[Sigia-l] Issues in the taxonomy of human experience

[Skot Nelson]

On Aug-23-2005, at 10:23 AM, Thomas Quine wrote:

> Skot Nelson:
>
>
>> google is probably the biggest threat to your privacy that exists at
>> this point.
>
> Google is out there doing no evil, but don't forget the American
> government...

right. but the definition of evil is fluid. there are many people who  
feel the US government is simply defending its citizens rights.

similarly, many think google is doing no evil while others are  
horrified by the content sensitive ads that appear beside your gmail  
messages. google is searching the content of messages to deliver ads.

the great unknown of google - and it is BIG - is what market foces  
will push it to do. google is a public company now, with greater  
emphasis on profit than ever before and a large number of  
shareholders to answer too.

> I'm proceeding on the assumption that every word I write, every
> keystroke, is public knowledge, and that every move I make is on  
> camera.
> Get over it and get on with it. Resistance is futile.

"You have zero privacy. Get over it."
Retrieved from "http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Scott_McNealy"

this was the truest statement ever spoken by a ceo, i believe.

> Did you read about the new wearable videocam? It records your life on
> the Internet. (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid, 
> 111236,00.asp).
> "Little Brother" is watching you!

sure. others have been working on similar things for a while, and the  
idea of being observed all the time has been studied. steve mann has  
been a leader in this field.

and steve has demonstrated something interesting: the perception of  
being observed has as much, if not more, effect as actually being  
observed.

our translink organization is making me chuckle with the great debate  
about the cost of cameras in every bus. there's an easy way to cut  
this cost, and probably achieve the same (arguably noble) goal of  
public safety: only put cameras in half the buses, and put identical  
dummies in the rest.

the people on the dummy buses are liable to behave just as well as  
the ones on the actual ones - and the budget gets slashed.