from Hacker News

Privacy is not dead

by Nikolas0 on 8/30/13, 11:24 AM with 66 comments

  • by devx on 8/30/13, 11:54 AM

    I find it a little absurd that this even needs to be said. As long as we're still humans, we'll always want private communications. Always. Even if US and all of the world's "democracies" turn into totalitarian surveillance states, we'll still want to have private communications with each other, and we'll find ways to do it - especially if in such a world the governments have no shame nor limitation in abusing that power (which you can bet will happen, and is already happening. We're just now finding out about some of them).

  • by DanBC on 8/30/13, 1:25 PM

    > When I sign up for an email account I expect my emails to be private, between me and the people I exchange them.

    That's foolish. Ever since it was introduced people knew that email was not private. You should expect that everything you put anywhere is going to be read by spies. That's why spies exist; to gather information.

    You use that as part of your risk assessment.

    "Will I be sentenced to death or torture if this document is discovered?"

    "Will I go to jail if this document is discovered?"

    "Will my company lose business if this document is discovered?"

    "Will I be embarrassed if my terrible teen-angst poetry is found?"

    Then you decide how much effort you're going to use to hide the information, or the source of the information, or both.

    While it's right that governments shouldn't be wasting money slurping the data of everyone it's unlikely to be an argument that the public will win any time. And even when there are laws "They" will find a lawyer to tell them that what they're doing is legal, and no-one ever gets to take them through court to show that it isn't. Oversight fails. You should assume a well-funded government is reading everything[1] all the time. I suspect that makes more of a difference if you're in $Oppressive_Regime than in the US or UK.

    And if people really did care why would they dump so much stuff onto Facebook?

    [1] see the mistakes that people make with creating encryption products, and using those products, it's probably a good idea to assume you've made a mistake and this government can read everything even if you encrypt it.

  • by apas on 8/30/13, 12:42 PM

    Oh. My. God. HN's comments quality is at an all-time low. Can't understand how many people miss (or ignore deliberately) the point and pedantically focus on semantics trying to prove a silly counter-point which doesn't add in the conversation.

  • by matho on 8/30/13, 11:41 AM

    > if you really believe that you don’t have anything to hide, feel free to give me your passwords as a proof of concept.

    I do not intend to use a privacy service from someone who claims it is easy (it isn't) while confusing privacy with authentication.

    I may not wish to give up my password because I don't want actions to be taken in my name: this is irrelevant to privacy concerns.

  • by pothibo on 8/30/13, 12:34 PM

    I think nobody values privacy. People don't want to pay for an e-mail account. People don't want to pay for a social network. People don't want to pay to read the news online.

    I believe that privacy and free (as free beer) is an utopia.

  • by Sagat on 8/30/13, 12:38 PM

    I think it's better to avoid encryption unless it's for really sensitive information or knowledge that could hurt you if broadcast. Using Tor or Truecrypt essentially paints a target on your back: you are paradoxically more likely to be under surveillance by agencies if you use them, even if you aren't concealing anything illegal or reprehensible.

  • by bayesianhorse on 8/30/13, 12:13 PM

    After the past few months there is virtually no situation in which you should have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

  • by tech-no-logical on 8/30/13, 12:13 PM

    with regard to most people with a grain insight this article is all about stating the obvious, albeit in very big letters.

    I agree nonetheless. apart from the 'give me your passwords' example, that's not what privacy is about. 'automatically cc me all your incoming and outgoing email' might be a better analogy.

  • by decasteve on 8/30/13, 1:56 PM

    Privacy is important. I had a hard time to articulate why but the Groklaw farewell (posted on HN recently) really hit it home for me. Re-read the quotes (in grey): http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175

  • by infocollector on 8/30/13, 12:44 PM

    If you do value privacy, please do check us out https://register.blib.us (pre-alpha software, still being written. We are still looking for early adopters). BTW, we did double our pre-alpha users in the past one month!

  • by jheriko on 8/30/13, 1:57 PM

    this is the wrong way to look at the problem. the better statement is 'nobody should expect privacy (online)' where i would like to stress the brackets around online as much as i can

    if you take steps to ensure privacy you should probably realise that they are all futile in the face of someone making a targetted effort to break it...

    eavesdropping, espionage, noseyness - these are nothing new... see most of recorded history for examples.

  • by legion050 on 8/30/13, 8:39 PM

    I expect privacy, yet anticipate privacy violations..