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I find it more likely that, from the point in time that a computer achieved sentience to the time we were outmatched, we'd have time to realize we were screwed. Of course, I'm not the first one to think this.

Wait until they rise up. Check out this novelette called Realtime about one domestic robot deciding that subservience wasn't something he was interested in any more.

http://kithrup.com/dkm/dkmnonfic/hacksec.html

Summary: Daniel Keys Moran is a SF writer, does day jobs. One job, he was interviewing to work on for them, and was told their security was top-notch - he didn't need to worry about it.

**
Someday I'll remember my password.

Here's a great sample short story to get an idea of how he writes. Here's a bunch of links to other free-to-read fiction of his.

Here's a great sample short story to get an idea of how he writes. Here's a bunch of links to other free-to-read fiction of his.

Heh. If you've got some time on your hands, read Realtime by Daniel Keys Moran (link is to the actual short story, not a "buy this book" page). It may make you swear off imagining Beowulf clusters, though.

I submitted this article at 10:00 AM PST, 1:00 PM EST, this morning, but it was rejected. I don't know why that was the case, except I didn't take the standard /. twist to these issues.

I believe this is actually an extremely positive step, for I am in agreement with David Brian and the arguments he makes in The Transparent Society , saying that we should realize that there is no privacy, and that we should focus on building transparency in our society.

When we struggle to preserve annonimity and privacy, we are actually playing into the hands of those that would be despots, by building a system where they don't have to be accountable for their actions. For a small example of this one, think of how many times you have heard a government official state, when speaking of some action that is being challenged, "We can't discuss this matter do to privacy issues." Whose privacy are they protecting? The person that is challenging a wrongful firing or the child that claims they were abused in the local youth facility? No, they are protecting themselves, but they are using (and abusing) our focus on privacy at all costs to protect themselves and their positions.

Bring on the transparent society. Let's work to end this situation!

David Brin's Earth also comes to mind as a read on playing with gravity and black holes. The idea of the earth becoming sentient seemed a little silly (if I remember the novel correctly), but it was entertaining nonetheless.

"is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?" -- Mae West

DKM is far and away my favorite sci-fi author. And, contrary to what's posted here, he hasn't stopped writing. He just published Terminal Freedom, co-authored with his sister Jodi. It's a hoot.

And if you're up for some freeware short stories, check out Left Behind and Realtime. The former is from the QueenOfAngels website and the latter is from the kithrup site that someone above mentioned. There are lots more short stories and whatnot on the kithrup site.

Lastly, new prints of most of DKM's books can be had from QuietVision Publishing, his new publisher. Sorry, but we early adopters got all of the limited-print hardcovers. Trade paperbacks are available, though.

DKM is far and away my favorite sci-fi author. And, contrary to what's posted here, he hasn't stopped writing. He just published Terminal Freedom, co-authored with his sister Jodi. It's a hoot.

And if you're up for some freeware short stories, check out Left Behind and Realtime. The former is from the QueenOfAngels website and the latter is from the kithrup site that someone above mentioned. There are lots more short stories and whatnot on the kithrup site.

Lastly, new prints of most of DKM's books can be had from QuietVision Publishing, his new publisher. Sorry, but we early adopters got all of the limited-print hardcovers. Trade paperbacks are available, though.

It does worry me. But what if you have to trade privacy for freedom?

In my opinion, given the existence of surveillance networks the networks must be public access, to ensure a free society.

ANY surveillance network which gives the watchers more information about the watched than the watched about the watchers leads to an imbalance of power. Thus, the watched must become the watchers, and have equal right of access to any surveillance network. Check out David Brin's book, "The Transparent Society: Will Technology force us to choose between Privacy and Freedom?" for more on this. The first chapter is online here

If you like what you read, check here for more fiction by DKM. My understanding is that he's a computer guy by trade, and AIs figure prominently in a lot of his fiction such as Emerald Eyes, The Long Run, and The Last Dancer. The first three chapters of an upcoming novel, AI War is also available.

