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Privacy Concerns Moving Into The Mainstream
Realistic_Dragon writes "The BBC today ran a thoughtful radio article (website, transcript, real audio) on the issues of privacy vs practicality in our modern society. An ideal primer for those that haven't given these things much thought before, with a balanced treatment of the subject and very few technical errors to drive one up the wall.
Listening to the narrator's acerbic comments in reply to those that advocate the innocent have nothing to fear mantra is worth the download alone. Is this the kind of image that is presented in the media in the rest of the world, or are they still running with the 'big brother is your friend' party line?"
I certainly hope this is getting accross to the public. But seriously, how many people that don't already know about privacy actually care? I almost feel as if these words have been wasted on an audience that could care less. But I hope the message gest accross. I applaud the reporter who took the time to do the research into these privacy matters.
The BBC often (and perhaps ironically) often takes an antiauthoritarian position. Their interviews are great since they're so much more combative then what you're used to from NPR and our media in general - they really try to get their guests to answer questions.
BAMFORD: It's something that people cherish.
I think it's something that we do need to safeguard. I think it's
important to recognise that privacy, rather like trust and confidence -
once you've lost it, it's very, very difficult, if not possible, ever to
regain. It's something we need to work hard not to lose in the first
place.
CAIRNCROSS: One of the most powerful symbols
of intrusion into privacy has been the ability of the authorities to watch
over us. In that sense, George Orwell's Big Brother is alive and well,
and gleefully acquiring all the latest gadgetry. There are close-circuit
television cameras on almost every street corner, speed cameras, and
cameras that monitor people entering London's congestion charging
zone. Caoilfhionn Gallagher is a lawyer with Liberty, a campaigning
group on civil liberties, and follows the latest monitoring technologies.
What are her current concerns?
They talk as if most people care. Most people ignore the traffic cameras, the red-light cameras, the bank cameras, the whatever cameras... They openly hand over their address and telephone number to anyone who asks (in person, on the telephone, or over the Internet). These are the people that tell you that you are paranoid when you suggest to them that they might want to keep that information more private than they already are.
HARKIN: In Scandinavia and in Japan, you
have services whereby young people can pass along street corners and
they can be automatically hooked up via location based tracking to
someone who meets their personal profile for the purposes of dating or
finding a friend.
And people want this? Can't people make up their mind for themselves?
CRAWFORD: We can track a mobile phone even
if it's not in use. As long as the phone is on, we can track it every
minute of the day - in rural countryside, in cities. And, for example, in
London we can track it right down to if somebody was in, for example,
Earl's Court Exhibition Centre, we can know they're in that building.
In rural countryside, it's a little bit wide - I mean we'd know what hill
they're on.
CAIRNCROSS: Now that's wonderful if you're a
parent worrying about your child. But another usage is for companies
to track their employees. And I think you suggest it is a way of making
sure that your employee is secure if they are late returning to the office,
but you and I know that what employers really want to know is is the
guy in the pub or is he doing what he's supposed to be doing.
Back to the "save the children" thing. Let's stop appealing to the paranoid, careless parent who wants everyone else to know where his kid is and let's pay attention to the fact that it is intrusive and basically unnecessary.
CRAWFORD: Well what we're doing is we're
actually sending messages on a regular basis to phones to make sure
they continue to consent. The employee would then receive messages
saying that that phone is being tracked. He needs to know that that
phone would have to be the company's property, so really you know
another way of looking at it is saying the company has a right to know
where their property is. Obviously this is tracking which is during
office hours, and it's all been approved by the Information
Commissioner who's studied it very closely.
And when you say no? They fire you, right? In this day and age people can't just say, "oh well, I don't need a job w/a company that tracks me, I can find one in a single day somewhere else." Unfortunately for most it doesn't seem to work that way.
This is the same stuff rehashed as always. We need to better educate the public to remind them that this sort of intrusion is not a necessary part of their lives no matter how much the government and third parties want to make it be.
No, public spaces are not private. However, if you cannot see the difference between "not private" and "under constant surveilance" then you are a wanker.
