The IT Skeptic - privacy

Uber, big brother, and company use of big data

skeptic — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 19:56:26 +0000

There's social privacy (hiding from the state) and personal privacy (hiding from your neighbours). Where do corporations fit in?

Tracking citizens

skeptic — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:42:10 +0000

Wanting to be off-grid reflects more on the individual than on the society they are in.

What's so creepy

skeptic — Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:02:16 +0000

I wish I had a deep psychological understanding of people's fear of internet openness. It is so often seen as creepy and privacy-violating. I see this reaction as paranoia and superstition. I don't get it. We're gonna have to come to terms with it. Normally I'm the Luddite but I'm not part of the openness backlash.

GrokLaw tantrum

skeptic — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 04:34:59 +0000

A website called GrokLaw closed down recently, supposedly because of US snooping into email. The response of the internet chattering classes has generally been supportive and upset. I don't understand why. I think it is one of the daftest things I have heard in a long time.

The Web started the decline of privacy; it is the personal camera that really nails it dead.

skeptic — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:00:39 +0000

Privacy is dead, get over it: the community now knows as much about you as your neighbour does if you live in a village, or your doorman if you live in an apartment block. And anyone who sees you can record what they are seeing.

Privacy is not dead, just becoming impossible

skeptic — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 04:36:54 +0000

The connectedness of the internet restores the community's ability to observe and moderate behaviour for our own protection. Terrorism and the rise of anti-social behaviours makes this imperative. Anonymity and privacy were an accident of history when the size of communities grew faster than our ability to keep them connected. That has changed now. Privacy is becoming impossible again, whether we like it or not.

More on the privacy issue from Wharton U

skeptic — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:08:51 +0000

Further to my Big Uncle series on privacy, here's an interesting quote from Privacy on the Web: Is It a Losing Battle?

Big uncle: policies and controls for security systems

skeptic — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:17:30 +0000

In our discussions of Big Uncle, we have seen how privacy is pretty much a thing of the past, certainly in the electronic realm. In the final blog post of this series, we look at how it is up to all of us to ensure that the result is Big Uncle not Big Brother.

Big Uncle: the total lack of privacy in electronic communications

skeptic — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:23:12 +0000

We have been discussing Big Uncle: the benevolent aspects of ceding privacy to security systems. Be aware how little privacy you have in electronic communciations.

Big Uncle: looking for the needle in the security data haystack

skeptic — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:38:51 +0000

Big Uncle is the concept of benevolent security. We have been looking in previous posts at the loss of privacy and the positive side of what it means. One application is finding enemies of society.

As the amount of data grows and as it becomes more integrated, a natural trend is to use data mining for more advanced security. The world has barely started down this path. There is much more that can be done to apply existing data technologies and techniques for

Big Uncle: ceding privacy for security in our daily lives

skeptic — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:55:28 +0000

We have been discussing Big Uncle, the benevolent aspects of the loss of privacy to security systems. Today we will look at how most of us willingly surrender privacy every day and will do so increasingly online (except for the most paraniod among us: you know who you are and so do we).

Big Brother vs. Big Uncle; the opposing sides of the loss of privacy to security systems

skeptic — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:12:47 +0000

The changing world creates pressures to employ technology advances for our protection. As these advances compromise our privacy, they also drive social change in our attitudes to privacy. Business and government are working to set standards and policies to ensure these security advances deliver us benevolent security: Big Uncle, not Big Brother.

Either is possible with the technology: benevolent security is dependent on the legal, social and business policies that govern the technology.

Big Uncle: what is “normal” privacy?

skeptic — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:24:36 +0000

We have been discussing Big Uncle, the benevolent aspects of the loss of privacy to security systems. Today we will look closer at the concept of privacy.

Big Uncle: benevolent security. The positive side of the loss of privacy

skeptic — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:40:08 +0000

Big Uncle is the concept of “benevolent security”. We discussed previously how privacy is a dated concept, disappearing fast. People get all tied in a knot over this, but the consequences are only as bad as we let them be. Like any technology, there will be evil applications and there will be good ones.

Privacy is dead - get over it.

skeptic — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:16:52 +0000

People demand online privacy as if it were some god-given right. Privacy is an abberation of recent history, a transitory phenomenon that is evaporating quickly in the hot light of technology. Privacy is dead - get over it.