Schneier On a Generation Gap In Privacy 166
goompaloompa writes "In the Japan Times, Bruce Schneier writes that a passing conversation online is not what it may seem and that maintaining your privacy is becoming even more difficult as social media and cloud computing become the norm. Furthermore, while users in Japan may think they are secure, their level of protection may vary when the computers that store their data are overseas. At the root of the problem is a new generation gap: old laws incapable of covering current-day scenarios. Quoting: 'Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look through your correspondence, they had to break into your house. Now, they can just break into your ISP. Ten years ago, your voicemail was on an answering machine in your office; now it's on a computer owned by a telephone company. ... We need comprehensive data privacy laws, protecting our data and communications regardless of where it is stored or how it is processed. We need laws forcing companies to keep it private and delete it as soon as it is no longer needed, and laws giving us the right to delete our data from third-party sites. And we need international cooperation to ensure that companies cannot flaunt data privacy laws simply by moving themselves offshore."
Privacy, hah. (Score:2, Insightful)
We need comprehensive data privacy laws...forcing companies to keep it private and delete it as soon as it is no longer needed, and laws giving us the right to delete our data from third-party sites...We need international cooperation to ensure that companies cannot flaunt data privacy laws simply by moving themselves offshore."
Fat chance. Just don't write anything on the goddamn internet. Maybe you missed the memo, but MySpace and Facebook aren't cool anymore and Twitter only serves to further cheapen your existence. The internet fads will only devolve in content while they expand their data-mining capabilities. The only way that our leadership (and the corporations who own them) will fix the internet is if enough people get tired of it and withdraw altogether from its data-mining fast-food for the brain. Problem is that there ar
Re:Privacy, hah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is lovely, until all the organisations you necessarily deal with — government departments, financial institutions, employers/clients, and so on — start putting personal data about you on their own systems that you don't control.
Re:Privacy, hah. (Score:4, Insightful)
... along with E-mail and trolling Slashdot, and what I write in the latter two are not personal or representative of my meatspace self.
Hallelujah. I'm the same way. When I go home to 1313 Mockingbird Lane and shoot up (with the smack that I buy from my buddy Lance and his wife Jody) and get high with my girlfriend (Trixie, who I rent from the corner Central and Missouri here in Springfield, IL), I'll jump on the Internet but completely anonymously and provide no personal information whatsoever. I don't even log into Slashdot normally, it's just that I sometimes forget and have Firefox v3.0.2 remember all of my passwords, Springfield National Bank account details, and tax return information and forget to block it. (How do you block cookies again? Oh well, I'm sure that the privacy-protection-software pop-up I just clicked on will take care of it.) Moral of the story - If you say nothing about yourself and hide in the shadows like I do, nobody will know anything.
Fuck the internet.
Yeah, what's it ever done for anyone? Personally, I prefer the days when I could call Amazon up on the phone and have them read me a list of everything on the fucking planet until they got to the $15 item I was after.
Seriously though. Set your own level of paranoia. Some people want to be invisible - That's getting tough, but it's possible. Some people don't give a crap who knows what - That's actually probably pretty safe. There are huge masses of people out there putting everything out for public view. Hide in the masses. Then, presumably like most of slashdot, there are people like me who lie somewhere in the middle. I'm in New Mexico. I'm a guy in my early 30's. I'm married with kids. All that's true, and I'm comfortable associating it with the name gnick. Meh. There are so many leaks in the system that leaking a few details is far less scary than the info about you that's most likely being leaked elsewhere. And identity theft is a PITA to fix, but it's unlikely to hit you. We all know somebody who's been bent over a barrel and seriously inconvenienced by it, but even if you're a complete idiot your chances at immunity (or at least minimal pain) are pretty good.
Re:Privacy, hah. (Score:4, Insightful)
what I write in the latter two are not personal or representative of my meatspace self.
Surely that's the whole reason why content on the internet is so incredibly banal? Connect people to the web, give them an anonymous persona, and the sense of group integrity and social self-preservation that keeps them from blurting out pointless rubbish at random passers-by vanishes, along with any reward they would get from carefully crafting high-quality verbal output.
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Did you just analogize the Internet dropping LSD?
Did you?
