"Frienditto" Bandittos?

[seawasp]

A number of my friends on LJ have alerted others to the stupidities being committed by this particular group. Apparently they sleazily acquire (taking advantage of many LJ-users' naivete) passwords to accounts which permits them to display friends-only posts.

Now, while *I* have never made a restricted post, nor can I imagine making one, but for those who trusted that their private posts would remain private, this is a deliberate and offensive violation of privacy.

Apparently some of the Frienditto users have also been going around mocking various LJ users' private posts and doing similar things to posts against the frienditto "service". I ran across a couple of examples. Pretty sad -- I'd guess high school lusers with nothing better to do than be assholes.

Frienditto seems to be connected to something else called "LJ Drama", but I have no idea what THAT is.

Comments

Re: Not quite true.

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

I think it's more akin to one person in a small group wearing a wire, which is merely unusual, rather than illegal (in most places). Ease of archiving, however, is only going to increase: there are already people using wearables in their jobs, and as that tech gets smaller, cheaper, and more ubiquitous, people are going to find that they have no reasonable expectation of secrecy in any way, except those things they keep to themselves.

I think all this is good for society, but there are going to be a lot of screaming fits before the lessons have sunk in.

Re: Not quite true.

[seawasp]

I cannot in any way see this as good for society. For a free society to exist, there must be a certain looseness. The idea that NOTHING can be private eliminates that. It is Big Brother gone mad.

Re: Not quite true.

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

I completely disagree. :) It's precisely to the degree that one doesn't have freedom that one needs secrecy. In fact, I would expect that as it becomes clear that anyone can find out about anyone else breaking the law, either the law will be relaxed, or the whole pretense of equality under the law will break, and we'll have a "correction", as the financial market people say.

More importantly, however, I don't see any way of stopping this short of something that massively retards technology (not just the growth thereof), and even something as drastic as banning the development of new computer technology would only slow the change.

We live in interesting times, to paraphrase the oft-mentioned curse, and they're growing more interesting by the year. Just wait until molecular machinery, and the prospect of wholesale duplication of any structure at all, rather than mere data. Coming in the next few decades to an Everywhere near you!

Re: Not quite true.

[seawasp]

Re: Not quite true.
randallsquared
2005-03-06 04:19 (link) Select
I completely disagree. :) It's precisely to the degree that one doesn't have freedom that one needs secrecy. In fact, I would expect that as it becomes clear that anyone can find out about anyone else breaking the law, either the law will be relaxed, or the whole pretense of equality under the law will break, and we'll have a "correction", as the financial market people say.

This is a fine philosophy, for nonhumans -- just as pure Objectivism or pure Marxism was. But people -- real people -- have secrets. Many of these secrets may be utterly trivial from the point of view of other people, but they will be very important to the individual. Lack of freedom to say or write or do things privately has a tremendous number of negative consequences, not the least of which being that YOUR way of doing things becomes directly open to public scrutiny, and thus open to accusation under ANYONE'S standards. Your mistakes or ill-thought out actions become fair game for any young punk who thinks it's a good idea to embarrass someone.

Unless you truly foresee a society that includes human beings who have no concept of shame, petty jealousies, hatreds, and never make mistakes or do things they regret, this is the kind of change to be greatly feared.


More importantly, however, I don't see any way of stopping this short of something that massively retards technology (not just the growth thereof), and even something as drastic as banning the development of new computer technology would only slow the change.

It's a problem, yes. Partially it may be resolved by technology -- turning the one side against the other, so to speak -- and partially by revising custom and law to make the penalties for violating privacy worse. Your freedom STOPS at my life, and vice versa.

We live in interesting times, to paraphrase the oft-mentioned curse, and they're growing more interesting by the year. Just wait until molecular machinery, and the prospect of wholesale duplication of any structure at all, rather than mere data. Coming in the next few decades to an Everywhere near you!

Depends on what you mean by "few decades" and I'm not sure the actual will live up to the fictional guesses.

Re: Not quite true.

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

This is a fine philosophy, for nonhumans -- just as pure Objectivism or pure Marxism was.

I think you may be reading into what I said something that isn't there.

But people -- real people -- have secrets. Many of these secrets may be utterly trivial from the point of view of other people, but they will be very important to the individual.

And keeping them won't be a problem. All you have to do is *want* to keep the secret, and technology can help you. It's only when you stop keeping the secret that other people become able to disseminate it. This is exactly the same as it's always been in principle; it's just easier now, and will get far more so. A person to whom you entrusted a secret has always been able to repeat it to someone else, and now they can do so with better fidelity and ease. So what needs to change is the idea that you can simultaneously give away secrets (but Kiesha would NEVER tell!) and keep them, but this has *always* been a bad idea, which is why there are sayings like "Three can keep a secret if two are dead". It's just going to be more obvious now.