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Accidental Privacy Spills
ahem writes "A journalist attends the World Economic forum, and writes an email to a few friends. It's a chatty, casual conference report. The conference is a gathering of the 5,000 most powerful people in the world. The report gives a breezy insight into how stuff gets done at that level, and what the concerns are that keep the world's leaders up at night. That email was intended only for the journalist's friends. That email winds up getting plastered all over the net. Here is a very interesting discussion of the implications of this "privacy spill." Make sure you read down to the Epilogue. Here is the email itself." The Lawmeme discussion is quite thoughtful and in-depth, very good reading.
The only way to have anything not exposed would be to of encrypted the messages for each person.
The next step? Go the Microsoft way and have either a timed encrypted message or some way to have a message self-delete after so much time. Both are possible but either add it's own complexities or possiblities of comprimise. (ie. the timed message abitliy is out there but basically you view a message which exists on an external server and is displayed on your machine via a doc.write comand. Not the best way.
Patrick Havens (Mr. 573333 to you.) Graphic Artist / Coder / Father / Journeler
This is a symptom of what has become all too common in todays email society - the trivialization of communication.
The "forward" has become a replacement for an actual composed email message. Its easier to maintain the illusion of staying in touch by forwarding some insipid crap rather than taking the time to actually *gasp* drop someone a personal note.
As a result, most email is not private, or more importantly, personal. I can easily imagine what went through the recipients mind - "wow, this is cool, let me forward it to ____". Why wouldn't he ? After all, we foward crap to each other all the time, why should this very interesting email be any different ?
You get something that looks interesting, you forward it. It couldn't POSSIBLY have been intended for ONLY you.
I would bet that had this letter been handwritten, the recipients would not have shown it around.
Welcome to the global communication era.
This is an excellent illustration of being extremely careful with the information you posess. And, as the subject indicates, who your friends are. If she considered the information to be somewhat sensitive in nature, then she could have easily: (1) kept it to herself for a future article or (2) maybe make it clear in the email to not redistribute. She obviously chose to do neither, which sort of opened the doors. Unfortunate that someone on her "distribution list" felt that everyone needed to know what went on at the World Economic Forum based on Laurie's experiences. From reading the email it really doesn't look like she has divulged any really serious world secrets. Another prime example of how to learn from one's mistakes.
-- Rick
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When will people get that email is not secure. Its the digital equivalent of a postcard, but idiots still email credit card numbers and worse.
:)
The problem is that _nothing_ is secure once it's decrypted. Even if the e-mail had been sent encrypted and with "DO NOT PUBLISH" written on every other line, some random friend might still have sent the body of the e-mail (after decrypting it to read it) to a friend of theirs, who then forwards it to a friend who has a webpage... and so on. The same applies to written letters as well (ever heard of the "Xerox machine"?)
What's really amazing to me is some of those responses to the second letter. "You shouldn't write anything that you don't stand behind"?!?! Jesus, do people really think that _everything_ is for public consumption? I reserve the right to have a private life! I mean, we're talking about a letter from a woman to her pals. I would like to think that my e-mail is not innately for public consumption. But according to some people, if a person with a weblog gets their hands on one of my e-mails, then suddenly it's my fault for not somehow making my e-mails self-destruct once they've been read! I have more to say about people who think like that, but I doubt that slashdot's lameness filter will let me post it.
What? Where's the "liberal bastion"? These are "free-market capitalists".
I found the email fascinating because of how weird and out-of-touch the Americans look. This is supposed to be our swimming pool -- the business elite. Instead well look like religious wackjobs trying to have a 'splendid little war'.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
Any major revlations in this "leaked" article? ... Nope...
..from American security and military speakers that, "We need to attack Iraq not to punish it for what it might have, but preemptively, as part of a global war. Iraq is just one piece of a campaign that will last years, taking out states, cleansing the planet."
