[ILUG] ID for Internet access

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

> (not that I'm too bothered really).

I meet a lot of privacy activists, and I always ask them to make a webpage
about what harm is caused by the erosion of people's privacy.  They need a
decent explanation for why privacy is important and why having "nothing to
hide" doesn't make privacy unimportant.

There's a paper written about this:
     "I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy"
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565
But it's too long and too meandering to read.

From a skim, some points he cites are:
 * “So do you have curtains?” or “Can I see your credit card bills for the
   last year?”
 * the “I have nothing to hide” argument basically equates to “I don’t care
   what happens, so long as it doesn’t happen to me.”

If someone knows of a good webpage explaning why privacy is important, I'd
love to hear of it.

I guess privacy invasions fall into two categories.  One is the building of
databases, and another is searches (of you, your bags, your house).

For the databases, one argument against them is provided by the the recent
losses of harddrives by the UK government containing millions of people's
names, addresses, and bank details.


On the topic of computer privacy while travelling, there was a good Bruce
Schneier article on Slashdot today:

"Taking your laptop into the US? Be sure to hide all your data first"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/15/computing.security

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan (+32 477 36 44 19) \ Support Free Software and GNU/Linux
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