’t understand their position? He’s not saying he wants to spam the world with every private detail while giving away anything of value to anyone who asks, he’s saying he’s not going to let fear of private details escaping keep him from living the way he wants to. I also don’t have the privacy obsession. But I wouldn’t get anything of value from handing my phone to someone I don’t trust, especially if they’re a zealot who mistakenly thinks that action is necessary to justify my choice of email provider.
  - Lio 4y ago
    If you want to be really devilish, once they unlock their phone plug it into a computer in front of them. If they ask what you’re doing tell them “I have a buyer for all of this…” Some people are happy to sell their souls because they assume they’re virtuous enough to get universal approval. Some people are naive.
  - deleted 4y ago
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- yikesonbikes 4y ago
  Since the "so whaddya do?" question usually comes up first, and the overwhelming majority of people are satisfied with "I work in tech", it's often trivial to parlay this into something like "I'd offer to search your phone to prove a point, but I also have admin access to The Database, so I can just read/modify/delete your records anyway. No use in getting my fingerprints all over a physical device. Say, what's your email/phone number?" Forget about sharing their phone, they won't even share their phone number (or charge it from my laptop). Cowards.
Gwypaas 4y ago
I have given up on privacy from benevolence or a good word from companies or organizations. I reject all cookies and deselect everything everywhere, but I will not go out of my way to create a pristine private profile where I degrade my experience. Instead, I like the GDPR approach, the data you hold is mine, and I only give you a temporary right to process it for the stated purposes. Now we need another generation of tech to evolve where managing this data becomes seamless.
thdc 4y ago
> don't put anything up that you would be ashamed of if it became public I don't know what "ashamed" encompasses, but an angle I think this word doesn't cover is how your information can be exploited. I think a while back this was less understood but has definitely come to light over the past few years. I have nothing to hide but also don't want to be unknowingly taken advantage of somehow, which is why I do care about privacy. I may take this to the extreme because I hardly ever hand out my information, even to people in real life - it's not just about online services, but rather any source that can "leak" your information intentionally or unintentionally. > My schedule has been public as long as I've been keeping one This is mind blowing to me. Think of what someone could do with this information (although I see it is obsolete and he now uses Google Calendar (!))
krtank 4y ago
The NYT is currently pushing old anti-privacy talking points (the only new one is Jan 6th as the default argument): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twitter-signal-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twit... I wonder if this is a preparation for pushing Clipper Chip 2.0. Given that most of the general population is lethargic and docile, it could be dangerous. These fights take a lot of time and resources and software engineers have to push back hard from the beginning.
- D13Fd 4y ago
  People have been pushing dumb anti-privacy talking points forever. I don't think it's evidence of a secret conspiracy between the government and the media.
Juliate 4y ago
Don’t remember where I read it but this sums it up well: "I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are."
- jacquesm 4y ago
  That's a great quote.
Run_DOS_Run 4y ago
>So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it. Sounds like a pretty boring life and you will miss pretty much chances in life and also would be a nightmare for every buddy who has a premium account on fetlife. Privacy is hard to gain these days, but it's possible. Some private data is safed on small book, which is hidden under my floor and some on an older laptop with Qubes installed and internet is only accessed over Whonix VMs. (Depends on the threat scenario) >I might as well take advantage of it by making things public on my own. This is a great way to make yourself an easy target. There's a difference if big tech & three-letter agencies have access to your private data and being totally exposed on the internet for every identity thief and Kiwifarms-Stalker. You should share as less data as possible or create as much fake data as possible about yourself. Fake shedule, fake pictures with fake exif-data, fake friends, etc. >location based restraining orders can be automatically checked (automatically alert the police if this person comes within X distance of this other person) then keeping locations secret may become unimportant Except the stalker is smart enough to follow you outside a big city (or wearing a mask) where no cams are placed and doesn't use a tracking device like a Smartphone. Also a data leak of the position data will happen. Stalkers will use these data to track their victims even better. >parents that worry that the foolish things their middle schoolers write on the internet might come back to haunt them. Right now, their concerns may be correct. Longer term, our society has some adjusting to do to a world where more information is public No, there will be always more boring people than you, who do nothing of that. These people will be the fools who get hired in future and you have become more boring like them to compete on the job market. This means no porn, drugs and politically-incorrect jokes with to your friends and family. I would rather be dead than live in a world where the most boring people judge the most intimate moments of my life.
Alifatisk 4y ago
Pi-hole as adblocker and Localdns extension is my first step towards saving my integrity, what other things should I do?
_madmax_ 4y ago
