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I'm not entirely against massive invasions of privacy... provided they're not one-sided.

i.e. if the police have a CCTV network, (a) it should be public access and (b) there should be public-access cameras on the police too.

This somewhat trite example generalises to more other domains too - e.g. no branch of government should not be allowed use crypto if the citizens aren't.

The answer to the quesion "Who will watch the Watchers?" should always be "The Watched".

*Asymmetric* flow of information increases one person's power over another. To preserve the balance of power in the event of anti-crypto legislation, it would be neccessary to further increase the transparency of governmental security operations.

David Brin (well known hard sci-fi writer, among other things) has analysed this is in an easy-to-read manner in his book "The Transparent Society", the first chapter of which is available on-line here

I strongly recommend reading it, it illustrates problems with the logic of both some privacy advocating positions and some privacy invasion advocating positions.

So start pushing NOW for Reciprocal Transparency - e.g. if the police have a CCTV network, make sure it's public access, and that there are cameras in the police stations too, so that the watched may watch the watchers.

This is the only practical way to avoid the emergence of a 1984-style hell, and is a natural extension of current democratic systems.

David Brin, acclaimed hard sci-fi author covers this in detail in an approachable manner in his book "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?", chapter one of which is available on his web page here

For another perspective on eternal vigilance, David Brin's book The Transparent Society talks about the issues of ubiquitous cheap video cameras combined with cheap communications and computing. The recent face-recognition uses at Florida sports stadiums and the cheap X10 cameras with the annoying pop-up web ads are only the beginning.

Call it my contrarian nature, but amidst all the usual self-centered-libertarian-police-state-paranoia, I feel compelled to point out that loss of privacy is not necessarily loss of liberty. Nowhere is it guaranteed even in the US constitution; never has it been established that privacy actually produces a freer society; and in practice the idea that you can actually have privacy is a total myth. David Brin makes a good case in his for all of this and more in his controversial The Transparent Society (chapter one available here). His core arguement is for complete transparency - that all citizens should be allowed to observe the activities of individuals, government, and business - rather than the alternative of those having the power to do so using surveillance to their private advantage. While you'll almost certainly have objections, it's well worth consideration, and it's always worth it to look at things from an alternative perspective.

This case just confirms the basic problem with Brin's concept (i.e. if you think that the people in power will in fact permit universal surveillance results to be available to Joe Sixpack, particularly in cases where it shows their own misconduct, I want to know what you're smoking and where you got it).

1. Convince people it is ineffective, and prevent the system from being installed. That's difficult enough, even if it is true, (which I'm not convinced it is, frankly) as you'll be up against those desiring more 'control' exercised over the populace, which if you've payed any attention to opinion polls seems to include a large number of average citizens, not just those in power. And in any event, my impression is that it only getting more popular as time goes on, though I could be wrong... If it false, you'll be forced to lie to 'protect your freedoms', (which I believe will be protected just as well or better under approach #2) and people will eventually take notice of your lies, as the evidence piles up against you, and you'll be discredited.

2. Lobby for the ability to watch the watchers, as Brin proposes, which is the more elegant solution , as it shackles Big-Brother whether widespread surveilance is effective or not. I think this is a more popular idea than you'd think, as people have already shown themselves willing to pass laws that attempt to restrict police abuse and so forth, and this is just a natural extension of such ideas. (even if some officers don't fully co-operate w/ the law- fortunately, we can expose and punish them when this happens, which is the point of such laws and Brin's idea) We still are a democracy, after all, and this is also one place where the corporate powers-that-be could care less, so we're only up against a few corrupt individuals, w/ only their own personal funds, and we outnumber them.:)

And remember, some of the Judges in this case didn't like the decision, like the one who pointed out the Rodney King tape would have been illegal under their laws. If this goes to the Supreme Court, (which it should, just to overturn the precedent) I would hope it would be either overturned, or be popularly discredited if upheld, hopefully leading to a movement to change such laws... I think the Transparent Society is a more tempting idea than you'd admit, as it satisfies both the control freaks who want to put cameras everywhere public, and gives the anti-Big-Brother crowd a legitimate way to fight back against government abuse.

