On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Steve Schear wrote:
Indeed 'privacy' and 'secrecy' are often confused and their meanings overlap in many a mind. I think that most, at least in the West, accept that privacy "..is based on rules and trust," for example, records kept on us by our doctors. Because exposure of various aspects of our private lives can do lasting damage, privacy is only effective when controlled by the party seeking it, who may disclose it or not as they see fit and can only be guaranteed when those who would "sell you out" don't possess the possibly damaging information. For that reason among others, I am really only interested in privacy mediated by personal secrecy and technologies I trust and/or control.
I agree with you. Being anonymous is very important here. Privacy is something alluded to by the famous "Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail". Secrecy is what other people cannot find out. Anonymity (strong or not) is vastly important to secrecy. Medical data is a great example of this. It may be private, for some (weak) values of private, right now. Being John Doe at the doctor's office and paying cash, though, is vastly better in terms of assurance, at least until the doctor's business-cam interfaces with other databases. Too bad that works so poorly with insurance, but then worker insurance in the US is nearly a government program, anyway. -j -- Jamie Lawrence jal@jal.org A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head.