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Your Privacy Is a Sci-Fi Fantasy
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia discusses the 'sci-fi fantasy' that is privacy in the digital era. 'The assault on personal privacy has ramped up significantly in the past few years. From warrantless GPS tracking to ISP packet inspection, it seems that everyone wants to get in on the booming business of clandestine snooping — even blatant prying, if you consider reports of employers demanding Facebook passwords prior to making hiring decisions,' Venezia writes. 'What happened? Did the rules change? What is it about digital information that's convinced some people this is OK? Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.'"
The problem is that far to many people look about as far ahead as a goldfish. "Sure I will give you access to all my facebook data for a cheap beer..." And that makes it had for the rest of us with a clue.
The picture of the comment you link to is actually a defense of freedom, not a defense of "child pornography". The writer was denouncing censorship; he was not advocating anything.
Sorry, but you don't get to turn it around and say the author stated something that in fact he did not.
All digital communication is inherently recorded, so in some twisted sense it's more like dumpster diving and less like wiretapping to snoop in e-mail.
No, it's more like your mail carrier reading your snail-mail.
Which is also an illegal invasion of privacy.
The rules don't need to be re-written. The old ones work just fine as long as we don't throw out all reason as soon as "on a computer" is added.
The enemies of Democracy are
It simply has to be fought for and lately it seems it will require some very real bloodshed. The government of the U.S. and all of the other major free society governments of the world are hell bent on stripping away privacy in order to defend intellectual property and to assure themselves of better control over the people "they serve." The last time we saw these kinds of problems, there was a revolution in the US. The next time we see it, it may be a global "civil war" against the tyrants of the nations of the world.
I'm sorry to all the business people out there who believe their right to "grow and proper" outweighs the needs, rights and the very nature of humanity but they don't. You don't have the right to unlimited profits. You don't have the right to sell data you have collected about people to other businesses or governments. You will all find this out before too long "French Revolution" style.
I just hope we have enough "fathers of the new world democracy" or whatever we end of calling it to write a new constitution guaranteeing everything the US constitution guaranteed and adds to it all of the lessons we have learned since that document was written. Among these should include bits like "There shall be no law which impedes, restricts, hinders or limits the rights of humanity, its arts or its legacy."
Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I feel we have little else to lose. And when that happens, a special kind of hell will break loose all over the globe.
The problem with this argument is that many people who use these technologies do not understand how they work, and may not realize what they are exposing.
Is that their own problem? I suppose. One way to look at it is "evolution in action"... the unaware will be preyed upon. But I think there is a place in society for protecting the innocent from active predators, which are what these companies really are.
I am not an advocate of laws that are intended to protect us from ourselves. But to protect people from others who actively seek to intrude and invade? Sure, no problem.
For a long time, people didn't care about privacy. They didn't care that some ad agency was writing down what websites they visited as long as they could get to whatever Internet sites.
Now, people are starting to feel the consequences of no privacy. Companies making point scores based on people's Internet postings, the fact that an arrest for *anything* will be a career ender [1], even if it is just PI and a 4 hour stint in the drunk tank. The wrong like on Facebook gets someone branded as a potential racist for 7 years.
A few years back, at first was a joke about people losing jobs due to FB posts. Now, this is routine, as well as the fact that the police can become involved if the wrong thing is posted in minutes. It is scary that one thing stated in anger and stupidity can mean not finding work, but more dire consequences such as expulsion from a school, or jail/prison time.
Will this change? I doubt it. I'm watching the threshold for getting arrested, getting a felony, or even life in prison become ever more trivial. Especially anything related to drug possession.
I can tell I'm getting older when it actually took some doing to be arrested in school when I was there (something that really was a felony). Now, it is common to read about some high school kid whisked from the school grounds and to jail because they backtalked a coach (which is considered assault in some areas), or that they decided to skip a class and went to jail due to curfew laws. What are we teaching kids when their friends get hauled off to jail and the person's chances of a job in the future nixed? Yes, fear of authority, but definitely not respect.
I'm just waiting for a convergence of hardware DRM stacks, data mining, "anti-piracy" laws, and IP address geolocation where new computers will shoot taser probes at the person using them, and keep them doing "the fish" until the cops arrive, the second they type a suspicious or angry post.
[1]: I've asked about that when I got through a round of interviews at one place and others who I know were more qualified than I didn't. The HR droid said something along the lines of, "You can buy an acquittal. If a cop considers someone guilty enough to pull out the handcuffs, they are a criminal and will remain a criminal for the rest of their lives, and they will not ever see a job here."
If you pay for it but it's in the contract are they 'free' to monitor your every internet reaction. See the way you react to adds, which generate a positive reaction and which do not. Conduct experiments trialling different styles of adds to see which more effectively manipulate your choices. Test to see if targeting influential people in your life can get them to motivate your decisions. See which lies are the most effective in tricky you about the veracity of adds. See if exposure to actions on the web can influence your choices. See if distortions about your actions on the web can influence your choice. Conduct continual experiments and trials whilst you are connected to the internet upon an automated basis. Target you whole family in a similar fashion especially minors. Target you with automated forum responses to question and challenge your beliefs. Target you social connections with automated responses designed to manipulate your choices. Use your image and voice in product recommendations for free. Use all content you have generated for free. Create man in the middle distortions in your social contacts.
Are you 'free' to harangue your local representatives to enact legislation to ban all that activity. The legislate the only personal data that companies are allowed to keep is what is required for account keeping purposes. That when this data is no longer required for account keeping purposes it is destroyed. That companies are permanently banned from collating and data mining personal data. That 100% truth is required in all advertising regardless of delivery method and that all false product associations are banned.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen