rt4mn

> The problem with that is, only illegal transactions happen between parties that don't trust each other.

This is patently untrue. When I buy something with cryptocurrency, its not because I don't trust the merchant or am doing something illegal, its because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things online.

I skipped the survey section. Did it add anything interesting to the paper? The findings showing that five of the six repair shops they went to violated their users trust and snooped on devices was bad enough for me.

I'm not sure thats a fair reading of this persons argument, since I did deleberatly exaggerate their position.

I pay pretty damn close attention to the ACLU.

> We do privacy lobbying at the municipal and state level and our local ACLU affiliate has been a huge, huge ally.

I disagree with them on a whole range of issues, but when it comes to privacy and mass surveillance they are almost always spot on. Most of my disagreements in that area have to do more with political tactics and messaging then anything else.

> (you're misconstruing what I wrote for rhetorical value, but if you look at what I actually claimed, these quotes fit).

Your right, I am! Aint rhetoric grand? Its such a powerful tool, and 1984 was such a sublime and impactful example of rhetoric that more then 70 years later its still being routinely invoked to create discussion just like this one.

Although I guess I would say "deliberately exaggerating" rather then "misconstruing", but that's being too nitpicky right out the gate. being nitpicky should come in the middle of the comment, like so:

> what I originally said

was "It's nothing at all like how we live today". Which would be a valid criticism in the lord of the rings example, since it is fundamentally a work of fantasy. but not so with 1984. There are a number of incredibly striking parallels, some of which you helpfully highlighted.

> You don't get to just hand select a few things from the novel and say, "Look, 1984!" in the same way you don't get to cite "well the humans in Lord of the Rings breathed air so it's the same as today!"

I do actually get to do just that, depending on what those things are. Although I would look silly if did the lord of the rings thing. Everyone knows they breathe Aether.

But as I said, the whole point of 1984 was to be a warning about the dangers of a world where totalitarianism wins. 1984 was a rhetorical tool. Taking a few things from the novel and highlighting the similarities in an effort to convince others of the potential danger of a all powerful government is pretty much exactly the function it was written to serve.

> without the critical, "or else you die" consequences of misbehavior in the 1984 novel, none of the "scary" things in the novel carry anything remotely approaching the weight or meaningfulness.

I am going to assume you dont mean this part literally and are exaggerating for effect (or maybe I'm just misunderstanding you) because I don't think you mean to say that making comparisons between 1984 and modern life would not be apt unless the US government had an active policy of killing people for dissenting speech/writing/thought-crime.

I think what you are trying to say is that the harsh brutality of 1984 is so distant from modern reality in the US, that any rhetorical arguments analogizing to it is de-facto excessive hyperbole?

I disagree, and to highlight why, let me ask two questions. first, as you say, in the novel:

> Keeping a diary is punishable by death (that's the premise of the entire story), it's kind of silly to compare that with our lives today.

But in Orwells time the UK (where he lived and where the novel takes place) did not punish people with death sentences and torture for writing "down with the king" in their private diaries. In your mind, would making comparisons between the status quo of the UK in 1948 when the book was published and the future world imagined by orwell have been apt?

To further clarify this question, what, In your view, would the status quo of civil rights and the rule of law need to be for a comparison to 1984 need to be to be apt? that is tosay, on the spectrum between "government punishes you with a fine, after a fair trial, for not paying taxes" and "government openly admits it kills people for thought crime" do we have to fall?

If I'm entirly off base, and you do think that making comparisons between 1984 and modern life would not be apt unless the US government had an active policy of killing people for dissenting speech/writing/thought-crime, then I would gently remind you again that the purpuse of 1984 was to serve as a rhetorical warning, and that a warning sign that you cant see until the danger is right on top of you is utterly useless.

Their interest is in their bottom line and avoiding regulation. Pretty much any company that has a lot of users creating accounts will be impacted by even the most milquetoast privacy regulation to some degree or another, and I guess microsoft sees the cost of hiring a bunch of lobyists as cheaper then having to deal with the regulation that might come about if they dont.

> specifically speaking 1984 is not a reflection of current reality for Americans, and you seem to agree with that

Of course 1984 is not a reflection of current reality. it was not a reflection of current reality back when it was written. Science fiction is not a fun-house mirror reflecting back a warped version of the present, its a kaleidoscope looking into the future.

I have not seen anyone in this thread say "1984 is totally real and not a work of fiction", or confusing that world with reality. I've only seen people using the novel as it was intended to be used (as a rhetorical and persuasive tool) and pointing out: "There are a number of very real parallels between the world we live in and the world of 1984, and the number of parallels is increasing. This is a giant blinking warning light, and we should change course"

> I'm not really interested in generic, "society is falling apart" conversations, as every society ever has been saying that about different things, and yes they even followed up with, "No but for us it's real!"

I sympathize with your lack of interest in that conversation, its not a fun one, but its important and your rational for avoiding it is flawed. True, very society every has had its doomsayers, and they were very often wrong. But a lot of them were right, too. Progress is not inevitable. Societal backsliding has happened many times throughout the course of human history, and democratic / rule of law backsliding has happened a lot in very, very recent history. Back when that opinion piece I linked too was written, the new york times had reporters based in russia. Now they don't.

