
Why was this secret? - mkuhn
http://sivers.org/ws
======
grellas
Why was her diary secret? Well, because she wanted it so. And that should be
enough.

When it comes to information that any given person regards as intimate about
oneself, that should always be enough. It doesn't matter that someone else
might peruse that information and say, "there is nothing special here." Why?
Because it is not that person's judgment to make. There may be nothing special
about my exact bank balance or net worth or state of my health or sex life or
political or religious affiliations (or lack of affiliations) or any other
information that I may consider private but that doesn't mean I want that
information broadcast to the world only to invite identity thieves, malicious
third-parties, political enemies, or anybody else who might bear a grudge or
harbor an animus to have a field day with it. But they are just "facts", you
might say. No, in the wrong hands, they are ammunition by which to hurt you if
people want and, even if the facts themselves are innocent enough, people have
a ready capacity as may suit their whims or prejudices or any other ulterior
motives they may have to do you wrong and what may appear as innocent "facts"
to one person can easily be transmuted into a vile weapon that can cost you
your job, your important relationship, or any other of many things that might
be the subject of someone's jealousy or other animus toward you (a lifetime of
courtroom experience has certainly shown me how easy it is for a motivated
adversary to take otherwise innocent facts and twist them into malicious
aspersions if they really want to). What is more, even if nobody had _any
interest whatever_ in harming me through misuse of that information, it is
part of my essential humanity that I can separate that which I regard as
intimate (to me) from that which is made freely available for public
consumption. There is a reason why the word "vulgar" developed negative
connotations over the centuries: it originally meant nothing more than
"belonging to the crowd." Well, crowds can trample on things you might regard
as precious and it should be your choice and no one else's whether you want to
open up important parts of your life for public consumption.

If I happen _not_ to want to keep any part of my life secret, well, that is
fine too. That is a choice every person can make for himself so long as he
doesn't go about over-sanctimoniously proclaiming that others must do the same
or harming others about him by revealing things that they consider intimate as
he opens the book of his own life to the world.

It is the same in the business world. One can open-source his own works as a
matter of commitment to the idea that all information ought to be free or for
any other reason but that doesn't mean the law ought to abrogate protections
for proprietary, trade secret information that most businesses need to keep
confidential information as a matter of competitive advantage. If I am a
broker who depends for his livelihood in serving a customer base that it took
years to develop, I would be rightly upset if someone came in and simply
handed all my customer information over to my competitors. So too would a
development team that has invested huge amounts of money and time into a
development effort that gives them a significant competitive advantage over
others and whose business model turns on keeping that advantage to themselves
exclusively. So too would most any company management if its confidential
business plans for winning key markets suddenly got broadcast publicly over
the web. Examples of this type can be multiplied endlessly and really are
self-evident to anyone who has had much in the way of real-world business
experience.

Again, any private business is free to make a contrary judgment and to open
itself up at every level so that it maintains no private or secret information
whatever. That is their choice. But, if I want to keep things secret in my
business, no one should be able to force me to do otherwise or to try to shame
me into believing that I am doing something wrong.

Laws and public policy cannot make these choices for us as individual actors
but it is essential that they set up a structure to protect those who would
seek to keep their confidential information private. How and to what degree
that happens in practical execution can be a complex topic in our
technological age but the abiding principle, to me, is very clear: privacy is
valuable in any society and laws should be shaped accordingly.

So, why, then, is this secret? Because the person it most affects wants it
that way and the rest of us should respect that person's wishes to keep it so.

~~~
bambax
If you write down your secrets on a diary, or tell some of your friends about
it, or God forbid! write it up on Facebook, then you're asking for trouble (or
maybe you want those "secrets" to not stay secret forever).

My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write
them down. They will die with me.

Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is _NOT_ a person,
so it's disingenuous to claim that businesses have a right to "privacy".
Businesses have no "human rights". Businesses are things, like a table or a
shoe.