OTOH, if the Supremes uphold this ruling, then I might have to agree w/ you about the inclination to abuse by the powers-that-be, and start looking into emmigration...

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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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On possible solution is detailed by David Brin, in his book "The Transparent Society". Chpater one is available online here

It's well worth reading, and deals with the societal impact of pervasive surveillance technology, and what to do about it, once it's a given that it's implemented - how to _stop_ a Big-Brother like state arising - his solution is fairly simple - give _everyone_ the right to use public-access surveillance equipment. If the police can watch you, make sure that the citizens can watch the police, etc.

While people may like privacy, if, as Scott says, you don't have any anyway, then there's two ways society can go - towards a big-brother like police state, or a much nicer alternative outlined by David Brin, in his book "The Transparent Society", the first chapter of which is available on-line at www.kithrup.com/brin/trans_chap1.htm Basically, he says that if the police/government/freemasons/etc can watch your every move, we'd better make sure that we are free to watch their every move too...

Why do the rich and powerful deserve more privacy than I have? Our current Gov. knows more about each of its citizens than any repressive 19th century leaders did, but since they are held accountable through representative democracy and the Freedom of Information act, we have the highest degree of freedom of any known society. So make the system fair. If Corporations want to invade our privacy, make them face the same.

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What would a story about uplifting dolphins be without a plug for David Brin eh?

No matter how well you think you've hidden something, somebody can always find it, and chances are they wouldn't tell you about it. Insisting on privacy just makes it easier for orgs with the resources to watch you in secret with time-honored techniques like traffic analysis and good old fashioned spying.

For more info you should read David Brin's The Transparent Society.

cryptochrome

As /.-ers have pointed out, man has been playing God from the beginnings of civilization, breeding animals and crops to our desired specifications. And as Jared Diamond has pointed out so eloquently in his book, The Third Chimpanzee, man has been changing the climate and ecology(accidentally, perhaps, but changing nonetheless) of our planet since he first deforested Lebanon. If the possibility exists to reverse damages we have inflicted on the world, we have the right, and even perhaps the duty, to do so.

God himself has given man license to 'play god', so to speak, from Adam onwards. He knew what He was setting us up for when He gave us intelligence, and hopes to see us do good with our tools.

As David Brin pointed out so eloquently in his essays in the book Otherness, what does God, if He is a loving father, want of us? Does He want blind obedience, as one would from a dog rather than a child? Or does He want to see us grow and mature, taking up His tools as we grow older, creating beautiful things with them? As an avowed Christian, I must believe in a loving God who expects the latter.

This is not to say that iron fertilization is a good idea. We don't yet have anywhere near the foresight and knowledge that our Father has, and humility demands we admit this. We should definitely make plans to curb the greenhouse effect, but we need to know our limitations. Unintended consequences have a way of popping up in the oddest ways...however, we must take drastic action to prevent global warming, and climate engineering is just another tool in our toolbox, though it is a dangerous one.

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David Brin. The Transparent Society.

David Gerrold did a very interesting science fiction book five or six years ago. It was called Earth, and concerned itself with reality 50 years in the future.

Earth is by David Brin , not Gerrold, and yes, it's an excellent book. A lot of the ideas in it were fleshed out into Brin's article and later book called The Transparent Society .

I used to be a card-carrying cypherpunk, but The Transparent Society convinced me that the crypto will never work, and that privacy cannot continue to exist. And that that's really not as bad as it sounds.

