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Why privacy is important, and having "nothing to hide" is irrelevant (2016)
- ranger_danger 2y agoSomething people never seem to understand is data leaks and/or mishandling of your info. Even if you have "nothing to hide", companies that hold your data, and subsequently sell it/abuse it/get it leaked somehow, can be a powerful tool used to take advantage of people, and manipulated leaked data is frequently blindly trusted, which could easily be used to frame someone for a crime for example. The only way to keep your privacy is to not let those companies have your data in the first place, so in that sense everyone should care about privacy even if they don't inherently do anything wrong in the moment. Another related quote I like to share is "if you have nothing to hide, then pull down your pants and hand me your unlocked phone."
- Zelphyr 2y agoWhen people say, “I have nothing to hide.” I remind them that they have a door on their bathroom and curtains over their windows for perfectly innocent yet no less valid reasons.
- spencerchubb 2y agoI have curtains not because I feel compelled to hide, but because outsiders don't want to see what happens in my home.
- rolph 2y agothe last numbers i looked at suggest 1 in 1000, would have a keenly pRurient interest.
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- amelius 2y agoAlso, I ask them what they earn.
- Zelphyr 2y agoAlso what their debit card pin is or what their email and bank account passwords are.
- riversflow 2y agoI only use those things because of others.
- IndySun 2y ago>...When people say, “I have nothing to hide.” I remind them that they have a door on their bathroom... This was my 'go to' question for several years but it wasn't long until I met someone (we're actually now good friends) who gladly leaves the loo door open and do whatever in full view of anyone. From there I ended up with sturdier concepts, some listed below.
- CTDOCodebases 2y agoAnother way to deal with this is to comment on their smartphone perhaps saying something like "Oh is that the new iPhone? Can I have a look" then ask them to unlock it. If they do so turn the phone away from them and start clicking on random apps or the settings and take a photos of the screen.
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- kstrauser 2y agoI take that a step further to highlight the point: I don’t do anything illegal in my bathroom, but damned if I want a camera in there.
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- begueradj 2y agoThe title summarizes it perfectly well. And all people have things to hide -especially those who say they have nothing to hide.
- mzajc 2y agoAnother argument I hear often is that "they have no reason to surveil boring ordinary individuals." Sure nobody might have bothered to look into your private exchanges past aggregable metadata until half a decade or so ago, but with recent advancements in LLMs it takes mere moments to summarize or search through large batches of messages.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoThis can quickly evoke Godwin's law by stating jews living in europe (and the US) were boring ordinary individuals, until they weren't. Likewise, currently in Europe there's been an anti-muslim (boring, ordinary individuals) sentiment, where if certain people / factions gain enough power, they will be targeted - insofar as they aren't already.
- majorchord 2y agoPrivacy is not related to genocide.
- majorchord 2y ago> boring ordinary individuals "Ah yes, we can see that boring Johnny goes to Starbucks every Tuesday at 9am, nobody will believe the crime we're about to pin on them! Thanks to 1984 Incorporated for giving us all their data about him to make it look like the perfect crime."
- trod123 2y agoYeah it is a heavily flawed argument too. You really can't have a rational argument where someone accepts falsehoods as legitimate. Those people are inherently blind. The people who were massacred at Hue would likely attest to the falsity of that fact if they had somehow survived. The general story is the VC (communists) took Hue during Vietnam and their leadership had information that had been collected by the Russians on who spoke with Americans as dossiers. Once they took Hue, they went door to door clipboards in hand and killed every single family that had an American connection. Even today, the death estimate is not solid as they burned a lot of bodies before a count could be determined after-the-fact. That massacre largely wouldn't have been possible, or as targeted without information gathering done beforehand. Any covert information gathering is an openly hostile intention and act. Its a necessary pre-requisite for any successful attack on your person.
- w4rh4wk5 2y ago> If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. I've always taken issues with this phrase as many people would be lead to believe the opposite as well: If you have something to hide, you have something to fear. Which further suggests that as soon as there's anything you want to hide, that has to be something criminal. Of course, this is utter garbage. People _do_ have things to hide, and it is rarely criminal / unlawful.