From the article:
You know, as a resident of this planet, I don't want it "cleansed" by some clown in Washington. The days when there was a standoff between the USA and the USSR, so that neither got to "take out" as many countries as they wanted, look pretty attractive in hindsight.
Nice links. The reporter's (or I should say unwitting correspondent's) reaction is a good indictment, of course, of any online discussion forum. Wasted "community" indeed.
But here's the thing: I already know I'm pissing away time here, and one day I'll just stop. Usenet and MetaFilter and Slashdot are near-complete failures - no argument. But telling an addict to go out and get straight has never been effective, and I think Garrett knows that. Look at the minutes it will take me to compose this reply - and for what? It all just feeds the addiction.
And here's the other thing: I really enjoyed reading that letter. Yes, it was a slight invasion of privacy (though it wasn't particularly personal, and if it had been I'd have quit reading), but I feel like it lent me insight into what a WEF summit is in ways that Garrett's presumably carefully-crafted official piece just won't. Why isn't that kind of writing the norm? What the heck are we afraid of if it were? I already knew that all those "world leaders" and "captains of industry" were jes' folks, with all the attendant fears and irrationality, but it was nice to see such a candid (and not uncharitable) description. And for some other reader that same insight might be both novel and very useful. It might just be the thing that gets them out the door and doing something real to change the world for the better. Garrett has nothing to be embarrassed about.
Agreed --- I found the original email fascinating. It really highlights the disconnect between how issues are marketed by PR professionals in the national media and how they are discussed behind closed doors. Frank coverage like this should be (and isn't) available in any public forum, only in private correspondence.
And won't be available in the future, because there's no way that reporter is being invited back to WEF in the future.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
Since the writer went to the conference as a journalist, she was expected to publish something. With a bit of cleanup, she could have published that as a column. Nobody in Europe would be upset.
The US media is very gentle on the Administration. You don't see publicly in the US media that, to most of the world's elites, Bush and his cronies are viewed as inept and dangerous. "Jesus freaks with nuclear weapons" is a bit harsh, but it's mainstream British opinion.
On the economic front, everybody who can read the numbers knows it's going to be at least a few years before things get better. Whole countries are going bankrupt. IMF policy doesn't work. The bubble in the US still hasn't fully deflated. Japan has been in the tank for a decade, and nobody knows how to fix it.
Again, none of this should surprise anyone other than heavy TV viewers.
I took it all as perfectly correct reporting, without even being run through a 'should I actually publish this' filter. In some ways I'd call that MORE accurate and correct than a more carefully worded story.
Being alarmed about war planning myself, and also very skeptical of the prospects of economic wellness from uncontrolled laissez-faire globalization, I found it incredibly encouraging to learn that yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as Reality.
It's not just that these rich movers and shakers are 'just people'- it's that they're not in control, and that they are capable of recognizing when the policies of those like them lead to olgiarchy and the collapse of the worldwide economy. These aren't a bunch of Socialists but they're not having any of the economic social darwinist garbage- if holding to parody-Libertarian dogma means the poor get poorer and it affects THEIR PROFITS, they'll recognise that relatively quickly and they will do something else! I like that these are pragmatic people. They'll go with what works...
I think that was worth dismaying a journalist, I really do. I think the truth is much more important than her feelings of chagrin at being mocked for spelling mistakes or whatever- some people don't seem to 'get' that her ability to REPORT was terrific and plainly on display, and the news was desperately important.
Instead of ranting at the bloggers and posters, Mrs. Garrett should simply have said something along the lines:
"That email was private and intended for a only a few friends. I am sorry it has been exposed to the world, it was never meant as perfectly accurate, peer-reviewed report of the Davos forum, but rather my quick impressions. Please take it as such, and do not base any business or investment decisions on it. Ciao."