Judge Doomsayers like me based on the specific doom we forsee, not on the fact that we are doomspeaking. (and now I promise I'm done editing, even for spelling, since thats gotten me hooked two bloody revisions ago)

I do worry about being killed by the government. I worry about everything related to government abuse of power and surveillance. I wear my tinfoil with with pride, thank you very much.

On a more serious note (in case it was not clear that I was being facetious), you are absolute correct that an important theme (and, arguably, the primary / key message) of 1984 is to highlight the horror and dangers of a totalitarian government, and to push back against the very, very pressing danger of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

But one of the great things about sci-fi / dystopian / utopian fiction is that it lets us look at a potential future, ask ourselves if thats a world we want to live in, and if its not, we can think about what it might take for us to go down that path, and what steps we should take if we want to avoid it.

You are right to point out that we dont live an a totalitarian surveillance state run by elites without respect for the rule of law. But my point is that we could, and that we currently do live in a surveillance state. It just happens to be a democratic surveillance state run by elected representatives of the people with a strong culture of respect of the rule of law. But its a surveillance state nevertheless.

I wont suggest you re-read 1984, but I would suggest taking a look at this opinion piece by Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova: https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2l... (or i guess https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/opinion/navalny-russia.ht..., but I suggest the onion link)

Or at least the last paragraph: "Our president has only just recently had the law changed so that he can stay in power until 2036, but his program of repression didn’t start out this blatantly. These things happen in pieces, bit by bit, small acts. And each one may even seem relatively benign at first, perhaps bad, but not fatal. You get angry, maybe you speak out, but you get on with your life. The promise of our democracy was chipped away in pieces, one by one: corrupt cronies appointed, presidential orders issued, actions taken, laws passed, votes rigged. It happens slowly, intermittently; sometimes we couldn’t see how steadily. Autocracy crept in, like the coward it is."

Persistent mass surveillance is not mentioned. Abusive government surveillance tends to fly under the radar. But one of the lessons of 1984 is that you ignore it at your peril.

This is exactly why Microsoft has been throwing money at lobbyists at the state level as well, pushing shitty "consumer privacy bills", both because they don't like strong legal privacy rights at the state level, but also in the hopes of forestalling and kneecapping a strong federal baseline privacy bill.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/tech-lobbyists-are-pus...

Microsoft has been a particularly bad actor in this space. They have been hiring lobbyists to advocate at the state level for shitty "consumer privacy bills", specifically because they want to forestall and kneecap federal legislation.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/tech-lobbyists-are-pus...

1984 was published in 1949. It is partially science fiction. Tricorders are not literally the same as cell phones, either, but if you ignore the parrelels you are doing a disservice to the important role and lessons of good sci-fi.

The thing I tell most people is that we currently live under more surveillance then folks in 1984. "You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." nowadays your movement is not safe even in darkness.

We would be even more screwed then folks living in that fictional regime if we backslide away from rights based democratic rule of law.

The Biden Administration? This is a bill introduced in an entirly different branch of government. AFAIK Bidens got squat to do with this

The ACLU also does a lot of great privacy work, so donating to them is also a good idea if you care about this stuff. National ACLU does a lot of great work, but I personally suggest giving to your local affiliate https://www.aclu.org/about/affiliates, as they are often the ones who work on local issues that are likely to directly impact you. We do privacy lobbying at the municipal and state level and our local ACLU affiliate has been a huge, huge ally.

There are also other great privacy orgs that are not quite as big but are also fantastic in their own ways, like Restore the Fourth (which also has local chapters like shameless plug) rt4mn) Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, Cato, and Privacy International

Also, If you want to do more then just donate, you can help the EFF with its lobbying efforts by joining the Electronic Frontier Alliance https://www.eff.org/fight We participate, its pretty great.

I agree privacy request shouldn't enable mechanisms of denial of service type attacks against companies. But I don't think that justifies allowing companies to put in place fees to access personal data.

If cloudflare required people to pay to bypass their denial of service protections... well, I guess I dont know what would happen, other then that I would hate them even more then I already do for all the terrible things they do for my experience as a default tor browser user.

I would be interested to hear why you think it has no chance in Senate.

Always good to see links to direct text of bills.

Reading the tea leaves a bit, Speaker Pelosi seems dead set against it and I dont think will allow it to be moved as is. she has publicly stated that "states must be allowed to address rapid changes in technology", IE, the bill preempts to many state privacy regulations, esp in California. But as a rule my default assumption for the "real reason" why Pelosi is against something is because she thinks it will harm chance of caucus holding majority in house.

https://pelosi.house.gov/news/press-releases/pelosi-statemen...

Skeptical as I am of her motives / methods, I'm inclined to agree with her in this case. Act should be a floor not a ceiling.

Maybe your right that the 14th overrides the 35 year minimum (I can see legal arguments going both ways), but until you get a court ruling to that effect then in practice the limitation exists.

