Kafka vs. Orwell: Metaphors About Electronic Privacy 70
Eric_Grimm writes "Carl Kaplan of the New York Times has done an interesting story on a draft law review article (click the "download paper" icon for a PDF version)
relating to the metaphors that should be employed to assist legislators in understanding the personal data protection or "electronic privacy" debate currently raging in Congress and state legislatures. Both Kaplan's story and the law review article are well worth a read."
Obligatory no-login link (Score:2)
I can tell these guys are freshmen from here (Score:1)
Re:I can tell these guys are freshmen from here (Score:1)
Used to be... (Score:3)
Now, not only do they know that you're a dog, but they know what breed you are, what kind of dog food you eat, and what brand of chew toys you like.
I guess that's what they call progress nowadays.
Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:2)
Personally, I would think maybe something like "Brazil" would be better, but it has been so long since I have seen the movie. As I recall, the movie is so wild that it might be utterly incomprehensible to the very lawyers that we would want to educate.
So I wonder what would be a better illustration. Maybe something by one of the existentialists?
gack, it is late, and my mind has turned to mush.
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:3)
Good reference.
Brazil is a twisted world so full of bureaucracy and fear that nothing ever gets accomplished. The only person who understands how things works and to fix things is a renegad plumber (he'd be a hacker today) who travels by darkness in a dark suit stealing orders from the official state plumbing agency... or some such.
It's twisted and strange, but i don't really see it as a good example of why we need electronic privacy. That movie was more about the idiocy of being a faceless number or file in the system then it was about the system taking more from you than it ought to have.
Both Orwell and Kafka are much better examples, but Brazil is certainly the best movie (the 1984 movie was no good, I've never seen a Kafka film).
Vindicated at last (and thanks Neil Randall)! (Score:1)
Computer metaphorics rock! Not only that, but they're hugely overlooked by most geeks, who are more interested in code rhetoric/tweaking than visual/textual/content rhetoric/tweaking (as it should be!). Nevertheless, I feel extremely vindicated that someone else, seemingly independently, has come up with the idea that a good controlling metaphor can, so to speak, move mountains -- both in computing and outside of it. Now if only they'd had a good one for the DeCSS case...
And, yeah, computer metaphorics sounds arcane and weird, but it's useful in so many different ways -- interface/web/etc. design, computer pedagogy, and socioinformatic study in general are just the ones I can come up with off the (damp) top.
Also, I have to thank Professor Neil Randall, of the University of Waterloo (mad phat props, Neil, I know you're out there and reading
Hmmm, also this looks personally promising for me...don't tell me that by the time I do my PhD in this, there'll actually be an existing body of working theorists! Frabjuous day!
Sign me, metaphorically speaking, accourse,
Interrobang
metaphors... (Score:2)
privacy is a particularly complex issue. as i try to teach my students, it's a subject we only began to talk about when it began to disappear. as such, it's a name for a thing that doesn't exist -- or the wrong name for something new that does now exist. the trick comes in specifying what exactly that thing is and is not -- and, in that regard, i think it's reasonable to say that metaphors are ultimately counterproductive, because they try to describe something new in terms of the old.
but eric grimm is a very, very thoughtful person, and i hope that these remarks might serve to build on what he has written, rather than to tear it down.
The danger of metaphors (Score:4)
I remember hearing about a study in one of my political science classes where a number of students were given a problem that involved a country that was a threat to the United States because it had interests in spreading its boarders. There were two sets of students dealing with the same problem. The only difference between the two sets was that one set had a problem that used names that sounded similar to the names of Cities and politicians involved in Cuba in the 1960's and the other related to the Cities and politicians that were related to Nuremburg in the early 1940's. You can probably guess how it turned out but suffice to say, the students saw the connections--whether consciously or not--and settled on a plan of attack that would defend against either the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Nazi regime.
The point I'm trying to make is using metaphors to explain complex situations will always imply facts that are not necessarily true when carried from one situation to the next, and their use is, for the most part, inherently misleading. This situation needs to be looked at as an example of its own, as it surely will be when it is used as a metaphor for the next paradigm shift 40 years from now.
-- PhatKat
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:2)
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:2)
'The Trial' has been made into a movie, and it was really well done. It has all the frustration of 'Brazil', but it's a low-budget B&W film, so the 'action' scenes aren't quite so exciting.
