Financial problems, illnesses, ridiculed hobbies, sexual preferences, the extent of their nicotine habit… and most importantly: other people's secrets.
It's not just about protecting your or my communications, it's that my emails give insight into the lives of my family, my partners, my friends, into my work, etc etc.
John Doe don't just have to consider whether he wants his private life protected, he also has to consider Aunt Mary's marital problems, Uncle Jack's alcoholism, Cousin Peter's erectal dysfunction, Grandma Anne's cancer, Cousin Jenny's dates, and his employer's internal crises.
He has to protect all that not only against overeager cops with no regard for civil rights, but also against data leaks and hackers.
How anyone who isn't a cop can attack encryption in good faith is beyond me.
Everybody has something to hide, even if it's only their surprisingly vanilla porn habits and how they secretly still text their ex. "I got nothin' to hide" is the sort of thing people say when they don't understand how law works.
@amberage
This is it, exactly. Anyone who says doesn't care about privacy because they "have nothing to hide" is telling you loudly and in no uncertain terms that they don't care about the privacy of anyone else they communicate with either, weather they realize it or not.
@Em0nM4stodon Also, it's annoying that people using the "what do you have to hide" argument seem to think the only people looking will be reasonable, fair-minded people understanding of all situational context etc.
Not people on fishing expeditions to find something, anything illegal or embarrassing to get you on because they're mad you said something mean about them/embarrassed their institution/etc.
Not literal stalkers and harassers.
Not someone who actually is perhaps well-meaning but who reads the wrong meaning into hyperbole or an inside joke, or who assumes you must have first-hand experience or plans because of fiction or lyrics
Not thousands of people who interpret your worst moment of being triggered and losing it at a troll or a creep as defining you, forever, beyond anything else, etc.
@Em0nM4stodon YES and it bugs me because of the way people characterize hiding or not wanting something to define you as suspicious when it’s more like it’s common sense to hide garbage from wild animals and bugs, not because you’re “too good to show YOUR garbage” but because it makes you vulnerable for no good reason to something that sees that vulnerability as an attractant at best, proof of being good prey at worst.
@Em0nM4stodon Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
— Edward Snowden
"Do you have anything to hide?" is a question I have never understood. Of course people are gonna have stuff to hide, specifically private and personal information that they want to keep private, to avoid being hacked or doxxed.
@Em0nM4stodon Bruce Schneier argued in a talk "exactly because I don't have nothing to hide I don't want you to spy on me" and that's my response ever since to that question.
@Em0nM4stodon so basically the idea is why should we accept the premise that we need to prove the need for privacy instead of them having to prove why they need to invade my privacy.
Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
@aut@Em0nM4stodon People shut up about that stupid line pretty fast if you offer to put the entire contents of their phone online for free...
(Zero people have taken me up on this offer ;)
@aut@Em0nM4stodon my response to that one is "Do you close the door to a public bathroom stall? Are you doing something 'wrong' behind a closed door? Or is privacy just a valid, human need?'
When anyone asks me, "What have you got to hide?" the only answer I ever give is, "The list of what I've got to hide."
Remember, whenever you have a secret, you really have two of them. One is the secret. The other is the fact that you have it. Protect the second and no one can try to get the first out of you.
And it's not just about you. The metadata that other messaging systems sell tells advertisers who all your friends are even when they use encrypted messaging to send your message so that they don't know what you said. They know who you said it to. And that as much if not more valuable to know. And you gave away your friends if you didn't use Signal.
@Em0nM4stodon I was asked today "why do you encrypt disk in your laptop? Are you holding nuclear codes?". And I responded "but why shouldn't I encrypt if I can?". It's so simple.
@Em0nM4stodon Privacy depends on getting lost in a sea of entropy. Use encrypted messaging for the banal as well as the embarrassing. It all helps improve everyone’s anonymity set.
@Em0nM4stodon It is in your list, but I always answer: "everybody has one thing to hide on their computer/smartphone: the credentials to their bank account". In my experience, this always wins the argument.
@Em0nM4stodon
Caitlin Johnstone wisely wrote that privacy is critical because it changes the conversations that society has. And particularly because it enables freedom fighters like Snowdon. You as an individual may not be that important, but society certainly is.
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