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the sense of group integrity and social self-preservation that keeps them from blurting out pointless rubbish at random passers-by vanishes, along with any reward they would get from carefully crafting high-quality verbal output.
Not true. I have excellent karma.
Poopy-head.
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deluding themselves into believing that others actually give a shit what they have to say.
tl;dr
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Geez, okay, I get it! It's your lawn... I'll get off of it.
Re:Privacy, hah. (Score:4, Insightful)
And then when people search for you, you can be sure that all they'll find will be inaccurate information published about you by other people--who probably dislike you, or else why would they be motivated enough to write about you--and information published by corporations and government bodies.
Yeah, that'll show them.
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Yes, my existance has certainly been cheapened by having the ability to stay up to date and in frequent contact with dozens of friends, family, and co-workers who I otherwise would never have the time to talk to on a daily basis.
Look at the bright side. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you're right.
The American fear of their own bodies is borderline psychotic. So what if Miss America posed topless, or Miss Obama is wearing shorts? Who the fuck cares? Even if you're religious surely you must recognize that God created the human body, and what God creates is holy, not sinful. A naked human is as "godly" as a naked cow or naked deer or naked tree.
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:4, Interesting)
The American fear of their own bodies is borderline psychotic.
Maybe 20 years ago. Thankfully for us chubby-lovers everywhere heroin-chic is no longer a fad. 14 year old girls are willingly sending nekkid pics to entire groups of people with the push of a button. American beaches host chubbies and even fatties, along with skinnies, in bikinis. If there's one good thing the internet did, it's show people how they look compared to other normal people and not models.
Some alarmist religious idiots and other "moralists" used to say that porn caused unrealistic expectations about bodies and behavior. Quite the opposite, it actually made people more comfortable with their bodies! Next time your girlfriend whines about her love handles, just put on a porno and tell her that she's a goddess compared to the women on-screen with the fake tits, beat-up roastbeef pussy, and zit-covered ass. You guys know what I'm talking about. Making a porno is a prerequisite to becoming a celebrity nowdays.
Celebrities themselves are no longer the gods and goddesses people idolized. Now they're just clowns, average airheaded rubes caked with makeup and airbrushing and made famous with "leaked" sex tapes.
One more thing: god dosen't exist.
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:4, Funny)
No, I'm not making this shit up [gotquestions.org]. Someone about 1600 or so years ago made it up first.
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:5, Funny)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
What you can do is to buy more screen space and time for your opponent's topless photos, accompanied by even more sinister music, and distribute bumper sticks and shirts that say "T is for Topless. T is for Terrorist." and "I'll be sober in the morning - virtue is lost forever"
We're just heading for the gutter faster.
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Assuming that things keep going this way, boring mediocre people will run the country. Whether this is a good thing or not is up for debate.
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Imagine if we ended up in a world where the two most recent American Presidents had admitted to cocaine use and the one before that had a reputation for sexual dalliance.
(Bush's use of cocaine is more controversial than Obama's, but his alcohol related antics are a reasonable replacement if it turns out that he never used coke)
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I would vote for a candidate who admitted he had used drugs and wanted them legalize them. I would NOT vote for a hypocrite who admitted to using drugs and wanted them illegal; what other hypocracies would he bring to office?
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Q: What other hypocracies would he bring to office?
A: Whichever ones helped him/her further his/her agenda and ensure re-election or continued powerful influence in politics.
That was too easy - Toss me another.
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When an economy collapses at the beginning of your term of office, and soars at the end of it, it was your *blank* idea.
Fill in the blank. ;)
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But where every single candidate for every single public office will have pictures of them sleeping in a puddle of their own puke after an ill-advised underage tequila session, will people by necessity stop holding public figures to absurd, archaic and hypocritical standards of personal behavior and start paying attention to how well they actually do their fucking jobs?
Your premise is false.
Not every single candidate will have pictures of them sleeping in a puddle of their own puke.
Further, the "absurd, archaic and hypocritical standards" are either written into Constitution/laws or the rules of order/ethics.
You can't have a respected office, no matter how good the candidate is, if they're a drunken lout in their off hours.
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You can't have a respected office, no matter how good the candidate is, if they're a drunken lout in their off hours.