I think it is worth mentioning that, a priori, there is nothing wrong with having something to hide and wanting to protect it. I think the apparence of giving up on privacy is slowly becoming essential and so is a system to bypass the Orwellian nightmare.
mdip 4y ago
I'm going to put myself in the "partly agree" category, here. First, to get it out of the way, I hate where things stand, today. Location privacy basically doesn't exist. A permanent license plate reader was just installed at an intersection bordering my neighborhood[0]. They're installed in every police cruiser, they're automatic and they flag problems/trigger being pulled over. On three occasions, over 20 years (evenly spaced), I was pulled over for vehicle registration problems. The first, someone had scraped the tag off of my car and I was driving without tags. I showed the cop my registration/insurance and 10-60 minutes later I was on my way. The second (about 7-10 years ago) was my new motorcycle who's registration expired six months later than my cars, I rode for almost the entire summer with the wrong tabs on my car, passing several police (sometimes driving directly behind me) until I was finally pulled over. I was written the ticket because "it was six months past-due" (he waived the charge when I showed up renewed to the hearing). The last was this year: my car was in my ex-wife's name and the registration expired in July. I still had insurance and I was aware that it was past due but couldn't resolve the problem, myself. I drive with Waze and in my area "if the cop isn't on the road driving with you" they're lit up on Waze. I avoided driving. When I had no choice, I avoided routes that showed cops and altered my route when they showed up unexpectedly[2]. This worked for two weeks after the expiration date and two days into the following month. The first time a cop ends up behind me I got pulled over[3]. The wording he chose was "Your vehicle was flagged as having expired plates" or something like that[3]. The unintentional follow-up to this, though, is that when I received my tabs it was unusually cold outside, I was running late for a date and my plate was too dirty to just "spit shine/affix" the sticker, so I put it in my winter jacket pocket and went on my way (figuring if I got pulled over, I'd show them the tab and explain my situation). I had no less than three police cars happen into range of being able to read my plate electronically or visually and not one budged. Maybe a coincidence, I thought? Perhaps they had something better to do/get to? The route to my girlfriend's house passes a police station; it's rare for me to take that route without encountering a cop on the road or in a speed trap. It's been 6 months since I put those tabs in my pocket. They're still there. [0] Full disclosure: My information is from a neighbor mentioning it and my noticing it afterward as I drove past; I have not inspected/researched but it's not relevant as these installations are being rolled out at an increasing pace. [1] The first was my new motorcycle which renewed on a different day than my cars and I missed it, the second was a car that was in my ex-wife's name which she failed to renew. [2] It was a very weird place for me ... I've never had that "avoid the cops" feeling in my life. It's unnerving. [3] The guy saw the car was in my wife's name, I said "divorce", he said he "totally understands" (and was incredibly sympathetic). He did write the ticket, but told me to ask for a hearing, show up with current registration and he'd request the ticket be invalidated. It was. I wasn't even given court fees.
catiopatio 4y ago
> If location based restraining orders can be automatically checked (automatically alert the police if this person comes within X distance of this other person) then keeping locations secret may become unimportant. This is an unserious argument from a privileged and unserious person. If the author had given this even the briefest of consideration, or had even a modicum of knowledge of abuse, stalking, or the criminal justice system, it would have been clear to them how such a system would inevitably lead to a carceral hellscape. The author should hand his unlocked phone, location history, and audio recorded from his in-house microphones to a hostile police officer and see just how long it takes for them to find something actionable. Some time in county jail, spending $10-$20k on an attorney just to (hopefully) get the charges dropped, and some time in court might disabuse him of his dangerous, deeply ignorant, and grossly misplaced faith in governmental authority.
- ttyprintk 4y ago
  You are absolutely right, but I think the author is using this footnote to lead into the science-fiction setting where all information access creates a public audit trail, by the author Brin.
wintermutestwin 4y ago
>I decided that the best response to privacy disappearing was not to become attached to it, not to rely on it. So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it. ...and this is indeed where all this privacy destruction leads: people changing their behavior first, their words second, and finally, their thoughts. Isn't it universally accepted that free societies breed innovation and repressive ones stagnate and wither? Isn't it clear that mass privacy violation will lead to a global repressive society? Some form of rebellion is essential for citizens to overcome repressive societies. Repressive societies empowered by the kinds of surveillance that technology enables at scale will become nearly impossible to rebel against. Following this train of thought, it seems that privacy destruction is potentially an existential threat to humanity. When I came to this conclusion, I decided that my personal act of rebellion was to leave my high paying tech career to work in the non-profit space promoting peace for 1/5 the income. I have never been happier. I am doing my little part and that makes it easier to not worry about this insanity.

