Reconciling Information Privacy and Liberty?

thetan asks: "F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' However, for many outsiders, it's hard to understand how cliques reconcile seemingly contrarian views. For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons). Amongst the Slashdot commentariat, one often hears that information wants to be free, almost as a catchcry of the open source, copyfight and related info-libertarian movements. OTOH, these same Slashdot readers stridently guard their privacy, so presumably information about their shopping preferences or websurfing does not 'want to be free'. How does the intelligent and functional Slashdot crowd reconcile the liberty of other people's information with the privacy of their own?"

Comments

Libre, *not* gratis.

[TripMaster Monkey]

...the intelligent and functional Slashdot crowd...

Bwah ha ha ha...are you enjoying your stay in our dimension? When are you due back in BizzaroWorld? ^_^

Seriously, though, I don't think any intellectually honest Slashdotter out there would assert that the vaunted 'information wants to be free' catch phrase should be interpreted as 'free as in beer'. Information is most certainly not free...if it was, many of us would be out of a job. This being the Information Age, information is the prime economic mover, and therefore, most slashdotters are understandably upset when their own personal information is mined by corporations and passed around as currency. This leads to a very real devaluation of our personal worth, as the intrusiveness of companies serves to reduce our quality of life.

Prejudices

[bigwavejas]

I've noticed if one posts anything on Slashdot going "against the grain" of popularity (differing views on War in Iraq, Linux or Apple for example) The mods immediately presume your post is either a "Troll" or "Flamebait". People often have a hard time setting aside their personal beliefs and tend to view things in a biased manner. The unfortunate outcome of this is they end up burying otherwise interesting viewpoints.

MOD PARENT UP - Please.

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

've noticed if one posts anything on Slashdot going "against the grain" of popularity (differing views on War in Iraq, Linux or Apple for example) The mods immediately presume your post is either a "Troll" or "Flamebait". People often have a hard time setting aside their personal beliefs and tend to view things in a biased manner. The unfortunate outcome of this is they end up burying otherwise interesting viewpoints.

I have to agree with bigwavejas. Troll" on /. == Satire. Oh, I wish there was a way to explain humor or a poor attempt at it to the mods. And Goddam /. for inventing "Troll" and "Flamebait" Famous "Troll"s and "Flaimers:" people:

Thomas Paine

Thomas Jefferson

Ben Franklin

Karl Marx

Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King

Martin Luther

Ghandi

etc ... People who spoke what they truly believed and got Fucked for it!!!

Re:Not at odds, one in the same

[TGK]

Ultimately the difference in what should and should not be opened to public scrutiny comes down to where the information originates. Corporate information should be open to the public because corporations exist only through the legal protections of Government, which exists only at the consent of the governed.

There are only two places this line blurs - when a person interacts with a corporation and when a person acts like a corporation.

In the first, while a corporation may choose to collect data on its customers, that data should never be for sale or distribution. Carelessness with or misuse of that data should meet with harsh consequences.

In the second, a person is engaging in public actions (such as the creation of intellectual properties) -- in such a case the information should be opened to public scrutiny.

These are my opinions. They are based around the fundamental assumption that, despite present legal structures, a corporation is not the same thing as an individual. Individuals have natural rights, and the right of a corporation to exist is something granted by a government. The two are not equal and thus the information they produce should also be unequal.

Re:Abortion/death-penalty false dichotomy

[hacker]

I am troubled by abortion rights -- even in the absence of religious motivation -- because I can't answer the question, "When is it no longer OK to kill a baby?" At the moment of viability outside the mother's body? No; that fails as a test because technology will eventually make in vitro incubation a reality. At the moment of conception? Yeah, that would be fine, except for the point I just made. At the moment of discernible brain activity? Same problem. At the moment of birth? Only a barbarian would be OK with that. At the onset of conscious awareness? That happens after birth.

Many scientists make this very clear (and my wife is a research biologist, so we talk about this quite often):

There is a very distinct, provable, cellular and molecular difference between "Life" and "Human Life" in the normal process of cellular growth between a sperm and an egg. There is a very predictable period where that cell-that-is-dividing, can be told to become something other than a fetus. This is "Life". The cell is growing, dividing, becoming something larger than what it started as.

Beyond that point, where the cell has decided to continue to grow into a fetus and can no longer be repurposed as a non-fetal cell, it becomes "Human Life".

We seem to have no problem taking out cancerous tumors from our bodies, and those are also cells which are dividing and being nourished by the human bloodstream (technically, they are cells which are programmed to die, and ignore that signal, while new cells are put into place to replace them, hence the "tumor"). Why is killing one set of human cells wrong, and killing others ok? Who makes that decision? The state? The government? Where does it stop?

Personally, I see people deciding who should live and who should die all the time, without a single care for the larger body of humanity that will be affected (as well as their own life as a result of that crime), from all facets; economic, social and political.

I too am completely unreligious, and have my own beliefs about life, the world and the number 42.

Ideas vs. Data

[araven]

I've never liked the phrase "information wants to be free." I prefer "ideas want to be free." Art, music, theories, paradigms, processes, designs, schemas...those are the things that have the potential to grow and be useful only if shared. They get combined into larger and more complex ideas. They're hopelessly complicated to attribute, and nearly every new idea is composed of bits of old ideas. Assigning "ownership" to creative works, and particularly for long periods of time, simply prevents new ideas from occurring (or gets new-idea-creators sued into oblivion). Ideas should be free, as in air.

Data, on the other hand, comes in a lot of forms. Some of those forms, like data collected in government-sponsored studies, should ALSO be free. Free because we've already paid for it. Free, as in beer. Other forms of data don't "want to be free," and personal information like medical records are surely one of those. Of course, there are some reasonable exceptions. Like aggregated disease statistics.

With data, I think there is a balance. I'm a privacy fanatic, but I'd surely hate to see us in as big a mess with regulating the use of personal information as we have with copyright regulation. Good grief, can you imagine if we all acted like the RIAA, suing friends for telling other friends about our lousy bowling scores?

Part of where the line is drawn for me (and the "fair use" doctrine relies heavily on this) is the use to which data is put. Since uses for others'personal information is almost entirely either prurient or commercial in nature, I strongly disfavor that sort of "sharing." It's not cognitive dissonance to dislike seeing people getting personal monetary or "prurient" gain from the uncompensated work of other people, but to be totally fine with non-selfish uses.

Just because this can't be reduced to a short catch-phrase doesn't mean it's inconsistent. Life is complicated. Millions of people who would never STEAL anything under any circumstances instinctively realize that while downloading a song they haven't paid for isn't WRONG, but that downloading and using someone else's credit card number IS wrong. It should be obvious that this is complicated, but that reasonable rules can be derived.

~

Thieves and Intent. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

Hypothetical Question. . .

The Village is dying of thirst. By pure chance, a limitless wellspring is discovered. The man who discovered the spring is calculating and without pity, and he refuses to tell the village where the water source is unless the people pay his outrageous fee. The community suffers deeply.

One night a clever Thief follows the man and discovers the location of the wellspring. The Thief hurries home and tells the community. Everybody proclaims him a Hero. The community is saved, and goes on to thrive and become happy and healthy.

Sometimes the Thief is also the Hero.

I would say that Ownership of information is far less important than the Intent of the owner.

-FL