If you've got Nothing to Hide (2015)

https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/

45•jacquesm•1h ago

Comments

treetalker•1h ago

(2015)

saaaaaam•1h ago

2015, but arguably more relevant today than ever before.

jacquesm•52m ago

Are you suggesting that the fact that I wrote it in 2015 somehow makes it 'dated'?

I could update it but I think the fact that it was written before Trump I actually makes it more powerful than less, and you're welcome to extrapolate from 2015 to 2026 and see where it's headed.

elefanten•44m ago

Isn’t it just an hn convention?

I agree with your comment I’m replying to completely, but the date tag doesn’t have to be an indictment (as you yourself suggest)

jacquesm•41m ago

That's why I'm asking a question. For me the difference between then and now is then, 2015 it was still a thing that I saw hanging in the future, the OPM hack is what prompted me to write this. But if I had not written this then I would probably be writing it today on account of the ICE article currently on the front page.

All of those big tech companies have willingly given in to Trump and his band of goons and are cooperating at a scale that dwarfs anything the Germans could have ever wished for. The article shows the damage that one single field in one single file could do. Now multiply that by a couple of 1000.

The potential for an epic disaster is definitely there and even HN is apparently not immune to having its share of bootlickers and bootwearers.

Kim_Bruning•32m ago

(deleted)

jacquesm•29m ago

No, I'm perfectly fine with writing what I wrote.

It's an observed fact and I honestly don't care what anybody thinks of that. It should be pretty clear that I think that seeing such excesses requires one to take a stance rather than just to pretend it isn't happening.

Kim_Bruning•11m ago

As you wish.

defrost•28m ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

To cast the entire HN community as composed of {X} would be against the guidelines.

To deny that the HN community contains some {X} would be blinkered.

DoctorOetker•58s ago

you reference an ICE article "currently" on the front page, I think this comment would benefit from an explicit link to that discussion since it is ephemeral and I am unable to make sure I find the right one.

keyle•41m ago

C'mon, you know it's convention to write the year of publication in a title. No agenda beyond that.

klez•40m ago

Are you suggesting that they're suggesting anything beyond what date this was written on, since we usually point that out in almost every article that has not been written in the current year for a variety of reason, including "oh, yeah, I remember I already read this without even clicking, it's not new, I might as well go read the comments directly"?

jacquesm•26m ago

No, I'm not, hence the question.

defrost•22m ago

Adding a date for older articles and posts is a very common HN convention

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46896376

ideally it should be in the submitted title, if not often someone will post it as above .. and later a mod might add it.

No biggie, as they say.

jacquesm•20m ago

Of course I was completely unaware of that...

defrost•6m ago

Yeah, TBH, I figured you knew ... I'm juggling a few things and probably put this general note in where it wasn't needed. Pax.

jacquesm•1m ago

NP, I considered adding it but then again, I know HN tends to interpret that as 'old news' and in this case it is anything but. The rules are there for a reason, even so these are strange times and I figure the more people are aware of this the better.

I could have updated the post date but I would have considered that cheating so I purposefully posted it as it was but left out the date.

nephihaha•25m ago

You think this is about Trump, it's happening worldwide.

deafpolygon•1h ago

One of my favorite bit about “if you have nothing to hide…” is asking folks if they’d be willing to take the door off their bathroom when they went to use it.

aeonik•59m ago

I just all for their passwords and credit card information. They never share it with me for some reason.

defrost•53m ago

DIY Home builders frequently leave that kind of trim to the end.

It's more a signifier of who grew up with Puritan roots.

grunder_advice•1h ago

If I've learned something during my early adulthood it's that, it's impossible to not be in conflict with at least some people, because even if you're the most fair and considerate person on the planet, other people will prey on you to try to encroach on your territory and steal what you have.

So the idea that you have nothing to hide is completely banal. Those who are more powerful than you won't leave you alone just because you ignore them. They will eventually come knocking to steal your wealth and your freedom.

utopiah•53m ago

"If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" Eric Schmidt - Google CEO in 2009

193 files for Eric Schmidt according to https://www.wired.com/story/epstein-files-tech-elites-gates-...

314 files for Larry Page

294 files for Sergey Brin

Interesting rhetoric. It's always the people you suspect the most?

jacquesm•51m ago

> It's always the people you suspect the most?

And yet, there are always people willing to carry water for them.

anotherdog•51m ago

Secrecy is good

Privacy is good

Crime is not necessarily bad

You don't have to even go Anne Frank to make the argument.

amelius•14m ago

Secrecy is not necessarily good.

roysting•11m ago

Tell me your personal data, passwords, where you keep your money, and that thing you will take to your grave.

jacquesm•8m ago

Privacy and secrecy are related concepts but they are not the same thing.

amelius•5m ago

Did you not read the word "necessarily"?

ForHackernews•51m ago

Especially relevant today in the context of this story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46895860

Everyone who has been helping Google/Amazon/Meta construct their digital panopticons is culpable in at least some small way for the abuse that may follow.

Dansvidania•47m ago

I have no idea how people can be so shortsighted as to utter “I have nothing to hide”.

Not only that’s very rarely true as the article shows pretty nicely… what is legal changes, sometimes drastically and rapidly.

nephihaha•26m ago

Many people are naive. They think everyone in power is benign or that you have to be guilty of something to be bothered by them.

Vinu_pro_•46m ago

cbold•38m ago

Everyone has some economic game going on. If some entity can see most of the cards you hold, it like putting your cards open on the table during a poker game. That is why big companies want your data, they want to peek at the cards of as much players in the game as possible.

jacquesm•28m ago

And on a smaller scale: having a mortgage to pay is also often used as an excuse.

alansaber•12m ago

Yep, and marketing is the biggest game (that we can see, it's also security under the hood)

emsign•35m ago

Secret agencies are good customers of data brokers or sometimes even their owners.

The data broker eco system is notoriously intransparent and dynamic.

roysting•13m ago

The founding fathers hate this one weird trick: simply say the Constitution does not apply to private businesses and then create private businesses that violate the Constitution.

owisd•20m ago

> For many years this system served well

Surely don't need to ditch the whole system then and just needs a better kill-switch.

jacquesm•18m ago

Backups, illicit and otherwise do happen, far easier for digital archives than for paper ones. There is a version of Murphy's law for data that probably should go something like 'the data you want to get rid of lasts forever and the data you want to keep evaporates at the first inconvenience'.

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