The best metaphor by far... (Score:1)
You can't get away from them... (Score:2)
There's a big difference between metaphors and parallelisms (in a literary sense), whether or not those parallelisms are being done with direct metaphors, or similes, catachresis, whatever. A lot of metaphors you simply cannot and should not get away from (see Ortony as well). Your example doesn't wash, because what you're describing is a parallelism, not a metaphor. My handy Holman and Harmon Handbook To Literature says that a metaphor is "an analogy identifying one object with another and ascribing to the first object one or more qualities of the second." Metaphors therefore don't necessarily "imply facts that are not necessarily true when carried from one situation to the next," because with many metaphors, there's simply not enough area of congruency to make workable more points of comparison than the stated or obvious. Many metaphors (such as "the leg of a table" or "the keystone of an argument") don't imply much in the way of facts at all, really. And metaphors are not necessarily "inherently misleading," because, if you know anything about metaphors, you know that you just can't get away from them. Even the term "misleading" is, dare I say, a metaphor. Only bad metaphors are misleading (and then not always), and that's exactly what the paper is trying to correct.
Metaphors do provide a useful and necessary way for human beings to assimilate information -- mainly by symbolically linking the unknown to the known. Therefore we can shorten the learning curve for those not "in the know" about these complex issues (like computer privacy, reverse engineering, encryption, etc.). Considering that these people are going to be making the rules that will affect all of our future internet dealings, don't you think it's fair, and even right, to give them as much of a leg up as they need?
(Sigh...shouldn't've gotten started...)
Interrobang
I like metaphors. (Score:5)
Ok, sure, metaphors simplify the situation. I'm sure that everybody who reads the New York Times (and most of the people who read slashdot minus the Natalie Portman/grits/Goatsex contingent) is a fairly intelligent person. With that it mind, even the extremely intelligent will not be able to fully grasp and articulate all the intricasies of the privacy battle today. The situation is simply too complex and too fluid in order to explain coherantly. Would you really want someone to go through a forty five minutes introductory speech everytime someone wanted to discuss a point of privacy? Of course not.
This is why we have metaphors. We use them as a cognative shortcut. We can't possible go through the world and understand everything about so in order to allow ourselves to have any opinion at all about most things we accept and utilize these metaphors. To most people (at least most people who read Slashdot and the New York Times) saying the phrase "Big Brother" is not simply referencing a metaphor. We instantly begin to reference everything we know about Big Brother, 1984, Winston Smith, George Orwell, fascism, totalitarianism, distopias and everything else. We combine it into a single phrase: "Big Brother" but it's really just a very large collections of concept from a fictional world that are combined with our experiences in the real world in order to make sense of everything.
Eh, whatever, I like metaphors.
Metaphors are extremely import but... (Score:1)
-Moondog
Privacy is important... (Score:1)
Don't get me wrong, I'm against a company disseminating my personal information when I explicitly prohibit them from doing so. However, all this talk of Big Brother and Joseph K. is a little too heavy on the melodrama and scare tactics.
Even if the U.S. government actively monitored every online activity that I take, they wouldn't be close to the vision portrayed by Orwell. And the path described by Kafka is not really privacy focused, its more a treatise on the effect of runaway bureaucracy and the impotence of the common man in face of the "grey wall" or government.
Privacy is important, but throwing out one doomday scenario after another won't lead to effective legislation that succesfully balances our current laws with our privacy rights.
Re:The danger of metaphors (Score:4)
I don't think Solove was saying that Kafka presents a more accurate depiction of the problems regarding online privacy. Instead, the bulk of his paper suggests that the dehumanized and -izing collection of perfectly innocuous data, which is then acted upon in a dehumanized/-izing manner, is a greater threat than turning all of Batman's toys over to the government. Yet most lawmakers are concerned only with the latter; Solove suggests that they are concerned with this aspect only because they are fighting against Big Brother. Change the metaphor they think of and change the action you get from them.
Solove suggests using Kafka as a metaphor rather than Orwell. This is not because he thinks that Kafka has better descriptive power, that the internet can actually be summed up in that metaphor, but because he thinks he will get a certain reaction out of the various legislatures if the question is posed in these terms. Narrative as a tool to induce behavior, rather than as a method for gaining understanding. Basically, he's working from postmodernist assumptions regarding the place of metaphor in discourse, but his paper is not nearly as unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally) dada-esque in its prose style.
