[Freedombox-discuss] Relationship driven privacy

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On 07/08/2011 12:20 PM, nathan nolast wrote:
> now, i know that the freedombox is going to be used by average individuals
> that are not interested in remaining anonymous for what ever reason. But
> lets not kid ourself, social networking is social networking... we can
> increase the privacy, make strong privacy relation policys, but posting your
> pictures and life story on a service is not in any way shape or form ...
> logical.

Wanting to form a meaningful and potentially lasting relationship with
other humans may not be "logical", but i consider it very valuable.

If we build a network that is completely opaque, such that no one can
form any lasting relationship across it, we might as well not bother.

Even the whistleblower who herself wants to remain anonymous needs be
able to reliably identify a trustworthy recipient for her information.
She won't be able to do that on a fully-anonymous network.

We should not be segregating our work into systems for "normal people"
and "dissidents".  To make that segregation implies two things:

 0) surveillance and corporate- or government-controlled communications
for "normal people" is acceptable, and

 1) that these categories are fixed, mutually-exclusive, and static --
an individual cannot be both at once, or change from one to the other,
either voluntarily or involuntarily.

We should support people making connections with other people, creating
social bonds and sharing values.  We should discourage or prohibit third
parties from commoditizing or surveilling these relationships.  We
should enable people to take a stand publicly for what matters to them.
 And we should enable people to publish material anonymously, to ensure
that even people with significant vulnerabilities have a way to get
their important information out to the world.

We cannot presume to say that sharing personal stories, opinions,
images, movies, jokes, etc. is somehow irrelevant to the creation of a
more just society.  And we can't afford to ignore the appeal of sharing
in making this network something people actively want to participate in,
and enjoy using.

Networks grow in value the more users they have (by the square of the
number of users, if you believe Metcalfe).  If we build a darknet that
is useful only to handful of international men-of-mystery, it will be a
very poor network indeed.

	--dkg

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