Assange believes too late for any pervasive privacy

[shelley@misanthropia.org (Shelley)]

On December 11, 2015 10:10:21 AM Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:

> The power to give and withhold permission for others to see you
> varies with circumstances.

> you are "in the game" whether you
> want to be or not;

True, unfortunately.

>the only alternative is to isolate yourself
> from resources native to the privacy-hostile environment.

False.

Offense is often one of the best defenses.  Just one example: the data 
scraping and collating scum like Intellius and their ilk, from whose talons 
we cannot escape.  In such cases, it is better to pollute their data pool 
with garbage so it is of little value to them and we retain privacy by 
obfuscation. I've made sure that Intellius alone has three different 
profiles on me including varying ages, birthdates and backgrounds, and good 
luck to the marketing and profiling scum in discerning which - if any - is 
the real one.

>The practical
> advantages of participating in the networked world far outweigh
> the perceived and, possibly, the actual harm from "loss of
> privacy."  Only a few atypical individuals will be able to manage
> their affairs so that the advantages of "strong privacy
> protections" outweigh the costs of compensating for lost access to
> resources.
>

I find absolutely no benefit in allowing Fuckerberg's empire of suck to 
acquire my data, so I prevent it in every way possible.  I don't use Google 
anything, but I know my emails get indexed and data-raped when I'm forced 
to correspond with people who use their "free" gmail.  There is no way to 
avoid every avenue of privacy violation, but it is possible to minimize it 
and not make it easy for the bastards.

>Those Old Farts were early adopters, because
> they happened to take an unnatural interest in computers.  So a
> large faction among them are capable of understanding and
> implementing network security and making rational decisions about
> disclosures of their activities and data to 3rd parties.
>

Yes, and we know there is no closing the door after the data has gotten out 
so it is best to restrict and control access as best we can.

> These folks, and the few /honest/ professionals in related fields,
> are the only thing that keeps the Internet from clogging up with
> shit from end to end and falling apart.  Well, at least we have
> mostly kept it from falling apart.

We're not doing a very good job, I fear.  But I live so much of my life 
online, (which is why I am fiercely protective of my right to control my 
PII when I see fit), I'm not going to acquiescence to zero-privacy as the 
norm just because "everyone else is doing it."  There are billions of 
people on this planet who believe in nonsensical things; it surely doesn't 
make them right.

-S