Yes, I agree with all 3 of the above posts, in that the frog fable/metaphor/analogy is a bit of a mismatch, and we can probably do better.
What if the frog wants to jump out of the hot pan, but discovers, to his dismay, that there is a ball and chain that mysteriously and silently attached itself to his ankle? So once, and only once, the heat gets too hot he wants to jump out, but effectively can’t.
We could argue that proprietary software, standards, protocols and formats act like that sneaky ball and chain, capturing those who would want to get out of the pan if it were easy to do so - but alas, it’s too hard to escape, so they don’t.
To this I offer the consideration that it only appears to be a ball and chain to those who don’t like it, but this may not be the case for all. There are many people who are well-aware of the implications and choose that route forward. Privacy exists by varying definitions from person to person, and the value of it is just as flexible. And it may seem that, because one person wants privacy, it somehow should be applied to another person, but perhaps it shouldn’t.
So I think there’s a lot of work to be done to rethink how this is approached.
Well, we would also have to account for just how hot the pan is seen to be by a given frog.
Some frogs would say, “it’s steamy, sure, and perhaps a bit risky, but all things considered, still not all that bad”.
Other frogs would say, “this is uncomfortably hot for me, and appears to be getting worse and worse, and is therefore way too risky, such that remaining here is a fate as threatening as death, even though I might not actually die”.
I forget the quote and couldn’t find it but a few years ago someone in Australian gov’t said something to the effect of… “Why should we be bound to protect people’s privacy if they evidently don’t care if they have it.”
It was a powerful statement that got a lot of air time with no rebuttal. Shortly after yet another authoritarian spying bill was passed.
It took me a long time to figure out how to answer it… no one knows the value of privacy more than gov’t so to treat the public as the authority is merely a way to shirk the responsibility of knowing better.
I’ve read this, but still don’t understand it all that well. (probably because English is not my first language).
Could you elaborate (i think that’s the word) please?
The Gov’t takes their privacy very seriously because they know it’s a form of power. Anyone behind laws for national intelligence is well aware of how important it is both at home and at work.
The public (on average) is not experienced enough to know how powerful privacy is so most of them don’t care. That’s why the public elects a gov’t to look out for them because no one can be expected to have expertise on every topic.
Healthy Gov’ts look out for the best interest of the public… because they know how important privacy is they should be seeking to preserve it for the public.
Some people in gov’t will pretend the public is correct that privacy isn’t worth anything (even though they know it’s value) in order to have an easier time of removing that power from them which makes them more powerful.
I have to say, it did surprise me to read there were drones watching borders of lockdown areas recently in Australia. At the moment they’re apparently armed only with cameras.
Hmmm. There is some good food for thought here. There are “cold wars” happening between countries, where a lack of privacy can be used as an advantage by the other side who is having a cold war with the country you are from. And there is serious theft of intellectual property, which can put one’s own country at an economic disadvantage, if competing countries make off with trade secrets, etc.
So there are broader economic reasons to care about privacy (if you have any regard for your own employer, who may own trade secrets, or country, or your countrymen/countrywomen/countrypersons), for those who don’t seem to care about privacy in any personal way.
They do the same in Spain. Drones with cameras were controlling the lockdown in spring. I find that very disturbing. Spain might even be the pioneer this year in that regard.
If people are still not interested in privacy than I am not sure because this year will change everything, I mean it already did.
They also used drones in France during the first lockdown. It was ruled illegal afterwards but I’d be very surprised it would stop them from using them again this time…
You can simply replace frogs with lobsters in this analogy and it remains intact.
I don’t disagree with the principle of different levels of privacy being appropriate for different people with different lifestyles and threat vectors. However, I would argue that people should have privacy as default and be given the option to share information as they choose, rather than having none by default and having to claw it back. As we know, it is nigh impossible to purge information from the Web once it’s out there.
An analogy (grounded in personal experience!) would be two roommates, one of whom prefers to sleep much warmer than the other. This roommate could turn up the thermostat to his preferred temperature, leaving the other to swelter in the darkness even while lying atop the bedclothes. A much more companionable solution, however, would be for the thermostat to remain at a low temperature while the roommate who prefers things warmer simply fetches some extra blankets.
It is important that we pick a “default” that allows the greatest degree of adaptability for everyone.
My stance on the matter is that imposing your (general you, not individual you) definition of privacy on people by trying to convince them or change their values is not acceptable. The matter of how we should address the defaults of the internet and data and all that other jazz is another subject, and it needs work.
Convince or change is not what i had in mind. I had no other word available, when posting the topic. (english is not my first language) It would rather be to tell people what lies ahead, if we don’t act. For instance, where i live, you can have your insurance company plant a “black box” in your car that measures your speed at any given time. You do however get a discount of 10% on your insurance. The next step will be this: the next time you cross the speedlimit, you’re bound to have your insurance increased, because you’re seen as a possible threat to the company. (aka, their income figures and yearly profit).
Another instance, these days, you can have your “smartwatch” monitor your vital functions. Again, the moment insurance companies get their hands on the data, it’s game over. And it’s these things that people are either unaware of, or don’t care. And it’s things like these that i like to point out to the people i know. It’s very likely a pipe dream to get people aware or to care about what is happening. It’s like George Carlin once said; " We’ve been bought off and silenced by gizmos and toys". This is not about getting everybody to see things “my way”, but to point out what could happen if we don’t keep our eyes open and let technology run everything. That in combination (at least where i live) with an incompetent government.
This is reasonable, though. They are responsible for covering you as a liability, and this is based on your contractually-obligated compliance with the law.
Well, this probably sounds a lot scarier in America than it does in many other countries… But even then, these insurance companies cover you via set policy. Voiding that policy and them not knowing it vs voiding that policy and them knowing it… Either way, it’s void. Hiding from the law or hiding from a commitment or contract isn’t a very good case
In the UK it’s illegal to even touch your phone while driving, even if stopped at traffic lights or in heavy traffic. There are very many cameras on our streets now, and apparently they can use computer vision to photograph people in their cars, “using their phones”. That’s the level of surveillance here so far, that we’re aware of.
You’re right about having to respect the law but it’s that very kind of logical reasoning that allows authoritarian politics to pass. Yes you have to respect the law but do we want to live in a society that checks your every move according to that ? Do you want to take the risk of having such system put in place while the laws are “ok” and then changed for unfair/restrictive laws ?
If governments were build with the people interest at heart and we could thrust them completely, having strict surveillance systems would be less of a problem. But the past and present just show the opposite. They seek control over the population for wrong reasons and use reasonable behaviors like in the assurance example to achieve that.
I recently changed my wifi password to a 5 word passphrase using dice words. I got called a “crazy conspiracy theorist”. Sheesh, some people will just never be convinced.
Problem is that my data will be compromised by the people close to me because of their terrible security not mine.