- swores 2y agoNo it doesn't imply anything criminal. Many people have things they wish to hide that have nothing to do with being illegal, from reasons for being fired from their last job to the amount of alcohol they're drinking alone at home to nude photos they shared with an ex, to... anything. There's a huge number of things to be potentially embarrassed about, ranging from things that most other people would say there's no need for embarrassment all the way up to things that could be career- or relationship- ending even though fully legal.
- trod123 2y agoAgreed, and sensitive information can be used to coerce and harass/bully. Imagine situations where pregnancies and the mere fact that it happened is grounds for the family to throw you out, based on intolerance of their religious beliefs. Anything that runs contrary to social moors which are no longer cohesive or consistent thanks in large part to marxism (woke/cancel culture) and an undue nihilistic influence, is fair game under critical theory. There was a big article about 10 years ago (iirc), where as a result of Target's marketing department (data aggregation), the father knew before the daughter that she was pregnant based on her shopping habits (which they correlated to pregnancy).
- gklitz 2y agoAny politician pirring forth this stupid statement needs to be asked if they are willing to submit to having their lives filmed 24/7 with no censorship of anything. They won’t even let us see their “private” messages to other politicians let alone let us see them neglect their families.
- advael 2y agoI think most people who say "I have nothing to hide" are just mimicking a slogan they no doubt heard someone they respect or at least think talks well say Another common refrain, especially since Snowden, is just glib defeatism ("they already have all my info anyway") which is also a poor way to think about policy (and to make personal choices, but I won't argue those with most people) I really think the main reason people are complacent is more often that the spying is abstract to them. They wouldn't like it if someone were pointing a big camera through their window, but data being aggregated through their phone and smart home gadgets and computer and CCTVs in public places and leaks on distant websites doesn't register in their actual attention, so it doesn't emotionally feel like a big deal to them
- w0m 2y ago> spying is abstract to them. Not just spying, but for many/most - the harm is also. Most people struggle on the day-to-day; getting worked up that a random boogieman is compiling a profile on them to serve ads leads to a big pile of 'so?'. When Windows Recall was announced as an example; I started asking (non tech, mostly boomer) people their take on it. I almost universally got a 'neat!' response. The security implications simply didn't register or matter, even when I explained them. I felt like I should be wearing a tin foil hat.
- advael 2y agoMost animals are bad at learning stochastic or even unreliable patterns, even when doing important things like threat assessment
- mdp2021 2y ago> for many/most - the harm is also [abstract] Tell them that persecutions have historically been more effective in places where institutionalized profiling was in place.
- slg 2y agoBecause who you are keeping something private from is often more important than what you are keeping private. For example, there are plenty of things I would be fine sharing with the anonymous internet that I wouldn't share with my coworkers. My coworkers knowing something embarrassing about me has obvious harm. There is no real harm in strangers knowing something embarrassing about me. And companies and governments are both largely strangers. I think the fundamental problem with the pro-privacy side of the debate is an inability to communicate why privacy matters in way that makes sense to people who think like this. The argument always seems to come down to some dystopian future in which this information is abused, but hypotheticals like that are just never very motivating when people have so many more pressing issues that are causing clear and immediate harm rather than some hypothetical future harm.
- lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago"Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say." Ed Snowden
- majorchord 2y agoThat was already quoted in the article you didn't read
- tbm57 2y agoSo, suggestions on how to combat this?
- rolph 2y agodont try to simply shut the data off. salt and poison the data.
- majorchord 2y agoI would strongly suggest not doing this, because nobody will believe you when you claim the data is fake after they try to use it against you.
- rolph 2y agoso people would actually belive i live in antarctica, and i am a martian colonist, and imbibe a pint of molten lava each morning? i dont want anyone to belive it, i want it to be so fantastic it is invalidated. such as glue on pizza. thanx for the concern, i get what you are saying.
- ranger_danger 2y agovery insightful perspective, thank you!
