What's in my hard drive? How can I get rid of it?

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:25:12 -0500, Jerry wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:00:12 +0100, Polytropon stated:
> 
> > Also keep in mind: there's a difference between "to protect" and "to
> > investigate" - and put that into context with defining priorities...
> 
> The is also a difference between "to lie" and "to cover-up", but what has
> that got to do with the price of tea in China.

The first one is a means, the second one is a goal.
There's also a difference between "ask for assistance"
and "blackmail", as well as between "just a bunch of
innocent photos of kids playing at the beach" and "child
pornography", or "a normal financial transaction" and
"impressive fraud". Which it is _said_ to be depends on
many aspects: who is investigated, by whom, how is
money involved, what "connections" are present and
so on. And in many cases, criminals seem to be much
better in achieving the "right evaluation" of their
actions than the investigators... Just saying.



> It has never failed to amaze me though that those who cry the loudest about
> the invasion of privacy are the same individuals who have accumulated the most
> nefarious secrets to begin with.

I wouldn't say so. Those with the really nefarious secrets
have excellent means to protect them, and they keep silent
and covered. Do you know what criminals hate most? Publicity.
They can't stand the attention of others when they get into
the focus of investigators or the society. That's why the
public knows (almost) nothing about what they're doing.

Privacy will soon be a "luxury good of the wealthy ones".
Maybe this is just a beginning:

	http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/att-charges-29-more-for-gigabit-fiber-that-doesnt-watch-your-web-browsing/

This doesn't affect me much because I live in a country
where mass surveillance (by several "interested parties")
is the sad reality. As I usually tend to say: Everything
that is technically possible WILL BE DONE, no matter if
we can immediately recognize it. Sometimes decades later
the truth comes out. In most cases.



> Poll after poll have shown that the vox
> populi would rather err on the side of safety and security.

Considerations of safety and security, put into relation
with privacy and freedom, don't matter for most "normal"
people as they value their commodity and time higher than
any of those abstract goods. They simply don't care. That's
why I wouldn't put much value on that kind of polls. Given
the right carefully selected "representative" sample and
nice statistical calculations, you can prove everything. :-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...