Generally I’ve found the people who say this get privacy and secrecy confused. You close the door when you go to the bathroom because you want privacy, not because you have anything to hide. Everyone has a pretty good idea what you’re doing in there but you close the door anyways. Secrecy would be if you were cooking Meth in the bathroom and wanted to keep it a secret.
Let me scroll through your phone, see if there are some nice pictures or chats, the google search history, browser history… Uuh what’s that Lovense Buttplug App for? Do you have any medical conditions or mental health struggles? How do you approach people on Tinder? What’s your salary?
I got someone to use Signal recently, because I don’t text outside of it. Last week, she asked me why that is. I sent this Bruce Schneier essay on the eternal value of privacy to someone who knows absolutely nothing about tech, and she understood.
I’m gonna try it again next time it comes up with someone else. I think this essay does a really good job of putting it into perspective, so I’m hoping this is the silver bullet I can continue to send when someone asks.
Overall, in general, I try to keep it in real world terms. Why do you close the door when you go to the bathroom? Why do you lock your doors? Why do you have curtains/blinds? etc., along with what some other intelligent people responded here.
“The you won’t kind providing me with your full birth name, ss#, address, mother’s maiden name, bank account number, pin, computer login, phone login” etc, etc.
You unfortunately can’t teach something like this to someone who doesn’t even understand the consequences of it. Or care. Leading a horse to water n all that.
You unfortunately can’t teach something like this to someone who doesn’t even understand the consequences of it. Or care.
You can absolutely explain it and teach it and make people care. It’s just not easy.
I’ve only ever encountered uninformed “I have nothing to hide”-responses to equally lackluster throwaway explanations . It’s a very difficult and abstract topic, it doesn’t come naturally! Don’t treat privacy concerns as equivalent to pointing out dirt on someone’s clothes, treat it like calculus. Successfully conveying it requires time, conversation and didactics.
I imagine that for a very small minority of the population, that’s actually their kink. Writing sexually explicit and politically suspect text messages in order to force some unwitting federal employee to participate in some deranged message-au-trois. The world is filled with all kinds of people.
Are you absolutely sure that you flat-out “don’t have anything to hide” and would readily and truthfully furnish me with every information I asked of you? :P
I wouldn’t mind you finding out any information about me. I would mind you feeling entitled to me putting in effort and time to answer you. I’ve read all the suggestions people here posted and none made me reflect or get anywhere near changing my mind. Privacy centric people just have to accept not everyone is like them. I respect your need for privacy. I don’t understand why you obsessively require me to hold the same belief.
I don’t think anyone requires you to hold any specific beliefs, nobody within this comment chain anyway.
It’s a bit akin to meeting someone on the street and being told “It’s nighttime!” while the sun is out. I’d definitely be interested in understanding why that other person considers it to be nighttime and I would at the very least be disappointed not to get a conversation out of it.
Three different fictitious requests:
“Can you spare some change?”
“Would you let me skip ahead of the queue please? I have an urgent appointment later on.”
“Will you let us share your user data with our partners in order to improve our services?”
I’m assuming here - and please correct me if I am wrong - that you would be likely to acquiesce to 3. in most contexts, maybe even more likely than to acquiesce to 1. or 2.?
Privacy sentiments are subjective beliefs, not an objective fact like nature.
I genuinely don’t see a point in engaging with you, even just based on what I stated above where you use your personal beliefs in line with objective, provable elements of the natural world. So I’ll choose not to. Cheers. 👍
While I obviously cannot force you to continue a conversation you do not wish to have, I’m a bit perplexed by what you’re saying here and at what point “belief” entered the conversation. If you’re saying that data, personal and otherwise, has no real, objective, provable value then surely that would go against all physical evidence? There must be some kind of misunderstanding here. Well, cheers ✋
Yeah, that is the most common response I get. Not quite sure what the best approach to deal with that is.