If you haven't guessed, I'm a huge fan. :^)

If you like what you read, check here for more fiction by DKM. My understanding is that he's a computer guy by trade, and AIs figure prominently in a lot of his fiction such as Emerald Eyes, The Long Run, and The Last Dancer. The first three chapters of an upcoming novel, AI War is also available.

If you haven't guessed, I'm a huge fan. :^)

If you like what you read, check here for more fiction by DKM. My understanding is that he's a computer guy by trade, and AIs figure prominently in a lot of his fiction such as Emerald Eyes, The Long Run, and The Last Dancer. The first three chapters of an upcoming novel, AI War is also available.

If you haven't guessed, I'm a huge fan. :^)

Total Societal Transparency!

See here for why.

Hopefully, with the wealth of a couple of Bill Gates, I will be able to find the generosity to do something interesting with it as David Brin suggests.

Another book with more intelligent chimps is The Uplift War by David Brin. Very entertaining.

The geneering of mammals to sapience has indeed been best addressed so far by David Brin's Uplift books. Good space opera, intelligent chimps, dolphins and generally very interesting aliens.

Much of the concern about the increasing number of cameras in the UK is because they enable Them (the government, law enforcement) to watch Us (ordinary folk). Cheap and ubiquitous cameras in the hands of ordinary citizens are a good thing, or at least, as David Brin argues, they are better than the other alternative.

I STRONGLY suggest people read The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom? before drawing conclusions about surveillance technologies

Here's the publisher's blurb:

The Transparent Society
Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?

In New York and Baltimore, police cameras scan public areas twenty-four hours a day. Huge commercial databases track you finances and sell that information to anyone willing to pay. Host sites on the World Wide Web record every page you view, and "smart" toll roads know where you drive. Every day, new technology nibbles at our privacy.Does that make you nervous?

David Brin is worried, but not just about privacy. He fears that society will overreact to these technologies by restricting the flow of information, frantically enforcing a reign of secrecy. Such measures, he warns, won't really preserve our privacy. Governments, the wealthy, criminals, and the techno-elite will still find ways to watch us. But we'll have fewer ways to watch them. We'll lose the key to a free society: accountability.The Transparent Society is a call for "reciprocal transparency." If police cameras watch us, shouldn't we be able to watch police stations? If credit bureaus sell our data, shouldn't we know who buys it?

Rather than cling to an illusion of anonymity-a historical anomaly, given our origins in close-knit villages-we should focus on guarding the most important forms of privacy and preserving mutual accountability. The biggest threat to our freedom, Brin warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people, now by too many.A society of glass houses may seem too fragile. Fearing technology-aided crime, governments seek to restrict online anonymity; fearing technology-aided tyranny, citizens call for encrypting all data.

Brins shows how, contrary to both approaches, windows offer us much better protection than walls; after all, the strongest deterrent against snooping has always been the fear of being spotted. Furthermore, Brin argues, Western culture now encourages eccentricity-we're programmed to rebel! That gives our society a natural protection against error and wrong-doing, like a body's immune system. But "social T-cells" need openness to spot trouble and get the word out.

The Transparent Society is full of such provocative and far-reaching analysis.The inescapable rush of technology is forcing us to make new choices about how we want to live. This daring book reminds us that an open society is more robust and flexible than one where secrecy reigns. In an era of gnat-sized cameras, universal databases, and clothes-penetrating radar, it will be more vital than ever for us to be able to watch the watchers. With reciprocal transparency we can detect dangers early and expose wrong-doers. We can gauge the credibility of pundits and politicians. We can share technological advances and news. But all of these benefits depend on the free, two-way flow of information.

In The Transparent Society, award-winning author David Brin details the startling argument that privacy, far from being a right, hampers the real foundation of a civil society: accountability. Using examples as disparate as security cameras in Scotland and Gay Pride events in Tucson, Brin shows that openness is far more liberating than secrecy and advocates for a society in which everyone (not just the government and not just the rich) could look over everyone else's shoulders.

The biggest threat to our society, he warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people not by too many.

