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I'm so tired. I wish we didn't have to keep going through constant attacks on our privacy. I know they're hoping that people will give up after a point out of w

I'm so tired. I wish we didn't have to keep going through constant attacks on our privacy. I know they're hoping that people will give up after a point out of weariness, and I'm afraid when it comes to many people they're right.

maerF0x0 3y ago
Part of it is that we buy into it, literally. If you want to stop it, stop buying into companies that are compliant and sell you out in their technology choices.
- sgjohnson 3y ago
  And 3 steps after that you’ll have to go live off grid in a cabin in the woods. As romantic as it sounds, the one single purpose for for-profit companies is to produce shareholder value, and very few of them see shareholder value in keeping a legal department specifically designed for fighting constant and endless attacks on our privacy. Much more profitable to do anything else instead.
  - colinsane 3y ago
    born too late for homesteading to be a skill exercised and shared by a meaningful portion of society; born too early for homesteading to be made accessible via better technology. but a hundred years from now i do think “have to go live in a cabin in the woods” will be more like “get to”. because if that was something everyone could easily manage, i have no doubt i’d find myself in some cabin-in-the-woods community full of all the other wackos like me.
    - sgjohnson 3y ago
      It is highly likely that it's still possible today. All you need is a bunch of other wackos, like you say. Alone? No chance whatsoever. Bundy standoff worked, after all. Of course it has the prerequisite of being willing to die for the cause, which I doubt many people have, aside from the very select few for whom the most important mission in life is to live free. Me? I thoroughly admire such "wackos", but I enjoy the finer things in life way too much for this to be a feasible option for me.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I refuse to believe that we are as powerless to stop oppression as your comment implies.
    - sgjohnson 3y ago
      The absolute vast majority of the population don't care one bit about their privacy. If they did, Google and Meta would be out of business. The only thing they really offer is for advertisers to target really, really specific groups of people thanks to the data they collect from those groups (EVERYONE, except a handful of HN readers and other dissidents) which everyone voluntarily hands over, because they simply don't care. Of course, it's just a symptom of the problem. Refuse to believe all you want, but have a deep think and consider whether the average person cares about his privacy. Even if they say they do. Freedom doesn't sell anymore. Outsourcing virtually every single aspect of your life to a corporation that Just Knows Better(tm) does. Everything is a service. Most of the tech you own is a service, not a physical item. And both things can't be true simultaneously, you can't crave freedom while outsourcing absolutely everything to someone else. Freedom requires you to take over the responsibility over your life, which far too many people simply aren't willing to do. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this is where the society has ended up in.
- Shocka1 3y ago
  I like your vision here, but the average person living in the USA cares about two things - sports and social media. This is an exaggeration and don't get me wrong, I love a good football game here and there, but there is some truth to it. Over the years I've received so many odd looks when I bring up privacy that I've stopped and just accepted that my vote or email to my representative is all I can do. I hate to be cynical, but this train isn't derailing anytime soon. EFF is doing God's work here, but the American citizen will continue to be hypnotized until things get bad enough for them to care, in which it will already be too late.
HeckFeck 3y ago
Remember when major websites used to blackout over TTIP and SOPA? Those were good days. Now many of the same websites (eg Reddit) are owned by large entities who don't care. Probably because they've made their money, so who needs a free Internet?
- BitwiseFool 3y ago
  Cynically, I know each time these platforms do such a thing the response will be less and less effective. The bad-faith actors in government pushing for this know that and have demonstrated that they just need to wait a little while between attempts before resistance diminishes enough to make its passage viable.
- abracadaniel 3y ago
  The walled gardens are so well established now, their business plans no longer rely on a free Internet. We were lucky at the time that our interests aligned, but it was worrying that we were only able to fight those with the help of our favorite corporations. Now we get to see how that plays out with that support.
- api 3y ago
  I bet some of the big social media companies like this legislation because it'll make it harder to run a web site, social media company, or chat app, thus insulating them from competition. Onerous regulations are a kind of regressive tax on businesses, favoring very large firms with big budgets and lobbyists over upstarts and small business.
- phendrenad2 3y ago
  > large entities who don't care. Not only do they not care, they benefit from these laws, because they have the resources to implement new requirements while smaller sites don't.
lagniappe 3y ago
As each generation is born not caring about privacy and posting everything for likes, I fear more are being coached to not have privacy as a priority.
- candiodari 3y ago
  In Europe this was actually done in most countries because of the absurdly incredible damage the (even very limited) information governments had during WW2 did to millions of people. That illustrated that even extremely basic information, including merely a list of all citizens, was abused by governments. And not just for racist reasons, equally to force people into occupying forces (like Russia is doing now in Ukraine) Today we're back to pointing to governments abusing data to target minority children or immigrants to show this. And of course, governments oppose any limiting of the scope of their data collection by pointing out "security issues" (we can't have CHILDREN communicate privately! Look! 3 out of 5 million children got seduced with drugs to go into prostitution!). Of course, governments' collection of data is not even effective, the government GOT it's data collection wishes from 10 years ago that it said was going to use for prevention (police can now access both comments from teachers AND medical reports on any kid) ... and yet the number of children ... went up, not down. And of course, nobody wants to point out that 3 out of 3 of those children ran away from government help first chance they got. Nobody seems to feel this might indicate that perhaps something is wrong with the government, and the government's reputation, that needs to be fixed first. They are of course arguing the solution to their reputation problem is to collect more information on EVERYONE, and use more violence against children for less and less reasons, where any small excuse can be found (because 3 children were actually confirmed to have this happen to them ... the government locked up over 300 children, generally against both their own and their parents wishes. Somehow this didn't make any difference in the numbers at all, and frankly I find it very, very hard to believe the number would have risen 100 TIMES without them doing this)