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:1)
--
Patrick Doyle
Re:The danger of metaphors (Score:1)
--PhatKat
Metaphors, eh?? (Score:1)
To all writers: Next time you're writing an article, don't forget alliteration and consonance!
Re:I like metaphors. (Score:2)
I don't really expect to do away with metaphors. I agree with you, they really are useful. But of the 4 choices, (unconscious incompitence, conscious incompitence, conscious compitence, and unconscious compitence) I'd take the second over the first. You need to recognize when an argument may be misleading to you or you're probably getting your head messed with in the worst way.
Re:You can't get away from them... (Score:1)
-- PhatKat
Hmm... (Score:1)
How about "two legs bad, four legs good?" Oh wait, that's Orwellian again. I keep screwing this up.
Here's a novel idea -- how about we drop the slogans and the desperate scramble to make sure the 'people' understand. They will never understand. There will always be some people who just follow along with what's going on.
Issues like this should be dealt with by people that *understand* them. If we need to go scrambling around to find the best metaphor, then something is awry.
The cynical response. (Score:3)
or Orwell to explain these issues to
the general public, when Joe Sixpack
hasn't read either of them.
I hope I'm wrong.
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:1)
obscure (Score:4)
Privacy concerns, and governments addresses over these concerns, are like water and oil. Current events should point out the true factors when thinking about these two, although many never take the time to delve deeper into the situation, often overlooking many important factors that would normally be an outrage after the occurance, but seldom questioned until it is too late.
Politicians are often older people who will never utilize computers in the same fashions as us, and often do not understand what is going on. Law enforcement often uses scare tactics by injecting some outrageous scenarios into the minds of these politicians using cryptic terms themselves in hoping these politicians will pass these laws without incident, which will benefit law enforcement, and cripple the people.
Breakdown of questionable issues:
HR46 [cryptome.org] was an attempt to sneak a fast one.
Carnivore was used dozens of times and the FBI claims it was mostly on hackers. Note: Its been found that the Carnivore snoops everything on a segment what about your traffic? Were you on that network, was your traffic snooped?
makes me wonder...
FBI claims Castro is a hacker [wired.com]. In a country where they have close to nothing, do you really believe Cuba is a threat to the US, or is this just an attempt to step on Cuba when their down?
Bin Laden using technology to hide activities. Note: this isn't new news and judging from experiences in history, we've always needed an enemy for the sake of remaining a super power by enforcing authority. So if Osama is such a huge threat why isn't he stopped cold? Because the government can't or because they don't want to for the purpose of having an enemy?
Take a quick look at some of the stuff posted by Louis Tenet this week [cia.gov] and do some rational thinking about how situations arise which can be handled by government, but are often purposely misconstrued for the sake of promoting other hidden agendas. Government will try to take as much privacy away as they can, any government so don't be fooled.
And it goes on and on [cryptome.org] with no end in site.
shhh... the world is out to get me [antioffline.com]
Privacy Legislation vs. Copyright Enforcement (Score:1)
Isn't the issue of protecting personal data the same issue as protecting copyrighted data? Apart from the David and Goliath thing, which is purely perceptual, how are the two issues different? It seems a bit hypocritical to trade music on Napster and then get all bent out of shape about other people using cookies and web bugs. I'm not talking about legalities, I'm talking about the basic nature of both issues: somebody has some information they think should be under their control, and somebody else with a different opinion does something out of control with it.
It seems to me that legal and technical attempts to hide or protect personal data will run into the same problems as copyright protection. They just won't work. So can we just grow up and take the bitter with the sweet? Free music, free software and free information in general are great things. But if somebody else's information isn't sacred, why should mine be? I don't see why surfing the web should be any different from walking down the street in broad daylight. We're used to the idea that it's different, because we can do it in a dark room, seemingly away from prying eyes. But if that turns out not to be the case, well there goes the neighborhood, but that's just progress. Live with it and quit whining.
"Kaplan's story" (Score:1)
Makes it sound like the DeCSS case...
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Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:1)
As it should have been, being directed by Orson Welles.
my take on the privacy metaphors (Score:1)
"Privacy" is deeply important to me...yet I admit that it's almost entirely a cultural concept. I was raised as an only child in the United States. I had my own room with a lock. In contrast, the Russian language doesn't even have a word for "privacy"--it's not a concept that exists (there have been linguistic studies of Russians that have moved to the United States, and then are able to kludge together Russian equivalents to English terms like privacy, personal space, et cetera. These emigres understand the concepts between themselves, but native Russians had difficulty getting them.)
