Phil is going to move Silent Circle to Geneva to evade US mass surveillance:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/25/philip-zimmermann-king-encryption-reveals-fears-privacy

Um, Yes, it is a right.
It certainly is my right, and to all that claim that right, it's their right not to be under surveillance of any kind.

"Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and in many other international and regional treaties. Privacy underpins human dignity and other key values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech. It has become one of the most important human rights issues of the modern age. "
-- http://gilc.org/privacy/survey/intro.html

Holy hell. Stop the presses.

I just read that Facebook bought out Whatsapp.

...You know, I don't care WHAT kind of integration or WHAT kind of cryptography you have. If you are owned by someone who's beating heart IS government surveillance, you can rest assured they are taking steps to make wanna-be-privacy-seekers FEEL secure, despite the reality which is anything BUT secure.

I guess I closed that pessimism tag a little too early...

Privacy itself is a farce. It's not a "right." But that's coming full circle on the issue.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Ha, very true. But I think people love to have their little personal bubble privacy. That's pretty much the only thing I like about cars actually.

Of course, suggest a formal Data Protection Law like in Europe and everybody loses their shit (see the arguments between Europeans and Americans over the Google data privacy fiasco).

It is legal for bankrupt/insolvent companies to sell their database, but it must be to a similar company who will keep the data intact, use it for exactly the reasons the customer was told by the original company in the first place, and the customer needs to be informed of who now owns their data and also they have the right to have it deleted.

Was the data collected just so that a warranty can be honoured? Then the new company better take on the warranty or they have no rights to the data. They want to use it for marketing? Then the customer should have consented to this first.

Hilarious!!!
Love the Rand Paul shirts all through the crowd that they had to avoid with his camera like the plague, the 'when will this be over' look on most of their faces, the 'I'm going to ask you to break a rule' from the law and order candidate, the 'just text your information to my secret info-grab computer for my later use because I'm the transparency and privacy candidate', the insinuation that a president can erase legislation day one with the swipe of a pen (but Obama can't make any executive decisions including treaties without congress' pre-aproval or he's "over-reaching his authority and abusing executive powers"), the 'imagine' speech from someone with an insanely limited imagination, and the attempt at being president by this Canadian!

Show me the birth certificate!!! If being born in Kenya to a non-citizen father would have made a whit of legal difference for Obama, then actually being born in Canada as a naturalized Canadian to a Cuban father should disqualify him...explain how that's not true please. ;-)

For any red staters...keep in mind that this smarmy socialist Canadian (he just denounced his Canadian citizenship-and trying to tell people they must fully support another individual financially and with their bodies (forced continued pregnancies) is insanely super socialist) for'nur is trying to infiltrate our gubmn't...HE'S TAKIN ER JERBS!

Had to upvote for the hilarity of his 'announcement'...not as support for him.

Figuring out one bad parking spot is not worth the massive loss of privacy something like this would usher.

Cree-eepy. I pulled my shades after watching this video.

I mean, this technology has existed for decades but only in the hands of governments; while no more trustworthy than anyone else, its limited availability meant the ordinary citizen was unable to be the target of close surveillanec. Now it's available to any consumer with a few kilobux to waste. In a decade or so we'll probably see this sort of resolution on our smartphones.

Privacy really is dead.

Was anyone else disturbed when they zoomed in to be able to see into people's houses from vantage points miles and miles away? To me, this means if you can see anything out your window, someone can be looking in, no matter how far away the mountain/building might be.
Thanks a lot PhaseOne, for ending privacy in our own homes. This will definitely be abused....to me it already has been here. I doubt they have releases from those people they zoomed in on.
Nice pictures though!

On Super Bowl Media Day Marshawn Lynch Delivers Eloquent 45-Minute Address On Privacy In The Modern Age

And here is his actual Super Bowl media day press conference

you're right, what the fuck was I thinking, imagining that violating someone's privacy like that is a bad thing. Those feminists have brainwashed me good.

I know exactly what I meant as do plenty of others. Again, a minimum standard of reading comprehension is expected here.

And that's the issue right there. I think you and I are arguing about completely different things. In terms of the person who stole the photos and posted them, yes there is no middle ground--that person 100% committed a crime and needs to be punished.

However, in terms of responsibility of people for putting themselves in the position to be victimized, there is a huge range of possibilities--but often this range of possibilities isn't examined for fear of someone shouting "Blaming the victim!" The link I posted above goes to great lengths to point out that the criminal who commits the crime is 100% responsible for the criminal act (by virtue of having made the choice to commit it) but that the victim can in fact also have contributed to the crime in a continuum of ways starting with not at all (100% innocent, as in a child who is abused) to fully responsible (as in the case of a rapist who is killed by a potential victim in self-defense during the rape attempt--in this case the rapist becomes the "victim" of a shooting that he brought completely upon himself). There is lots of middle ground between these extremes.

