Privacy from whom?

[Steve Lamb]

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Saturday, August 05, 2000, 3:01:52 PM, Rodney wrote:
> 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.

    Them, to me, means government, business, other individuals, in that order.

> 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

    *chuckle*

> 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.

    And where does a lot of that information come from?  Did you know that
there are several states that sell their DMV records to marketing companies in
other states?  :)

    Granted, there are nosy people out there but the information has to be
collected and collated by someone for them to nose into.  I'm not worried
about the multi-national conglomerate, the ISPs sysadmin or the PI in his
office.  None of them can require me upon threat of incarceration (or worse)
to divulge my information to them.  I can choose not to use a club card, I can
choose not to place anything on the ISP of any worth, I can protect myself
from the PI.  I cannot, however, protect myself from a government with too
much power.

> 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.

    Nope, there isn't.  Of course, I am somewhat of an anomaly in the US, esp.
SoCal.  No cable, don't watch TV, most, if not all, my information comes
through internet or word of mouth and I ignore the ads on the internet about
99.98% of the time.  I chose bn.com to buy my books because of amazon.com's
patent policies, for example.  :)

> Need something that you've never bought before? There's a good chance you'll
> think of the brand you saw an ad for.

    Or just do a search on the net and/or walk outside and pound the pavement.

> 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?

    Nope.  Of course I've been using Opera which was the first (outside
Mozilla) to ignore cookies from third party servers.  Kinda killed the adware
dead right there.

> This isn't coincidence. Do I even need to bring up blatant examples of
> suggestive manipulation like Hitler?

    Phew, good thing this isn't usenet or that would have invoked Godwin's
Law.  :)

> 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 sorry, but with Echelon, Carnivore and asset forfeiture combined I'm
more concerned about what my government knows about me than about other
people.  Usually other people can't round up 20 armed me to storm my apartment
and take all my stuff then have the courts tell me I have to prove my
property's innocence.  :)

- --
         Steve C. Lamb         | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
         ICQ: 5107343          | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
- -------------------------------+---------------------------------------------

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