An Epidemic of Snooping

Travoltus writes "Privacy advocates are frequently confronted with the rhetorical question, 'If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have a good reason to worry about losing your privacy, right?' This AP story uncovers a vast, distributed, decentralized epidemic of snooping into databases of personal information by workers at major utilities, the IRS, and other large organizations. In a number of cases these incidents have led to real harm. One striking example involves now ex-Mayor of Milwaukee Marvin Pratt, who had a pattern of being late paying his heating bills. This fact was leaked to the media by a utility worker and may have led to Pratt's losing a bid for re-election. As one can imagine, the harm becomes much greater when this same snooping is done by Government officials to deal with political enemies, or by corporations to uncover whistleblowers."

Comments

Q&A

[calebt3]

How's this for an answer:
I do have stuff to hide. It's just not illegal stuff.

Re:Q&A

[morari]

Some of mine is illegal. Only a patriot like myself would be willing to break such unjust laws however.

Re:Q&A

[statusbar]

I don't have anything to hide! I live at #4-1131 burnaby st in vancouver, I own 3 macintosh computers, 2 linux servers, a video camera, MIDI equipment, a large screen plasma tv, a ps3 and an xbox 360.

I have loads of dvd's and I blog about all of my favourites.

On wednesday I will be going on a trip for a few weeks and although I don't have an alarm system I have a pet cat. I'm getting my friend Kim to come over every day at noon to feed my cat.

I am a trusting person and I'm SURE that no one would take advantage of this information and break in and rob me while I'm gone!

Once again, I have nothing to hide!

--jeffk++

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

You and your cat can goto hell! I'm not going to risk my life after you post this information to all these potential burglars and rapists!
-Kim

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of mine is illegal. Only a patriot like myself would be willing to break such unjust laws however. It sounds to me that you hate freedom. Those laws were put in place to restrict you actions thus making sure you have liberty.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with your principle, the Kohlberg Stages of Moral Development explain why most people do not understand the argument you just made.

Re:Q&A

[statusbar]

---- Whoosh ----

Someone didn't get the joke.

Do you really think I'd be so stupid as to post real information?

I thought people would get the hint that it was a joke by saying "I'm sure no one would rob me -- look at all the stuff I have!"....

In my opinion, people who violate their own privacy deserve what they get (or lose, as it may be).

--jeffk++

Re:Q&A

[lee1026]

Curiously enough, a truly privacy-free world would be better for the person in question. It would easy enough for him to find out who robbed him if no one had any privacy. If we are allowed to assume that all people are rational actors, then no one would rob him.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah. I grew up in 1141, next door (the big ugly brown building on the other side of that huge tree). There was a totally hot girl who used to live where you... umm, hi son?

Re:Q&A

[rtb61]

It has more to do with the selective use of information to create a false image, also useful to know when a person does not have a legally effective alibi. And as beneficial to the corrupt is the blackmail of parents by the disclosure of the behaviour of their children, whether that behaviour would reflect badly on the parents or just to protect the future of their misbehaving children.

So the whole thing about privacy is not what you want to keep secret, but about those people who want to keep secret from you but simultaneously want to know everything about you and your family. Why do all those freak privacy people pry into everybody lives, is it really so effective to tailor marketing campaigns, so they are my psychologically targeted at specific individuals, and thus drone like they a forced to mindlessly buy products, or perhaps where you can not effective manipulate the parents directly perhaps more effective psychological manipulation can be targeted via their children.

Isn't the typical view of a arse hole slime ball portrayed as someone who tells you all the private information about yourself whilst you know nothing about them and how they can manipulate that information, as it has been viewed for thousands of years, yet suddenly with the advent of the googlites et al. your private email is a postcard, your web searching is something to be used to target you even your medical records will be under the auctioneers hammer, your privacy for sale to the highest bidder.

So the real question is not about what right we have to privacy, but what god damned right those arse holes have to invade it, collate it, digitally anal-yse it and to manipulate it and thus seek control over your, what, shopping habits, and maybe voting habits. To gauge over the long term how the right assemblage of messages can most effectively manipulate your behaviour and choices, and thus in affect eliminate any real free conscious choice.

Re:Q&A

[werewolf1031]

If we are allowed to assume that all people are rational actors, then no one would rob him.

