Is there such a thing as too much privacy?
Is there such a thing as too much privacy?
This isn't meant to start a war in the comments.
I have been thinking... Platforms that advertise encryption and unmatched privacy have almost always been used by bad actors that ruin it for everyone else. This leads to some sort of middle ground being set up that ends up being further from privacy than we'd like it to be.
I see the benefits of both situations, and am left wondering if we can even survive as a society if we were to have absolute privacy.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Edit:
I'm asking how we can navigate this conundrum in order to reach a common ground where we do NOT have to give up our precious privacy in exchange for security.
Nothing else. I'm sorry if my post didn't reflect that.
They’re telling you that these “private” spaces are allowing for child exploitation because it triggers exactly the thoughts you’re having now.
“Oh I don’t want that, I guess I’ll give up my privacy”
It’s an excuse. Apple had client side image scanning, cutting through ALL privacy. The program basically found 0 child porn images, but instantly that it existed, governments wanted to use it to censor images they didn’t like.
It’s a lie, it always has been. “Won’t people please think of the children” has been used to create horrendous lies of policy since the beginning of time.
You know what existed before these services? The same evil that existed after them.
We can ban knives because a few people stab others with them, but ultimately if your goal is to stab someone, you’ll use what you have available. Perhaps a fork? And society will no longer have knives, but is that actually a reasonable answer? I mean there are no knives allowed in prisons, and they still make decent shanks .
Killing privacy to solve child exploitation is just a nice lie they sell you to convince you that your privacy doesn’t matter. Facebook has zero privacy and it’s currently the biggest distributor of child porn. It’s a huge problem, and clearly the lack of privacy didn’t solve it like they said it would.
True that.
Also, it's kind of weird how we know that these corporations and governments do this, yet somehow they keep getting away with it...
Like, what the hell?
Because they’re distracting you with bullshite problems.
For example, gay marriage. There’s a simple answer that appease everyone….. the government doesn’t regulate marriage, they regulate “civil unions”
You just change all the official paperwork to call everyone’s “marriage” a civil union and let the people decide if they want to call it a marriage or not. Who the fuck cares?
But no, they made it a culture war. “The gays are destroying society and they’re gonna make our kids gay” Vs “They are denying the gays marriage and next they’re going to start assassinating them”
Left or right, they both crave power and are selling us out for it.
People have used the following to scam, lie, commit fraud, etc
- physical money
- digital money
- cryptocurrency
- sms
- phonecalls
- etc
I don't think it's the privacy bit that makes people do shit things.
What makes you think that the bad actions of bad actors are going to cause our society to no longer survive? Bad actors have always existed, and yet we survive.
I disagree with the implication that anything you mentioned represents an existential threat.
My bad... I didn't mean to imply that society would just stop functioning exactly...
What costs do you think there will be then, if the problem persists?
have almost always been used by bad actors that ruin it for everyone else.
...So what? You're suggesting that, because some people misuse a right in an illegal way, that the right should be taken from everyone. It's the equivalent of saying that because some people use speech to incite violence, the right to free speech should be taken. I completely reject that view.
You're suggesting that, because some people misuse a right in an illegal way, that the right should be taken from everyone.
I'm not. I'm asking how we can navigate this conundrum in order to reach a common ground where we do NOT have to give up our precious privacy in exchange for security.
I'm sorry if my post didn't reflect this. I'll update it.
I'm not. I'm asking how we can navigate this conundrum in order to reach a common ground where we do NOT have to give up our precious privacy in exchange for security.
That's easy. You tell the people who want you to give up your right to privacy to go fuck themselves. The common ground is when they go fuck themselves, problem solved.
It's important mainly to give people a way to interact with the digital space from highly controlled regions, like occupied Ukraine or Hong Kong or something. Joe Bob who is afraid of google tracking him deserves his privacy too, but it's not as important.
Decreasing privacy does little to stop bad actors. That is an odd and false correlation.
These mfers have been trying to end encryption and privacy for quite a while now. And when they fail to pass some law or wtv they just try again and again after some time. This been happening here in the EU, also UK. Its happening everywhere. They just have 1 thing in mind: more control over population thats it. Its not about the children, if it was about the children they would have invaded the Vatican already and/or incriminated a lot of these mfers connected to Eipstein, but they don't because they themselves are in on it through connections of interests etc. They're all the real criminals, it's a big mafia club we have running this world. Everything is upside down.