33 points by mhb 4y ago

TL;DR: I have nothing to hide

This is pretty naive. Privacy is a great good and what parts of your privacy you give up and when should be up to you. I've written two articles about my position on this, way too long for a comment here. https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/ and https://jacquesmattheij.com/trackers/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/trackers/ The latter got made into a play and still results in regular mail. "Giving up on Privacy" is the easy way out.

giantrobot 4y ago
Your first article is interesting, I'd like to point this[0] out to go along with it. It's not just data that can give away information about us but metadata as well. [0] https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Yes, intelligence services spend a lot of time on traffic analysis for that very reason. Metadata tends to be easily gathered. Much easier than the contents themselves and very amendable to network analysis. That's why each and every online provider would love to have access to your phone's contact list. edit: fantastic article you linked by the way.
  - ttyprintk 4y ago
    I think we should ask the author if the people in his contact list would object to him making it public. Does he apply his personal approach when handling my mother’s maiden name, my birthday, etc.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      For information about other people I try to do what's normal and expected unless I have information and what they specifically want. This often means running blog posts past my housemates, or phrasing experiences in ways that reduce identifiability or at least give plausible deniability.

noman-land 4y ago

This could only have been naively said 12 years ago. To me, this is cowardice. Edward Snowden summarized it well. "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

waboremo 4y ago
Jeff Kaufman has also repeated this, as of very recently. [1] Stating, he would like to see more people take this approach to their privacy. What's interesting is he generally is aware of groups of people that should not do so, like those who are abused, but does not consider the possibility that everyone can become a target (through regime change for instance). I suppose the most frustrating part is his example of employers turning down people for sharing too much on social media, which should be normalized, but someone not sharing on social media should be penalized for hiding. It's a tad concerning, especially as we're coming to terms with the real damaging effects of social media mentally. [1]: https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs
- tharne 4y ago
  > What's interesting is he generally is aware of groups of people that should not do so, like those who are abused, but does not consider the possibility that everyone can become a target (through regime change for instance). This is exactly right. You can hold a view that is perfectly acceptable within mainstream society right now, and find that 10 years from now that view is considered extreme or dangerous. If you have a public and searchable history espousing that view, you could suffer very really consequences as a result, even if you no longer hold that particular view.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    > You can hold a view that is perfectly acceptable within mainstream society right now, and find that 10 years from now that view is considered extreme or dangerous. If you have a public and searchable history espousing that view, you could suffer very really consequences as a result, even if you no longer hold that particular view. I think you would have a pretty hard time finding examples of this in somewhere like the US: * Few things go from 'mainstream' to 'extreme' anywhere near that quickly. * If something does make that transition, there would be hundreds of millions of people who previously held the view and millions of people who previously endorsed it publicly. * People care about your current views, especially on topics where lots of people have changed their minds. In cases where I wrote about something and then later retracted it, I've never had anyone treat that as if I still hold my previous view.