~~~
toxik
We write things down for a number of reasons. Are you really arguing that a
person "is asking for it" just for writing it down?

~~~
bambax
I'm only saying, what's not written can't be read. What isn't said can't be
heard.

My mother was a lawyer and always taught us never to talk over the phone about
things that were potentially incriminating, much less writing it down -- and
this was in the seventies-eighties, long before anything resembling the
Internet or the mass-surveillance capabilities of today's NSA.

What I'm saying is that a real secret is something not shared with anyone; if
you need to share a "secret" with another person:

\- you need to take extreme precautions, such as not talking about it on the
phone, not writing about it, not alluding to it when in presence of other
people

\- you can only talk about it in person, not over any kind of wire, regardless
of what you think are good encryption methods

\- and even if you do all of the above it's very likely the secret won't stay
secret forever

I'd say this is all common sense.

------
jarrett
In the context of coding projects, the author's conclusion seems realistic.

Given current events though, I can't help but wonder if there's a subtext
about privacy and snooping. If so, then I would venture this observation: Your
friend's super-secret diary is meaningless to you only because you have no
desire to abuse the access you've been given. Suppose instead your friend's
devious enemy obtained the diary. Then, he could probably use it to damage
your friend's relationships and/or career.

Now imagine a dystopian future when all such diaries are available to a
privileged subset of society. Imagine the power that subset would hold, and
all the ways it would likely be abused.

Unless we want to ensure our every communication and personal note is fit for
public consumption, some things are by definition our secrets.

~~~
blah32497
The reasons for privacy are always so contrived. "Dystopian futures", "enemies
trying to ruin lives" etc. etc. It never resonates with me.

I think what the author is trying to say is that if you live an open life with
few secrets, then your life will be less stressful. He's encouraging us to
really reevaluate what we keep secret b/c when you sit down to think about it,
it's most likely all in your head.

~~~
coldtea
> _The reasons for privacy are always so contrived. "Dystopian futures",
> "enemies trying to ruin lives" etc. etc. It never resonates with me._

That's because you're an average Joe.

And even you, you use a pseudonymous account name here on HN.

Now think of all the lives of change-makers, dissidents, activists etc that
were fucked up with the use of such private information (from their sexual
preferences to who they meet), under all kinds of regimes, in the US and
abroad.

Try reading how some of the pioneers of civil rights for blacks were treated,
for example, what kind of files were kept on them, how they were setup and
pressured etc. It's not like MLK emerged from nowhere, said "I have a dream"
and everybody cheered and that was that.

Heck, you don't even have to go that far. Even opinions expressed on HN can
get people fired from their jobs if they go public. Even mild ones, including
mere jokes said in private: a guy was fired for telling a "dongle" joke to his
friend at a conference -- because someone eavesdropped.

Plus, your notion pressuposes that things will always be totally fine (save a
"dystopian future"), and nothing will ever make citizens question the
government, big corporations, etc. Which does not hold, really. From
McCarthyism to the Civil Rights movement, down to the Vietnam War protests and
recent stuff like Occupy Wall Street, there's always such discord, and there
will be even more in a future with rising inequality and diminishing middle
class.

Hundrends of millions (perhaps including you) might continue to be oblivious
to all this (as they were oblivious about Vietnam War protests and/or rock n'
roll in rural Idaho), but tens of millions were and will be affected.

~~~
blah32497
> That's because you're an average Joe.

And I think this article is written targeting the average Joe. Everyone is
getting off on tangents about how the gov't is going to go fascist and that
privacy is the best thing in the world.

He isn't arguing that privacy is inherently bad, or you should never ever have
secrets. Yeah, if your trying to overthrow an fascist regime, it makes sense
to have secrets. But again, that's a contrived reason. If you're MLK, that's
not really the norm.

The point Mr.Sivers making is - _generally_ people have more secrets than they
really need and in the process they're making their lives more stressful. He's
suggesting trying to re-evulate your need for privacy (I'm repeating myself).

It's just a call for some self reflection. Everyone needs to chill out a bit.

~~~
foobarqux
If you're a black person what happens to MLK-type figures matters to you, even
if you're not them.

You don't get it: You can't have democracy in a surveillance state.

~~~
PeterisP
You definitely can have democracy in a transparent state - what happens to MLK
type figures is not related to what potential oppressors know about MLK (they
already knew all they needed to) but instead what they're allowed to do to
restrict MLK.

~~~
foobarqux
I assume you meant surveillance state.

It's nonsensical: In what way do you propose to not make the subject of
surveillance disempowered?

~~~
PeterisP
In what way was MLK disempowered by the fact that FBI knew all about his
personal life, travel plans, who he communicated with and so on?

