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Comment by miguelrochefort | Hacker News Reader

I frequently question the need for privacy. I usually conclude that it's selfish and unsustainable.

Rather than inhibit productivity in an attempt to preserve what's left of privacy, shouldn't we instead strive to make transparency more fair?

I'm having trouble understanding those who blindly defend privacy. Do they really think that in 100 years, we won't be collecting massively more information than we are now? Do they somehow think that technological progress will stop? Don't they realize that sensors, cameras and drones keep getting increasingly cheaper? Do they not realize how much we have to gain from collecting and analyzing this kind of data?

Is this whole movement only meant to delay the inevitable by a few years? Why bother?

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What's privacy?

Privacy & identity are two sides of the same coin.

All the data about me is me. It's my identity, my self.

I have the right to control what is publicly known about me.

I also have the right to know how any data about me is gathered and how its used.

That's privacy. And identity.

> I have the right to control what is publicly known about me.

> I also have the right to know how any data about me is gathered and how its used.

Can you explain why you're expecting any of this? Then, can you explain why you think that's feasible?

Here's a few questions that I hope will highlight how ridiculous your expectations are:

- How many times have you shared information about a person without its consent? For example: "I saw John at the bar yesterday".

- How many times have you gathered data about a person without its consent? For example: taking a picture of a crowd.

US Constitution's Bill of Rights pretty much covers it.

I designed, implemented, supported 5 regional health information exchanges. I'm also chin deep into protecting the secret ballot. I have more than passing knowledge of the relevant issues, technical and policy.

"Then, can you explain why you think that's feasible?"

So it's feasible to record every waking moment of every single person, but infeasible to disclose that activity and track it?

Have you ever tried to correct your credit report? Had your identity stolen? Been discriminated against, or disenfranchised, because some system some where decided you were the wrong color? Or lived in the wrong zip code? Are you on any watchlists, eg TSA no fly, FBIs inventory of peace marchers?

You advocate radical transparency (Brin's Transparent Society), but then profess incredulity when that right is demanded. Nice.

I think seeing this as an inevitable, when humans still have some choices in regards to the technology they buy and keep in their homes, is a lazy extrapolation.

More importantly, it's very important to keep in mind the massive benefits of privacy, be it psychological, philosophical and practical. This is both because of our hard-wiring and the natural importance of information. It's inherently interwoven into our lives, we don't even know how we'd act if we couldn't have any privacy. It could be debilitating for our intellectual development.

Surely this is a thing worth thinking about, and possibly fighting for? Otherwise, someone could simply extrapolate from our use of earlier weapons that we will probably have nuclear war, so all activism about anything is moot. This sort of careless extrapolation is beside the point EVEN if it's true.

> Otherwise, someone could simply extrapolate from our use of earlier weapons that we will probably have nuclear war, so all activism about anything is moot.

I don't think we should stop nuclear weapons either...

Suggest you read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

Transparency is only scary when you're constantly reminded you should have something to hide.

I blame privacy advocates for sustaining this so-called chilling effect.

In reality, the chilling effect is a consequence of poor judgement. Those who are wired correctly shouldn't fear making mistakes, and should instead embrace the learning opportunity. Only then can a person really be honest and enlightened.

Privacy correlates with intolerance. We should strive to eliminate both.

This is easy to say when you live in a situation where you're part of the majority and all your behavior is within strict limits of the current culture.

Take homosexuality for example. Having that information in the open means death in plenty of places. In addition, even in places like the USA it has become accepted only fairly recently but would have gotten you in serious trouble a while back. Culture change can't happen if any event towards this change is immediately punished. The change needs to start small in closed private social circles. Only when a lot of private battles have been won is there hope for a more mainstream acceptance of a new norm.

Take being Jewish for example. In 1920s Germany it wasn't that big of a deal if people knew you were Jewish. However things changed, different people got in power and started to abuse it. What was previously a simple case of "I got nothing to hide" suddenly turned into a question of life & death. It's naive to think that these kind of events will never happen again in any place in the world.

Losing privacy would greatly hurt any cultural change that needs private law breaking, and this includes any future laws.

As for technological progress stopping, of course it isn't going to stop. However this goes both ways. Privacy protecting technology also has progress. Any technology that reduces privacy has a counter-technology that protects privacy. What's more, we can use the same political system that could hurt us with a lack of privacy to instead protect our privacy by prohibiting/limiting privacy breaking activities.

Of course no progress just inherently happens. There are actual driven & talented people working on both sides every day. There is no inevitable victor here, there isn't even a clearly leading side yet, it's very close with strong trends in both privacy-reducing & privacy-increasing directions. Every contribution matters and it's definitely not too late to decisively lead us to a far more private world.

> Take homosexuality for example. Having that information in the open means death in plenty of places

The fancy cyber word for this is "Opsec". If you're living somewhere where your homosexuality will get you killed, STFU. Don't email people about it. That's really tragic and wrong, but it's reality.

In an era where military supremacy has made decisive military action impossible, the reality is that ISIS type people duping the simpleminded to commit horrific acts is a thing. That's makes a vision of privacy that most people Instinctively want a threat in many people's eyes.

ISIS et al are an excuse in anti-privacy moves. More people die to bee stings etc than to terrorist attacks. What's more, the terrorists that get caught are caught thanks to classical investigative work not dragnet spying. It's a classic case of exploiting the fear of the masses to shift even more power to those in power.

Yes, lots of people will need convincing to make political progress towards more privacy. The same holds for less privacy.

It is worse that not emailing people about it or even mentioning it. Facebook will know your sexual orientation without you ever saying a word about it.

This is what's increasingly worrying, they don't even need you to tell it like it this, they can find about it by analyzing your everyday behavior.

I don't disagree. The only thing to do as an individual is to seek refuge, either by hiding or moving.

It's a tragic state of affairs.

Privacy correlates with intolerance. We should strive to eliminate both.

OK, let's make a deal. You permanently eliminate all intolerance from everyone who could possibly have a negative influence on anyone else's life, and I'll accept that eliminating privacy might not be catastrophic for someone. Fair?

In the meantime, the point of advocating privacy/anonymity rights is precisely that there are power imbalances in the world, and some of the people more powerful than you probably do have prejudices that would make your life worse if they acted on them, consciously or otherwise.

I have a bank account which I manage online. I am not ashamed of it. Yet the password is something I wish to hide. That's privacy, at the most basic.

One could argue that this is security, so someone wouldn't be able to misuse the funds in your account. The password itself isn't interesting; just the access to information and funds is. Perhaps a better example would be whether your account balance and transactions were publicly available?

What is security if not a way to keep something private?

Museums have security, yet they share their contents. Security does not exist solely to protect privacy, unless you expand privacy to mean something much broader than what people generally mean when discussing privacy.

And regardless, my point was to provide a clearer example: that the secrecy of the password is accidental: the privacy it's protecting is the account.

I think you'd get a lot out of reading Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind". They're not directly related to privacy, but I found them really helpful in understanding human psychology and different aspects of human thinking.

Everybody has something to hide.

You might claim there is nothing in your thoughts or actions that wouldn't mind the world seeing but that would make you either wrong about yourself, or incredibly rare as an individual if true.

Humans might be a social species but there is a colossal rift between social species and the hive-mind you seem to be advocating.

I would also be careful with statements like this;

Those who are wired correctly shouldn't fear making mistakes

Judging what does and doesn't constitute 'wired correctly' has led to some serious atrocities in the past.

If I was able to do so, would you agree to allow me to publish real time any thought you're having and any information that's in your brain?

Welp, we're fucked.

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