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Comment by jastanton | Hacker News Reader

Serious question: I understand the argument against the classic "why should I care if someone records my conversations? I don't do anything illegal.", being that once the government starts recording everything you say the freedom of being able to say anything negative against them goes away knowing they could be listening. That said, why should I, a boring law abiding citizen, go around disabling my hardware and covering webcams etc...? If someone were to ask my what I was doing, just the fact that it's possible to hijack desktop mics is that enough for me to start putting faraday cages around myself? Serious question. Thanks :)

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Privacy allows us to be ourselves, to make mistakes, to be right or wrong without it bringing the wrath or ridicule of the general public.

Privacy is a fence. Tall fences make good neighbors, because they help define what is and is not your business. My life is not the business of the government, nor should yours be. At least not until they have enough information to get a warrant.

It's not just the government you need to worry about, it's independent malicious actors as well. Video or audio recordings from your devices could be used to blackmail you unless you're very, very careful what you do or say at all times such devices are around.

With regards to the government, while you may not be doing anything illegal now, it will be illegal when they outlaw it.

In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

For now. Doesn't it just take a new law that says ex post facto laws can be made?

It would require an amendment to the US Constitution, which is an incredibly high bar.

That bar seems a lot lower in the last few weeks.

Constitutional amdendments require ratification by 3/4 of states. 20/50 states voted for Clinton. That is still quite a high bar.

I think the era of amendments has passed. Very unlikely we see a new one anytime soon.

Amendment XXVI, 18-year-olds can vote, ratified in 1972. Amendment XXVII, left over from 1789, relates to Congressional pay increases, ratified in 1992.

I didn't even know about the last one (I assume I can trust Wikipedia about it)? Which means the last "real" amendment was 44 years ago. None of the currently unratified amendments seem at all close to reaching the required number of ratification votes.

>In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

Yeah, well, in the UK the government is trying to justify sweeping constitutional and case law changes based on a non-binding referendum barely passing.

But parallel construction is still a thing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/03/10/...

That's nice. But if you decide to run for high office 30 years from now it will become known that drew pony porn in college and never really stopped. That's the meaning of kompromat.

Not if your record is better than their's.

Like Trump, where the worst impropriety they could come up with was that he slapped women's arses? Everyone has something they'd rather not talk about.

Worst?

I hadn't even heard that one.

We just learned about charity self dealing.

For the last few decades we have been hearing about Trump's 'improprieties'.

> In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

That fact has been so inconvenient for the government that the entire system has been redesigned to thwart it. Can't prove Al Capone is a mobster? Prosecute for tax evasion.

Keep passing broad overlapping laws and they can charge anyone with something. Then they don't have to change the law, only who they decide to prosecute.

Are you saying Capone didn't evade taxes?

I'm saying nobody would have been looking at him for tax evasion if he wasn't a mobster, even if he was doing it.

And after Capone the mobsters started paying their taxes, so now they charge them with money laundering, which is essentially a law against paying your taxes on unexplained income.

Oh I understand that, I'm thinking a little more dystopian. Though in some other countries that might be the reality today.

It's technology that enables the problem, not the actors. Technology can advance a position on a matter well ahead of anyone else at that moment, giving the actor temporary power over others. While most won't use this for their own gain, some will and do. If we want to stop this problem, we're going to need a way to slow technology down, at least when interacting with itself.

Two minor additions.

Its not just recordings, but raw material to be edited and spliced together.

Its not just illegal stuff you need to worry about but raises concern, adds you to an investigation, adds you to a secret list (no fly list).

> Its not just recordings, but raw material to be edited and spliced together.

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." ~ Cardinal Richelieu

Well, his thing was a culture where everyone was guilty of something and punishment was pretty harsh. To some extent like now. I'm sure I'm not recycling all my garbage precisely legally and that cap needs to be on (or off?) the creamer and I certainly was guilty of speeding this morning like everyone else on the road.

I meant just outright fabrication. Record one conversation about my coworker being on vacation in northern Wisconsin to shoot deer and another conversation about my watching the president make a speech before I went to the boy scout troop meeting on Monday and a semi-skilled editor can cut and paste together fake audio evidence that I'm the ringleader of a military coup with all kinds of detailed elaborate plans. Now that wouldn't result in a guilty verdict, but might result in swatting or just generic harassment, or maybe end up on some .gov list.