I want to be secure from bad actors myself. Currently there is no technology that would safely let government break encryption without letting bad actors use the same backdoor to empty your bank account. Sure they would not be given the key but there is a huge incentive for them to try to find it.
Also how would you make sure a bad actor don't make their own app with unbroken encryption and running a system without client side scanning? Again there is huge incentive to do this and the information how is publicly available.
So in the end bad actors get their private conversation while law abiding citizens don't.
What about kitchen knives? Do you want to ban this too? Also heavy stuff, it can hurt people. Also water because too much water can kill. Last but not least my remote control can hurt if I put it too deep in someone’s ass.
And for privacy, my remote control is E2E encrypted since the FBI cannot know what button I push. Do you want remote controls connected to the FBI? This would be the perfect device to protect children!
Everything is exploited. Shady fraudsters and "hackers" know what's good and why, and that's why they tend to use them.
wondering if we can even survive as a society
I took a bit of liberty with that quote. Privacy or no privacy, humanity is absolutely fucked.
Your own thoughts are private. Is that too much?
I can’t tell you, that information is classified.
Seriously though, it depends.
What is your threat model? At one end, would the safety of the free world be at risk if someone read your private conversation? What about your personal safety, the safety of your family? At the other end, would you be embarrassed or humiliated if someone were to read your messages?
You could install grapheneos and only use (pick the message app of the week) for e2ee while only connected to public networks away from your home. Or you could use Facebook messenger while connected to your home wifi.
Are you communicating with your family back home in the country ruled by an oppressive regime? Or are you chatting with Aunt Bertha about her haemorrhoids?
How important is privacy to you?
Hmm🫤. I hate such conversations mostly because everything is right 😭.
Never ask a question to which you’re not prepared to hear the answer. 😜
Absolute privacy must be available as a possibility at least, and then it's the user's own decision if he wants to open it (at times, or for certain people, or for certain services, etc.)
If you as a user don't have the possibility, then there is no safe space and no safe person anymore, like your sleeping room, or your children, etc.
Services trying to take the decision away from the user are evil. No exception possible and no excuse.
I like this take.
I don't understand what you're saying.
Privacy is pointless because "bad actors"?!
To your direct question, bad actors exist, cuz interests can be misaligned. If we protect ourselves from all bad actors we'll have absolute security and no liberty. And then eventually we will have no security.
US founding father is often quoted as saying those who are willing to give up Liberty for security will have neither. Freedom is the only stable state politically, without freedom somebody becomes oppressed, when people are oppressed countries become unstable.
To answer the more philosophical question, you need to moderate the privacy in your life versus the utility it provides. If you're taking care of an octogenarian relative who could have dementia, or is it a fall risk, you want to be able to monitor them, to know if they are in trouble. Hopefully this monitoring comes with informed consent. There are many times when we don't need privacy from everybody, we can let some people in.
In everyday life, our neighbors usually know a huge amount about our lives. That's why they can check in when the patterns change. Hey I didn't see Bob check the mail for a day. We should go see him and say hi. That's a demonstration of the lack of privacy.
I think the main issue is when it happens with uninterested third parties who simply use their surveillance capabilities to oppress people, maybe not oppressed today but build the machinery to oppress tomorrow. And that's the main issue
This was a really good point.
"What's the true intent?" is an important question.
If it starts to make you do weird/senseless things like waving your cellphone in the air to stop the government from tracking you or similars, then yeah... that'd be a liiiiiiiiiiiittle too much.
Don't you tell me what I can or cannot do with my phone 😤😤😤
/s
If you had 100% privacy no one would know you exist because you could never interact with anyone else.
I don't believe in excessive monitoring, but I also think it's weird we think of the lack of observation as a fundamental right. Too much privacy, I think universally, is any time we go out of our way to guarantee/fight for it.
The lack of observation has a clear effect on thoughts and behavior. There is even an English saying "when the cat is away, the mice will play". I think that there is no such thing as " freedom of speech" or "freedom of assembly", if a malicious actor is silent notes taking at all times.
And because harvested data goes to the rich, or the cops who care about convictions more than the truth it is a reasonable assumption in my threat model that data observation is malicious observation.
Also from a citizen development perspecrive, if your citizens are always watched, then they never develop the " moral muscle" and the only morality remains in the hands of those with the power to observe and enforce their will.