The thread offering Google Wave invites inexorably brought me back to a long-running idea of mine. It's basically how a dystopian future of nearly-zero privacy could look a lot like George Orwell's 1984, except in one huge respect -- it wouldn't be the government that we'd be unable to keep from using details of our lives, but rather large corporations (whom I've termed "little brother"). A quick list of our biggest information leaks today might include: credit cards, consumer credit agency data, grocery store discount cards, Google searches, Gmail, YouTube favorites, Facebook profiles, CDDB queries, cell phone signals, BitTorrent seeds, OnStar service, and actually any general web browsing done at home. Just looking at the list above indicates that the data from just four companies alone would paint a pretty accurate picture of my life; those four being Visa, Google, my cell phone network, and my home ISP. And, of course, Google is especially unabashed about their desire to datamine your personalized information for profiling purposes. Nonetheless, I generally embrace all of the technologies in the list above, even if there is a tiny nagging Luddite somewhere in the recesses of my mind... But anyways, I'm not saying that I believe any of us will ever see some nightmare world, a lá some of the interesting works of paranoid fiction ( 1 2 3 etc), though I do suspect that quality of life is more likely to be reduced than improved by corporations as they learn to utilize these mountains of data more invasively. I'd fully expect insanity as portrayed in this film clip to be the start of the really annoying developments:

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I can't be the only privacy freak here ... but your thoughts? [Edited by - HostileExpanse on December 10, 2009 5:39:35 AM]

I think privacy is doing much better than it used to. I mean in the past banks did openly sell information about their customers for direct marketing. Now because of Article V of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act they can only use personal information like bank transactions internally to direct market credit cards and such. (or that's what I got from it after a quick glance).

Back in the 1990s there was a case where Equifax teamed up with a software company called Lotus in order to make a program that helped companies to direct market customers. That got such bad publicity that the project was canceled.

Actually I just wrote a book report type thing in my ethics class that covered some privacy issues that were getting common in the 1990s. (I wrote it in a day and read the book in two days, so yeah... it wasn't really a planned essay, just needed to get it done).

You bring up an awesome point that the book I read used. It's not how data by itself is used (since that can be powerful) but when data is combined it can reveal a lot more.

[Edited by - Sirisian on December 9, 2009 8:32:18 AM]

IMO there's two solutions: you go with the lull or you... move to a lovely mountain cottage/cave.

It's fun to occasionally think of all the databases information related to me might be in an who might have access to that information. Invariably, the only option, personally for me, that always saves the day is accepting that as a form of inevitability. Granted, at this point a kind of an informed inevitability - in that I actually control what information I choose to give out most of the time I do so. The other option would be:

- get off Facebook/Orkut/LinkedIn (no I'm not on all of these, but it makes a fun game trying to decide which one is the most bigrotheresque)
- lose my MafiaWars ID
- get off Myspace, Beatport, etc
- get off all mail clients, most importantly GMail
- lose my webpage
- can try, but can't really unregister from the probably hundred or so places by now that have my IP stored, possibly forever
- close all bank accounts
- destroy all credit cards
- burn my social ID
- become a bum with no name or...
- move to a lovely mountain cottage/cave

Big Brother won't be watching there.

Personally I can get to #2 on the list - MafiaWars is fun. Although - TBH if I had the willpower to remember all those birthdays, #3 or #4 should be a sensible target.

edit: compulsory Epic link (original is better)

Well.. the good news is that as far as I know it is illegal for corporations to, in any way, share the data they have on a user. So, for example, those annoying google ads you see everywhere do not in any way shape or form share their data with the website which is using them. For google itself, finding out specific information on person x would be difficult unless they are specifically targetting person x. And I believe, but I could be wrong, that Google, or an affiliate of Google, can't even legally release a harmless general statement like "70% of the time, the people who watch youtube videos are watching pr0n".

All they're really doing is collecting information in preparation for the eventual collapse of the Western Democratic system. So it will be easier for Joe the Dictator to gather up and "cleanse" pr0n addicts.