At any rate, I have personally split "privacy" into three areas:
I use the generic word "privacy" to relate to what the author in this article uses the Big Brother metaphor for. Simply being watched. Dressing in private...using a bathroom with a locked door. Once again, the importance of this type of privacy is subjective. I have huge difficulty undressing unless I know the door is locked...yet there are individuals who have no problems undressing in front of others, within reason.
On a small tangent...this gets me to the idea of why privacy is indeed so subjective. For instance, I may be psychologically/emotionally hurt by knowing that someone was watching me undress. If that's the case, is my privacy invaded if there is a peeping tom watching me undress, but I don't actually know about it? Does a privacy invasion have to imply a consequence?
The second type of privacy I call "data privacy." It is information on the individual, how much is kept, who can look at it, where it is. Bringing up the idea of the consequence again, it is also subjective. I care who has my home phone number not just because I don't want to be bothered my phone calls (an actual consequence of a privacy invasion) but also because I just don't want my phone number sitting in computers everywhere (a much more psychological/sociological idea.)
The third type of privacy is possibly the most abstract...I call it "anonymity." It's often under the umbrella of privacy. We do in fact seek the ability to go out into public and be anonymous (hence why people became so cheesed off with what happened at the Super Bowl. Do you have a right to "privacy" in public...no...you can be videotaped. But the problem was in comparing you to a criminal mugshot database you lost a certain amount of anonymity.) I say (and this also appeared in the article) that a person is most human when they are anonymous. Consider how you are treated at Wal-Mart when you walk in. You could just be buying some toothpaste, or you could be buying a $5000 riding lawnmower. It doesn't matter, no one really knows. But consider the DMV. Not only do they not care if you actually get your license plates renewed, but they have a gigantic amount of information on you (who else wants to see your birth certificate?) You likely have no other relationship where you are so dehumanized.
I speak of these as three separate categories, but often they are combined, in particular anonymity and data privacy. Going back to driver's licenses, it is mostly a combination of data privacy and anonymity issues. For instance, the fact that most states used to be selling your driver's license data was a data privacy invasion, as is the fact that many states keep a digital copy of your photograph (I could argue that it is also a regular privacy issue if it gives me emotional distress knowing that BMV employees can look up my photograph whenver they want..and hell, I wouldn't put it past them.) Also notable is how the driver's license document itself (in its photographic form) is so dehumanizing. Living in America, almost everyone has a photographic license and therefore everyone has some sorta proof as to who they are. Loss of anonymity. My driver's license says I'm male. Does that mean I prefer watching football on the couch on sundays...or barefoot walks on the beach? Neither, in the eyes of the Ohio BMV, it simply means I have a penis and not a vagina. (Dehumanizing. I can't hide the fact that I am male...nor do I have any great interest to do so. People on the street can look at me and determine I'm male, and once they get to know me, they will get to know my personality and what that means in the context of me being male. The BMV simply knows that I have a penis, which I argue is completely unrelated to my ability to operate an automobile, and therefore "isn't their business.")
I wish I were going somewhere with all of this, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm still analyzing the article.
Technology not recognized as an element of reality (Score:1)
Yawn yawn yawn. (Score:2)
The media uses Big Brother as a metaphor because Joe Public recognizes the reference, period. Many (most) of the New York Times readers have not read 1984, and many probably do not even know where the reference comes from, but almost all will understand the reference to mean a watchful central authority. This may be in part to a moderately successful "reality TV" program we're all too familiar with, but regardless, it's effective.
If 95% of people understand the phrase "Big Brother tactics", and 1% appreciate the more profound "like K's trial", it's better to use the Orwell reference. It will have a more powerful effect, even if not quite as accurate.
The letter I sent to Kaplan (Score:2)
I read your Times article online. Thank you for taking the time
to bring to light Professor Solove's work. I look forward to his
final draft.
I am very concerned about privacy myself, not just online but
offline as well. Solove's conclusion calls for government
regulation to address our society's privacy concerns. I believe
the exact opposite would be more beneficial. If the federal,
state, and local governments would stop requiring me to use my
social security number for nearly everything I do, I feel I could
protect my privacy quite easily.