Let's examine a simple case:

I am walking down the street in LA during the early evening in a neighborhood that normally has very little crime. A homeless man shambling past me suddenly pulls a knife, rams it into my chest, and steals my wallet which happened to contain several hundred dollars. I think we can agree in this situation I've no responsibility for this incident occurring. I could not have predicted it would happen and there is little I could have done to anticipate or prevent it. I am 100% an innocent victim in this scenario.

Now let's change the situation. I go down to Skid Row in the early evening and start showing all the homeless people there wads of $100 bills and telling them how worthless they are and how if they only got off their asses and worked hard like me they could have money too. Again, I get shanked in the chest and my money is stolen. Am I 100% an innocent victim in this case? It seems a bit absurd to say yes, doesn't it? My actions (choosing to go to an area that is not often policed, at night, alone, and flash money while belligerently accosting random people who don't have a lot left to lose) are directly linked to the stabbing.

Note that in both cases the person committing the crime is still 100% responsible for their own actions--they chose to stab me and steal my money. But in one case I clearly could not have foreseen or prevented the attack coming whereas in the other it was reasonably foreseeable that my actions were going to lead to problems (not necessarily a stabbing but at the very least some sort of altercation, unless the most patient and forgiving homeless people on Earth happened to be gathered on Skid Row that day). Does that mean the stabber in the second case should get a lighter sentence? No. But it does mean I have some responsibility for what went down and can be justly criticized for my actions. I can't hide behind the "don't blame the victim" catchphrase. I still deserve justice, though, despite being an offensive idiot.

Back to the case at hand.

You are correct, the woman did nothing "wrong" in the moral or legal sense, and the person who violated her privacy is 100% responsible for making the photos public. But I dislike the idea that because she's a victim of a crime, her actions can't be criticized. She might not have done anything "wrong" but she did indeed make a huge error of judgement when she decided to snap naked pics of herself and post them to a social network which is known for dodgy privacy practices. Given the state of technology today, one should be able to infer that there is a pretty high risk that racy photos are going to get leaked at some point, particularly if posted online. If you are okay with that risk, go ahead and post them. And if they are leaked, by all means prosecute the offenders. But don't expect people not to criticize you for gambling that nothing is going to happen, especially when there is plenty of evidence to believe the contrary.

I don't know anythign about Emma Watson or "he for she" or whatever so I'm not going to comment on that.

But jesus rollerblading christ.... are you seriously comparing the unintended consequences of consensual sex to the violation of someones privacy?

I honestly can't believe what I'm reading.

I would never say that if you don't want a kid, don't have sex. I will absolutely say that if you don't want a kid, practice safe sex.

But it's a biological fact that, with the best will in the world from both parties, children can result from intercourse. Please tell me this isn't news to you.

One is an unalterable fact, like gravity. The other results from someones deliberate actions.

So yeah, if you can go skydiving, accept the fact that if everything goes wrong and you hit the ground, you will get injured.
But don't tell me not to go skydiving in case some asshole cuts my parachute.

I give up. Continue telling this young woman how to live her life and what she should do in the privacy of her own home with her partner.

Who said people don't have a right to privacy? In an ideal world people would respect that right. But we don't live in an ideal world do we? So it makes sense to assess the risks and take precautions.

Look at it from another perspective. If I constantly leave my house unlocked with all the ground floor windows open when I go out, do I deserve to be robbed? No. But through my actions have I made it exponentially more likely that I'm going to be robbed? Yes. Does that mean the robber should get a lighter sentence if caught? No. Could I have easily prevented the crime from happening by taking basic precautions? Yes. Does that mean the crime is my fault? No. But was I naive to think that no one would ever rob my house? Absolutely, unless I happen to live alone on a deserted island!

It sucks what happened to her. It's not her fault. She deserves justice and I hope they catch the person who did it. The point of my previous post was that anybody taking naked pics of themselves these days--particularly digital ones--is exponentially increasing their risk of a humiliating exposure. That's the reality, whether you think it is "stupid" or not. If a person is not comfortable with that level of risk, they shouldn't engage in the behavior. This in no way implies that a person who has taken naked pics of themselves doesn't deserve justice if they are victimized. But it does imply that they are a bit naive (or haven't been paying attention to current events) if they thought there was little risk in taking naked pics of themselves and posting them online (as this person apparently did on her Facebook page) given the current security situation on the Internet.