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Privacy In the Age of Persistence

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hard-to-beat-intertia-of-lazy-people dept.

Bruce Schneier recently wrote another essay on privacy for the BBC concentrating on how data seems to be the "pollution of the information age" and where this seems to be leading. "We're not going to stop the march of technology, just as we cannot un-invent the automobile or the coal furnace. We spent the industrial age relying on fossil fuels that polluted our air and transformed our climate. Now we are working to address the consequences. (While still using said fossil fuels, of course.) This time around, maybe we can be a little more proactive. Just as we look back at the beginning of the previous century and shake our heads at how people could ignore the pollution they caused, future generations will look back at us — living in the early decades of the information age — and judge our solutions to the proliferation of data."

10 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Remember... by stillnotelf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anything you post in this thread will be on the Internet forever, so be careful!

    1. Re:Remember... by aicrules · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdot moderation provides the utopian method for making all information available while providing the facility for anyone to set their own threshold for what information they will actually see. Slashdot will be looked at by future generations and they will say "There is an information source that was ahead of its time!" Then they'll accidentally set their mod threshold to -1 and will immediately dig up Taco's corpse and beat it with a stick.

    2. Re:Remember... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that nothing disappears. If you admitted back in 1999, while you were an idiot college student, that you "experimented" with marijuana, do you really want that Slashdot post to reappear in a year 2020 Google search when you're trying to run for the State Legislature or Congress?

      There are drawbacks to keeping messages that we posted when we were still young & stupid. I still have Usenet posts from the year 1987 that still come back and haunt me. I was only 10-11 years old, but nobody reading those old posts know that. They identify those posts with the adult version of me, and assume I can't spell.

      Imagine the backlash that might have occurred against Obama if we were able to find his old high school postings, wherein he admits he cheated on a test by copying from his neighbor. The web didn't exist when Obama was in high school, but eventually we will have presidents with decades-old online postings, and you can be sure FOX News, CNN, and all the rest will dig them up for all to see.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:Remember... by unlametheweak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem is that nothing disappears. If you admitted back in 1999, while you were an idiot college student, that you "experimented" with marijuana, do you really want that Slashdot post to reappear in a year 2020 Google search when you're trying to run for the State Legislature or Congress?

      Why would this be an issue? It hasn't been an issue for people running for President. Why should it be an issue for people running for Congress. So far it has only been an issue for people trying to get student loans or jobs at Best Buy.

      Anything could be an issue. If your parents post baby pictures of your circumcision, baptism or Bar Mitzvah then this could certainly be an issue, although people may argue that it shouldn't be. Anything could be made into an issue. If you talk about politics or religion on your Facebook account then this could be an issue. I've heard of one executive that was denied a promotion because of the style of belt he liked to wear. The clothes you wore could be an issue. If you were seen eating meat could be an issue.

      Why worry about these things when you have absolutely no control over the people placing judgment on you. Get drunk and be gay. If people don't like you for being you then you shouldn't be associating with those people. If you can't get a job because you are discriminated against then steal food to survive. Sometimes you've got to not only tell people to fuck off, but play the game as well. Like I tell people in China; if you don't like communism then either leave the country or assassinate its leaders.

    4. Re:Remember... by TorKlingberg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unless it can be connected, say if he lists commander64_love@something.com on his Facebook profile.

  2. scary by blhack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look at what happens to people when the run for office. We found some pictures of Barack Obama when he did some joke modeling thing with one of his friends in college (or something like that).

    Can you imagine if we had a searchable index of every single conversation a presidental or senatorial candidate had ever had?
    Imagine being in your 40s and having to account for a "private" conversation that you had 20 years ago at 2:00am when you were drunk.
    *shudder*
    Guys, this isn't some crazy whackjob ranting about the evil government. This is reality! My username can, with not a whole lot of work, be tied to me in real life. If somebody wanted to, they could go back through every single comment I had ever made on any message board or blog that I use this handle on.

    Scary. Really really scary. My bet is that almost everybody is in this same boat. Google has made it TOO easy to find things.

    --
    NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
    1. Re:scary by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's not a problem becasue no one will care. IT's on thing to look at one person and see them do something 'wrong'. but when you look around and everyone is doing it, no one cares.

      ITs not scary, and if you wanted a username that can't be traced back to you, you could do that.

      Sure, I've dome some monster stupid stunts, but who cares?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:scary by berend+botje · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why you are right: nobody cares about things a random user on the internet does.

      Why you are wrong: when "blhack" gets interesting in a social, political or whatever function, then this old, stale information will still be there. And you'd better believe 'they' will drag it out of the noise here.

      Remedy: don't have your online presence be linked back to real life. Change usernames often (I once had an four digit /. account). And it helps to have a common name in real life. Hard to filter for the right John Smith, twinty years after the fact.

  3. Schnier vs Brin? by argent · · Score: 3

    I want to see David Brin's response to this, in the light of The Transparent Society.

  4. The proliferation of data... by jd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...is not nearly as much of a problem as the proliferation of noise with respect to signal. In the end, whatever survives is whatever is dominant (ie: the most successful in the environment) which is not the same as whatever is actually useful. If noise is the dominant element, then noise is what will endure and the signal will die. It will be out-competed. Basic darwinism.

    THIS is the pollution, not the persistence of information. There's probably not much more real information being produced now than there was at any time in the Age of Enlightenment, so it really doesn't matter if it persists. It'd be great if it persisted better. The problem is the creeping crud. This isn't about freedom to express oneself, since that is also information (sometimes too much information, in another sense of the term). Nobody claims a Nigerian scammer is expressing themselves. Well, if you DO claim that, I've a few billion in gold that could be yours if you just supply me with some information first.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)