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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 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
  [deleted]
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.
jefftk 4y ago
If you're going to be in Boston at some point I'd be happy to have you over to talk about this, and you'd be welcome to look around the house. But this is not that I have nothing to hide, it's that a strategy of hiding is much more risky than most people think it is.
- jmnicolas 4y ago
  Thanks for the invitation but I live in eastern France so I'm not going to fly to Boston to search your house. At least you're living by your rules. Have you ever wondered what you lost by not having any embarrassing things to hide?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    > I live in eastern France Let me know if you happen to be in the area at some point, though, and I'd be happy to meet up! > Have you ever wondered what you lost by not having any embarrassing things to hide? I can't think of anything; I'm very happy with my life.

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
[deleted]

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.

jefftk 4y ago

If you're going to be in Boston at some point I'd be happy to have you over to talk about this, and you'd be welcome to look around the house. But this is not that I have nothing to hide, it's that a strategy of hiding is much more risky than most people think it is.

jmnicolas 4y ago
Thanks for the invitation but I live in eastern France so I'm not going to fly to Boston to search your house. At least you're living by your rules. Have you ever wondered what you lost by not having any embarrassing things to hide?
- jefftk 4y ago
  > I live in eastern France Let me know if you happen to be in the area at some point, though, and I'd be happy to meet up! > Have you ever wondered what you lost by not having any embarrassing things to hide? I can't think of anything; I'm very happy with my life.