[miguelrochefort]

As long as people will think that privacy is a normal thing to seek, we'll keep using personal information and secrets as authentication methods, and those whose data leaks will suffer the consequences.

What we should do is think about the post-privacy world, where all data is available to everyone. We won't be able to keep secrets and passwords anymore, but we won't have to secure them either, as we will have better authentication methods. No more paranoia, encryption, or fear of data leaks.

It blows my mind how few people are willing to concede the benefits of transparency, even if they're not willing to fully endorse it.

[dahart]

> What we should do is think about the post-privacy world, where all data is available to everyone.

Either I don't fully understand what you're suggesting, or you don't fully understand what you're suggesting. ;)

Right to privacy is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for good reasons. Violations and abuses of privacy have done a lot of damage to a lot of people throughout history.

So what does authentication even mean to you if all data is available to everyone? Why would you still need to authenticate?

Do you think it's a good idea for me & everyone else to see your bank balance? Personal emails? Personnel reviews at work? Letters to your girlfriend? Late night browsing habits? Purchase history? All your photos along with the video feed from your phone?

I don't see privacy ever not being a normal and reasonable thing to seek, not to mention rather important for developing democracies and as some protection against government abuses.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

[bookofjoe]

"Privacy, as we understand it, is only about 150 years old."https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-o...

[dahart]

Aristotle wrote about privacy more than 2000 years ago. The ancient Greeks had secret ballots in their elections. Ancient China and ancient India have concepts of privacy written into their laws for thousands of years. The core idea of privacy, as something that is a basic human need, and should be a right, has existed for a long, long time.

There's a lot of qualification to hide behind in the clause "as we understand it". This is a blog post about Silicon Valley, by someone making some pretty loose inferences, using specious logic to construct an argument. Many people pointed out glaring, major flaws in that blog post in the comments.

But sure, privacy wasn't exactly the same 300 years ago as it is now in Silicon Valley with the internet. But ironically that post contains a lot of evidence of the idea that the idea of privacy has been around for a long time. John Adams wrote about not publishing his bank balance 300 years ago.

This blog post does not amount to rigorous historical research or evidence of a lack of privacy before modern times. Right off the top, I don't really buy that houses without walls somehow demonstrates that privacy didn't exist. For one, only poor people lacked walls. Rich people have had them for a long time. Walls also didn't matter as much because people didn't poop in their houses as often as we do now, so lack of walls doesn't prove a lot.

[miguelrochefort]

I suggest that a right to privacy is a mistake. It shouldn't exist.

Unsustainability: It will only become more difficult to keep secrets as technology improves. Imagine cameras that can see through walls and drones the size of a fly.

Unenforceability: How do you make people forget information on demand? How do you delete data from the internet?

Inefficiency: We waste a lot of resources securing data. We waste a lot of resources requesting data. Allowing data to flow naturally would be more efficient.

I think it's a good idea to let "everyone else see [my] bank balance[.] Personal emails[.] Personnel reviews at work[.] Letters to [my] girlfriend[.] Late night browsing habits[.] Purchase history[.] All [my] photos along with the video feed from [my] phone[.]" However, I think it would be unfair to make the life of one person transparent in a society where the social and technical expectation is to keep secrets, although I think it would be better to make everyone's lives transparent in a society where transparency is supported.

I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable. I also think that the later we prepare for the transition the more people will suffer. This is why I bring up the subject and encourage people to think about it.

David Brin explains it much better in his book:

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

[thg]

Bruce Schneier has written an essay on a few key points why privacy is essential: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/how_surveilla...

"If there is no privacy, there will be pressure to change. Some people will recognize that their morality isn't necessarily the morality of everyone­ -- and that that's okay. But others will start demanding legislative change, or using less legal and more violent means, to force others to match their idea of morality.

It's easy to imagine the more conservative (in the small-c sense, not in the sense of the named political party) among us getting enough power to make illegal what they would otherwise be forced to witness. In this way, privacy helps protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority."

[mch82]

How would Martin Luther King survive long enough to lead the civil rights movement in a world without privacy?

[dahart]

> I suggest that a right to privacy is a mistake. It shouldn't exist.

You need to think more carefully about your position. Your statement makes it seem like you are ignorant of history. People have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. It is still happening in the world today.

> David Brin explains it

"Brin spends an entire chapter exploring how important some degree of privacy is for most human beings, allowing them moments of intimacy, to exchange confidences, and to prepare - in some security - for the competitive world."

Brin doesn't agree that it's a good idea for everyone to see your letters, bank balance, and other personal secrets. It seems like you got the wrong idea about his book.

> I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable.

You haven't explained or justified this idea at all.

The problem with your concept of absolute zero privacy is competition. As long as privacy can be exploited, as long as a lack of privacy can be used against you in any way, the need for privacy will exist.

