Your post came at the right time. I’ve been contemplating security/ownership/posession/privacy lately.

It occurred to me that all security is security by obscurity.

Working definition of security: intentional, differential accessibility. That is, something is secure if it is accessible to a select few, and not others.

Working definition of obscurity: that which is unclear/unknown. Lack of information.

So consider your smartphone. You can get into it because you know the pin. An attacker without the pin can’t access it without difficulty. The asymmetrical difficult is what makes it secure. If you use face unlock, the information is the geometry of your face. Your face is “in form”. Your attacker lacks this form, making access difficult. Likewise for a key in a lock, etc.

The security of anything comes down to differential information. Knowledge is power.

Working definition of privacy: the ability to selectively reveal or conceal personal information.

Therefore, privacy is security. Without privacy, the information is not secret. If not secret, it’s insecure.

Tyrants of all stripes cannot stand privacy. It is by denial of privacy that they deny security, and by denying security, they deny property.

It’s all related.