Comment by csandreasen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csandreasen | Hacker News Reader

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> Please, I invite you to post your credit card records for the past year here. We'll be happy to look over them and leave some comments for you. After all, you've got nothing to hide, yes?

That's a ridiculous counter argument. If I buy a bunch of towels/etc. from an online merchant, I have every reason to believe they will not use any information they gather to publicly embarrass me or otherwise do me ill will. Their business relies on them not abusing their customers. If they showed any indication that they aren't trustworthy, I wouldn't do business with them.

On the other hand, I don't have any reason to trust someone on the internet requesting my credit card records in exchange for the privilege of being publicly embarrassed when they post it on the internet. The argument is never "I've got nothing to hide", the argument is that I have no reason to hide my Amazon purchases from Amazon.

Most of your examples are either non-issues or not realistic. My credit card company does have a right to see how much and where I'm spending - I'm borrowing their money when I make a purchase. I don't know of any service I use that sends my porn history to my boss (unless I decided to do it at work on computers owned by my employer). I don't know of any supermarket discount program that prevents you from shopping elsewhere - every rewards program I've ever seen is structured to encourage you to shop with them more, not punish you for shopping elsewhere. My wife has every right to scrutinize our bank account - if I didn't trust her I wouldn't have married her. If she finds out what her birthday present was, that's her loss for ruining the surprise, not mine. My annoying jealous nephew can get over himself - if he wants to come on trips with me then he needs to be less annoying.

If I don't want any of these things posted publicly on the internet, I a) won't post them publicly on the internet, and b) won't share the information with anyone that I don't trust to refrain from posting it publicly to the internet. Anonymity is not the same as privacy - privacy comes from keeping personal information to yourself.

So, to reiterate the grandparent poster asked, why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?

> The argument is never "I've got nothing to hide", the argument is that I have no reason to hide my Amazon purchases from Amazon.

The argument most definitely is "you've got nothing to hide." This argument is bandied about a lot. With some sort of idea that your entire life should be laid bare before the whims of law enforcement/signals intelligence agencies. The idea always comes with the assumptions that:

- If you want to hide something from others is means that you must be guilty of some sort of crime, and deserve to be punished.

- All employees of said law enforcement/signals intelligences agencies are will never abuse their power for any reason, and if they do it's probably for a "good reason" (e.g. see Supreme Court Justice Scala(?) arguing law based on "Jack Bauer" scenarios).

I'm going to take a karma hit for this one, I think...

Well, the conversation has apparently gone from asking why someone needs total anonymity when conducting completely legal activity online to protecting oneself from signals intelligence agencies. I have a vested interest in protecting my sensitive information online from identity thieves, scammers, people who would want to rob or injure me and people making arguments like the one I responded to who would likely use my information to embarrass me in an attempt to make a point about having "nothing to hide." When I have a credible reason to add the cops or the NSA to the list, I'll start taking measures to hide my perfectly legal activity from them as well.

The reason I don't fear them isn't because I believe they're infallible, free from abuse, etc. - the reason is that I'm significantly more likely to be assaulted by one of the hundreds of people that walk past me on the way to work than targeted by a rogue NSA agent trying to collect my online activity, and yet I can still walk down the street without being scared of everyone around me.

In the mean time, I know that if the NSA or FBI wants to target me they need a court order, and if I'm going to be arrested and tried in court the cops need evidence of illegal activity to convict me. When I see credible evidence that this is not the case, I'll take steps to protect myself from them. Despite more than a year of Snowden revelations, however, Greenwald and friends have yet to show evidence of a single American being thrown in jail because of the vast, Orwellian surveillance state that has supposedly developed around us.

If it was happening, that would have been the first thing they reported a year ago. The fact that they have yet to come up with anything tells me that in that giant trove of the NSA's deepest secrets, there is nothing to indicate any harassing or incarceration of regular citizens.

so, you don't believe that it's a fragile system, before you saw it break?

I've followed the reporting that Greenwald, Poitras, Gellman et al. have put out fairly closely, but I've also watched the debates, watched several of the Congressional hearings, read both of the PCLOB reports, quite a few of the declassified documents, etc. The conclusion I've come to is that talking about nuances in surveillance law doesn't bring in advertising dollars, but you can't go wrong by stirring up hysteria talking about all of the things the NSA could technically do without showing evidence of them actually doing it. This is the Ebola scare of the tech community.

So to answer your question, I believe it's an ugly system with a lot of warts, but I have yet to see it break.

> you can't go wrong by stirring up hysteria talking about all of the things the NSA could technically do without showing evidence of them actually doing it.

A couple of questions:

* Are you a fan of the "benevolent dictator" ideal? (The idea that forming a dictatorship is ok so long as the dictator has the best interests of the people in mind)

* Do you agree with the NSA's redefinition of the word 'collect' to mean that something is only "collected" when a human see it? If not, then why would you trust people that attempt to redefine common terms to mean things that normal people wouldn't expect in the hopes of deceiving them while appearing to be completely honest and up-front?

> Are you a fan of the "benevolent dictator" ideal?

I'm not an authoritarian if that's what you're getting at - and this is getting way off topic...

> Do you agree with the NSA's redefinition of the word 'collect' to mean that something is only "collected" when a human see it?

I'm going to repost part of an older comment I wrote that addresses the issue:

This is the actual legal definition of 'collected' per DoDD 5240.1-R[1]:

"C2.2.1. Collection. Information shall be considered as "collected" only when it has been received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component in the course of his official duties. Thus, information volunteered to a DoD intelligence component by a cooperating source would be "collected" under this procedure when an employee of such component officially accepts, in some manner, such information for use within that component. Data acquired by electronic means is "collected" only when it has been processed into intelligible form."

That would include sent to the NSA, processed by algorithms and stored. The "read by a human definition" as far as I can tell comes from the EFF selectively quoting that definition[2] and drawing their own conclusions from their selective quotation, not the regulation itself. As the regulation itself states, as soon as any DoD intelligence components receives it and processes it, it is considered collected.

The misunderstanding is compounded by Clapper's June 9th 2013 interview with Andrea Mitchell, where he tries to explain that there's a legal difference between collecting content and metadata and fails miserably[3]. Mind you, Clapper is not part of the NSA. That's not an excuse, since as DNI he should know better, but it does explain it somewhat...

[1] http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/524001r.pdf (see page 15)

[2] https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/wordgames#collect

[3] http://www.nbcuni.com/corporate/newsroom/nbc-news-exclusive-...

I hope that answers your questions. (and, btw, I hate it when people downvote because they don't agree with someone. I think it should be reserved for actual abuse, so I voted you back up a point if it matters to you).

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