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Believe it or not, I think putting white collar criminals in prison for lengthy sentences would dissuade them. Imagine if we were learning this news alongside p

Believe it or not, I think putting white collar criminals in prison for lengthy sentences would dissuade them. Imagine if we were learning this news alongside pictures of the CEO, CFO and some board members in handcuffs being perp walked out of the office? The next start up would think way harder about security.

p1esk 4y ago
The society would need to agree on the seriousness of the crime of selling personal information. Is it as serious as selling drugs? A burglary? Rape? Do you think the majority of the Americans would share your opinion on the matter? Keep in mind US incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  The average person is pretty thirsty to see white collar criminals reigned in, yes.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    I'm guessing a similar argument was made in support of the "war on drugs". Many drug dealers have been punished harshly. 50 years later, nothing has changed.
    - arrosenberg 4y ago
      The war on drugs was perpetuated by the Nixon and Reagan administrations to criminalize being antiwar and being black. Do you think that is what is happening here?
      - p1esk 4y ago
        I strongly suspect the war on drugs was initiated mainly because drugs were ruining many lives (just like they do today), and that selling illegal drugs was perceived by the majority of population as a crime deserving a harsh punishment.
        arrosenberg 4y ago
        Your ignorance is a problem we simply don't have time to address here. Luckily, we don't need to base reality off of your strong suspicions since we have direct quotes from the Nixon administration. “The Nixon Campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - Lee Atwater
        p1esk 4y ago
        Well, your ignorance is a problem we can address here. Please read the entirety of the Wikipedia article [1], specifically: The veracity of the quote has been questioned by Ehrlichman's family, while Vox senior correspondent German Lopez has suggested that Ehrlichman was either wrong or lying. According to Lopez: But Ehrlichman's claim is likely an oversimplification, according to historians who have studied the period and Nixon's drug policies in particular. There's no doubt Nixon was racist, and historians told me that race could have played one role in Nixon's drug war. But there are also signs that Nixon wasn't solely motivated by politics or race: For one, he personally despised drugs – to the point that it's not surprising he would want to rid the world of them. And there's evidence that Ehrlichman felt bitter and betrayed by Nixon after he spent time in prison over the Watergate scandal, so he may have lied. More importantly, Nixon's drug policies did not focus on the kind of criminalization that Ehrlichman described. Instead, Nixon's drug war was largely a public health crusade – one that would be reshaped into the modern, punitive drug war we know today by later administrations, particularly President Ronald Reagan... "It's certainly true that Nixon didn't like blacks and didn't like hippies," Courtwright said. "But to assign his entire drug policy to his dislike of these two groups is just ridiculous."* [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
        deleted 4y ago
- chclt 4y ago
  Well thats the case for every crime. And this one deserves (in my opinion) to be punished more harshly than other things which today are already punished (you mention selling drugs, which is way better morally). The amount of people damaged by this privacy infringement is quite high.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    You think there are more victims from privacy infringement than victims from illegal drug trade? I’d like to see some data.
    - chclt 4y ago
      The people affected by the drug trade are not affected by the act of selling drugs but by secondary crimes (which arise because selling drugs is illegal and vendors cannot take advantage of the legal framework). Also the people affected by this incident alone number in the millions.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        How many people will die or have their lives destroyed because of this incident?
        chclt 4y ago