The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from excercising
your rights to action despite knowing that you want to change things. If you
really need to conspire in secrecy, then it's probably already too late for
anything other than an armed revolution to fix that.

~~~
foobarqux
They blackmailed him using the fact that he was having an affair for example.
The rule obviously can't be "you can't tell anyone person X is having an
affair".

>The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from exercising
your rights to action

No that's not the key. Severely impairing your ability to act or discouraging
action by causing pain is essentially as effective as outright prohibition as
is lowering someone's public esteem.

------
m0nastic
I can't even imagine about what privacy is going to look like in 20 years, or
how society will adapt to deal with it. What seems missing from his thought
experiment is how to address privacy for things that concern more than just a
single participant.

I don't particularly worry about my individual privacy, or care about securing
my things. If someone managed to get a hold of my email, I wouldn't be very
put out. I don't encrypt my hard drives, or even back anything up. My lack of
security and privacy hygiene, however, doesn't extend to my work stuff. I care
about maintaining the confidentiality and privacy of that stuff because it's
part of a social contract (and I suppose also an employment contract) that I
have with my work and my clients.

Instead of his diary example, what if he had asked his friend "Can I copy all
of the emails off of your phone, or all the phone numbers in your
addressbook?" Maybe they still wouldn't care, or maybe they'd now have to take
into account the fact that all that data also involves other people, and maybe
they wouldn't find it acceptable for you to give our their cell phone number
to anybody who asks.

So much of the data that we accrue is increasingly more interconnected with
other people. I feel like that's where we run into trouble, because there is
no universal consensus around what's private and what isn't. We have
rudimentary laws protecting the smallest subset of data which the government
has decided should be considered private, but everything else is a value
judgement for individuals (and is part of the current internet company land-
grab).

I feel like his position is going to be harder and harder to maintain, as more
and more of the "personal" data he's okay with sharing includes other people's
data.

~~~
ZoFreX
> I can't even imagine about what privacy is going to look like in 20 years,
> or how society will adapt to deal with it.

You might like the book "The Light of Other Days"!

~~~
m0nastic
Thanks, I'll check it out! I don't generally like science fiction, but the
premise sounds interesting and I did like some of Clarke's other books.

------
Qantourisc
"So if someone is going through my private things, for example, and gets upset
about what they find, then that’s their problem, not mine!” Must agree...
until someone makes it your problem, by social standards, laws, or anything
else they can use to make your life harder.

~~~
JimboOmega
My thoughts almost exactly.

It's all fine until you wind up on some sort of watchlist because of something
"someone" found, and then travelling by air is a nightmare.

I'm not sure why, exactly, we decided that people we don't like but we can't
pin any crimes on are punished by having limited access to air travel, but
that's how it is!

On a related and more personal note, I once got in a large amount of trouble
for a slashdot post. The company I worked for found a post I wrote when I
wasn't an employee discussing social engineering attacks on building
security(not theirs, mind you, but general ones). This led to some very tense
discussions where I was accused of being a hacker, not caring about security,
and plenty of other things. My personal (though public) livejournal came to
the discussion, too. It was to the point where, if they tried to haul me in
again, I would have requested an attorney.

It ultimately blew over and was recognized for what it was; Corporate Security
trying to justify the money they spent on data mining. But it was a very tense
period.

After that incident I keep things a lot less public.

~~~
Peaker
If finding a job isn't difficult for you, would you stay?

I wouldn't stay for a company that shows such contempt for its employees and
such incompetent waste of everybody's time.

------
samstave
> __ _" I was surprised it was all meaningless to me. These pages meant the
> world to her, but to me they meant no more than any non-secret conversation
> we’d ever had. It was the same stuff that we all think._ __"

Uh - yeah this is completely naive. Here is why; the informatin is meaningless
to you ___only if you are not looking to manipulate, exploit, blackmail or
have the upper hand of the person holding the secrets_ __.

This is why the dragnet is insidious. Because it may be insignificant to the
rural farmer; but valuable aagainst the urban lawyer seeking office, the corp
exec or other heeled/monied power wielders...

~~~
Lagged2Death
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will
find something in them which will hang him.

\-- _Often attributed to Cardinal Richelieu_

~~~
tedunangst
That quote doesn't really work for me, because it seems to be assuming that no
other lines are available to provide context.

Or rather, instead of meaning "everybody is guilty of something", I interpret
the message as warning about the dangers of relying on a quote taken out of
context.

~~~
Lagged2Death
_...instead of meaning "everybody is guilty of something", I interpret the
message as warning about the dangers of relying on a quote taken out of
context._

It's not a concerned person's warning, it's a gloating celebration of
ruthlessness, of power, and of the inconsequentiality of facts. It's bragging.

If your every statement is recorded, it will be possible to find something in
that record to make trouble for you, should powerful parties feel the need.
"Guilt" and "innocence" are, in this context, meaningless abstractions.