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Strong men make good times. Good times make weak men. Weak men make bad times. Bad times make strong men.
alexfromapex 3y ago
People need to realize that every good thing the government steals is done through a war of attrition.
whitemary 3y ago
This is why the Chinese pity western "democracy," and it's quite easy to see where they're coming from. Of course, it's well established that the US is merely an oligarchy with a massive domestic propaganda operation.
- JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
  Upvoted because the first sentence might be true, and the second one definitely is. I would say that the US and China are both fantastic examples of why you don't want to allow the construction of a surveillance infrastructure - privatized and public, respectively. We pity each other partially thanks to the propaganda - but I think more importantly because we really are pitiable.
  - winrid 3y ago
    What about Singapore?
duxup 3y ago
I donate to the EFF, is that enough, I don’t know but I feel like I’m doing something.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Well, what quantifiable benefit is the public gaining from the EFF? Do you know where your money goes? Does what they publish reach anybody new? Or is it just preaching to the choir?
  - duxup 3y ago
    I don’t know.
  - menus 3y ago
    Can't give up like this. If there is anything I have learned is that persistence will eventually pay off. Louis Rossmann [1] has been fighting the good fight for right to repair for so many years and while it isn't quite there yet and there have been lots of downs, there have also been lots of ups [2]. Nothing's infallible. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup [2] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-service-repair/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-...
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Nobody's talking about giving up, they're talking about whether an organization is effective in its existing form (unsure). E.g., I stopped giving money to Mozilla because I was dissatisfied by where that money was going, what it wasn't being spent on, what it was being spent on instead, and how ineffective they were. Great that Rossmann got results, but is the methodology that the EFF is using the same as what Rossmann has used? Is it even an appropriate comparison when one is a threat from government, and the other is a matter of anti-consumer ethics with corps?
beauHD 3y ago
> I know they're hoping that people will give up after a point out of weariness This is just yet another attempt at Lawful Interception[0], only this time, on steroids. They will continue to try and erode privacy, and therefore, erode democracy. But we do have tools to combat this at our disposal. My only worry is the outright banning of such tools, then we're royally fucked. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception
Kerrick 3y ago
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Eternal is the key word, too. That's the problem with doing this in law: It will just get introduced over and over perpetually until finally it slips through, and then it's pretty much with us forever. The bad guys only have to win once. The good guys have to win every time.
pksebben 3y ago
I feel like we just have to hold out for another couple of decades - until there aren't any boomers left in government. This whole clusterfuck is a result of old people not knowing their ass from a pihole.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  If history is any guide, the people who will replace the boomers will not be any different. The root cause is not related to age or generation, it's related to power.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    You know, you're probably right and that makes me sad. That said, it's easy for the bad apples to spoil the bunch right now because most congress critters don't actually know what encryption is or how it works - I suppose my hope is that at some point, the Evil Ones™ will have a much harder time convincing the Dumb Ones™ that they're trying to 'protect children' with this kinda nonsense. Of course, then the posts just get kicked down the line to the next new tech that nobody groks, but at least perhaps we can stop fighting this specific one so hard and so frequently.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
- betaby 3y ago
  I EU and Canada such laws are pushed by relatively yang folks as well, like ones in their 40s.
  - yakubin 3y ago
    It’s depressing that in modern times people in their 40s are considered young. In 1776 Alexander Hamilton was 21, Burr was 20, Thomas Jefferson was 33, Madison was 25, and Monroe was 18.
at-fates-hands 3y ago
Sometime in the early aughts (sometime right after 9/11), I remember an interview with a group of three NSA whistle blowers who were coming forward trying to raise the alarm the US govt was using the tools they had developed to stop terror attacks on the US and had turned those tools back on the US population and were gathering unimaginable amounts of data for that purpose on private citizens. Shortly after they came forward, I read an article stating gathering so much data on so many people essentially allowed any real terrorist (domestic or foreign) to essentially hide in plain view because of the amount of data being collected could not be sifted through fast enough to flag any person or group before they were able to carry out an attack. Yes, I'm very much on your side in terms of the constant attacks on our privacy and rights. While at the same time, I acknowledge that there is some inherit defense to them gathering too much data which in some sense allows us to maintain some level of privacy in the meantime.
guy98238710 3y ago
It's a mistake to just protest these proposals. Counter-proposals that push the balance in opposite direction should be made and pushed through, including some that cut down on existing legislation. A lot of good arguments can be made to support them.
- trinsic2 3y ago
  Yes I agree you have to shift your energy to something else, the more you put your energy on dis-empowerment, the stronger it becomes. Take the tools that are being used for the wrong purposes and put them to use for the right purposes.
rdiddly 3y ago
I just keep wondering what the hell is wrong with the people who think junk like this is a good idea. And why there are any. Theory: They're child-molesters themselves?
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  Maybe there is some light in them that says, "Well, if it turns out everyone does <Whatever abhorrent thing they're doing>, then it's not so bad that I did it, right? I could even win brownie points by punishing the other people who did it and absolve myself of my own consciously unrecognizable guilt by doing so, right?"
trinsic2 3y ago
Illegitimate governments stay in power because we legitimize them with our energy. To stop power centralizing requires that the people supporting it shift their energy to something else, preferably local initiatives that center around people doing things for people..
- xkfiebfifbek 3y ago
  but a few ppl with guns and a mandate on violence can maximize the energy they give. there's a reason early central governments were all symbolized by a stick.