Interesting points. David Brin has an interesting interview where he discusses the pro's and cons of this Openness (ala Transparent Society). Go read it if you haven't already. Privacy advocates should read the interview too. Both models 'ultra secrecy' and 'openness' could potentially support a free data concept of sorts but personally I think that the 'openness' model would be an incredible failure. The potential for abuse is just too great. People are having identity theft occur already at increasing rates. (btw here is a great link with a lot of info on it) Either perspective is troubling, so I won't say I have made up my mind 100% on the issue because the data is something we paradoxically want and don't want. I would hate for insurance companies to be able to get all sort of personal data and medical history on me and family members and tie it genetically linked homosapiens, but its more or less to late because they already have the beginings of that. On the flipside: I would really like it to be painless to find out more about a potential babysitter for my kids/nephews etc. and at present it is needlessly expensive to do so. I could see being a babysitter who wouldn't want to share private info or info about thier pr0n surfing habits for example too (but I don't think I would entrust that person with children if that were the case). Its all very circular... Here is my thought: The ideology of The Bill of Rights is that freedom is pretty much the right/desire of men/women to be left alone, especially by the government. Basically this means freedom=privacy. I wish the founding fathers of the US had gone into more detail about privacy though because the whole idea of interpretation imho is crap (insert jab at antigun folk...:politicians don't fear unarmed peasants) Where does all this lead? I am not sure , but it will be an interesting ride...

Whenever a conflict arises between privacy and accountability, people demand the former for themselves and the latter for everybody else. - Brin, Transparent Society

The article implied that privacy was an issue of Freedom, which it isn't. You can still send e-mails out to whomever you like.

I also recall reading in the article that people didn't like it that when they went to check out a loan, the bank looked over their medical records to make sure that they didn't have a fatal cancer.

Hm. Why should that concern you?

Do you want to check out a bunch of cash from the bank, before you make your final check out from life, and now, this is going to spoil your plans? I can understand how a bank might want to know that sort of thing... (Ack! The terrible maw of accountability is upon us!)

What we really want is to not get into a "Big Brother is Watching You". We don't want our boss, or our leaders, or some police force, to be able to spy on us, and to be able to abuse their power...

There are other ways, than desperately clinging to our privacy at every turn. Time for another Brin quote:

Can we stand living exposed to scrutiny, our secrets laid open, if in return we get flashlights of our own that we can shine on anyone who might do us harm--even the arrogant and strong?

If we could also check out our employers emails, suddenly the picture becomes a lot clearer. Email becomes a style of broadcast speech.

The key thing is, you have to make it so that whatever one person can see, everyone can see. You have to help shape laws with your opinion, and you have to make it so that whenever there is monitoring going on, that it applies equally to the monitors. We absolutely cannot afford to have unmonitored monitors.

Or is an illusion of privacy worth any price, even the cost of surrendering our own right to pierce the schemes of the powerful?

What can you do today?

• Sniff Packets on your company Intranet.
• Sniff Packets just outside your company Intranet. If your boss can legally justify scanning emails, so can you!

In our Seattle Weekly, the headlines read "But who will watch the cops?"

In the Weekly, a Citizen Review Board was discussed. The initiative described would require paid citizens on a board to watch over sections of the police. ...so much effort, so many laws required. Then you have to delegate what the citizens can and cannot do, what authority they have, and on and on... It's a big hassle.

All you need is cameras connected to the Internet. You can be sure that at least 10 people out there will be archiving everything that happens on those cameras; you don't even need the state to pay for the disk space. Just wire up some cameras, state clearly that they are not to be interrupted, and wha-lah; immediate accountable police force.

Read: -Brin's home page, or Transparent Society for more details.

Whenever a conflict arises between privacy and accountability, people demand the former for themselves and the latter for everybody else. - Brin, Transparent Society

The article implied that privacy was an issue of Freedom, which it isn't. You can still send e-mails out to whomever you like.

I also recall reading in the article that people didn't like it that when they went to check out a loan, the bank looked over their medical records to make sure that they didn't have a fatal cancer.

Hm. Why should that concern you?

Do you want to check out a bunch of cash from the bank, before you make your final check out from life, and now, this is going to spoil your plans? I can understand how a bank might want to know that sort of thing... (Ack! The terrible maw of accountability is upon us!)

What we really want is to not get into a "Big Brother is Watching You". We don't want our boss, or our leaders, or some police force, to be able to spy on us, and to be able to abuse their power...

There are other ways, than desperately clinging to our privacy at every turn. Time for another Brin quote:

Can we stand living exposed to scrutiny, our secrets laid open, if in return we get flashlights of our own that we can shine on anyone who might do us harm--even the arrogant and strong?

