Jeff,
Good post, although I sense a reluctance to take that step fully. You say that privacy is an inalienable right. Perhaps this is so, but why? What is a right, anyway? Why is this concept important and how can it be defended on principle (other than simply saying that it is so)?
See here for an excellent distilled tutorial on the nature of rights:
http://capitalism.org/faq/rights.htm
At the same source, an old but relevant article by Duane at TechCentralStation, on Internet privacy:
Jim
What I did there is called “satire.” You see, that list is a small example of the things that you wish to remain private, but which are not things considered “wrong.” Even you mentioned that having a secret PIN number prevents theft.
Privacy can be considered a subset of Self-Defense. To defend yourself from attacks, such as having the contents of your bank account stolen, you can apply a layer of Privacy which will alleviate the need of you standing in front of the ATM machine with a baseball bat, waiting for the guy who will steal your money to walk up to the machine.
Further more, keeping private the length of your penis, in inches, and the list of your sexual partners, protects you from ridicule by your peers. Also, by keeping it private on digital mediums, keeps you anonymous from illegal distributors of male enhancement drugs.
Also, by keeping my name to a short, “Bill,” and providing no other information about myself on this forum, I minimize the out-lash from others who read this blog. Giving up my email address would almost certainly invite a large amount of unwanted emails.
There’s an old saying that goes “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.”
I think another argument for privacy is innovation. Privacy allows a safe environment to fail or be imperfect. Imagine learning to sing in front of a continuous audience. I personally find my typing speed plumments when someone is looking over my shoulder. If all of Thomas Edison’s failures were offered up for public scrutiny, would he have felt as free to try odd experiments, some of which led to his 1000+ patents?
http://guptaoption.com/4.SIAB-ISA.php
Is a proposal for a new identity credential standard, based on open source software, offering a similar level of hardness to current-generation modern passports, but will full protection for your privacy: a transaction like renting a car will not reveal your name without a court order.
Give it a look, you may find it a very interesting direction for development.
It gets worse when privacy/data issues are combined with incompetence. Google “uk government data cockup” for examples.
We are living in the last age whose people will understand privacy as anything more than an antiquated notion of how the world ought to work.
The argument “If you are not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to hide” is simply a blatant attempt to justify what the “hunter” is actually doing: "Your personal info has monetary value to me and I intend to realize that value!"
But all too many people, especially young people, seem to value convenience over some abstraction like “liberty” and “freedom”, so this particular river will keep on flowing…
the guy who mentioned the keychain card you get to get discount groceries has a point. What it is i donno, but i guess I don’t see how privacy is a right.
But who can afford to do their daily business covertly? Privacy is damn expensive. that’s what it is, it’s not something you give out for free. What do you think?
Nobody mentioned credit reports and tax returns. You can pay for a credit report, just put dollars in the right hands, and you can get tax returns too.
For something more in depth:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565
‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy
by
DANIEL J. SOLOVE
The internet is one huge audit trail. When you come to terms with this fact you will act accordingly.
Google is of course at the top of the list. You should not use Gmail, and if you do, you should not be logged in when you use Google Search.
For an interesting counterpoint to this blog post, read this essay by sci-fi author David Brin:
http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html
He believes that the technology for snooping will become so cheap and ubiquitous that society will only have 2 choices:
Keep in mind the essay was written in 1998, before cell-phone cameras become ubiquitous, and before the rise of MySpace and Facebook. Sure, people were putting their private lives on the Internet back then (think GeoCities), but “true” social networking didn’t exist at the time (and wasn’t popular amongst the masses).
Can’t say I totally subscribe to the Transparent Society idea, but it sure looks like the whole “ubiquitous surveillance” prediction is coming true.
Maybe in 50 years, both privacy and “intellectual property” will be seen as antiquated, outmoded concepts. Whether these are good or bad outcomes may depend on your perspective. Most Slashdot readers would probably love it if IP were abolished, but privacy protected. And most corporations and governments would have no problem if privacy were dead, but IP firmly entrenched.
“U.S. Official Urges Americans to Reconsider Privacy"
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/11/204231
"Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that,” said Kerr [Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.]
Jeff - you brought up some good points. Definetly worth mulling over. Thanks.
Bill - you’re an idiot,a troll or didn’t understand the point. Certain items of information like the ATM Pin is to prevent people from theft. Most people are honest but can be swayed by temptation.
Like a person walking down a busy street, one’s identity can be determined but it’s difficult. Well, used to be.
With the collection of data into databases it makes it easier to be identified. Taking the example of a person walking down a street - if they’re wearing a sign with their name it makes it real easy to identify.
With systems that don’t forget ones steps can be traced.
It’s not wrong to walk down the street without a sign identifying who you are.
In all my life nobody has ever asked me if I had anything to hide.
