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Comment by akjainaj | Hacker News Reader

>Everyone has something private they don't want shared online.

So don't post it online to begin with. There are things that simply shouldn't be posted online under any circumstances.

That doesn't only mean "don't sext", but also, for example, if you're a corporation or a public entity, don't have personal information stored in a server that's online unless it's completely necessary, etc.

By having something connected to the internet, someone can make a copy, and once the copy is made, there's no going back.

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Privacy isn't the level of secrecy it's the agency you have on choosing what and with whom to share information.

Reducing the ability to share information is just as much a violation of pricacy as some one "stealing" it and disclosing it them selves.

The problem with Facebook and the likes is that by default anything you post to them is no longer yours hence no longer private and no matter how much security options they give you the potential loss of privacy is the same.

One of the major issues with this debate is that people equate anonymity with privacy and as a positive thing, confuse privacy with secrecy and can't agree if all they want is effective privacy or principle privacy.

Another thing with services like Facebook is that even if you're not on it officially, you're likely in the database as people will tag you in photos and have you in their address book. Then, there's other things like their cookies on web pages around the net.

  That doesn't only mean "don't sext"

There is always a systems administrator in the loop WRT to your text messages, somewhere out there, in a server room, in an office park, housing data centers for service providers.

SMS messages cannot be assessed as "not posted online" anymore, due to the nature of the software used by service providers in support of SMS services.

If you send an SMS text message, by default you are likely posting it to an online system, even if your device provides no obvious indication of that fact.

You're assuming that you are the one doing the posting. If my parents and my sister are on Facebook (they are), I'm in their address book and if that got uploaded to Facebook (quite likely), I'm there now despite the fact I don't have an account. Plus, you can be tagged in photos as well. Plus, they have their cookies which allow tracking of you across large parts of the web.

Note that in all of this, I'm not using Facebook at all and not even visiting it. But, I'm in their system with data about me that I didn't put there.

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