I believe the point is not what they do in their off hours, but what they might have done in their off hours thirty years ago as a student.
People change. Almost everyone made some sort of "mistake" in their youth. In a sane world, we don't hold that against them long after it matters.
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:5, Funny)
Winston Churchill?
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't have a respected office, no matter how good the candidate is, if they're a drunken lout in their off hours.
Please explain Senator Ted Kennedy then? A drunken, homicidal lout who has managed to stay in office for how many decades? And is deferred to with respect by many in both parties.
And please cite the relevant portion of the Constitution that states drunken college party pics are grounds for exclusion from holding office.
Most folks I know tend to think people usually grow up after leaving college for the real world. And thus would ignore such pics if not for the Media hyping every such incident ad nauseum.
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He's not a politician, he's royalty.
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And please cite the relevant portion of the Constitution that states drunken college party pics are grounds for exclusion from holding office.
First: I never said it was "grounds for exclusion from holding office."
I was specifically responding to the idea that candidates should be judged solely on merit and not on their behavior.
Bad behavior reflects not just on the person in public office, but on the office itself.
Second: Deliberative bodies set their own rules.
Who was the last US Senator, US Congressman, or State Governor that was impeached?
They usually don't even resign, just duck and cover until the heat dies down.
Last but not least: The Unite
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Actually... I give me a photo of a candidate and I will give you a photo of them sleeping in a puddle of their own puke, or some other similarly embarrassing situation. The fact of the matter is that with current technology, it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate reality and well crafted lies.
At some point, the public will grow immune to slander, and vote with their hearts and minds. Considering we now have a "Muslim", "terrorist loving", "socialist", "anti-Christ", president who wants to "pull
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...will people by necessity stop holding public figures to absurd, archaic and hypocritical standards of personal behavior and start paying attention to how well they actually do their fucking jobs?
Amen, amen. This has, and always will be (with free speech, anyway) a disservice and stress-production factor to your NORMAL EFFING HUMAN BEING.
I've said enough.
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or what will happen is what is happening now: people who are technophobes with little to no online presence will be the only ones winning elections. So the guy who thinks using a Mac is too hard will be running your country. Or the girl who has never contributed to an online discussion.
Perhaps people of the future will be more understanding, but considering we're seeing people waltz into town hall meetings with guns, yelling like nuts, and using loaded terms like "youre hitler!" today, something tells me things will get worse before they get better.
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Or what will happen is what is happening now: people who are technophobes with little to no online presence will be the only ones winning elections. So the guy who thinks using a Mac is too hard will be running your country.
You mean like the President who had to fight to keep his Crackberry, and whose staff had to convert the White House network to work with their Mac computers instead of just Windows?
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Oh, you mean the exact opposite of how the current U.S. president got into office?
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There, I fixed that for you.
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We will be living in really interesting times.
There's an ancient Chinese curse that goes "may you live in interesting times".
20 Years From Now? (Score:3, Interesting)
At my age, 20 years from now, I'll be in a nursing home being cared for by a younger generation of caretakers, who have never had privacy, or have any understanding of why old people (like me) seem to be obsessed with a need for privacy. "But Mr. Robertson the webcam in your bathroom is so the attendants can look after your safety. If you fall down we need to know about that."
Re:Look at the bright side. (Score:4, Funny)
"Some 20 years from now, the confirmation hearings for supreme court justice nominations will get to be really interesting. "
Senator, let me ask you just this one question: Are you now -- or have you ever been -- a tank for the Horde?
The more you move offline, the less privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but that's the bottom line. Move your data to the cloud; kiss the privacy of that data goodbye. Move your voicemail to the phone company. Same issue. Get your code developed in [offshore country of your choice], you can rest assured that some of that code will go to a competitor in [insert country of choice].
.
Anytime there's an entity between you and your data/property/money, etc. it's no longer really yours. You don't control it any longer.
Sometimes that doesn't matter. Sometimes it does. Big time. Plan accordingly.
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Cloud computing can be useful if used as a way to simplify IT tasks within your own IT organization. Having a cloud of easily movable virtual servers simplifies capacity planning and availability management. It can, if implemented properly, greatly reduce IT costs.