- majorchord 2y agohttps://www.privacyguides.org/ https://www.privacyguides.org/ https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.techlore.tech/goincognito https://www.techlore.tech/goincognito https://anonymousplanet.org/ https://anonymousplanet.org/ https://github.com/pluja/awesome-privacy https://github.com/pluja/awesome-privacy disclaimer: some of these groups hate each other, I have no affiliations and don't know the history of them, I'm just compiling resources in no particular order here.
- Terr_ 2y agoMany "nothing to hide" proponents implicitly assume the only problem involves fact-based investigation by mostly-principled agents of a non-corrupt regime that has the same values people are comfy with today. However that's nowhere near the whole issue. We should also be scared of cases where some investigator or agency goes: "We need to make an example of somebody and That Dude is close enough." Or where regime changes and suddenly everything you didn't care about is dangerous and does need to be hidden, like where volunteering in a pro-democracy group or having an abortion retroactively becomes a sentence to the reeducation gulag. > Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'. -- Snuff by Terry Pratchett
- trgn 2y agoShow me the man, and I'll show you the crime.
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y agoEh, the real issue is companies are being hacked, or they sell data to criminals
- trod123 2y agoThe real issue is companies are incentivized to be hacked, and to collect everything so they can sell it as a subscription. They have almost no liability for improperly securing their own systems and they allocate their budget accordingly. There is a general presumption of no liability for software flaws. The execs gamble at whether or not they'll be hit with a data breach, or hit the jackpot (before they move on with their shares vested). Its a simple calculus of headcount affected by cost of identity protection services for x time vs. ongoing recurring costs.
- fileseeder 2y agoGreat text. Even if you have nothing to hide, that doesn't mind we can be ok with constant peeking into our privacy.
- adolph 2y agoyou self-censor as a result, the rest of us lose your perspective, and the development of further ideas is stifled. This component of privacy reminds me of “Preference Falsification,” a phenomenon described by Taimur Kuran. Although Kuran’s examples are often of Eastern Europe, this essay puts it in terms of US politics of 50 years ago. https://www.econlib.org/how-timur-kuran-changed-my-thinking/ https://www.econlib.org/how-timur-kuran-changed-my-thinking/ Important paper to recommend as always, Soloave’s “ 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy” written after the article but by a thinker who is cited in it. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 And also “Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime” https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2203713 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2203713
- okasaki 2y agoPrivacy also allows rich people to hide their wealth and avoid taxes, it allows secret government agencies and other powerful organizations to publish anonymously and influence public life in illegitimate ways, and other bad things. Finally, privacy is inherently anti-"information wants to be free".
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoThis is a common anti-privacy talking point, it meaning criminal behaviour will stay hidden. That's the cost of having that right. Like hearing someone say something you don't like - free speech. People believing something you don't - freedom of religion. Anyway, rich people are failing more and more to hide their wealth and avoid taxes; their lives are private, their businesses are not, not when they are beholden to the laws, rights, and duties of the country they live or do business in. Secret government agencies are not secret in a democratic country - since if they were, you wouldn't know about them. You're conflating privacy with secrecy and / or hiding shady things; those are different things. It took whistleblowers like Snowden and Assange to uncover these things. That said, that's an interesting case to look at; it uncovered immoral government activity on the one hand, but especially with the Assange cases, because they were not careful with people's privacy, it also uncovered the identity of agents (= violated their privacy), which cost them their life.