The fact is, she was naive and unthinking to fail to realize the possibility that one of her friends may forward it, and that the email would get out. Yes, she should have a right to privacy, but the possibilty certainly exists, and instead of relying upon a nebulous "right", she should have taken steps to minimize or eradicate that possibility instead. Both she and her friend made a mistake, and the email got out into the news-hungry metanet where it snowballed. But ranting at random people for that only made matters worse. Something for us all to keep in mind.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Read differently, that makes it sound like the US economy is the primary engine of the global economy.
But this guy went to J-school. Of course he'll slant it the other way.
Newsflash yourself, guy. The full quote, which I'm guessing you haven't heard, is from Stewart Brand, stated in print for the first time as follows:
The quote was never meant to be used as a bludgeon to claim that all information should be free; it was part of an illustration of exactly the kind of tension going on here.
You're essentially claiming she should have been more careful in some fashion that would have prevented the email fro being leaked in the first place. Careful in what? Her use of email for delivery only to the intended recipients? Her choice of friends?
I'd like anyone with that attitude to look back over all the emails they've written since they've been online and to consider ones they've written that they only wanted a selected group of individuals to see. Don't think of claiming you've never written an email like that. Can you honestly tell me that if that email showed up suddenly on a web discussion board, you wouldn't be incensed? (And can you honestly tell me that if people responded to you with "information wants to be free!" you wouldn't want to break their kneecaps?)
Having said that, I agree Ms. Garrett should have been more careful in her responses to this trust violation. She displayed a snitty disdain for all internet discourse that, as a fan of her writing, I find considerably disappointing.
This incident supports my longstanding theory that hardly anyone possesses any sense of irony, nowadays. (Hey, after watching Norm McDonald's Hasselhoff/Germans thing play out, I decided that I needed a theory, too.)
I'll agree that Garrett should be neither ashamed nor embarrassed by her original email. Yes, it's disappointing to see shoddy language skills from a professional journalist. And yes, it would be nice if a Pulitzer and Peabody Prize winner didn't exhibit such naiveté and ignorance about both the security and the intimacy of the internet. But she's right: The fact that a "Fwd" button simplifies the act of sharing personal correspondence, should not make it less egregious. Someone on Metafilter suggested that, because Garrett didn't specifically write, "Don't pass this along," she couldn't expect the email to remain private. I don't think we've reached that point, in our march toward the erosion of privacy...and I hope we won't.
Having written that: I think Garrett's email to Metafilter is shameful. It's ignorant. She assumes that people discussing her email on Metafilter are unproductive people who neither experience nor contribute to much of life. This ignorant presumption is beneath a professional journalist, and it's certainly beneath a Pulitzer writer. She is obviously angry, and she probably feels violated. This is understandable, and most of us sympathize. But she responds with ad hominem attacks on an entire community, invoking stereotypical references. Cracking on nerds about William Shatner, I guess, is more acceptable than cracking about blacks and fried chicken? Jews and Barbra Streisand?
Garrett was pardoned for this vitriol, by another Metafilter poster, because she was "writing in anger." And that's really the bottom line, here: Has she learned nothing? She's angry because something she wrote off-the-cuff, without the consideration she would give to a professional article, found its way into public consumption. So in response, she types an angry, bitter, off-the-cuff missive, and mails it into a discussion revolving around the incident? Has she NO sense of irony?!?
Garrett remarks that she has learned her lesson: She will no longer email personal messages; because online, "no one can be trusted." Well, as we all say, the only way to truly secure a document is not to write it. But it seems to me that she has missed the larger lesson, here: If your words are unconsidered, don't share them. A personal letter shouldn't require the effort of a professional article, of course. But a personal misunderstanding, stemming from poorly-written thoughts, can be just as damaging as a professional embarrassment.
Privacy is an important concern, and Garrett's was violated. Yes, email simplifies "gossip." Yes, the internet has eroded privacy. But part of that erosion has been incidental: The internet's effect is less upon the privacy of your words, and more upon their permanence. Learn from Garrett's mistake, and remember that permanence every time you type.
crib
Please don't read my journal