Comment by LouisSayers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LouisSayers | Hacker News Reader

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I find it interesting to see how people react to this article. I try my best to see what can be learnt from this - he is offering insights into a private world that we don't 'get to see', and yes the alleged murder is a caveat to the whole thing - which should be treated (and is) treated differently to the rest of the story.

I do find your comment quite judgemental and vengeful. I'm not condoning his actions, but simply saying that I think we benefit as a society more from learning from this man, including learning from his behaviour rather than spending our energy and resources hating on and wanting to punish someone for essentially an act (excluding the death) of which had no effect on the people being watched.

To punish him in my mind is to say that we should keep these things in the closet (or attic in this case), and the lesson from that is only to hide what really goes on in the world instead of sharing what really goes on. I'd rather know about this and encourage others to share their stories.

Would your reaction be different if he were a sysadmin snooping on emails, didn't ever do anything from the snooping, just snooped?

If his intentions were solely for his own personal satisfaction, it affected no-one, and he anonymised all information then no, I have no problem with that.

In fact it kind of reminds me of articles from dating companies where they release the 'best openers' and other interesting data about their users.

To be perfectly honest with you, as someone who worked in IT and knew how easy it was to snoop on emails if I wanted, I have decided that I am okay with a few strangers reading my emails. I decided that the alternative--being upset about something I cannot change and which impacts me little--is worse.

I can't pretend to speak on others' behalf.

Are you okay with someone reading your biometrics? How about using that data to determine if you're eligible for medical coverage or not?

Or using your email example, what if somebody used that information against you in your next interview?

I'm sorry, but privacy is a black and white issue. We can either have a surveillance state or not have one at all. Compromising on any surveillance, carried out by humans, is frankly dangerous and naive.

do the people he watched become victims you tell them they were being watched?

none of the information he released was used directly against people.

at times he seems to have crossed the line of not acting on his knowledge, eg to flush drugs down the toilet.

I'm sorry, but privacy is not a black and white issue. It's never that simple, and it's a disservice to try and simplify it until you can understand it in black and white terms. There's public information, and there's private information, but there's a whole spectrum of information (semi-public, semi-private) inbetween. I consider emails to be akin to leaving papers on my desk at work. J. Q. Public can't read them, but I know that janitors come through my office every night.

To be clear, I'm fine with data mining my emails to find certain features for analytics or data science purposes. But my point is that you, as an individual, should be the gatekeeper to all of your information, private or public.

Now, whether or not you choose to cede that right is entirely your prerogative (as in the case of Gmail, where the TOS specifically outlines how your data might be used). However, there should be no doubt that privacy is a fundamental human right, much like property.

Right, privacy is a fundamental human right. But that doesn't answer the question of whether our emails are private or not.

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