------
andrewfong
"We got two ciders and she patiently waited while I spent 20 minutes reading
through it. Pages filled with words about processing family drama, formulating
goals, plans for life changes, romantic details, lists of regrets,
contemplations, etc."

"I was surprised it was all meaningless to me. These pages meant the world to
her, but to me they meant no more than any non-secret conversation we’d ever
had. It was the same stuff that we all think."

The key here is "meaningless _to me_ ". It's obviously meaningful to her. And
it would also be meaningful to her family, or romantic partners, or a
potential employer, etc.

Privacy is contextual. I often joke that it wouldn't bother me personally if
Google or the NSA poked around my e-mail. But it would bother me a lot if my
mom did.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Yes it's a silly, flippant response by the OP. What if sivers.org posted her
diaries for HackerNews to read?

I bet you could find people for which her diaries would not be "meaningless"
and could make this person not feel happy about that information being known
here. Here, we can make someone like Nelson Mandela seem horrible, just think
how would we could make this women feel.

You don't have to get out dystopian examples of why this view is _basically
stupid_. It doesn't stand up to common sense.

------
lukeqsee
When you live in a society where anything you do or say (or accidentally
appear to have said or did) will be held against you, privacy matters. It
matters so much you don't log-in to online messaging services because you're
wary of SSL MitM attacks or send non-encrypted emails from that network or do
a litany of other "normal" things. It definitely means you aren't 100% open
like Sivers is suggesting.

How do I know this? I live in a very small, strict university setting that
presents a picture of the potential of a future of "complete transparency".
Even the hint of "lawbreaking" (i.e., rule-breaking) can land you in serious
trouble. Trust me, I take privacy very seriously. Not because I have something
to hide, but because I have everything (in the short-term) to lose.

I know what I've said is mostly anecdotal due to the implicit nature of
choosing to be in this environment; however, were this environment the world
at large, I believe my anecdote would be normative.

~~~
PeterisP
It's also related the other way - if everything you do or say is public, it
won't be held against you. Noone cares about your sexual kinks or comic
tastes, if everyone knows about the even weirder issues of the president and
all the congressmen.

~~~
tbrownaw
Except that your parents' ultra-conservative church tells them what you're
doing is wrong. And while your parents don't care if the politicians all go to
hell, they definitely care if _you_ do. Which means there's far less annoying
family drama if you just keep it quiet.

------
natch
Is Sivers really suggesting that just because she was OK with him reading the
diary, she would be OK with _anyone_ reading it? That seems like a highly
naive assumption.

And seriously, this is your entire project list? "Everything is listed..." As
a programmer and someone who sees how other programmers work, I am not buying
it.

Please don't lecture us on secrets with weak false examples. It comes off as
disingenuous.

~~~
acuozzo
> And seriously, this is your entire project list?

I wish my list would grow past 0 items.

I honestly have no itches to scratch.

~~~
nrivadeneira
> I wish my list would grow past 0 items.

> I honestly have no itches to scratch.

Looks like you do have an itch to scratch...though I can't think of any good
solutions to wishing for more projects.

------
IvyMike
One of my favorite Dilbert strips is Asok asking "Why is this document stamped
CONFIDENTIAL? If I spent my entire life trying, I would not be able to find
anyone who cared to read it."

~~~
sokoloff
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-09-29/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-09-29/)

------
ChuckMcM
It makes for an interesting thought about what is intrinsically valuable
versus what isn't.

The diary is 'non-intrinsic' because he doesn't have the context in which the
information makes sense. A series of usernames and passwords is secret because
it is self referentially useful.

Stuff in the first category can become useful over time (the Mosaic effect)
when someone suddenly lashes out about something and that connects the context
of a series of family dramas. Stuff in the latter category is useful right
away.

Its useful to think about both cases. (oh and I really enjoyed reading through
the ideas, they are fun) I should put my list up somewhere as well.

------
eCa
The important part missing here is that it must be a _choice_. If I want my
location data public I can make it public. If I want my super-secret diary
read by anyone I can post it on Tumblr.

But if I don't want to no-one should judge me for making that choice. And I
should not judge those that choose differently.

------
throwaway_yy2Di
There's an old joke: so this guy is trying to get rid of an ugly old sofa, he
puts it out on the curb with the sign "free sofa!". Days pass; no luck. So he
puts up a new sign saying "sofa: $50, call ###-####" and it's gone in ten
minutes.

~~~
caf
That's not a joke, if I want to get rid of a piece of old furniture on the
footpath I'll always put a $5 sign on it.

~~~
dangayle
Works wonders with largish appliances like washers or refrigerators. Free?
Must be broken. $10? Must still work.

