Ask Lemmy

I usually answer that with some version of “OK, do you mind if I put cameras all over the inside of your house and have my neighbor watch the feed?

Yet.

Giving extensive surveillance and anti privacy powers away is a one way street.

While you might like the fuckers harming OTHERS for now, they won’t stay in charge forever and the next group could target you

Who do you trust more, the neighbor who keeps his blinds closed, or the neighbor who goes around trying to look in everyone's windows? What do you they have to hide?

Ask them to unlock their phone and let you snoop on it for 30 mins

It is sadly something that some people will never understand. You could question why he does the things he does (closing curtains, using envelopes for letters instead of just using a postcard, having a password at all), but that would likely just make him feel attacked.

Something you don’t need to hide today may be something you need to hide tomorrow. And there’s no going back.

Years ago, I heard a lecture by the guy who investigated the case referred to in the article below. Thieves and con artists are a legitimate concern. Or at least they should be.

From the Batesville Daily Guard - Batesville, Arkansas

After fighting identity theft for seven years, country singer/songwriter David Lynn Jones is ready to take back his life.

During that time, Jones, on paper, was three people -- and at times, four.

"Two guys were playing me," Jones said. "It's unimaginable, until you go through it . . . that someone who doesn't even look like you can steal your identity. The damage," he said, "is incalculable."

Jones may be ready to sing "I Feel A Change Comin' On" again. That's the title of one of his singles from his heyday.

During better times, Jones released four acclaimed albums -- "Hard Times on Easy Street" (1987), "Wood, Wind and Stone" (1990), "Mixed Emotions" (1992) and "Play by Ear" (1994).

His charting singles include "Bonnie Jean (Little Sister)" which was also a popular music video on television, "High Ridin’ Heroes" (with Waylon Jennings), "The Rogue" and "Tonight in America."

He may be best-known for writing "Living in the Promiseland," a No. 1 hit for Willie Nelson.

While Jones kept writing songs during the past seven years, he could not release them because the identity theft culprits were getting his royalty checks by having the checks sent to their address. Much of the time, that address was in Colorado.

Now, Jones and his wife, Illa, who live east of Cave City, are looking forward to teaming up to record and release a new album.

He also has unreleased albums from the past that can now be put before the public.

"There's five (previously recorded David Lynn Jones) albums that never were released," Jones said. He plans to make those available to buyers on the Internet within the next few months.

Fans should be patient, though, because it may take quite awhile, he said.

In February, Baxter County sheriff’s investigators arrested Danny James Sullivan, who was working at a McDonald's in Mountain Home under the name David Lynn Jones.

Sullivan was also drawing disability checks from the government under his own name while working at the McDonald's under Jones' name. His aliases include Danny J. Bass and Danny J. Rader.

A day later, acting on a tip, the alleged mastermind of the plot, Janis Rae Wallace, was arrested at a home in Fayetteville. Wallace is also known as Janis French and Janis Rae Jones, the name she used while posing as the real Davis Lynn Jones' "wife."

She's even booked into the jail as Janis Rae Jones.

Wallace and Sullivan, both 51, remain in jail -- she, on a $500,000 bond and he, on a $200,000 bond.

They are each charged with nine counts of felony financial identity fraud, according to an affidavit filed with the charges and signed by sheriff's Sgt. Bob Buschbacher.

The information filed with the charges and in arrest reports matches the story told by Jones -- the real Jones.

"Those are all federal charges," Jones said.

The theft started, Jones said, when Wallace stole his driver's license while working for him.

"At the time, my Social Security number was the same as my driver's license number, and with just that information, they infiltrated my life," Jones said.

Soon, he was getting no mail. It was all going to the fake David Lynn Jones' address via an address change. The mail included preapproved credit card applications that the thieves filled out; after they maxed out the cards, they reported them stolen.

"Among the stolen items via mail were personal checks and business checks from music royalties the victim had earned as a songwriter and musician," Sgt. Buschbacher said.

"They had 'me' moved to Colorado; my phone was shut off," Jones said. "This was back in 2002 . . . . By the time we realized what was going on, we couldn't get it stopped. They wound up with my royalty checks from publishing music," including royalties from "Living in the Promiseland."