Therein lies the principal flaw with your proposal. If you need it explained to you further, then you Just Don't Get It... and you're part of the problem.

Re:Q&A

[MindKata]

"A truly privacy-free world would be better for the person in question"

That's true only in a utopian world of total equality. But it has two major problems. First the world doesn't work like that, its got a hierarchy. Secondly, a lot of people in power would consider this kind of open, flat, everyone equal, utopian world, as their idea of a dystopia, not a utopia. They want power. They don't want it flat and open. They want to be higher up than others. They want to be the centre of attention. They want more money than others. They want more power than others.

So that kind of totally open world is a scifi only utopian world, that cannot ever exist in a world that has some people who also seek power and that will never change. Plus these people who seek power ultimately make the rules, so they will not allow it to go that far, where everyone becomes equal.

Political ideologies are ultimately driven by the psychology of personality types, as with all human patterns of behaviour. These personality types will continue to exist, regardless of how technology evolves in the future. So the personality types will shape what technology is allowed or disallowed and how it is used.

I am sadly convinced however that Big Brother in becoming inevitable. Too many people want the power it gives over others. Its becoming a scramble for who can grab as much of that new power faster than others. The examples of Google's chess moves show this to be true. Google's "do no harm" PR smoke screen marketing theme is sounding more hollow, every new move Google makes. Their goal is to become some kind of marketing version of Big Brother, but with the total knowledge they are building up, they will also have immense political power as well. Google data mine everything they have. Each new chess move of Google reminds me of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.

Given the kinds of personalities that can easily dominate in corporations, its hardly surprising.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=448546&cid=22377974

So I think the question is becoming not if we will have a Big Brother, but what the form of that Big Brother will take. Google definitely are becoming a marketing Big Brother and others are racing to try to grab some of what Google are grabbing for themselves. Then again, its not simply just marketing products. Marketing of anything can be helped with market research. So selling ideas just as selling products is still selling. So marketing a product or marketing a political ideology using these kinds of new technologies is going to happen, regardless of what that ideology the people want to market. The more market research that can be grabbed, the more power it gives to the people with that knowledge

Knowledge mining is the new gold rush and with it brings power over others. Its the nature of the game. But that has existed in some form, for centuries. But now we have the ability to monitor and mine everything people are interested in and what their thoughts are when they for example post emails etc... Not only that, the Internet is a growing database of these ideas on blogs etc... Give it say another decade or two and imagine what kinds of data mining can be done on archived data, to work out what people think thought out their lives.

Its like the old saying, "Knowledge is power".

Re:Q&A

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

*ahem* civil disobedience means breaking laws AND accepting the punishment doled out for it. So if you're truly letting patriotism guiding you, then you have reported this illegal stuff to your local police station YOURSELF, right ? No need for privacy in databases to uncover your illegal stuff.

Re:Q&A

[Maxo-Texas]

I agree with your point.

However, I believe that those in control of society are getting better at dealing with civil disobedience.

I think they used to be embarrassed by it but are no longer. I also think they are better at spinning it, or suppressing reporting of it, or negating it's impact (in part by say, smearing the person being civilly disobedient.)

Re:Q&A

[morethanapapercert]

For the lazy criminal here is a map to Jeff Koftinoff's apartment:
1131 Burnaby St

Note the parks within easy running distance if the police should happen to interrupt your B&E and the hospital if you throw out your back hauling all that stuff out to your truck.
  Also, Jeff is a contributer to Open Source software so please don't steal any of the media (CD's, thumb drives etc) since you can probably download much of it from Freshmeat or his own website
 

I found two odd things when googling Jeff; first, that he lives in apt #5, not #4 so perhaps Jeff is trying to arrange that an annoying neighbor get robbed?
      Second, he once posted a number of conspiracy theory pages that are now all 404. So perhaps this isn't really Jeff issuing this invitation? perhaps it's the CIA looking to take him down for posting the Truth?

I'd post more but it is really hard to do invasive, privacy violating searches while bouncing a toddler on one's knee and keeping him away from the keyboard.