~~~
dredmorbius
That's one of the paradoxes of pricing: price itself is inferred to be an
indicator of quality, so "free" is often perceived as "lower quality".

While this can be true, it isn't entirely reliable.

------
ilaksh
This person realized that with the NSA and however many other agencies spying
on us, and other issues, we may not effectively have any real privacy anymore,
and therefore he has come up with one or more rationalizations for why this is
OK.

This is probably a common thing. Seems a bit similar to Stockholm syndrome.
Anyway its probably an automatic self-defense mechanism.

The scary part is that a significant portion of the population is probably
also doing a similar sort of rationalization now.

People will eventually accept any circumstance that they can't change, unless
it is going to kill them. Actually, even if it _will_ kill them. In fact, our
inevitable death is one aspect of life that people will often rationalize in
the most determined way.

We can change this circumstance though. We can have privacy, even in the
digital age. Don't give up your natural rights so easily.

------
PhasmaFelis
My favorite thing on GameFAQs is the angry verbiage at the end of every FAQ
promising dire legal consequences should anyone attempt to appropriate and
profit from their work. Do you really think anyone anywhere is going to _pay_
for your Donkey Kong Country strategy guide?

If I ever write a game FAQ, it's going to end with "if you figure out a way to
make a profit off of this, you are legally required to let me know how you did
it so I can congratulate you."

~~~
jaggederest
That's actually a serious concern. There are lots of spammy sites that rip
gamefaqs content and throw up really terrible advertising.

That said those disclaimers offer no more power than a faq without a
disclaimer.

------
kinkora
It is meaningless to you because you have no use for that information which is
probably why she shared the "super super secret" diary with you. In terms of
your relationship with your friend, you present a harmless consumer of that
information.

As a though process, lets replace "you" with:

a) her employers, colleagues, etc

b) any of her family members that she talked about

c) her significant other, partner, etc.

Now, do you think she will let these people read her diary? Do you see how
dangerous these "secrets" are if these parties get their hands on it?

IMO there are always valid or invalid reasons for keeping secrets (privacy is
actually the real topic here) but the real question is whom are you keeping
this secret from.

------
visakanv
My interpretation of Derek's point: "A lot of us keep things secret for the
sake of keeping them secret without particularly evaluating whether the
secrecy serves any purpose. On average, this means that there are things that
are secret that shouldn't necessarily be. We might all be better off if we
were a little more willing to share things that might not actually need to be
secret."

Not everything needs to be secret != everything should be public

His post is written to describe his personal journey about his personal
attitude towards his own work. I think a lot of people are misinterpreting him
to be saying something broader and blunter than he actually is.

~~~
sivers
Thank you Visakan. You got it, and others didn't.

A major challenge in communication is to not be misunderstood. I must not have
been clear enough. I never said anywhere that everything should be public.
Only that I decided my code and ideas didn't need to be secret.

I think maybe commenters here are reacting more to other commenters, instead
of the actual article, now.

~~~
grey-area
I went and read the article, and I think it's obvious in retrospect why your
point about your code is being ignored, and not just by people who haven't
read the article. You start with this premise, which you appear to agree with:

 _I’m not worried about someone finding out my secrets, because secrets are
just facts, right?_

and go on to an example of a diary, one of the most personal artefacts we
have, and imply that sharing it all with anyone who asks (as per the above
statement) is absolutely fine. The implication of the above statement is that
all secrets are pointless, including personal ones. In the context of a
society in which governments and corporations are spying on every
communication and looking for ways to justify it, this attitude is actively
damaging and is an after-the-fact justification of that spying.

I think many people would agree with you that opening up your private code
repos is a worthy thing to do, and it's certainly an idea worthy of
discussion, with pros and cons (as you rightly point out, to do with
maintenance and the public commitment more than anything else). The mistake in
this article is relating that to personal privacy, and implying that secrets
are just facts is a statement worthy of consideration.

If secrets are _just facts_ and cannot hurt you, there is no point in keeping
_anything_ secret at all. Unfortunately other people in the world are quite
capable of twisting the most mundane facts about your life (like your location
at every moment, your sexual preferences, whatever), and using them to destroy
your life, either because of their prejudices, or because of those of society
at large. Witness politicians brought down because of some affair, or their
private sex life - we don't know how many of those are leaked by our 'security
services' for political gain but they certainly have done that in the past.
No-one deserves that much power over others, and because of the asymmetry of
power in our society, private information is far more useful to some people
than others.

Perhaps that is not what you intended to imply, but that is the logical
conclusion of the statement and your interpretation of it, and that's why
people are reacting so strongly to it.

------
Procrastes
I've often said that the best way to get a quick competitive advantage against
our rivals would be to send them our source.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Ok, send me your source.

------
enraged_camel
No one cares about other people's family drama. But if Valerie led a secret
life as a private escort or ran a sex-cam operation from her bedroom to make
ends meet, I doubt she would be OK with Derek reading about them.

------
YuriNiyazov
When you open to the public the contents of your instance of Beekeep and Peeps
databases, then you will have a point.

