

Privacy in the Age of Persistence - wallflower
http://www.schneier.com/essay-261.html

======
frossie
I'm not sure your personal business being logged can be compared to the social
change of the Industrial Revolution.

Cast your mind a few hundred years ago, where people were born, grew up and
died within a few miles of their village. Everybody knew your business back
then; your character, whether you were hard working or a drunk, whether you
were honest or a crook, whether you were late for church, or couldn't afford
new shoes, or whether you were barren. We've been here before.

The question is whether now that we are in roughly the same place, are we
going to go back to the oppressive small mindedness of the village, or can we
master this without all becoming judgmental busybodies.

~~~
randallsquared
One difference will be that in the time you speak of, a person could just
leave and start over. More recently, people had several major chances to
reinvent themselves early in life, as they went off to college or to work.
Most of the world was not in your small hometown. Increasingly, though, there
will be no place to go where you are unknown, and there's no frontier to go to
if the social pressure becomes unbearable.

~~~
sp332
A random stranger showing up would be assumed to be the worst type of person.
Anyone of good repute would arrive with letters of introduction from several
business partners and local officials.

