| Ana Viseu on 3 Feb 2001 05:06:04 -0000 |
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| Re: <nettime> Privacy Anyone? |
Matt, In your post you are trying to separate two things which, in fact, cannot the separated. The loss of privacy and the creation of net borders. The creation of borders is dependent on the loss of privacy, for you cannot block someone out unless you have some information about who they are. Dismissing privacy as a perceived issue, and concluding that it is a non-issue because when posting on Nettime most people use their real names, shows a superficial understanding of what privacy is. Privacy is not connected to the voluntary giving out of information about oneself, rather it has to do with the ability to control who has access to this information and when. In other words, the loss of privacy has to do with a loss of control of one�s own personal information. The creation of huge opaque databases, controlled by self-regulating businesses is a real problem, because as individuals we cannot access them or even find out what is collected there. A good metaphor for today�s privacy issues is Kafka�s The Trial, where the main character is accused of having committed a crime and is told that there is a �complete file� on him, but is never given access to the file in order to find out what the crime is. [1] Nortel�s new software aims at doing exactly that: extract personal info without one�s consent. And they are not shy about it. On their website one can read: "Imagine a network that knows who you are, where you are, and can reach you whether you're on your mobile phone or at your desktop. Even better, imagine instead of finding your Web content, it finds you�. It is scary to think of may find you� Nortel admits that there are privacy risks, but trusts on the good market self-regulation to solve them. I don�t. The attempt to create frontiers on the Net (and this time not wild-west ones�) is directly, although not exclusively, related to privacy. The discourse on the creation of borders takes many forms: national sovereignty, security, law, taxation, etc. But it can be reduced, in a very basic form, to the balance between the right to privacy and all the above mentioned issues. Check out, for example, the new European/international Cybercrime Law. If one wants to maintain a border-free internet then dismissing privacy concerns is definitely the wrong approach. Best. Ana Viseu [1] See an article on today�s NYTimes on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/02/technology/02CYBERLAW.html At 01:27 AM 2/1/01 +0100, you wrote: >creepy yes, but not very significant. <...> ----++++----++++---- Tudo vale a pena se a alma n�o � pequena. http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~aviseu # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]