Groklaw y Lavabit cierran sus puertas

Así como el correo electrónico dejó de ser seguro y los gobiernos tienen herramientas para crear actos de terror simbólico; algunos servicios deben decidir entre existir con una falsa promesa de privacidad o cerrar sus puertas.

Lavabit, el servicio de correo usado por Snowden para enviar información decidió cerrar sus puertas para no tener que entregar información a los servicios secretos y aún dejando sin servicio a todos sus usuarios, estos lo entendieron porque su servicio era brindar correo electrónico seguro. Y les recomiendo leer la carta del fundador para entenderlo.

Groklaw un blog que, entre otras cosas, fue clave para ayudar a destruir las patentes de SCO que amenazaban a Linux y que publicó mails donde se explicaban estrategias para distorsionar el mercado de patentes, decidió que no puede seguir operando sin ofrecer privacidad a los que le dan información. Y les recomiendo leer la carta del fundador para entenderlo.

Y hay algo que rescato de este post es la cita a Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life de Janna Malamud Smith [gratis en ese link] que explica porque la privacidad es importante aunque no tengas nada que ocultar:

Recalling his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi observed that “solitude in a Camp is more precious and rare than bread.” Solitude is one state of privacy, and even amidst the overwhelming death, starvation, and horror of the camps, Levi knew he missed it….

Our function of privacy is to provide a safe space away from terror or other assaultive experiences. When you remove a person’s ability to sequester herself, or intimate information about herself, you make her extremely vulnerable….

The totalitarian state watches everyone, but keeps its own plans secret. Privacy is seen as dangerous because it enhances resistance. Constantly spying and then confronting people with what are often petty transgressions is a way of maintaining social control and unnerving and disempowering opposition….

And even when one shakes real pursuers, it is often hard to rid oneself of the feeling of being watched — which is why surveillance is an extremely powerful way to control people. The mind’s tendency to still feel observed when alone… can be inhibiting. … Feeling watched, but not knowing for sure, nor knowing if, when, or how the hostile surveyor may strike, people often become fearful, constricted, and distracted.

Terrorists of all sorts destroy privacy both by corrupting it into secrecy and by using hostile surveillance to undo its useful sanctuary.

In his landmark book, Privacy and Freedom, Alan Westin names four states of privacy: solitude, anonymity, reserve, and intimacy. The reasons for valuing privacy become more apparent as we explore these states….

The essence of solitude, and all privacy, is a sense of choice and control. You control who watches or learns about you. You choose to leave and return. …