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Technology & Paranoia, (sdf.org), 07/27/2018
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I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when my
brain started to think about various government agencies
accessing my computer. I started to read articles about law
enforcement agencies and their struggles with (and successes
over) encryption during the last few years. I was incensed
at the thought of Big Brother waltzing in and rifling
through my digital stuff, and I was just about to do
something mediocre about it when I realized: I don't really
care if anyone rifles through my digital stuff.
Of course, there's the old "nothing to hide" adage[1], which
basically says that if you've got nothing to hide, you don't
need to worry about privacy. I don't buy it, of course. I
worry about privacy, even though I have nothing of
consequence to hide. Privacy still matters to me. But does
it matter enough to *do* anything.
Using encryption might be a reasonable way to exercise my
right to privacy, even if I don't feel I need it. I suppose
it would be a kind of statement that no one would ever hear.
Maybe I could become an activist of some kind. But both of
those ideas require work. It might just be that having
rights requires work, I don't know.
I'm not feeling as paranoid now, but I'm still not decided
on whole disk encryption...
[1]
gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Nothing to hide argument
