If I've learned something during my early adulthood it's that, it's impossible to not be in conflict with at least some people, because even if you're the most fair and considerate person on the planet, other people will prey on you to try to encroach on your territory and steal what you have.
So the idea that you have nothing to hide is completely banal. Those who are more powerful than you won't leave you alone just because you ignore them. They will eventually come knocking to steal your wealth and your freedom.
It would be good to remember the Miranda warning: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." (emphasis mine). It doesn't say, "maybe" or, "only if".
No one really says that in an absolute sense, it is always in context, what it usually means is "I trust a particular institution with the data they collect", not "I will give my credit card number to everyone who asks".
For example, let's say you approve of installing security cameras monitored by police in your residence, if you say "I have nothing to hide" what you are actually meaning is "there is nothing these cameras can see that I would want to hide from the police". I think it is obvious that it doesn't mean you approve of having the same cameras installed in your bathroom.
The real question is one of trust and risk assessment. Are the risks of revealing a piece of information worth it? how much do you trust the other party? not the literal meaning of "nothing to hide".
The point is that the data you're sharing may look banal to you now, but you have no idea how it might get used in the future, and by whom. You should assume that all data you share is available to everybody. Thus everybody should prefer privacy by default.
Indeed. And there's risk-reward tradeoff. The debated argument says "have all my data if you want for no reason". The stronger case is, "what do I get in return"?
Often in this discussion it's about a society-wide standard. The benefit to "me" might be that e.g. the police can do their job well, hopefully protecting me from criminals, while sticking to reasonable and trusted privacy controls (e.g. intrusive data collection requires a court warrant, and I trust the courts enough to do a good job). That's very different to uploading all social media conversations logs to NSA because "nothing to hide".
Looping back to this article, it is unclear if there was ever ant good reason to record religion in Amsterdam. Nor would I exclusively blame administrative procedures on the Holocaust - though I'm sure it made matters worse.
If that's all it is, it's logically sounder than what it is raised in defense against, the multifallacious "I have nothing to hide" that implies those who oppose a policy do have something to hide and sidesteps the actual question of privacy.
Everyone has some economic game going on. If some entity can see most of the cards you hold, it like putting your cards open on the table during a poker game. That is why big companies want your data, they want to peek at the cards of as much players in the game as possible.
Information asymmetry has always been a thing, wars have been though over this.
But I think that in our age, information asymmetry is particularly low, at least in western countries. Each one of us has access to a tremendous amount of data, sure the powerful have access to more, but I have a feeling that the relative difference is shrinking.
I will always remember when a police investigator was interviewed, the context was a controversy about police files. The investigator said: "police files? not very useful, when we want to investigate someone, we browse Facebook". It means that the police doesn't have much as much of an information advantage compared to you and me.
Journalism, world events, etc... Most of the times, we have all sorts of first hand reports, photos, videos, news sources from enemy countries, etc... Not all of them reliable, and factchecking enough to see through that mess takes work, but it is possible in a way that wasn't before. A lot is available on open data platforms, plus all the shady stuff like Wikileaks, darknets, etc... that are not that hard to access either.
Should you want to, you can be your own Palantir, because most of what Palantir does is standard data analysis that can be done with open source tools, and most of the data sources are public, private data is just the cherry on top.
Of course it takes work, but it is possible with limited resources, mostly a computer, an internet connection, and time. No need to travel around the world to meet contacts and get access to paper archives.
For private individuals I think it probably is, not for public companies or especially governments though as they're supposed to accountable to other people.
You might become guilty. Sometimes you might want to be guilty. Morality and law sometimes disagree. Often IMO.
I might be hitting a ideological belief of mine here, because I honestly can’t think of someone who would honestly state otherwise. Or that couldn’t be brought to agree with some explanation. Am I tripping ?
The founding fathers hate this one weird trick: simply say the Constitution does not apply to private businesses and then create private businesses that violate the Constitution.
for my European eyes - founding fathers feels more of an annoyance, an extra hoop to jump through more than some sort of a holy cow (or whatever your patriotism has taught you)
Backups, illicit and otherwise do happen, far easier for digital archives than for paper ones. There is a version of Murphy's law for data that probably should go something like 'the data you want to get rid of lasts forever and the data you want to keep evaporates at the first inconvenience'.
You can minimise the risk, but there's a point at which you have to accept that liberal democracy functions around these institutions so dismantling them creates the kind of vacuum that fascism thrives in, which is why Libertarianism has never worked.
Everyone who has been helping Google/Amazon/Meta construct their digital panopticons is culpable in at least some small way for the abuse that may follow.
One of my favorite bit about “if you have nothing to hide…” is asking folks if they’d be willing to take the door off their bathroom when they went to use it.
An interesting example, because your body is literally something you have to hide. That is, it is illegal not to.
Personally, I hide it because that's what society is telling me, especially if children are around, and I have no real reason to go against that. I mean, who wants to see what I do in the bathroom? But should the government want to, I will gladly let them as it will nicely illustrate what I think of them.
