Author Archives: Alireza Hayati

About Alireza Hayati

Hacker, cypherpunk, and user freedom activist.

Privacy vs. “I have nothing to hide”

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To start this article, I should mention what those words mean. Freedom means “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint” and liberty means “the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.” However, from now on, when I use any of those words, I mean both of them. So whether I write freedom or liberty, I mean “freedom and liberty”.

I value my liberty. I think liberty is what makes humans, humans. As a Middle Eastern, I understand how much my freedom is valuable and important. Us Middle Easterners are very much familiar with struggles one can have to gain freedom.

We fight for freedom in Middle East. If you’ve followed Middle East news in past 10 years, you surely understand what I’m talking about. Part of our fight for liberty needs us to be anonymous. In Middle East, you may get arrested or executed for simply talking against the dictator, so many of people take anonymity very serious when they talk politics, or anything else.

Anonymity is part of privacy. Anonymity is a choice when someone has privacy. I should explain this too. Being anonymous is a choice while privacy is a right. Someone with privacy can or may be anonymous but one can be identified and known while one still has privacy. I for example am active in a social network with my real name but I still take my privacy seriously, and am careful about my computing and acts.

Now back to what I was saying. In a situation like Middle East, privacy is so essential for living that almost everybody takes it seriously. I don’t mean all people are avoiding Google or Facebook, etc. but I mean they try their best to not give their data to the government.

People in Middle East basically understand the value and importance of privacy. However, even in Middle East, many people give me the argument of “I have nothing to hide” and refuse to take their privacy and rights seriously. Many don’t understand with not taking their privacy seriously, what they’re giving away.

To live as a free human being, and not be controlled or conquered by any person or power, you need privacy.

Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

Edward Snowden

Let’s start arguing against the “I have nothing to hide.”

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Israeli apartheid

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Many people think of Israel and Palestine as two countries at war; with Israel, a state for Jewish people, occupying Palestine, where Palestinians live.

The truth is both Israeli Jews and Palestinians live all over the territory, ruled by one government and one army based on the idea of advancing the supremacy and domination of one group of people of Jews and that is what guides its policies and its practices towards Palestinians. In other words: Apartheid.

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Ferdowsi’s commemoration day

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Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (or just Ferdowsi) is probably the greatest Persian poet of all time. His book, Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), is known as the book that keeps the Persian language alive. Ferdowsi is celebrated as one of the most influential figures of Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature.

The writing of Shahnameh took 33 years. The Shahnameh is a monument of poetry and historiography, being mainly the poetical recast of what Ferdowsi, his contemporaries, and his predecessors regarded as the account of Iran’s ancient history.

Ferdowsi is one of the undisputed giants of Persian literature. After Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity as Ferdowsi’s masterpiece.

Ferdowsi has a unique place in Persian history because of the strides he made in reviving and regenerating the Persian language and cultural traditions. His works are cited as a crucial component in the persistence of the Persian language, as those works allowed much of the tongue to remain codified and intact.

In this respect, Ferdowsi surpasses Nizami, Khayyám, Asadi Tusi and other seminal Persian literary figures in his impact on Persian culture and language. Many modern Iranians see him as the father of the Persian language.

Ferdowsi was buried in his own garden, burial in the cemetery of Tus having been forbidden by a local cleric. A Ghaznavid governor of Khorasan constructed a mausoleum over the grave and it became a revered site. The tomb, which had fallen into decay, was rebuilt between 1928 and 1934 by the Society for the National Heritage of Iran on the orders of Reza Shah, and has now become the equivalent of a national shrine.

Every year on Ordibehesht 25 (Persian Jalali calendar), people gather in the tomb and celebrate his legacy by reading Shahnameh and washing his grave stone.

I’ve reached the end of this great history

And all the land will talk of me:

I shall not die, these seeds I’ve sown will save

My name and reputation from the grave,

And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim

When I have gone, my praises and my fame.

The modern slavery between monkeys!

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There were a group of scientists who were doing some experiments on some monkeys. The put five monkeys in a cage and made them live there. In the cage, they put a ladder and above the ladder, they put some bananas.

Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder and get some bananas, the scientists poured very cold water on other monkeys that were under the ladder, they shocked those who were under the ladder.

After a while, whenever a monkey tried to climb the ladder to get some bananas, other monkeys would pull the climbing monkey down and beat that poor one. A while passed and none of the monkeys, despite the inherent desire to the bananas, would climb the ladder because they were afraid of getting beaten by others.

The scientists decide to replace one of the monkeys, monkey number one, with another monkey that has no idea about the situation in the cage. When they replace monkey number one, the new monkey tries to climb the ladder and others pulled it down and beat it.

After a few times of getting beaten, the new monkey also decided to not climb the ladder for bananas, even though it has no idea why climbing the ladder is forbidden. When this happened, scientists replaced monkey number two with a new monkey.

Monkey number two was replaced and the same situation went on. New monkey tried to climb the ladder and got beaten and after a few times it decided to not climb the ladder even though it didn’t know why it is forbidden to climb the ladder or eat the bananas on top.

