[ddebernardy]

This unfortunately doesn't seem realistic:

> Moglen proposed deploying "freedom boxes" at every street corner—cheap hardware running free software, deployed everywhere, that encrypt everything, anonymise everything, and blind the service providers to our activity.

b/c the last mile is the priciest part of a telco's network. Unless the telcos are forced to do it, it has zero odds of happening.

Also, let's not forget privacy as we know it is a distinctly modern idea. The "right to privacy" was coined with the advent of cameras in the 1890s:

https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-o...

The main new thing today is the ubiquity of the public sphere owing to IT. Inadvertently ending up on a picture in the late 19th century was a rather trivial intrusion of privacy; the same picture posted on FB today instantly makes it available to anyone with an internet connection. Not saying privacy has little to no merit, but nothing short of a full-blown societal rethink is going to make taking and sharing those pictures stop - a piece of hardware just won't help.

[tremon]

Also, let's not forget privacy as we know it is a distinctly modern idea.

Well, yes. But that's not because the phenomenon is new, but because detailed personal logging is new. Privacy used to be a natural right: no one could possibly know what you did last summer unless you told them or they were there with you. It only started to be an issue when we started following people around and preserving that data.

[ddebernardy]

It was an issue long before that, hence the laws related to it.

Privacy never was a "natural" thing until the 19th century. Sex in private yes, there's plenty of evidence for that. But that's about it.

By the end of the 19th century, it became an issue - indeed a right - owing to people preserving data around because cameras became a thing.

And as pointed out in my post, the main novelty today is the ubiquitous access by _everyone_ - it's no longer local to your immediate circle of contacts, it's basically publicly available information.

[joesmo]

If privacy is a distinctly modern idea invented in the 1890's what was the purpose of window curtains before then? Certainly they couldn't have been there to protect an idea that's probably older than language and likely has actual biological basis. I assume also that humans only started to have sex in private in the 1890s according to your theory as it wouldn't have been even possible to conceive of privacy before the idea of privacy existed?

The idea that privacy is something new is absolutely absurd and laughable.

[ddebernardy]

Consider reading the post I linked to. And let's not forget Window taxes from the 19th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

In earlier ages, there were few windows owing to architectural and building technique related constraints. If anything the window taxes reeked of "oh shoot, these guys are rich and can afford modern construction techniques." Your home with plenty of light flowing in is in fact quite modern.

[SixSigma]

> what was the purpose of window curtains before then?

Draught exclusion and insulation from convection.

[stcredzero]

From the article:

> The machine does not treat us as human beings with minds and free will, Moglen continuted, but as "stimulus and response correlations" to be sorted and sold as "mineable human attention."

That is how people seem to act, if you weight by the volume of their speech on the internet. Since the 90's, the internet has gone from a place of intellectual wonder and discovery to a mob scene of the lowest common denominator, where "telling it like it is" is seen as the highest virtue. It's the realization of the metaphor about distributing a piano to every classroom without providing funds for instruction. ("Chopsticks culture.") Is this the end of the world? No. Human beings will create more culture, and it will eventually become as refined and rarefied as anything that came out of a 19th century salon or 15th century patronage.

The main new thing today is the ubiquity of the public sphere owing to IT. Inadvertently ending up on a picture in the late 19th century was a rather trivial intrusion of privacy; the same picture posted on FB today instantly makes it available to anyone with an internet connection.

It's a pity for common people that the depredations of corporations with DRM has demonized it. As horrible as it is when used by companies, it would be a tremendous boon if it could be used by individuals to protect themselves against companies. Just as secrecy of individual information is privacy, and good for individuals and society, and the opposite of that for companies (openness) is also good for society, so it is with cryptographically auditable trusted execution on the behalf of individuals vs. companies. There is an asymmetry that makes it horrible in one direction and great in another.

[otabdeveloper1]

> Also, let's not forget privacy as we know it is a distinctly modern idea.

Well, no. Fences existed since caveman times.

[pavel_lishin]

Fences aren't about privacy, fences are^ about property rights and defense.

^ mostly, yes, you can find exceptions even back in pre-history.

[ddebernardy]

Citation please? (I couldn't find any.)

[yareally]

History of fences on Wikipedia talks about it dating back to at least feudal times when discussing property rights and boundaries. Obviously much farther back when discussing defensive use cases (Hadrian's Wall and The Great Wall being two massive examples I can think of quickly).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence#History

Not the first case of fence use in property rights, but barbed wire was first invented to keep property in (animals) more so than keeping others out.

[pnathan]

> . Unless the telcos are forced to do it, it has zero odds of happening.

I think you are assuming the telcos will do it. Why not individuals? Why not small companies? Back in the 90s there were a ton of small ISPs?

It doesn't all have to be ComcastWarnerGoogleMegacorp...

[ddebernardy]

Would be nice, but I think you're underestimating the costs here. Pulling dark fiber to a location and lightening it up is expensive but it's nowhere near the cost related to connecting it to every home around the venue. If memory serves, 80% of a telco network's costs were the last mile ~15 years ago, and I can't imagine the economics have changed that much.

[pnathan]

That makes me think that a proper Wifi setup might be a better way to go. The term 'mesh network' comes to mind, but that tends to connote "utopic ideas" in my head...