Privacy from whom?

[Rodney R. Korte]

On Fri, 04 Aug 2000 21:54:34 +0000, John Drabik wrote:

>>2. horrible things done to people were [usually]....done by
>>    governments, usually their own.

Actually, what always amazes me about these encryption 
discussions is that they always come down losing your
privacy from "them", meaning the government.  Certainly
there is merit in this concern, considering the statement
above is true so far.

Why?  It has only been governments in the past with enough
power and money to do these things.  Is this true today?
I'd argue: definitely not, even ingoring the fact that 
there are many very, very power companies in the world
(some that even directly defy orders from the United States
Government, arguably the most powerful government in the
world).

The Internet has given information seekers a tremendous
amount of power for a trivial amount of money.  This has
never been the case at any other time in history.  These
information seekers could be a multi-national conglomerate,
your local ISP's teenage sysadmin, or a private investigator
sitting comfortably in her/his office.

People with whom I discuss this almost always say "Oh,
I don't care what they know" or something like that.
Seems to me, once you know enough about someone,
manipulation is not far behind.  Think about what products
you buy, and then think about what commercials or
advertisements you like.  Be honest- there's a correlation.
Need something that you've never bought before?  There's
a good chance you'll think of the brand you saw an ad for.
One doesn't need to extrapolate very far to see that this
is a form of "brainwashing".  I mean, jeez, don't people
notice that the ads that show up when web browsing are almost
always in an interest area of theirs?  This isn't coincidence.
Do I even need to bring up blatant examples of suggestive
manipulation like Hitler?

Am I concerned about losing my privacy to "them", the
government?  Yeah, but not too concerned.  As someone pointed
out previously, they aren't so effective anyway.  I'm *way*
more concerned about losing my privacy to "them", everyone
else.

Rodney