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.)"

Comments

When...

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

It's not an anomaly - it's entirely new

[Press2ToContinue]

It's the ubiquity of the observer base and indelible record of our actions that make this a new and different problem.

Historically, people have usually had the ability to move to a location where they are in proximity to and observed by like-minded people. The internet brings all people into proximity and therefore we subject to a raft of populations who we we would have historically avoided. This is like being put into prison, where all inmates are able to see all other inmates actions and are under constant watch by authorities. It's demeaning and oppressive. Not much good comes out of it except to keep the inmates segregated and controlled.

The other great difference is that, for the first time in human history, an indelible, incontrovertible record can be and usually is created of all that is observed, especially that which is posted to the internet. It the past, what was observed was always subject to interpretation by the observer, and it was not usually recorded, and even if it was, it was always subject to human bias. If it was not recorded, small transgressions could be forgotten, and forgiven by the small number of potential first-hand observers. Even if recorded, the scope of who would find the record was still limited, and an act of volition was usually required to read it. So the past situation was one of inherent "you could usually leave your mistakes behind", you could grow up and correct your mistakes (because we all make them) and most could be not haunted forever by a single misspoken word or misdeed. It was organic, and inherently forgiving.

The cold, hard, oxide that records most of what is observed now is neither forgiving nor fades with time (if backups don't fail lol,) And that makes the situation different. Small misjudgements are spread to an immense population instantly, and recorded forever. This makes the impact of what used to be small, gargantuan. In short, everything is amplified, judged, and impermeable.

This can be an unpleasant a way to live, is a lot like prison, and is very different from the past.

Re:It's not an anomaly - it's entirely new

[i kan reed]

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.

Re:It's not an anomaly - it's entirely new

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.

Re:It's not an anomaly - it's entirely new

[Solandri]

Historically, people have usually had the ability to move to a location where they are in proximity to and observed by like-minded people. The internet brings all people into proximity and therefore we subject to a raft of populations who we we would have historically avoided. This is like being put into prison, where all inmates are able to see all other inmates actions and are under constant watch by authorities. It's demeaning and oppressive. Not much good comes out of it except to keep the inmates segregated and controlled.

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.

The cold, hard, oxide that records most of what is observed now is neither forgiving nor fades with time (if backups don't fail lol,) And that makes the situation different. Small misjudgements are spread to an immense population instantly, and recorded forever. This makes the impact of what used to be small, gargantuan. In short, everything is amplified, judged, and impermeable.

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.

Re:It's not an anomaly - it's entirely new

[kheldan]

The internet brings all people into proximity

No, it doesn't. The text and images that people post on the internet, like on Facebook, have about as much to do with who and what they are as the speeches that a political candidate gives during their election campaign; it's a carefully crafted, edited, imaginary-ideal version of that person. Who and what they are in real life, in person is something different from that. Furthermore for all anyone knows, what you see posted on someone's Facebook page, unless you know them personally, may as well be some computer-generated fantasy character and not a real person. The Internet hasn't "brought people together", it's provided another layer of separation that masquerades as something bringing them together.

Re:A mildly amusing anecdote.

[Culture20]

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).