Re:Q&A

[jollyreaper]

Do you really think I'd be so stupid as to post real information? Err, no! Of course, not. Don't be silly. *quietly cancels U-Haul rental*

Easy Answer

[SRA8]

A co-workers once made the same statement to me regarding warrantless wiretapping -- why hide anything if you are not guilty. The response is simple:
- Do you have a daughter?
- Would you mind preparing a binder with photos of her, along with all her diary entries, emails and phone conversations and sending a copy to every police officer in the city?

This will shut up most people. -----------
/. Mathematics:
+1 Insightful for encouraging killing of Muslims
-1 Troll for Muslims responding to such messages

Re:Easy Answer

[CSMatt]

So then what do you say if the response is "Sure. I trust the police."?

Re:Easy Answer

[erlehmann]

I like the approach of actually going through and giving these anti-privacy people exactly what they're asking for.

I did his at school. When I urged people to encrypt their communication, several said they had nothing to hide. So I started Wireshark and proceeded to read some of their more interesting instant messages to them and everyone who was interested.

Kind of bothered some of them, but instead of learning crypto basics, they yelled at me. I do not understand this behaviour, can Slashdot explain ?

Re:Easy Answer

[X0563511]

We can sure try!

People are stupid!

Re:Easy Answer

[The Master Control P]

If you truly think you have nothing to hide, you must lead a terribly boring life.

Re:Easy Answer

[dgatwood]

Yes, it does. The original logical fallacy is that if you have nothing to hide, you should not worry about snooping. The reason it is a fallacy---the reasons we should all worry about snooping are:

1. Bad people can get the information. Even relatively trustworthy businesses have their information stolen by hackers, etc. Can we really trust the police to do a better job at information security than major internet stores? I don't think so. Some bad person snags a copy of that information, and suddenly this person's daughter has a stalker.
2. Information can be embarrassing if seen by others even if it is not anything illegal. The things this person's daughter keeps in her diary aren't embarrassing as long as the only people who see them are her friends, but if some perv read her diary while... doing that which shall not be named... every night, that would be completely different. She'd be horrified at the very thought.

The point was that it's not about whether you trust the police to do the right thing and not abuse the information. It's about whether you trust the police to have the most private information about yourself---information that could be extremely embarrassing or even dangerous if leaked more broadly. And of course, if you have a clue, the answer is no. People have to earn that sort of trust, and they have to earn it as individuals. Granting that level of trust blindly to any group of people, including the police, is foolish.

Re:Easy Answer

[Jugalator]

So then what do you say if the response is "Sure. I trust the police."? That the police are humans like you?

That the police probably really may watch Jerry Springer with a beer when they're done at work?

It's not that they're super humans, nothing says they can actually handle the power they have in terms of this.

I *know* that every now and then, these sort of regulations are broken at hospitals, why would the police be different?

Re:Easy Answer

[misanthrope101]

Well, yes...they meant other people. People never mean "I want to give away all of my privacy." It's just when they dismiss privacy as superfluous, they have a mental picture right then of someone, probably a minority (if they themselves are a minority, it will just be a different minority) doing something shady, probably involving kiddie porn or something similarly without redeeming merit. If we actually started randomly selecting people and posting their entire browsing/chat history online, people would just get pissed without going through the intellectual effort to articulate why that is wrong.

They want their own privacy and that of their friends, and by extension for those they admire, but not for anyone else. The entire concept of rule of law, that we need to find rules that can apply to everyone yet still maintain law and order, is alien to them.

Re:Easy Answer

[jimbojw]

Pointing out security flaws is never a good idea - especially by way of demonstration. Just look at that kid with the boarding pass generator

The unfortunate truth about vulnerabilities is that those who report them are rarely rewarded, often interrogated, and occasionally imprisoned.

Re:Easy Answer

[Crash Culligan]

erlehmann: Kind of bothered some of them, but instead of learning crypto basics, they yelled at me. I do not understand this behaviour, can Slashdot explain ?

Easily.

They were relying on "Security Through Apathy" as their primary defense. And you, you nasty, naughty person, blew through it as if it wasn't there at all.

That they're relying on bad people to just look the other way is, in their minds, not a problem at all. Which obviously is a problem, but not to them. From here, it's turtles all the way down.

Okay, I doubt I cleared up anything, but at least for a moment, it was fun mocking them.

Re:Easy Answer

[makak]

Just some thoughts then, to try to answer that question.

