Ask Lemmy

Then give me your house key.

Agreed, so when are we getting clear glass doors, and can we take all these curtains down?

Once scammers get your phone number you'll learn to hate the sound of your ringtone. Once scammers get your email your inbox will be flooded with phishing. Once they get one of your passwords, you better hope you haven't used the same one somewhere else. If they get access to any embarrassing photos you can expect an uncomfortable ransom request. You never really know how they'll use your information against you but you can sure as hell bet that they will.

And those are just the illegal threats. The legal ones are worse imo.

"If you have nothing to hide, why do you close your blinds to keep your neighbors from looking in? Why do you lock your doors if you have nothing to hide?"

I have nothing to hide, and I also have nothing I want to show to the corpo-government oligarchs who use mass surveillance as a tool of oppression and social control, because almost everything they are doing is evil.

Ask him for his banking details.

In the end of the day, we have digital security for the same reason we have physical security, like a lock on your door. You can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink, so let him learn the hard way.

May I have a copy of your birth certificate, driver's license, SSN, along with credit card info, bank and trading accounts, and a video of you naked to post online in multiple public forums?

No? Guess you like privacy more than you thought...

People having varying levels of desired privacy. I don't like to give out things just because someone wants to know, and by law I should be protected so as not to be compelled to.

Privacy isn't about hiding things, it's about not giving them away because someone else wants them.

Everyone has something to hide and you do not even know how valuable your data is because criminals and malicious state actors like North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the US government, and others always will have the upper hand relative to private citizens.

"it's not about hiding things, it's so people don't steal your identity and your money. You want anyone in the street to be able to access your bank account if you lose your phone?"

I have nothing to hide

Until the wrong person gets in power, and then you do have something to hide.

That's generally how I feel about it.

If you have nothing to hide, you wouldn't mind if I borrow your credit card, right?

"take off your clothes then"

and if they proceed to do that

"now let's go shopping"

I do have things to hide

But they’re not illegal so fuck off about it

Here's how Bruce Schneier approaches it: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal_value_of.html

You have nothing to hide, but you do have vulnerabilities that can be exploited. In the capitalist context, right, your car tracks the way you drive to sell your data to insurance companies, so the insurance companies can raise your rates. There's nothing stopping a company from, say, targeting you with discounts to induce an infrequent consumer to build a habit then raising the price after you developed a routine and preference for the product. Or, let's say you recently purchased flights to a ski town in Colorado, a company can raise the prices on outdoor activity gear as you're likely to purchase regardless of the cost.

What if they change the law and suddenly you wish you could hide something from the government? being trans is a good example.

Ask them for their Facebook password

Why bother arguing with them?

If they want to be stupid, that's their decision.

The US government is currently steering straight into authoritarianism. Do you really want more information about yourself out there, catalogued and ready?

Encryption also prevent malicious actors from inserting data, and helps prevent malicious actors from impersonating you.

You have nothing to hide now. What do you do when they make your favorite hobby illegal?

(Speaking from experience, because they’re about to make 3D printing illegal.)

And if you truly have nothing to hide, why keep anything private? Why even have passwords? Or a bank account. Just keep all your money in a big pile on the front lawn.

If they have access to your phone and/or email, they will have access to your bank. There won't even be much friction because the things your bank uses to trust that its you, are your phone and email.

The privacy aspect is also important, but secondary to that, and more of a drawn out discussion.

Privacy and security are two different things.

Something like "Yeah, I've heard that, but if you start scrolling through someone's phone or listening to calls over their shoulder they don't like it. Because nobody actually feels that way, they just have trouble understanding they're being watched if they can't physically see it"

Being really indirect is important. People say that, but people don't actually want you looking through their stuff. If it came up point blank maybe that won't even work. Nobody listens to attacks even when they make sense.

Now there's the other less deontological argument that they just shouldn't trust who's watching, as well. Maybe it's the cops and for their own good, but maybe it's Google reselling the info to perverts, or maybe it's a hacker trying to steal their identity and take out a loan.

If I have nothing to hide, then I have nothing to prove.

Yet

Google sucks, but one thing I think they did right was giving you a way to print out a list of one-time passwords that can be used to recover an account if you forget your password.

idcaboutprivacy