Bruce Schneier's interview this week on EconTalk is the one best interviews I have heard so far this year !!
Listen to the whole thing; few of his insights on privacy:
Cameras caught the bad guy, therefore cameras are good. We can argue whether cameras did catch the bad guy, and it's not obvious to me that they did. Or at least that the bad guys wouldn't have been caught otherwise. That cameras happened to catch the bad guy or were cameras necessary to catch the bad guy. Necessary is the important question. But this is a subtlety that is going to be lost in an average conversation. So the first thing is fear. The second thing is privacy, like any right, you tend to only notice it when it's gone. It's easy to say, I have nothing to hide. I'm asked that pretty regularly on the radio. And when someone says I have nothing to hide, why do I care? I'll say: What's your salary? And they'll say, um, um, um, um; and I'll say: See?
Because something to hide isn't about illegal activity. It isn't about something I'm ashamed of. It's about how you present yourself to the world. It's not about secrecy versus non-secrecy. I will go to a doctor and take off my clothes, but it doesn't mean I'll do that on Facebook. And it's not because I have something to hide. It's because it's a different context. And our notions of privacy are very complex. And there's also, I think, a belief, and this again you don't notice till it's gone, that the powers are largely benevolent. Of course you don't care if the police read your email, because what do they care? And it's only in those scary regimes of the middle of the previous century where the police state did those nasty things. Except that is not true. It's true today in certain countries. And you and I know that when you give power--and this is actually true for government or corporate power--when you give power to an entity, you will have abuses. And the more power, the more abuses, and the more potential for abuses. And this is why you always temper power. That is also a very subtle argument. So, I think the basic reasons are multiple: that when people are scared, they're willing to not be scared; that the privacy arguments are subtle and hard to understand, and the negatives from lack of privacy you only notice when you are missing them. So that's the real combination that makes this a difficult conversation.
Every time. Power is tempting. You are sitting there, you are in power, you have this lever. It's going to be really hard to say, that would be wrong. Because you are skewed. You are doing it for what you believe is some greater good. This is the same reason we are torturing people. We were blind to that it was a really, really bad idea.
Listen to the whole thing; few of his insights on privacy:
Cameras caught the bad guy, therefore cameras are good. We can argue whether cameras did catch the bad guy, and it's not obvious to me that they did. Or at least that the bad guys wouldn't have been caught otherwise. That cameras happened to catch the bad guy or were cameras necessary to catch the bad guy. Necessary is the important question. But this is a subtlety that is going to be lost in an average conversation. So the first thing is fear. The second thing is privacy, like any right, you tend to only notice it when it's gone. It's easy to say, I have nothing to hide. I'm asked that pretty regularly on the radio. And when someone says I have nothing to hide, why do I care? I'll say: What's your salary? And they'll say, um, um, um, um; and I'll say: See?
Because something to hide isn't about illegal activity. It isn't about something I'm ashamed of. It's about how you present yourself to the world. It's not about secrecy versus non-secrecy. I will go to a doctor and take off my clothes, but it doesn't mean I'll do that on Facebook. And it's not because I have something to hide. It's because it's a different context. And our notions of privacy are very complex. And there's also, I think, a belief, and this again you don't notice till it's gone, that the powers are largely benevolent. Of course you don't care if the police read your email, because what do they care? And it's only in those scary regimes of the middle of the previous century where the police state did those nasty things. Except that is not true. It's true today in certain countries. And you and I know that when you give power--and this is actually true for government or corporate power--when you give power to an entity, you will have abuses. And the more power, the more abuses, and the more potential for abuses. And this is why you always temper power. That is also a very subtle argument. So, I think the basic reasons are multiple: that when people are scared, they're willing to not be scared; that the privacy arguments are subtle and hard to understand, and the negatives from lack of privacy you only notice when you are missing them. So that's the real combination that makes this a difficult conversation.
Every time. Power is tempting. You are sitting there, you are in power, you have this lever. It's going to be really hard to say, that would be wrong. Because you are skewed. You are doing it for what you believe is some greater good. This is the same reason we are torturing people. We were blind to that it was a really, really bad idea.
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