- luxuryballs 2y agofreedom is so often the shadow of privacy, thinking of being “secure in your papers against search” in the 1700s makes me imagine the authors didn’t want the government to easily know private things such as my income which back then required a lot more physical access Oh and on that note the reason for a warrant is to show YOU that the government has invoked the law IN ADVANCE, it’s not for anyone else but YOU, “no-knock warrants” take a very important aspect of why we require a warrant out of the equation, it’s absurd
- lifeisstillgood 2y agoSecrets are real (and hard to keep), but privacy is just the politeness of your neighbours. We should never confuse the two - people seem to think that a right to privacy means a right to secrecy. It does not and never can. People have behaved badly enough with so called online anonymity. We will have our entire lives stripped bare and laid out on a digital plate - this will enable an incredible outpouring of new lessons, psychological, criminal, mental health and happiness - if we treat it right. If we give individuals control over who can use their information, if we ensure PII is treated like a lawyer treats their clients confessions, that epidemiology can get what advertisers never can, we shall find that it’s not “no-one can ever know” but “health researchers can know, but I would rather my employer does not and I hope my friends understand” We spend 20 years training children as to what is and is not acceptable in polite society - and it’s going to take a generation to figure this new set of etiquette out - but I am betting the juice is worth the squeeze Edit: in short, it’s not the data that’s collected, it’s who uses it and how. Focus on that.
- n1b 2y agoIndividuals do have a right to privacy and, by extension, secrecy. You are not entitled to information others do not want you to have, no matter how well-intentioned or well-resourced you are. The only sort of society where your view should be acceptable is a society where every individual accepts their every thought and action is observed equally by all other complicit individuals.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago> You are not entitled to information others do not want you to have, no matter how well-intentioned or well-resourced you are. Counterpoint: taxes. By living in a country, you are subject to their laws. Said laws require you to pay taxes on things like income and property. I'm aware this is attempted to be kept secret at a large scale, but when it comes down to it, by living in a country you agree to submit or have collected that information to the responsible authority.
- lifeisstillgood 2y agoNo. We build our societies to be as beneficial for us whilst accepting the compromises. Cars are waaaay better than horses. So now we have systems of licensing, proving you are capable of driving safely, ways to track your car ensure it is driven safely - perhaps originally if a police officer saw you and now every minute of the day we can see if you are speeding or potentially dangerous We did all this over time, but the current system woukd give Sherlock Holmes a heart attack. But we had to find ways for millions and millions to live on top of each other - it is not perfect and can be improved - and should be done with care.
- pwython 2y agoI'll admit I'm someone who has always said "I have nothing to hide." Do I want someone physically recording me outside my window while changing clothes? No. But the majority of the time, we're just talking about targeted advertisements (which I actually prefer over random crap). Or a system that listens to keywords on phone calls that may identify and deter a terrorist threat. I don't see how this relates to "freedoms of expression." Before the downvotes, please give me an example of where I should be scared. I'm open to learning.
- buildbuildbuild 2y agoWill you ever have regrets about your words and activities? Will your logged activities of today be acceptable to every regime in your nation’s future?
- advael 2y agoDuring the cold war and the GWOT, people were profiled based on their race, religion, suspected opinions, or association with people suspected of {commun,terror}ism. A ton of these correlations were spurious, sometimes corruptly motivated, and yet the justification of fear caused people to be blackballed in their careers, targeted by law enforcement entrapment, or even just spirited away on thin pretexts. This is in the USA, not East Germany or North Korea. Now, we have much more sophisticated data collection and analysis, and false positives are still very frequent Also, more mundanely, among the data that's collected by various unaccountable agencies, including nonconsensually, as in the case of things like Equifax, can be used to impersonate you and frame you for crimes, or just steal/use your money. This happens to millions of random people every year and is a direct consequence of a loss of privacy. A loss of privacy has systemic consequences that change society for the worse. But even if you don't care about anyone but yourself, privacy erosion creates an ever-increasing chance of your life being ruined by overzealous governments making a mistake, or criminals targeting no one in particular but randomly getting you by happenstance
- gregmac 2y agoWould you be okay with people reading and questioning your search history, and any activity or messages ever posted on any site? How about your family members, or doctor, or insurer? How about during a job/school/TV interview? Are you happy to share your net worth, bank and credit account balance and activity with advertisers? Are you ok with some AI determining (based on its opaque reasoning) that you are a potential terrorist threat, and should be imprisoned? Even if you are okay with all the above, do you recognize that not all of society would agree and that some people could even be put into grave danger due to eg: political, religious, sexual etc views? In an extreme case, if "most" people are open and "have nothing to hide", it means that everyone who isn't open must "have something to hide" and should be persecuted. Normalizing this openness actually inches us toward this extreme. Also you should recognize that your answer based on today's government and political parties may not resemble the parties that hold power in the future. Does an extreme group -- who is the farthest from your own views and in fact violently disagrees with your lifestyle choices -- taking power in the future not worry you at all?