jefftk 4y ago

This was probably submitted because I linked it in yesterday's https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs https://www.jefftk.com/p/privacy-tradeoffs: Personally, I've gone a pretty different way: I've generally given up on privacy. After considering the ongoing effort necessary to get actually useful reductions in the level of risk from realistic threats, I think most "private option" recommendations are very far from worth it for me. Instead, I default to public: I'll include even somewhat personal details in blogging if they seem like they'd be helpful to others, draft company-internal emails as if they may someday be leaked, and try hard to make choices such that if they became public I'd be comfortable standing behind my actions. This approach isn't for everyone, and I'm glad there are people working on various privacy technologies, but I think it would be a better fit for a lot more people than currently practice it.

ttyprintk 4y ago
Has your stance changed over the past decade? People have mentioned Snowden. The Electronic Frontier Foundation must now maintain tips for security and privacy for those visiting abortion clinics: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/security-and-privacy-tips-people-seeking-abortion https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/security-and-privacy-t... Have you seen any change in the relationship between security and privacy based on political landscape?
- jefftk 4y ago
  I think the Snowden revelations were a good illustration of how we often have much less privacy than we think, and the risks of relying on what privacy we might believe we have.
seti0Cha 4y ago
> draft company-internal emails as if they may someday be leaked, and try hard to make choices such that if they became public I'd be comfortable standing behind my actions A lot of people here are reacting to this post based on political considerations. I think people are missing the personal and moral aspect. I don't expose my life to the internet unnecessarily (my username here is courtesy of pwgen), but I do practice, as best I can, the principal of trying to never do things I would be ashamed for others to know about. I don't mean in terms of kinks or whatever, but in terms of how I treat other people. In particular, I try not to say things about people that I would not say to them directly. This pushes me to more considerate when talking to other people about someone not present, and more open when talking to that person directly. It also minimizes painful blow-back when my words reach further than I intended. There are certain things I say that I don't want people to associate with me, not because I'm ashamed of them, but because I know I would either be misunderstood, or harmed by people with different morals than myself. But even so, I try to express these things in such a way that I would not be ashamed to have said them, consequences aside.

anonym29 4y ago

Fantastic strategy for a world with no politics where people aren't punished for bizarrely benign activities like having an abortion.

ryukafalz 4y ago

This is the same old "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" argument and it falls flat for the usual reasons. The first footnote describes a proposed solution to losing privacy from an abusive ex-spouse, and that might work if perfectly implemented, but it's far from the only domestic scenario where privacy is important! Consider LGBT youths who are closeted and whose parents would not not approve. Consider those with abusive current spouses who feel trapped and need support without their spouse interfering. No. We still need privacy.

jacquesm 4y ago
We need it more than ever before because the cost of breaching it is dropping all the time.
eternityforest 4y ago
They seem to very much recognize that having nothing to hide is a privilege and are not arguing against the right to privacy, just arguing that it's really convenient to make use of that privilege personally. Hardly anyone besides an accessory to the abuse would argue that someone shouldn't have ready access to privacy from their abuser. The problem with spying is when you don't have a choice in the matter.

tppiotrowski 4y ago

I think this is a good approach. Make your Facebook public and assume all your messages will be read by your mom one day. As the author alludes, if your mom wouldn't approve you probably shouldn't say it. When is comes to privacy: Hope for everything. Expect nothing.

