Comment by eqvinox
6 years ago
Sorry, I should've been more clear on what I meant with the SS. Some (dutch, I think?) cities had registrations of their citizens with religious affiliation listed. The SS got a hold of that "database" and used it for their purposes.
As far as the Stasi is concerned, I just disagree with you. The Stasi was really about gathering as much information as they could get their hands on. They didn't have to torture people, blackmail was much easier for them.
And, yeah, neither of these is connected to web privacy. I'm trying to make the argument that privacy is just hard to grasp. "People care more about privacy than they think." You don't notice till it's gone. SS and Stasi were wholly different situations, but at least for the latter it had the effect of people understanding the value of privacy. GDR citizens knew the Stasi was surveilling them. They knew saying certain things would mean they'd never get their children into university, or they'd just lose their place on the waiting list for a car. The effects were close enough to be noticed.
They aren't on the web.
Dutch (and other European) census data was used by Nazis in transacting the Holocaust. And IBM processed much realated concentration camp information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Net...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II#Ho...
https://ibmandtheholocaust.com
Gerrit van der Veen, Willem Arondéus, Johan Brouwer, Rudi Bloemgarten. specifically destroyed municipal records in a moonumental act of defiance to the Nazis:
https://medium.com/@hansdezwart/during-world-war-ii-we-did-h...
Except again: the problem was they were willing to kick down doors and murder people and no one was stopping them.
If it gets to this point, being anonymous won't save you.
Having a database of all their opponents had a big part in there being no one to stop them. Haven't you heard that poem of "First they came for the Communists..."?
Yeah, but that is poem not history. Database or not, they were stronger military wise and ruthless. That was what won the day.
There were people who had potential to speak up or even spoke up when then came for communists and jews and all that. They died first.