        As a sibling comment to mine points out, people who "die or have their life destroyed" is simply one way to define victim in this context. With mental health data being at stake here, the amount of victims under this definition could also very well be non-zero. Anyway there are a lot of crimes, that don't produce those kind of victims. If I mug someone and don't kill them or destroy their life in the process, have I not commited a crime? The privacy infringement here is an obvious damage to the dignity of everyone affected. Wouldn't you feel victimized if I listened in on you speaking with your doctor, wrote everything down, stamped your name, address, and date of birth on it and started giving out copies of the resulting paper to random people? Which is exactly whats happening here, except my example is more harmless by a factor of a few million people and has a lot fewer data points.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Do you think this kind of rhetoric, acting as if this is literally the first time this idea has ever been considered, is helpful for conversation?
  - p1esk 4y ago
    The conversation is around how to prevent similar white collar crimes. I'm sure it has been discussed before. I'm not sure what the conclusion is. Please provide some helpful information if you have any.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      You've left about 10 comments on this topic posing questions and soliciting information from other people. Curiosity is good of course, but at some point you should consider contributing information to support your point of view instead of expecting everyone else to provide you with information. It's not like you're a judge in this case with decisional authority and an obligation to assess the fact pattern in splendid isolation.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        Sure. My view - we need concrete data about the actual harm done in cases like this. We have such data for most other types of crimes. In my opinion, saying that something bad "can" happen is not sufficient to determine the punishment. Note this is not the same as being against punishing illegal sale of private data.
        anigbrowl 4y ago
        Seems like a business opportunity for you.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      A note to the reader: this is how debate-bros corner you into bullshit arguments. Best to disengage from this kind of bad-faith posturing, no matter how much they insist on their "intentions".
- p_j_w 4y ago
  >Is it as serious as selling drugs? Absolutely. It is 100% worse than selling drugs to willing buyers. How is this even a question?
  - p1esk 4y ago
    How about selling nuclear weapons to willing buyers? Serious question. Willing drug users don't just destroy their own lives.
    - p_j_w 4y ago
      Guess we better outlaw everything but fruits and vegetables then.
- SergeAx 4y ago
  Why would we ever need this? We never compare rape and murder, for that matter. We have the entire justice system for that, with judges and courts and prosecutors and defenders and jurys.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    We never compare rape and murder Of course we do. We, as a society, have decided that murder is a more serious offense, and assigned a punishment for each accordingly. This process has to be repeated every time a new type of crime emerges.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Why are we trying to mash everything down to a one-dimensional ranking? Over simplification can be as deceptive as over-complication. A breach of one's personal data is clearly less severe than a violent attack upon one's person. But the former could enable the latter (eg if information were purchased by a stalker). And it certainly increases the base level of risk from fraud and adversarial commercial contact (secretly exploiting knowledge of a target to manipulate them into a purchase/sale decision). Now scale the individual loss up by huge numbers of people, and consider what incentives led to the information security failure. While it's sometimes practical to remediate individual losses of privacy, at scale future injuries are virtually assured. It seems to me that this warrants an application of strict liability principles. As for restitution, in ym view not only should injured parties be compensated in cash (and much more of it), but they should also be granted, individually or by proxy, partial ownership of the offending firm; that is, existing investors should have the value of their asset significantly diluted. The loss of personal security should be reflected in a loss of financial security to the asset holders.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    You make good points, and I actually agree with your suggestions. My original concern was not so much about what constitutes a "fair punishment" in this particular case, but about how is this crime is being perceived by our society, and especially how it is perceived by society (i.e. an average American) when compared to some other crimes? I'm more interested in higher level questions: How do we decide on the severity of a crime? Who should decide that?