yikesonbikes 4y ago

"So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it." Good boy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship

photochemsyn 4y ago

> "So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it." So, no online banking of any sort, because if your account number and passwords became public, that would be bad? No use of credit cards for the same reason? This however is interesting: > "Applicants with very little information available might come to be the ones that employers and schools worry about: what are they trying to keep us from finding out about?" In espionage-thinking, this is a known issue and calls for the creation of a cover story, i.e. spies 'hide in plain sight' by constructing apparently normal lives that raise no red flags even upon extensive background investigations, and conduct all their covert activities using offline channels. Keep on with this and you end up with Gestapo/STASI run societies, in which even family members and neighbors living side by side view one another with distrust and suspicion - because everyone is doing something or other that might be construed as illegal under a system of selective political prosecution. As the head of Stalin's secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, said: "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime."

bee_rider 4y ago
Tangential but it is already the case that if you don’t give up privacy (by opting to have your financial transactions tracked by credit agencies) you’ll be regarded with suspicion by banks and some employers (because your credit score will not be very good). Plus you have to give your PII up to these credit agencies who will completely halfass securing it.
jefftk 4y ago
> So, no online banking of any sort, because if your account number and passwords became public, that would be bad? No use of credit cards for the same reason? No, I do use secrecy there. Defaulting to public is compatible with having a few specific small pieces of information secret (passwords, the pattern on my house keys, the numbers on my credit cards). I don't expect these to remain private long term, for the same reasons I've said above, so we'll eventually need to move away from these as the attacks get cheaper and easier. I already use securitykeys on my most important accounts, credit cards are switching to chips when possible, RFID keys are replacing traditional ones etc; this process is already in progress.

magic_hamster 4y ago

>Sometime around middle school I gave up on privacy. [...] So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it. This is great when you're in middle school and your biggest concern is maybe how to talk your parents into buying you a videogame or ask out your first crush. But in the world of grownups we are sometimes pulled into serious situations and we have to do these things. Sometimes we can only choose the lesser evil. And then privacy is all you have. In today's world where basic human rights are questioned, abortions aren't legal everywhere and some people lose their minds when confronted with different opinions, privacy is about the only thing you have to protect in order to get through life without being constantly troubled.

jmnicolas 4y ago

When I meet someone like the author, I always ask them if I can search their house, after all they have nothing to hide. Somehow nobody ever accepted my offer. When I see how authoritarian tendencies thrived under the COVID "episode" I'd rather go more private than ever!

tharne 4y ago
> When I meet someone like the author, I always ask them if I can search their house, after all they have nothing to hide. Somehow nobody ever accepted my offer. I do the same thing with their phones. I ask them to unlock their phone and then hand it over to me so I can look through it. Oddly enough, none of these folks who have "nothing to hide" have ever handed over their phone to me. Watch what people do, not what they say.
- brookst 4y ago
  Maybe because you don’t understand their position? He’s not saying he wants to spam the world with every private detail while giving away anything of value to anyone who asks, he’s saying he’s not going to let fear of private details escaping keep him from living the way he wants to. I also don’t have the privacy obsession. But I wouldn’t get anything of value from handing my phone to someone I don’t trust, especially if they’re a zealot who mistakenly thinks that action is necessary to justify my choice of email provider.
- Lio 4y ago
  If you want to be really devilish, once they unlock their phone plug it into a computer in front of them. If they ask what you’re doing tell them “I have a buyer for all of this…” Some people are happy to sell their souls because they assume they’re virtuous enough to get universal approval. Some people are naive.
- deleted 4y ago
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yikesonbikes 4y ago
Since the "so whaddya do?" question usually comes up first, and the overwhelming majority of people are satisfied with "I work in tech", it's often trivial to parlay this into something like "I'd offer to search your phone to prove a point, but I also have admin access to The Database, so I can just read/modify/delete your records anyway. No use in getting my fingerprints all over a physical device. Say, what's your email/phone number?" Forget about sharing their phone, they won't even share their phone number (or charge it from my laptop). Cowards.