I don't know about the validity of the alleged ties between Facebook and the CIA (apparently there's enough fuss to warrant genuine suspicion), but I do remember a clause in the Facebook EULA (one that they have since changed/removed) that allowed them to share and give away your personal information with/to their affiliates without your express consent (the express consent being your clicking the Agree button). I'm pretty sure a list of affiliates was not included.

As for Google - I don't think Google needs to share its information with anyone. It could probably expose (expose meaning ruin their lives/cause considerable grief) millions of individuals with the help of GMail alone, today if need be; I would'n even dare guess how many companies could be facing a lawsuit if Google decided to lift the lid on Analytics...

Quote: As for Google - I don't think Google needs to share its information with anyone. It could probably expose (expose meaning ruin their lives/cause considerable grief) millions of individuals with the help of GMail alone, today if need be; I would'n even dare guess how many companies could be facing a lawsuit if Google decided to lift the lid on Analytics...

True, but if they did that, and if people were outraged enough -- which they should be -- google could basically kiss goodbye to their existence as a company, and hope they survive the lynch mobs tommorow. I remember the facebook thing, and the general "Crucify EM!" attitude that rose because of it, which forced them to eventually change the EULA.

Of course Government surveillance, and malicious attacks on the company are two other seperate problems.... but having all of humanity's information in a little vault somewhere is just too convenient.

Looking for other alternate "Big Brothers", Bilnd Faith seems to be a satirical take on 1984, where the bad guy watching everyone isn't the government, it's society itself. Social networks have reached the point where you're regarded as some kind of pervert and would be completely ostracised if you didn't voluntarily share every boring detail of your life via the net. Choosing not to broadcast your most intimate moments via a webcam would arouse communal suspicion about you having dark secrets, such as being a paedo...

Quote: Original post by WazzatMan
it is illegal for corporations to, in any way, share the data they have on a user. So, for example, those annoying google ads you see everywhere do not in any way shape or form share their data with the website which is using them.

...Until we get a real life Umbrella corporation, then it's not sharing between companies -- they're one entity! Imagine if someone were to merge together Unilever, Google and News Limited :O But governments regulate mergers of that size, thankfully.

IIRC the cyberspace trilogy touches on multinationals of this size, some bigger than whole countries. One is example is a 'defector' from a company who is amazed upon escaping into the outside world that people can survive without a company to watch over them.

Quote: ...Until we get a real life Umbrella corporation, then it's not sharing between companies -- they're one entity! Imagine if someone were to merge together Unilever, Google and News Limited :O But governments regulate mergers of that size, thankfully.

IIRC the cyberspace trilogy touches on multinationals of this size, some bigger than whole countries. One is example is a 'defector' from a company who is amazed upon escaping into the outside world that people can survive without a company to watch over them.

You sir are lying. Everyone knows that when the statist system eventually collapses, and corporations are allowed limitless growth, that the invisible hand will give everyone candy, cigars, and machine guns, and people will live happily ever after in a World which doesn't resemble Mad Max 2 AT ALL.

Stop spreading your socialist propaganda.

Here are some interesting technologies:

1. Speakers that target a very specific area (only one person at a time can hear)
2. Facial recognition software
3. Data mining from retailers/internet companies

Prediction:

In 20 years or so you will be walking through the store, a camera will recognize who you are and then direct specific audio "ads" to your person based on your likes and dislikes.

Interesting that this is possible now but no one has put it all together yet.

Edit: just saw the video clip, interesting...

In China in the 1960s and 1970s it was not the government you needed to be afraid of, it was your local block committees. People I know took all doors off their hinges, because everyone knew if you went in to a room with a closed door you were trying to hide something. Everyone watched everyone else. Don't suspect a friend, report him.

The Fascist movements in the early twentieth century was fundamentally an oligarchy of business interests trying to control the government. While the extreme form of this was the National Socialist movement in Germany, the natural forces at work in current American society are heading in the same direction: money interests, primarily businesses, influence and attempt to control the government. If the businesses know all about you, and the business control the government, then it is only a matter of time until Little Brother grows up to be Big Brother and we all start taking the doors off their hinges so we can keep an eye on each other. For those few of you who may have watched a documentary on the history channel, you might recall that the Fascist governments in much of Europe were democratically elected.

The price of freedom is constant vigilance.