The government does not want privacy. How could they? True
privacy would mean not reporting my financial activities to the
IRS. True privacy would allow me to obtain a driver's license in
California without having to give a thumbprint. True privacy
would allow me to buy a firearm without a background check.
Why would the government want this? Privacy will only decrease
the amount of power and control they have in society.
Stuart Eichert
By the people, for the people (Score:1)
So you're suggesting we only allow the highest quality people make decisions for all the rest? And what exactly are your criteria for joining this elite ruling class? IQ? Income level? Bloodline?
Re:Privacy is important... (Score:1)
Even if the U.S. government actively monitored every online activity that I take What about monitoring your location (that's physical meat-world location) at all times? If you don't like it I hope you don't have a cell-phone.
And the path described by Kafka is not really privacy focused...the impotence of the common man in face of the "grey wall" Bingo! The Kafka metaphor isn't about privacy, it's about power, knowledge, and what the lack of them can do to you. Which is why it's probably more appropriate. We don't have a transparant society, or Web. People and companies are nowhere equal in power. Ever read some EULA's? "We dictate the terms. We can change the terms whenever we wish. We don't even have to notify you of the change, it's your responsibility to check back with us frequently. " I can easily see how that can lead to people violating EULA's without realizing it until the lawyers knock on their door. So yes, Kafka is a good metaphor here.
Re:The cynical response. (Score:1)
Yes, it does. While "Joe Sixpack" may not have read either, "Big Brother" rings a bell with your elitist generalization of the average news reader while "K's Trial" does not. "Joe Sixpack" has learned the Orwell reference from common usage, if not from Orwell himself. Therefore, the Orwell reference serves the purpose.
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:1)
The issue in _Brazil_ wasn't privacy, it was bureaucracy. The government has no idea who you are, doesn't care, and doesn't need to care. This is unrelated to privacy. _The Trial_ may be the best example of the three, but _1984_ is surely the most accessible.
Re:Obligatory no-login link (Score:1)
*shrugs* Takes all kinds, I suppose.
Re:Used to be... (Score:1)
Only if you leave your "poop" lying around ;)
Chris Rock the correct metaphor (Score:1)
And if lawmakers are to come up with adequate responses to the lack of privacy online, they need to fully understand the nature of the beast. In short, if they read books, they should read more Kafka and less Orwell.
For some reason this makes me think of Chris Rock's intervention program. "I can read!".
Forget all the elitist comments about joe sixpack, we need to make sure that politicians can read. Or we could have Dubya toss my salad. I prefers syrup.
--
interesting (Score:1)
the "scramble" you allude to is certainly an apropos one. And you are, in fact, right. Most people will never understand the tech of the net (or at least, not in our lifetimes). However, your idea that issues should be dealt with by people that understand them is sort of a problematic one.
The people the public see as understanding do, in fact, understand what is going on. This, unfortunately, does not necessarily assume that they hold the same values. Just start talking about whether napster is good or bad - you'll start a flamewar. What about encryption? More of the same.
In general, the people with controlling interests in big business, government, and what-have-you have long ago burned their "geek" clothes in favor of newer, more disinterested duds. A CTO or CIO cannot be expected to have the same tech values as their more involved counterparts. That is not to say that they don't "know their shit," but that they have long ago proven to their superiors that they, to be honest, simply don't care as much, or have the same belief system. Everyone is succeptable to those corruptions, even geeks.
I agree with you though, that the use of metaphor is a futile one. Perhaps i should put it this way: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
Re:Privacy Legislation vs. Copyright Enforcement (Score:1)
Do your name, address and phone number belong to you (ie., can you exercise property rights over your personal information)? Or do they belong to the company to whom you disclosed this information in the course of transacting business? In general, American law today is more supportive of the latter case. This is because until recently, it was prohibitively expensive for individual consumers to express property rights over personal information. "Customer interaction" with corporations had been limited (largely) to customer service rep calls, and those calls cost a company $7-8 a pop. In a world w/ high transaction costs associated with the expression of preferences over the use of personal information, it makes sense for the corporations to "own" the personal information and use it however they see fit (which may include selling it to marketers, etc)
Nevertheless, there are obvious inefficiencies when companies are allowed to exercise property rights over personal info they collect, especially in a highly internetworked world. An excess of junk mail is an obvious (though rather inoccous) example. More sinister examples are not hard to concieve of.. Moreover, as society becomes increasingly mobile (moving between residences frequently, maintaining different residencies simultaneously), it becomes economically more efficient for individual consumers to control their own personal information.
