@cishumanorg Taking just one point from your essay: even if we get away from the various issues of self-hosting email, which are considerable of themselves, self-hosting email buys you very little by way of privacy for the reasons Benjamin Mako Hill spelled out a decade ago in "Google Has Most of My Email Because It Has All of Yours":

https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours

On the individual-initiative vs. collective action side: Yes, there absolutely have been people who've done much to change the course of history, but in virtually all cases they've done so by harnessing the efforts of others. The most notable 20th century examples are probably the home-rule and civil rights efforts of Mahatma Gandhi (I've just read his collected essays) and of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Libertarian wing of the free software / open source movement has been business-friendly, but not especially effective in advocacy. RMS has been crusading since the mid-1980s, and accomplished much. But nearly three decades after I first installed Linux myself, it remains a single-digit (though growing) share of the desktop market (largely because the latter is shrinking compared to mobile, if not absolutely), and where Linux is at the core of mobile operating systems, it is as part of what is very much the problem and not the solution (Android).

Again:

• The interrelatedness of data flows means that your own personal actions have little impact on the degree of your surveillance. Cf. BMH again.
• Things That Do Not Work (for $500, Alex) tend to still not work when by working them harder.
• Collective action through legislation, lawsuits, consumer pressure, and the like --- none of which are either "market forces" or "individual initiative" --- are the rare spot of successes to date (some privacy and anti-surveillance initiatives, though very piecemeal).

I've stood where you stand and said what you've said. I learned from that mistake.

I'm not saying "don't use Free Software", anything but. DO make maximal use of it wherever possible and feasible. But be under no illusions that this is itself sufficient, or even necessary, for the changes which are ultimately required.

(There's a lot more on #privacy, #surveillance, #TargetedManipulation, #censorship, #propaganda, and #DataAutonomy / #InformationAutonomy elsewhere in my writings here, you're welcome to search my profile under those hashtags.)

Thoughts on Schluss, or why your anti-surveillance idea won't work.

Schluss is apparently a proposed technical solution to loss of privacy on the Internet. Lacking an equivalent to the "why your anti-spam idea won't work" checklist, I Wrote a Thing at HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=34141950

Too long to include the footnotes in the same post, hence:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34141955

Schluss's proposal: "What does it mean for users to be in full control over their data" https://schluss.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/What-does-it-mean-users-in-full-control-over-their-data-CONCEPT.pdf (PDF)

#privacy #SchlussOrg #WhyItWontWork #SurveillanceCapitalism #SurveillanceState #faang #DataAutonomy #InformationAutonomy

@openrisk Thanks, that's one of the references I'd found earlier.

Another possible interpretation I'd had was at a personal level of having sovereignty over one's own data.

I've discussed that under a few terms, #AutonomyOfInformation #InformationAutonomy #CommunicationsAutonomy and #AutonomousCommunication (I keep using different terms and have trouble settling on one).

It mixes a set of factors, mostly in opposition to the monopoly elements of surveillance, censorship, propaganda, and manipulation. Those include:

• Privacy
• Freedom of, and from, association.
• Right to free speech.
• Right to accurate information
• Freedom from messaging. Effectively a "right to block".

Or as I'd put it in a comment to the link here:

• The right to speak, create, record, edit, modify, publish, transmit, distribute, or delete. Corresponds largely to current senses of “freedom of speech”.
• The right to withold or not divulge information, most commonly enccountered now as a “right to remain silent” in legal proceedings, and of confidentiality in records, but here a general right to privacy.
• The right to disclose only specific information in specific contexts or to specific parties: a right to confidentiality.
• The right to choose with whom, where, when, and how to interact — a right to free association.
• The right to remain unobserved and undisturbed; rights to privacy and solitude — freedom from association.
• The right to receive, or deny receipt of documents and, signals… A freedom to or from media or intrusion.
• The right to request, or transform, transmissions or documents in forms or formats most preferred to the recipent. Right of translation.
• The right to truth, accuracy, integrity, and completeness in documents and signals.
• The right to technical means of assuring privacy, confidentiality, and/or integrity. Rights to cryptographic encryption and/or authentication.
• The right to technical means of repudiation. Invalidation of authentication after a sufficient time period.

https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/622677903778013902fd002590d8e506

I'm looking for a set of corresponding antonyms. Some I have, some I don't.

"???" indicates uncertain or additional terms may be (better) suited.

Additions / modifications / criticisms sought.

• surveillance :: privacy
• censorship :: free speech ???
• manipulation :: autonomy ???
• distraction :: focus
• overload :: boundaries | limits | disconnect | unplugging ???
• fraud :: truth | trustworthiness ???
• search :: ???
• ??? :: encryption
• gatekeeper :: ???
• amplification :: filtering ???
• narrative control :: narrative choice
• agenda control :: agenda choice

Boosts appreciated.

#Privacy #Surveillance #Information #Monopoly #InformationAutonomy #AutonomyOfInformation