Something to Hide: Individual Strategies for Personal Privacy Practices

This paper illustrates the strategies by which individual users are beginning to take control of their personal data streams, and the way that social practices are developing as a way to overcome longstanding usability hurdles for third party privacy management tools, particularly encryption. Grounded in an historical overview of telecommunications policy in the United States as it relates to the development of computer-mediated communication, contemporary notions of privacy are discussed. Preliminary analysis from pilot interviews and the early development of CryptoParty are presented to illustrate sites where the work of individual privacy regulation occurs, and is taught to others.