Over the years I've been thinking a lot about privacy and its opposite, 'famousity'. These are things gained and lost by degrees, but people tend to forget that. The simple association I wish to make today is about the matter of fact way I believe that privacy does not automatically lead to safety.
There are few transactions more private than sex, and few sexual transactions more private than the illicit kind. But there is something about a murdered prostitute that should make you think about serial killers. There is a kind of privacy that draws attention to itself, like the privacy of the President Obama's health records. Call that secrecy. Similarly, there is a kind of like of privacy that draw attention away, like dressing as a typical tourist at Disneyland. Call that plainness.
This subject is, of course, tangential to both the breach of the Playstation Network and of iPhone location services data in plain sight. For the hundreth time, I say that you give away private information all the time, ordering a pizza with your credit card. There was a time when people used to fear Caller ID. Can you remember that?
There is a sort of privacy we lose by degrees, but that is not the same thing as becoming less secure by the same degrees. One can be secure in the open, and one can be secretive and attract all kinds of danger. Let's not confuse privacy with security.
One last example. You are in the woods, alone, in a cabin. There is no cellphone coverage, no wifi, no television, no telephone, and the nearest mailbox is five miles down the mountain. You're quite private. But are you safe?
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