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Comment by 98192819 | Hacker News Reader

98192819·

I'm more comfortable with the Chinese holding my data than some Western governments. The simple reason is that I do not live in China and they literally cannot do much with it.

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> they literally cannot do much with it.

You lack imagination. Blackmail, espionage, economic advantage are all possible if a you have the kind of data that Palantir is fairly routinely assumed to have access to.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/11/leaked-palantir-doc-reveal...

If you feel that in light of that the Chinese having access to such information is a no-op then I have no further counter arguments.

Do I lack "imagination" because I'm less worried about "the Chinese" seeing "mah datah" than about USA LEOs seeing it? Very few Americans have suffered injustice at the hands of PRC. Meanwhile back in USA, 1% of adults are incarcerated and 2% are on parole.

Well, depending on who you are the threat might shift from the one to the other. But why make it easier on any of these groups? At least you get to vote in the US elections and if enough people do what's right you might be able to change something about those percentages.

It has been decades since the winner was anyone I voted for.

Well they could do what any hacker does with your personal info... use it. Bundle and sell it. Whatever else they feel like.

What you're saying is wildly short-sighted, and frankly bound in a very dangerous false dichotomy.

China cannot detain me on entering the United States based on my Google search history.

Sure, they can just threaten to hand off your information to people who will, or will do worse. I'm not excusing the US, but be real, China keeps a file on each other citizens with a "loyalty" score. They're already doing what politicians here merely plan to do.

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