However, storing data on an external cloud is just as dangerous as outsourcing data storage and processing has always been. Companies have been well aware of the risks they take when
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However, once you add a fancy new buzzword like "cloud" to what remains essentially IT outsourcing, executives' brains fall out of their skulls and they forget about risk management.
I don't actually think that there's a whole lot of executives who have been around this block before and suddenly have forgotten what the issues are because it's "in the cloud."
Rather, "the cloud" has put a lot of electronic services within reach of companies who have NEVER had them available before. They haven't outsourced; they haven't even insourced. They just haven't done it at all. And they have no concept of what the risks are.
With Google Docs, any two-bit non-profit can shove all their data online
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Our current culture considers common human behaviors (especially sexual behaviors) to be taboo. We value our privacy because it allows us to practice the taboo behaviors privately while abhorring them publicly (so we can all be part of the hateful, hypocritical mob).
Perhaps an end to privacy is a good thing. Perhaps the realization that everyone practices taboo behaviors will cause us to accept them, freeing ourselves from senseless guilt, hypocrisy, and shame.
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You are correct. I still have an answering machine. Not only is it cheaper than voicemail (no monthly fee), but also it's under my control. I have a public facebook page, but because it's public I am very careful what I release. Other citizens need to learn to be as vigilant.
Vice-versa, bosses need to stop being such prudes. If a teacher posts a bunch of wedding photos and in some of those she's drinking wine, DON'T fire the teacher for actions performed off-the-clock. Simply ask her to remove the pho
Re:The more you move offline, the less privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
If a teacher posts a bunch of wedding photos and in some of those she's drinking wine, DON'T fire the teacher for actions performed off-the-clock. Simply ask her to remove the photo.
Why should she even do that? There is nothing illegal or inappropriate about either getting married or drinking wine.
If someone has a problem with photos such as you describe, then the problem is with the person, not the photo.
If that someone is the teacher's boss, then they need to find a new line of work, because they're lousy at supporting their staff.
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>>>Why should she even do that?
The key word, which you ignored, is the boss would ASK her to remove the photos. She certainly has the option to say "no" since this is a free country, but hopefully she would recognize that posting drinking photos (or using dirty language, or posting home sex videos) sends the wrong message to her kids. She doesn't deserve to be fired, but I see no harm in a boss simply asking her to use better judgment.
Re:The more you move offline, the less privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The key word, which you ignored, is the boss would ASK her to remove the photos.
Why should she even be asked to remove the photo, though? She is doing nothing wrong.
Posting photos where adults happen to be enjoying a glass of wine in good company is not against the law. On the contrary, countries where children are exposed to responsible drinking behaviour from an early age have much, much lower incidence of alcohol-related criminal activity.
She doesn't deserve to be fired, but I see no harm in a boss simply asking her to use better judgment.
I don't see anything wrong with her judgement just the way it is.
I would, however, have a problem with anyone whose judgement said that people should not be free to share photographs of themselves participating in perfectly normal and legal activities, just because they happen to be teachers and the children they taught were not yet allowed to take part in the same activities. That's just political correctness gone mad, and a terrible example of allowing an employer to interfere with an employee's private life outside work.
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>>>Why should she even be asked to remove the photo, though?
Can you not read? I answered this question in depth, and thus there was no need to repeat it twice. For a teacher to stand in class and say, "Drinking is dangerous and damages your liver," while her or his students are browsing the web and seeing the teacher participating in said behavior, is confusing to the students. I think the principal has every right to REQUEST the photos be taken-down, just the same as the principal has the right
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P.S.
If you're still confused, consider a boss has the same right of free speech as we all do. You can not take-away his right to make a request of an employee and/or forcing him to shutup.
errr.. yeahh.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:errr.. yeahh.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone breaks into your ISP, it's not just your information they get. Say the ISP has the data for N people. If more than 1/N people of loose morals are capable of breaking into the ISP, your odds of having your data exposed are larger this way than your odds of having your data exposed by someone breaking into your house. Making simplifying assumptions like people being equally interested in breaking into houses and ISPs, and one person per house etc of course.