Even though the information itself might have not been anything they had any real need to hide, your act of snooping is invasive in itself. They trusted you to behave responsibly and you failed, it's as simple as that.

You personally seem to think that such an invasion of privacy is something bad. This means that you would (by your own standards) hurt someone just to prove a point. I'd say this is not a quality i generally admire in people (And I might very well tell that to someone doing so)

Remember that it is never the victims fault, it is the perpetrator who performs the act. Their failure to defend against privacy intrusions does not justify your behavior anymore than my failure to take self-defense classes justifies someone assaulting me. Just because he follows up the beating by handing me a leaflet to the local gym doesn't really make it ok.

Re:Easy Answer

[Agripa]

A lot of state gun control laws were passed to disarm various minorities and African descendant Americans with the thought that they would never apply to good upstanding white people. The specific ones that come to mind include limiting purchases to specific and expensive manufacturers and requiring letters from prominent citizens (bankers, store owners, etc.) attesting to the character of the purchaser which Missouri had until relatively recently. Later these laws were applied much more indiscriminately.

the immediate and obvious problem with spying

[Anonymous Coward]

is that when politicians have access to spy on people... who are they going to abuse it against? They're political rivals.. ohh but they'd never do that.. A President hasn't got impeached and resigned from office from doing just that..

Personal story

[Tablizer]

I knew a girl who had a cop look up her name and address from her car's plate just to flirt with her. She was a bit freaked out by it.

Re:Personal story

[Chrisq]

Before we were married, my wife used to be a secretary in a police department. When she met me she once said "well, of course I knew you must be OK because working fore the police is like having twenty big brothers. As soon as they know I am going out with someone they check his record and let me know if there is anything dodgy".

Oh come now...

[Pyrion]

Who the hell is going to believe that he lost his bid for re-election because he was frequently delinquent in paying his utility bills?

Bear in mind that we live in a nation that's over nine trillion dollars in debt. Whoever believes horseshit like the above has no sense of scale.

Re:Oh come now...

[RodgerDodger]

Not knowing how that information was used, it's hard to say. OTH, if, say, his opponent was portraying him as being disorganised and incompetent, having the fact that you can't even keep track of when to pay your gas bill may be yet another nail in the coffin. Certainly, a good attack campaign could take that information and run with it.

Evil corporations

[Ethanol-fueled]

Why must evil corporations go out of their way to violate the privacy of others? I would never do such a thing. Now excuse me, for I have some other things to do today, such as this and this. Oh, and I have a date tonight and I want to get to know her. I even picked the movie!

What I like to do

[Xenkar]

What I like to do to those "If you have nothing to hide" people is tell them the truth. I make sure to tell them about all of the weird fetishes I wank off to, my thoughts on the whole "don't eat your own boogers" conspiracy, and whatever twisted thoughts are going through my mind at the moment.

My right to privacy isn't for my sake, it is for everyone else. Their fragile minds can't handle the onslaught of awkwardness I bring down upon them.

Perfect response to "nothing to hide" people:

[erlehmann]

"Everyone poops, but it takes a special person to do it in public."

(Dunno where I read it.)

There's a couple of reasons.

[thezig2]

First, things that are legal are not always socially acceptable. Your weekend bar escapades and porn habits are probably quite legal, but it may not be in your best interests for the outside world to know about your attraction to midget transvestites.

Secondly, and more importantly, things that are legal and/or acceptable now might not be in the future. Look at drug use, for example. There was no point in hiding it back in the 70's, because "everybody did it", and now it's coming back to haunt people (like politicians). People shouldn't be scrutinized because they have the brains to foresee that stuff they're doing today might bite them in the ass later.

knowledge is power

[Anonymous Coward]

knowledge is power. If you give someone too much power(knowledge) they will eventually abuse it.

Re:knowledge is power

[aadvancedGIR]

"All power corrupts, absolute power ...is even more fun" -- Simon Travaglia (BOFH)

Nothing to hide?

[bogeskov]

I may have nothing to hide, but I do have a lot to loose.

Re:Encrypted files?

[Bios_Hakr]

You don't have to give them the keys. Then again, they don't have to let you in the country. And if they do let you in, they'll probably never give the laptop back.

In any event, I read one article about a girl who did give them everything they wanted. This was years ago and she never got her laptop back anyway...

