Schneier On a Generation Gap In Privacy

goompaloompa writes "In the Japan Times, Bruce Schneier writes that a passing conversation online is not what it may seem and that maintaining your privacy is becoming even more difficult as social media and cloud computing become the norm. Furthermore, while users in Japan may think they are secure, their level of protection may vary when the computers that store their data are overseas. At the root of the problem is a new generation gap: old laws incapable of covering current-day scenarios. Quoting: 'Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look through your correspondence, they had to break into your house. Now, they can just break into your ISP. Ten years ago, your voicemail was on an answering machine in your office; now it's on a computer owned by a telephone company. ... We need comprehensive data privacy laws, protecting our data and communications regardless of where it is stored or how it is processed. We need laws forcing companies to keep it private and delete it as soon as it is no longer needed, and laws giving us the right to delete our data from third-party sites. And we need international cooperation to ensure that companies cannot flaunt data privacy laws simply by moving themselves offshore."

Comments

Diction complaint

[russotto]

Dammit, it's "flout", not "flaunt".

Re:The younger generation

[ZeroExistenZ]

You were thinking how your personal thoughts are still private, thinking you could prove that point.

Actually... No it isn't.

[denzacar]

At least not for the last 433 years.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaunt

* Main Entry: flaunt
        * Pronunciation: \flont, flänt\
        * Function: verb
        * Etymology: perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse flana to rush around
        * Date: 1566

intransitive verb
1 : to display or obtrude oneself to public notice (a great flaunting crowd -- Charles Dickens)
2 : to wave or flutter showily (the flag flaunts in the breeze)

transitive verb
1 : to display ostentatiously or impudently : parade (flaunting his superiority)
2 : to treat contemptuously (flaunted the rules -- Louis Untermeyer)
synonyms

-- flaunt noun

-- flauntingly \flon-ti-l, flän-\ adverb

-- flaunty \-t\ adjective

usage
Although transitive sense 2 of flaunt undoubtedly arose from confusion with flout, the contexts in which it appears cannot be called substandard
(meting out punishment to the occasional mavericks who operate rigged games, tolerate rowdyism, or otherwise flaunt the law -- Oscar Lewis)
(observed with horror the flaunting of their authority in the suburbs, where men...put up buildings that had no place at all in a Christian commonwealth -- Marchette Chute)
(in our profession...very rarely do we publicly chastise a colleague who has flaunted our most basic principles -- R. T. Blackburn, AAUP Bulletin).

If you use it, however, you should be aware that many people will consider it a mistake.
Use of flout in the sense of flaunt 1 is found occasionally
("The proper pronunciation," the blonde said, flouting her refined upbringing, "is pree feeks" -- Mike Royko).