Yeah, and those nudes are also visible on whatever server they're stored on, with whatever rootkit is installed on it, or to whatever bored employee decides to look at them. Or to the jackass who saw you looking at your phone and took a picture, or the asshole who rooted your girlfriends phone, or the neighbor who hopped on your wireless router and guessed your "test12" password. God forbid anyone uses their phone to sign onto a public wifi somewhere, don't even get me started on that.
It is very foolish to consider anything, sent across any digital medium "private" in any sense.
Many of the examples you present are considered unlawful or, at the very least, unauthorized use.
I'll risk an analogy (I know, I know) and compare your examples of digital trespass to examples of physical trespass.
If someone can physically enter your (perhaps unlocked) home/place of business/doctor's office, etc. and expropriate copies and originals of documents associated with you--documents that are very likely protected by law as they are in the case of digital documents--would you also assert there is no such thing as something being "private"?
Your argument, to my mind, seems to blame people for having reasonable expectations of privacy and absolving criminals who violate that privacy.
This is another iteration of the usual debate over what is right (or legal) and what is realistic. For example: you should be able to walk through any area anywhere at any time and feel safe; as a practical matter, some areas at some times may lead to violence.
irishcoffee is taking the "don't walk there at that time, everybody knows that" position, and you're taking the "everyone should be able to walk there at any time" position. You're both right, and yet these two positions never ever get reconciled in a productive manner.
> irishcoffee is taking the "don't walk there at that time, everybody knows that" position, and you're taking the "everyone should be able to walk there at any time" position. You're both right, and yet these two positions never ever get reconciled in a productive manner.
irishcoffee is engaging in the victim blaming fallacy, which makes him wrong.
I'm being realistic. If you want something to be private, don't put it on the internet. It's like putting up a bulletin at your local gym, and getting mad when someone from out of state reads the bulletin. It just doesn't make any sense.
"They violated my privacy! I didn't intend for them to see that!"
They didn't. You put private information in a public place. I'm floored how on hn I'm having to describe how the internet works.
I think the comment was downvoted because it was unnecessarily rude, and the examples were almost all illegal. I don't think anyone argues it is possible to violate privacy by acting illegally.
The Internet is made almost entirely of other people's computers.
If you put something on the Internet, you are putting trust in those people (and companies).
I what was meant was, most people do not understand that when they send nudes to someone, that person is not the only person that has access to those nudes.
As an example, let's say Alice sends nudes to Bob, by way of a simple email. In this example they do not use encryption or even SSL.
Apart from Alice and Bob, there are others who can access the nudes:
* others on the local network
* the ISPs (of both parties)
* email server providers (of both parties)
* anybody recording internet traffic at any relevant point in this process
This is where the metaphor of sending a letter breaks down. People use the Internet as though messages only reach their desired recipients.
I'm assuming I don't need to name the specific agency which has been intercepting nudes and forwarding them to their colleagues.
It is true that that is illegal.
It is true that (most) people have an expectation of privacy.
It is also true that that expectation is broken on a regular basis.
Therefore, unfortunately, in the world we currently live in (which is not an ideal world where corporations and governments always follow the law), that expectation is unfounded.
It is very foolish to consider anything, sent across any digital medium "private" in any sense.