This isn’t meant to start a war in the comments.
I have been thinking… Platforms that advertise encryption and unmatched privacy have almost always been used by bad actors that ruin it for everyone else. This leads to some sort of middle ground being set up that ends up being further from privacy than we’d like it to be.
I see the benefits of both situations, and am left wondering if we can even survive as a society if we were to have absolute privacy.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Edit:
I’m asking how we can navigate this conundrum in order to reach a common ground where we do NOT have to give up our precious privacy in exchange for security.
Nothing else. I’m sorry if my post didn’t reflect that.
They’re telling you that these “private” spaces are allowing for child exploitation because it triggers exactly the thoughts you’re having now.
“Oh I don’t want that, I guess I’ll give up my privacy”
It’s an excuse. Apple had client side image scanning, cutting through ALL privacy. The program basically found 0 child porn images, but instantly that it existed, governments wanted to use it to censor images they didn’t like.
It’s a lie, it always has been. “Won’t people please think of the children” has been used to create horrendous lies of policy since the beginning of time.
You know what existed before these services? The same evil that existed after them.
We can ban knives because a few people stab others with them, but ultimately if your goal is to stab someone, you’ll use what you have available. Perhaps a fork? And society will no longer have knives, but is that actually a reasonable answer? I mean there are no knives allowed in prisons, and they still make decent shanks .
Killing privacy to solve child exploitation is just a nice lie they sell you to convince you that your privacy doesn’t matter. Facebook has zero privacy and it’s currently the biggest distributor of child porn. It’s a huge problem, and clearly the lack of privacy didn’t solve it like they said it would.
True that.
Also, it’s kind of weird how we know that these corporations and governments do this, yet somehow they keep getting away with it…
Like, what the hell?
Because they’re distracting you with bullshite problems.
For example, gay marriage. There’s a simple answer that appease everyone…… the government doesn’t regulate marriage, they regulate “civil unions”
You just change all the official paperwork to call everyone’s “marriage” a civil union and let the people decide if they want to call it a marriage or not. Who the fuck cares?
But no, they made it a culture war. “The gays are destroying society and they’re gonna make our kids gay” Vs “They are denying the gays marriage and next they’re going to start assassinating them”
Left or right, they both crave power and are selling us out for it.
People have used the following to scam, lie, commit fraud, etc
- physical money
- digital money
- cryptocurrency
- sms
- phonecalls
- etc
I don’t think it’s the privacy bit that makes people do shit things.
Don’t forget physical interaction - all the con artists of the past…
So what I’m hearing is we should abandon language
No no, we all need to be 100% fully sequestered in solitary confinement. Only then will we finally be safe! Which means ironically that there really is no such thing as too much privacy!
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True that. Bad’s gonna bad.
have almost always been used by bad actors that ruin it for everyone else.
…So what? You’re suggesting that, because some people misuse a right in an illegal way, that the right should be taken from everyone. It’s the equivalent of saying that because some people use speech to incite violence, the right to free speech should be taken. I completely reject that view.
You’re suggesting that, because some people misuse a right in an illegal way, that the right should be taken from everyone.
I’m not. I’m asking how we can navigate this conundrum in order to reach a common ground where we do NOT have to give up our precious privacy in exchange for security.
I’m sorry if my post didn’t reflect this. I’ll update it.
I’m not. I’m asking how we can navigate this conundrum in order to reach a common ground where we do NOT have to give up our precious privacy in exchange for security.
That’s easy. You tell the people who want you to give up your right to privacy to go fuck themselves. The common ground is when they go fuck themselves, problem solved.
That’s great in an ideal world, but it’s not realistic. 😅
It’s equally unrealistic to give up all of your privacy in the name of security. Not everything can be a compromise, the opponent will fight with everything they have to take your right to privacy, if you want any privacy at all you need to fight every attempt.
When you give up your privacy in the name of security you end up with neither.
What makes you think that the bad actions of bad actors are going to cause our society to no longer survive? Bad actors have always existed, and yet we survive.
I disagree with the implication that anything you mentioned represents an existential threat.
My bad… I didn’t mean to imply that society would just stop functioning exactly…
What costs do you think there will be then, if the problem persists?
It’s important mainly to give people a way to interact with the digital space from highly controlled regions, like occupied Ukraine or Hong Kong or something. Joe Bob who is afraid of google tracking him deserves his privacy too, but it’s not as important.
Why do you think it’s not as important?
Different degrees of threat. Google will chase you to try to sell you stuff. If CCP police are chasing you, it’s probably for a more hurtful reason.
Google also assists those law enforcement agencies with plenty of useful info.
Do you think perhaps that valuing privacy differently from one individual to the next would have a net negative effect? If we’re now also talking about threat assessments, that’s another topic altogether, with privacy only being a part.
Yes, perhaps. It’s irrelevant though. Trying to get everyone to agree to a universal set of values on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is already hard enough. Privacy is even harder.
People have different opinions and value different things, they choose that all for themselves. They’re free to do that, and it’s fine.
My point is that I’m not sure it’s a good idea to use those in bad situations as the gauge as to what about privacy is important. Doing it in this way, in my opinion, risks losing sight of the core reasons why privacy should be important for everyone. And everyone, regardless of their situation can choose, if they wish, to have as little privacy as they want. However, those who choose to retain their privacy should have the freedom to do so. It shouldn’t be dictated by the masses. Do we just become nihilists when things require a bit of complex thought or aren’t black and white?
