Activism.net
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to.Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.
Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to reveal one’s identity with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the cryptographic signature.
We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor’s younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.
We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.
We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.
Read More
Ronan Shields
Dec 21, 2012
Instagram has reverted to its original advertising terms and conditions in a move to quell unrest prompted by an earlier update to its advertising policies.
The U-turn was prompted by mass unrest following an 
The new policies, which now apply to users as young as 13, enable Instagram, a photo-sharing service that Facebook bought in August, to use members’ names, text, photos and other content with marketing messages, the company said on its site. The new terms of use, set to take effect next month, could be exploitative, Chester said.
Facebook, operator of the world’s largest social network with more than 1 billion users, is changing policies for its Instagram unit as it looks for ways to increase revenue across its services. Instagram, popular with teens and young adults, reached more than 100 million users, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in September.
Facebook “sees teens as a digital goldmine,” said Chester, whose group is focused on privacy issues. “We will be pressing the Federal Trade Commission to issue policies to protect teen privacy.”
If users are younger than 18, then they “represent” that at least one parent or guardian has also agreed to content being used in marketing, according to the updated usage terms. The changes are aimed at protecting members while preventing abuse, Instagram said in a blog.
In the updated policy document, Instagram also said it may not always identify paid services or sponsored content. The company said it doesn’t claim ownership of any content on the service, though some businesses may pay to display users’ names, likeness or photos in connection with sponsored content.
“Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups,” the company said. “This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.”
The Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), which presides over the social network’s European headquarters in Dublin, says it expects Facebook’s proposed data use policy to be modified to allow users a greater level of consent over the way their actions and content on the site can be used by the company.
A spokeswoman at the Irish DPC told technology blog The Register: “We have sought and received clarifications on a number of aspects and have outlined our position in relation to what consent will be required for aspects of the policy.”
It is not yet clear the exact aspects of the policy Facebook has agreed to change, but it is thought to relate to the Instagram data share proposals.
Facebook was hoping that by combining data from its platform and the photo sharing app it acquired earlier this year would be able to help the company offer brands more targeted advertising opportunities.
The social network said in a statement last week when it first emerged the Irish DPC had contacted the company: “We are in regular contact with our regulators to ensure that we maintain high standards of transparency in respect of our policies and practices. We expect to maintain a continuous dialogue with the Irish DPC as our service evolves.”
Facebook’s proposals to combine its user data with that of Instagram have also been opposed by two privacy campaign groups – The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) – which wrote a joint letter requesting the company reconsiders the amends to its policy.
They also object to Facebook’s plans to 
The post illustrates both how little users know about their digital rights and how much they want clear control over content they post to Facebook.
The statement, which users are copying and pasting onto their profiles, reportedly confers copyright privileges to individual Facebook users that are different than the ones they agreed to when using the service.
Under the network’s terms and conditions, users grant Facebook the right to use, distribute and share posted items subject to its terms of service and user privacy settings. Copying and pasting a status update doesn’t change anything about that agreement.
It should go without saying that users have to abide by the terms and conditions they agreed to when they signed up for the site, and even posting something replete with legal jargon doesn’t let you alter that agreement. As 
