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Don't Build a Database of Ruin
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul Ohm writes in Harvard Business Review that businesses today are building perfect digital dossiers of their customers, massive data stores containing thousands of facts about every member of our society. He says these databases will grow to connect every individual to at least one closely guarded secret. 'This might be a secret about a medical condition, family history, or personal preference. It is a secret that, if revealed, would cause more than embarrassment or shame; it would lead to serious, concrete, devastating harm,' writes Ohm. 'And these companies are combining their data stores, which will give rise to a single, massive database. I call this the Database of Ruin. Once we have created this database, it is unlikely we will ever be able to tear it apart.' Consider the most famous recent example of big data's utility in invading personal privacy: Target's analytics team can determine which shoppers are pregnant, and even predict their delivery dates, by detecting subtle shifts in purchasing habits. 'In the absence of intervention, soon companies will know things about us that we do not even know about ourselves. This is the exciting possibility of Big Data, but for privacy, it is a recipe for disaster.' According to Ohm, if we stick to our current path, the Database of Ruin will become an inevitable fixture of our future landscape, one that will be littered with lives ruined by the exploitation of data assembled for profit. The only way we avoid this is if companies learn to say, 'no' to some of the privacy-invading innovations they're pursuing. 'The lesson is plain: compete vigorously and beat your competitors in every legitimate way, except when it comes to privacy invasion. Too many companies have learned this lesson the hard way, launching invasive new services that have triggered class action lawsuits, Congressional inquiries, and media firestorms.'"
According to Ohm, if we stick to our current path, the Database of Ruin will become an inevitable fixture of our future landscape, one that will be littered with lives ruined by the exploitation of data assembled for profit.
No doubt, but what we need is a path forward that avoids the pitfalls of ubiquitous databases while retaining the benefits.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I, Anomalous Coward, I am involved in a sexual relationship with a goldfish.
Basically, if I can make up enough too-crazy-to-be-true BS and post it all over the internet, nobody will know how much I am attracted to giraffes.
DAMMIT.
Shouldn't that read "Too few companies have learned ..."? Otherwise the problem would not exist.
Anyway, I think this can only be fixed by legislation. Companies have too much monetary incentive for privacy violation to do anything else than token improvements. "Industry self-regulation" is nothing but newspeak for "foxes guarding the henhouse".
He missed a vital element when writing 1984. Looking at the oppressive governments of the time and the rise of extensive government monitoring, it was easy to imagine governments of the future would be able to take it to an extreme. He completly failed to see the rising power and influence of commercial interests, motivated not by power but by money.
. . . than how come I am not interested in any of those products that Amazon tells me should interest me?
Maybe there is something wrong with me?
Maybe not conforming to their purchase expectations is a sign of criminal activity . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Pay in Cash, don't use store discount cards. Don't let "them" tie the purchase to you. Problem solved.
Or, take the discount, pay with your convenient credit card, and don't give a crap what they think they know about you.
Your choice.
Calling for commercial organisations to stop profiling their customers is about as worthwhile as asking a four year old not to eat that marshmallow you just placed in front of them.
The problem is Joe Average is just too willing to give up their information for the smallest of perks, be it filling out a personal survey to win an iProduct, or swiping their supermarket member card at every transaction to save a few percent.
yeah because you know, when cable tv showed up, it claimed zero ads on its premium non-movie channels.. now look at it.. tons of money and it's loaded with them.. You are purposely misconstruing the actions of advertisers.. if all they were doing was throwing up billboards, that's one thing.. active electronic surveillance of buying habits is COMPLETELY different.
I think of it more like this... a handful of organizations are aggregating everything there is to know about me. Between the sites I visit, the contents of my email and chats, my searches, my friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintences, what I buy or want to buy, things I read or watch, etc., maybe three companies have it all. Data storage is virtually free. Data collection mechanisms are simple and effective. Mountains of other data can be extrapolated from what they have, and these few companies are everywhere. And don't kid yourself that a browser plugin is hiding you effectively.
Now imagine those two or three datasources are compromised at some point, either by hack or by purchase. There's something in there that would make it impossible for a person like you or me to, say, be elected to a public office. I'm not even be sure what mine is, but there's something in there. Maybe it's me talking to someone on a dating site, or something I said via IM, or adding a certain book to a wishlist and forgetting about it, or watching some YouTube video.
Things are going to change at some point. We're either going to get a lot more liberal about what defines a person's character, or we're going to have to deal with data collection and security in a very different way. I don't know which, but either way it'll probably be a painful transition.
People don't even care. And sadly actively participate in their own destruction.
no he wasn't. In his future, the difference between the state and the corporation was zero. We're damned close to that now where one passes the puck to the other to get over some legal or functional limitation the other isn't limited by. When it's done, the puck gets passed back.
I dunno, but that sounds kinda Canadian, eh?
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Of human culture colliding with human technology. As long as we continue to honor our lowest primate drives, then the amplifying effect of technology will generate results with greater and greater negative impact. The good news, is that such circumstances would be unsustainable, precisely because they would be socially unacceptable. At some point human beings will communicate at the speed of thought through imbedded technology. Secrets will become passe even impossible. Humanity will have to evolve into a species that is capable with dealing in absolute truth, and it will not be a society any of us recognize today.
