One of my favorite bit about “if you have nothing to hide…” is asking folks if they’d be willing to take the door off their bathroom when they went to use it.
An interesting example, because your body is literally something you have to hide. That is, it is illegal not to.
Personally, I hide it because that's what society is telling me, especially if children are around, and I have no real reason to go against that. I mean, who wants to see what I do in the bathroom? But should the government want to, I will gladly let them as it will nicely illustrate what I think of them.
There are many things I want to hide more than my body functions. It is a social taboo, not something that has to do with personal safety and security, which is what privacy advocates usually point to. Arguably, it is the opposite problem: something you have to hide, but for personal freedom, you shouldn't have to.
If I've learned something during my early adulthood it's that, it's impossible to not be in conflict with at least some people, because even if you're the most fair and considerate person on the planet, other people will prey on you to try to encroach on your territory and steal what you have.
So the idea that you have nothing to hide is completely banal. Those who are more powerful than you won't leave you alone just because you ignore them. They will eventually come knocking to steal your wealth and your freedom.
Everyone who has been helping Google/Amazon/Meta construct their digital panopticons is culpable in at least some small way for the abuse that may follow.
Everyone has some economic game going on. If some entity can see most of the cards you hold, it like putting your cards open on the table during a poker game. That is why big companies want your data, they want to peek at the cards of as much players in the game as possible.
No one really says that in an absolute sense, it is always in context, what it usually means is "I trust a particular institution with the data they collect", not "I will give my credit card number to everyone who asks".
For example, let's say you approve of installing security cameras monitored by police in your residence, if you say "I have nothing to hide" what you are actually meaning is "there is nothing these cameras can see that I would want to hide from the police". I think it is obvious that it doesn't mean you approve of having the same cameras installed in your bathroom.
The real question is one of trust and risk assessment. Are the risks of revealing a piece of information worth it? how much do you trust the other party? not the literal meaning of "nothing to hide".
Indeed. And there's risk-reward tradeoff. The debated argument says "have all my data if you want for no reason". The stronger case is, "what do I get in return"?
Often in this discussion it's about a society-wide standard. The benefit to "me" might be that e.g. the police can do their job well, hopefully protecting me from criminals, while sticking to reasonable and trusted privacy controls (e.g. intrusive data collection requires a court warrant, and I trust the courts enough to do a good job). That's very different to uploading all social media conversations logs to NSA because "nothing to hide".
Looping back to this article, it is unclear if there was ever ant good reason to record religion in Amsterdam. Nor would I exclusively blame administrative procedures on the Holocaust - though I'm sure it made matters worse.
If that's all it is, it's logically sounder than what it is raised in defense against, the multifallacious "I have nothing to hide" that implies those who oppose a policy do have something to hide and sidesteps the actual question of privacy.
random book on privacy summarized counter argument to "nothing to hide - nothing to fear" like so: unnecessary decrease in privacy unnecessarily increases the surface of attack. effectively this leads to public shaming and targeted isolation of individuals. great for getting rid of business competition
It would be good to remember the Miranda warning: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." (emphasis mine). It doesn't say, "maybe" or, "only if".
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 36.5 ms ] threadPersonally, I hide it because that's what society is telling me, especially if children are around, and I have no real reason to go against that. I mean, who wants to see what I do in the bathroom? But should the government want to, I will gladly let them as it will nicely illustrate what I think of them.
There are many things I want to hide more than my body functions. It is a social taboo, not something that has to do with personal safety and security, which is what privacy advocates usually point to. Arguably, it is the opposite problem: something you have to hide, but for personal freedom, you shouldn't have to.
So the idea that you have nothing to hide is completely banal. Those who are more powerful than you won't leave you alone just because you ignore them. They will eventually come knocking to steal your wealth and your freedom.
193 files for Eric Schmidt according to https://www.wired.com/story/epstein-files-tech-elites-gates-...
314 files for Larry Page
294 files for Sergey Brin
Interesting rhetoric. It's always the people you suspect the most?
Privacy is good
Crime is not necessarily bad
You don't have to even go Anne Frank to make the argument.
Everyone who has been helping Google/Amazon/Meta construct their digital panopticons is culpable in at least some small way for the abuse that may follow.
Not only that’s very rarely true as the article shows pretty nicely… what is legal changes, sometimes drastically and rapidly.
He was gay. Don't know how he couldn't understand this.
The data broker eco system is notoriously intransparent and dynamic.
Surely don't need to ditch the whole system then and just needs a better kill-switch.
No one really says that in an absolute sense, it is always in context, what it usually means is "I trust a particular institution with the data they collect", not "I will give my credit card number to everyone who asks".
For example, let's say you approve of installing security cameras monitored by police in your residence, if you say "I have nothing to hide" what you are actually meaning is "there is nothing these cameras can see that I would want to hide from the police". I think it is obvious that it doesn't mean you approve of having the same cameras installed in your bathroom.
The real question is one of trust and risk assessment. Are the risks of revealing a piece of information worth it? how much do you trust the other party? not the literal meaning of "nothing to hide".
Often in this discussion it's about a society-wide standard. The benefit to "me" might be that e.g. the police can do their job well, hopefully protecting me from criminals, while sticking to reasonable and trusted privacy controls (e.g. intrusive data collection requires a court warrant, and I trust the courts enough to do a good job). That's very different to uploading all social media conversations logs to NSA because "nothing to hide".
Looping back to this article, it is unclear if there was ever ant good reason to record religion in Amsterdam. Nor would I exclusively blame administrative procedures on the Holocaust - though I'm sure it made matters worse.
You don't know who is going to get access to the data you have shared.
If that's all it is, it's logically sounder than what it is raised in defense against, the multifallacious "I have nothing to hide" that implies those who oppose a policy do have something to hide and sidesteps the actual question of privacy.