Privacy is deader than a doornail. And good riddance.
A few years back, the Ars Electronica Festival--probably the one festival in the world I would trade a finger to attend--held the theme of privacy. But not in the way you think. The symposium was titled "Goodbye Privacy." Why the lack of privacy is good--why it's safer, more cohesive to society and brings us closer together. At first though, the American in me stood up to these nutcases. "How can you say such a thing??!"
I'm not a lawyer, hell, and I'm not about to speak to the post-doctoral crowd out there on the subject, but the fact remains you can find out all about me with a few clicks of the mouse. Identity theft happens to like 1 in a billion people, folks, no matter how much the credit card companies try to upsell us on programs to "protect us."
With the advent of the internet, and especially web 2.0, our lives are out there for everyone to see. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and we all live on Glass Ave. Should we protect children from being stalked? Absolutely of course. Should we keep some secrets secret? Sure. Does it matter if people get my PIN number? Well, if you want $171.08, go for it. It's 4425.
People claim the recent news about the NSA or the cameras in our cities are Orwell's Big Brother. Well, my big brother was pretty nice actually. And the government is now watching you? I have a little bit of a news flash for you, my friend, they've always been watching you. A better question would be: why are you so nervous?
I can look into my house on Google maps, I can look up my girlfriend from two decades ago on the internet and if i get kidnapped, I hope someone can use GPS to find me. So Facebook wants to track my every move, so what? I like Christpher Cross and Arby's.
Big f'ng whoop.
I love the assumption the "ZOMG Big Brother!" crowd makes that the government is really competent enough to keep track of our every move.
ReplyDeleteI'm not concerned about "the government" so much as potential employers, my parents, my girlfriend's family, etc. It's already sad that we have to sterilize our online identities by de-tagging photos and grooming our facebook profiles with the assumption that absolutely anyone could see this.
ReplyDeleteLack of privacy sucks because it forces us to censor ourselves. As telecommunications becomes more and more advanced, this could eventually mean not only de-tagging photos, but avoiding unsavory photos in the first place, or even refraining from less-than-respectable behavior at all, for fear that somewhere down the line it could prevent us from getting jobs, getting into school, getting insured, etc. In my opinion, that's an Orwellian scenario that's not the least bit paranoid.
been thinking about this a lot lately.
ReplyDeleteit's important for all of us to remember that nothing is forgotten. or everything is forgotten? maybe if you hide nothing there is nothing to hide?
can something you give away freely be stolen?
i would rather have my data open to all than held by those currently responsible for the recent financial mess. maybe if we all got in the habit of publishing our own financial histories, internet browsing, medical records, phone records, etc we could actually do some useful meta analysis that would actually benefit the general public, not the corporations who we currently trust with private information.
some other thoughts here...
http://plainfront.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/thoughts-on-total-openness-of-information/
Check out Dan Solove's "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy."
ReplyDeletehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565