p1esk 4y ago

The society would need to agree on the seriousness of the crime of selling personal information. Is it as serious as selling drugs? A burglary? Rape? Do you think the majority of the Americans would share your opinion on the matter? Keep in mind US incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world.

arrosenberg 4y ago
The average person is pretty thirsty to see white collar criminals reigned in, yes.
- p1esk 4y ago
  I'm guessing a similar argument was made in support of the "war on drugs". Many drug dealers have been punished harshly. 50 years later, nothing has changed.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    The war on drugs was perpetuated by the Nixon and Reagan administrations to criminalize being antiwar and being black. Do you think that is what is happening here?
    - p1esk 4y ago
      I strongly suspect the war on drugs was initiated mainly because drugs were ruining many lives (just like they do today), and that selling illegal drugs was perceived by the majority of population as a crime deserving a harsh punishment.
      - arrosenberg 4y ago
        Your ignorance is a problem we simply don't have time to address here. Luckily, we don't need to base reality off of your strong suspicions since we have direct quotes from the Nixon administration. “The Nixon Campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - Lee Atwater
        p1esk 4y ago
        Well, your ignorance is a problem we can address here. Please read the entirety of the Wikipedia article [1], specifically: The veracity of the quote has been questioned by Ehrlichman's family, while Vox senior correspondent German Lopez has suggested that Ehrlichman was either wrong or lying. According to Lopez: But Ehrlichman's claim is likely an oversimplification, according to historians who have studied the period and Nixon's drug policies in particular. There's no doubt Nixon was racist, and historians told me that race could have played one role in Nixon's drug war. But there are also signs that Nixon wasn't solely motivated by politics or race: For one, he personally despised drugs – to the point that it's not surprising he would want to rid the world of them. And there's evidence that Ehrlichman felt bitter and betrayed by Nixon after he spent time in prison over the Watergate scandal, so he may have lied. More importantly, Nixon's drug policies did not focus on the kind of criminalization that Ehrlichman described. Instead, Nixon's drug war was largely a public health crusade – one that would be reshaped into the modern, punitive drug war we know today by later administrations, particularly President Ronald Reagan... "It's certainly true that Nixon didn't like blacks and didn't like hippies," Courtwright said. "But to assign his entire drug policy to his dislike of these two groups is just ridiculous."* [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
        deleted 4y ago
chclt 4y ago
Well thats the case for every crime. And this one deserves (in my opinion) to be punished more harshly than other things which today are already punished (you mention selling drugs, which is way better morally). The amount of people damaged by this privacy infringement is quite high.
- p1esk 4y ago
  You think there are more victims from privacy infringement than victims from illegal drug trade? I’d like to see some data.
  - chclt 4y ago
    The people affected by the drug trade are not affected by the act of selling drugs but by secondary crimes (which arise because selling drugs is illegal and vendors cannot take advantage of the legal framework). Also the people affected by this incident alone number in the millions.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      How many people will die or have their lives destroyed because of this incident?
      - chclt 4y ago
        As a sibling comment to mine points out, people who "die or have their life destroyed" is simply one way to define victim in this context. With mental health data being at stake here, the amount of victims under this definition could also very well be non-zero. Anyway there are a lot of crimes, that don't produce those kind of victims. If I mug someone and don't kill them or destroy their life in the process, have I not commited a crime? The privacy infringement here is an obvious damage to the dignity of everyone affected. Wouldn't you feel victimized if I listened in on you speaking with your doctor, wrote everything down, stamped your name, address, and date of birth on it and started giving out copies of the resulting paper to random people? Which is exactly whats happening here, except my example is more harmless by a factor of a few million people and has a lot fewer data points.
uoaei 4y ago
Do you think this kind of rhetoric, acting as if this is literally the first time this idea has ever been considered, is helpful for conversation?
- p1esk 4y ago
  The conversation is around how to prevent similar white collar crimes. I'm sure it has been discussed before. I'm not sure what the conclusion is. Please provide some helpful information if you have any.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    You've left about 10 comments on this topic posing questions and soliciting information from other people. Curiosity is good of course, but at some point you should consider contributing information to support your point of view instead of expecting everyone else to provide you with information. It's not like you're a judge in this case with decisional authority and an obligation to assess the fact pattern in splendid isolation.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      Sure. My view - we need concrete data about the actual harm done in cases like this. We have such data for most other types of crimes. In my opinion, saying that something bad "can" happen is not sufficient to determine the punishment. Note this is not the same as being against punishing illegal sale of private data.
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        Seems like a business opportunity for you.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    A note to the reader: this is how debate-bros corner you into bullshit arguments. Best to disengage from this kind of bad-faith posturing, no matter how much they insist on their "intentions".
p_j_w 4y ago
>Is it as serious as selling drugs? Absolutely. It is 100% worse than selling drugs to willing buyers. How is this even a question?
- p1esk 4y ago
  How about selling nuclear weapons to willing buyers? Serious question. Willing drug users don't just destroy their own lives.
  - p_j_w 4y ago
    Guess we better outlaw everything but fruits and vegetables then.
SergeAx 4y ago
Why would we ever need this? We never compare rape and murder, for that matter. We have the entire justice system for that, with judges and courts and prosecutors and defenders and jurys.
- p1esk 4y ago
  We never compare rape and murder Of course we do. We, as a society, have decided that murder is a more serious offense, and assigned a punishment for each accordingly. This process has to be repeated every time a new type of crime emerges.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Why are we trying to mash everything down to a one-dimensional ranking? Over simplification can be as deceptive as over-complication. A breach of one's personal data is clearly less severe than a violent attack upon one's person. But the former could enable the latter (eg if information were purchased by a stalker). And it certainly increases the base level of risk from fraud and adversarial commercial contact (secretly exploiting knowledge of a target to manipulate them into a purchase/sale decision). Now scale the individual loss up by huge numbers of people, and consider what incentives led to the information security failure. While it's sometimes practical to remediate individual losses of privacy, at scale future injuries are virtually assured. It seems to me that this warrants an application of strict liability principles. As for restitution, in ym view not only should injured parties be compensated in cash (and much more of it), but they should also be granted, individually or by proxy, partial ownership of the offending firm; that is, existing investors should have the value of their asset significantly diluted. The loss of personal security should be reflected in a loss of financial security to the asset holders.
- p1esk 4y ago
  You make good points, and I actually agree with your suggestions. My original concern was not so much about what constitutes a "fair punishment" in this particular case, but about how is this crime is being perceived by our society, and especially how it is perceived by society (i.e. an average American) when compared to some other crimes? I'm more interested in higher level questions: How do we decide on the severity of a crime? Who should decide that?