The Internet makes it easier for companies to collect information on consumers, but it also makes it easier for consumers to control the information that is collected (all they have to do is log on to the Web site in question and express their preferences; (as well as trust that the Web site in question REALLY will abide by those preferences)). In the online world, I think, it makes sense to allow consumers to express property rights over personal information.
I think as far as "information flows" go, both cases (copyright and privacy) are a little different as well. In copyright, if I publish something on the Web, it might give 1 in every 10 readers some kernel of a new idea or perspective, and they in turn can be inspired to use that information to publish their own works, etc and so.. (this effect works, in some degree, in film and music as well). In general, the net effect is that the economy in general can flourish more robustly the more freely intellectual property can be allowed to circulate..
With personal information, though, there is no positive externality to sharing it widely. Imagine a Web site where the names, addresses, phone numbers and credit card numbers of 10,000 online consumers is published. Aside from some obvious criminal uses, such a Web site would have no real (positive) economic value..
The idea that free information is always good is a seductive one, but it is wrong. Like the previous posted said, "free information in general is a good thing", but in this case (privacy) we see the exception to the "in general" rule..
Paul Sholtz
PrivacyRight, Inc. - www.privacyright.com [privacyright.com]
Foot[1] (Score:1)
Re:Privacy Legislation vs. Copyright Enforcement (Score:1)
Perhaps a website with 10,000 people's credit card numbers would have no positive economic value, but a database of 10,000 people's buying histories would have obvious positive economic value. Advertisers have been buying each other's mailing lists for decades. They would probably argue that more efficiently targeted advertising dollars ultimately benefits the consumer, since the cost of advertising is built into the price of everything. It's easy to rationalize your own point of view. Obviously "private" information can be every bit as valuable as intellectual property, and that's why people interested in using it are being as clever as people interested in free music, for example.
People may choose to view the issue of information control through different lenses, but the technical challenges to individuals trying to control their private information are the same ones facing publishers trying to control the works they own. Recent history simply doesn't support the view that either group will succeed. Haggling over unenforceable legal concepts is pointless. Establishing unenforceable laws does nothing but make people feel righteous, which I suppose might have therapeutic value, but its main value is probably to the multibillion dollar litigation industry. I'd prefer that my tax dollars be spent elsewhere.
Re:The letter I sent to Kaplan (Score:1)
If you're using the government sponsored services they have to be able to identify you. The easiest way to do this is to store your information in some database and in a database you have to have a unique key field.
Where I live the hospitals are still not allowed to transfer patient information in a digital form from one place to another. Every time I go to see a different doctor or get treated at a different hospital, I have to take hardcopies of my medical history and receipts with me. It's a royal pain in the ass. It would be so much easier if all that kind of information could be stored in a nation wide database that the officials could access directly.
Re:The cynical response. (Score:1)
If the people fighting in the debate sent some funding to an independant filmmaker to make something like 'The Trial' into a movie then it would be a step into providing a better public understanding of the concepts that Solove considers important. Of course the degree of funding would have a lot of impact on the results if they were wanting to drive the Hollywood hype machine, but even a lowish budget affair would probably get a good chance of being shown in schools.
I'm not sure how much money the various lobby groups have, but it would be an interesting option at the very least. It might even be a possiblility that you could convince some producer types that you could make a profitable version and have a real budget.
If it had a real budget everyone could wear nice suits like in Gattaga
Re:Privacy is important... (Score:1)
I disagree - the only difference between the Kafka nightmare and, for example, some (innocent) people's credit rating agency nightmare is that the final execution that takes place is to your hopes of ever owning a home or car, or whatever. The actual story is the same - and it's real. So I don't think it's melodramatic - the stakes might not be execution, but they are still high.
The Kafka story seems a fairly accurate depiction of what actually happens to day. It's hardly something "not even on the horizon" - it's already here. The crucial point is that it only affect a small minority of people. (Not everyone in "The Trial" society will be executed), it's about the powerlessness when things do go wrong, and that exists here and now, and is not FUD.