~~~
Jtsummers
FTA: I still believe in privacy. It’s just a matter of questioning which
things need to be private, and which things really don’t.

Doesn't this address your attempt at a point? He has some things which he
realized he kept private for no reason so he opened them up. The content of
peeps is, in fact, not his to share (if I gave you my phone # to contact me, I
would not consider it reasonable, without foreknowledge, for you to dump it
into a public DB).

------
clarkm
You should've asked her if you could scan it, OCR it, and upload it to a
publicly available, web-crawlable, SEO-optimized website where it would be
scooped up and stored on archive.org for all eternity.

------
hosh
This was indeed the conclusion I came to as well though my journey through
there was a lot more convoluted.

And then, there are things like: [http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-
me/charlotte-laws-hunte...](http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/charlotte-
laws-hunter-moore-erin-brockovich-revenge-porn)

------
zobzu
Now imagine that instead of her boyfriend, someone who hates her finds the
diary. Yeah.

You're stupid. That's not a secret tho - it's just a fact. I'd happily sugar-
coat it but I'm tired of feeling like we're degrading our minds since internet
came around with fast paced sensationalistic crap.

------
mmanfrin
Derek -- what are your credit card numbers and SSN? No reason to keep those
private!

------
sidgup
It is only meaningless to others until they choose to abuse it and use it to
put you at a disadvantage. That is when this argument fails.

Yes my code is probably useless to others and so are my super-super secret
diaries. However, it is only a matter of time that a smart con-man will
connect the dots to ruin my life - my relationships, steal my identity etc.

"Going through my stuff... if they become upset, its their problem, not
mine!". Right, until I realize that going through that stuff actually made
them happy instead because of how they could use it to profit themselves.

------
rejschaap
I think the diary analogy is great, but the author fails to explore it
properly. It ignores aspects such as self-awareness, self-consciousness and
self-censorship. Notice a lot of 'self's in the previous sentence? A diary is
a very personal thing. When you are writing in your diary you poor your heart
out about everything and anything. You can do this because you are the only
person who will ever read this stuff. Imagine writing something that other
people will read, like your mom (anything sex-related is out of the question),
your colleagues (better not say your boss is a total jerk), your friends
(don't mention that secret Anne told you about Peter, or you wlll lose 2
friends) or your government (no wait, they already know everything anyway).

Similar things happen when you are writing code for yourself and yourself
only. When I write code for my own pleasure. I don't care so much about
documentation, clarity, robustness, polish, etc. Yes, I am a bad, bad person.
Anyway, compare writing code for yourself with code you share with friends
(generally supportive, but add some polish and fix that hack so they don't
think you're a complete idiot), colleagues (semi-critical yet supportive,
maybe try to score some bonus points using a FactorySingletonVisitorBean) or
hackerne.ws (super-critical, probably rewrite it in the language-du-jour
first, prepare to be burned at the stake anyway).

------
datakid
This is such bullshit - poorly formulated hippy dribble.

If he was really interested in such ideas, he would know and use
GPL/AGPL/MIT/Apache licences already for his code, and CC for his writings.

Instead he makes everyone hippy dippy stupid about secrecy and privacy. It
might all be fine when you are rich, cis-straight and white, but a single non
friendly idea and you are a threat to the state.

People that cheapen our privacy and secrecy rights shouldn't be allowed this
much airtime.

Ridiculous. -1

~~~
TwiztidK
This is honestly the most worthless comment I have ever seen on HN. Besides ad
hominem, there is literally nothing here other than a giant pile of
conspiracy.

~~~
datakid
So samstave put it better, but essentially my argument isn't ad hominem, it's
attacking the notion that YOUR secrets mean nothing to ME, which can be
generalised to ANYONE's secrets mean nothing to ANYONE. Which is obviously
untrue.

Yet that is the conclusion he comes to.