Buschbacher said that in the beginning, to further the identity theft scheme, Sullivan, posing as Jones, filled out an identity theft passport request victim information sheet and submitted it to the attorney general's office. Then, he obtained an Arkansas driver's license in the victim's name.

Meanwhile, Jones' elaborate and well-known recording studio at Bexar was stripped of all its expensive equipment.

"I still own the studio," Jones said Saturday. "It's for sale and has been for some time. These people had gone out there and took down the for sale sign and put up no trespassing signs. They were drawing money out of my checking account, which eventually caused me to be overdrafted," he said. His interest rates were doubled because of a bad credit rating.

And to add insult to injury, Wallace convinced people who dealt with Jones financially that someone was trying to steal her identity ("She was speaking as my 'wife,'" Jones said). So, those who could have helped would not even listen to the real Jones.

"When we started talking to credit card companies and banks, they didn’t believe it (was me)," Jones said.

The crowning portion of the identity theft scheme was yet to come.

"They started telling everybody I'd been in a horrible accident in Colorado and I was in a wheelchair and I couldn't play and sing anymore," Jones said. "She even wrote a letter and sent it to all of my family saying that."

Since he had been busy with his work during the earlier part of the problems and hadn't been in touch with family members regularly, several of them even believed the accident story, he said.

"My mother (Verna Jones) passed away during all of this and we were trying to make funeral arrangements," and a check his brother mailed to help with those expenses went to Colorado into the thieves' hands, Jones said. "Even my own brother didn't understand what was going on. I told him I never got the check . . . . It's so crazy when you're actually experiencing it."

The investigation revealed that Wallace and Sullivan obtained a Social Security card, a Colorado identification card and the Arkansas driver's license, all in the name of David Lynn Jones. Wallace then obtained power of attorney over Jones, claiming he was mentally disabled due to the fake "accident."

Wallace and Sullivan were even filing joint federal income tax returns as Mr. and Mrs. David Lynn Jones. Those returns were filed in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Jones said as soon the investigation revealed the first name of the suspect, he knew who was behind the scheme even though she was giving her last name as Jones. Still, the identity thieves stayed one step ahead of authorities for a long time.

Before being arrested, Wallace and Sullivan were trying to get the title to some land Jones owns in Baxter County, authorities said.

A break in the case occurred 15 months ago when Wallace, as Mrs. Jones, and Sullivan, as Jones, applied in person for an identity theft passport at the Arkansas Attorney General's Office.

As soon as Wallace and Sullivan were arrested, investigators obtained search warrants for their houses. Jones said several items found in their homes could only have been obtained by their breaking into his home east of Cave City, where he and his wife have lived for five years.

"We've known for years things were being pilfered, things moved around. They were hanging out in the woods, watching for us to leave (so they could get into the house)."

Investigators found pictures and other items taken from inside Jones' house, as well as photos of the house taken from the driveway.

Jones said officers on the trail of the crooks had been advising Jones for months to be alert and stay well-armed, because one possible logical next step could be to eliminate Jones and his wife, so the identity thieves "could become us. That could have been the last (planned) step," particularly with them applying for the identity passport, Jones said. "Who knows what would have happened next?"

He has high praise for the attorney general's agent who felt something was wrong when Wallace and Sullivan approached him about getting that passport.

"That's what got them caught," Jones said.

The agent was suspicious enough to go into another room and look for pictures of Jones on the Internet. The pictures did not match the man claiming to be Jones.

"If it had not been for the attorney general's office, it'd still be going on," Jones said. "The attorney general's officer said it was the worst case he'd ever seen in all his years of investigating identity theft."

Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said the investigation involved personnel from the attorney general's office, the Social Security Administration's Inspector General's office and the sheriff's office.

Jones said he expects he still has years to go to clear the damage to his name.

When asked what the identity theft has cost him, Jones did not give a dollar figure. Instead, he said quietly, "It's cost me seven years of my life."

The problem isn't always governments or police, but other bad actors. What if criminals get in? And they can be quite creative in how they can use personal information to extract money from their victims.

"Take off your pants, then."

Unless they are totally nude, they are hiding something.