Here He Comes To Save The Day

[hyades1]

I'm pretty sure the video my girlfriend made of me chasing her around the apartment dressed as Captain Cocktastic doesn't actually violate any laws (There's nothing on the books in Canada about good taste as far as I know).

On the other hand, I doubt whether having it posted on the internet would help my political career all that much, if I had one. Unless I was running in Toronto/Rosedale, of course.

Argument all ready debunked...

[Secret Rabbit]

... again and again and again and ...

I'm always amazed just how often this and other nonsense comes up. Then I remember that today's people have attention spans of chronically depressed Lemmings and it all comes rushing back... along with that deep sickening sinking feeling.

At any rate, here's a good essay (found it linked to on Schneier's blog) that destroys the argument:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

Just used it on my parents a couple days ago. Spread it around!

It's not really surprising...

[Jugalator]

The reason privacy safeguards need to be in place is because the people working at the IRS and other organizations are just regular people too. They are not "better" at handling power than anyone else.

The case for privacy and anonymity

[Ferret55]

"if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have a good reason to worry about losing your privacy?"

If a person is an upstanding member of the community that has done nothing wrong in any way, is law abiding, upright, honest and noncontroversial in their actions why should (s)he worry about revealing everything there is to know about (her)himself? Why should this person's privacy be protected? some may assert that the government should be allowed to distribute personal records about people so that they can do their jobs better and make crime more difficult. Right? WRONG! Privacy and its onus on the individual is misplaced and misguided. Privacy and anonymity is to ensure that people are protected from those with malicious intent, privacy and anonymity is never intended to help a person break the law. This is the case people use against privacy.

Privacy and anonymity is not to protect people so they can commit crimes, it is to protect the individual from the many criminal and malicious elements, whether they be political, criminal, mundane or otherwise.

Privacy protects against embarresment and shame of personal secrets, these may be medical ailments (such as that real severe case of haemorroids you got several years ago) and be through no fault of your own, or perhaps the stigma of a family member(goddamn you Uncle Joe! why did he have to do that to the poor horse, again, and again, and again!) with a criminal history or to protect against discrimination (ie. you're too old, fat, black, white, asian, feminine, masculine, ugly, beautiful... whoops maybe not that last one).

Anonymity protects free speech and future reprisals connected with said free speech being employed.

Anonymity protects whistle blowers that see others commiting a crime and allows the person to do the right thing and report the crime safely without jeopardising their job security or become victimised as a result of their actions. (wikileaks yeah!)

Privacy and anonymity protects against Identity theft, the act of stealing another persons identiy can devastate a persons credit history, with resolutions being either difficult or even impossible.

Privacy and anonymity can insulate an individual against premeditated crimes like stalking, premeditated rape or assault or other such crimes, can all be prevented it the person wishing to commit a crime against a person they have met either casually or online are not able to look up the persons personal details in the future and track them down.

Privacy protects against harassment either from other individuals or from companies that make irritating phone calls or send personalised junk mail. If privacy and anonymity were respected we WOULDN'T NEED "do not call lists" or white/black lists! To clarify, cold canvassing is a different story but usually a purchasers identity is bought for a business and they use that to profile and selectively call those most likely to be interested in a product. This happens ALOT.

Privacy and anonymity protects an individual from persons in high office in government that may target a particular individual or group for political reasons.

It doesn't matter who it is, privacy and anonymity should be respected by all individuals, groups, agents, organisations, companies and governments, only you can be trusted fully with your personal details and all the above mentioned should should respect the privacy of others and only release personal information about a person with their consent. In a world that hardly respects privacy to begin with, we have everything to hide. For a law abiding citizen that just wants to live their life their own way ALL the above resonings for privacy and anonymity apply!

My response...

[TFer_Atvar]

Mind if I follow you into the bathroom?

Two personal examples

[Anonymous Coward]

Some years ago, I had a very strange medical problem. A very severe auto-immune response. The doctors ran through the gamut. Rheumatoid Arthritis, Rheumatic fever, Lupus, Lyme's Disease, Lymphoma, Steve Johnson syndrome, eventually long shots, like HIV, advanced STDs. Nothing, nadda, zilch.

Eventually it was concluded it was a rare allergic reaction, just the right combination of things.