My gut feeling (which may be wrong, gut feelings often are when it comes to security) is that your correspondence is much much safer in your house, unless there is a particular reason someone wants your particular information rather than information to fish through. Furthermore, most people are STILL vulnerable to the house break-in, as there is sufficient information there to fool the ISP through a social engineering vector. Also, the people who broke into your house probably didn't care about your information, from your description they were likely just after the tangible properly.
Finally, the ISP may simply sell the information anyway.
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>>>They make it sound like that's easier, as though they're getting into your shed.
It is easier to access data on an ISP. Just ask anyone who's been sued by RIAA or MPAA - in most cases the ISP will turn-over your personal information with a simple phonecall by the RIAA/MPAA employees, whereas information stored inside your home requires a *search warrant* issued by a judge.
Your data is safer at home, with constitutional protections, than in the hands of an ISP that doesn't care about your privac
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Right. When people break into your house, they're usually after your Stuff. When they break into your ISP, they're after your Information. You're right; these are very different things.
When they get your Stuff, the damage is usually immediate and obvious, and your stuff might even be returned. When they get your information, you have no idea what the damage will be, when it will manifest itself, or where it has gone.
All only by your choice.... (Score:3, Insightful)
voicemail held by the phone company? only if you dont use an answering machine or you use their VM service. you CAN change your cellphones settings to ring your own VM system at home.
Email, use IMAP and yank it all from the servers. They cant read your email from 2 weeks ago if it's not there.
Also encrypt. It's not hard anymore.
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Also encrypt. It's not hard anymore.
Good luck getting every other person you send e-mail to to start encrypting or dealing with it. I get more hassles from non-geeks who call me up and say "what's this attached to your e-mail" than you can shake a stick at. Yes, I explain it to them. When I get to the part where they have to remember to click "encrypt" button, then enter their passphrase to send e-mail it all comes to a screeching halt.
I wonder how many mail servers are configured to accept SMTP over SSL/TLS? Every node along the way can'
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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(reads maxume's mind)...ick. Pervert.
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You still make it pretty easy.
You are male, between 30-50, live in either Montana, New Hampshire, or Arizona, and own (at a minimum) one rifle and 2 hand-guns.
Am I getting close?
Re:The younger generation (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just not young enough anymore, but I don't agree. I'm fairly indifferent about privacy when it comes to telling people where I've been, what I'm doing or where I'm going because for most of the time it's of absolutely no interest to anyone but the friends and family even if I shout it to the world. Now if I had a stalker or crazy ex-wife or whatever else that would make it matter, it's completely different. Then I need to shut out those people, but I'd still consider it their wrongdoing that I need those access controls. Bugger off and leave my life in peace.
Exactly the same applies if there's a government stalker. I don't want to keep my life a secret because they got some orwellian control freak vision, it's something I could do in response but I'd rather fight for a government that didn't do that sort of thing. The whole reasoning that "if you don't want the government to know, you must make it impossible" is sad and not consistent with reality. If you followed me into a grocery store you'd know what kind of tooth paste I use, but if I knew anyone cared I'd do my best not to reveal it for the hell of it.
The fact that people can blog and twitter so freely about their life is a good sign, it's a sign they feel confident in their ability to live their life openly and still without undue government interference. Maybe that's because the people are naive and don't realize how the government manipulates them, but that's a bit too simplistic. I mean you can say the same about free speech, maybe the dissidents are just being naive and really put on the death list for when the revolution comes but I'd say people openly criticizing the government is a much better sign than people too afraid to say a thing.
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Also, their presence on your lawn is far less than fully appreciated.
Totalitarianism (Score:2)
And snazzy uniforms for the global information police I guess...
Caring about privacy (Score:2)
People who really care about their privacy do not yell about privacy law. They use secure systems, they keep their life private.
I think people who are vocal about privacy are just trying to signal that they have interesting lives. If your life is boring and common, it has very low information entropy. By hinting that you have some private information, they're often trying to imply their life is interesting. And when they're done yelling, they twitter what they had for breakfast.
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Problem is, it's not always up to you.
You might keep your own secure systems, but your clueless friends keep "tagging" you in their Facebook photo albums, your client's secretary puts your name and contact information in the cloud, your ex-wife posts a big blog entry about the time you went drinking on company time...
