I actually disagree. There's a strong divide between what's mathematically possible, and what' happening on a day-to-day basis. Ignoring the 'bureaucratic factions' (which I guess is geek for lawyers and policy nerds?) misses the nuance in the system. You gotta remember -- we're dealing with people here, and most of us (myself included) don't think strictly in the framework of ones and zeros.
Until we're a) only dealing with machines, which I suppose makes my job obsolete anyway, or b) programming the law, to ignore context, intent and the like, I still argue there's a viable argument _for_ privacy, and privacy-enhancing mechanisms. Lots of things are possible -- doesn't mean they're legally permissible. Nor should they be. Carey On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 3:39 AM, J. Andrew Rogers < [email protected]> wrote: > On Mar 29, 2011, at 9:58 PM, Carey Lening wrote: > > > My one and only (slightly self-interested) recommendation is that you also > not forget the lawyers ... PbD is a big deal (or is developing into one), > and one of the hallmarks for successful implementation is including all the > diverse groups together to develop best privacy practices and implement > effective technological steps from the ground up. > > > > While valuable as a point of information, the policy discussions have > arguably fallen too far behind the technology to be constructive. When I was > working on this problem five years ago, mostly with national governments, > the primary issue was that politically acceptable policy could be distilled > down to solving a couple Hard Problems in mathematics. A pragmatic group of > people could arrive at an adequate, though imperfect, solution by simply > ignoring some bureaucratic factions that made the problem overly difficult. > > Since then, the mathematics and theoretical computer science has advanced > to such a point that privacy is generally not possible even in principle. > The old problem was organizations securing their databases; the new problem > is that anyone can automagically reconstruct the contents of those databases > and much information not in any database from ambient and latent data with > remarkable fidelity. Most people not working in this space do not appreciate > how rapidly capability has advanced and one cannot meaningfully control > technology when the required tool chain is both inexpensive and ubiquitous > across the industrialized world. > > > There is cognitive dissonance between my natural predilection for strong > privacy and my intimate familiarity with the implausibility of it. Privacy > has been reduced to *only* policy, with the weakness implied, because > technical controls have become impractical. > > > J. Andrew Rogers >
