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Vint Cerf Thinks Privacy May Be an Anomaly
Nerval's Lobster writes "Vint Cerf, widely considered one of the 'founders of the Internet,' told an audience at the Federal Trade Commission's Internet of Things workshop that privacy could be considered 'an anomaly.' That workshop, held Nov. 19 in Washington, DC, explored (via speeches and panel discussions) how the proliferation of sensors on everything from cars to household devices is fundamentally changing how people live and work—while raising questions of how to best maintain privacy and security in an environment where more and more things are 'watchers.' 'The technology that we use today has far outraced our social intuition, our headlights,' he added. '[There's a] need to develop social conventions that are more respectful of people's privacy.' Current social behaviors, such as instantly posting images from smartphones to social networks, can result in a whole lot of embarrassment—and maybe even penalties, if data and media happens to catch someone in the act of doing something illegal. Cerf currently works at Google as chief Internet evangelist, which would make him uniquely positioned to comment on these sorts of issues even if he hadn't co-created the TCP/IP backbone that supports the modern Web. (Back in April, he told an audience that, if he had to do it all over again, he'd construct the Internet in the mold of Software-Defined Networking — but that's a whole different, tangled discussion.)"
...I can monitor exactly what the people in charge, whether it's government or corporations, do at any point in their life we can start talking. Until then, keep out.
...those that avoid publicly screwing up will end up doing better than those whose mistakes are documented for all to find.
This is not a new problem, it's simply a bigger problem than it used to be as communications have allowed one party to find out about another party more quickly and easily, and our collective narcissism has meant that we're constantly publishing our "accomplishments" for any random person to see, whether they're actually worth noting or not. A lot of people simply do not understand that moments or situations special to them are not special or important to anyone else.
Unfortunately the only way to really curtail this is to tell people that they're not special. To tell them that most people, even likely their friends, do not care about Johnny's part in the school play or Suzie's piano recital, let alone Ricky's first steps or Adrienne's first words. They really don't care about what you had for lunch unless you're eating something that most wouldn't consider food, and they don't care how you looked snockered at that party unless you're showing them something of prurient interest.
Stop oversharing and mind who's watching what you do, or expect to have less opportunity as those in positions of authority choose to turn you down in favor of someone that will embarrass them less.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Really just about anything you do in public is public. That is the way it has been for a long time. What the Internet has done is made the planet a small town.
Smoke a joint at a party? You are doing it in public. This is not new. There was always a chance that someone would tell your boss, wife, or parents you where doing something that they would not approve of. The difference is it is just more likely.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The idea of having a concrete and photographically provable identity is less than a century old. There was a time when leaving town, changing your name, and never speaking to anyone you knew again would effectively erase you(fame or infamy aside).
Nowadays, you need paperwork proving who you are to move into a new place. And those with the will can identify you uniquely by your genes.
Really just about anything you do in public is public. That is the way it has been for a long time. What the Internet has done is made the planet a small town.
Smoke a joint at a party? You are doing it in public. This is not new. There was always a chance that someone would tell your boss, wife, or parents you where doing something that they would not approve of. The difference is it is just more likely.
The difference is culpable deniability; using your example, if someone tells your boss they saw you smoking pot at a party, you can easily deny the charge, as well as turn it back on the person making it ("Don't know what he's talking about, but why was he at a pot-smoking party to begin with, hmmmm?")
As Micheal Phelps found out, a picture some asshole posts online is a lot harder to deny.
That's not even mentioning the can of worms that things like internet access in the home and automotive telemetric monitoring equipment create.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I think a lot of people use the term "privacy" to mean "without a persistent source of worldwide evidence showing irrefutable proof otherwise".
The guy at your party has to pit his word against mine. He has to know my boss, wife, or parents to be able to tell them, and even then I still have the ability for that to be forgotten about, and can go back to living my life. Contrast that with the picture someone snapped of the hypothetical me that insta-uploaded itself to facebook, all privacy settings turned off. Or the 'viral' video that becomes an internet meme hobbling my odds of getting a job, because I'm "the (whatever) guy from the video".
The societal issue here is that we're all a little too happy to self-righteously crucify the guy who has a picture of him smoking a substance of dubious nature online, and then go over to fuck the BSDM mistress while the wife is out of town... at least, until those pictures leak, and then the guy who does coke off the bathroom sink at work is crucifying you, and the circle-jerk continues.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
This can be an unpleasant a way to live, is a lot like prison, and is very different from the past.
