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> I'll go program video games or something. Or just play them. [post-post-edit[[The funny thing is, I wrote this before reading the last portion of your post.

> I'll go program video games or something. Or just play them. [post-post-edit[[The funny thing is, I wrote this before reading the last portion of your post. No joke. I'm pretty sure the more our privacy is invaded, the more singular an entity a collective mind becomes. (half joke).]]] It still doesn't fix that I feel like we are one step away from the complete loss of thought privacy. I'm 28. I grew up essentially connected to a computer. Half of my personality exists always, in a computer. My entire social life is on the computer, for the entire history of my history. The image I see my existence as is literally half mechanical (I study a lot of math and computer science and code a lot) and half physically organic, and potentially half abstract mental 'thought idea stuff' (extra halves for pointing out that the world is a wibbly, world place). Should the government have been allowed in the past, to have meticulously documented my childhood, my adolescence, my adulthood? Should they have access to my baby photographs? To my first boyfriend? To our first conversations? How does that affect who I choose (or chose) to grow into? Is every step I take a step out of a fear of not conforming to both the present ideal of 'lawful person' but also to all worlds of the potential future ideal? When did I become aware of this, as a child? When did I decide I was cognizant enough to have made this decision? Was it when I turned 18, or was it when technology reached a certain age for the entire population? Do I have to think about every possible way that people can perceive my actions, in order to make sure I stay the way I see myself - which is fundamentally on the basis that I am a good person?

transpy 12y ago
Interesting questions. I think that if you try to answer those questions, you've got an interesting essay right there.
- bigiain 12y ago
  And if you get carried away with that essay, it'd probably make an interesting dystopian near-future science fiction story...
jamiepenney 12y ago
> Do I have to think about every possible way that people can perceive my actions, in order to make sure I stay the way I see myself - which is fundamentally on the basis that I am a good person? This is the money quote for me. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get this through to people: No, I'm not a criminal now. I don't plan to become a criminal in the future. I control my own actions, but I don't control the how my actions are perceived by other people. Should I be arrested because some combination of my purchases today and words written when I was 17 point to me committing a terrorist act? More to the point, should I have to worry about what someone is going to think if a computer flags my metadata as "worth investigation" and they start trawling through the entirety of my online life? What effect does that have on general conversation on the internet? I think the thing I'm most afraid of is how do I explain this to my kids? In 10 years when they start forging their own life online, how do I sit down and explain that everything they do is monitored, and they need to be careful about everything they say and do on the internet? How do I explain that it didn't used to be like that, but we failed to stop it? It sounds melodramatic to type it out, but we've had an unprecedented amount of freedom to communicate with people around the world, and now that's being taken away.
- toyg 12y ago
  > we've had an unprecedented amount of freedom to communicate with people around the world No we have not. We thought we did, but authorities knew better. Remember the cipherpunk crackdown, the crypto wars, NSA tampering with standards etc. They were watching us quietly enough. The real "freedom" existed for a very tiny period between email/news/irc existing and them registering on The Man's radar, which happened fairly quickly (and no thanks to pop media like War Games for popularizing the idea of hordes of teenagers intent on vandalizing essential network infrastructure). The standards developed to respond (PGP, SSL etc) took 15 years to actually get traction (and I bet you're still not using PGP), and as soon as they hit the mainstream, they were attacked and subverted from inside the organizations trying to implement them on a large scale. The freedom we thought we had was a myth. I think this is an important concept to keep in mind, going in this inevitable political negotiation with authorities. They lied when they told us we were free, and they will lie when they'll tell us that "golden" keys will only be used for good. Like you don't talk to the police without a lawyer, you shouldn't hand your encryption to them without a Schneier in the room.

transpy 12y ago

Interesting questions. I think that if you try to answer those questions, you've got an interesting essay right there.

bigiain 12y ago
And if you get carried away with that essay, it'd probably make an interesting dystopian near-future science fiction story...

jamiepenney 12y ago

> Do I have to think about every possible way that people can perceive my actions, in order to make sure I stay the way I see myself - which is fundamentally on the basis that I am a good person? This is the money quote for me. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get this through to people: No, I'm not a criminal now. I don't plan to become a criminal in the future. I control my own actions, but I don't control the how my actions are perceived by other people. Should I be arrested because some combination of my purchases today and words written when I was 17 point to me committing a terrorist act? More to the point, should I have to worry about what someone is going to think if a computer flags my metadata as "worth investigation" and they start trawling through the entirety of my online life? What effect does that have on general conversation on the internet? I think the thing I'm most afraid of is how do I explain this to my kids? In 10 years when they start forging their own life online, how do I sit down and explain that everything they do is monitored, and they need to be careful about everything they say and do on the internet? How do I explain that it didn't used to be like that, but we failed to stop it? It sounds melodramatic to type it out, but we've had an unprecedented amount of freedom to communicate with people around the world, and now that's being taken away.

toyg 12y ago
> we've had an unprecedented amount of freedom to communicate with people around the world No we have not. We thought we did, but authorities knew better. Remember the cipherpunk crackdown, the crypto wars, NSA tampering with standards etc. They were watching us quietly enough. The real "freedom" existed for a very tiny period between email/news/irc existing and them registering on The Man's radar, which happened fairly quickly (and no thanks to pop media like War Games for popularizing the idea of hordes of teenagers intent on vandalizing essential network infrastructure). The standards developed to respond (PGP, SSL etc) took 15 years to actually get traction (and I bet you're still not using PGP), and as soon as they hit the mainstream, they were attacked and subverted from inside the organizations trying to implement them on a large scale. The freedom we thought we had was a myth. I think this is an important concept to keep in mind, going in this inevitable political negotiation with authorities. They lied when they told us we were free, and they will lie when they'll tell us that "golden" keys will only be used for good. Like you don't talk to the police without a lawyer, you shouldn't hand your encryption to them without a Schneier in the room.