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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3679 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 11, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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How concerned would you be if your home address was visible online if somebody googled your name? What about your age, SSN, tax return (naturally including your exact income), company involvement, real estate ownership, and every court case transcript and and police report you appear in?

In Sweden, that's all public information. If you looked up my name you'd find my address pretty much immediately, which you could drop into google maps to get a view directly into my kitchen. Police reports is slightly more difficult; you'll find websites stating things like "Foo Bar is present in 2 court cases! Pay $10 to see them!", and you'd have to send an email yourself to the court/police if you don't want to pay for that.

In addition, if you happen to work for the government, then all your work letters, emails, and instant messages become public information as soon as the case it concerns is closed. Tangentially this means that it's very easy for a Swedish person to be a major pain in the ass for government agencies, as you can anonymously keep bulk-requesting random emails and and the employees have to do time-consuming archive digging.

I find it interesting how people here really don't care about it. Hell, I don't really care, mostly because it's been like this my entire life and nothing bad has come out of it (yet? Knock on wood).

On a sidenote.

Im not a fan of how you can't just not have an online presence that gives away your contact details, city and background if you want to have any white collar job. Fuck LinkedIn.

As for Sweden, that sounds absurd. Your net worth being public would be a terrible thing for business or career changes. "Oh we saw your tax receipts, We know what we are offering for this role is more than what you make". Im sure there would be other ways to exploit this.

We know what we are offering for this role is more than what you make

I dunno, I figure that the base assumption would be that wages are set by supply and demand, and as such in the long run it'll all be counteracted by an equal general rise in wages; or in practical terms all employees competing with other people who are in the same boat so it doesn't matter.

Sure.

My broader point is that this setup would only work in a high trust low competition society. If someone is "psychopathic" enough to exploit all the freely available information, why wouldn't he?

Not exactly a surprise that a sea of regulations is needed to keep Moloch out. Europe is really in a regulatory loop, their regulations need more regulations.

Whats your name and where do you live?

Low effort and antagonistic.

Yes murdering someone is a little bit antagonistic.

Fwiw I took it as a joke.

Could you elaborate on the SSN aspect? In the US one's SSN number is treated as kind of the ultimate verification for things, someone having it is a Very Big Deal. Is it used the same way in Sweden? While I'd be concerned for my privacy with some of the other aspects, I feel like having SSN publicly available would effectively make it worthless.

IIRC almost all of Europe uses some kind of two-factor authentification that depends on a government issued ID at some level for nearly everything.

It isn't really used for verification, no. Just a unique personal identifier for communicating with e.g. government agencies and banks; but there we're basically always using 2-factor authentication on top (a certificate you e.g. install on your phone, plus a code) so it doesn't really matter if my ID gets out.

I find it interesting how people here really don't care about it. Hell, I don't really care, mostly because it's been like this my entire life and nothing bad has come out of it (yet? Knock on wood).

It is sign that Sweden is still very safe and comfortable country and all doommongering is premature.

When, for example, Latino American kidnapping gangs move here, people will fast reconsider their attitude to privacy.

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