On 3/19/13 8:07 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
It it wasn't Google, it would be some other entity. A lot of the
futuristic science fiction I used to enjoy featured miniaturization,
sensors, and surveillance. Tiny self-powered bots, powerful optics,
EM, quantum, and nuclear resonance imaging. Machine intelligence.
Privacy is an illusion.
I think it is a lot more subtle than that. There is the question of
just what privacy is?
I agree that there is some kind of new-Orwellian Manifest Destiny at
work, in the sense that if it *wasn't* Google it would be someone else.
2 years ago I was shown a pair of sunglasses that had mini digital video
recorder built in very discretely. $200 or something from sharper
image. Admittedly, you had to plug it into a micro-usb to download the
data (and recharge) with no WiFi or Bluetooth... but the point is the
basic technology to invade your visual (and audio) privace is not new.
Most anyone with a smartphone could already be recording the audio
environment and the video environment within a modestly wide field of
view. Maybe we can start a new game at FRIAM or WedTech to see who can
record the conversations most surruptitiously *without* Google
Goggles. The technology is already here.
Similarly I think too many of us are at least numb if not comfortable
to there being cameras at every street intersection in many
municipalities. They aren't even there (usually) to enforce, but
rather to help run traffic lights based on flow and help determine
congestion levels for various purposes. Ostensibly a GoodThing. But
in principal if not in practice they are also busy providing the
frontend to track all kinds of things. We all see these cameras and
even see them being (mis) used in movies, but for the most part we don't
worry. Similarly CCTV in businesses, ATMs on the street, etc.
And in the home? I know that the way computers with built in cameras
and microphones are designed is supposed to protect my privacy... but it
doesn't take much to bypass most of that. Maybe the camera won't even
power up without lighting the notification LED next to it... but a snip
of wire (ok, so you have to open the case, non trivial) or even a dot of
black fingernail polish over the LED and viola! When I was a PI, it
was understood (and of course never exploited) that many of the phone
systems of the era could be exploited from outside the home. The mic in
the handset(s) were live all the time and could be tapped at the
junction box outside the home by a clever wiseguy. Laser-window mics
weren't available yet but parabolic reflector mics and uber-long camera
lenses were.
A few years ago, having your photo taken in the background of someones
family vacation pics just mean your image showed up in their photo album
on the coffee table... small and grainy and there for any one of their
(merely) dozens of visitors to see. Now, with digital cameras
everywhere and Facebook and Flikr and automatic face recognition, it
might not be hard to find dozens or even thousands of examples of your
face on the net... accidental portraiture exposing details of where
you where when and with who.
Most of us could say If you don't have anything to hide, then you don't
have anything to worry about!. I don't think that is what privacy is
about.
So what *is* privacy? I'm not sure exactly but I think it is more than
this. I think hunter-gatherer bands of 100 or so had very little
*practical* privacy from eachother. I think even early cities had very
little privacy. I think what we think of as privacy *is* an
illusion... but I think there is something yet more subtle and
important that constitutes real privacy. I'll keep thinking on it, but
I'm curious to know if anyone here has any other perspectives on just
what privacy means?
Surely it means more than living your life outside of the range of
cameras and microphones.
- Steve
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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