I agree with you on this one. the person you are replying too is correct in that it does not matter how much you learn or teach yourself, getting a new number is far from trivial, whereas with getting a new anonymous email account, if you take the time to learn, it is trivial, depending on what you care about.

Do you just care about making burner anonymous emails that just work all the time? There are vendors that you can pay for that service (my go to is protonmail), and there are free options out there as well (my go to is riseup). The problem is finding the vendor that suits your need, since these are niche services for the most part.

If you care more about the privacy / sovereignty side of things, you can set up your own mailserver, and once thats done, its incredibly trivial to spin up new burner emails. But that's an even bigger knowledge gap, to the point where its fairly common even on tech forums like HN for folks to be like "Self host email? nope thats to hard".

So yeah, I agree. This is not really an option for an average user. But in the context of signal, I think it makes perfect sense to allow it as an option, even if its not the default.

> It uses phone numbers because phones already have contact lists, stored clientside, keyed by those numbers.

This makes sense for contact discovery, which is important for normal people who just want a chat app that works.

But there are a very important segment of signal users, people with an elevated threat model, who I would be willing to bet a good portion of them would gladly sacrifice contact lists if it meant not having to share their phone number.

Give people the option to pay. I would gladly pay $100 one time fee if it meant I could avoid having a phone number associated. https://jmp.chat is a great work around but I would rather just have an email address or ideally nothing but a receipt directly associated with my signal account.

Zero Punctuation did a hilarious and informative video on this topic in one of his "Lets all laugh at an industry that never learns anything tee hee hee" series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB3jOD2wjUc

... they could, you know, not collect the data, or if they do only keep it in an encrypted format, and protect the privacy of their consumers?

Crazy thought i guess.

He was not wrong. Microsoft has been "activists" that have been actively lobbying multitudes of states for years pushing for consumer privacy protection laws that really do meaningfully improve peoples privacy.

Of course, that's only technically correct. The bills they have been pushing for are terrible, they improve consumer privacy status quo in the worst way possible, by taking one step forward and building a wall that prevents any further steps.

The reason for this is mostly because they hate the idea a GDPR-esq law in the US and hope if they pass enough shitty laws in the states they can forestall federal legislation.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/tech-lobbyists-are-pus...

Interview with the author of the above piece on the topic: https://opensourcesecurity.io/2022/02/13/episode-310-hayley-...

> Attorney-General and the Director of the FBI are both political appointees hired and fired by the President of the United States.

That's only a part of it. The FBI as an institution pushes for and against legislation, and when they push they can shove. They play a meaningful role in the actual drafting of the law.

This is not like an inherently evil thing, usually their political agenda, such as it is, it to strengthen laws that make it easier for them to do their work, and push back against laws which restrain their power. They work to protect the interests of their institution, which is understandable, but that necessarily enters into the policy realm.

> You’re meshing the appointed leadership with the field agents, but rank and file FBI and most of their bosses are law enforcement whose assembly line is Justice, not policy, and they’re the guys with the guns, not the creatures with the pencils.

I'm not. When I say "the FBI", I speak of the institution as a whole. Everyone from the rank and file to the bosses.

> The FBI enforce laws, not write them.

Technically correct but in practice the FBI does actually write and repeal laws in 2 incredibly important ways that I constantly see people forget about.

First every law enforcement body in this country has to prioritize which laws it wants to enforce, to many laws on the books to do otherwise. By prioritizing some crimes over others, they change the nature of the law itself, at least insofar as it impacts the lives of regular people. A law is not a really a law if its not enforced (just like a right is not really a right if it does not protect you in practice).

Second, and even more directly, the FBI in particular has a massive political influence in congress over which bills are written and which bills die and which bills get passed. Its difficult to overstate how powerful the law enforcement lobby is in this country, and a big part of that big tent is the FBI.

Thats what I thought as well, but since neither myself nor the comment I was replying to mentioned it, I was / am confused how the hypocrisy in question was relevant.

I'm probably overthinking a throwaway internet comment.

I'm not sure how to interpret your comment. Could you elaborate?

> It merely decided that it is not currently protected by constitution, which to me seems completely correct.

First off, It was a momentous decision. It did not "merely" decide anything.

Second, a right does not need to be explicitly spelled out in the constitution to be a constitutionally protected right. The right to an abortion is a clear and rational outgrowth of the constitutional protections of privacy and bodily autonomy (IE, the right to not have the government mess with our shit for no good reason).

Its not revolutionizing the world, but it is allowing people to shop online without having their transactions spied on by credit card companies or the government.

Cryptocurrencies are the only viable mechanism for online financial privacy that comes even remotely close to widespread adoption and use.

just going based off of when the IAPP map was last updated vs how often I get email notifications of new posts, the byte back law blog is more up to date (although I strongly disagree with some of their analysis, they are on top of these things so kodus for that I guess)

https://www.bytebacklaw.com/

https://www.huschblackwell.com/2022-state-privacy-law-tracke...