Realistically, you have to look at a Wal-mart or a Bank of America or a Progressive and ask 'Are they really going to hold back on egregious privacy violations just because it's icky?'
The answer, of course, is hell no. As Corporate People they're rapacious sociopaths who'd happily burn puppies or African orphans to death for a few extra cents of shareholder value. There is no possible appeal to ethics here, the best you could do is appeal to possible corporate black eye that would outweigh the profit. Which I don't see.
And then of course there's Homeland Security with their Spy on Everyone Echelon type initiatives and fat pipes right from the heart of every telecom company.
Your Database of Ruin already exists somewhere(s). You've just got to assume it does and figure out how you deal with that.
I think we already seeing the initial phases of this. Non-totalitarian societies will adjust and normalize to be more accepting of digressions, and otherwise damaging historic and contemporaneous behavior which will be more transparent for more and more people. What seems like absurd levels of privacy violation today / yesterday, will be taken for granted in the future / present.
... But this is far from pre-determined, and these crude statistical models geared toward increased consumption of tomorrow; may in the near future give way to more holistic pictures of who we are with the disposal of much more computational resources and vastly more connected data about our increasing transparent existence. Independently of a slide towards totalitarianism; these databases and cognitive pattern recognition systems; could just as well support connections and social bridging of a cornucopia of personal identities; histories with digressions; and everything in between. If we expand access to build these system with human values we wish to amplify; it could just as well increase "freedom" "autonomy" and sustainable"well being" among the techo-societies participants.
To the extent of increased personal hardship from these databases; in non-totalitarian societies its unlikely to result in significant transition towards worse ( or better ) treatment of people outside social and political norms. People outside social norms have been "abused" in small circles for ages; in a larger more "anonymous" society the abuse is built into other layers of the social fabric ( id cards; state oppression etc ); Not to say all circles are created equal; but techno-deterministic dystopianism is a false premise. Technological social changes are bound to the societies in which they take place.
Within "our" global "democratic" "free market" capitalism context the macro implications of concentrated power being able to better micro manage public opinion with powerful tools for life pattern recognition models; may be more problematic then direct loss of privacy abuses that the article outlines. That is to say; all our search for "personal" connections with others may be easier to be mediated. i.e an online video chat "hang out" support group which is moderated by an inquisitive supportive digital agent. That in addition to connecting us to exactly who we needed to talk to and giving us heart felt sense of well being in the short term; is simultaneously creating voids in meaningful existence by commoditizing your values towards particular life style choices, entertaining distractions, and consumption habits that don't enable a sustainable social structure.
Where by every piece of information we look for and every social connection we make is mediated towards these "a-political" life style choices bounding political discourse and participation making it impossible to regulate such abuses enabling increasing concentration of power etc.; there-by creating a vicious cycle in which our autonomy is transformed even more dramatically then in the previous century of mass media consumption.
There are different levels of the word "public". You can look through my windows and see the interior. So that view is "public". Any burglar who wants to break in would have to come to my house and look inside to see if there is anything of value. If the same view is visible on Google Streetview, it is by far more public. Burglars can monitor thousands of addresses from their own home, without being seen themselves. This is why harvesting public data can be enormously evil.
The ability to pay anonymously is getting less and less by day. In Europe, it is not yet that bad that you are seen as a terrorist if you pay cash, but there are far too many places where you have to pay, but real money is not accepted. So you may think people are stupid if they pay with a credit card, but often there isn't even a choice.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Even worse is when this "database of ruin" makes FALSE categorizations/predictions about an individual and then treats them as such. It already happens.
Welcome to the future- guilty without proof, guilty until proven innocent, guilty without due process, guilty by association, guilty without even knowing it.
I live in London. We have loads of convenience stores which employ no staff that speak English, and are more than happy to be paid in cash (Unlike previous posters, I have not found any that take cache). Many will take a random mix of Euros and pounds. I doubt they contribute to any databases, and if they do, it will be completely illegible and probably gibberish - like their tax returns.
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Heaven forbid we find out that we ALL have an asshole, no matter what our social or economic status. Maybe once we realize that we all have an asshole, everyone will stop being so ashamed of theirs.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The accumulation of all information about everybody and everything is unavoidable, so, society will evolve into one of two paths: either a paranoid dystopia where a secret elite controls everybody through fear, and all production of goods and services are controlled by the corporations, or it evolves into a society of free individuals who empowered by technology and social awareness become economically independent and free of the social pressures caused by obsolete ways of thinking. These new free people will join on a new form of government that peacefully will make the old one irrelevant. If you live in the USA you might think the paranoid dystopia is more likely, but if you see the youth in Europe, Latin America and Asia it'll be obvious that gradually a new free society is being built.
What stops you from not having a membership card, and paying in cache ?
I tried that once, I dug a hole behind the tree at the intersection, put my money in, and left a square rock on top to identify the place. But the seller claimed they never got it.