The other possible conclusion, as I noted, is that he has previously been
unaware of Free/Open Source and Creative Commons based licenses. In which case
he needs not talk on secrets but rather on licensing.

~~~
chc
You seem to have changed what he said into a bizarre absolute. The point of
Derek's post is that many of us unnecessarily keep many things secret for no
rational reason at all. He's just suggesting that we ask ourselves, "Why is
this secret?" Because a lot of the time, we're just needlessly building paper
walls around our insecurities rather than keeping important secrets.

And given that Derek has code licensed under MIT, your conclusion that he was
unaware of that license is obviously incorrect.

------
vubuntu
Flawed argument by the poster...

>> "Pages filled with words about processing family drama, formulating goals,
plans for life changes, romantic details, lists of regrets, contemplations,
etc"

C'mon, those are her super super private secrets? Thats ridiculous. 'romantic
details' may be a little bit...

Thats why she says "So if someone is going through my private things, for
example, and gets upset about what they find, then that’s their problem, not
mine!”"

But things people like to keep really secret (and not coyly secret) and worry
about others finding out, are those that would upset themselves (and not the
readers) if they get discovered. These would be things that one is ashamed of,
that one is afraid of being discovered, that if known to others will result in
loss of respect/love/admiration/consolation etc that they are currently
receiving from others. Or those if discovered by the wrong person can leave
one vulnerable to exploitation/blackmail etc. Any other type of secrets are
just silly and overblown.

------
kgen
This is an interesting point, I think the tendency of most people who are
creative/idea types (myself included) are kind of an over thinking of their
own ideas, like they are somehow more important and prone to "theft", but the
more I work on my own stuff, and the more I do on in open source, the less and
less I think that’s the case.

Like when I was working on Capsulr
([http://capsulr.com/](http://capsulr.com/), shameless plug), I worried about
showing people stuff too early, until I just realized that most people
probably wouldn’t even see the site, or if they did, most wouldn't even see
the product the same way that I see it evolving. It’s kind of helped me to
start documenting my work, and I find that sharing notes publicly (just with
myself) is a load of pressure off my shoulders and is worth the tiny
possibility that someone might take it and run with it.

------
shurcooL
I've basically made the same realization a few years ago and decided to stop
going through the trouble of keeping my personal code private.

It's been great so far. I get all the benefits (like godoc.org providing docs
for my code, free github repos, easy to share links with people, etc.) and
none of the disadvantages.

It's a personal choice, and not for everyone. But it just makes life so much
easier. In fact, I'm trying to reduce the number of things that I'm forced to
keep private because they're considered to be "security questions".

On theft of ideas:
[https://twitter.com/shurcooL/status/266294572949327872](https://twitter.com/shurcooL/status/266294572949327872)

------
ryanklee
How about this: No one can predict the import of what's recorded NOW. Not the
person who records it, not the person who observes it, not the person who
comes upon it 5 minutes, 5 years, 5 decades later.

Keeping your material projections close to the vest, keeping them out, as far
as possible, from the unpredictable hands of the future is just good sense.

The times are changing. We have very little grasp on how what we record now -
private, public, or otherwise (?) - will impact us in the future.

There's a virtue in openness, to be sure. But maintaining privacy is no bad
thing. No matter what the talking walnut says.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd7z5CY4BU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd7z5CY4BU)

------
d0m
Hopefully he removed all private keys from the earliest commit before pushing
them publicly ;-)

------
jmtame
Great idea. Here's mine:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pn5vL3TY3VKr3WyZrKBpWnGW...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pn5vL3TY3VKr3WyZrKBpWnGW_zYi9AOA1b8c5NBiDFg/edit?usp=sharing)

~~~
Nicholas_C
I have a Google doc with the same exact title of "Ideas." Yours is far more
extensive though.

~~~
jmtame
I've had this going for a year or two now. It's hard to come up with ideas
when you want them, and they seem to come to you quickly when you don't need
them or once you've started paying attention to problems. By no means is my
list complete or good, but I've found it helpful to write them down otherwise
I'll forget them.

------
rmc
_“I’m not worried about someone finding out my secrets, because secrets are
just facts, right? So if someone is going through my private things, for
example, and gets upset about what they find, then that’s their problem, not
mine!”_

Sure, it's their problem. But they might have power over you. If some
intolerant family members discover you're gay, you might get kicked out of the
house. If parents discover their child is trans, they might try to "beat it
out of them". An abusive husband might find where his wife has run off to and
"finish the job".

But, hey, they're problem! right?

------
droopybuns
This is bullshit naievete.

Move the clock back 40 years on the romance section. Imagine it references
homosexuality, and ask yourself if the author's theme of "what's the big deal"
is appropriate.

OP is under the mistaken belief that everyone else shares their morals and
mores. They have plenty of time to be rudely defenstrated.

This is the danger of confusing exhibitionism with free-spiritedness.

It is a first-principle error to devalue privacy. OP should be ashamed of
themselves. They need to read up on humanity's very short history of tolerance
for true individualism. OP should read up on Alan Turing for fuck's sake.

Fuck this fool.

