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> "There's a third possibility, which is that people are rationally aware..."

I agree that this possibility exists but I also think it's a tiny minority of people online. There's enough info out there to demonstrate that people aren't rationally aware of many things (although they may believe they are).

In the current example, I'd bet that most folks don't even understand how much info they reveal online and what can be inferred about them. The very reason the house analogy exists is because it's tangible and 'real-world' but it's not really a fair comparison. If people had the option to live in a fortress, that still had windows and easy access for approved people, and didn't look too different, they'd likely take it. Such options either don't exist or are too expensive.

People may not know exactly what data they are giving away or the mechanisms by which is can be harvested and exploited, but they're constantly reminded that hackers/ corporations/ government have magic powers to find out anything they want to know.

So my argument is that most people figure it's a lost cause anyway and choose not to invest much effort in learning about computer security, relying instead on the legal/regulatory system to oversee that like any other complex public policy issue.

Yup, I think the same (although, unfortunately, I don't think the legal/regulatory system is equipped to handle it as they're made up of the same people).

The earlier comment implied that there was some form of cost/benefit analysis being undertaken, which is is what I was disagreeing with. The current situation reminds me more of learned helplessness [1], in which people are effectively powerless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Ah, I'm sorry I didn't articulate it more clearly. I see your point with learned helplessness, but despite being well-informed and experienced on this issue - enough that I was an evangelist for PGP way back when - I've just given up on the pursuit of perfect security.

Far from surprising, this is the natural course - anyone with enough education to use PGP should know that perfect security is impossible.

That's why no reasonable privacy activists aim at it as if it was an attainable goal!

This.

Also: peer pressure. As a non-Facebook user, I get questioned about why fairly often, and my family makes passive-aggressive noises about missing pictures and whatnot.

And here, any time this comes up, someone thinks they're being clever by pointing out other intrusive systems of surveillance (like cell phones) that I surely must be unaware of or inconsistent about.

My theory regarding some (certainly not all) people in the latter group are well aware of how much they're giving up and don't like the idea that other people are doing better at maintaining privacy, a bit like the drunk pushing a drink on someone trying to get sober. A lot of other people are simply unaware of the power of the data they're giving up, or believe that since "everybody else does", it can't be that important.

Social cues are really important.

Even as a non-Facebook user, if you were to only post on HackerNews all of the time, a lot could be inferred about you. Apparently, the value of sharing exceeds the cost in privacy. There are many types of thoughts of that people would share on the internet, some more revealing than others (e.g. "Today is Friday" vs. "I am 190lbs"). Some people must be very skilled at posting inert content which does not in any way tie to their personal lives, others may not be -- or simply don't care, or believe the sharing value to be very high, etc.

In terms of psychology, UI/UX design and engineered content could try to maximize the likelihood of getting a user to post emotionally-charged or revealing content.

Of course. Facebook (or Google, for that matter) isn't magic, just in possession of a really intrusive nose for others' business and the war chest to do something about it.

Detectives, private or otherwise, are sometimes very skilled at doing the same thing in conversation (of course, this is not automated and very expensive). This isn't news.

What is news is the scope and automation. The surveillance-entertainment complex is unhealthily healthy.

> most people realize they can't possibly win an arms race and so opt for greater quality of life

They may believe this in some cases, but it's based on an incorrect risk assessment. We evolved in a world where nothing persisted forever. Everything faded with time and copying was always imperfect, which limited how far information could spread. Surveillance had both an initial cost to collect data and maintenance costs to store and use it. In that world, the risks are bounded.

Then Shannon invented a way to copy information perfectly, without the cumulative noise that limited the scope and risk of any failure of privacy,

> Do I spend a fortune rebuilding and reinforcing the structure

No, because your door is limited in how many people can attack it simultaneously and how long attacks can continue without being noticed. It would be incredibly foolish to apply the same evaluation to privacy, where data is persistent and risks is unbounded.

edit:

Sorry, I have to cut this a bit short - meds are being annoying today. Maybe see one of my recent comments[1] on this topic?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13459109

> Shannon invented a way to copy information perfectly

No, this is at least as old as the written word.

I would also suggest that humans are an incredibly social species, and while some of our more complex social behaviors encourage privacy, the vast majority of our social construct is based on sharing and not privacy. There are very fundamental reasons why social media sites are the largest human networks ever created.

The defensive position for privacy in western psyches are also very correlated to modern history coming from extreme social change around religion, the world wide trauma of the holocaust and WW2, and more generally rapid social change as a whole which threatens our tribal motivations.

Our species ability to closely integrate as a pack is almost as fundamental to our success as is our pattern recognition. If we can survive the rapid breakdown of tribalism(interpret as social association) that we are traveling through now, and arrive out the other side, privacy will certainly then be a hindrance too the species progress in that future. Pattern recognition is the trait that enables us, and the gasoline for that engine is Data.

I think the conclusions here are too vague and sweeping to have any merit. Privacy enables civilization. Without it we get tyranny. Primitive societies had little to no privacy and the idea that one day "humanity" will be so enlightened that the many compelling reasons for privacy will be outweighed by the benefits of having tons of data is unfounded imo.

Those are such sweeping conclusions about human nature and it's future course. Privacy has been a fundamental part of humanity forever, as was sharing. Obviously, as this is even the case for many animals, including those we evolved from.

Privacy is incredibly important today, as it has been forever. Simply looking at how humans learn, change and adapt to different contexts, it would be impossible to imagine our current civilization without privacy. If you take away a specific person's privacy, you would significantly dampen their social and intellectual development. Perhaps you envision a future of perfectly rational beings where nobody would be harmed by killing privacy, but we don't even know how one could get there.

Implying that we can, will or should change our nature in this respect is an idea from the wildest of scifi dreams. Perhaps, some day, but we have achieved so much while being these tribal, silly humans, and we'll probably achieve so much more without/before significantly changing our nature.

I'm not sure why one would even want to give up privacy. Many of our biological features seem useless to us as modern humans, but I don't see how privacy is one, whether from a practical, philosophical or enjoyment standpoint.

What you're really getting at is that it isn't that people don't care about privacy, it's that privacy, to happen, has to be systemic.

It can't be that you decide to have privacy and to do it you have to personally build a moat with your own two hands. It has to be that we as engineers build viable systems that respect privacy -- and then, given the choice between a viable privacy-protecting system and the status quo, it becomes much more practical for regular people to choose privacy.

This is a very important point. Nothing happens until it's made easy and presented as a choice.

I also think that some user education is in order, and needed for this choice to be made. I'm not cynical about it, though - I believe that humans can learn a whole lot more about the internet than they have in the decade to two that most of them have been using it in the west.

Excellent analysis, and stated more clearly than I could.

The bit about the arms race is on point. Also worth mentioning that privacy isn't single-dimensional and the relative cost/benefit analysis for each scenario differs.

For example, your stereotypical teenager cares quite a bit about privacy from her parents, less so from big corporations and the government. Which is why she might engage in privacy-conscious behaviors like using Incognito Mode or using Snapshot instead of MMS. Neither are a good defense against state-sponsored surveillance, but it mitigates the risk of your tech-illiterate mom stumbling upon an embarrassing search in your browser history.