The most common argument used in defense of mass surveillance is ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’. Try saying that to women in the US states where abortion has suddenly become illegal. Say it to investigative journalists in authoritarian countries. Saying ‘I have nothing to hide’ means you stop caring about anyone fighting for their freedom. And one day, you might be one of them.
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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I have nothing to hide, but I will hide it anyway.
I don’t know where I read it but the best defence to “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” is “I don’t have anything to hide but I don’t trust your judgment or intentions”
“i have nothing to hide”
no, you are wrong, you just do not understand what other people know about you.
And how they might use that information against you, now or in the future.
or yesterday, maybe a week ago, who knows when it will come back to haunt you!
Nor that the information that they use against you be necessarily true given their accepted monopoly in ‘truth’.
ah yes another classic, although this would be a timeless issue regardless of privacy, manufacturing problems is really easy, it turns out.
Saying you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you don’t have anything to say.
It was Edward Snowden who said that “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.”
I tried arguing against this, but it’s no use. I tried pointing out how something can be branded illegal retroactively, like 20 years down the line, I tried the “give me your credit card info” approach, nothing took. 90% of the time the counter-argument is usually something to the effect of “big companies know everything about me anyway”, which is just guessing on their part.
I’m just going to take care of my own privacy, because I’m clearly in the minority (present company excluded, of course). Almost everyone I know disregards online privacy completely, so I’m done trying to get a dialogue going with these people; it’s every man for himself. The only way online privacy will become a hot topic among laymen is when something nasty happens and at that point, it will have been too late.
my personal response is ALWAYS “would you be fine living with a state mandated police officer, FBI agent, CIA agent, whatever, in your house 24/7 making sure you never did anything wrong?”
the answer is no, because obviously it’s no.
Finally a friend
a fren that will report all your wrong doings to big government!
As Doctorow points out, ‘Saying security and privacy don’t matter because you have nothing to hide is like saying freedom of speech doesn’t mater because you have nothing to say.’
It’s a very short-sighted view. Those rights will be taken from you if you don’t protect them.
That doesn’t work for the “the big companies know everything about me anyway” line though
They may know everything about you right now. But they don’t know about your future self, how you can change, how you may be an entirely different person in as little as a year. Data is useful, but it is more useful the more updated and recent it is.
Well I think it does, because they don’t know literally everything about us yet. But they will one day if we don’t fight back.
You’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter what you or I believe, if a person has accepted that a big corporation knows everything about them and use this as a reason not to take action or prevent them from knowing more, then the Doctorow quote doesn’t apply.
“I don’t have anything to hide because I think I’ve done something wrong: I have something to hide because I question your judgement and motives.”
They’re fine giving you their info because they trust you. The problem is when the person seeking that information is untrustworthy – and some shithead(s) making their way into a company or government isn’t just possible, it’s likely.
Tell them to give all their sensitive personal information to someone that hates them. Credit card numbers, political beliefs, nudes, sexual preferences/fetishes, etc.
Just tell them unlock their phone so you can take a look of his browser history. Works quite a few time for me.
“I don’t trust you!” But they trust whatever NSA-agent looking at their private photos not to save anything for later…
Yes, family, friends trust more an outsider rather than a family member with decades of real proven knowledge in the IT/Tech field.
The reason being that AUTHORITIES have imense power of manipulation at hand rather than a single opinion of a family member…
At one time I did, and to my surprise, my friend did just that! Unlocked their phone and handed it to me without a word. Welp.
So you logged into all their social media and changed their passwords and recovery emails right? I don’t just want access now, I want it in perpetuity.
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Nah, that would just make me a dick.
If you ask a fulfilled woman she may tell you that she likes a hard dick that fucks her well.
There are plenty of useless dicks hanging around…
Thank you very much for speaking my mind!
I would also add that the “Plandemic” WAS that nasty thing that started other nasty things happening AND still few acknowledge what you are very well talking about.
IT is not only about being able to exercise the freedom of speech, privacy or living and loving, IT IS about HUMANS and HUMANITY and those that are against it…
REAL EYES, REALISE, REAL LIES! ☝️
Pornstars show us their assholes but I’m pretty sure they don’t want everybody to know where they live. Just like normal people aren’t comfortable shitting in a public toilet with the door open.
Jokes on you I’m a claustrophobic shitter!
Ok, pull down your pants and hand me your unlocked phone.
The ‘hand me your unlocked phone’ has worked for me on several occasions.
To me they just say ‘I have stuff to hide from you, not from Google, Facebook, or the government.’
“And the government officials can sell this data to me. Relatively inexpensive too”.
“I dOnT cArE iF gOoGlE kNoWs whAt I had foR dInnEr LaSt nIghT”
There is so many good responses to this. Here is one I just came up with:
Legal and not embarrassing are not the same thing.
Easy: “You, the government, want me to show you all my data? Right after you show me (and everyone else) all your documents, including the “top secret” ones. Because you haven’t done anything wrong, right?”
Symmetrical transparency.
There is a inversion of sorts here that is also important. If some people have access to the information hidden to everyone else they have power and control. Allowing just a few to read everything everyone else does gives them undo power. The access law enforcement has can and it abused, it is also sold or stolen.
Also: never give your government the authority over something you wouldn’t give the worst possible government.
It’s not that I have something to hide, it’s that I don’t trust your judgment
It’s not that I have something to hide. It’s that it’s none of your business!
Have you ever grabbed a childs private parts? NO of course not, because you INNATELY UNDERSTAND even though you are not a parent and don’t remember being one yourself. In fact you understand it so well that if you were to do so publcally, you’re putting your life at risk.
CONCLUSION: Privacy is natural and helps give confidence and security to an individual but they want access to your weaknesses and privates anyway.
EVIDENCE: Privacy Violation is a specific tactic meant to break people …IN PRISON…since they begining of time, Gulags.
P.S. Stop showing nude baby pictures at reunions to those that did not raise or grow up with the child in the family who already saw them naked, and only while they are still a child and not a teenager, otherwise that is a serious privacy violation. In fact, just don’t take the picture, where did you even get that you lazy lubricated louse.
I agree with the first part of your comment, I don’t understand the second. Some sort of pedophilophobic rant?
pedophilophobic?
Children deserve privacy like the rest of us do.
Fun fact: Most parents cannot hear/see this sentence.
Not too sure about the middle part, but the end was pointing out that baby pictures of little Sally playing in the tub are not okay to share or take in the first place.
Its a common enough situation where Ma is going through the baby album with your bride-to-be or a total stranger (mother-in-law) and there’s a bunch of photos of under-dressed children that would definetny make the wrong crowd happy to have.
99% of people have some private keys they need to hide