Comment by fweespeech | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fweespeech | Hacker News Reader

As much as I love the EFF, I think we have to be honest with ourselves and admit its a fundamental generational problem.

The people who think this is a good idea don't fully understand the implications. Hell, people get dox'd because they don't understand how the whole system works with publicly available information when they are discussing something they really shouldn't under their real names.

Hell, even without the NSA its pretty easy to imagine a scenario where:

[Person discusses having an affair on Platform X] -> [Some bored IT guy notices, thinks the woman is attractive and has no morals] -> [Uses exchanged information to exploit her for sexual favors because its better than her husband divorcing her and leaving her with nothing]

It doesn't even occur to these people that they are creating weapons that literally could be used to exploit anyone who has a secret they want hidden, domestically. The firewall that exists between "domestic" and "international" that is supposed to prevent this is exactly what these politicians are burning down.

At least, I keep hoping its ignorance.

People have a blind faith in the watch guards and a natural tendency to hand them the rope necessary to be hung with.

I have a friend in the middle of a divorce. Her husband works for their cell provider. He has harassed her with allusions to "keeping tabs" on her because of his position of power.

When you point the panopticon inwards you realize just how scary unfiltered communication and location data taken out of context can be and how dangerous someone with malicious intent and access to that data can be.

No one should have that power over someone. It certainly shouldn't be consolidated into the hands' of any group of people, either.

That is horrible and I'm sorry for your friend.

> People have a blind faith in the watch guards

People have an explicitly cultivated faith in the watch guards. Cop shows on TV promote an image of competency and good will. That's not what it's like in the real world, but even in this forum, you find people being way too deferential.

I'm in the UK and by and large we have reasonable policing (by the standards of many countries we have excellent policing).

That said, I have absolutely no deference to the police here either, it's a public sector job the same as any other staffed by people largely no better or worse than any other industry with the crucial difference they are sworn to uphold the law and have powers granted to them to that end.

They deserve the exact same respect as any other member of our society, we largely don't go in for all the "men in blue" stuff either - they weren't conscripted they chose to join as rational thinking adults.

> I have a friend in the middle of a divorce. Her husband works for their cell provider. He has harassed her with allusions to "keeping tabs" on her because of his position of power.

It never occurred to her to get a different phone? Yes, that's a burden, but people do much more difficult things for much worse reasons. The husband isn't really in a position of power there.

Lights need to stay on and mouths need to be fed every night. There isn't room in the budget to break contract, switch providers and buy a new phone.

Regardless, if you don't see the power play in the threat of being able to take one's communication and whereabouts out of context at any point, you need to look harder.

> I think we have to be honest with ourselves and admit its a fundamental generational problem

I disagree, and I'm not sure which generation you see at fault. I see careless disregard for privacy among all generations. Likewise, I see privacy advocates of all ages.

I think the majority of people 55+ don't really understand what these bills actually do.

https://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%260BL...

> The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 113th Congress was 57.0 years; of Senators, 62.0 years.

Literally, every person I know that is a "oh, this is okay with [insert cybersecurity bill]" freaks out when I point out how I could find out X about them without knowing them and show them how.

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