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Sixty years ago, if something weird happened most people would say, "Gee, I wish I owned a camera!" Ten years ago, if something weird happened most of us would
by beloch 13y ago
Sixty years ago, if something weird happened most people would say, "Gee, I wish I owned a camera!"
Ten years ago, if something weird happened most of us would say, "Gee, I wish I'd brought a camera!".
Today, if something weird happens most of us would say, "Gee, I wish I'd had my phone out of my pocket when that happened!".
A couple of years from now, we'll just take for granted that we're recording everything around us all the time.
Humans love sharing stories, but we're obsessed with our own credibility. We could entertain others with a well spun tale far better than with a cellphone snap-shot, but we still strive to record that snap-shot so we won't need to tell the story and risk being doubted. In the process, we are eliminating the mutability of truth and perspective in human experience in favor of cold, hard bits that tell only the objective truth, and will do so perfectly for as long as they are stored.
While we worry about keeping the secrets we have, we're generating new secrets at an exponentially increasing rate. Secrets are necessarily losing their impact as a result. A nude photo was once a scandal. A hardcore pornographic movie, deliberately leaked, is now cheap promotion. Here in Canada, the mayor of a major city was allegedly caught doing crack on tape. People weren't sure whether to care or not, and it mostly came down to whether or not they already liked him. Society is changing to accommodate the reduction of personal privacy by becoming less responsive to scandal.
This is why the use of encryption has such difficulty overcoming sloth and why there is so little rage among the U.S. public about their loss of privacy. Compared to the indignities their pop-idols are subjected to, the snooping of the NSA seems benign. The government would have to start placing cameras in their bathrooms and bedrooms before they'd be properly outraged, and in a decade or two even that may be tolerable! However, even as some types of information lose their ability to wound, the type of information the government seeks will still serve as an instrument of control.
It's a bit of a conundrum. How do we make people care more about privacy when society is busy transforming itself to care less? I don't think the cypherpunk movement has a hope of combating this trend. Whatever it does for the good of society will have to be done in spite of society rather than with it's willing participation.
- popee 13y agoWhat you do in your house is your thing, but in my country it is not legal to record stuff in public without permission. Also, yeah, humans like to share stuff, but not with enemies or whom they think is not worth sharing (like corrupted government, etc).
- Andrew_Quentin 13y agoWhat country is that?
- ippisl 13y agoI'm not sure people are willing to totally skip privacy. One interesting data point is a snapchat. It enables private picture sharing and it's pretty popular. Another private messaging app talks about protecting the privacy and safety of your children, I can see the app becoming popular. Maybe by building this kinds of networks we can offer more private channels. But not sure this can lead to anti government encryption because : A. People are interested in protection from terrorism. B. There are plenty of ways for government to subvert this kind of apps, especially since they are owned by commercial entities. And maybe that's a good thing, in a world where terrorists will probably have increasing technological capabilities to cause damage.
- contingencies 13y agoIt's a bit of a conundrum. How do we make people care more about privacy when society is busy transforming itself to care less? I'm not sure that society is transforming itself. I feel like there are certain corporate actors that are extremely influential in this area and should either review their business ethics or prepare to be regulated out of their present mode of existence. I don't think the cypherpunk movement has a hope of combating this trend. Perhaps you are right, but defeatism and apathy is easy. Why shouldn't people who dislike the negative aspects of society's present direction challenge themselves? As the old Margaret Mead saying goes, "Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Whatever it does for the good of society will have to be done in spite of society rather than with it's willing participation. Will is a funny one. If you take the oft-quoted computational sphere view on truths, cultimating in self-evidence, then it may be fair to say that such truths entering the stage of self-evidence are indeed accepted by society with it's willing participation.