Well, about 3 weeks after the hospitalization, guess what comes in the mail?, a big splashy vivid orange package for fucking Rituxan (a lymphoma/arthritis medication). Is that any of my neighbors fucking business? No it's not.

A far more insidious (in my book) example. I racked up some debt taking care of my mother when she was dying. Anyway, for Valentine's, I send my girlfriend flowers at her work. Three days later, guess what? Creditors calling her work, asking for my girlfriend, and asking about my whereabouts. When asked how they got this number, they replied "We heard you were dating".

Outside of that one credit card transaction, there was no other paper trail connection to us otherwise, anywhere on earth. It's obvious they used the records to call her and harass her at work. That's not fucking right.

Now let's extrapolate that. Let's say I was a married or taken man, and that was not my wife? Would they have the right to potentially destroy a family or otherwise cause such destruction in someone's life?

Sure, some people will say, they would be getting what they deserved, but it misses the point, I'm of the mind that if business is allowed to get that personal, then it's a two way street, including grievous, personal harm in return.

Re:Two personal examples

[base3]

If you wouldn't mind sharing, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would want to know what credit card company misused that information (not that they don't all probably do it, but I'd just as soon avoid the one that definitely did it).

the "nothing to hide" argument

[axx]

On this subject, this was posted last summer, so some of you probably read it. Quite worth the read though, it makes valid points.

"I have nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/2054219

Lead by example..?

[phelix_da_kat]

Definitely.. The arguement that you should have "nothing to hide" is not the point.. the example above of making your daughter's (well anyones diary) available is a good example. It may not be incriminating, but it is private (and hence potentially embarrassing to that person). Also, if these proponents of "nothing to hide" are so keen, why don't they put up their WHOLE life stories and personal details on MySpace/Facebook and see what happens (not that I have anything against these sites - apart from the stories of privacy and misuse of data by 3rd parties). The fact that a 3rd party can misuse this information is terrifying.. its like a divide between those who can snoop versus those who cannot. If a cop said to you, "oh you don't need a lawyer, you have nothing to hide".. would you? Even if you are not guilty, you would still want a lawyer to make sure due process is carried out and the cop is not "bending the rules".. The thing is, everyone has something to hide - it does not mean its wrong..

People are the worst...

[SystematicPsycho]

I'm an Oracle DBA and from what I've seen sometimes people don't even know they're breaking the law. The worst case of data theft without people knowing is when they take an export of production data to development for testing. You're not allowed to do that! I've seen organisations not even know what data they have or that it should be audited. And when it was audited the level of auditing was totally insufficient. Mainly because some clown set it up and didn't understand the requirements from management, or management let some clown set it up and didn't understand the requirements themselves but were glad to hear "it has auditing enabled".

I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but since alot of companies have been outsourcing their systems to India data theft has increased (google for 'inda data theft'). for example - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/india_exposed/

Heh, I saw someone on the Oracle forums post a question, "how do I take an export of Production to import to my home PC" and judging by the name... and he even mentioned he's allowed?!
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2289794&#2289794

Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong

[Chrisq]

Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong. You put them in the position of being proved wrong by a nerd. Surprised they aren't happy? (Written by a nerd who has come to learn that that a discussion on quantum randomness and free-will is not what everyone looks for on a first date!)

Re:Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong

[Stanislav_J]

Kind of bothered some of them, but instead of learning crypto basics, they yelled at me. I do not understand this behaviour...

Nobody likes a Nerd, or to be proved wrong. You put them in the position of being proved wrong by a nerd. Surprised they aren't happy?

It's the difference between the few souls in this world who think rationally (like the nerd) and most of humanity which tends to let emotion rule the day (like those students).

I am in the former category. And I do not mind being proven wrong. In fact, I welcome it. I want to understand life, the universe and everything a little better each day, and the clearer and better informed my thinking, the more useful and accurate my knowledge becomes.

Many people, however, seem to have a huge emotional stake in being "right." They cannot possibly begin to admit the thought that they might be wrong -- I dunno, maybe it's a basic self-esteem thing. That's why almost a decade into the 21st Century, we still have people who believe such things as the universe being created in 6 days, or that the moon landings were faked, or that Barry Bonds just worked out a lot.

My experience has been that most discussions of this sort go something like this:

Other guy (we'll call him "Joe") states a misinformed opinion.