Gwypaas 4y ago

I have given up on privacy from benevolence or a good word from companies or organizations. I reject all cookies and deselect everything everywhere, but I will not go out of my way to create a pristine private profile where I degrade my experience. Instead, I like the GDPR approach, the data you hold is mine, and I only give you a temporary right to process it for the stated purposes. Now we need another generation of tech to evolve where managing this data becomes seamless.

thdc 4y ago

> don't put anything up that you would be ashamed of if it became public I don't know what "ashamed" encompasses, but an angle I think this word doesn't cover is how your information can be exploited. I think a while back this was less understood but has definitely come to light over the past few years. I have nothing to hide but also don't want to be unknowingly taken advantage of somehow, which is why I do care about privacy. I may take this to the extreme because I hardly ever hand out my information, even to people in real life - it's not just about online services, but rather any source that can "leak" your information intentionally or unintentionally. > My schedule has been public as long as I've been keeping one This is mind blowing to me. Think of what someone could do with this information (although I see it is obsolete and he now uses Google Calendar (!))

krtank 4y ago

The NYT is currently pushing old anti-privacy talking points (the only new one is Jan 6th as the default argument): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twitter-signal-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twit... I wonder if this is a preparation for pushing Clipper Chip 2.0. Given that most of the general population is lethargic and docile, it could be dangerous. These fights take a lot of time and resources and software engineers have to push back hard from the beginning.

D13Fd 4y ago
People have been pushing dumb anti-privacy talking points forever. I don't think it's evidence of a secret conspiracy between the government and the media.

Juliate 4y ago

Don’t remember where I read it but this sums it up well: "I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are."

jacquesm 4y ago
That's a great quote.

Run_DOS_Run 4y ago

>So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it. Sounds like a pretty boring life and you will miss pretty much chances in life and also would be a nightmare for every buddy who has a premium account on fetlife. Privacy is hard to gain these days, but it's possible. Some private data is safed on small book, which is hidden under my floor and some on an older laptop with Qubes installed and internet is only accessed over Whonix VMs. (Depends on the threat scenario) >I might as well take advantage of it by making things public on my own. This is a great way to make yourself an easy target. There's a difference if big tech & three-letter agencies have access to your private data and being totally exposed on the internet for every identity thief and Kiwifarms-Stalker. You should share as less data as possible or create as much fake data as possible about yourself. Fake shedule, fake pictures with fake exif-data, fake friends, etc. >location based restraining orders can be automatically checked (automatically alert the police if this person comes within X distance of this other person) then keeping locations secret may become unimportant Except the stalker is smart enough to follow you outside a big city (or wearing a mask) where no cams are placed and doesn't use a tracking device like a Smartphone. Also a data leak of the position data will happen. Stalkers will use these data to track their victims even better. >parents that worry that the foolish things their middle schoolers write on the internet might come back to haunt them. Right now, their concerns may be correct. Longer term, our society has some adjusting to do to a world where more information is public No, there will be always more boring people than you, who do nothing of that. These people will be the fools who get hired in future and you have become more boring like them to compete on the job market. This means no porn, drugs and politically-incorrect jokes with to your friends and family. I would rather be dead than live in a world where the most boring people judge the most intimate moments of my life.

Alifatisk 4y ago

Pi-hole as adblocker and Localdns extension is my first step towards saving my integrity, what other things should I do?

_madmax_ 4y ago

I think it is worth mentioning that, a priori, there is nothing wrong with having something to hide and wanting to protect it. I think the apparence of giving up on privacy is slowly becoming essential and so is a system to bypass the Orwellian nightmare.

