Episode: 4252
Title: HPR4252: Privacy is not hiding
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4252/hpr4252.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 22:03:41

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4252 for Tuesday the 19th of November 2024.
Today's show is entitled, Privacy is Not Hiding.
It is part of the series Privacy and Security.
It is hosted by some guy on the internet and is about 16 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
This summary is, Scotty argues privacy is not hiding.
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q.
We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled.
This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive.
Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio.
Hello everybody, Scotty here.
Today's show is called, Privacy is Not Hiding.
I prepared a little statement because I wanted to give my thoughts together and just sort of
dish it out with too much rambling.
I consider any unwelcome questioning of one's privacy to be a deliberate attack against one's privacy.
The attack is socially engineered to erode the victim's guard against unwelcome questioning,
usually prompting the victim with an easy surrendering statement.
I've got nothing to hide.
Once the victim surrenders to the attack by equating privacy with hiding,
the victim becomes more vulnerable to further or deeper probing by the attacker for more sensitive
information. After having numerous conversations with Bumblebee and a few other friends,
and having to explain to them or more than one occasion their privacy is not hiding,
where I've noticed it the most is from authority figures.
The police, I've been asked this in the past, I've heard it while riding with others like
if you've ever been pulled over before, the police typically will just ask for whatever reason,
hey can I search a car, you know, they won't do it exactly in that tone, so lighthearted,
but they'll ask to search your personal vehicle, your personal property.
And the answer from me is always no.
And it does not matter why, right?
Now, if you're in another country, let me just, let me first start with this,
I am not a lawyer, and even if I was, I am not your lawyer.
This is not legal advice. This is a podcast that you're listening to. You may receive
beneficial information from this, but it is in no way equated to legal advice, all right?
Now, within the United States, we have protection against illegal search and seizures,
and that basically protects your personal privacy, your personal property from, you know,
police just searching whatever, or anyone for that matter.
Now, what I'm telling you goes for anyone, it's not just the police,
but they're like the easiest target for this kind of conversation.
And it's to help you when dealing with your friends, you know, other people that you encounter,
and they throw out the old, but I've got nothing to hide, you know, it's whenever someone
asks to search your private property, and you tell them no, and then they question you further,
you know, that old unwanted unwelcome questioning, where they ask you something along the lines of,
where if you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to worry about, or they'll just ask, you know,
what are you hiding? No matter how it's phrased, when you hear the word hiding,
when you're maintaining your privacy, your right to privacy, and again, I'm talking specifically
the United States citizens located within the United States, because I don't understand other
country's laws, I haven't done any research to understand other country's laws, and this podcast
reaches out to many. So obviously, you're going to want to review your own nation's laws,
as well as your local jurisdictions and everything like that. But here in the US, especially for the
police, they get trained on all sorts of laws, especially, you know, the local ones, but the
Constitution, the United States Constitution, the different articles of the Constitution,
protection against illegal search and seizures, which in the United States Constitution is the
the Fourth Amendment. Anyway, but the officers know that they cannot legally get away with just
searching your vehicle. So what they have to do is attempt to manipulate you, introduce the idea
that you're hiding something, because hiding can easily bring about a feeling of guilt,
especially when being approached by an authority figure. If they're telling you, because most
people see the police as the good guys, right, the good guys are typically looking for the bad guys.
Now, who would get in the way of a good guy looking for a bad guy unless you're working with,
or you are the bad guy, right? So if they want to search your stuff and you're saying no,
well, you're obviously hiding something, and this is the game that they play. The reality is,
you have the right to privacy, and you shouldn't have to explain it, especially to someone who has
trained on your right to privacy. Because trust me, I'm pretty sure they'll definitely argue
their right to privacy. Even something as simple as videoing a police officer. All right, this is
future Scotty. I'm re-recording this bit because the first example that I used wasn't exactly
accurate. I found the name of the rapper. His name is Afro man, and his house was rated by police.
But when they sued them, they didn't sue him for evasion of privacy. Turns out they actually sued
him for a profiting from their likenesses. But basically they rated his home. They broke his
security system trying to disable it. So that way there was no evidence of what they were doing
in his home. He had a backup security system that was also recording them. And you know, he released
that footage, but he also made a music video of it. Because apparently one of the officers
was a little bit on the heavy side looking into his refrigerator. And I think you found some cake
or something. And it was kind of funny. So he made a video of it poking fun at the officers.
And he made some money off of that. Like everybody wanted to show him support because the police
just basically rated his guy's house for no reason and tried to hide what they were doing.
Yeah, but the better example here is this other guy, a college kid who got pulled over.
For DUI turns out he had no alcohol or drugs in the system whatsoever. The cops arrested him
for no reason. They eventually had to let him go because when all the detests prove that he
has nothing in the system, well, why are you taking him to jail? So you know, rather than
face further embarrassment, they let him go after they took him to jail. And he released the video
onto YouTube. When he did that, of course, his community from YouTube, all everyone that saw
the video made fun of the police officers and the police officers are now suing him for invasion
of privacy. All right, that's enough from me. Future Scotty going back to past Scotty
interests of the content. So they'll play the privacy game to protect themselves,
but they'll also be very devious about trying to attack you. But that's the game that they play.
You see, they have privacy and they expect it to be held to the highest. You should not do
anything to violate their privacy or to crime. And if you try to play word games with them in
their privacy, or what, that's even more of a crime. They're the good guys, remember? Like,
they're no longer human once they put the badge in the uniform on. There's something else,
something better. What's they put the uniform in the badge on? But you, you who the the one that
does not have a uniform in the badge, well, you're lesser. So what you claim as privacy is actually
hiding. Therefore, if you're hiding, you have some sort of guilt. You're doing something bad,
something wrong, something that should be investigated. Now, steering away from the police,
just to your local friends, you know, anyone that you speak to and they introduce the exact same thing.