Well, I guess the quote also means how the most innocent thing, extracted from its context, can be very damaging. There's no need to edit your audio clips, just to imply it. "Tomorrow the president is going to northern Wisconsin. Mr. VLM is on record discussing shooting opportunities and ammo sale points near this precise area on the same precise day...". As you say, nothing that would stand trial, but enough for character assassination.

In the United States, at least, it's pretty likely that you're committing "crimes" unknowingly with some regularity. No fabrication is likely necessary if the authorities want to put you in a position of taking a plea bargain or gambling that you'll end up in prison. (See https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... if this interests you.)

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

People have a history of abusing the power they have over people. The government isn't inherently untrustworthy because it is the government, it is people that are inherently untrustworthy when handed power without oversight and checks on that power. Having total information on an individual is power over that individual.

I don't want my friends or neighbors knowing everything I say and do. I don't want my insurance company taking things I say or do out of context as an excuse to raise my rates or drop me. I don't want the local White Nationalist group to know my background or political opinions. I don't want Google, who has the ability to disable my decade old e-mail account and make my digital life difficult, to know I'm working with a competitor.

Governments are just a part of the threat; there's also nosy neighbours, thieves, ex partners...

For instance, my bank account password is not illegal, nor am I ashamed by it in any way; I don't think I'm a prude, yet I feel like I should not tell it around.

Weird example, imo. The government has all sorts of documents pertaining to me that i wouldn't "tell it around". I'm not justifying them knowing everything of course, i just don't personally agree with your example.

In a perfect world, if i had nothing to hide and i trusted my government, then actually i wouldn't mind telling my bank account to the government in the slightest. In the real world though, i'm more concerned about 3rd party malicious acts than i am with the government directly, and the holes that the government injects into our lives.

I don't want the government to have my personal conversations not because i'm afraid of them specifically, but afraid of who else will inevitably get ahold of it when the government drops the ball.

(Note: yes, i know the government could also turn against me in an unknown future)

A "boring law abiding citizen" might become a very interesting target once he/she becomes a witness of a crime or a very immoral action.

When 10% of citizens are too afraid to speak out about something, maybe democracy can be still preserved. When it's 90%... ?

Serious question: I understand the argument against the classic "why should I care if someone records my conversations? I don't do anything illegal."

For the same reason you have the 5th amendment. It's quite easy to make someone who is innocent look guilty.

why should I, a boring law abiding citizen

Human beings are all "give an inch, take a mile." We have to be constantly put in check, or we will reach farther. Give us enough rope, and we will often hang ourselves. This is why we have laws, social norms, and communities. This also applies to humans who run the government.

One thing to keep in mind is that your lack of security can impact others, often without them being aware. So for example, you may be a boring law abiding citizen, but your brother is an anon. Well, that conversation where he told you about his dissident views got recorded, and they got a snapshot of him off from your camera, and in 2024 when dictator X turns the totalitarian surveillance key, your brother gets sent to re-education camp or worse.

There's many more angles, but that is one I don't think people think of very often. Another quick example is this, I have had to be very clear to and friends and family who know me on facebook (even though most of my data is poisoned) that they should never tag me in a photo, and preferably should never post a photo of me in the first place.

There's probably no reason for you to go around disabling hardware etc. You're aware enough of the implications and risks, it's possible you'll get pwned but not too likely. (Honestly I'm more personally worried about the inconvenience of Google nuking my gmail for no reason than anything the NSA might be up to.) Some of my coworkers cover up their work laptop webcams by default. I don't, the realistic threat model is IT or some other company representative spying on me, and I don't really care about that. If I find out I'll quit and I'm sure there will be lawsuits anyway.

All that said, I never liked the "well one day the government will accuse you of a crime somehow or otherwise severely limit your speech" argument. To me the better counter-argument is: "Fine, you don't care at all, you don't have to care. Similarly some people are super paranoid and live in a faraday cage etc., they can do that all they want. But a lot of people care to some degree in between, and a lot of other people are uneducated or unaware of the actual risks so aren't even aware of the problem that they could decide to care/not care about. If you don't care at all, again that's fine, just get out of our way as we try to protect people by default. Mass education of every issue is infeasible."

Governments change. Many people argued the same when pre-nazi Germany decided to register peoples religion. Granted that's an extreme example (or perhaps not considering the rise of the alt-right) but what's considered legally & morally ok can change quickly, for good or for bad.

Combine with the ability to train a neural network to identify typing noises by sound, and they can also read everything you type, including passwords.

Sure you are law abiding, but that doesn't mean every person with this power is.

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