I've been coining a term in my local circles called "Data Terrorism"
Before I dropped out of Georgia Tech, I was going to publish a research paper explaining my reasoning for "Data Terrorism".
This article didn't touch on my points, I'm focused on weaponizing personal information. Atlanta is split between two counties, and one of them (DeKalb) used to have a website which published booking information. This allowed private websites to crawl the data and setup "ransom"-esque business models (pay us to delete your entry form our site).
I guess if you're ignorant, you would say "oh, well that's only for criminals"...but no. They're doing the same thing for all public records.
I recently found out that my 1st grade teacher filed for bankruptcy and foreclosed on her home around 2010....and her mortgage was around 250k. This came off a simple Google search of her name.
There is no reason that I should have ever known that.
> There is no reason that I should have ever known that.
Take into account this is largely a cultural opinion. It is well know that in Norway, your salary and taxes are public. So you mosty know how much everyone is making.
It is possible that something unthinkable today is tomorrow cultural norm.
In the US for most persons paid by the public sector or by assorted non-profits, the salary is public information. That's accepted as a given. So I wouldn't be surprised to be able learn the 1st-grade teacher's salary, if she is still working. But the details of her mortgage troubles?
I think data terrorism is a good term. I say that particularly because, from personal experience, collateral damage is a part of the phenomenon.
Recently, some bloggers from one polar end of the American political spectrum mistook me for a blogger from the opposite polar end (we have somewhat similar names). They proceeded to dox me (email and physical addresses, phone number, the works) and I had a simply terrible week. Reminded me of the part in the Terminator where Arnie starts going through the Sarah Connors in the phone book, line by line.
Home values and bankruptcy have been public record for a long time. There is a public interest in being able to see all transactions and history on property, and it’s important for debitors to be able to know when people have declared bankruptcy. Part of filing things in court is that it becomes public record.
> Home values and bankruptcy have been public record for a long time. There is a public interest in being able to see all transactions and history on property, and it’s important for debitors to be able to know when people have declared bankruptcy. Part of filing things in court is that it becomes public record.
But it's important to note that information was never this easy to access.
It's one thing to be able to find out such information on someone in the context of in important financial transaction, it's quite another to be able to easily and casually find out such information for no reason besides curiosity.
I think the traditional difficultly in accessing "public records" was an important feature of having them "public." Now that they're so easy to access, we should perhaps re-think how public they really should be.
Our society is full of people who aren't mature enough to handle the information properly.
There's a bunch of busybodies who have noting better to do than screw over people's present and future on account of their past.
It's not a stretch to imagine the kind of person who cares whether your grass is 3/8" longer than the HOA says it should be showing up at a PTA meeting to complain about how someone who once went bankrupt or starred in an adult film is inherently not qualified to teach kindergarten.
That's not something we want to enable so that's why making stuff readily accessible to the public isn't good. If someone wants to dig then let them but digging up someone's past should be hard enough work that you don't do it on a whim and it doesn't scale.
wouldn't the world be better if data was open and easily accessible on everyone?
new morals would develop around reality rather than the fake image we are able to project. with constant surveillance i hope we enter into a more honest world.
> wouldn't the world be better if data was open and easily accessible on everyone?
> new morals would develop around reality rather than the fake image we are able to project. with constant surveillance i hope we enter into a more honest world.
No, clearly not. The mistake you're making is assuming everyone will be affected equally.
What would actually happen is some people would get burned, badly and forever, by the lack of privacy (or openness, as you call it). Everyone else will either live in fear of the possibility or go about ignorantly assuming it'll never happen to them.
There's value in being able to put your past mistakes behind you or being able to keep information from those who would do you harm.
Entities such as your employer and potential employers can know the same level of information about you by paying (or hacking) companies like Equifax for it.
The main implication of hyperconnectivity is the breakdown of physical borders as the most meaningful cultural boundaries. It has actually been happening for a while when you consider the rise of air power, ICBMs, broadcast communications, the internet, etc.
The Army is fundamentally a real estate focused organization - their role is to take and hold territory.
The Navy is about slow influence - control of the seas allows you can deploy and retract the threat of physical violence depending on the political situation.
The Air Force is about the ability to deliver devastating violence on space-age timelines. But they still require targets.