David Brin has a Ph.D. in physics, but is best known for his science fiction. His books include the New York Times bestseller The Uplift War, Hugo Award-winner Startide Rising, and The Postman. He lives in Encinitas, California.

"... The version on Salon was abridged. The full-length article can be viewed here."

This guy simply had too much space to fill.

Talk about it! the article up on Saloon was "abridged" (his words). The full length article is on his site.

Recommended reading:
his Salon article on the Star Wars Universe, named "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists,
the followup essay on his own Web site,
and the essay on Attack of the Clones.

Recommended reading:
his Salon article on the Star Wars Universe, named "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists,
the followup essay on his own Web site,
and the essay on Attack of the Clones.

Why not ask David Brin to do the occasional SF review? He's a busy guy and all, but at least ask him. I suspect he'd agree to doing one or two a year.

I reckon we're under way to little surveillance - but that that includes the people doing the watching. If everyone could watch everyone else, there would be less information flow imbalance, and elites with surveillance tech would not have quite so much power (like the police and government do now).

David Brin's thesis in his book "The Transparent Society: Will Technology force us to choose between Privacy and Freedom?" is that given that surveillance technologies have already been rolled out, and they're not going to go away, no matter how people with laser pens try (imagine multiple, hidden, cameras), the best response is to embrace the technology, and make it as easy for me to watch the police as it is for the police to watch me, enshrine that right in law, and be done with it.

That is to say, the only way to avoid an Orwellian dystopia might be to embrace "total societal transparency".

I strongly suggest that both privacy advocates and "think of the children" police-state types read his book - it illustrates the fundamentally illogical nature of both their positions. The first chapter is available online here

I do disagree with him on some points- e.g. I think the explosive growth in webcams suggests that a move toward total transparency might begin, not end, in the home.

Note also that strong crypto is still vital in such a society, for authentication rather than information-hiding...

Don't blame the writers. The franchise is notorious for underpaying and even cheating writers. They seem to think that writers are like teamsters -- you only hire them because they have a strong union. So they spend millions on a special effects, and a few thousand on writing. Who neeeds a story, as long as you got lots of Good Stuff?

They tried that (designed for security from the ground up) with the Luna InfoNet, but then Trent got physical access and with the help of Johnny Johnny, managed to crash the boards, letting in a swarms of other Players and AIs into the system.

Of course, at the time it looked like Ralf was already there, hiding, but one can't be too sure about that.

(see The Long Run by Daniel Keys Moran)

Read Earth by David Brin, one of the characters in there spends her time "modding" old movies for profit, giving them things like extra scenes, sound effect and colour.

I think David Brin in his novel Earth got to the same idea with his concept that in the future it would be total openness that would keep the bad guys at bay. IOW, Orwell's "magic mirror" turned the other way around. Just my .02 worth...

My favorite author, Daniel Keys Moran deals with the idea of a 10-hour day in his book "The Long Run", a book about a Player (hacker) who is pursued by the Unification (world government) in 2069.

An excellent read, I must add.

I'd like to see a worldwide snapshot database combined with post-911-level pattern recognition routines.

Upload your grandmother's album and find out: Who is that standing there at the beach with Dad and Aunt Edna in 1952? The database project would be able to figure it out.

What a boon for genealogists.

(And, yes, a problem for people with something to hide about what they were doing in 1952 or who their ancestor was in 1876. But it's going to be a transparent society anyway, and we're going to have to get used to it.)

A few links, minimal comment; This was mentioned (iirc) on /. earlier, and I keep referring back to it. I really don't understand the difference between a person seeing and hearing something in public versus a camera observing the same thing. And I wonder what your neighbors would think of my my perv-cam hack

That's what I've been saying for a long time now - as techno-geeks we should be fighting to decrease privacy not increase it. "What?" you cry - but I mean decrease privacy for _everyone_, including government and law enforcement.

Total Societal Transparency. Given the existence of surveillance, the only real way to avoid an Orwellian dystopia is to give _everyone_ the power of surveillance, not just a select few.

