Transparent Society – Privacy in the modern age

March 12, 2008 Privacy No Comments

I’ve been reading the comments posted between Bruce Schneier and David Brin about the Transparent Society (the comments direct specifically at Brins book, not at Gianni Vattimo’s earlier book).

Now I’m a firm believer in privacy… with caveats, as always. There is information I don’t want to be collected and aggregated for security and privacy. I mean most Banks ‘Secure’ logons ask for details you could get from someones CV, the Nazi’s used information collected by the previous government to round people up for the concentration camps. Why should I be happy for people to start aggregating this data, even if I can watch them? I suppose it’s also an issue of trust, who has the information how competent are they, who may get it.

As long as society doesn’t become so transparent that it becomes invisible, perhaps the opaque society would be better? Then let the opacity fluctuate between 5% and 95%, its the same old argument where sides argue their black and white issues, which are actually grey to the rest of the world.

Who’s responsible for cleaning the windows of the transparent society?

Trusting Technology

February 28, 2008 Privacy 1 Comment

Reading this story about the Mafia getting into online gambling on the BBC reminded me of some research I did back in 2003 into Trust and Privacy in e-commerce.

One of the findings we had was that no matter how good the technology it is just an intermediary, and you need to know who is on the other end. The web can be more secure than post and telephone but if you’re registering for an online gambling site which is run by a criminal gang (it’s not just gambling and it’s not just the Mafia) then no matter how secure the technology is, it is just an intermediary, you are giving your data to an untrusted party. Yes, you it’s not the web or the Internet’s fault.

Next Entries »