If we could also check out our employers emails, suddenly the picture becomes a lot clearer. Email becomes a style of broadcast speech.

The key thing is, you have to make it so that whatever one person can see, everyone can see. You have to help shape laws with your opinion, and you have to make it so that whenever there is monitoring going on, that it applies equally to the monitors. We absolutely cannot afford to have unmonitored monitors.

Or is an illusion of privacy worth any price, even the cost of surrendering our own right to pierce the schemes of the powerful?

What can you do today?

• Sniff Packets on your company Intranet.
• Sniff Packets just outside your company Intranet. If your boss can legally justify scanning emails, so can you!

In our Seattle Weekly, the headlines read "But who will watch the cops?"

In the Weekly, a Citizen Review Board was discussed. The initiative described would require paid citizens on a board to watch over sections of the police. ...so much effort, so many laws required. Then you have to delegate what the citizens can and cannot do, what authority they have, and on and on... It's a big hassle.

All you need is cameras connected to the Internet. You can be sure that at least 10 people out there will be archiving everything that happens on those cameras; you don't even need the state to pay for the disk space. Just wire up some cameras, state clearly that they are not to be interrupted, and wha-lah; immediate accountable police force.

Read: -Brin's home page, or Transparent Society for more details.

European data privacy laws don't just control big annoying corporations in ways that
don't affect you - they also let governments into everybody's computers,
including yours and including corporations that have records on you.
In some countries, they make it illegal to keep databases of any kind of personal information online
unless you register them with the government.

• 
  Have you registered your online address book with them?
  
• 
  Or the email from your girlfriend with her phone number?
  
• 
  Or the mailing list for your anti-nuclear group
  
• 
  or your church
  
• 
  or your football team
  
• 
  or your anarchist literature-and-beer-drinking society?
  

In some countries, including Sweden and the US, it's safer if you're a journalist,
because there are press freedom laws protecting the privacy of journalists' work.
Of course, in Cyberspace, everybody can be a journalist.
You've probably got Journalistic Works In Progress, which have special legal protection, on your home computer, haven't you?
......... No? Well, then go write some!
However, it's not safe
to be a journalist everywhere.

On the bright side, if European Data Protection Laws don't let you keep personal records, your anonymous remailer really can't go keeping logs, can it?

(Most of this rant is on my web pages.)

David Brin has written a lot of stuff about privacy, particularly
The Transparent Society, about how the economics of surveillance, cheap cameras, and databases are unstoppable, so give up and focus on the important issue, which is making sure the public can watch the government so it behaves itself. I don't agree with it all, but he makes a lot of good points.

If we could easily see into records pertaining to ourselves, this problem would never occur.

Read The Transparent Society Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? by David Brin for a well thought out map of the root problem, and a solution to it.

Here are some of the questions it poses:

Will average citizens share, along with the mighty, the right to access these universal monitors? Will common folk have, and exercise, a sovereign power to watch the watchers?

Can we stand living exposed to scrutiny, our secrets laid open, if in return we get flashlights of our own that we can shine on anyone who might do us harm--even the arrogant and strong?

Or is an illusion of privacy worth any price, even the cost of surrendering our own right to pierce the schemes of the powerful?

IAAMOAC - "I Am A Member Of A Civilization" SciFi author David Brin. His web page is at Kithrup.com. Go checkout his work if you haven't already. He has written plenty of non fiction thesis as well and is a former teacher/scientist. I don't usually quote him in posts like that but for this as a subject it seemed quite appropriate.

We already ripped his theories to death eight months ago on this thread and flooded his email box, prompting him to post this response, which we then also tore to shreds on this thread over here.

Actually, perhaps "tore to shreds" is a bit too strong. Really, we just ignored Brin and alternately bitched and creamed our pants about the great event of visual masturbation that was/is StarWars TPM. Or at least that was my gist from the audience.