The key part of this that is also opinion, is the “why privacy should be important for everyone”.
That will be answered by the democratic process, not any single person’s judgement. Privacy does not have any inherent importance from god or nature, we give it importance. We decide.
That clarification aside, I do agree with you. I also believe in privacy on principle. However, my belief is my opinion. What is fact is that it saves lives in more dangerous regions. This is more important than any opinion I could possibly have, regardless of how strongly I feel. My opinion on the importance of privacy is mainly based on my concerns for the future, which I cannot be certain of, not the facts of the present day, which I can be certain of.
Totally agree that it helps in dangerous regions (depending of course on the source of the dangers). I shouldn’t be deciding on what level of privacy you should be entitled to. Democracy, or any decision making, whatever you want to call them that involves making decisions that affect many people will be a constant battle. Ideally we should be giving people as many protections as feasible, while at the same time allowing them to have autonomy to choose what’s appropriate for them. And you’re right, thinking about the future is something we (as the human race) don’t tend to do enough of, leading to many short-sighted decision-making because votes. Nice chat, see ya round.
Decreasing privacy does little to stop bad actors. That is an odd and false correlation.
These mfers have been trying to end encryption and privacy for quite a while now. And when they fail to pass some law or wtv they just try again and again after some time. This been happening here in the EU, also UK. Its happening everywhere. They just have 1 thing in mind: more control over population thats it. Its not about the children, if it was about the children they would have invaded the Vatican already and/or incriminated a lot of these mfers connected to Eipstein, but they don’t because they themselves are in on it through connections of interests etc. They’re all the real criminals, it’s a big mafia club we have running this world. Everything is upside down.
What about kitchen knives? Do you want to ban this too? Also heavy stuff, it can hurt people. Also water because too much water can kill. Last but not least my remote control can hurt if I put it too deep in someone’s ass.
And for privacy, my remote control is E2E encrypted since the FBI cannot know what button I push. Do you want remote controls connected to the FBI? This would be the perfect device to protect children!
I want to be secure from bad actors myself. Currently there is no technology that would safely let government break encryption without letting bad actors use the same backdoor to empty your bank account. Sure they would not be given the key but there is a huge incentive for them to try to find it.
Also how would you make sure a bad actor don’t make their own app with unbroken encryption and running a system without client side scanning? Again there is huge incentive to do this and the information how is publicly available.
So in the end bad actors get their private conversation while law abiding citizens don’t.
Everything is exploited. Shady fraudsters and “hackers” know what’s good and why, and that’s why they tend to use them.
wondering if we can even survive as a society
I took a bit of liberty with that quote. Privacy or no privacy, humanity is absolutely fucked.
I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Privacy is pointless because “bad actors”?!
I can’t tell you, that information is classified.
Seriously though, it depends.
What is your threat model? At one end, would the safety of the free world be at risk if someone read your private conversation? What about your personal safety, the safety of your family? At the other end, would you be embarrassed or humiliated if someone were to read your messages?
You could install grapheneos and only use (pick the message app of the week) for e2ee while only connected to public networks away from your home. Or you could use Facebook messenger while connected to your home wifi.
Are you communicating with your family back home in the country ruled by an oppressive regime? Or are you chatting with Aunt Bertha about her haemorrhoids?
How important is privacy to you?
Hmm🫤. I hate such conversations mostly because everything is right 😭.
Never ask a question to which you’re not prepared to hear the answer. 😜
Absolute privacy must be available as a possibility at least, and then it’s the user’s own decision if he wants to open it (at times, or for certain people, or for certain services, etc.)
If you as a user don’t have the possibility, then there is no safe space and no safe person anymore, like your sleeping room, or your children, etc.
Services trying to take the decision away from the user are evil. No exception possible and no excuse.
I like this take.
To your direct question, bad actors exist, cuz interests can be misaligned. If we protect ourselves from all bad actors we’ll have absolute security and no liberty. And then eventually we will have no security.
US founding father is often quoted as saying those who are willing to give up Liberty for security will have neither. Freedom is the only stable state politically, without freedom somebody becomes oppressed, when people are oppressed countries become unstable.
To answer the more philosophical question, you need to moderate the privacy in your life versus the utility it provides. If you’re taking care of an octogenarian relative who could have dementia, or is it a fall risk, you want to be able to monitor them, to know if they are in trouble. Hopefully this monitoring comes with informed consent. There are many times when we don’t need privacy from everybody, we can let some people in.
In everyday life, our neighbors usually know a huge amount about our lives. That’s why they can check in when the patterns change. Hey I didn’t see Bob check the mail for a day. We should go see him and say hi. That’s a demonstration of the lack of privacy.
I think the main issue is when it happens with uninterested third parties who simply use their surveillance capabilities to oppress people, maybe not oppressed today but build the machinery to oppress tomorrow. And that’s the main issue
This was a really good point.
“What’s the true intent?” is an important question.
If it starts to make you do weird/senseless things like waving your cellphone in the air to stop the government from tracking you or similars, then yeah… that’d be a liiiiiiiiiiiittle too much.
Don’t you tell me what I can or cannot do with my phone 😤😤😤
/s