I show Joe the error of his argument and point out his factual errors.

Joe pauses, then merely repeats the same line of "reasoning." (The last two steps may loop several times in succession with Joe becoming more and more flustered.)

Joe at some point abandons any pretense of rational argument and, having quickly exhausted his arsenal, starts to use phrases like "you just don't understand" or "that's just the way it is" or the like. (Optional phrases include "But God says it, so I believe it" or "Well, that's what my mother taught me -- are you calling my mother a liar?")

Final phase has Joe (a)attacking my character and the circumstances of my birth, usually accompanied by various words and phrases on the FCC's no-no list.

This is why it does not pay to argue about anything with anyone. When warning signs of the early phases of the above conversation begin to appear, quickly change the subject. When someone prefers to wallow in ignorance, there is little you can do. Pressing the issue will just make you an asshole in their eyes, and in extreme cases may result in the proverbial and venerable knuckle-sandwich being applied to your nose.

A Word on Privacy and Human Dignity...

[flajann]

The problem with having private details of your life exposed are multifarious. You can't always expect to know how the information may be used against you in the future.

One case in point that I often beat to death (among those who know me, of course!) is the case in California, where "Megan's Law" resulted in quite a few gays being put on the list because they were considered "sexual offenders" by an earlier set of laws, and their names remained in files sitting around in the office of the bureaucrats for years.

Do we all have stuff to hide? Yes! But what is wrong with that? Just because we have stuff to hide doesn't mean that it's "illegal" -- just that we don't want the entire world knowing about it as all. People tend to judge you on the basis of their own morality, and their own expectations. If you happen to simply not "fit in", you could be harassed by the very private information on yourself were it to be exposed.

So the whole sneaky argument of "do you have anything to hide" becomes a semantic one, one in which we all

privately answer "yes" to, but because of the implication we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Even the very question is in and of itself an invasion into our privacy. That very question turns privacy upside down and invites further inquiry. Instead, the question should be answered with a question -- the same question -- thrown back at the person asking it. And if said person says "no", then start asking that person really private questions and see how they respond. Questions like, "do you do cunninglingus with your wife" or similar. That act, by the way, is still considered illegal in some states!

So, the truth is, if you are human at all, you have something to hide. That is nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing wrong with that. Privacy, by its very definition, is all about "hiding" details of your life you don't wish the world to know -- and of course, is nobody's business, anyway.

So, really, the question is really saying "Do you have anything to be private about", and nearly everyone of course will answer "yes" to that. If you have something you wish to keep private, then you have something you wish to keep hidden. Period.

Easy Example

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a family member that works for an insurance company and she uses the companies gov database access for date screening.

About the Internal Revenue Service

[BenEnglishAtHome]

I note that the summary feels the need to mention the IRS, even though the IRS had only a brief paragraph in the article saying they had taken action against some snoopers. Some things you should know about the situation at the IRS:

The IRS was misused by Richard Nixon. Congress responded with certain privacy protections aimed right at the agency. As a reslut, for the last 30 years or so the IRS has been better than most places when it comes to snooping. Not perfect, but generally ahead of the curve.

25-30 years ago, when online data was just becoming ubiquitous within the agency but auditing protocols were laughable, snooping was more common. Nowadays, things have swung the other direction. Some, particularly the Union, would say too far. Currently, if you work at a Taxpayer Assistance Center helping the public, it's entirely possible that an investigation will be triggered when you assist someone (a complete stranger to you) who, it turns out, happens to live in your apartment block or your subdivision (along with a few thousand other people). The data mining that goes on, matching people's database accesses with any possible connection with their lives, is thorough to the point of ridiculousness. I have no doubt that the majority of people at the IRS who snoop get caught. I would not be surprised if the 219 disciplinary actions referred to in the article were 99%-plus of the perpetrators in the reported time period.

