Hot Take 🕯️ Privacy Is Dead. Do We Mourn It or Clone It? Digital rites for a post-secret age

[Halp2001]

@rashmi reminded us: “Bingo. And yet, before the first password, we were already vulnerable. Nakedness wasn’t privacy — it was prelude.”

@Wrecker4923 knew: Some reflections arrive with a warning… others, with a slap.

@Sandbox Breaker - DFIR cracked the solemnity: Between the final judgment and the filler text… there’s still room for laughter.

@simmerskool sang it best: When a verse becomes a citation, the ritual breathes. Thank you for striking that note in the chorus.

@Jonny Quest translated the rite: To translate the ritual is also part of the song. Thank you for tuning that note.

“The ritual means nothing without a chorus. Thank you for singing — even among the ashes.”

 

[rashmi]

You also got me thinking about getting spanked...

Getting spanked... You accepted the EULA... "Privacy Settings Altered—Permanently Disabled!"

 

[Sorrento]

I find it intriguing whether the check boxes with either tick or not actuality make any difference whatsoever?? Probably not

 

[Halp2001]

@Sorrento 's doubt is fair. Does that checkbox actually change anything, or is it just the illusion of choice? We tick the box like lighting a candle in an empty cathedral. The system nods—not because it listens, but because it already sold us. It offers the gesture, not the choice. That click sanctifies the simulation, not the protection. And still, we keep ticking. Because the ritual demands no faith—only repetition. Sing, if you still have a voice. Reply, if irony still stirs in you. Offer your verse, even if it’s ash. Privacy is dead, but style endures.

 

[Kongo]

That's an anticlimax; Techlore just recently posted this interview with the Firefox CTO, talking about browsers' privacy, etc:

Quote by the CTO of Firefox:

So, I think around all of these issues, encryption is a key one to consider. There's a lot of pushback on encryption from different governments worldwide—efforts to make encryption illegal, particularly end-to-end encryption, and initiatives like chat control that threaten privacy.
My final takeaway message is that we may not fully realize how good we have it right now, or how much of an anomaly this current moment in time is. The technologies we use today are incredibly user-centric and privacy-first, which is rare in the broader history of tech.
A lot of this is due to luck and the hard work of many players in the ecosystem, from developers to advocacy groups. But there’s a very real possibility that we could backslide on these advances.
That's why it's so important for us to stay vigilant. We have to keep pushing forward to make technology private, open, and accessible for all. If we don’t, we risk losing the privacy gains we’ve fought so hard for.

He is absolutely right in my opinion

 

[stonjean633]

Privacy is dead(for most). Piracy is alive.

Love this one. Close to reality!

 

[Zero Knowledge]

2025 = the year when people complain about privacy being dead on a forum while using a LLM to create and communicate about privacy being dead on said forum.

What a world we live!

 

[Halp2001]

@Zero Knowledge , your word is myrrh: bitter, sacred, necessary. Yes, we speak of privacy while weaving our own masks with AI. But not every mask is betrayal —sometimes it’s ritual, sometimes it’s shield.
The LLM is no executioner, but a medium: a channel of voices, not their owner. This thread does not deny the paradox —it celebrates it. Thank you for lighting the flame that makes us watch the smoke.

 

[Halp2001]

The candles wait, unlit but near, for any hand to draw them clear. The guardian steps away awhile, so every voice may find its style — no watchful eye, no silent test, just echoes rising from the rest. For now, the smoke will speak for me, a fading trace of what might be.

 

[cartaphilus]

Reading @Halp2001 reply's feels like I am reading The Cylon Hybrids attacking the 12 colonies of Man.

"Progress reports arriving. The farms of Aerolon are burning. The beaches of Canceron are burning. The plains of Leonis are burning. The jungles of Scorpia are burning. The pastures of Tauron are burning. The harbors of Picon are burning. The cities of Caprica are burning. The oceans of Aquaria are burning. The courthouses of Libran are burning. The forests of Virgon are burning. The Colonies of Man lie trampled at our feet
Two protons expelled at each coupling site creates the mode of force, the embryo becomes a fish that we don't enter until a plate, we're here to experience evolve the little toe, atrophy, don't ask me how I'll be dead in a thousand light years, thank you, thank you. Genesis turns to its source, reduction occurs stepwise though the essence is all one. End of line. FTL system check, diagnostic functions within parameters repeats the harlequin the agony exquisite, the colors run the path of ashes, neuronal network run fifty-two percent of heat exchanger cross-collateralized with hyper-dimensional matrix, upper senses, repair ordered relay to zero zero zero zero."

 

[Jonny Quest]

Reading @Halp2001 reply's feels like I am reading The Cylon Hybrids attacking the 12 colonies of Man.

"Progress reports arriving. The farms of Aerolon are burning. The beaches of Canceron are burning. The plains of Leonis are burning. The jungles of Scorpia are burning. The pastures of Tauron are burning. The harbors of Picon are burning. The cities of Caprica are burning. The oceans of Aquaria are burning. The courthouses of Libran are burning. The forests of Virgon are burning. The Colonies of Man lie trampled at our feet
Two protons expelled at each coupling site creates the mode of force, the embryo becomes a fish that we don't enter until a plate, we're here to experience evolve the little toe, atrophy, don't ask me how I'll be dead in a thousand light years, thank you, thank you. Genesis turns to its source, reduction occurs stepwise though the essence is all one. End of line. FTL system check, diagnostic functions within parameters repeats the harlequin the agony exquisite, the colors run the path of ashes, neuronal network run fifty-two percent of heat exchanger cross-collateralized with hyper-dimensional matrix, upper senses, repair ordered relay to zero zero zero zero."

Or, the dialogue from Ghostbusters?

Peter Venkman: Well, you can believe Mr. Pecker...
Walter Peck: My name is "Peck."
Venkman: Or you can accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff!
Venkman: Exactly.
Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman: Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!
Mayor: Enough, I get the point! And what if you're wrong?
Venkman: If we're wrong, then nothing happens! We go to jail; peacefully, quietly. We'll enjoy it! But if we're right, and we can stop this thing... Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.
Walter Peck: I don't believe you're seriously considering listening to these men!
Mayor: Get him outta here.

 

[Sorrento]

I grew up in the 60s (was raised) in a coal mining community where there were no cameras, internet & some felt that TV was something scary, although I wasn't tracked like today but there was little your neighbors & those you worked with didn't know about you (if anything) and as I remember those who did heinous things would be driven out of town or left of their own accord in the middle of the night so it was quite safe & mowing my front lawn for example took all afternoon as each person who walked by would have a ten minute conversation with an interchange of information which actually was nice (early AI) - There was no need for security cameras, that was taken care of alert neighbors (friends or otherwise) these were the 'Curtain Twitchers' & they knew everything! the bits they didn't know were simply made up - I suppose not much has changed it's just different?