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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?"
We don't trust the government or corporations becuase they have gone from "protecting our rights" mode to "enslave the entire population" mode. How can we trust them when they're using the technology to enslave people instead of relieving us of work so we have more time to do other things?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
From the transcript:
The response of Scott McNealy, boss of Sun Microsystems and one of the most outspoken figures of Silicon Valley, to the challenge from
electronic devices was famously blunt. "You have zero privacy," he said. "Get over it."
Much as this is the unpopular stance to take here, I think we do have zero privacy, and hopefully more people can learn what this means for them.
What has alwauys comforted me in the past, however, is that to exchange informatation about my purchases, my bank details, my crimial record and my health records would be rediculously complicated with vastly different systems of data storage being used.
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 why I opposed the RIPA extensions act.
Sorry, got OT there...
There are many facets to the electronic snooping being done today. Mobile phone locators can be both bad and good - take for example an elderly gentleman having chest pains. If he cannot communicate his location, then the signal-tracking might save his life. My employer having the ability to see I visited the nudie bar 20 times a month is a privacy invasion.
The government being able to thermal image a 'warrant'-ed drug house is OK. Using it whenever is not. To go further into the paranoia realm, some states in the US still have arcane laws on the books like '2 unwed people shall not engage in sexual activities' OR '2 unwed people shall not co-habitate'. With advanced thermal/spectral imaging law enforcement can 'snoop' and arrest said people.
If I choose to give my personal information away (or walk in public where cameras are present), that is OK. If I am on my own property and no one has a warrant for illegal activity monitoring, it is privacy invasion and the invaders should be arrested/fined/flogged with a noodle.
Time for more tin foil...
And people want this? Can't people make up their mind for themselves?
Sure they can. But if you are in "dating mode" (or whatever), why shouldn't you be willing to broadcast the fact? Apparently, this is happening anonymously via bluetooth, mostly. Why shouldn't you go into a singles bar or use any of the other ways of communicating the fact that you are available, interested in someone who wants to go with you to a concert, need someone to eat dinner with or whatever. You are the one who chooses to make this information public, and you get matches only from other people with the same stated interest (although not necessarily the same goal) as yourself. This is not the system choosing for you, this is an attempt to link people who are broadcasting something similar.
According to the media, this has also gone to the point of people broadcasting "willing to have sex". If two people are both interested, they find out who owns the other (bluetooth-enabled, mostly) phone by arranging to meet somewhere. I assume this is something every male geek out there has dreamt about.
It is up to you to choose to broadcast your intent to do something. I can't see what is so wrong about this, or why this stops you "making up you mind for yourself". You still get to see the girl/guy/whatever before you are dragged off to meet their family, you know.
Next time you pass a gorgeous girl, ponder what might happen if she actually _had_ the same interests as you instead of you coming across as a complete jerk trying to pick her up with some old pick-up-line.
No, I am not using these services. I just think you are judging a service without knowing enough about it.
"They can't be serious, how much damage do CCTV cameras do?"
In a fairly well-publicised case in the UK, a man was caught by camera using a cash machine within a time when someone used a cloned card. The police showed the film on TV so they could eliminate the man from their enquiries.
However, people who saw it assumed that he was guilty, and he lost his job and suffered a great deal of indignity before the mess was sorted out. He was just a guy legitimately using a cash machine.
One of the main problems is that people assume that cameras are infallible; relying on the output of a camera without _accurate_ context is a big problem.
"They can't invade your privacy unless you let them."
[sigh]
I have a camera across the road from my house. Despite that camera being there, I've been burgled once already. Apparently nobody staffs the camera and checking up I found it's actually placed and operated in contravention with the Data Protection Act. Now someone paid for the camera to be installed, but it's deterrent value has been slashed to nothing. I'd rather than they used the money for some useful social ordering than following a bandwagon like putting CCTV everywhere. It encourages laziness of the institutional kind.
As for invading your privacy unless you let them; if you don't know about the invasion, then you can hardly consent. I was told by the installers of the camera that a guy had been caught in his front room committing an illegal act. If true, then that's a huge invasion of privacy that could be justified by saying that the illegal act was more important than privacy. However, the end should never justify the means because that's the path to a police state.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
I guess the police won't mind if I pull the GPS data from the police car MDTs and put it up on a map in real time. (Passively, it's part of their data transmissions.) If they're not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide.
Look, it's simple. There is public life and private life. Public life is where I go to interact with others to help me form identity and have discourse on the subjects that matter for us all. Private life is where I sustain myself in order to participate in public life. The tradition of this distinction is from the dawn of democracy from Plato and Aristotle, through Hobbes all the way up to Arendt and others in the 20th Century.
Now private life is constantly being eroded and it is time to stop. I want to DESIGN my society so that when I choose to interact in public and in particular with the state then the state should be able to demand that I authenticate my entitlement to do so, however this does not require that i identify myself. This is what technology can bring. We can have both. A completely accurate entitlements system that does not require the revelation of identity to the organs of the state (except in order to establish the entitlement).
My health care records can be kept on a big central database but they should not be able to link that with my social security records. It is _I_ who provides them with that link when I authenticate my entitlement to free health care because of my social security status. Further that big database needs to know _nothing_ about my identity specifics other than they are the file 61272123. I know that the records for 61272123 are mine but the state does not need to know. Similarly the state can know that medical procedure 2453/CD/2321 for file 61272123 received an entitlement token, MPET23/5T from the Social security entitlement system and that is all it needs to know.
Technology of the kind that all the centralists love can completely enable their utopian vision of eliminating fraud for public services etc etc, but it can be done without even having to compromise my right to privacy, and it doesn't even need law it can be done technically. there are logistical issues for this vision, but they are not an order of magnitude different to the ones that exist for the current idea of "biometric id cards".
The fundamental thing is for us to decide what we want. And what I want is to be able to walk out of my house without having to carry a card that enables the state to prove _who_ I am because until I choose to enter the public sphere about which I spoke earlier, the state can just fuck righ off out of my private life.
On the flip side, it is up to me to price the value of my privacy wrt to banking, mobile phone etc and decide whether using these services (or specialised privacy enhanced version at a premium) is currently worth the cost. the examples of how this can be implemented are many and varied _already_ technology can only make them more effective.
As for preventition of terrorism, crime, even fraud, I am all for it, but not at the expense of designing a state that is built around knowing every facet of my life. I want the privacy. It should be _my_ choice as to when I leave my mark in public (so to speak) not the state's.
Sorry for the rant.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."