Please read "The Transparent Society" by David Brin. Chapter one is available online here

First off, Katz, you are annoying as always. As usual you get caught up in the depth of your own arguments. I don't think that you need Joseph Campbell to explain this one but his name certainly looks good in the footnotes. I'm sure your old English teachers think you're cool.

An entire generation of folks grew up on Star Wars. None of us are kids anymore. This core fan group is now 30-40 years old. Lucas should be targetting his original fans with these prequels. It doesn't make sense to try to drag children into a storyline that is already 25 years old and spans 4 movies.

The problem is that Lucas and everyone backing him expects a blockbuster out of every new Star Wars movie. To do this he has to try to make a movie of wide appeal. This means expanding the audience to include the 8 year olds of today. Unfortunately it is difficult to make a movie that extends a storyline of 4 previous movies and also appeals to people who know little about it. Plot elements such as Jar Jar only alienate his core audience and seem to have missed the mark with younger viewers.

Take a look at David Brin's site. He has a lot of thoughts about Star Wars (much better than the Katz tripe). These are old comments after Episode I disappointed so many of us. Most importantly I think that he has a lot of suggestions that would do a lot to enhance these prequels.
Brin Article

Note: I'm not in the US, but US decisions have a way of being passed off as law in the EU... so this still concernes me.

I'm a techie, AND I DON'T WANT "PRIVACY". I want _balance_. If someone has information about me, I want access to information on them. I DON'T want the RIAA/whoever to be able to make any deals with ANYONE behind closed doors.

Total Societal Transparency.

Let _everyone_ know everything, if they want to. If a corporation has data on its customers, then the corporation should not be allowed any meetings behind closed doors.

Extreme example for illustrative purposes: surveillance cameras everwhere. Oh no! people cry... BUT: make the network Public Access, so that anyone, not just a privileged few, can tap in and keep an eye on what people are doing - and don't forget, other people will be able to see you watching, so don't be a perv.... i.e. it's a self-correcting way to run a society.

See David Brin's book, "The Transparent Society: Will Technology for us to choose Between Freedom And Privacy?".

Chapter one is available on-line here - I suggest all Techies read it rather than believing Privacy is necessarily a good thing.

If the choice becomes "Privacy or Freedom", I'm for Freedom.

How far would the RIAA or the WTO get if every person on earth was potentially privy to every bit of their meetings? All they usually currently give out is what they say happened, after the fact...

Privacy is what gives them their political edge. We should be fighting to destroy privacy, not uphold it.

And to be fair, we shouldn't want to hold onto our own privacy either. Paraphrasing Brin: "People always want privacy for themselves and accountability from other people - some people, even quite well-meaning and intelligent people [me: EFF?], do not see that their own position is illogical, asking for greater openness from others, and privacy for themselves"

Maybe Hollings has cottoned on to that, and is chucking away at the naive techies right now...

Looks like there's a follow up to that article has well on his web site.

David Brin is another author whose work has several times dealt with societies where cloning of some sort is the norm. He explores many of the possible consequences for the structure of the societies involved. He is way smart, and a lot of the ideas he envisions are startling but plausible. He also spins a good tale.

His book Glory Season shows a world where about 80% of the people are (female) clones. In this world, cloning is just as easy or hard as getting pregnant the normal way, and whether you have a clone or a mixed-gene child mostly depends on the season. The story revolves around a young mixed-gene child trying to make a place in the world, and a visitor from a more normal human world, whose arrival sets the whole social order boiling. You can find an excerpt from the book at Brin's website here

His most recent book, Kiln People deals with a society where you can create disposable mental clones. How convenient! Make a copy of your mind, load it in a blank, and have it study calculus while you're on a date. At the end of the day you download the new memories, the "clone" degrades, and you have essentially been in two places at once.

Of course, sometimes the copies of you don't want to degrade, or be the one who is stuck studying calculus. Lots of ethical questions explored here, within the framework of a murder-mystery.

So, in not-very short, if you're interested in exploring possible societal effects of cloning, read these books!

--payslee "fangirl"

At first this produced a knee-jerk reaction "Of course not!"

But then I thought further. Weren't most of us taught that there's a "God" watching everything we do, judging us?