For an intriguing alternative view of how transparency (or lack of cryptography) could affect society, and of the dangers of encryption, check out "The Transparent Society" by David Brin. Some of his theories have been discussed on Slashdot previously .

Book info on David Brin's homepage. Keep in mind Brin is very controversial on this topic, but interesting and well thought out.

Here's a thought. Assume that all this information is being collected. Massive, massive amounts of data, a huge mountain of data that even the fastest machine and the most sophisticated software takes time to go through. It's fairly accurate, most of the time, and people come to rely on it for various things just as they came to rely on computers today.

What about those who have the intelligence and skill to defeat these monitoring systems? The Stainless Steel Rat, or rather the Silicon Rat, of the future? This would be a person who figures out a way into the system that isn't checked or monitored -- and with a system that large, you know the chinks are going to be everywhere. Once in the system, they learn how defeat the various monitors -- feeding in false video signals, altering heat-sensor records, and intercepting the audio stream and co-opting it for their own use. These people will be essentially invisible, able to take on any identity of any person on a moments notice, to assume the thermal pattern of a 12-year-old child (at least in the eyes of the computer), and mask their activity in either a quiet ripple of data modification or a burgeoning wake of destruction.

I like a comment from the book "Hammer's Slammers" by David Drake. Paraphrasing, "Seeing the satellite image of something happening is one thing -- interpreting it as hostile activity is something else." People are endlessly adaptable, much more so than corporations or governments. These cameras that have been installed are effective now (read the Brin chapter)-- but what happens when the criminals figure out how to beat them? Having cameras in a bank doesn't stop people from robbing it -- they just adopt defenses like masks. Anyone who thinks that this spread of technology won't foster an increasingly technological brand of criminal is deluding him/herself.

What does this mean? It means the only people that these cameras are going to be spying on is normal, law-abiding people, since most criminals will figure out ways around them. Ask any real-world physical security expert. You cannot design a system that can't be defeated -- and the larger the system, the easier it is to defeat it. The root and main component of security will always be alert people, not computers. THIS MEANS YOU! Protect your data!

C.

C.

I don't hate Katz. I am, however, extremely frustrated by his lack of insight, which imho reflects upon the entire Slashdot community.

I come to Slashdot almost every day. I started coming here when I became overwhelmingly frustrated by seeing conventional media outlets pander to the masses. I would read a newspaper and see a statement by a politician or marketing exec, then do the math and find that he was talking out of his ass; on Slashdot, this behavior is immediately corrected by hundreds of posts explaining in excruciating detail why such and such is blatantly incorrect. I like to read posts by people who know what they are talking about; I have a couple of dozen user pages bookmarked just so I can see what they think on exciting issues. Since I happen to know things about some issues, and have imho well defined, rational arguments to support most of my political and social philosophies, I therefore enjoy posting when I see the opportunity; I can identify with what Jon must feel, because I have had some searing AC replies which have hurt me deeply while at the same time enjoying a greater number of buoying emails. From the relatively few negative emails I have received, and the emotional trauma associated with those particulars, I can tell you that if I received the hundreds of negative replies that Katz has received, I would have moved on long ago. For this he has my utmost respect.

Jon Katz' hellmouth series was initially a major point of interest to me; I had seen both sides of the high school popularity wars and was profoundly moved by some of the insights revealed there. He immediately jumped out at me as a "deep thinker", someone whose ideas were good and therefore someone whose opinion mattered. I cared what he said. After the first hellmouth, I waited impatiently for more wisdom, because I crave insight. I wanted to read the words of someone I respected, expand them and argue against them to achieve a higher level of comprehension. Unfortunately, such gems were rare. Not non-existent, but sporadic and inadequate.

In the months since his first posts, I have become abjectly bored with his work. I have not seen anything which really made me think, nothing which makes me run to the library and delve into the wisdom of the ages, the way posts by amphigory or kintanon or fable2112 or countless others routinely do. I have to say that Katz has neither challenged my beliefs nor caused me to think in anything other than a cursory manner in at lest several months- and if this is true for other Slashdot users, who possibly come here for the same reasons as me, then that could explain a lot of the hostility. When a smart person is expecting stimulating conversation, and receives nothing but shallow blather, hostility is a natural result.

