Best part of the article: explaining how privacy is a public good.<p>TLDR: privacy isn't just about "keeping secrets" or having "something to hide".<p>Privacy for a whole population is power. Once a population has lost its right to privacy, once people's conversations and movements are monitored, they're rendered powerless. It becomes easy to strip away their other rights.<p>--<p>Worst part of the article: the recommendations at the end.<p>The author lists a kitchen sink full of privacy tools including Telegram, which the entire infosec community agrees is terrible. Do not use Telegram.<p>Use Tor, use Signal.
Those who are privacy conscious must first take the step towards self-hosting. They are many interesting approaches that are trying to make self-hosting practical. They make it trivial to run your own mail server, keep your contacts/calendar/files/notes. Why trust yet another mail/cloud company (yahoo, anyone?)? There are promising existing projects out there (like cloudron.io, sandstorm.io, yunohost). Go try them out today. The projects are open source and have issue trackers where you can contribute even if you are not a developer. Such solutions will empower the average person in the future.
Largest issue with privacy is that in my experience generally speaking that the average person does not see privacy as a priority, or worse, questions the need for it.
I found <a href="https://prism-break.org" rel="nofollow">https://prism-break.org</a> a good list of software/services helping our privacy.
here is a stupid argument for privacy that i just invented based off of the article's mentioning of 1776:<p>if the british colonists had no privacy, the american revolution would never have happened. troublemakers would have been either nipped in the bud, or never even thought that they could successfully challenge the existing power structure.<p>what god-fearing amurican is going to argue against privacy when you frame it as a patriotic issue? sure, there's no logic or graceful rhetoric here, but who needs logic when you have emotional arousal?<p>those of us who have enough brain cells to rub together need to start thinking about how to slam the idiots with arguments they can't get around while maintaining a veneer of nationalism. "you're unamerican if you're against privacy, because we needed privacy to execute the most hallowed event in our civic religion: revolution against the british." that kind of garbage.<p>it's time to discard clean argumentation and jump into the mud-- it's the only way to make people care about an abstract issue that people have been taught to disregard like privacy.
It would be nice to see the issue of privacy, especially in regards to data privacy, evolve beyond a black and white matter. Privacy is important it allows for a bubble of safety and security in our lives. On the other hand, there is real value and utility through data, but often at the expense of privacy.<p>I think that the trade-off between the utility of data and privacy can be explored in such a way that everyone benefits. Ensuring a balance of power in regards to privacy between individuals, government, and private entities is a worthwhile, but difficult, venture. Data is a good medium for this discussion because of its increasing value in an age where we're collecting more than we can use. Government and society can benefit from data driven policies and public datasets (ala data.gov). Individuals can regain control and benefit from a collective use of data. Corporations already hold and make profits on massive monopolies of user data, but often liability involved with private data preempts sharing.<p>I think these kinds of conversations will need to be tackled and absorbed by the wider audience before it can have a real impact. In any case, it will be interesting to see what direction privacy as an issue goes toward. Personally, I will be continuing to be more aware of the issue and use products that have privacy in mind.
Why is "very few people care" an argument _against_ privacy solutions? There are so many niche markets in this world. Not everything needs to be a billion dollar business.
People aren't paranoid enough. Being paranoid carries so much negative stigma, it feels that we are selecting <i>against</i> it. Try to a remember the last time you revealed your paranoia <i>and weren't</i> a complete buzzkill. But hey, you can fear what you know. You can even fear what you know you <i>don't</i> know. But you can't fear what you <i>don't</i> know you don't know!
"Missed any? Shoot me a message on Twitter: @bitario"<p>I don't have a Twitter account, but if the author happens to be reading this (or if anyone wants to shoot a message to him), I use Threema for secure messaging. I love it. But I admit to not having used the others so I can't comment on how it ranks against the competition.<p><a href="https://threema.ch/en" rel="nofollow">https://threema.ch/en</a>
<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.threema.app&hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.threema.app...</a>
Sort of ironic to see bitcoins being hacked away due to lax security with the phone system, too. Ud think after mitnick, it wouldnt be possible, but our leadera today are actively choosing to ignore history's lessons, and we enable them.<p>Privacy and Security are the battlefields of today, and the wars of tomorrow. It'll hurt Badly when that impending 1984 world rains down on us, very soon. That said, we'll win, eventually. :o)
It's nice to have a private notes app, my bigger concern is about what happens as the entire ecosystem becomes increasingly monopolized.<p>Any platform enhanced by ML powered by proprietary data will create huge barriers to entry for potential competitors. Even if privacy becomes important to consumers, app alternatives with have to at least match the mainstream version in 100 other ways. As much as Google has contributed to ML tooling and research, their data will ensure that services like Duck Duck Go stay obscure.<p>Network effects, economies of scale and the dynamics of VC funding will all exacerbate this as well.
I have in recent months become increasingly aware of this, and have taken steps towards being more private online but I am not completely there yet. Though I do run Linux, stay shy of social media and use Signal for messages, I still lacked a better email provider. (And I am still looking into which VPN to get)<p>This article was the push that I needed to also finally ditch my old (hotmail) account and switch to protonmail. When you have a lot of communication going on with an email account I feel like the change is not that easy, but it'll be worth it.
It's not that privacy isn't locally good if it could be had, it's that or can't be had, and letting only some people (more powerful) have privacy is actively bad.<p>Just like we have to prepare for the post labor society, we have to prepare for the post privacy society. It's not about what we'd like to be true, it's about what's actually true.
Whenever I ask questions about people's attitude towards privacy they also end up with, I have nothing to hide, and all counter examples are vague and not directly applicable. I'm working on turning the privacy talk around, to frame it around the loss of freedom, Freedom from criminals, Freedom of relationship, Freedom of self expression, Freedom from profiling. We can then explore which freedoms are relevant to the individual and which are not.<p>Freedom from criminals: Computer systems are not secure. The more we share online the bigger the danger when the data is leaked. A very real concern that is often overlooked is that governments and companies are incapable of keeping our data secure. By collecting addresses, medical data, bank information we are all exposing ourselves to risks of having our identity, money and medical information stolen or to be held for ransom.<p>Freedom of relationship: Private conversations can be made public, your opinions and interests can be made public without your intention. For example facebook changing their privacy settings suddenly makes your private links shared, or private matters suddenly appear where you don't intend them to be. Like product adverts showing up at work, sharing our private purchases with colleagues.<p>Freedom of self expression: We loose control of when content goes public. Suddenly our ideas and works can be shared without our consent or credit even without our knowledge. An art sharing site suddenly uses our work in private folders for advertisements because they now have access to them. When uploading on line we lose control of our data and if they are taken there is little recourse.<p>Freedom from profiling: Decisions are made about you without your direct input affecting the news you see, the products you are advertised, and the prices you are offered. Governments have started placing us on lists along with real criminals based on where we have been, who we have met, and what we have seen. We have no control of the profile that is made on us and we have no access to it.<p>We, those worried about privacy, can see the overlaps between the loss of freedoms, but by presenting them in these forms it makes for conversations that continue beyond I have nothing to hide. Depending on who I am talking to I can question into which freedom they are comfortable losing and which they are not.<p>Personally living in a 1st world country with an stable and amicable democratic government my greatest concerns are freedom from criminals and freedom of self expression.
I really like this stance, I think this argument needs a little more sharpening so that it generates action from people who not in our bubble outside of the tech scene.