[davej]

> A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves -- an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought.

This is hyperbole and also it's just not true in any real sense. We can still have private moments and we can certainly still have "unrecorded, unanalyzed thoughts".

I really wish Snowden wouldn't overstate the current state of affairs, the facts alone are enough.

[lukifer]

He's also describing a cultural shift. While it may be hyperbolic, I think there's some truth to the notion that the Facebook generation thinks in terms of being public by default, possibly without even being aware of it, because it's so trivial for information to leak out into the world unless you jump through a lot of hoops to prevent it. There are fewer and fewer "secret gardens" left to children.

I'd be very curious to hear from a millennial (or younger) on the subject; anyone Snowden's age or older is probably too far removed from the next generation to assess it well.

[andrewfong]

Born in the 1980s, not sure if that makes me a millenial.

The sentiment is incomplete. Privacy exists, but private from whom? The younger generations still have a reasonable expectation of privacy against their parents. But probably much less of one against Facebook, Google, or the government.

Public by default also doesn't imply a total lack of privacy. Younger people overshare all the time on social networks, but there's still an (unreasonable) expectation that these things are quasi-private. Think of it as talking loudly in a mall with your friends. Yes, anyone can overhear. But no one actually expects anyone to care or pay attention to your conversation.

EDIT: Should also point out that millenials and other generations are not homogeneous groups. I imagine that white upper middle-class Christians would likely have different expectations of privacy in America than someone who is black, poor, and Muslim.

[Tepix]

If you consider that most teenagers carry around their smartphone with them all the time, those moments are no longer guaranteed to be private.

[derefr]

When those devices were invented that allowed parents to GPS-track their children, they were quickly subverted: the kids would go to a friend's house, leave the device there, and then go where they really wanted to go.

If you actually premeditate a private moment, it's fully possible to make it so.

[Houshalter]

And then the parent calls the phone and the kid doesn't answer.

[tonylemesmer]

What Snowden said still isn't true though is it?

My kids have privacy.

[TehCorwiz]

You believe that you and your kids have privacy.

[middleclick]

True. You can never say for sure if your kids have privacy or not. Most kids these days don't have any notion of what privacy is, given the kind of content they are sharing on Facebook and other social networking websites.

[summerdown2]

I was with the In-Laws the other day, and overheard the following conversation between my Father-in-law and his son:

Father: "Where were you the other night?"

Son: "<name of street>"

Father: "No you weren't. Don't forget you have a car tracker to give you cheaper insurance, which I'm paying for. That means I can log on any time I like and see exactly where you were."

[wavefunction]

The NSA is already getting into our brains via self-censoring, which has seen a dramatic rise in the last few years as reported by journalists and others.

[Theodores]

I felt that too. I doubt that the NSA have a tap in place between the two halves of my brain. Until that happens I can have private thoughts.

I was hoping for a little bit more. Certainly he could have said more. By being overly concise he overstated things, this was not good.

I know he does not think he 'matters' (it is the story that 'matters'), however, it would have been good to hear from him how well things are going and how he is going to spend time this Christmas (presumably not at his mum and dad's place).

[thirdsight]

Your private thoughts aren't private if they can gain enough information about your personality from your public thoughts.

[FireBeyond]

That’s a non-sequitur. Public thoughts + personality != private thoughts.

[Houshalter]

You can have private thoughts, but good luck communicating them to someone else without the possibility of it being recorded. It's a valid concern for the future as brain to computer interfaces are going to become more common. Scientists have managed to extract images of what people are imagining from their brains already.

[summerdown2]

I'm not sure it's as much hyperbole as you think. One of the statements by Ebon Moglen's recent talk that stayed with me is something like "In every country where people spend a long time online, Google already knows how you're going to vote."

Imagine the sort of things the government could get by mashing together our electronic signals, all of which you might want to keep private:

1. Who you will most likely vote for

2. Where you have been at all times.

3 Who you spoke to on the phone, text message and bulletin boards.

4. Your sexual orientation, shared trauma, or mental problems.

5. Your sexual kinks and porn preferences.

6. Your religion.

7. Your medical history (and from 23andMe, your DNA)

8. What films you watch, music you like and books you read (and from ebooks, for how long you spent doing so).

9. Who you met physically (if both are carrying tracking phones).

10. Everything you bought via paypal, credit cards or bank transactions.

11. Your credit history, savings history and financial proclivities.

12. Your possessions that are recorded, such as houses, cars.

13. Every country you visit abroad. Every plane ticket and use of your passport (including photo and fingerprints).

14. Your complete criminal record.

15. And already coming to the youth of today: cheaper insurance via car tracking = how you drive, how fast, cornering speed, where you go and where you stay.

16. Your genealogical data if given to any family tree site.

17. The names and all the data above for your friends and family, their friends, and so on, in a great big network.

Is that a loss of privacy? I'd say so.

It's a huge amount of data they have access to if unrestrained: all your opinions on bulletin boards, web searches, sites visited, physical locations visited, friend networks, phone conversations, face on cameras and photos via recognition, Medical records, library records, travel records, TV records, financial records, email, photographs, videos - and in future people will be using the internet and things like smart phones more, not less.

And of course this isn't even including the more extreme stuff they can do but probably only do rarely, such as watching you through your smart TV, computer or phone, listening to everything you say through your phone even when it isn't on, etc.

Heck, even searching google for types of recipe you enjoy might reveal you're Jewish when cross-referenced with things like friend networks and location. From an EU data protection (and last century's history) point of view, there is a lot to be concerned about.

[alan_cx]

Hm, when does a private thought become a provable reality?