Re:Privacy Legislation vs. Copyright Enforcement (Score:1)
I don't think so. The only similarity between the two seems to be that they are both "data". There is a HUGE difference between (for example) a work of fiction designed and intended for publication, and (for example) medical records, SSN, whatever, which has the express purpose of granting real world authorisations, powers of action, etc. to a select few.
If you mean it's the same issue in terms of the technology involved, then yes - data is just data, as the RIAA is finding out. If you mean the same issue in terms of ethics involved and possible solutions, then I completely disagree.
But I can't be bothered arguing
History is a better judge of what is going on (Score:1)
Re:The cynical response. (Score:1)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0057427
there is also one from 1993 with Anthony Hopkins:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0108388
so apparently not...
Speaking of Kafka, (Score:1)
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Re:The danger of metaphors (Score:1)
You use the phrase "Big Brother" if you are opposed to electronic surveillance. It has a powerful emotional impact, as it associates electronic surveillance with a dehumanizing, totalitarian regime. Describing the CCTV cameras in the supermarket car park as a "Big Brother approach", instils fear in your audience because they think, at least unconsciously, that their freedom could be under threat.
Remember, decisions are made on the basis of emotion, not logic. 1984 has had a large (though unmeasurable) impact in slowing the adoption of CCTV, like Frankenstein is having an impact in opposing genetic engineering.
There's a danger because there's power. Use that power.
Re:Kafka vs Big Brother (Score:1)
Re:Vindicated at last (and thanks Neil Randall)! (Score:2)
The problem with computing metaphors is that by teaching abstractions of techonologies rather than teaching people how those technologies work circumvents user education of how a system really works. This isn't a problem in itself if the metaphors are good ones, but its been my experience that more often that not the metaphors chosen are rather bad. Mainstream media, in particular, tends to come up with really lousy metaphors. This can be very dangerous, particularly for liberties, as it can leave many people with a very distorted view of technologies such as encryption, surveillance, hacking/cracking etc. This is only made worse by the fact that mainstream media, in order to get more readers, often adopts the 'scarepiece' approach and intentionally presents a distorted, sensationalist view of a technology. Also, the FBI very often deliberately presents twisted metaphors designed to scare people and convince the public and lawmakers that they need more snooping rights etc. I wish I could think of some good examples right now.
The only true solution is proper user education of how systems work - then nobody can be manipulated by the presentation of incorrect facts through cleverly chosen unsuitable metaphors. I don't know if this is realistic though, unless you want to send thousands of lawyers, judges, politicians, journalists etc on extensive computer courses.
Re:The letter I sent to Kaplan (Score:1)
Your response to the problem is precisely the one which the article argues against: you are in the Orwellian group. You're interested in removing the information from the hands of the govt completely; you want to end the surveillance. It seems to me this is not so much a privacy problem as an anonymity problem. I'm beginning to think that most libertarians like yourself sort of mush the two together.
Orwell and Kafka show exactly where the two differ. Orwell's horror is one where there's no anonymity, meaning there's zero power on the part of the populace over their govt. Kafka's is much more on the level of a personal horror, not a nation-wide one. One person is being victimized by perhaps wrongful use of their information.
"Perhaps wrongful" is maybe even closer to the current nature of the problem than "wrongful", since it isn't even totally established how we may determine who uses what info of ours and how and for what. K in The Trial can't even find out the first thing about how his info is used; his powerlessness isn't the lack of ability to make the judicial system work for him, but the inability even to control his own existence as a person within society. I can see how these two horrors can exist on a continuum, and are not so precisely distinct as I'm making them out (therefore "mushable"); but surely you can see the difference? In an Orwellian world, we have identities, but they are odious and oppressive, they are the same as everyone else's. In a Kafkaesque world, we don't know what our identities are, but the results and contingencies of the identities affect us from afar. The difference is no so much on the level of theory but in the concrete details I guess.
I personally don't mind that we have to have SS#s. There are lots of benefits that come from a centralized organization of identifying info. That is to say, there are lots of benefits that come from allowing ourselves to be surveilled; there is a lot of information which we don't mind giving out (we not including you of course). The question of privacy is, as the Times article notes, not one where we question whether others should have this information at all, but one where we are concerned with specifically who out of a group has our info and even more important what they do with it. It seems to me anyway.
sparkane
Re:The danger of metaphors (Score:1)
do with either the USSR or Cuba 'spreading its
boarders'. The aim of putting missiles in Cuba
was to protect that country against US attacks,
as part of the agreement that lead to the
withdrawal of the missiles the US agreed to stop
hostile actions against Cuba.