Ask him why he doesn't have a t-shirt with his card details on it

Surveillance pricing is my go-to argument against that. Using the “leave-the-bathroom-door-open” or “give me your unlocked phone” is not a good counter because in their mind those are different things. So you need to use something that they aren’t aware of but will be offended by when they realize.

In Texas they are using personal data collected from ALPRs to accuse women of getting abortions. There were also concerns that personal data collected by period tracker apps would be used to accuse women of getting abortions. You could be doing something that suddenly becomes illegal and then those data could be used to harm you

ICE is using facial recognition and a database of questionable veracity to accuse legal residents of being illegal immigrants. They are collecting facial data of protestors and, apparently, using it compile of list of domestic "terrorists". You could be doing absolutely nothing illegal and the state could use your personal data to harm you.

Social media companies use data they collect about you to try to get you addicted to their products because you are easier to manipulate when you are addicted. They know a lot of their products have harmful impacts on people, but they don't care because they make more money that way.

Q "What do you have to hide?"

A "I have nothing to share."

Its not that people have nothing to hide.

Its that they haven't become aware that there are people who will harm them if they get a hold of certain information.

The easiest example now would be Trump's fascist regime mass cracking down on dissidents and establishing a mass surveillance and blackmail system with Palantir.

But we don't even need to go that far. Ever buy anything online? Got any financial or tax info stored on any electronic device that connects to the internet? I doubt you'd want some random criminal to get a hold of that info.

The real answer is that you may not be doing anything illegal TODAY, but with a government as capricious as MAGA, you might easily find yourself on the wrong side of the law tomorrow, for something that has always been perfectly legal in the past.

For instance, they just arrested two journalists for doing exactly what journalists do, and have done for 250 years, but suddenly, it's illegal. What did they do? One of the pieces of evidence against them is that they were "asking questions."

Asking questions is now illegal, especially for a journalist.

If they decide they want to get you, they will go through all your communications, and spin some perfectly innocent statement into something nefarious.

You can NEVER trust the government, that's why.

I don't have anything to hide does not imply that anyone needs to know. Not you, not a neighbor, not the internet, and absolutely not the government.

a) Bullshit you haven't ever done anything illegal that you got away with
b) There is a whole galaxy of shit that isn't illegal that you don't want shared. How often do you jerk off dad? What was the last porn video you watched?

Someone compromises your password. Now they can "find hub" to know exactly where you are. If they are a criminal, they can wait and strike when you're online data says you are vulnerable.

You lose your unencrypted device. Someone launches your browser and logs into your bank...

Advertising knows your financial situation and might, for example, present a higher price because it sees that you generally are willing to pay more.

It's not that you have something to hide sure to dubious behavior, it's that all these others will exploit that knowledge to commit crimes against you or have unfair advantages in their relationship with you.

only thing i can think of is ask them really personal questions and then ask if they have something to hide if they dont want to tell you. And then escalate to ask access to their stuff so you can check for yourself if they still dont get the point. And finally point out that companies dont have to even ask, they just get that information without telling you because you agreed to whatever terms they have presented to you.

"Under current legislation".

Any data that anybody collects of you today, they will keep. You might not be doing anything illegal today, but you have no way of knowing what will be declared illegal tomorrow, or by the next government, or the one after that, or if those will honor the principle of not punishing you for past breaches of new laws retroactively.

People in 1930 Germany did not know it would soon be illegal to have a relationship with a jew, or to talk negatively about Hitler. People in the 2024 USA didn't think they would soon be in danger for filming ICE raids, or tracking their movements in chat groups.

Another argument is that your data that advertisers or the government collect doesn't necessarily stay with them. Car manufacturers were shown ( article in German ) to have location tracking data of their customers' vehicles on virtually unprotected servers facing the internet. Researchers were able to deduct from this data alone who worked for e.g. secret services, who likely cheated on their wife, where their kids went to school and so on. What do you think a malicious actor could do with information clearly showing at which times in a week your house is likely to be empty?

Information about you and your family and social contacts and chats can also be used to better scam you by impersonating somebody you know. "Hey dad, it's X, got a new number. Can you transfer me some money till next week maybe?" Many people fall for that.

There are also other ways in which data can be used against you without anything strictly illegal happening. Do you really want your car insurance to have data about your driving habits?

