Re: The Utility of Privacy

[Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>]

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                          SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, someone wrote:

> At 6:55 AM 11/18/1996, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

> >On Sun, 17 Nov 1996, Huge Cajones Remailer wrote:

> >> >> Informally, I don't know anybody who has suffered due to a loss of
> >> >> privacy.
> >> Examples [of people who have suffered due to loss of privacy]?

Note in the following exchange that HC firsts asks for examples
of harm, then when clearly unambiguous examples are given, tries 
to imply that the examples are rare, trivial or (most amazingly)
that the victim did suffer, but must have deserved his/her fate!

> >Phil Zimmermann often tells the story of a woman whose marriage
> >was destroyed by the revelation of a long-past indiscretion. 
> >After her husband divorced her, she committed suicide.
> 
> Deceiving your spouse is not a good reason to protect your privacy.

Really?  What if the spouse is violently abusive?  You might 
want to leave him and NOT be tracked down and killed.
 
> >Any number of celebrities have been stalked, attacked and even
> >killed by obsessed fans who found them through public records.
> 
> Unfortunately most readers of this list do not have this problem.

Unfortunately?  You don't have to be famous to be stalked.  Many
ordinary people are being dogged by former or would-be paramors.
Is it HC's contention that this is only a problem when a 
majority of Cypherpunks suffer from it?
 
> >Every year, children and business executives are kidnapped for
> >ransom.  The proximate cause of these kidnappings is a breach in
> >privacy about the whereabouts and schedules of the victim.  
> 
> Or this problem.

How fatuous.

> >Hitler's gun registration in Germany allowed the Jews to be
> >disarmed.  I'm sure you are aware of the ultimate consequences
> >of that little invasion of privacy.
> 
> Not a bad example, but genocide happens rarely.

They happens all to often.  Is this response supposed to be joke?
 
> Those alert enough to protect their privacy in advance might be alert
> enough to get out in time, anyway.

Yeah, I guess HC is right, the slow ones deserved it.
 
> >The US Post Office co-operated in the identification and 
> >imprisonment of people of Japanese ancestry during the second
> >world war.
> 
> 97,000 victims over a ~100 year period.  Doesn't really show up on the
> scope, sorry.  (Plus downside bad, but few were murdered.)

Yeah, just a few.  Okay by me and HC, I recon.
 
> >The problem with having a whole lot of private information about
> >you floating around in public is not what damage it can do to you
> >now, but rather the problems it potentially could cause in the
> >future.  Just about everyone on this list has been to university.
> >Not long ago, a college education was essentially a death warrant 
> >in Cambodia.  Prior to that, a degree was considered a good thing
> >there.  People saw no reason to hid the fact that they had been
> >in school.  Trouble is, things changed.
> >
> >And the trouble today is that things can change now, too.  Think
> >about the things that you have publicly done or advocated.  Even
> >if they are as legal as church on Sunday NOW, how comfortable 
> >will you be about them if there is extreme right or left takeover
> >in the future?  Start to get the picture?
> 
> These things CAN happen.  Will they happen?  Odds are low.

The odds approach unity over time.
 
> BTW, are you operating under your True Name?

NOYB.  More importantly, since you seem to think privacy isn't
all that important why don't you give us your true name, date of
birth, SS#, mother's maiden name, address where you sleep at 
night, pictures of you (and your family), etc.?  After all, as 
you wrote, the "odds are low" anything will come of it.


 S a n d y

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