Does privacy matter?

I know one of the most hotly contested issues over on g is the whole "nothing to hide" argument put forth by most. I know most conversations become derailed after a few posts, so I'm interested to hear your opinion lainon( USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST (Rule 4) Always elaborate on your opinions, Write a better OP next time.)

Personally I don't do much shady soykaf on my devices personally, but if you wanna, then be protected

>>13360 Same lanion here Meant to type soykaf* Really tired

knowledge is power. its why companies are so closed down and proprietary. its why car companies set up internal reverse engineering groups to study competing cars. also corporate espionage. companies profit a lot from buying, selling and using information. Whatever a company knows about you is power they have. it might not be able to be used to affect you in all cases (some cases certainly can) but it's power they certainly got from you. on an emotional level, this is unsettling, especially since you dont know if it can affect you or not. It's an unknown danger. people like minimizing exposure to unknown risks and dangers. at this point a tangential dive can be (poorly?) made into politics by trying to point out which groups of people prioritize this and which groups of people ignore it, but thats irrelevant in most conversations, but it can be an interesting idea companies want aggregate information about as many people as possible. It may not matter that your favorite color is blue, but if youre from Wyoming and in a set range of ages then that matters to them. They want as much information as they can get in hopes of finding that a lot of people in wyoming like blue. Then theyll invest in something blue. Or sell that knowledge to a paint company. Whatever they can do to profit. They dont care. A person is a matrix of information they cant actually interact with. A person in the company can, surely, but a company consists of the interactions between people. This class of meta entity has a lot of trouble directly interacting with individual people. They have to appoint someone who usually appoints an individual to do it for them. Irrelevant but interesting that's just one facet of the conversation. another regards philosophically whether some things should remain private. everyone has roughly the same body parts yet we all wear clothes. maybe that can be related to power?

Just to tack another related conversation on here, should I attempt to convince my friends of this(they think that nordvpn is the peak level of security)? Is it worth it, or would it not be of benifit to them

>>13366 You want to use a VPN from a company that was a stated policy, and a proven track record of reliability to that policy. So, for instance, if they call themselves "non-logging" and when asked for logs say "we have no logs to give you", then that's a good sign. Certainly because if they were to then violate that, and give them logs, this would destroy their credibility and therefore business. However, if they policy doesn't state such things, like NordVPN, then there is no such risk.

>>13366 >>13367 Incidentally, if you want an aggregated source of such policies: >https://thatoneprivacysite.net/

>>13366 >>13368 See, here, NordVPN doesn't stipulate whether they log DNS requests or not, which is a fairly major privacy concern, and as such, they could give over such logs when requested and simply say: "We never said we didn't".

>>13370 Hmm. I was under the impression that nord was part of the 14 eyes, nice to know actually. But beyond that, what should I tell the others that say they have nothing to hide? Also nice leet digits

>>13359 "nothing to hide" is a virtue signal. As in "Of course I have nothing to hide. I'm perfect. What are you hiding Lain?" It's never productive to argue with virtue signalling. Instead, ask if you can spy on their children, in their bedrooms, with their managed chromebook's webcam. Then privacy is real freakin' important, "You sicko!"

>>13359 Attack surface is the opposite end of privacy. So it's just a question if you enjoy being a victim.

>>13377 Tell them they're lying, and if they would allow the "powers-that-be" to put a microphone and camera in their bedroom 24/7.

>>13382 Already true. Most take their smartphone to bed.

>>13359 Computers are compromised on the lowest levels possible. Using FOSS won't help that much, if somebody really wants to get you, they will. I think it's better not to use computers for REALLY sensitive matters. You could use FOSS as a demonstration of protest against proprietary software and it's disrespect towards it's users, but expecting that you are 100% secure is foolish. So that being said, privacy matters, but don't expect to have it. If you want privacy speak eye to eye.

>>13394 That's true, there isn't really 100% complete privacy or security. But I don't think that's the point; it's more about making it difficult enough so that actively spying on you isn't worth anyone's time/effort/resources. So, in practice, you achieve the same outcome even though in theory someone could still "get you" if they really wanted to.

we will see. i did much shady stuff and obviously i didnt want it known. i still dont. however part of me feels like it would be liberating, like if it did get released id accept the judgement from my fellow man. also other people would have their stuff released, so it all just depends on mankind. worst scenario if you really want to look into taboo stuff you can do it like they did in the old days, buying books and what not. still I wonder how many murders were prevented by someone being able to see dead bodies online, watch videos, etc. instead of trying to satisfy morbid curiosity, its probably a marginal amount. but perhaps all knowing google has looked at our search history and decided it truly does want to keep some things private for its own sake. i dont know sometimes i even see the internet as what judgement day was referring to. my attitude is just sort of "we will see". I participate in society, im not above its judgement and if my time comes it will come. ive become a much better person of my own volition, i have to have some faith the people around me would see that and trust my explanation. I used to think nah people get crucified for soykaf they did 10 years ago but ive seen a few cases now where that didnt happen and the person redeemed themselves mostly. it seems to be more common now especially when the person genuinely seems to have changed and show remorse. If not id just have to accept my fellow man decided I was a threat. if i felt it was truly unjustified id do what I can to show that and maybe not in my lifetime but perhaps id pave the way for the future, and that would be worthwhile to me too. still I understand why some would think.privacy very much matters, i think it does right now, there is gonna be a lot of slip ups before we would get to a place where it didnt matter and was fair. I truly bieve eventually it will work out whether thats privacy being valued again or a different kind of "open" society thats very understanding, but again it might be a while so its justified right now.