5 ms·

I have to agree with Carmack here. Companies, governments or individuals having lots of data isn't a bad thing in its self. It's what they do with that data tha

by cwp 13y ago

I have to agree with Carmack here. Companies, governments or individuals having lots of data isn't a bad thing in its self. It's what they do with that data that matters, and what they do can be positive as well as negative. This is not to say that we should blindly trust data-holders to behave responsibly. We should watch them very closely! The recent kerfuffle about Microsoft reading a blogger's mail is a good example: MS took an action many people felt was wrong, it got widely publicized, and MS decided they weren't going to do it again, and made a policy change to codify that decision. What was a grey area became a bright line that they've vowed not to cross. The existence of big data is new, and our civilization hasn't figured out how to deal with it yet. I'm confident that we will figure it out, and the good that comes from it will be much greater than the evil.

pfraze 13y ago
> It's what they do with that data that matters Not technically wrong, but it's a bad show to introduce that risk. I say this a lot, but - IT ethics is like medical ethics: you're obligated to protect your clients with expertise regarding things they don't understand. Personal information needs to have strong guarantees of segmentation and authority controls. That's not an open question; it used to be called "good system administration." There's no middle ground on this. Either you're doing your job as an IT professional, or you're exposing users to risk from data-sale, breach exposure, or government overreach.
- cwp 13y ago
  So it's our duty as IT professionals to prevent people from using IT? The services that large-scale IT provides could not exist without gathering the volume of data they do. Google couldn't provide relevant search results with just an index of the web, it also relies on vast amounts of data about user behaviour. The same is true of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. It's non-sensical to talk about risk without talking about the actual scenarios you're worried about. How bad are they? How probable are they? What can we do to reduce the harm and/or likelihood of harm? How much, if at all, will those measures reduce the benefits of the services based on big data? That's the discussion we should be having. Most of the "concern" about big data boils down to an appeal to emotion: "Just think what they could do with all that information!"
  - pfraze 13y ago
    > So it's our duty as IT professionals to prevent people from using IT? Yes, within reason. I advise people not to use Facebook, and I spend a fair amount of working hours on alternatives to Google's app infrastructure. For the grayer areas like improving search, you deal with complicated questions and push the industry to innovate on effective distributed designs. You're making a big assumption saying that collecting a centralized database on users is the only way make good search results. It's certainly one of the easiest ways... > It's non-sensical to talk about risk without talking about the actual scenarios you're worried about. How bad are they? How probable are they? If you don't have personal control over your information, detailed knowledge of how the information is used, or the ability to revoke access, you basically have to assume the probability is 100%. There's barely any legal framework in place on the issue, and so we're left with social pressure and business ethics. Can you really not guess at a negative outcome for personal information collection and passive surveillance?
    - cwp 13y ago
      Can you really not specify the negative outcomes you're trying to prevent? You're accusing me (and most of the members of this forum) of a moral failing, an abrogation of our responsibility to the world. That's a serious accusation, and I'm taking it seriously. If you're right, then I should go into the next room and tell my wife not to post any more pictures of our daughter to Facebook. I should tell my mother that she won't be seeing any more pictures of her grand-daughter, and we're going to have to stop having video chats on Skype. Of course, if I do that, they're going to want to know why. What should I tell them? It better be good, because if not, they'll think I'm just being a jerk, and they'll be right. I agree with you that Facebook has data that could be used in undesirable ways. But it's already being used, right now, on a massive scale, in ways that are clearly and demonstrably desirable. I think the best way to live up to our responsibility is to do two things: • clearly enumerate the scenarios we want to avoid, the reasons why, and advocate for public and private policies that prevent them • be on the lookout for unintended consequences and negative effects that we didn't anticipate, so that we can prevent them from occurring on a large scale

by cwp 13y ago

pfraze 13y ago

> It's what they do with that data that matters Not technically wrong, but it's a bad show to introduce that risk. I say this a lot, but - IT ethics is like medical ethics: you're obligated to protect your clients with expertise regarding things they don't understand. Personal information needs to have strong guarantees of segmentation and authority controls. That's not an open question; it used to be called "good system administration." There's no middle ground on this. Either you're doing your job as an IT professional, or you're exposing users to risk from data-sale, breach exposure, or government overreach.

cwp 13y ago
So it's our duty as IT professionals to prevent people from using IT? The services that large-scale IT provides could not exist without gathering the volume of data they do. Google couldn't provide relevant search results with just an index of the web, it also relies on vast amounts of data about user behaviour. The same is true of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. It's non-sensical to talk about risk without talking about the actual scenarios you're worried about. How bad are they? How probable are they? What can we do to reduce the harm and/or likelihood of harm? How much, if at all, will those measures reduce the benefits of the services based on big data? That's the discussion we should be having. Most of the "concern" about big data boils down to an appeal to emotion: "Just think what they could do with all that information!"
- pfraze 13y ago
  > So it's our duty as IT professionals to prevent people from using IT? Yes, within reason. I advise people not to use Facebook, and I spend a fair amount of working hours on alternatives to Google's app infrastructure. For the grayer areas like improving search, you deal with complicated questions and push the industry to innovate on effective distributed designs. You're making a big assumption saying that collecting a centralized database on users is the only way make good search results. It's certainly one of the easiest ways... > It's non-sensical to talk about risk without talking about the actual scenarios you're worried about. How bad are they? How probable are they? If you don't have personal control over your information, detailed knowledge of how the information is used, or the ability to revoke access, you basically have to assume the probability is 100%. There's barely any legal framework in place on the issue, and so we're left with social pressure and business ethics. Can you really not guess at a negative outcome for personal information collection and passive surveillance?
  - cwp 13y ago
    Can you really not specify the negative outcomes you're trying to prevent? You're accusing me (and most of the members of this forum) of a moral failing, an abrogation of our responsibility to the world. That's a serious accusation, and I'm taking it seriously. If you're right, then I should go into the next room and tell my wife not to post any more pictures of our daughter to Facebook. I should tell my mother that she won't be seeing any more pictures of her grand-daughter, and we're going to have to stop having video chats on Skype. Of course, if I do that, they're going to want to know why. What should I tell them? It better be good, because if not, they'll think I'm just being a jerk, and they'll be right. I agree with you that Facebook has data that could be used in undesirable ways. But it's already being used, right now, on a massive scale, in ways that are clearly and demonstrably desirable. I think the best way to live up to our responsibility is to do two things: • clearly enumerate the scenarios we want to avoid, the reasons why, and advocate for public and private policies that prevent them • be on the lookout for unintended consequences and negative effects that we didn't anticipate, so that we can prevent them from occurring on a large scale