Threat Model: Parents

[Gadit Bielman]

On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 4:52 PM, Softy <softservant at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Several responses have stated, and questioned, the children's rights
> accessing the Internet.  Yes, with supervision.  What all the responses
> have missed is the lack of distinction between communication and email.
> Claiming a child has a right to private extra-familial communications is as
> divided as the general access to the Internet.  With supervision, without
> any more or less privacy than the child has in non-virtual communications.
>
> And, what hasn't been connected to deciding on the level of supervision,
> the developmental state of the child is highly relevant.
>
> Claiming a child merits access - with or without supervision - can only be
> made by the primary custodians of the child.
>
> We wish to ignore this subtlety because we wish to ignore Society's
> overbearing on all of us.
>
> The result in this specific scenario is, regardless of the child, the
> custodians require and merit a higher degree of technical faculty.  To
> presume it is less than the childs is a mistake.  Along with this ability
> comes the burden of communication: to provide an appropriate example.  As
> with many non-virtual counterparts:   many failure.  such sad.
>
> Why should this medium of bits be different?
>

Parents, yes, have a responsibility to raise their children, and as a
result have a bunch of extra privileges and a bunch more authority over
their children then any one person usually has over another. There is, for
very good reasons, a very strong power dynamic in a parent-child
relationship.

And any power dynamic is prone to abuse, the stronger it is the more likely.
I'm am very scared of the idea of a power dynamic like that, where the
person at the receiving end has their communication completely monitored.
It means that, in case they need to ask for help, that request will be
monitored. And depending on how abused the power dynamic is, that could be
a Very Bad Thing.

Everyone needs a way to ask for help safely. Everyone needs a way to have
peers safely.
A power dynamic without those minimal checks is not a safe thing to have.


(Also, can I express surprise at seeing this opinion *here*? Like, I've
heard this sort of argument before, and it definitely has merits -- but I
Very Much did not expect it on the cypherpunks mailing list? Is there just
some sort of toggle? Do people suddenly go from "no reason that they should
be able to have privacy" to "spying and censorship are suddenly totally
wrong" when they reach the arbitrary age where they are Now An Adult? Was
"get breached" the only thing mSpy did wrong?)
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