> If a cop sells you oregano and you think it's marijuana [...]
It wasn't a cop, but I recall a case some years back when someone sold something as cocaine when it wasn't. Among other things, he went down for fraud.
Let's decompose "our" data just a bit: data that we ourselves intentionally create (e.g., pictures we take, documents we write) and the observations of others about our activities (e.g., server logs, transaction data). The former seems (!) straightforward to address, while the latter seems fraught. After all, if I own all data about my comings and goings, then so does a corrupt politician his. If we go too far in restricting the recording and sharing of our observations about others, however automatic they may be, we might accidentally spring a speech-stifling genie.
“This basic right warrants in this respect the capacity of the individual to determine in principle the disclosure and use of his/her personal data. Limitations to this informational self-determination are allowed only in case of overriding public interest.”
> After all, if I own all data about my comings and goings, then so does a corrupt politician his.
Surely laws can differentiate between private and public domain? I'm able to store private documents in my house without anyone knowing about it. So is Donald Trump. But he can't legally keep classified state documents there indefinitely. Perhaps if he was more discreet about it he wouldn't have been caught. But there's a clear distinction in the law either way.
> You can always just claim you don't like the person for other reasons.
That's true. It's also true that there are plenty of professional contexts where people have to work together regardless of their personal feelings toward each other. Sometimes lives depend on it.
> Step one: Identify the target and its flaws. There are always flaws.
> I learned that early in life. My first hack, the local library, a vulnerable FTP server in its AS/400. A far cry from the Android zero days I'm using to own the FBI standard-issue smartphone. The library was a test to see if I could even get into the system. I've since set greater goals.
> For instance, step two: Build malware and prepare an attack. At my fingertips, the zero day is wrapped in code like a Christmas present, then becomes an exploit, the programmatic expression of my will.
> You can't be pro-privacy and simultaneously believe ...
You gave information to LI, trusting that they wouldn't disclose it to people you wouldn't want to have it. Meanwhile, untrustworthy third parties were free to view that very same information. Blame LI for being casual with data about you. Blame yourself for trusting LI. Don't blame others for reading what they were free to read.
That's simply wrong -- this went well beyond HiQ could read.
HiQ's claim is that LI shouldn't be allowed to prevent HiQ from reading data that I had no intention or interest in sharing with HiQ, simply because LI makes it available to other LI users. It's wildly anti-privacy to claim that because I shared data with LI, and LI put some piece of it on the website, that HiQ has a right to read it and use it for arbitrary things.
I wonder how we would regard a person who could reliably perform such a feat whenever he pleased. Would we sterilize him, lest he give rise to a bunch of cute little privacy-invading monsters?
If the feat you mean is to perfectly recall disparaging information they see about people on web sites, we already have people with quite good memories. Irrelevance usually keeps them from bringing up the details of strangers' lives on a regular basis. If the juicy details are about friends or acquaintances, well, it's very easy to destroy one's social position - at least, with non-toxic people - by endlessly and tiresomely discussing other people's misfortunes or mistakes.
In most libraries in the US, browsing the collection--even taking books from the shelves to a table for a while to read and make notes--does not require any sort of identification whatsoever. It's only when we temporarily deprive the library of a copy of a work, i.e., borrow it, that we have to identify ourselves.
In public libraries sure, but not in many academic libraries or other private ones. Which is of course where the more interesting (not mass-produced) content is held.
It wasn't a cop, but I recall a case some years back when someone sold something as cocaine when it wasn't. Among other things, he went down for fraud.