Generally I’ve found the people who say this get privacy and secrecy confused. You close the door when you go to the bathroom because you want privacy, not because you have anything to hide. Everyone has a pretty good idea what you’re doing in there but you close the door anyways. Secrecy would be if you were cooking Meth in the bathroom and wanted to keep it a secret.
That’s the right response!
Saving this post
I’ll never tell.
Ask them when you can install the bug on their phoneline, open their mail and remove their bathroom door.
Worth a try, I suppose.
Let me scroll through your phone, see if there are some nice pictures or chats, the google search history, browser history… Uuh what’s that Lovense Buttplug App for? Do you have any medical conditions or mental health struggles? How do you approach people on Tinder? What’s your salary?
I got someone to use Signal recently, because I don’t text outside of it. Last week, she asked me why that is. I sent this Bruce Schneier essay on the eternal value of privacy to someone who knows absolutely nothing about tech, and she understood.
I’m gonna try it again next time it comes up with someone else. I think this essay does a really good job of putting it into perspective, so I’m hoping this is the silver bullet I can continue to send when someone asks.
Overall, in general, I try to keep it in real world terms. Why do you close the door when you go to the bathroom? Why do you lock your doors? Why do you have curtains/blinds? etc., along with what some other intelligent people responded here.
Thank you for that article, it is brief, to the point and easy to understand. I will try giving that to people in the future.
“Can I please use your phone?” and then just start scrolling through their texts and pictures
Going to try this next time.
Or online; “send me a selfie of you”
“The rights we enjoy today may become illegal tomorrow”
Yeah, I tend to like that response, sometimes it works but people seem to think it would never happen here…
True, you just can’t reason with some ppl.
Offer to install a security camera in their restroom, duh
Hah, fair enough, most people don’t seem to understand that it is so close to that though.
Better in every room, even the bathroom
“The you won’t kind providing me with your full birth name, ss#, address, mother’s maiden name, bank account number, pin, computer login, phone login” etc, etc.
Suddenly they’ll be worried about privacy.
“I too have nothing to hide but that doesn’t mean that it is something I want others to see”
send me a naked picture of yourself might work
You unfortunately can’t teach something like this to someone who doesn’t even understand the consequences of it. Or care. Leading a horse to water n all that.
You can absolutely explain it and teach it and make people care. It’s just not easy. I’ve only ever encountered uninformed “I have nothing to hide”-responses to equally lackluster throwaway explanations . It’s a very difficult and abstract topic, it doesn’t come naturally! Don’t treat privacy concerns as equivalent to pointing out dirt on someone’s clothes, treat it like calculus. Successfully conveying it requires time, conversation and didactics.
Show them the John Oliver Ed Snowden interview where he says the government has people looking at your sexts
I imagine that for a very small minority of the population, that’s actually their kink. Writing sexually explicit and politically suspect text messages in order to force some unwitting federal employee to participate in some deranged message-au-trois. The world is filled with all kinds of people.
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Just give me your phone and password then. Surely you won’t mind me going through your pictures and texts while streaming on twitch.
Are you absolutely sure that you flat-out “don’t have anything to hide” and would readily and truthfully furnish me with every information I asked of you? :P
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I don’t think anyone requires you to hold any specific beliefs, nobody within this comment chain anyway.
It’s a bit akin to meeting someone on the street and being told “It’s nighttime!” while the sun is out. I’d definitely be interested in understanding why that other person considers it to be nighttime and I would at the very least be disappointed not to get a conversation out of it.
Three different fictitious requests:
I’m assuming here - and please correct me if I am wrong - that you would be likely to acquiesce to 3. in most contexts, maybe even more likely than to acquiesce to 1. or 2.?
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While I obviously cannot force you to continue a conversation you do not wish to have, I’m a bit perplexed by what you’re saying here and at what point “belief” entered the conversation. If you’re saying that data, personal and otherwise, has no real, objective, provable value then surely that would go against all physical evidence? There must be some kind of misunderstanding here. Well, cheers ✋