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Comment by pishpash | Hacker News Reader

But that's why this sort of exercise should be universal.

Internet communities are not a model of real life. They're not "technically" public, they are public. If somebody walked up behind you too close you'll know and you'll know whom. There is no such thing on the internet.

So let's not pretend they are similar and instead make people always aware that they are being blasted in public. That way they will not be mistaken, or take the moral hazard of security by obscurity, and instead seek out truly secure solutions.

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It's exactly this sneering "user beware" attitude that fosters abuse of privacy online. It's (probably) well-intentioned and supposed to push people to take privacy and security more seriously, but what it has actually done is created a general culture of blaming the victim where everything not being absolutely locked down being up for grabs, and if you mess up in any way and are harmed it's your own fault so quit whining.

I think the parent is right: if we tried instead to foster a culture that respects privacy as an ethical issue first it would greatly improve everyone's experience online. Privacy should be a bedrock principle, not something that exists only as far as the strength of the personal digital fortress you can erect.

Now we're getting into philosophy. Moral imperatives not backed by proper incentives haven't worked since society grew larger than a few thousand people, much less in the faceless, boundary-less, transactional world of today.

I am not blaming the victim nor tasking them with sole responsibility for privacy breaches. Instead, I'm proposing an explicit contact with what is already reality, that is, the lack of any privacy. This will do several things, one, strip away the illusion that there is privacy and the delusion that it can be protected when there are no barriers except in some people's minds; two, shift the cost-reward curve immediately (rather than through incremental or hidden breaches) toward taking action rather than not for producing the capabilities and structures that move towards your goal.

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