
Dark Google [Shoshana Zuboff, 2014] - my_first_acct
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshanna-zuboff-dark-google-12916679.html?printPagedArticle=true
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cjhanks
I wish this was more pithy. But I 'ask a historian': When did privacy become
considered an inalienable right?

Still, the autonomy of US Tech companies internationally would scare me too...
especially as a smaller nation (some corporate incomes are larger than
national GNPs).

~~~
dredmorbius
Privacy, in the sense of "freedom from prying by your immediate neighbours" is
somewhat modern. At least in the sense that before around 1500 multiple
members (and animals) of a household would typically sleep within a single
room, in Western Europe, and separate bedchambers, indoor bathing, etc.,
arrived in the 19th and 20th century for many.

But the _invasions_ of privacy were direct and overt -- if someone wanted to
spy on you, they pretty much had to be there for it. Your private actions
weren't subject to tracking from any point on Earth. The personal observation
of your actions couldn't be instantaneously transmitted to another party.
Information passed slowly, directly, in conversation, very occasionally
(literacy was limited) through writing. Because literacy was limited, people
didn't have years of accumulated records of their innermost thoughts and
writings, for the most part.

21st century surveillance -- by governments, corporations, criminal
organisations, insurgent or terrorist actors, etc., -- obeys few or none of
these conditions.

It's instantaneous, it's covert, it's bulk, it subsumes location, metadata,
writings, speech, and video. It is getting cheaper all the time. It can be
transmitted around the world in seconds. The quantity of available information
has expanded tremendously.

 _And the very state of having ubiquitous, comprehensive surveillance means
that an assertion of record is likely to be met by a presumption of that
record 's authenticity._ Bruce Schneier has recently realised that a problem
of ubiquitous _data leaks_ is that leakers can slip fabricated or subtly
altered documents into the leaks themselves. There's no need to massively
generate data when a few (manufactured) "smoking guns" are sufficient.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/hackin...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/hacking-
forgeries/499775/)

I've had the distinctly unpleasent experience of having false (or
misconstrued) claims laid against me. It's all kinds of crazy-making, and if
the matter is one involving employment or legal processes, exceptionally
expensive and risky.

There's a considerable downside here.

~~~
cjhanks
Thank you for the considerate and thoughtful response.

Your point about embedding false information in a mountain of true things is
something I had not considered. Sorry to hear of your personal trials.

I still think in naive terms, I suppose. If I lie and steal the world should
call me a liar and thief. But someone who falsely calls someone a liar and
thief is a murderer. I never thought (in my naive mind) that people would act
this way.

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my_first_acct
I found this thanks to a HN comment by walterbell:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12573125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12573125)

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soufron
We've never had more privacy than today. The problem is not with Google and
others invading our privacy, but with the disparition of the public space.
Conversation and debate are becoming even more ugly and stupid than they used
to be. That's the real danger.

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shmerl
Eric Schmidt is one of the worst examples from Google to bring.