~~~
PeterisP
"Keeping it a secret" is a non-solution that killed Alan Turing.

Telling the intolerants to suck it up, in particular by openly leaving the
closet, was the solution that worked to solve the problem.

------
sanderjd
I think you could also ask the opposite question about pretty much anything -
why was this public? And I think the answer is the same - because I wanted it
that way. Why should it need to be justified either way? If I want to keep
something secret for a reason or by default or just on a whim, I should be
able to, and if I want to make something public, I should be able to do that
too. I don't think one choice is any better than the other as a default.

------
nadam
Regarding source code in a business context the question is: What is your
competitive advantage? Well, as an experienced software developer who is not
nearly as experienced in other things, sometimes my _only_ chance to have
competitive advantage is private source code. You may argue that I do not even
have that competitive advantage, but then why bother competing in any market
at all?

------
garthdog
Just because privacy is worthless to you does not means it's not of value to
me. Throw away your privacy but please don't contribute to the meme that
privacy is disposable.

Lots of people have secrets that are harmless but can destroy them if they end
up in the wrong hands, e.g. homosexuality within a conservative community.

------
001sky
Discretion and secrecy are related but not interchangible concepts. Is this
author really suggesting discretion be non-existent? That opportunistic
manipulation has never occurred? The need for NDAs has never once made sense?
What it is disporportionately valuable to you, is more costly to you, once
taken away, too.

------
linux_devil
With respect to ideas in start-up phase , I think if it's your idea , you will
pursue it more passionately as compared to others . Idea can struck to anyone
, wonder out of billions of people around how many are pursuing similar ideas
? It's the one who do it in right way and right time makes it big.

------
robobro
Wonderful! Seems to be public domain, too?

~~~
chc
It's not public domain — he hasn't put in a license at all. I'm sure he'll
correct the oversight sooner or later. Right now it looks like he just
switched the private flag on his existing repos.

------
auggierose
I am not sure why an article goes to Nr. 1 that has a made up table full of
silly unjustified numbers in it.

------
detcader
If you have nothing about your personal life you want to hide, I think you're
pretty boring

------
dinkumthinkum
I think this is just la la land jibber jabber. You all can pretend privacy is
irrelevant and you don't care if everyone knows everything about you because
it is "meaningless" or whatever ...

But unlike some on HN, I will continue to live in the real world.

------
mathattack
This is consistent with what I see about supposed corporate secrets, and
source code. What's on paper matters less than the people behind it, their
interest and motivation, and how creating the "secrets" changed them.

------
headgasket
overused but appropriate.

There are 2 rules to success:

rule 1: Never tell everything you know.

edit: read a bit about Derek Sivers, this guy is either the counter example or
his rule no2 is really worth knowing. Almost all my best reads of the past 10
years are on his book list.

He sold his company to a perpetual charitable trust which then sold it to a
third party, shielding himself and saving a bundle in capital gains tax and
providing residual for his whole life + supports his cause(music education).
Kudos Derek. I'll be reading the books on your list; maybe to catch a glimpse
of your rule no2? :-)

Cheers,

------
mnw21cam
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good,
you'll have to ram them down people's throats. -- Howard Aiken

------
eplanit
Interesting how the author, and the woman who's the subject of his anecdote
(and several here), conflate and confuse privacy with secrecy.

------
dutchbrit
She probably would of said no, if there was any negativity about you in there.

You should of asked what her pincode was for her ATM card...

------
tillinghast
All I want is your GitHub password.

------
benched
About half of my friends post every move they make throughout the day, photo-
illustrated, to Facebook. They also have numerous short conversations with
their friends, that are clearly just between the two of them and would
normally be of no interest to anybody else. It's the equivalent of having
private conversations out loud in front of everyone each of them have ever met
in their lives.

I do not understand any of this behavior. I'm said to be a 'private person.'
But it's clear to me that the zeitgeist is definitely _not_ on my side here. I
also wonder what all of this will be like in 20 years, given that Facebook has
only been in widespread use for an utterly paltry 5 years.

