Privacy Vanishes Online

[Jonah Davids]

NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/technology/17privacy.html)

Well, the article has some good points and some bad ones. It's really all over the place - identity theft, anonymity, Facebook friends. But essentially it's saying what's been old news for years. THE INTERNET KNOWS WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DID.

But I never defined 'privacy' as "people not knowing my age, gender and sexual preference." When I think of privacy, I mean that when I take a shit, no one but me has to see it happen.

And that's here to stay a while longer. Maybe.

Of course, with remotely piloted or even autonomous flying insectoid spy drones, IR and X-Ray optics.... maybe I'm wrong there.

In which case there's the exciting possibility that I'm pooping for an audience. YAY! (I mean that. The thought of the NSA or anyone watching my asshole expand to release a brownish lump of feces just tickles me pink.)

I say, 'privacy' be damned. Privacy is overrated. It's secrets. The stupid kind that poisons people and society. What if the guys at Enron had twittered their plot beforehand? How many other political and business leaders would it be a GOOD thing to know everything about? ALL of them, right? That 'transparency' that Obama mentioned. It's a techno-cultural revolution that will eventually lead to political revolution, and Obama's got nothing to do with it.

[Flatchett]

I, for one, like anonymity and privacy and will hold on to them as long as possible.


And while we're on the topic, I loathe "social networking". For the most part, it seems like the latest and greatest way for people to eradicate meaning from communication.

[Dark Razor]

The thing is, you get a lot less second chances these days. In the past if you screwed up you could just move to a different city or country, or simply change employment.

However if there is comprimising information about you on the internet, it is virtually impossible to completely remove it, and anyone specificically looking for it will likely find it.

It's also a lot easier for malovent people to falsify connections between your online persona and such compromising information.

Essentially, the likelyhood that an embarassing / compromising action you commit will leave you fucked for life increases with increased use of the internet (and especially social networks).

[Qfwfq]

That 'transparency' that Obama mentioned. It's a techno-cultural revolution that will eventually lead to political revolution, and Obama's got nothing to do with it.

I agree, and it occurred to me a few years ago that the internet would cause a political revolution. Global access to information by the public at a click of a mouse means seeing in multiple perspectives for the first time.

Prior to the information era, people relied on Fox News and NBC clashing heads to deliver seemingly opposed perspectives from a single body. Broadcasting opposition is necessary for the masses to channel their suspicion of government authority. This may not be the case in countries where rights are suppressed and rebuttals punishable by beheading, but it is here. Control over the human condition is either sustained through fear or deceit, and we're manipulated by the latter.

The relevance of the above paragraph is that our government's medium of control is being undermined. The very simple fact that we are sitting here having this discussion is proof of that. I can go to www.opensecrets.org and get the entire list of corporate funding in presidential campaign trails right now. Wikipedia itself is a reasonably objective and reliable source of geopolitical information. And most importantly, we have access to media controlled by national enemies (such as http://www.pbc.gov.ps/English/about_us.htm or http://www.aqsatv.ps/arabic/index.php.)

It's only been twenty years since the first web browser - twenty measly years. More efficient ways for society to organize itself will emerge. The government will try to censor everything it can (and it already tries). Television would've already flat-lined if it wasn't for the survival reaction of attention whoring Reality series like "Big Brother". My hope is that when the internet becomes absolute, and government censorship becomes pervasive in western nations, we will retreat to the recluse of networks like Freenet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet).


I also found this interesting to see where countries rate in internet censorship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship#Around_the_world

[Madrigal]

I recently heard a big Italian mafia capo nicknamed Scarface was caught on Facebook... he used the same name there.

:theclap:

[Chunes]

The thing is, you get a lot less second chances these days. In the past if you screwed up you could just move to a different city or country, or simply change employment.

However if there is comprimising information about you on the internet, it is virtually impossible to completely remove it, and anyone specificically looking for it will likely find it.

It's also a lot easier for malovent people to falsify connections between your online persona and such compromising information.

Essentially, the likelyhood that an embarassing / compromising action you commit will leave you fucked for life increases with increased use of the internet (and especially social networks).

And when it starts happening to everyone, then no one will take it seriously anymore. Just like everything else.

[bass_n_treble]

On the upside, this may teach us to be better people.

On the downside, the United States is already teeming with criminals, and the drug lords will be the first ones let out.

[angelique]

Do you suppose Europe and the United States have a different idea of privacy?

If you're familiar with the book The Right to Privacy by Caroline Kennedy, she writes in the book that people in the public eye do not have privacy at all, and that the right to privacy is something that really doesn't exist in American society.

This makes me think of last month's court case in Italy in which Google executives were convicted of the invasion of privacy. I tend to think Europeans sort of turn the other cheek when people's personal lives are concerned, but in America, personal details about your life could lead you to job termination.