Online private versus public conversations

@cregox Caue Rego
Mon, 27 Apr 2015 16:53:08 +0000

@cregox wrote:

From the awesome movie shortbus

Someone just asked me on email:

WHY do you put private messages out in public like this??

First of all, there's no such thing as 100% private messages online. You've digitized something and put it online, it's already a shade of public. Copies were already made, many computers already got them.

Granted, an email might still be as private as any conventional and simple thing online can be, but short of a true encrypted algorithm shared only by 2 ends, nothing online is really private and even that can be broken.

I'm with Google on this, and I don't really get what privacy even means.

When you're talking with someone in a public place, and there's nobody else listening, is this private?

When you're just at your home, alone, with your window open, are you in privacy? And with all walls closed?

What's even the need for privacy? Where it comes from?

As a kid, I didn't like being filmed, photographed, playing at school's play, etc. I don't know where my feeling came from, but I know I was ashamed of coming out in public. I also know before that, I wasn't. No baby is ashamed of anything.

Is shame the sole driver for this perceived need?

Some argue there's politics security. For one instance, an spy's life depends on nobody knowing what he's doing. And looks like countries do need spies to be able to communicate with each other, oddly enough.

Well, none of those cases apply to me.

The only reason I keep using emails for conversations now (that I've got these forums here) is convenience. There's also a bit of respect for some people choices, who feel safer with emails even if they shouldn't, but that's not why I still use email so much as those are edge cases. Most people don't care or don't know. Hence, most people will use facebook without any issues. You think there is any kind of privacy there? Think again.

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