Do you want your health insurance to know how often you order pizza? Both might get the idea to increase your payments for that in the future.

Would you want possible future employers to know you have a chronic disease that might mean you'll call in sick more often than others?

Last but not least, have you never said or done anything really embarrassing that you'd just prefer nobody to know?

Some reasons for "I have nothing to hide" that I see and that need different reasoning are:

Naivety: Some people simply have no idea how much data and what kind of sensitive data is collected. How do you convince them? Well, it seems like even a lot of "privacy-aware" people seem to act purely on suspicion and never requested a data collection report from a service or at least looked up other people's results on the internet. They claim that it doesn't matter, because you don't know how much they are actually collecting. But you will definitely convince more people, if they see on paper what data is definitely collected "officially".

Acceptance, but naivety about life changes: Some people are aware, but they accept it and may even want it, because they enjoy the benefit of personalized content. They don't think their data would ever be used for anything else and they claim to be "not interesting" enough to be looked up. Where is the problem? Well, if they accept it, that's fine, but you should remind them that life and our world can change in unexpected ways. Not everyone who is prosecuted now, knew beforehand they would be and if it comes to that and you were not at least aware of your internet identity, you are carrying a big vulnerability with you.

Full acceptance: Some people don't even care about that. They'll just let the future happen. What can you say about that? Well, you can raise the point that their decision on their privacy does also also affect the people around them. But, honestly in my opinion it's not their responsibility to handle that problem. At that point, the question is who that person is to you and whether or not you are responsible for them.

Change your moms password to my-husband-is-a-doofus

Obligatory

He said "illegal" but the word should be "wrong" and YOU don't get to decide what's wrong. THEY could decide you're wrong for having blue eyes or, I don't know, not liking TACO.

Sounds like a frog in boiling water to me.

Most pero people that say don't have anything to hide close the bathroom door when going to pee / poo / shower and they don't have anything the rest of us haven't.

"everyone does something illegal/has something they're ashamed of" I have that type of autism that doesn't let me do anything I know is bad; I pay my taxes and rent well before they're due, I don't drive over the speed limit, always push the shopping cart back to the corral.

The reason why privacy is important to me isn't because I'm bad, it's because being a good person makes you a target when the world is run by bad people. 

It's not necessarily about "the government", well it is, because governments often contain, or may come to contain, bad people, but they shouldn't be the only concern.

It's about not making it easy for bad people to interfere in your business, even if what you're doing is all legitimate and above board; and not making it easy for bad people to harm you or those close to you either.

Mobile telephone numbers aren't strictly a secret, especially those on monthly contracts. Names and numbers are linked in a provider's database somewhere. But for an untrusted third party to know that information? It's bad enough when someone who needs to know it sells it on to a telemarketing database. Imagine what would happen if any old crank got a hold of that.

Likewise we all have real names, home addresses (for the lucky majority anyway), etc. There are people who know these things. Perhaps even people we'd rather didn't, but it would be incredibly stupid to leave that information in plaintext for anyone else to find, especially if it can be linked to our online activity.

You might be the most fair and balanced Internet user in the world, but if your name and address is public, any crank who takes exception to you anyway will be at your door shouting and raving before you know it.

If we have to give it over, presumably to a trusted individual or organisation, we need a method where it can't be intercepted. So it's either a slip of paper at a clandestine meeting place or you need encryption to send it over the Internet.

There's plenty of other personal information that I haven't mentioned here where similar rules will apply.

You're not the one who gets to decide if you have nothing to hide.

In digital world, there's no backdoor that only the good guys can access. The possibility of a bad actor accessing the same data that a court order would provide always exists. The true way of being safe against bad actors is being privacy focused as much as possible.

Do you use curtain at your place?

Why do you not let someone look over your shoulder when you vote?

And if that is an unfair comparison, look at Cambridge analytica, and how things have gone downhill with AI and all that since then.

If you want some pathos, it is your civic duty as a citizen who wants to preserve liberty in a democratic coutry, to be at least somewhat independent and unpredictable from a state that wants you to be predictable and controllable.

Tell him that you've installed a keylogger on all of his devices and will be listening in on all of his phone calls and reading everything that he types into all of his devices going forward. See how he reacts.