maerF0x0 3y ago

Part of it is that we buy into it, literally. If you want to stop it, stop buying into companies that are compliant and sell you out in their technology choices.

sgjohnson 3y ago
And 3 steps after that you’ll have to go live off grid in a cabin in the woods. As romantic as it sounds, the one single purpose for for-profit companies is to produce shareholder value, and very few of them see shareholder value in keeping a legal department specifically designed for fighting constant and endless attacks on our privacy. Much more profitable to do anything else instead.
- colinsane 3y ago
  born too late for homesteading to be a skill exercised and shared by a meaningful portion of society; born too early for homesteading to be made accessible via better technology. but a hundred years from now i do think “have to go live in a cabin in the woods” will be more like “get to”. because if that was something everyone could easily manage, i have no doubt i’d find myself in some cabin-in-the-woods community full of all the other wackos like me.
  - sgjohnson 3y ago
    It is highly likely that it's still possible today. All you need is a bunch of other wackos, like you say. Alone? No chance whatsoever. Bundy standoff worked, after all. Of course it has the prerequisite of being willing to die for the cause, which I doubt many people have, aside from the very select few for whom the most important mission in life is to live free. Me? I thoroughly admire such "wackos", but I enjoy the finer things in life way too much for this to be a feasible option for me.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I refuse to believe that we are as powerless to stop oppression as your comment implies.
  - sgjohnson 3y ago
    The absolute vast majority of the population don't care one bit about their privacy. If they did, Google and Meta would be out of business. The only thing they really offer is for advertisers to target really, really specific groups of people thanks to the data they collect from those groups (EVERYONE, except a handful of HN readers and other dissidents) which everyone voluntarily hands over, because they simply don't care. Of course, it's just a symptom of the problem. Refuse to believe all you want, but have a deep think and consider whether the average person cares about his privacy. Even if they say they do. Freedom doesn't sell anymore. Outsourcing virtually every single aspect of your life to a corporation that Just Knows Better(tm) does. Everything is a service. Most of the tech you own is a service, not a physical item. And both things can't be true simultaneously, you can't crave freedom while outsourcing absolutely everything to someone else. Freedom requires you to take over the responsibility over your life, which far too many people simply aren't willing to do. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this is where the society has ended up in.
Shocka1 3y ago
I like your vision here, but the average person living in the USA cares about two things - sports and social media. This is an exaggeration and don't get me wrong, I love a good football game here and there, but there is some truth to it. Over the years I've received so many odd looks when I bring up privacy that I've stopped and just accepted that my vote or email to my representative is all I can do. I hate to be cynical, but this train isn't derailing anytime soon. EFF is doing God's work here, but the American citizen will continue to be hypnotized until things get bad enough for them to care, in which it will already be too late.

