5 ms·

I'm 27, living in Toronto. Most of my acquaintances say things like "I have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother me", or "Dropbox is just so convenient, it does

by cryptoz 12y ago

I'm 27, living in Toronto. Most of my acquaintances say things like "I have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother me", or "Dropbox is just so convenient, it doesn't matter about the NSA". It's upsetting. There continues to be very little discussion about the large-scale, societal effects from a total surveillance society: Writers and artists self-censoring themselves; power structures able to spy on, and control, entire populations; etc. The discussion should really be framed on the tragedy of the commons perspective: even if you don't care, that decision affects everyone. You should care, if not for your own privacy's sake, for our society's protection for its own decision-making ability. Edit: From the article, discussing post-Snowden public opinion, showing that even when we care the most, a minority of people care about this: > In that poll, a record-high 39 percent said government should not intrude on privacy, even if it limits the ability to investigate possible threats."

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "I'm 27, living in Toronto. Most of my acquaintances say things like "I have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother me", or "Dropbox is just so convenient, it doesn't matter about the NSA". It's upsetting." I've been pretty angry about the revelations over the last year. I'm a private person and don't want the government violating that. However - even though I don't say the things your friends are saying I still use Dropbox because getting my clients to switch would be a pain. I still use Google because DuckDuckGo just isn't good enough for me. I don't want to give up my privacy to anyone but it's just so easy to do without thinking the consequences through.
- cryptoz 12y ago
  Right - that's fair, in my opinion. For work, I use closed-source software including Dropbox too. I should specify that I agree this is difficult or impossible to avoid, and that using these tools enables us to build things faster, which potentially is worth using them. I do it, too. But I do want everyone to care. If you're using the tool because it's convenient, and you know that it could be spying on you, you should care about that. Apathy is what I'm fighting here, not Dropbox exactly. I would love to move my work away from Gmail, Dropbox, etc, someday, but today isn't that day. (Uh-oh, am I like the rest of them?)
  - TillE 12y ago
    There's an odd view among opponents of various issues (eg, environmentalism) that if proponents can't do everything, then they're terrible hypocrites who may as well not do anything. This is of course ridiculous. You do what you can personally, and you try to influence government policy. But not everyone can be a full-time activist.
  - dasil003 12y ago
    I would go even further that moving away from cloud services is nothing more than an individual mitigation that comes at a huge inconvenience and will have no meaningful effect on the real problem. The fact that strong crypto is possible becomes this red herring that computer geeks think can save us from abusive government. But this ignores the fact that true security from government actors like the NSA is impossible without a level of inconvenience that no one will be willing to go through. Cloud services are just too convenient, and there is no way to establish meaningful assurances of privacy with any cloud provider in the current legal climate. We have to fight the ugly political fight to wrestle the power back and put the government in its place. This is unappealing to technologists because it is orders of magnitude harder to accomplish than implementing strong crypto for someone who knows what they're doing, but in turn it is orders of magnitude easier than training up the mass populace on those techniques.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      I bet we could design an adequately consumer-friendly self-hosted cloud-like system, if the existing attempts are inadequate (PogpPlug, AeroFS, Tarsnap, etc.)
- bsbechtel 12y ago
  DuckDuckGo has made vast strides over the past year, and you choosing to set them as your default browser will only help them improve faster. I had the same complaint as you roughly a year ago, and forced myself to switch for a month or so. After that month, I had gotten used to DuckDuckGo and haven't switched back. 99% of what I need can be found there, and for that last 1% of searches, it takes me approximately 500 milliseconds longer to type www.google.com into my browser address bar.
  - ewzimm 12y ago
    Don't waste time typing that, just use !s before your search for StartPage or !g if you want regular Google.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    I might try it again now. My issue tends to be obscure programming related questions. I also occasionally click the shipping tab on Google to get a rough price for a product I'm researching.
EC1 12y ago
A bit off topic but I'm also from Toronto as well looking for developer friends. I'm around cityplace. m [at] eveo [dot] org if you want to grab a coffee and talk. I feel the same way about privacy. I lose my mind when I hear "I have nothing to hide". There is nothing you can say or do. They already know the risks and what's happening, they just truly do not care.

by cryptoz 12y ago

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "I'm 27, living in Toronto. Most of my acquaintances say things like "I have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother me", or "Dropbox is just so convenient, it doesn't matter about the NSA". It's upsetting." I've been pretty angry about the revelations over the last year. I'm a private person and don't want the government violating that. However - even though I don't say the things your friends are saying I still use Dropbox because getting my clients to switch would be a pain. I still use Google because DuckDuckGo just isn't good enough for me. I don't want to give up my privacy to anyone but it's just so easy to do without thinking the consequences through.

cryptoz 12y ago
Right - that's fair, in my opinion. For work, I use closed-source software including Dropbox too. I should specify that I agree this is difficult or impossible to avoid, and that using these tools enables us to build things faster, which potentially is worth using them. I do it, too. But I do want everyone to care. If you're using the tool because it's convenient, and you know that it could be spying on you, you should care about that. Apathy is what I'm fighting here, not Dropbox exactly. I would love to move my work away from Gmail, Dropbox, etc, someday, but today isn't that day. (Uh-oh, am I like the rest of them?)
- TillE 12y ago
  There's an odd view among opponents of various issues (eg, environmentalism) that if proponents can't do everything, then they're terrible hypocrites who may as well not do anything. This is of course ridiculous. You do what you can personally, and you try to influence government policy. But not everyone can be a full-time activist.
- dasil003 12y ago
  I would go even further that moving away from cloud services is nothing more than an individual mitigation that comes at a huge inconvenience and will have no meaningful effect on the real problem. The fact that strong crypto is possible becomes this red herring that computer geeks think can save us from abusive government. But this ignores the fact that true security from government actors like the NSA is impossible without a level of inconvenience that no one will be willing to go through. Cloud services are just too convenient, and there is no way to establish meaningful assurances of privacy with any cloud provider in the current legal climate. We have to fight the ugly political fight to wrestle the power back and put the government in its place. This is unappealing to technologists because it is orders of magnitude harder to accomplish than implementing strong crypto for someone who knows what they're doing, but in turn it is orders of magnitude easier than training up the mass populace on those techniques.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    I bet we could design an adequately consumer-friendly self-hosted cloud-like system, if the existing attempts are inadequate (PogpPlug, AeroFS, Tarsnap, etc.)
bsbechtel 12y ago
DuckDuckGo has made vast strides over the past year, and you choosing to set them as your default browser will only help them improve faster. I had the same complaint as you roughly a year ago, and forced myself to switch for a month or so. After that month, I had gotten used to DuckDuckGo and haven't switched back. 99% of what I need can be found there, and for that last 1% of searches, it takes me approximately 500 milliseconds longer to type www.google.com into my browser address bar.
- ewzimm 12y ago
  Don't waste time typing that, just use !s before your search for StartPage or !g if you want regular Google.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  I might try it again now. My issue tends to be obscure programming related questions. I also occasionally click the shipping tab on Google to get a rough price for a product I'm researching.

EC1 12y ago

A bit off topic but I'm also from Toronto as well looking for developer friends. I'm around cityplace. m [at] eveo [dot] org if you want to grab a coffee and talk. I feel the same way about privacy. I lose my mind when I hear "I have nothing to hide". There is nothing you can say or do. They already know the risks and what's happening, they just truly do not care.