This went on until all the monkeys were replaced by new ones. Now none of the first monkeys are in the cage and all are replaced by new ones, and none of the new ones ever experienced the cold water but every time a monkey wants to climb the ladder, it gets beaten.

If we could continue the experiment and ask the monkeys why they beat the climbing monkey, their possible answers would be 1: I don’t know, it’s tradition, everybody does it; and 2: I don’t know, this is what is popular among other monkeys, you should obey the public.

Traditions and belief in the societies may have a very interesting or convincing root but they may be obsolete nowadays. I’m not trying to argue about the root of the problems, but how or whether they are affecting us today.

What I wrote was simply imposing a modern slavery of thought on monkeys. A similar story happened to humans, I believe. I truly believe we humans are experiencing a form of slavery, a modern new slavery, in which we have no idea why we do certain things or obey certain systems, but we’re too afraid of getting hurt to disobey it or act against the mainstream.

We are too afraid of swimming against the river, and even if we try to do, other fishes will stop us, and if you ask why they do it, they have no answer, they simply believe our actions are not right.

I try to change this, and I hope you join me.

Boxer syndrome

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Do you know what is the Boxer syndrome? In the book Animal Farm, Animals helped each other to kick out the master and his family and take control over the farm. The first thing they do after is to set Seven Commandments that said all animals are equal and nobody should claim itself master of others.

But it won’t take long that a pig who became the dictatorial president changes the commandments slowly to put advantages and privileges for itself and those around it.

Ultimately, Napoleon, the president pig, becomes an oppressive dictator and begins to adopt many aspects of human behavior. The pigs start walking on their hind legs, drinking alcohol, wearing clothes, and carrying whips near the end of the book. The commandments are changed to say, famously, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Meanwhile, there’s a working horse named Boxer which is very kind and is morally and behaviorally approved by all farm animals. The animals ask Boxer to help them change the situation (or decide what to do) but Boxer doesn’t pay any attention to its surroundings and is only busy with its hard work.

Boxer’s slogans are “Comrade Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder!” Boxer feels it should work very hard and should not have anything to do with others.

Although Boxer could prevent the terrible events that fall on the animal farm, he worked hard and had nothing to do with others. He was busy with its own work and only found out about the incidents around itself when Napoleon, the dictator pig, sold it to a butcher.

In our lives, we meet so many people who are busy with their honest hard work and have no idea how the system, state, country, or people are moving or where we’re heading.

In a scene in the Titanic movie, while the ship hit the iceberg and was sinking, while people where screaming and running for their lives, while everybody were trying to be saved, there were a group of musicians/players who were performing classic music masterpieces.

They were doing their best, they were true hard-working people who tried to avoid their work be influenced by the environment/situation they were in. But in a sinking ship, while everybody is busy saving themselves or other people, when nobody is even paying attention or cares about your work, when your work has no good effect on the situation, why and how does it matter?

Many people we know are effected with the Boxer syndrome and forget when is the correct time to take a position or change the situation, or even do anything that matters, sadly.

You can’t be neutral

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Often when I talk about politics, specially sensitive stuff, some people claim they are neutral. I tell them you can’t be neutral, you’re either on the good side, or the bad side. I’ve written a post about this before, but I felt I should mention this again.

Being neutral is impossible because by being neutral you’re basically helping the bad side to win. Imagine you’re in situation where fire is burning wood, how can you be neutral in that situation? Arguing that you’re not fueling the fire nor turn it off doesn’t make you neutral. By doing nothing, you’re just helping fire to burn the wood without any disturbance.

Doing nothing in politics is meaningless. You’re either siding with one side or their opposer. Often when I talk with people about politics, some claim they’re neutral and I tell them it’s impossible. You’re not neutral in politics, you’re in denial. It’s very simple to me. I can’t believe someone is neutral when one side is a fascist and the other side is fighting for democracy.

A cop is a cop

Quote

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A cop is a cop. And you know, he may be a very nice man but I haven’t got time to figure that out. All I know is that he got a uniform and a gun, I have to relate to him that way. That’s the only way for me to relate to him, at all, because one of us may have to die.

You know in New York there’s a big campaign going on to humanize the policemen and they have billboards upstate and they a picture of a big cop bending over this little blonde girl and the sign said “some people call him pig”. I wanted to buy a billboard, I told a friend of mine, I wanted to buy a billboard and show this big cop and this fourteen-year-old kid with thirty bullets in him and say “some people call him peacemaker”.

James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni

Stop accusing people of what they didn’t do

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I sent this post as an email message to libreplanet-discuss mailing list.

Do you guys follow football? I mean the real football, not Amerikkkan one. There’s a club in Spain named Barcelona. They have a player in their team named Leo Messi. I think many of you know him.

Messi is believed to be one of the best football players in the history. During time, some people accused Messi of sexual assault and harassment. They even went to court for it and sued Messi. It turned out that all of them were only doing this for money, hoping that Leo Messi gives them some ransom.