However, if they did I would tell them that information was classified.
I am so pleased with your post. The “what’ya got to hide?” argument has left me weary for many a year now.
My electric eel fetish, and what I store in my sigmoid colon is none of their business!
The problem is that we are in a class war, whether we join the battle or not. Most of us don’t even know who the most powerful people are, their fortunes don’t get published in Forbes. Do you really think Bill Gates is worth more than the heir to the Rothschild dynasty, David DeRothschild? They stay out of the press for a reason. There is a war on us declared by the elite, in tiny paragraphs in clandestine documents, but it is a Queit War.
The Energy Barons, the Banking Cartels, these are the people who want to horde the privacy and collect data on you, so you can never rise against their power monopoly. Your privacy is the first step in the rebellion against a rising technocratic dictatorship
Facebook CIA ties:
Article below
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t34949.html
Video below
http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/
Whoo boy, I get fired up about this topic. But I am not feeling particularly cogent, pre-coffee, this morning. Great blog, and thank you for writing this very important piece.
It seems that Bill is mostly correct, but does not understand “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”.
Good fences make for good neightbors because they have to work together to repair the fence. Where this phrase was popular, that was a yearly job for farmers, every spring before planting time.
I think you’ve misunderstood McNealy’s comments. He’s not being glib; he’s just not in denial. The privacy war wrapped up decades ago and you lost it before you even knew you could fight it. Your only hope at this point is a sweeping radical change of attitude among legislators followed by an agreessive enforcement effort including high-publicity raids on the corporate headquarters of many Fortune 1000 companies. Forget about it.
The only person I know of who has any significant level of privacy is a woman who used to have male sex organs and now lives in an area where her life would be in danger if this aspect of her history got out to her local community. She exerted a boggling amount of effort to make sure it would be very difficult to encounter this information. For almost nobody else could that effort be justified, and it’s not even clear it would be possible today.
I posted a response a href="http://geekswithblogs.net/starr/archive/2007/12/31/118101.aspx"here/a
http://geekswithblogs.net/starr/archive/2007/12/31/118101.aspx
Jeff,
The bottom line on privacy vis-a-vis the Internet is pretty basic:
If you provide data about yourself (sign up for a credit card, join some program or website, etc.) you must accept the risk that the data will be misused at some point and your supposed “privacy rights” violated – either through subterfuge, impropriety, or crookery.
Legislation and even enforcement will not fix this as it is built in to the human psyche. You can only make educated decisions about what, when, where and how to provide data about yourself, be vigilant, and hope for the best.
Welcome to the age of the dog. The dog wants to know everything, sticks its nose into every thing and is happy to allow you to as well.
There’s an example of “transparent society”. In that kind of society there is a top dog and underdog and everyone stays in their place or it’s up to their betters to cow them into submission. Theres not much chance for advancement, might makes right, and the best stuff goes to the biggest strongest and meanest. As for loyalty, well it can at least temporarily be bought with a pork chop. Until someone comes along with a handful of bacon. But dogs are such loyal happy creatures always looking to serve, please and kiss up quite literally to the top dog so what are we worried about? If we were all more like those lovable darn hounds then all our problems would clear right up!
Wait a minute! We already have that sort of society now, don’t we?
When we were young we were fed all kinds of erroneous ideas like “life is NOT a popularity contest”, and “it doesn’t matter what other people think”, and “you’ll go blind” ( well OK for a second or two you do but-) oh and the funniest one is one I often see popping up on home pages here and there “It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not” Please! Who can’t see the holes in that one?
Even with all kinds of supposed checks balances and safeguards “mistakes” happen - well sometimes not mistakes, ask anyone trying to recover from identity theft.
Most people here believe they are being spied on, and it has not made them better people, but sneakier, yes.
I know people for whom new laws must be passed because they are constantly finding ways to abuse the current ones, which means we now all must face stricter laws.
I find the most nosy people are also involved with crime, they will go on about TRUTH but if truth were really known they would be spending time in the joint.
I find most people looking for info are also looking for ways to misuse it. KNOWING YOUR DAILY SCHEDULE can make all those “random events” much easier to orchestrate, which is why its so handy to have everyone you are trying to control in standard hourly employment or in school.
I find that people who speak of the “burden of materialism” who urge you to let them help you “lighten your load” are really trying to get you to help them rip you off.
I find that while we hope other people are sane, and have some sense of fairness and decency, this is just hilarious talk to lots of people online and off! OF COURSE NOT SILLY!
I find that with the right information you can make almost anyone look like a “criminal” if you are so inclined.I have seen this done to the most harmless people.
We hope that people having access to our information are at least of average intellect and “common sense”, DREAM ON BUDDY!
What I am saying is I have seen the “future” - darn it. 