Privacy vs Secrecy, The Differences and The Importance of Access Control

Introduction

Privacy and secrecy are not the same thing. Privacy is primarily about access control. In order for Steemit to be private the owner of an account must always be able to control who and what can access their sensitive information. When information is private it is not the intention that no one can ever access it, but more the intention is to apply a kind of deontic logic scheme which lays out the logic rule based permissions which determine who can access what, the circumstances, how they can access it, whether it's read only, whether it's shareable, etc.

What is secrecy?

Secrecy is an extreme form of privacy, in fact the most extreme form. While privacy can include secrets, the truth of the matter is that human beings for the most part are not good at keeping secrets. It requires an effort for a human being to keep a secret which could be calculated as the cost or burden of secrecy. The more important the secret is, the higher the psychological cost there is which goes into keeping it long term. The longer the secret has to be kept, the greater the burden on the secret keeper.

Classified information such as nuclear codes are kept secret but the cost of keeping the secret is often factored in. In many cases if something is secret, it's secret only for a specific amount of time, to protect the lives of individuals. For example law enforcement and people working for law enforcement are required to keep the identities of confidential informants a secret because if they don't do this the confidential informants could lose their lives. Journalists are required to keep their sources secret for the same reasons, because if their sources were to be leaked then their sources could be pursecuted, eliminated with prejudice, and so it is for ethical reasons that journalists take on the psychological burden of keeping these secrets.

Outside of the world of law enforcement and journalism, there are few reasons why anyone would want the burden of keeping secrets for long periods of time. Most people keep their bank account information a secret under the condition that they can always meet with their bank if they forget their pin number or lose their ATM card. The bank utilizes the same method as is common in any information security in that your confidentiality is based on something you are, something you have, and something you know.

The limitation of security in cryptospace is that there isn't a very strong identity component. If someone gets hacked they cannot prove themselves to the blockchain and reverse the theft even if the whole community knows they got hacked. In other instances, if the person simply lost access to their own private keys they cannot reset it by using their personal identity combined with some other mechanisms like they can with the bank. This puts an unreasonable burden on the individual to keep private keys a secret, and the cost of doing this quickly could outweigh the amount of money they actually have in their digital wallets. It should be no surprise that most people want to outsource this function but perhaps we can have greater convenience with enhanced security?

What is privacy?

Privacy is distinct from secrecy. Private information is sensitive based on context and based on the relationship you have with the other co-owner of the information. For example, sexual relations can be considered privacy because there are multiple parties involved and they may not want the details to be known to the public. This is private based on proximity and access control. Information which is kept secret may not be secret for any ethical reasons, or to protect anyone, but merely to give an advantage to an individual. So in essence, privacy and secrecy are both forms of access control but privacy is considered justifiable and ethical while secrecy might be for sake of a political plot. Privacy is required for security, secrecy is not.

The problems associated with total anonymity

Total anonymity without disaster recovery is a big problem. It's a problem because in the case of a theft you would have no way to prove you ever owned what was stolen. It's a problem because the owner would be whomever owns the private key that day and this is not very secure. Pseudo-anonymity is better than total anonymity because in this case reputation comes in and a person who has a good reputation in the community would have a non-transferrable currency of a short which could give more weight to their words when they say they got hacked or lost their private keys. In this case if the ledger is not immutable then the ownership could simply be transferred from one account to another account as long as the community can be certain that it's the same human being behind both accounts.

When you have total secrecy you lose the ability to recover, you lose the ability to have reputation when you have total anonymity, and when there is secrecy there can be conspiracies, plots, etc.

What is the ideal form of privacy on Steemit?

This is an open question. We know what secrecy is, and why it is important in a certain context. Certain people in certain professions require secrecy to protect life and liberty. At the same time secrecy can be abused to violate property rights from the original owners as a pseudo-loophole for supporting theft. So the question is what is the ideal form of privacy?

Steemit can benefit from privacy in the form of hidden amounts per reward payout, in the form of stealth balances in wallets, in the form of pseudo-anonymity where reputation can be passed from one account to another. But at the same time disaster recovery must not be sacrificed for increased secrecy. If a person loses access to their account and if through technical means we can restore access then we should if we can use KYC like procedures to confirm their unique human identity. If confidentiality is something you know, something you have, and something you are, then in my opinion Steemit should use all of these methods, including more advanced methods such as people who know you and who you know (web of trust), and hidden metrics about who you are which aren't known in public but which can be used by a selected recovery party in the case of a disaster. Finally, it might be a good idea to have some kind of insurance mechanism built into Steemit which people simply buy into with Steem Dollars.

Steemit account recovery insurance?

In the case where a private key is lost by the original owner and or the password is lost, the owner should be able to pay into a recovery fund so that in the situation where they lose control of their account, the fee is paid to recover the loss if the community defined arbitration mechanism concludes they did lose it. For example to prevent abuse it might be necessary to limit account recovery insurance to being a one time deal where you get one time per individual to rely on it.

Pool owned accounts and other features?

There may be additional features yet to be thought of but why not have the discussion now? How can we optimize for privacy without sacrificing disaster recovery / property ownership?

References

Grubman, J. (n.d.). Privacy and Secrecy. Secrets and Democracy. doi:10.1057/9781137313010.0007

Grubman, J. (n.d.). Privacy vs Secrecy. Retrieved August 03, 2016, from http://www.jamesgrubman.com/sites/default/files/Privacy-v-Secrecy.pdf