Slashdot Mirror
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.
A lot of people can't accept that if you go out in public, you lose privacy. It really doesn't matter if your mobil phone company can find your position, because you're transmitting RF to their towers. I EXPECT them to know roughly where I am from which tower I am connected to.
CCTV cameras? They can't be serious, how much damage do CCTV cameras do? How much damage would have been done if the shops can't see who's stealing stuff? Privacy is important, but if CCTV cameras are a problem, then don't go into shops. If camera phones are a problem to you, don't go out in public. They can't invade your privacy unless you let them.
... as far as the average user is concerned.
If someone thinks that they need this software 'blah', then they are going to install it, no matter what the 282 page EULA says.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
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.
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
Oh great, now everyone knows about my privacy concerns!
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...
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.
"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
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?"
Quote from Douglas Adams in Wired.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".
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...
I suppose you didn't see the advertising system shown in the movie Minority Report (if not, don't bother wasting your time watching it). Surveillance systems there captured your eye motion, identified you, and made an aggressive personal pitch for you to buy their product.
The harm of this omnipresent surveillance is not to those who could be surveilled in person (most of those are fairly well-to-do, and could avoid the manual surveillance if they wish). It is to Average Joe, who only knows that billboards are yelling at him to BUY BUY BUY, or that he gets mobile phone spam about the latest movie tie-ins just for walking by Bigchain Hamburgers. It is also to Janet Whistleblower, who could be fired because in-building video cameras see her linger over an incriminating document left out by a manager.
The details of the Minority Report ads are a far-fetched, especially in details I glossed over, but between RFID, mobile E911, and pattern (face, gait, speech, etc) recognition techniques already being used, something like it is closer than you might think.
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.'
With respect, it's rubbish.
There's no need to violate privacy any more than it already is in order to stop terrorism, nor to do it in unreasonable ways.
All of the "anti-terrorism" privacy arguments tend to hinge on how xxxx communication method "could be used to plan terrorism", "could be used to set up terrorist actions", yadda yadda yadda.
All of which is totally irrelevant if the terrorists a) can't get the weapons, or b) can't then use them in public to kill people.
a) doesn't require anything other than voluntary breaches of privacy which the vast majority would consider reasonable. b) doesn't breach privacy at all, since a public act by definition can't be subject to privacy.
The whole basis of using criminals' plans to "target" law enforcement is a shaky one. Law enforcement needs to be everywhere, all the time - otherwise criminals will inevitably learn the prediction strategies and work around them.
Your assumption here is that no-one will want to use this info unless you're doing something bad, right? That's kinda wrong. Think stalkers, think terrorists ("lets see how many casualties we can acheive by monitoring who goes into that building"), think the petty-minded official who you annoyed once and now he's out to make your life hell.
Even as far as breaking the law goes... to quote Terry Pratchett, probably the only way to avoid breaking a law is to spend all your time locked in a dark cellar with your hands on the table in front of you. And even then you'd probably be guilty of loitering.
I'm in a society called the Assassins' Guild, which plays games based around a kind of controlled, mutually-consensual stalking. It is truly horrifying how easy it is to track any given person down. This is why I value privacy - the games we play are harmless, but there are more than enough crazies out there who are perfectly willing to use this information maliciously. And any system that relies on respecting thy neighbour is, in my opinion, in deep trouble.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
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.
on Salon: Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society!. I can't say I agree with everything he says but I think there's a lot of merit in it.
Bottom line executive summary: Privacy is dead; get over it. Instead of trying to hide everything we do, we should insist that every citizen has the same access to surveillance technologies that the government does. He offers the Rodney King tapes and the Abu Gharib prison photos as ways in which saturation surveillance has advanced the cause of justice and the empowerment of the citizenry.
Worth a read, in any event.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
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."
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.
The difference between the BBC and US News Media is that BBC reporters are reporters, the reporters in the US are by and large entertainers.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
ACLU came up with an good privacy presentation. Imagine trying to order pizza at a place where they already know everything about you.... http://www.aclu.org/pizza/index.html?orgid=EA07190 4&MX=1414&H=0