When I'm talking with my friends and they hear about how I lock down, say my emails and things
of that nature using all the things that I do, well, one of the things they think is, well,
I don't go through all of that because I got nothing to hide. You know, I don't need to encrypt
my data. You know, I don't need to encrypt my hard drive and all of that stuff because I've got
nothing to hide. First thing first, I would not squander the opportunity of informing them that
privacy is not hiding, right? I would definitely make sure I argue that first and foremost and sort of
leave out all the other benefits of say, encrypting the drive, you know, different technologies and
things because we especially as open source enthusiasts, and I say open source rather than Linux
enthusiasts because we do have our BSD brethren in the community as well. And my throat is super dry right
now. I need a drink, but I got a hold off. All right, I had to go ahead and get that drink. It was
getting rough. But yeah, back back to the point, you don't want to get carried away and start bogging
them down talking about all the different disk encryption methods and algorithms and everything else
that goes on out there. I mean, you're just going to cause the eyes to glaze over. They're not going
to hear a word. You have to say after the first acronym. So just forget about it. If they're that
interested in it, they'll come to you when they're ready. But for the time being, when the argument
comes up or when the opportunity presents itself, somebody who has clearly been victimized into believing
that privacy is somehow hiding, no, it is not. All right. Just because you are not authorized to have
access to any particular information or space, right? In the example of my car, because you're not
authorized to know what's in my car or by searching my car, or you're not authorized to even get
in my car does not immediately equate to me hiding something, you know, being guilty of something.
I have a right to privacy and some good examples here. When I go to when I go to the laboratory,
right? We all have been to a laboratory, even if it's a public laboratory, you do not expect
someone to say walk in the stall behind you or you know, use a step ladder to peer over their
stall and sort of look down at what you're doing in the stall. You know, somebody lay down on the
floor and try to peek under the door to see what you're doing in the stall, right? And then if you
tell them what are you doing, get out of here, they go, what are you hiding? It's absurd, right?
Clearly, you're not hiding anything. It is a matter of privacy, all right? And it's kind of
funny using that example, yes, but still, it should drive the point home. It is privacy here,
all right? Whatever you, you can make all the assumptions you want about what's going on in here,
but you know, you are not privileged to to this session. So
all right, I got to find a better example because that one's not going to go. We can't take the rest
of the conversation series if we end with that one. So take, for instance, my medical records,
right? I go to my primary care physician, we usually refer to that as a PCP and
we go through different tests and things to well, get an assessment of my health. And then I get
advice and I have to pay for that, right? That's understandable. Now there, there are different laws
like HIPAA for one that protects our information. So when you go to see your doctor, that information
that is developed between you and your doctor about your health is protected. If somebody outside
of that room wants to know about it, they're not, they don't have authorization to know about it.
You can release authorization to other people and there's a method of doing that. I mean,
don't get me wrong. You can just walk down the street with a printout of your entire health
history and just start flashing it around, stapling it on polls if you want to, which is I don't
recommend at all. But the point is, if somebody wanted to know they, they're by default not authorized
to have that information. So does that immediately mean you're hiding something just because they're not
authorized to have access to that information? No, you're not hiding a thing. It's private information.
And the fact that you want to know about it and you equate my, you know, my, my privacy,
these, these are birth rights within the United States. You, you want to, you know, I guess,
sidestep the privacy that I have to gain access to information that you, you obviously are not
privy to. No. And questioning further, the unwelcome questioning further is straight up in attack.
Well, what are you hiding? In a situation like that, I just make one thing clear before disconnecting
from that person 100%. Privacy is not hiding and I'd be on my way. Now, if it's an authority figure
something like that, I'm most likely going to be filing the grievance, right? Like you're not just
going to get away. We're walking around with that behavior. There's going to be a, there's going to be
a process that I can follow in the United States. You can file a grievance against a public servant
or whatever they're called in your region. And then, you know, there's a process that you go through
for all of that. In the reason why you want to go through that way versus arguing in the streets
is because arguing in the streets for a person who already believes that information they don't
have access to equates to you hiding something. That's a dangerous person. You don't want them running
around, especially with a loaded gun on the streets. You really don't want to be arguing with that
person. So, you know, just don't argue with them, but go file your grievance because there needs
to be a trail of this maniac running around out here with a loaded gun and his I'm better than you
uniform with official I'm better than you badge, right? There needs to be a record of that because
it's going to, it's going to eventually build up to who this person is and hopefully you can get
them out of that position before they do some real damage. Now, maybe they're just a little mistaken
and they don't know any better. Somebody can sit them down and help them understand that these
are citizens you're talking to. They have the right to privacy just because you have a badge
does not immediately allow you to buy, you know, sidestep the privacy. And they say,
they'll read with your friends. No, let people continuously victimize your friends and form them.
Hey, you two have the right to privacy. Invoking your right to privacy is not you hiding anything,
all right? Try to use a more serious example other than, you know, sitting in a stall.
All right. That's enough about that. I won't go any further with that one. But yeah,
I think I rambled on enough here. I just got over the flu. My voice is a bit rough as well.
I probably sound a bit nasally and I'm using my to go setup. So hopefully the audio comes out
halfway decent. Not too much clipping and nonsense. I'll catch you guys in the next episode.
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