- acqbu 2y ago* privacy IS important * lists gmail address in footer
- nayuki 2y agoPeople can create whatever email address they want. People can choose to disclose whatever information they want. Privacy is about not being forced to disclose things you don't want.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoGuess what, your home address is in many public registers as well. It's an e-mail address, publically addressable, even guessable, not the contents of their mailbox.
- nlawalker 2y ago> I have nothing to hide > Because no one is trying to hurt you From https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-exploding-messages https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-exploding-messages (2018) (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17357992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17357992)
- mdp2021 2y agoCriminals have something to hide. Subjects have nothing to hide. Men have everything to hide.
- kareiva 2y agoLet's turn the tables around. I care about free speech but I have nothing to say. Most people don't have much to say but when they do, they need to be able to play their free speech card. Similarly, I think most people don't have much to hide, but when they want their legitimate privacy, they should have all the tools and rights to it.
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- tb_technical 2y agoPeople who believe "I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear" have poor judgement about their own vulnerability in the modern world. They are not fit to make policy decisions about the privacy of others. These people should be told this in no uncertain terms.
- CTDOCodebases 2y ago"It's not that I have something to hide it's that I have nothing I want to show you"
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- class4behavior 2y agoPrivacy is not about secrets. Privacy is the right to sovereignty over one's personal/intimate sphere - whether it's insight to information about oneself or physical contact. The right to consent, for instance, would be a component of the right to privacy. It's about power. And by extension it's about the power balance between the people and any intruder of their private sphere, whether it's a friend, a stranger, the public, the state, the law and so on. In other words, the less privacy there is the less effective power both the individual as well as the entire people have. That's why it's a basic human right.
- trod123 2y agoOn a side note, it is also a critical dependency to safeguard that right in the first place. A right to history and culture is also another dependency since people are functions of the culture they learn from their parents. The burning of books which destroys culture is universally accepted to be a bad thing, but its still done indirectly today (libraries budget is dependent on circulation metrics, classics may not be checked out often, books not circulated well get donated to third-parties who pulp, or resell and then pulp if not sold within a period of time. Even Goodwill does this for content they deem is unsuitable, which is a value-based decision from some unstated individual.
- dancemethis 2y agoYou put that close to Discord's office, a bunch of bats fly out from the windows...
- thrdbndndn 2y agoA better argument is "I choose to sacrifice my privacy for the convenience" which I honestly think is a fine attitude. And by "convenience" it doesn't have to be something substantial. Sometimes, it's just that "I'm too busy with my life already so I choose to not think about the privacy implication and wish the odds are in my favor".
- talkingtab 2y agoIf you have nothing to hide, here is simple and quick to do list: 1. Post all your personal information online is a public place on the internet. This should include all your personal records, your bank accounts, your drivers license, job history. Also include a list of all websites you have visited, the user names and passwords for all online accounts. 2. List the same information for your spouse or partner, children and parents. 3. Take your car keys, house keys, credit cards and such object and leave them in a public place with a note showing where someone can find the information you posted in item #1 and #2. Congratulations! You have provided conclusive proof that those of us you who protect our privacy are completely silly people. You have won the argument and demonstrated that without a doubt you "have nothing to hide". Please get back to us in a couple of months and let us know how it is going so we foolish people can join you. [edit: people and join you => people can join you.
- fallinditch 2y agoGovernments will always seek more surveillance of citizens - it's like crack to them. If we don't push back and work hard to protect our freedoms and privacy then we will end up in something like Orwell's 1984. See what's happening in China. The surveillance and oppression are particularly severe in the Xinjiang region, where authorities have implemented a multi-layered system of monitoring and control. This includes facial recognition cameras, mobile police checkpoints, and the collection of biometric data. See also [1] We must demand transparency and accountability from those in power, whilst supporting organizations that work to protect our privacy. Similarly, private sector business will always seek more of our personal data in order to make more money, and the tech industry is enabling more intrusive government surveillance. It requires activism to protect our freedom. [1] https://theconversation.com/digital-surveillance-is-omnipresent-in-china-heres-how-citizens-are-coping-225628 https://theconversation.com/digital-surveillance-is-omnipres...
