5 ms·

I was floored to see that this article could have been written yesterday, with only minor revisions. We are still dealing with the same problems, 40 years later

• m_eiman 17y ago
  It's also interesting to note that it's not a major problem, even after fourty years. Sure, we're registered in more databases than we can count, but the amount of data is also a sort of defense against abuse; it's like a school of fish using their numbers to "hide" from predators.
  • zeynel1 17y ago
    Nice metaphor. But Electronic Frontier Foundation appears to disagree: "New technologies are radically advancing our freedoms, but they are also enabling unparalleled invasions of privacy." http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy
    • m_eiman 17y ago
      Yes, massive abuse is -possible-. But it's just not happen very often, at least as far as I know. When was the last time you heard of someone being blackmailed using information found this way? The worst cases of information abuse I've heard of in Sweden are medical personel (sp?) reading the journals of famous people, and I think that someone at a telephone company checked who his girlfriend talked/texted with and/or where she was. I'm sure that there's more that we don't hear about, but it appears to be a fairly limited problem. The biggest problem I see is that we're building a very useful infrastructure for abuse if something like Stasi (hah! was going to write "the Nazis", but stayed my hand in time) should come to power. Then they won't have to spend time building a surveilance apparatus, and can get on with the harassing right away.