HeckFeck 3y ago

Remember when major websites used to blackout over TTIP and SOPA? Those were good days. Now many of the same websites (eg Reddit) are owned by large entities who don't care. Probably because they've made their money, so who needs a free Internet?

BitwiseFool 3y ago
Cynically, I know each time these platforms do such a thing the response will be less and less effective. The bad-faith actors in government pushing for this know that and have demonstrated that they just need to wait a little while between attempts before resistance diminishes enough to make its passage viable.
abracadaniel 3y ago
The walled gardens are so well established now, their business plans no longer rely on a free Internet. We were lucky at the time that our interests aligned, but it was worrying that we were only able to fight those with the help of our favorite corporations. Now we get to see how that plays out with that support.
api 3y ago
I bet some of the big social media companies like this legislation because it'll make it harder to run a web site, social media company, or chat app, thus insulating them from competition. Onerous regulations are a kind of regressive tax on businesses, favoring very large firms with big budgets and lobbyists over upstarts and small business.
phendrenad2 3y ago
> large entities who don't care. Not only do they not care, they benefit from these laws, because they have the resources to implement new requirements while smaller sites don't.

lagniappe 3y ago

As each generation is born not caring about privacy and posting everything for likes, I fear more are being coached to not have privacy as a priority.

candiodari 3y ago
In Europe this was actually done in most countries because of the absurdly incredible damage the (even very limited) information governments had during WW2 did to millions of people. That illustrated that even extremely basic information, including merely a list of all citizens, was abused by governments. And not just for racist reasons, equally to force people into occupying forces (like Russia is doing now in Ukraine) Today we're back to pointing to governments abusing data to target minority children or immigrants to show this. And of course, governments oppose any limiting of the scope of their data collection by pointing out "security issues" (we can't have CHILDREN communicate privately! Look! 3 out of 5 million children got seduced with drugs to go into prostitution!). Of course, governments' collection of data is not even effective, the government GOT it's data collection wishes from 10 years ago that it said was going to use for prevention (police can now access both comments from teachers AND medical reports on any kid) ... and yet the number of children ... went up, not down. And of course, nobody wants to point out that 3 out of 3 of those children ran away from government help first chance they got. Nobody seems to feel this might indicate that perhaps something is wrong with the government, and the government's reputation, that needs to be fixed first. They are of course arguing the solution to their reputation problem is to collect more information on EVERYONE, and use more violence against children for less and less reasons, where any small excuse can be found (because 3 children were actually confirmed to have this happen to them ... the government locked up over 300 children, generally against both their own and their parents wishes. Somehow this didn't make any difference in the numbers at all, and frankly I find it very, very hard to believe the number would have risen 100 TIMES without them doing this)
Dalewyn 3y ago
Strong men make good times. Good times make weak men. Weak men make bad times. Bad times make strong men.

alexfromapex 3y ago

People need to realize that every good thing the government steals is done through a war of attrition.

whitemary 3y ago

This is why the Chinese pity western "democracy," and it's quite easy to see where they're coming from. Of course, it's well established that the US is merely an oligarchy with a massive domestic propaganda operation.

JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
Upvoted because the first sentence might be true, and the second one definitely is. I would say that the US and China are both fantastic examples of why you don't want to allow the construction of a surveillance infrastructure - privatized and public, respectively. We pity each other partially thanks to the propaganda - but I think more importantly because we really are pitiable.
- winrid 3y ago
  What about Singapore?