Indeed, and it's not surprising that some have used the panopticon metaphor to describe the society that is being built.
However, there is another possible outcome: instead of pretending that people don't make mistakes, people don't have sex, people don't use drugs, people don't say "naughty" words - perhaps society will move to stop pretending about these things and then passing around a photo showing Joe hitting a bong won't be any more scandalous than passing around a photo showing that Joe has black hair. Some day it might even be possible to admit that Joe has a penis, without yelling "SHAME!" at him.
The "alien observer" would be humored by the degree of Puritan ethos in our society that we won't even admit to (if we can even recognize it). I think he'd be saddened, though, that we get men in black dresses to meter out revenge to people who get "caught" doing those things. If mass communication gets our society to stop doing those unkind things, perhaps it won't actually be a bad thing.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Well lets go back 50 years.
You would go to your local store, buy supplies, and say if you asked for that magazine that is behind the desk, that store keeper would know. And you know what, I bet there may be some gossip from that. That went on. So the reason people didn't do those sorts of things, because they lived in world where there wasn't that much privacy.
The issue now, isn't as much privacy, but longevity. You did something you didn't like, everyone knows about it... However years down the line, people will not care much, and they wouldn't be able to look it up.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I disagree. Whether it's a negative or a positive depends on what you're doing. Yes if you want secrecy or privacy, it's a negative. But if you want collaboration and to share knowledge, it's the greatest boon mankind has ever seen. When I was growing up, I could only speak with my relatives in Korea just once every month or so because international phone calls were expensive. Now we can share photos of our daily lives with each other immediately.
To me, the obvious solution is for social norms to change. It used to be that if you committed a faux pas, it was quickly forgotten if minor. Only if it were a major transgression of social norms (e.g. child porn) did knowledge of it become widespread (because of it spreading by word of mouth) and your reputation ruined.
Now because of what you point out, even a minor faux pas (e.g. the Star Wars kid video) can become widespread. The solution isn't to ban the distribution of a video of a minor faux pas. The solution is for society to recalibrate its norms and judge the faux pas based on the seriousness of its transgression, not based on how widely distributed it is.
People aren't perfect. They're human, and will make dumb mistakes. If someone accidentally hits reply to all when sending out a vitriolic email, that doesn't mean they're a bitter and bad person who should be fired immediately. It means they're a human being who responds emotionally from time to time. If you expect perfect behavior from people, you'll end up with what we have in politics. Nobody is perfect, and when you require perfect behavior the only people who can qualify are those who have no qualms about lying about having perfect behavior. Consequently all our politicians are liars.
Scott McNealy (oops, I meant Vint Cerf) is saying that if his pet technology causes problems, then there is nothing wrong with the tech, and people's expectations should change. I call that bad engineering (and politics). In the 19th and early 20th century the choking smoke from everything from locomotives to smelters was just the "price of progress". Similarly, there used to be a cold calculation that every $1M in construction would result in one construction worker's death. Can't be avoided. Bull. Those problems were the result of bad engineering and bad politics, as improvements since have demonstrated. Claiming that "privacy is an anomaly" and society should change to support the Internet is just a half-assed excuse. This man has clearly run out of new ideas, and is just resting on his laurels.
If current trends continue, everybody will have embarrassing pictures on the internet and nobody will care
I try not to judge people from their drunken party photos. On the other hand, I try to be somewhat careful when posting something about myself. I'm sure there are lots of people like me on Slashdot, who like to keep things reasonably private, and don't use Facebook, for example. This might be a problem if social media exhibitionism becomes too much of a norm, if it becomes suspicious to try and stay private.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The problem is the computer shouldn't be set up to accept a real DoB when a "did you verify the purchaser's age as over 21" would work instead (and make sure there's enough time between the scanning of the alcohol and the pressing of Y/N to have really checked the license and done the mental math).
The idea of having a concrete and photographically provable identity is less than a century old. There was a time when leaving town, changing your name, and never speaking to anyone you knew again would effectively erase you(fame or infamy aside).
The flip side of that is that for most of human existence the small group of people you lived with (village, tribe, etc.) knew everything about you. Privacy was basically nonexistent. Sure, you could move and, assuming you could get another group to let you in, you could start with a blank slate. But your new fellows would soon know everything about your present self, even if they didn't know about your past. And, frankly, the fact that you'd be a blank slate to them is the biggest part of the reason they'd be unlikely to let you in.
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