[Sigia-l] "DNA, P2P, and Privacy"

[Listera]

Speaking of Poindexter, centralized vs distributed databases and privacy,
here's an interesting take by Clay Shirky:

[...]
Privacy advocates have relied on these weaknesses in creating legal
encumbrances to issuing and sharing primary keys. They believe, rightly,
that widely shared primary keys pose a danger to privacy. (The recent case
of Princeton using its high school applicants' Social Security numbers to
log in to the Yale admittance database highlights these dangers.) The
current worst-case scenario is a single universal database in which all
records -- federal, state, and local, public and private -- would be unified
with a single set of primary keys.

New technology brings new challenges however, and in the database world the
new challenge is not a single unified database, but rather decentralized
interoperability, interoperability brought about by a single universally
used ID. The ID is DNA. The interoperability comes from the curious and
unique advantages DNA has as a primary key. And the effect will put privacy
advocates in a position analogous to that of the RIAA, forcing them to
switch from fighting the creation of a single central database to fighting a
decentralized and interoperable system of peer-to-peer information storage.

<http://www.shirky.com/writings/privacy_p2p.html>

Best,

Ziya