I think that a lot of the hostility currently reserved for Katz would be reduced if he were really as profound of a thinker as he presumes himself to be. If he were Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell or Ayn Rand, people would respond differently--because regardless of whether or they agreed with what he was saying, the content which would come with the posting would provide fertile grounds for argument. As it is, people read a 3000 word essay and come away with only one thought: "What did I waste my time with that for? I could have received equally eloquent commentary from the editorial staff of the small town newspaper." The lack of intellectual substance leads to ad hominem attacks against the author due to sheer exasperation.

I think Katz could be better. I know he has written good stuff; I think he just needs to take a little bit more time preparing his work, making it truly profound instead of the mass of tepidity it is today. If he does this, then I think his problems will solve themselves. That is, if Slashdot would just do away with AC posting...

I guess another solution would be for someone better to start posting to Slashdot; that way we could get our intellectual fixes somewhere else and Katz could be our Spice Girls, good for a few minutes of entertainment but nothing requiring deep reflection. (You listening, David Brin? I doubt it; after the way Slashdot treated you the last time you posted something I wouldn't listen to us either... Neal? /. got you at least one fan, how about giving back? Anyone else? Please?)

Rev. Nehemiah

This does indeed seem to be where societies are headed: towards greater and greater surveillance, towards more and more people watching what we're doing.

Is this bad? More importantly, can this be avoided if we do decide it's bad? The technology for pervasive monitoring of the population exists; how long will it be until it's used? Technological genies seldom fit back in their bottles.

A while back, David Brin wrote a book called "The Transparent Society" in which he talked about these issues. His point of view was that such monitoring is inevitable, and once put in place, won't vanish. He argues that we should accept this and instead work to ensure that, if such public monitoring is available to anyone, that it be available to all. If the police can watch cameras mounted on street corners, then the average citizen should be able to see the images from those cameras as well -- and should be able to see the view from cameras mounted in the police station to see what the police are doing. This will make everyone accountable to everyone else, or so the theory goes.

The table of contents and first chapter of "The Transparent Society" are available at Brin's site, for those who'd like to read more.

Regardless, as scientists and engineers begin mounting tiny cameras on little MEMS that can crawl under doorways and through cracks in walls, these kinds of issues will become more and more important.

Sargent

Photobit, a Pasadena, California company that designs and fabricates a wide variety of CMOS sensors, has developed a working prototype of one. Glued directly onto a 1- by 2-inch CMOS-wafer--small enough to fit into a wallet billfold--is a tiny BB-size fixed focus lens. On the same chip is a frame buffer, an analog-to-digital converter, and a variety of standard digital camera features and controls such as auto-focus, auto-exposure control, shutter, and white balance. The chip also has an interface on its edge for connecting to a parallel cable and port. The most significant detail of this camera-on-a-chip is its ample space for additional functions. Look for manufacturers to add lots of extras, such as image memory, image stabilization, motion tracking for surveillance, videoconferencing, a battery, and even a wireless modem for remote control and access. The camera can be miniaturized, and its cost reduced to a few dollars. When this happens, get ready for an explosion of image monitors and capture devices.

One role promoted for MEMS in a 1995 report by the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency is as "surveillance dust": several thousand microminiaturized camera/infrared-detector/microphone packages dropped via individual parachutes over a battlefield. This "dust" would float like dandelion fuzz for several hours and track a potential enemy's every move. The civilian applications of this technology need scarcely be mentioned

Infamous early Cygnus employees include Fred Fish (Amiga & later BeOS free software god), Sean Fagan (general troublemaker on the net), Tom Jennings (author of the original FidoNet software), Brendan Kehoe (G++ maintainer, author of Zen and the Art of the Internet, one of the first open source books and one of the first popular books about the 'net), Steve Chamberlain (extraordinary speed hacker, creator of Cygwin which built on DJGPP - he's now at TranceMeta), Ian Taylor (author of GNU/Taylor UUCP), and others too infamous to mention.