I mean I am not against the investigations at all. Also I believe that in such cases (terrorism) better way of extracting the secret key is sourcing it from the suspect him(or her)self.
I mean, investigations when you're a suspect is one thing. A system setup to monitor everyone and everything that treats everyone like a suspect is another.
I guess I am too dumb to understand. The argument that if you don’t have anything to hide makes more sense to me than nefarious secret spies are going to read your shopping list. I just don’t see what all the paranoia is about. I realise this is an unfashionable opinion to have on HN, and I’m not looking to debate or change anyone’s mind, but to understand with a substantive argument rather than one sentence replies.
I don't think you're dumb or trying to change anyone's mind or you have an agenda in general, and just trying to understand. Also, the "fashionability" of your PoV doesn't matter for me, because we're discussing here, and trying to learn from each other.
There are two problems with this PoV.
First argument is, we really don't understand how much private information we have, and how making it public is creepy. Your finances, what you own, how much you earn, your sincere chats with people you love or care are your private information. These things maybe known by limited parties, but when all of it is public to anyone, even to an algorithm reading it, and making it searchable is creepy and unsettling. I don't want a copy of asking my friend about their personal well being indexed anywhere.
This brings the second argument, and the above paragraph becomes a dangerous precedent. Consider you were chatting with your friend, spouse or child. One party says something and it can be very dangerous if it's taken out of context. One person shared an anecdote about their Alexa device. They found a recording in their account, their child saying "Why daddy always beats me?". Think about it for a second, and how dangerous this can be... The context was they were playing Uno, and dad beat their children in the game.
Again, take this recording or a couple more. Fine tune an AI sound engine with it. Extrapolate from there.
You see where this is going...
We want privacy not because we do nefarious things, but because we don't want our private matters to be publicized and not abused to harm us. This is why you put a password to your phone. Not because you hide something, but not to leave everything lying there.
Lastly, in the words of Edwards Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
Many of your remaining freedoms are provided by dissidents who fight for them, not you. Their fight against the state requires secrecy and plausible denial. If the state is able to peer into all aspects of your life and others they can route out dissidents by process of elimination. States naturally evolve to be fascistic and the culture required to prevent that generally decays as the memory of what exactly ‘Chesterton fences’ were preventing is lost to time.
Because while you might agree with the current regime, laws, etc, and they may not be abusing their all knowing powers, allowing government (or any corporation) such power means they can change the rules, for example in an authoritarian direction, and you have 0 recourse, power, or leverage in the situation.
To add, think of the common joke “I’m not going to google that, I don’t want to end up on a list”. The fact that it is known that government agencies monitor internet activity and keep “lists” has a pervasive cooling effect on what people are willing to search for. Not all things and not all people but the effect is real.
Many government policies around multiculturalism and immigration have gotten to a stage where criticism against it can be seen as incitement to violence / disturbing the peace. Protected class communities have a hecklers veto whereby responding to even mild criticism with violence they’re able to send those who criticize them to jail, often more so than the jail term for violence. States care more about criticism than the violence.
This has an effect of making criticism of government policy a heavily punished crime. A situation the government has fostered.
Multiculturalism is incompatible with free speech and since multiculturalism is government policy free speech has to be sacrificed.
It’s a slippery slope and it’s been going on for some time so very little can be done about it.
When you're frightened and live in a glass house, you stay silent and obedient to prevent any stones from inadvertently hitting your house.
Since it's transparent, you can't do anything which others don't like anyway, and if you even manage, you'll be taken away silently.
IOW, read 1984 and Brave New World and create a synthesis of it.
I mean I am not against the investigations at all. Also I believe that in such cases (terrorism) better way of extracting the secret key is sourcing it from the suspect him(or her)self.
I.e. https://xkcd.com/538/
We're on the same page. As one step further, I don't support "advanced interrogation techniques".
1 reply →
>I am not against the investigations at all.
I mean, investigations when you're a suspect is one thing. A system setup to monitor everyone and everything that treats everyone like a suspect is another.
I guess I am too dumb to understand. The argument that if you don’t have anything to hide makes more sense to me than nefarious secret spies are going to read your shopping list. I just don’t see what all the paranoia is about. I realise this is an unfashionable opinion to have on HN, and I’m not looking to debate or change anyone’s mind, but to understand with a substantive argument rather than one sentence replies.
I don't think you're dumb or trying to change anyone's mind or you have an agenda in general, and just trying to understand. Also, the "fashionability" of your PoV doesn't matter for me, because we're discussing here, and trying to learn from each other.
There are two problems with this PoV.
First argument is, we really don't understand how much private information we have, and how making it public is creepy. Your finances, what you own, how much you earn, your sincere chats with people you love or care are your private information. These things maybe known by limited parties, but when all of it is public to anyone, even to an algorithm reading it, and making it searchable is creepy and unsettling. I don't want a copy of asking my friend about their personal well being indexed anywhere.
This brings the second argument, and the above paragraph becomes a dangerous precedent. Consider you were chatting with your friend, spouse or child. One party says something and it can be very dangerous if it's taken out of context. One person shared an anecdote about their Alexa device. They found a recording in their account, their child saying "Why daddy always beats me?". Think about it for a second, and how dangerous this can be... The context was they were playing Uno, and dad beat their children in the game.
Again, take this recording or a couple more. Fine tune an AI sound engine with it. Extrapolate from there.
You see where this is going...
We want privacy not because we do nefarious things, but because we don't want our private matters to be publicized and not abused to harm us. This is why you put a password to your phone. Not because you hide something, but not to leave everything lying there.
Lastly, in the words of Edwards Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
More reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
Many of your remaining freedoms are provided by dissidents who fight for them, not you. Their fight against the state requires secrecy and plausible denial. If the state is able to peer into all aspects of your life and others they can route out dissidents by process of elimination. States naturally evolve to be fascistic and the culture required to prevent that generally decays as the memory of what exactly ‘Chesterton fences’ were preventing is lost to time.
Because while you might agree with the current regime, laws, etc, and they may not be abusing their all knowing powers, allowing government (or any corporation) such power means they can change the rules, for example in an authoritarian direction, and you have 0 recourse, power, or leverage in the situation.
To add, think of the common joke “I’m not going to google that, I don’t want to end up on a list”. The fact that it is known that government agencies monitor internet activity and keep “lists” has a pervasive cooling effect on what people are willing to search for. Not all things and not all people but the effect is real.
Many government policies around multiculturalism and immigration have gotten to a stage where criticism against it can be seen as incitement to violence / disturbing the peace. Protected class communities have a hecklers veto whereby responding to even mild criticism with violence they’re able to send those who criticize them to jail, often more so than the jail term for violence. States care more about criticism than the violence.
This has an effect of making criticism of government policy a heavily punished crime. A situation the government has fostered.
Multiculturalism is incompatible with free speech and since multiculturalism is government policy free speech has to be sacrificed.
It’s a slippery slope and it’s been going on for some time so very little can be done about it.