The idea you have that privacy could go away can only happen if all humans are cooperative, and economic systems based on competition are eliminated. We can't have absolute transparency and Capitalism at the same time. We can't have politics or business either. Absolute transparency works for fictional races like the Borg on Star Trek. What you're talking about seems like a theoretical concept that is divorced from reality.

Current trends are in the opposite direction, so what makes you think we're on the way? Business is getting more competetive, not less. Societies are getting more political, not less. In some countries, government and human rights abuses have been regressing. The need for privacy is going up, not down.

> I think it's a good idea to let everyone else see my bank balance ...

You didn't explain why. Why is it a good idea? Do you want to post all that information here and now? Why aren't you publishing it already if it's a good idea?

Your purchase history is just one of many examples of something that is being used against you. There are insurance companies buying personal data like purchase history in order to gather evidence for denials on claims.

[miguelrochefort]

What do you think about things we can't easily keep secret (skin color, gender, religious garment), and failure to keep secrets (leaks)?

Do these people deserve to be the focus of all discrimination? It seems to me that privacy is necessarily misleading and unfair.

How do you suggest we fix that?

[dahart]

You didn’t answer any of my questions or respond to a single point I made. Do you understand why the right to privacy currently exists? How about I make some suggestions when you justify losing privacy?

The fact that there are problems with privacy doesn’t mean it makes any sense whatsoever to just get rid of privacy. Should we get rid of water because some people have drowned? Should we eliminate math because it’s hard and people sometimes make mistakes?

When privacy leaks and abuses cause people suffering or damage, the answer isn’t less privacy, it’s more. Plug the leak, don’t open the floodgate.

[miguelrochefort]

> You need to think more carefully about your position. Your statement makes it seem like you are ignorant of history. People have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. It is still happening in the world today.

I am aware that people have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. I think we should blame the perpetrators, not the free flow of information.

> Brin doesn't agree that it's a good idea for everyone to see your letters, bank balance, and other personal secrets. It seems like you got the wrong idea about his book.

That's possible. I didn't read the book.

> The problem with your concept of absolute zero privacy is competition. As long as privacy can be exploited, as long as a lack of privacy can be used against you in any way, the need for privacy will exist.

All knowledge can be exploited. All knowledge can be used against people. I don't think that's a problem, and I don't think that can be changed.

> The idea you have that privacy could go away can only happen if all humans are cooperative, and economic systems based on competition are eliminated. We can't have absolute transparency and Capitalism at the same time. We can't have politics or business either. Absolute transparency works for fictional races like the Borg on Star Trek. What you're talking about seems like a theoretical concept that is divorced from reality.

I don't claim that we could switch to full transparency tomorrow. I suggest that we accept the limitations of privacy, and work toward a society that's compatible with more transparency. I think less competition and politics would be welcome.

> Current trends are in the opposite direction, so what makes you think we're on the way? Business is getting more competetive, not less. Societies are getting more political, not less. In some countries, government and human rights abuses have been regressing. The need for privacy is going up, not down.

The world is getting worse in some ways, and I think that privacy enables that. Privacy is a self fulfilling need. The more we expect and rely on it, the more dangerous it becomes, the more we need. That's not good.

> You didn't explain why. Why is it a good idea? Do you want to post all that information here and now? Why aren't you publishing it already if it's a good idea?

Again, society is not ready yet. It won't be ready until we all put a lot of work into changing things. The first step is to convince idealists that total transparency is more desirable than total privacy.

> Your purchase history is just one of many examples of something that is being used against you. There are insurance companies buying personal data like purchase history in order to gather evidence for denials on claims.

If your purchase history is evidence that you violated the terms of the contract, I think it's fair. Likewise, if it makes it possible to give discounts to people who take care of whatever is insured, that's great.

> Do you understand why the right to privacy currently exists?

Yes, I understand why it exists.

> The fact that there are problems with privacy doesn’t mean it makes any sense whatsoever to just get rid of privacy. Should we get rid of water because some people have drowned? Should we eliminate math because it’s hard and people sometimes make mistakes?

"The fact that there are problems with [transparency] doesn’t mean it makes any sense whatsoever to just get rid of [transparency]."

> When privacy leaks and abuses cause people suffering or damage, the answer isn’t less privacy, it’s more. Plug the leak, don’t open the floodgate.

It's like increasing the dosage of medication as your body gets used to it. I'd rather not have to take medication if possible.

I want people to change their diet to prevent or reverse diabetes. You want to create more artificial insulin. I don't think artificial insulin is bad, as it clearly helps a lot of people today (and more people every year), but I don't think the discussion should only be about creating more artificial insulin and making sure everyone can have some. We should think about fixing the root cause, and lessen our reliance on artificial insulin.

I totally get your point. Do you get mine?