mdip 4y ago

I'm going to put myself in the "partly agree" category, here. First, to get it out of the way, I hate where things stand, today. Location privacy basically doesn't exist. A permanent license plate reader was just installed at an intersection bordering my neighborhood[0]. They're installed in every police cruiser, they're automatic and they flag problems/trigger being pulled over. On three occasions, over 20 years (evenly spaced), I was pulled over for vehicle registration problems. The first, someone had scraped the tag off of my car and I was driving without tags. I showed the cop my registration/insurance and 10-60 minutes later I was on my way. The second (about 7-10 years ago) was my new motorcycle who's registration expired six months later than my cars, I rode for almost the entire summer with the wrong tabs on my car, passing several police (sometimes driving directly behind me) until I was finally pulled over. I was written the ticket because "it was six months past-due" (he waived the charge when I showed up renewed to the hearing). The last was this year: my car was in my ex-wife's name and the registration expired in July. I still had insurance and I was aware that it was past due but couldn't resolve the problem, myself. I drive with Waze and in my area "if the cop isn't on the road driving with you" they're lit up on Waze. I avoided driving. When I had no choice, I avoided routes that showed cops and altered my route when they showed up unexpectedly[2]. This worked for two weeks after the expiration date and two days into the following month. The first time a cop ends up behind me I got pulled over[3]. The wording he chose was "Your vehicle was flagged as having expired plates" or something like that[3]. The unintentional follow-up to this, though, is that when I received my tabs it was unusually cold outside, I was running late for a date and my plate was too dirty to just "spit shine/affix" the sticker, so I put it in my winter jacket pocket and went on my way (figuring if I got pulled over, I'd show them the tab and explain my situation). I had no less than three police cars happen into range of being able to read my plate electronically or visually and not one budged. Maybe a coincidence, I thought? Perhaps they had something better to do/get to? The route to my girlfriend's house passes a police station; it's rare for me to take that route without encountering a cop on the road or in a speed trap. It's been 6 months since I put those tabs in my pocket. They're still there. [0] Full disclosure: My information is from a neighbor mentioning it and my noticing it afterward as I drove past; I have not inspected/researched but it's not relevant as these installations are being rolled out at an increasing pace. [1] The first was my new motorcycle which renewed on a different day than my cars and I missed it, the second was a car that was in my ex-wife's name which she failed to renew. [2] It was a very weird place for me ... I've never had that "avoid the cops" feeling in my life. It's unnerving. [3] The guy saw the car was in my wife's name, I said "divorce", he said he "totally understands" (and was incredibly sympathetic). He did write the ticket, but told me to ask for a hearing, show up with current registration and he'd request the ticket be invalidated. It was. I wasn't even given court fees.

catiopatio 4y ago

> If location based restraining orders can be automatically checked (automatically alert the police if this person comes within X distance of this other person) then keeping locations secret may become unimportant. This is an unserious argument from a privileged and unserious person. If the author had given this even the briefest of consideration, or had even a modicum of knowledge of abuse, stalking, or the criminal justice system, it would have been clear to them how such a system would inevitably lead to a carceral hellscape. The author should hand his unlocked phone, location history, and audio recorded from his in-house microphones to a hostile police officer and see just how long it takes for them to find something actionable. Some time in county jail, spending $10-$20k on an attorney just to (hopefully) get the charges dropped, and some time in court might disabuse him of his dangerous, deeply ignorant, and grossly misplaced faith in governmental authority.

ttyprintk 4y ago
You are absolutely right, but I think the author is using this footnote to lead into the science-fiction setting where all information access creates a public audit trail, by the author Brin.

wintermutestwin 4y ago

>I decided that the best response to privacy disappearing was not to become attached to it, not to rely on it. So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it. ...and this is indeed where all this privacy destruction leads: people changing their behavior first, their words second, and finally, their thoughts. Isn't it universally accepted that free societies breed innovation and repressive ones stagnate and wither? Isn't it clear that mass privacy violation will lead to a global repressive society? Some form of rebellion is essential for citizens to overcome repressive societies. Repressive societies empowered by the kinds of surveillance that technology enables at scale will become nearly impossible to rebel against. Following this train of thought, it seems that privacy destruction is potentially an existential threat to humanity. When I came to this conclusion, I decided that my personal act of rebellion was to leave my high paying tech career to work in the non-profit space promoting peace for 1/5 the income. I have never been happier. I am doing my little part and that makes it easier to not worry about this insanity.