"They want to shackle law enforcement in the name of privacy"
As it should be. Most Western countries are part of "The Free World", not police states. Supposedly.
This is me. Don't like it? That's unlucky.
How do people reconcile that with the privacy provisions in the U.S. constitution? Obviously they wouldn't have put them in there if they had thought there was nothing to worry about. I don't think the writers of the constitution were given to empty aphorisms.
"The bottom line is that your privacy isn't worth squat if you're dead."
And my life isn't worth squat if I'm not free. You aren't a patriot. You're a coward.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
The problem with this attitude is that it assumes trustworthyness on the part of the law enforcement agencies. While this is a valid assumption in most cases, there have been quite a few cases of abuse of power by law-enforcement agencies. "Harassing the innocent" may not be the primary use, but in the past there has been enough of that kind of thing to make many law-abiding people nervous whenever more power is put into the hands of the "authorities".
Mibby I'm just sticking my head in the sand, but there's a difference between being watched and having data stored about me, and it being available to different people beyond it's intended purpose.
That's how the whole system works, by only pushing so far into people's privacy. I see it the same way too, and if it were black & white then Scott McNealy would be right - with all the ways we can be tracked, the potential is there for having NO privacy. My phone company knows when I make calls and when I receive them, and who to & who from. My ISP knows when I'm online, the IPs I make contact with, and I bet if they wanted they could tell what I'm transferring. My electricity and gas suppliers know when I'm at home, and cameras in stores & on roads can know where I am much of the time.
But for most purposes, none of this information is used outside its intended purposes. Not every random-joe gets to look up my phone details, nor trace all my movements, or see what I'm downloading. It's a little of my privacy stripped away in pieces for each separate institution that needs it, which does total up to a technical complete-lack-of-privacy... but it still works because they don't all get together to analyse my particular movements in life. The complete loss of privacy is only a potential one.
Besides, any business with even five separate departments trying to all communicate with each other about what they're doing has logistics problems keeping together, heaven help the hundreds of institutions that keep info on me if they tried to organise themselves enough to get any sane information from what they have on me.
So when they tell you that you've been issued a new ID card with a tracker tag that means you can be traced wherever you go you'll be fine with that?
What about when it's made compulsory to carry it with you whenever you leave the house?
Governmental agencies are always looking for methods of tracking/controlling people. Their job would be sooo much easier if we were all obedient little drones who moved in predictable cycles (ok, most of us are, but that's another argument). Right now their favourite trick is to claim that its all "To protect you from the evil terrorist scum lurking among us."
Heretic, Parlimentarian, Unionist, Nazi, Sexual Deviant, Communist, Terrorist - the name that is put on the bogeyman used to scare us into submission changes. That's all. The rest is still the same.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
The majority of our society has turned into puppets for the corporations who crave their Nike shoes, Playstations, mobile phones and Macdonalds hamburgers.
The populace has gone retarded overnight - entertainment now consists of formulaic movie remakes, plastic music where rather than having music as integral to our culture over thousands of years, music is now plastic and disposable "sung" by artists under total corporate control, "reality TV" where the talentless are elevated to celebrity status...
People simply do not care anymore because even that human trait has been handed to the lawyers to sue somebody or some corporation when something goes wrong.
As a society, we are becoming more and more introverted - we don't socialise with our neighbours any more and we think that bringing up kids is about handing over responsibilities of parenthood to the teachers until they get home from school whereupon they're thrown a Macdonalds hamburger and sat if front of a games console for the evening. Then we wonder why teenage pregnancies, binge drinking and drugs are at an all time high...
The good thing about this is that either we continue this way until we destroy ourselves in which case we don't deserve to exist anyway or we rise up in revolt in the near future as we recognise how we've allowed ourselves to be coccooned and kept stupid for far too long...
Until we recognise that governments, law enforcement agencies, corporations and the RIAA are all just trying to control us, privacy is just one more (and possibly the last) facet of our lives that will disappear...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I challenge you, try to explain this topic to a non-technical person. In their terms, not yours. It's really hard.
Try this analogy:
True this is only one aspect of the privacy issue, but you don't want to over-challenge yourself. See how it works.