There are many things I want to hide more than my body functions. It is a social taboo, not something that has to do with personal safety and security, which is what privacy advocates usually point to. Arguably, it is the opposite problem: something you have to hide, but for personal freedom, you shouldn't have to.
In the context of the Epstein files, I think Schmidt's actual quote looks pretty good ("If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place").
The problem is that even if Schmidt didn't do anything wrong (I don't know but all the link says is he may have been invited to a dinner but probably didn't attend), he nevertheless had something to fear.
random book on privacy summarized counter argument to "nothing to hide - nothing to fear" like so: unnecessary decrease in privacy unnecessarily increases the surface of attack. effectively this leads to public shaming and targeted isolation of individuals. great for getting rid of business competition
Are you suggesting that the fact that I wrote it in 2015 somehow makes it 'dated'?
I could update it but I think the fact that it was written before Trump I actually makes it more powerful than less, and you're welcome to extrapolate from 2015 to 2026 and see where it's headed.
Are you suggesting that they're suggesting anything beyond what date this was written on, since we usually point that out in almost every article that has not been written in the current year for a variety of reason, including "oh, yeah, I remember I already read this without even clicking, it's not new, I might as well go read the comments directly"?
Not at all! Perhaps I’m mistaken, but my understanding was that anything not recent should get a year tag in the title (at least that’s the pattern I’ve recognized).
If I've learned something during my early adulthood it's that, it's impossible to not be in conflict with at least some people, because even if you're the most fair and considerate person on the planet, other people will prey on you to try to encroach on your territory and steal what you have.
So the idea that you have nothing to hide is completely banal. Those who are more powerful than you won't leave you alone just because you ignore them. They will eventually come knocking to steal your wealth and your freedom.
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It would be good to remember the Miranda warning: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." (emphasis mine). It doesn't say, "maybe" or, "only if".
I think that "nothing to hide" is a strawman.
No one really says that in an absolute sense, it is always in context, what it usually means is "I trust a particular institution with the data they collect", not "I will give my credit card number to everyone who asks".
For example, let's say you approve of installing security cameras monitored by police in your residence, if you say "I have nothing to hide" what you are actually meaning is "there is nothing these cameras can see that I would want to hide from the police". I think it is obvious that it doesn't mean you approve of having the same cameras installed in your bathroom.
The real question is one of trust and risk assessment. Are the risks of revealing a piece of information worth it? how much do you trust the other party? not the literal meaning of "nothing to hide".
The point is that the data you're sharing may look banal to you now, but you have no idea how it might get used in the future, and by whom. You should assume that all data you share is available to everybody. Thus everybody should prefer privacy by default.
The point of TFA is that criminals could hack into those police cameras, see when you are out of town, and burgle your house.
You don't know who is going to get access to the data you have shared.
Indeed. And there's risk-reward tradeoff. The debated argument says "have all my data if you want for no reason". The stronger case is, "what do I get in return"?
Often in this discussion it's about a society-wide standard. The benefit to "me" might be that e.g. the police can do their job well, hopefully protecting me from criminals, while sticking to reasonable and trusted privacy controls (e.g. intrusive data collection requires a court warrant, and I trust the courts enough to do a good job). That's very different to uploading all social media conversations logs to NSA because "nothing to hide".
Looping back to this article, it is unclear if there was ever ant good reason to record religion in Amsterdam. Nor would I exclusively blame administrative procedures on the Holocaust - though I'm sure it made matters worse.
> I think that "nothing to hide" is a strawman.
If that's all it is, it's logically sounder than what it is raised in defense against, the multifallacious "I have nothing to hide" that implies those who oppose a policy do have something to hide and sidesteps the actual question of privacy.
Everyone has some economic game going on. If some entity can see most of the cards you hold, it like putting your cards open on the table during a poker game. That is why big companies want your data, they want to peek at the cards of as much players in the game as possible.
Information asymmetry could be said to be the defining problem of our age.
Information asymmetry has always been a thing, wars have been though over this.
But I think that in our age, information asymmetry is particularly low, at least in western countries. Each one of us has access to a tremendous amount of data, sure the powerful have access to more, but I have a feeling that the relative difference is shrinking.
I will always remember when a police investigator was interviewed, the context was a controversy about police files. The investigator said: "police files? not very useful, when we want to investigate someone, we browse Facebook". It means that the police doesn't have much as much of an information advantage compared to you and me.
Journalism, world events, etc... Most of the times, we have all sorts of first hand reports, photos, videos, news sources from enemy countries, etc... Not all of them reliable, and factchecking enough to see through that mess takes work, but it is possible in a way that wasn't before. A lot is available on open data platforms, plus all the shady stuff like Wikileaks, darknets, etc... that are not that hard to access either.
Should you want to, you can be your own Palantir, because most of what Palantir does is standard data analysis that can be done with open source tools, and most of the data sources are public, private data is just the cherry on top.
Of course it takes work, but it is possible with limited resources, mostly a computer, an internet connection, and time. No need to travel around the world to meet contacts and get access to paper archives.