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In this case you bitch to your friends about their lack of discretion and if they don't get the hint you consider not hanging out with them, at least not where cameras are around. The third party (in this case Facebook) has nothing to do with it.
Diction complaint (Score:5, Informative)
Dammit, it's "flout", not "flaunt".
Actually... No it isn't. (Score:3, Informative)
At least not for the last 433 years.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaunt [merriam-webster.com]
* Main Entry: flaunt
* Pronunciation: \flont, flänt\
* Function: verb
* Etymology: perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse flana to rush around
* Date: 1566
intransitive verb
1 : to display or obtrude oneself to public notice (a great flaunting crowd -- Charles Dickens)
2 : to wave or flutter showily (the flag flaunts in the breeze)
transitive verb
1 : to display ostentatiously or impudently : parade (flaunting his superiority)
2 : to treat contemptuously (flaunted the rules -- Louis Untermeyer)
synonyms
-- flaunt noun
-- flauntingly \flon-ti-l, flän-\ adverb
-- flaunty \-t\ adjective
usage
Although transitive sense 2 of flaunt undoubtedly arose from confusion with flout, the contexts in which it appears cannot be called substandard
(meting out punishment to the occasional mavericks who operate rigged games, tolerate rowdyism, or otherwise flaunt the law -- Oscar Lewis)
(observed with horror the flaunting of their authority in the suburbs, where men...put up buildings that had no place at all in a Christian commonwealth -- Marchette Chute)
(in our profession...very rarely do we publicly chastise a colleague who has flaunted our most basic principles -- R. T. Blackburn, AAUP Bulletin).
If you use it, however, you should be aware that many people will consider it a mistake.
Use of flout in the sense of flaunt 1 is found occasionally
("The proper pronunciation," the blonde said, flouting her refined upbringing, "is pree feeks" -- Mike Royko).
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I think the important note there is:
If you use it, however, you should be aware that many people will consider it a mistake.
Flaunt may have been used as a synonym for flout for many years, but it has been commonly understood (by those familiar with the word flout) to be a mistake for that entire time.
Similarly, although the term "chaise lounge" (commonly accepted in the US) is a creation of people who did not know French, it is considered a mistake by those familiar with the original "chaise longue".
In other words, it is still wrong, for all intensive purposes.
You mean... (Score:2)
...if I called you gay, you would understand that I am referring to your "joyful and carefree disposition"?
Language is a living, growing and changing thing.
Eventually, along the way, stroking your girlfriend's pussy [youtube.com] in public becomes a lewd act.
Can we apply the laws to governments too? (Score:2)
I do not mind the calls to have companies be required to adhere to stricter privacy laws, but damn, the elephant in the room are government agencies. I can probably win this bet, very many of the same people who want these restrictions favor universal health care in the US. Do you not see the connection?
Want the best example of how companies are burdened with privacy or similar laws that the government just ignores? Medicare. They use SSN on about everything. Private companies can no longer do this but
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Give up already (Score:2)
Face the new reality.
Information wants to be free.
Re:Give up already (Score:4, Insightful)
Information wants to be free.
That tired old cliche is still around? You could as honestly say that information wants to be private, or information wants to be valuable.
When information isn't free, neither are you.
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Could you define your statement? What IS information? How do we separate it from objects, from id?
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Anything that can be digitalized.
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Something to chew on.
We don't need more privacy laws (Score:3, Insightful)
What we need are more clarity about laws regarding basic rights and their nemesis discrimination.
The average person in their average life does not need privacy. They need discretion from their peers and the public regarding their personal life and laws which protect their right to live how they choose without discrimination.
Yes I advocate transparency. The truth will set you free and all that...
The only people who *need* privacy are those who are a) doing something illegal or unethical and want to keep others from finding out or b) doing something competitive and want to keep their progress from their competition.
People in category (a) deserve no legal cover for their actions.
People in category (b) have a thing called security which they should implement to provide a deterrent to unwanted attention or disclosure.
Everyone else just needs to know that their insurance won't go up if they are found to practice aggressive sexual methods or that they suck at cooking and start fires on the range every other weekend trying to cook.
