[AusNOG] Data retention

[Ben McGinnes]

On 13/10/2015 11:18 am, Geordie Guy wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Mister Pink <misterpink at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 'privacy advocate' is a lofty term for people who just want to torrent
>> without wanting Dallas Buyers Club letters.
>>
> 
> Correct. And people who want to avoid being injured or killed by a
> violent ex-partner, people who want to avoid being the victim of
> burglary, people who want to communicate with their friends and
> family including in an intimate capacity without third parties
> reading it, people who work for or own businesses that have
> confidentiality requirements, people with medical conditions they
> don't want publicized including embarrassing ones, people... well,
> you get the idea.

Yep and this theory that everyone who tlks about protecting their
privacy is just doing it to avoid paying for things is exactly what
those threatened by it want people to believe.  I think the running
tally of the number of women killed this year due to domestic violence
and abusive exes is proof that there's plenty of good reasons beyond
some movie or software for wanting actual privacy.

>> I'm not judging those people, but using a VPN in reaction to the data
>> retention laws for the most part belies the problem they are trying to
>> solve, and calling that 'Privacy' pollutes the term for people with more
>> legitimate causes.
> 
> I'm not sure how to react to that, I assume you're using "belies" to mean
> discredit so to that I'd say
> 
> 1) Yeah, that's the point
> 2) They don't solve a problem other than the one that Australian
> bureaucrats are creepy and want to know everything about Australian
> Internet users
> 3) Privacy is the principle that you have control over who knows what about
> you, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the cause is entirely besides the
> point

And:

4) If the idea (or ideal) of privacy means that the actual reason for
wanting it should itself be protected by it then that ought to be
utterly acceptible too.

> I trust a Russian teenager with a rack of Raspberry Pi connected to a $30
> Jaycar solar charger more than I trust my government but YMMV obviously.

Yeah, but teenagers are easy to deal with; they just want cash, the
credit and the chicks ... probably in the reverse order.  Politicians
and the will to power, well, I'm sure we've all already drawn our own
conclusios.

> The answer will vary for each person depending on their needs. The large
> swathe of use cases you left out of your first para where you scoffed at
> all of this as a copyright infringement issue will all each have a
> different mix of onion routing, vpn usage, non-Australian service
> selection, dedicated private messaging apps etc. to mitigate the privacy
> infringement.

Yep, I'm using a mixture of things already (including good old SSH
tunnels).

> Pass.  But thanks.  I'll remain on the side of the constitutional
> courts of the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania and Slovakia each of
> whom found that government surveillance of innocent people is not
> "moral".

Remember John Howard's (and others') arguments against a Bill of
Rights?  If we'd forced the issue we'd have the legal right to defend
ourselves against this crap.  Instead we "just" have whatever we're
willing to reclaim for ourselves.


Regards,
Ben

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