Yep, and marketing is the biggest game (that we can see, it's also security under the hood)
And on a smaller scale: having a mortgage to pay is also often used as an excuse.
Secrecy is good
Privacy is good
Crime is not necessarily bad
You don't have to even go Anne Frank to make the argument.
Secrecy is not necessarily good.
For private individuals I think it probably is, not for public companies or especially governments though as they're supposed to accountable to other people.
Tell me your personal data, passwords, where you keep your money, and that thing you will take to your grave.
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I have no idea how people can be so shortsighted as to utter “I have nothing to hide”.
Not only that’s very rarely true as the article shows pretty nicely… what is legal changes, sometimes drastically and rapidly.
I broke up with a close friend because he had this exact view.
He was gay. Don't know how he couldn't understand this.
I’m genuinely sorry for this. That sucks
Many people are naive. They think everyone in power is benign or that you have to be guilty of something to be bothered by them.
You might become guilty. Sometimes you might want to be guilty. Morality and law sometimes disagree. Often IMO.
I might be hitting a ideological belief of mine here, because I honestly can’t think of someone who would honestly state otherwise. Or that couldn’t be brought to agree with some explanation. Am I tripping ?
It's not just naive. TV and movies serve as propaganda for the police state.
Secret agencies are good customers of data brokers or sometimes even their owners.
The data broker eco system is notoriously intransparent and dynamic.
The founding fathers hate this one weird trick: simply say the Constitution does not apply to private businesses and then create private businesses that violate the Constitution.
for my European eyes - founding fathers feels more of an annoyance, an extra hoop to jump through more than some sort of a holy cow (or whatever your patriotism has taught you)
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> For many years this system served well
Surely don't need to ditch the whole system then and just needs a better kill-switch.
Backups, illicit and otherwise do happen, far easier for digital archives than for paper ones. There is a version of Murphy's law for data that probably should go something like 'the data you want to get rid of lasts forever and the data you want to keep evaporates at the first inconvenience'.
You can minimise the risk, but there's a point at which you have to accept that liberal democracy functions around these institutions so dismantling them creates the kind of vacuum that fascism thrives in, which is why Libertarianism has never worked.
It's not that I have nothing to hide. It's that I have nothing I want to share.
Especially relevant today in the context of this story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46895860
Everyone who has been helping Google/Amazon/Meta construct their digital panopticons is culpable in at least some small way for the abuse that may follow.
One of my favorite bit about “if you have nothing to hide…” is asking folks if they’d be willing to take the door off their bathroom when they went to use it.
An interesting example, because your body is literally something you have to hide. That is, it is illegal not to.
Personally, I hide it because that's what society is telling me, especially if children are around, and I have no real reason to go against that. I mean, who wants to see what I do in the bathroom? But should the government want to, I will gladly let them as it will nicely illustrate what I think of them.
There are many things I want to hide more than my body functions. It is a social taboo, not something that has to do with personal safety and security, which is what privacy advocates usually point to. Arguably, it is the opposite problem: something you have to hide, but for personal freedom, you shouldn't have to.
I just all for their passwords and credit card information. They never share it with me for some reason.
DIY Home builders frequently leave that kind of trim to the end.
It's more a signifier of who grew up with Puritan roots.
"If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" Eric Schmidt - Google CEO in 2009
193 files for Eric Schmidt according to https://www.wired.com/story/epstein-files-tech-elites-gates-...
314 files for Larry Page
294 files for Sergey Brin
Interesting rhetoric. It's always the people you suspect the most?
In the context of the Epstein files, I think Schmidt's actual quote looks pretty good ("If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place").
The problem is that even if Schmidt didn't do anything wrong (I don't know but all the link says is he may have been invited to a dinner but probably didn't attend), he nevertheless had something to fear.
> It's always the people you suspect the most?
And yet, there are always people willing to carry water for them.
random book on privacy summarized counter argument to "nothing to hide - nothing to fear" like so: unnecessary decrease in privacy unnecessarily increases the surface of attack. effectively this leads to public shaming and targeted isolation of individuals. great for getting rid of business competition
(2015)
2015, but arguably more relevant today than ever before.
Are you suggesting that the fact that I wrote it in 2015 somehow makes it 'dated'?
I could update it but I think the fact that it was written before Trump I actually makes it more powerful than less, and you're welcome to extrapolate from 2015 to 2026 and see where it's headed.
Are you suggesting that they're suggesting anything beyond what date this was written on, since we usually point that out in almost every article that has not been written in the current year for a variety of reason, including "oh, yeah, I remember I already read this without even clicking, it's not new, I might as well go read the comments directly"?
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Isn’t it just an hn convention?
I agree with your comment I’m replying to completely, but the date tag doesn’t have to be an indictment (as you yourself suggest)
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Not at all! Perhaps I’m mistaken, but my understanding was that anything not recent should get a year tag in the title (at least that’s the pattern I’ve recognized).
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C'mon, you know it's convention to write the year of publication in a title. No agenda beyond that.
You think this is about Trump, it's happening worldwide.
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