People will be better off when their neighbors know about their weird behavior and learn to accept it (just like those neighbors will be better off when you find out about their quirks). This is called living in a community and it's about time we got back to it instead of trying to live in isolated 'privacy' gardens where we think we're the only ones who have issues and everyone else's lives are perfect.
Think of all the anxiety and social problems this would prevent. It's hard to discriminate against some group of people when you find out that all of your friends are in that group.
Re:We don't need more privacy laws (Score:5, Insightful)
And the day a national newspaper publishes pictures of your private sexual encounters [wikipedia.org] for millions of perverts to salivate over, will you still think we don't need privacy then?
And the day someone steals a silly video you made, publishes it online a you personally become a worldwide joke [wikipedia.org], will you still think we don't need privacy then?
And the day you are arrested for urinating behind a bush and are now subject to the all prying eyes of termagants and vigilantes the world over [canada.com], will you still think we don't need privacy then?
People's private habits will always be a source of derision, ridicule and contempt for others, even those with habits of their own. People will used any excuse to laugh at, mock and inflict violence on others. You go find the nicest homosexual couple in your town and put up a big sign outside their house saying "Nicest gay couple in town reside here"; I guarantee you they will be egged, stoned, assaulted or killed with a month, no matter how placid the local populace. Now ask yourself, how easy should it be to put that tag up in Google maps?
Privacy means more than just keeping your private details a secret. It means keeping yourself safe from other human beings. We are social animals, and that means we will gang up and rip someone apart as easily as we gather together and cooperate on anything else. All we need is sufficient excuse.
You say people don't need privacy. Well I think that Max Mosely needed privacy. I think that the Star Wars Kids needs privacy. I think that people who were caught taking photgraphs of themselves in high school need privacy. I think these people were vulnerable and needed our protection from newspapers, databases and the crowing mobs howling with delight at their misfortune. I think they needed it and we let them down. What right should any of use have to any privacy whatsoever if we can't protect the people that need it most?
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Re:We don't need more privacy laws (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, "People who are doing something unethical deserve no legal cover for their actions." 'Unethical' may be defined as "belonging to a class of activities that my peers and I disagree with or find distasteful." Your argument, and the fact that many others have similar positions, actually makes an excellent case for privacy.
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"belonging to a class of activities that my peers and I disagree with or find distasteful."
YES. These people don't need LAWS protecting their right to hide such information from public view.
Nobody needs LAWS to keep other people from finding out what they are doing. They need LAWS to protect their right to do things.
The best example I can think of is "Don't ask don't tell". A homosexual man or woman can be enlisted in the military as long as they don't disclose that they are homosexual. This is a protection
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those who are a) doing something illegal or unethical and want to keep others from finding out or ...
People in category (a) deserve no legal cover for their actions.
The problem is, people disagree about what is and isn't ethical. I have no ethical problems at all with the fact that my wife and I are dating another couple; there's no way in hell I'm going to tell my in-laws about it, though. Meanwhile, there were two Palin babies talked about in the last election, and I think it was morally wrong not to h
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You are stating a common fallacy, and you are dead wrong. You make the false assertion that anyone who doesn't wish to share everything about himself has committed some heinous misdeed. I choose what personal information I care to reveal about my self or my doings -- and that has nothi
How scared should i be? (Score:2)
Can someone give me a non-Fox News explanation of how worried any should be worried about this? Some /.ers are privacy freaks who are so egocentric as to think that *everyone* is out to get them all the time. i'd like to hear from a non-paranoid person about the real risks involved.
i'm inclined to think that the elephant doesn't even know the ant exists, let alone cares about where i bought lunch last Tuesday.
What is the REAL likelihood that any given person would be the targeted and what is the realistic
Re:How scared should i be? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that people are paranoid, but there are occasional events that are creepy, which point to a need for more privacy.
The one that was the tipping point for me actually happened to a co-worker: in the mid-late 90's he was taking AZT (yes, he had AIDS). The creepy part came shortly after getting his first AZT prescription filled...a few weeks after his first prescription he started getting mailed advertisements for graveyard plots. Yes, his pharmacy had sold the fact that he was taking AZT to a marketing company, who realized he was about to die & tried to sell him a grave. It's not that he was being targeted in any malicious way, but I think it's clear (at least, to me) that his privacy had been badly violated by his pharmacy.
