-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- nobody@huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer) writes:

I am asking why I should protect my privacy. Most people have concluded that it is not worth the bother. Why are they wrong?

(And, why are privacy advocates uniformly hostile to these questions? Because they are asked anonymously?)

I, too, have been rather confused by the responses. I considered replying as soon as I saw your(?) original post, but figred that my views would probably already sitting on someone else's mail spool, so didn't add a "me too" to the list. Unfortunatly, no one has presented a clear outline, so here goes. Protection of your privacy From "valid" authorities You may not trust your government/police/employer to deal with your speech/actions in a way that you find acceptable. This is kinda the "dark horse" of provacy, since it allows the four horsemen to spred porn and serin across the land. However, there are many reasons to not trust the gov't. Maybe you sell post to cancer patients. Many people would not condem your actions, but the DEA would. This also encompases the argument of insurance from political revolution which has been much dwellt on. (Is dwellt a word?) protection from "criminal" elements This is typically the argumnet given by econoists and the like. You want to protect your CC # and other personal info. Also, those posters to alt.sexual.abuse.recovery might want to protect their identities. Protection of the privacy of others So, say you don't care if some high school d00d3z clean out your bank account and the MeesePolice imprison you for posession of _Arabina Nights_. Using techniques to protect your banal infor- mation also protects those with something to hide. Take, for example, anonymous remailers. Assuming you encrypt and chain and all that Good Stuff, the bad guys can't tell your post to cypher- punks asking why you should protect your privacy from Bob's post to alt.blacknet giving the location of all US nuke sites. If no one except those with someting to hide protected their identity, then it would be an easy thing to (under a slightly more oppres- sive political regime) toss them in jail. The first argument (protecting yourself) has been much talked about in this thread, but the second has been AKAIK, untouched. I, pesonally, think crypto is just swell. As such, I pgp sign all my posts/email. Not only is it one more layer of protection against forges, it helps spread the PGP meme. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMpFZoskz/YzIV3P5AQEQEgL/ST9XHUJ1GmAe53n2P1pRD0kyJX+1r9Iz LUd5PfDkYdMUIhws2JFGtCjCd4ie7tzIVmGj7km7y9KDPO+ih1Y12sPI4Tc1xS8u Wp9lXtznFeSZzGwECIGtfJSqphzS53Da =C6la -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----