duxup 3y ago

I donate to the EFF, is that enough, I don’t know but I feel like I’m doing something.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
Well, what quantifiable benefit is the public gaining from the EFF? Do you know where your money goes? Does what they publish reach anybody new? Or is it just preaching to the choir?
- duxup 3y ago
  I don’t know.
- menus 3y ago
  Can't give up like this. If there is anything I have learned is that persistence will eventually pay off. Louis Rossmann [1] has been fighting the good fight for right to repair for so many years and while it isn't quite there yet and there have been lots of downs, there have also been lots of ups [2]. Nothing's infallible. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup [2] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-service-repair/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-...
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Nobody's talking about giving up, they're talking about whether an organization is effective in its existing form (unsure). E.g., I stopped giving money to Mozilla because I was dissatisfied by where that money was going, what it wasn't being spent on, what it was being spent on instead, and how ineffective they were. Great that Rossmann got results, but is the methodology that the EFF is using the same as what Rossmann has used? Is it even an appropriate comparison when one is a threat from government, and the other is a matter of anti-consumer ethics with corps?

beauHD 3y ago

> I know they're hoping that people will give up after a point out of weariness This is just yet another attempt at Lawful Interception[0], only this time, on steroids. They will continue to try and erode privacy, and therefore, erode democracy. But we do have tools to combat this at our disposal. My only worry is the outright banning of such tools, then we're royally fucked. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception

Kerrick 3y ago

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

ryandrake 3y ago
Eternal is the key word, too. That's the problem with doing this in law: It will just get introduced over and over perpetually until finally it slips through, and then it's pretty much with us forever. The bad guys only have to win once. The good guys have to win every time.

pksebben 3y ago

I feel like we just have to hold out for another couple of decades - until there aren't any boomers left in government. This whole clusterfuck is a result of old people not knowing their ass from a pihole.

JohnFen 3y ago
If history is any guide, the people who will replace the boomers will not be any different. The root cause is not related to age or generation, it's related to power.
- pksebben 3y ago
  You know, you're probably right and that makes me sad. That said, it's easy for the bad apples to spoil the bunch right now because most congress critters don't actually know what encryption is or how it works - I suppose my hope is that at some point, the Evil Ones™ will have a much harder time convincing the Dumb Ones™ that they're trying to 'protect children' with this kinda nonsense. Of course, then the posts just get kicked down the line to the next new tech that nobody groks, but at least perhaps we can stop fighting this specific one so hard and so frequently.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
betaby 3y ago
I EU and Canada such laws are pushed by relatively yang folks as well, like ones in their 40s.
- yakubin 3y ago
  It’s depressing that in modern times people in their 40s are considered young. In 1776 Alexander Hamilton was 21, Burr was 20, Thomas Jefferson was 33, Madison was 25, and Monroe was 18.

at-fates-hands 3y ago

Sometime in the early aughts (sometime right after 9/11), I remember an interview with a group of three NSA whistle blowers who were coming forward trying to raise the alarm the US govt was using the tools they had developed to stop terror attacks on the US and had turned those tools back on the US population and were gathering unimaginable amounts of data for that purpose on private citizens. Shortly after they came forward, I read an article stating gathering so much data on so many people essentially allowed any real terrorist (domestic or foreign) to essentially hide in plain view because of the amount of data being collected could not be sifted through fast enough to flag any person or group before they were able to carry out an attack. Yes, I'm very much on your side in terms of the constant attacks on our privacy and rights. While at the same time, I acknowledge that there is some inherit defense to them gathering too much data which in some sense allows us to maintain some level of privacy in the meantime.

guy98238710 3y ago

It's a mistake to just protest these proposals. Counter-proposals that push the balance in opposite direction should be made and pushed through, including some that cut down on existing legislation. A lot of good arguments can be made to support them.

trinsic2 3y ago
Yes I agree you have to shift your energy to something else, the more you put your energy on dis-empowerment, the stronger it becomes. Take the tools that are being used for the wrong purposes and put them to use for the right purposes.

rdiddly 3y ago

I just keep wondering what the hell is wrong with the people who think junk like this is a good idea. And why there are any. Theory: They're child-molesters themselves?

BizarroLand 3y ago
Maybe there is some light in them that says, "Well, if it turns out everyone does <Whatever abhorrent thing they're doing>, then it's not so bad that I did it, right? I could even win brownie points by punishing the other people who did it and absolve myself of my own consciously unrecognizable guilt by doing so, right?"

trinsic2 3y ago

Illegitimate governments stay in power because we legitimize them with our energy. To stop power centralizing requires that the people supporting it shift their energy to something else, preferably local initiatives that center around people doing things for people..

xkfiebfifbek 3y ago
but a few ppl with guns and a mandate on violence can maximize the energy they give. there's a reason early central governments were all symbolized by a stick.