There’s another player named Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo is almost as same as Messi. He is again believed to be one of the bests in the history. He also was accused of sexual harassment and assault. Again, some people went to court and sued him, etc.

Some of the accusers never went to court but they tell very interesting stories on how they were assaulted. There were no proof and the teams (Barcelona and Real Madrid) never responded.

I can’t tell if those players who have a reputation of good behavior and charity and social work were really offenders or not, but I can tell one thing. Barca and Madrid didn’t let go of their best players because of some unproven accusations.

I remember Leo Messi once attacked a journalist physically because he was very angry but again, he made up to that, apologized, and never repeated such behavior because he was aware of how it can affect people. Again, we didn’t see any effort to ban Messi from playing football completely because that mistake.

I’m a football fan. I’m a fan of Manchester United, neither of those teams I mentioned but I never ever campaigned to throw out Messi and Ronaldo for unproven accusations.

I did not expect those teams to simply fire probably the best player of their history because some people said so.

Do you get my analogy here? I hear stories about an autistic person named RMS that he has assaulted women, harassed them, or sexually abused them. When I go and read the stories, I see what Stallman did was to “upset” some people. Not harassment, not assault, but upset.

Stallman shouted at some people or interrupted them while speaking. He hit on women or asked them out and insisted on that, which made them uncomfortable. If he was doing to me, I would be upset too, but I wouldn’t ever accuse him of assault or harassment. I wouldn’t expect FSF to fire its probably most valuable player that is known for his charity, effort for equality, justice, women’s rights, etc.

Why people expect FSF to fire its probably best player in history? I don’t understand that.

What people explain is not sexual harassment. He was an unpleasant person, maybe, to some people but he didn’t do anything to harass them.

Let me give you another example. There’s a different between patting some child on the butt and pedophilia. Now a pedophile most-probably does pat children on the butt but are all people who do that pedophiles? Hell no.

Please don’t accuse people of what they didn’t do because they made you uncomfortable or were unpleasant. If someone shouts at you, defend yourself or if the act of shouting makes you psychologically hurt, please be very very careful when you come out of your home because you may experience it almost every time.

If someone hitting on you makes you uncomfortable, ask them not to do that or ask security to help you but don’t accuse that person of harassment because looking at someone or being weird is not harassment. And again, please be careful when you come out of your house because you may experience it every day.

If someone interrupts you, ask them not to do that or argue back but don’t accuse that person of harassment because they didn’t harass you with that. Harassment is different. And please be careful when you come out of your house because people may interrupt you every day.

Stop with accusing people of things when they didn’t do that.

Also, please don’t accuse me of sexual harassment because I wrote this note. I don’t even know any of you and I did not harass you. Disagreeing with you is not harassment. Sending email messages is not assault.

I had to clarify that because as far as I’ve seen you people, the next open letter would’ve been for me. Don’t start arh-open-letter please. And yes, I’m mocking some people.

The misunderstanding of ‘believe all women’

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I’m sure the slogan “believe all women” came to life with good intentions. For a long time, even today, women are being shamed for what they have no control over. For example, many blame raped women for the assault because of their choice of clothing. Or, many still harass women when they see them driving or working in an office.

I’m pretty sure “believe all women” was a slogan made to make people listen to women and have empathy for the pain they go through everyday. But should we really believe all women?

I don’t consider myself a feminist I don’t believe men and women are equal. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in equality of men and women but my understanding is that equality between men and women is them being treated with justice. When we treat both men and women with justice, we’re treating them equally.

I listen to women. If they say they’re assaulted or harassed, I’ll have empathy, but I won’t accept what they say unless there’s proof of that. I won’t ruin people’s lives because some woman accused them of rape, assault, or sexual harassment. Women are human beings after all and human beings are capable of many awful things, including lying.

I’ve seen social media ruining people’s lives because of a lie some person (man or woman) told and I’ve seen human beings suffer from those lies. Even if millions of people repeat something, unless there’s proof of that, I won’t believe it.

I respect the “believe all women” motto but for me it’s not really to believe, but to feel and have empathy for those who really are assaulted, raped, or harassed. I understand that many may experience a lot of things in their minds and the severity of harassment can be different for people based on their condition (in life or anything) but that’s not enough to accuse people of assault (or rape or harassment).

We should not cancel people or ruin people based on unproven stories. Even if the story is very much convincing, unless there’s enough evidence to prove that story, we shouldn’t accept that. In today’s world that there’s surveillance cameras everywhere (sadly) and we have a lot of tools to capture moments and we have enough technology to save the moments and incidents, there shouldn’t be a culture of cancelling based on myths, stories, and lies.

Let’s fight against this culture and while we’re fighting against them, let’s work to improve the life condition for women and those who suffered. Let’s listen to women, accept them, treat them with justice and manner, and help them to not be second class people. Don’t believe all women, but listen to them.

Instead of ruining people’s lives by believing all women, we can start empowering women to be able to defend themselves. We can develop technologies to help women (and even men) protect themselves.