Privacy Is a Human Right Worth Fighting For

Posted On Jul 23, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

Digital Privacy Is a Human Right Worth Fighting For

Privacy is a basic human right. It’s there in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence.” Attaining that right in an era of dragnet surveillance, mass data infringes, state-sponsored hackers and large-scale tech overreach, nonetheless, is a Herculean task. As the digital privacy campaign hots up, crypto etiquettes are emerging as a new battleground where the right to anonymity will be triumphed and lost.

Also read: Chainalysis Whistleblower Shares Company Mystery in Explosive AMA

From Data Drought to Tsunami in 40 Years

In 1973, the internet looked like this 😛 TAGEND

Privacy Is a Human Right Worth Fighting For

Yes, all of it. Today, your dwelling router connects more inventions than the totality of Arpanet did in the early 70 s. Long move are the days when the link that comprise the world wide web could be sketched on the back of a napkin. As the internet has proliferated and the number of connected designs has grown into the millions, and then billions, so has the amount of data produced. 90% of all the world’s data was generated in the last two years, with 33 zettabytes created in 2018 alone( one zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes ). By 2025, we’ll be creating 175 zettabytes yearly, and will have another 15 billion inventions online, primarily thanks to IoT.

Data, we are often told, is like oil, serving as the lubricant that greases the web economy. If that resemblance is true, we are a long way from reaching peak data. Peak oil, by comparison, is calculated to have followed as early as 2006 and universally agreed to occur no later than 2030. We are running out of oil, but require and afford of data registers no indicate of slaking. Its ubiquity may account for why we have become so laissez-faire about protecting it. Should our credit card items be stolen, we simply cancel it and ordering another one; our password exfiltrated, we shrug and create a stronger one. This casual attitude to the loss of a resource that is, to all intents and purposes, invisible, details for why the world has sleepwalked into the data dystopia in which it now discoveries itself.

But as Edward Snowden memorably positioned it 😛 TAGEND

Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say. When you say,’ I have nothing to hide, ’ you’re saying,’ I don’t care about this right.’

Privacy Is a Human Right Worth Fighting For

The Tug of War for Control of the World’s Data

Webizens today know themselves mired in a mighty struggle for verify of their data. On the one mitt, there are the politicians, in nations as “enlightened” as America and Australia, contemplating a crackdown on encryption, and mandating the inclusion of backdoors to facilitate government access to private communications. And on the other end, there are the Web 3 corporations like Tide( slogan: “Privacy is more than a international human rights, it’s your asset”) seeking to return data control to its rightful owneds. In the incidents of corporations like Tide, that typically consists of creating containers that enable individuals and businesses to control their data via private keys, sharing and reselling it simply to those they trust.

Somewhere in between these opposing personnels, tugging at the rope that constitutes data flow, lies Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto’s creation is a privacy purveyor’s nightmare and wet dream wheeled into one. Bitcoin’s pseudonymous layout enables anyone to transact with anyone else in the world without disclosing their identity or purposes. And more, thanks to advances in blockchain surveillance and ever-encroaching scrutiny from the three-letter agencies, cryptocurrency users have never been more exposed. As a cord of darknet marketers have discovered to their peril, affiliating pseudonymous bitcoin residences with real world identities is relatively incidental, unless you’re an opsec expert.

Draconian tactics deployed by agencies such as the IRS, which proposes subpoenaing tech companies to identify taxpayers “whos had” downloaded cryptocurrency apps, shows the extremes that government will take to track and draw bitcoiners.

Privacy Is a Human Right Worth Fighting For

Governments Hate This One Weird Currency

Despite the panopticon abilities that cryptocurrency entrust to authorities, making them real-time oversight of every single network transaction, they dislike and horror this uncontrollable fund. Last-place week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin swore to “make sure that bitcoin doesn’t become the equivalent of Swiss-numbered bank accounts, ” while senators sought to rein in Facebook’s Libra, conveying scare at the feasibility of establishing a mainstream crypto payment plan that doesn’t enforce end-to-end KYC. Facebook’s grim record in respect to data protection was also attacked.

For the subset of network users acquainted and concerned enough to safeguard their online privacy, there’s a lot that can be done to prevent their data from falling into the erroneous hands. Cryptocurrency users would do well to learn the capabilities and limitations of blockchain surveillance and strategize accordingly, to buy and sell coins on privacy-oriented P2P pulpits and increase their dependence on data-thirsty social media scaffolds and web browsers in favor of pro-privacy alternatives. There’s no such thing as obscurity in an era of facial acceptance, social credit, and deep container inspection. Nevertheless, through making practical precautions, bitcoiners can start themselves a hard target in the intensify fighting on personal privacy.

Do you think it’s possible to maintain a acceptable measure of privacy on the web today? Let us know in specific comments segment below.

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