That's the sort of thing I use as a model for privacy. In the intervening years, health data has been (somewhat) protected, but I think it's still a valid point for consideration: you may not think of your own information as important, but some of it can still be used to make some very creepy conclusions about you, and will be used in some very creepy ways if you're not careful.
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One of the legitimate concerns of the privacy advocates is the collateral damage that comes from easy access to information. A lot of data is collected and assembled to look for correlations between persons of interest. Once a pattern is identified, the people that match the target are of interest. The same general approach is used for law enforcement and marketing purposes. Using marketing tactics for law enforcement just seems like a bad idea.
For example, if you buy sudafed and shop at an auto parts s
What is telling is the number of comments (Score:2)
As of this post, there are only 48 comments - pretty low for a front page Slashdot article. Admittedly, this is only Slashdot, but if there was even a slight correlation with the lack of thought about the issue in the general public, that would suggest that apathy abounds on the issue and that little is going to be done about it.
Privacy is less important to people that ever. Many are more concerned with the opposite - their own celebrity and 15 seconds of fame...
Two People Not Private (Score:2)
Privacy is a lousy concept. If an utterance is made to another person then it is not a private matter at all. If I receive a communication from another person am I not free to make it as public as I wish?
In other words if people have their panties in a knot over potential harm from their words then don't speak or write them. The ultimate in privacy involves keeping your mouth shut.
Norm for who? (Score:2)
...maintaining your privacy is becoming even more difficult as social media and cloud computing become the norm.
Cloud computing is becoming the norm in pundit tech discussion perhaps, but in the real world where I work local software still rules. Perhaps before we invest heavily on server-side processing, we should improve our ISP services to cut down on nickel-and-dime use billing and frequent disconnections and traffic shaping...
e-mail privacy and the real root of the problem (Score:2)
Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look through your correspondence, they had to break into your house. Now, they can just break into your ISP.
Not in my case. I constantly (as in "every 70 seconds") download any newly arrived mail from my ISP to my own machine and then delete the copy on the server as soon as I have a local one. And I have every intention of keeping on doing this for as long as I'm mentally able to process e-mails. This way, they still don't have to break into my house again, but at
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IMHO, you're putting an unnecessary strain on the IMAP server of your ISP (70 seconds polling is really aggressive)... and it doesn't buy you any more confidentiality either. A "deleted" file on the IMAP server is merely unlinked, i.e. it is still present in the free blocks of said server, and can be reconstructed. Depend
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I actually do run a Linux based server and additional spam filter of my own. Works just fine, so I don't see the need for getting a static address. If my ISP ever folds, I might reconsider, but until then I just want things to work and keep on working as they have done for ages without (even one-time) hassles.
With respect to the 70 seconds: I've been doing this for about 14 years now (POP initially, later IMAP). If my ISP has an issue with it, all they need to do is contact me. They don't seem to think it
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At work I didn't care about deleting stuff for privacy reasons. After all, those mails were work related. All I wanted in that context, was being able to continue to use my old e-mail client and it so happens that the easiest way to do that was to use fetchmail to retrieve all new mail and delete it from the server afterwards. The mails were simply stored as files on my UNIX account (the whole idea was that I insisted on using the unix command line friendly maildir format for storing mails). So the mails ne
Not exactly (Score:2)
Don't know if it was 20 years ago, but that's simply not true. If you were dumb enough to not shred the stuff, the minute it hit the garbage on the curb, it was fair game. It's no different than in this case. Find (and use) reliable encryption (or whatever) and you're taking stronger steps to protect yourself - just like shredding your documents.
There really is a generation gap. (Score:3, Interesting)
About nine years ago, when phones started to get GPS capability, I was asking people what they thought of having their location tracked. Older people were horrified. Teenagers wanted a live map with all their friends on it.
The cell phone industry was hesitant to roll out GPS-based people tracking applications for years. Helio was the first to really do it, with their "Buddy Beacon" system. (This only worked if both parties had a Helio phone, so it wasn't that useful given Helio's tiny market share.) Now it's a common phone capability.
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