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Governments will always seek more surveillance of citizens Plenty of governments have ceded powers, including surveillance. The Stasi was peacefully disassembled; Pinochet lost in a referendum.
- CTDOCodebases 2y agoThey will seek more surveillance because the majority of the citizenry desires safety and a competent and efficient government over personal freedom. We continue to have societies because the average person realizes that their life would be better on average if they outsourced their personal security to the strongest third party available. Until this third party becomes inconveniently corrupt.
- tptacek 2y agoI just got my local government to drastically ratchet back surveillance powers they already had, through patient organizing and advocacy. It wasn't even all that difficult. This "governments will always seek more surveillance" thing isn't axiomatic; in a lot of cases, it's probably just lazy cynicism.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThe problem with privacy isn’t the rhetoric. This is just crap we, HN visitors who are already of one mind, entertain ourselves with. The problem is the overlap between those who prioritise it and political nihilism. If you want to have fun, argue with a totem. If you want to be effective, find an argument that will motivate making voting and calling electeds a habit. Particularly those who think both are a farce.
- j5155 2y ago“If you’re doing nothing wrong, what is there to fear?” “I’m fearing your definition of wrong.” - Mon Mothma (Andor, 2022) I think this sums it up perfectly.
- haunter 2y agoMy go to reply when this topic comes up IRL and someone has "nothing to hide" that can I have a look at the photos on their phone and the messages? No one ever unlocked their phone for me and they realized they had "things to hide"
- Habgdnv 2y agoImagine this scenario: When I was 18, I openly expressed my hatred for gay people and even reported someone to the police just because they were gay. Now, 60 years later, I’m 78. Society’s values have changed a lot, and those views are now illegal and widely condemned. If someone were to find an old paper where I wrote those hateful things, I could face legal trouble and social backlash for something I once openly believed. The point I want to make is that even if you don't have something to hide today does not mean that you won't be convicted tomorrow. Edit: Someone else gave an example with the abortions, and that they are now illegal in many places.
- renegat0x0 2y agoCommon way of thinking: - "I have nothing to hide" - "they already have all my info anyway" The problem is that people have not seen it directly. They have not seen that someone used their data against them especially. It is done mostly 'behind the scenes'. However it is easy to dismantle these thoughts: - With system of surveillance every politician can be 'under foreign surveillance', which is not a good thought - There were some cases about somebody not receiving insurance due to surveillance. What if you will not receive social money, or benefits. You may even not know why you were treated by government in certain way - You do not know if your data were sold, or trained for AI, or for robot dogs, or for war, or to China (Facebook sold data to china) - Your data can be used against you potentially during your whole life. What if your DM comment might lead to problems with your employment in the future? - Governments change with times. What if some nasty figure, nazi like, becomes a president of let's say for example America. How you can be sure your data will be treated with care, and that it will not be misused, or used against you?
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- hereditarypunk 2y agoI'm not sold on the lack of privacy affecting free speech. If you care strongly enough about a topic or an issue that you want to speak your mind and share your opinion, you accept that your position and words will become public knowledge. The real issue, I would argue, is that of governments becoming repressive and using force or threats against those who assert their right to free speech and civil disobedience. The first issue does not imply the second and I found that they were often confounded in comments, making it sound like they both go hand in hand. I don't believe that to be the case. I'd like to think we can have a healthy democracy while living with increasing surveillance. Let's keep pushing back on governments when they actually infringe on free speech. Like when they start firing people or limiting their rights based on political affiliation or beliefs. Do we still have curfews or vaccine passports? No, people pushed back. Does the government know who got the shot and who didn't and what their stance is around it? I imagine they do.