My cautiously optimistic view is that these forms of violence become far less relevant when geography is no longer the key dividing line in tribal affiliation. You will see a rise in low level violence, and that will be associated with a decline in the primacy of the nation state. But it will reduce the risk of globally devastating conflict.
> ...when geography is no longer the key dividing line in tribal affiliation. You will see a rise in low level violence, and that will be associated with a decline in the primacy of the nation state. But it will reduce the risk of globally devastating conflict.
Not necessarily. A civil war between new global tribes* would still be a globally devastating conflict.
"The Navy is about slow influence -"
ROTFL. The Navy is only of use to intimidate some 3rd tear nations and for "mine is longer than yours"-comparisons.
The Navy has the US's most fearsome nuclear weapons.
Ballistic missile submarines are incredible. Each Ohio class has 24 Trident missiles with up to 8 warheads each. That makes each one a bigger nuclear power than everyone except the US, UK, Russia, France, China and Israel.
The Navy's nuclear attack submarines are also fearsome. Much quieter than old nuclear boats, fast and able to be anywhere and fire cruise missiles.
As you point out carriers are now vulnerable. But they can be held out of range and aircraft refueled. They can then deploy aircraft a long way away from them.
That was a fascinating read. I have no military knowledge or experience, so I cannot confidently judge the truthfulness of it, but it sounds logical and was written in a way that kept me engaged.
The Navy is less about slow influence and more about
1. maintaining logistical access for the Army/Marines (aircraft from carriers, surface combatants, and attack submarines)
2. doing the Air Force's job with lower latency where there are insufficient basing opportunities, especially in low-intensity situations (aircraft from carriers and missiles from surface combatants)
3. higher-survivability forces for the Air Force's job in high-intensity global conflicts (ballistic missile submarines)
That "low level violence", within a city (for example) is best fixed by settling the disputes and inequalities which cause it, rather than intervening with force. So my even more optimistic view is to expect spending to shift away from the military and towards reparative institutions (essentially, political ones) and equitable infrastructure.
My hope here is that the strategists will see that the best defense here is “hearts and minds” and a strong bias towards creating a good truth. If defense funding were pushed towards these pursuits, what an amazing world we could build!
"At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk and Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World argues....that the most transformative characteristic of the contemporary environment is the sudden onslaught of threats emerging from the dark underside of hyperconnectivity.2 It is difficult to exaggerate the degree to which hyperconnectivity enables—according to the study’s authors, researchers, and the defense-focused communities of interest and practice it consulted with—the following:
Hostile or disruptive virtual mobilization worldwide;
The collapse of privacy, secrecy, and operational security;
Penetration, disruption, exploitation, and destruction of data storage and transmission, as well as the use of data and data-enabled systems;
and finally,
The unfettered manipulation of perceptions, material outcomes, and consequential strategic decisions through the strategic employment of various forms of information."
Governments (and their agents) should not have impunity for misbehaviour in private.
Governments should not have the level of strategic advantage over their populations that they've been used to. They should feel imperiled by popular wrath if they earn it.
> Governments should not have the level of strategic advantage over their populations that they've been used to.
But, see, governments always have that. They always have a bigger gun than you do.
You want to shine light on government activities. That's good, and you are right to want it. But the cost is that the government will also be able to shine even more light on your activities.
Sounds like the ideas and insights of John Boyd and his disciples (whose ideas on 3rd generation warfare became the core doctrine of the USMC, and the disciples wrote a paper on 4th Generation Warfare were largely ignored) is finally being taken seriously in the US.
Before I dropped out of Georgia Tech, I was going to publish a research paper explaining my reasoning for "Data Terrorism".
This article didn't touch on my points, I'm focused on weaponizing personal information. Atlanta is split between two counties, and one of them (DeKalb) used to have a website which published booking information. This allowed private websites to crawl the data and setup "ransom"-esque business models (pay us to delete your entry form our site).
I guess if you're ignorant, you would say "oh, well that's only for criminals"...but no. They're doing the same thing for all public records.
I recently found out that my 1st grade teacher filed for bankruptcy and foreclosed on her home around 2010....and her mortgage was around 250k. This came off a simple Google search of her name.
There is no reason that I should have ever known that.