Re: Privacy and its costs (was: Re: Mandatory encryption)

On Jul 30, 2012, at 11:55 PM, Tim Bray wrote:

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Yoav Nir <ynir@checkpoint.com<mailto:ynir@checkpoint.com>> wrote:
> Disagree. belshe.com<http://belshe.com/> is just somebody's blog. It's not financial
> information, there are no privacy issues, no medical data, no potentially
> embarrassing association with sexual minorities. Why would you want to spend
> any resources securing that?

Excuse me, what exactly do you know about my sexual preferences or Mike Belshe’s and why are you so sure that we might not want to discuss them without accidentally putting our readers in a place where the Basiji come knocking at the door?

I know nothing. Partially because neither you nor Mike say anything about this in your blogs.

This is why it’s reasonable to think it important that privacy be the default.  Because it if it isn’t, then turning privacy on is a powerful signal to the Men In The Middle to start watching.

This is again having the people who don't need it pay for those who do. There should be enough people who need privacy for various reasons to give too many signals for the Basij to watch them all.

It’s unfortunate that you find association with minorities embarrassing.  -T

I did say "potentially embarrassing", and there's a reason why many jurisdiction prohibit questions about sexual orientation in job interviews. Individuals MAY consider such matters private, whereas you broadcast your opinions of SPDY for the entire world to hear.

Yoav