Hi Udhay, that was an interesting one...but it is creeping in on us. I am bit of pessimist, a few years back I had, had a chance to meet with Richard Hunter author of "World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing " he painted a very bleak picture :-(. His book is an interesting one ( a bit old though)... regards Anish
On 6/12/07, Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From Cory. >Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:25:19 -0700 >From: Cory Doctorow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (X11/20070326) >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Forbes just put together an excellent package on the 21st century city, >including my editorial about the future of urban surveillance, called >"Snitchtown": > > > The key to living in a city and peacefully co-existing as a > social animal in tight quarters is to set a delicate balance of > seeing and not seeing. You take care not to step on the heels of > the woman in front of you on the way out of the subway, and you > might take passing note of her most excellent handbag. But you > don't make eye contact and exchange a nod. Or even if you do, you > make sure that it's as fleeting as it can be. > > > > Checking your mirrors is good practice even in stopped traffic, > but staring and pointing at the schmuck next to you who's got his > finger so far up his nostril he's in danger of lobotomizing himself > is bad form--worse form that picking your nose, even. > > > > I once asked a Japanese friend to explain why so many people on > the Tokyo subway wore surgical masks. Are they extreme germophobes? > Conscientious folks getting over a cold? Oh, yes, he said, yes, of > course, but that's only the rubric. The real reason to wear the > mask is to spare others the discomfort of seeing your facial > expression, to make your face into a disengaged, unreadable > blank--to spare others the discomfort of firing up their mirror > neurons in order to model your mood based on your outward > expression. To make it possible to see without seeing. > > >Snitchtown: > http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/11/urban-surveillance-security-biz-21cities_cx_cd_0611futurecity.html > >Forbes on the future of cities: > http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/11/future-cities-urbanization-biz-21cities_cx_mn_de_0611cities_land.html >-- -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