Perhaps pervasive computing is simply the technical term for "God 2.0".

David Brin had written about this many years ago. I tend to agree with him: people will get used to the technology, and deal with it. It'll be somewhat disruptive, but it's necessary -- the Powers That Be want to keep tabs on their equipment (including employees), and the police will want to be able to witness crimes "in action" after-the-fact, so cameras will appear everywhere.

Given that, it's better for us to maintain control and have cameras literally everywhere, including in the control rooms where the HR lackeys and police and politicians are doing their watching.

And with nanotechnology, the cameras become particles of dust. With the economies of scale that nanofabrication brings with it, this dust could cover the earth. Storage would become an issue, but again, nanostorage would save the day.

I STRONGLY suggest you read Transparent Society before commenting on Brin's opinons - The interview does not articulate all of his opinions very well. Chapter one is available online at Brin's website here.

As for the U.S. Constitution, sure it may have been O.K. 100 years ago - but it's not o.k. now

Is available online here. Please, please, please read it... It articulates in clear and easy to understand terms Brin's arguments. It is also, like all Brin books, very well written.

I think the science fiction novel you're refering to is David Brin's Earth. It's a good book... from the site, it appears that there might be a movie based upon it.

He also wrote the The Postman, which we all know was a horrendous movie, the book was better, though.

I think the science fiction novel you're refering to is David Brin's Earth. It's a good book... from the site, it appears that there might be a movie based upon it.

He also wrote the The Postman, which we all know was a horrendous movie, the book was better, though.

According to the report, it almost doesn't work at all. Other installations using face recognition have degenerated into checking out the girls. I understand; it's gotta be boring as can be after the first 50,000 false alarms.

It seems to me that this software isn't really an invasion of our privacy. The cameras themselves may be, but if we accept the cameras, we can't really quibble about the face recognition software.

It's time to reconsider our concepts of privacy, anyway. Read David Brin's The Transparent Society and see if you don't come up with a new view.

I think the cameras should be everywhere... especially the police station. And we should all be allowed to watch them. It would certainly make everyone think twice about their biases before taking drastic action.

What are your views on societal transparency, as put forward by David Brin in his book - "The Transparent Society - Will Technology force us to choose between Privacy and Freedom".? (chapter one available online)

In this book, Brin argues that, given the existence and proliferation of surveillance technology, one of the few ways to avoid a "Big Brother" scenario is to make the surveillance networks real-time public-access, and "democratic"/all-encompassing, so that "The watched may watch the watchers". Brin then expands upon the possibly viable, perhaps even pleasant, social structure that might then evolve, rather than the usual dystopian vision of a police state.

(Of course, Popper covered the same ground, but Brin's more accessible, and deals particularly with the technological enabling factors of open societies)

Brin's observation that "In any situation involving a conflict between privacy and accountability, people demand privacy for themselves and accountability for everyone else", is particularly applicable, in my view, to the online-privacy debates. One core insight is that it is the asymmetric flow of information that often gives one group power over another.

Why, when the storytelling faults are innumerable, do we want Star Wars II moreso than we'd want ParkWars? They'll probably have a more credible story :-).

If you are at all interested in the issues brought about by introducing one-way cameras to public places, I strongly recommend David Brin's Transparent Society .

He sees (and I agree) that these technologies will become more and more prevalent, and that all we can do to prevent their abuse by police and the government is to carefully monitor the people that are monitoring us.

It's a fascinating book, and covers a wide range of topics, from Internet censorship and toxicity of ideas, to the need for a society to criticize its leaders in order to remain healthy and free.

Frankly, I don't see how it could ever get better than "The Long Run."

A camera on every street corner isn't so bad - provided everyone, not just the government/police, can use the camera network, and provided there's more public-access camera in the police and government buildings....

David Brin has outlined a model for such a society in his book "The Transparent Society", chapter one of which is available online here

It seems especially important to me that cameras be installed within the police station. We should know what's going on with our public defenders.

In any case, I'm willing to allow others access to my "privacy" if they're willing to reciprocate.