And the penalties are *harsh*. Disciplinary actions are taken for inadverdent accesses. Deliberate accesses get you fired. Flagrant deliberate accesses result in jail time. Yes, jail time. I've seen employees hauled out in handcuffs for this stuff. (I've also seen a flagrantly deliberate access case that resulted in jail time that was a total miscarriage of justice. The perp was previously a rising star as an Officer. She was a wonderful young woman. Then, she had a major stroke and lay on the floor of her apartment for three days over a weekend before she was found. Afterwards, her mental capacity was severely reduced and she could no longer do the Officer job, so she was moved to a support position. The organization really tried to keep her employed so she could keep her health insurance. People really went out on a limb for her, even though if you knew her before and after, you could have easily concluded that she should have left the Agency on a disability retirement. Given her reduced mental abilities, it just didn't click in her mind that it was a serious violation of the law to look up the tax records of every one of her coworkers so she could compile a list of their birthdays so she could plan parties. She was that far gone. When she was prosecuted, her lawyer was strictly forbidden by her family from using any sort of diminished capacity defense. They were too embarrassed that their superstar child had become...well...what she had become. They preferred she go to prison rather being forced to publicly admit they had a less-than-perfect daughter. So she went to prison for a while, lost any shot at a disability pension, and God only knows whatever became of her. It was rumored that her parents took her back to Korea but I never found out for sure.)

Finally, why the big increase in incidents? Simple. Up until about 7 years ago, the IRS was a very convenient political punching bag. Politicos loved to cut funding to the IRS because that always played well with the constituency. As a result, the agency hired damn near nobody for about 15 years, from the mid-1980s to about 2000. Recently, though, we've started hiring in droves. The newbies, who don't yet appreciate the culture and public service mission of the agency, are doing things they figure no one will care about. They're getting caught. That's a good thing.

219 disciplinary actions out of about 100,000 employees is, in the real world, pretty damn good.

Yes, I work for the IRS. No, this is not official communication; it represents my personal feelings only.

Re:Encrypted files?

[dpilot]

According to the current meme, when you're in Customs, you're in legal limbo.

You're not in the origination country, you're not in the destination country, so you have no rights of either location. You have exactly the rights that the Customs people choose to give you. They have absolute power, though they generally don't abuse that, because the Press has absolute power, too. (again, according to the current meme)

Re:Conform Citizen!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sir, I'm sure the 25 million people in the UK whose child benefit records were lost all agree with you, sir!

The really insidious thing about something like that is that it's almost impossible to prove that harm came from it. Anecdotal evidence might suggest that if such data did fall into criminal hands then a significant number of those people will now be victims of identity theft or some related crime. Past experience might suggest that given the high value the criminal world would place on such a rich source of data, they will have taken steps to acquire it. But can anyone prove it? Probably not.

And what that means is that while the government who screwed up can publicly wash their hands and cry "no harm, no foul", the reality is that 25,000,000 people with nothing to hide now have something to fear.

Sheeple

[sheepofblue]

As long as sheeple sign up for 'customer appreciation' cards and willingly respond when asked for a phone number at places like Worst Buy the companies will continue to collect the information. It is profitable to track your sheeple for later shearing. It is not profitable to police your employees abuse of your sheeple under the current system. So this should be no surprise to anyone. The only way to combat this as an individual is to refuse to provide data and provide bad data that screws up the database whenever possible (have 6 cards if you must have one). Reduce the profitability of the shearing they plan. Or if the lady working the register is hot reply only if I get your phone number also :-)

Behave like a black hat, get the same treatment.

[soren100]

I did his at school. When I urged people to encrypt their communication, several said they had nothing to hide. So I started Wireshark and proceeded to read some of their more interesting instant messages to them and everyone who was interested.

Kind of bothered some of them, but instead of learning crypto basics, they yelled at me. I do not understand this behaviour, can Slashdot explain ? It's the difference between explaining to someone that their bedroom window is easily viewable at night, and being the person actually looking in that bedroom window at night, pounding on it when they are naked.

You have a well-meaning intention, but you are causing the exact harm you wished them to avoid. And they are doing to you what they would have done to anyone else who would have read their "interesting" messages to "everyone who was interested". You're not helping them at all. If you had instead asked their permission ahead of time to do what you were planning to do, read the messages only to them, and shown them how easy it was to read the messages with Wireshark, they would probably have been a lot nicer, and would not have yelled at you since you told them ahead of time what you would be doing and they gave you permission, and you didn't "harm" them or their reputation.

  Even if they still couldn't be bothered to run encryption, they would now be doing an accurate risk assessment, and might keep more incriminating details out of their messages.