Re:The cynical response. (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory no-login link (Score:1)
Perhaps you should pick a more athletic passtime.. (Score:1)
Kafka was a brilliant sort of surrealistic film where Franz Kafka gets caught up in some bizarre themes taken from his own work. The brain-scope scene pops right into my mind. The "powers that be" build a huge lens so that they can look into the brain and figure out how people work. Kafka plays the role of physical hacker, literally breaking into the Castle through the file system and cracking the lens.
See it.
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
Re:Privacy is important... (Score:1)
Thank you, that is precisely the overlap between Kafka's bureaucracies and our lived reality (not to mention the projected realities of Gattaca et al.) In all cases a judgment is made upon the individual on the basis of no past evidence and thus his future is foreclosed.
A line from Kafka (from The Trial or The Penal Colony?) expresses this with a minimalist precision:
"We have the criminal in custody, his crime we'll determine soon enough."
Re:By the people, for the people (Score:1)
So you need to use a metaphor to explain why people shouldn't be using metaphors.
Nice Catch-22 there.
AHH! Another metaphor! Leave me alone!
--
Why doesn't slashdot link in there... ?? (Score:1)
economics and choice (Score:2)
There are obviously some legal problems with forbidding web sites from collecting data that users voluntarily give them. Slashdot has my e-mail address, which I gave them voluntarily. The only difference between them and Amazon.com is that I personally consider Slashdot to be more trustworthy. I don't see how legislation could allow me to give my info to Slashdot, but protect me against Amazon's stated willingness to sell my information if they go bankrupt or are acquired. I just made a mistake by sharing my information with Amazon. I should have read their privacy policy and stayed away.
But leaving it up to personal choice isn't the whole solution. For instance, every supermarket in my area has a program where they keep track of what you buy. If you don't participate in the program, they charge you higher prices. Here there's a problem with lack of choice.
Another issue is that often you don't know what information is being collected about you. For example, there are the infamous "web bugs," invisible 1x1 images that tell somebody what pages you've been surfing or whether you opened their spam. This issue is exactly what The Trial is about. Again, there's no real choice for most people. I'm among the tiny percentage of the population that's sophisticated enough to turn off images and html in my e-mail program, but I haven't bothered looking into ways to avoid hitting web bugs inadvertently when I websurf. And most people simply don't have the time or expertise to keep up to date with how to protect themselves against this kind of stuff.
Legislation might be part of the solution. A more important part of the solution might be create an internet infrastructure that is technologically privacy-friendly. An example of this is the way browsers let you look at cookies and reject them if you want to; not a very successful example, but this is the kind of thing that needs to be worked on. Another thing is that there are still many web sites out there that ask for your personal information, but don't have any posted privacy policy -- we should all exert pressure on them to improve their practices.
The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews
Re:Privacy is important... (Score:2)
but Kafka & Orwell are not even close to the horizon. I know that every author and his mother loves to write stories about privacy that use the line "Big Brother is Watching!" But the images that Kafka and Orwell portray are much more systemic and detailed than the "invasion of privacy" that internet monitoring causes.
Perhaps on the net, but the time to prevent it is before it gets here!
In other areas it's closer. You get denied for a loan. Why? you might ask. Because of some information out there about you. They won't tell you which piece of information. You can't think of what it might be.
It has come out that in some cases, the critical piece of information is the number of times your information has been looked up recently.
Your auto insurance went up. same questions. Did they get bogus information about a (non-existant) moving violation? Good question.
There are many situations where some information about us (correct or not) is used to our detriment, and we don't even have the legal right to know what information that is.
On several occasions, I have had a check declined (with plenty of money in my account to cover it). In both cases, I found out that the problem was a downed network so that they couldn't check with my bank. It took several hours and a good bit of social engineering to get that information. Their 'official' position, the one I could painlessly get w/o social engineering was that they could neither confirm or deny that there was an issue with my check or credit rating or wheather or not my check should be accepted if I try again.
YAC22 (Score:1)
(Yet Another Catch-22)
Great. Now instead of getting legislators to understand privacy issues directly, we just need to get them to read. Seems that if more of them did the latter, the former would be less of a problem in the first place.
That's the Problem! (Score:1)
Issues like this should be dealt with by people that *understand* them."
That's the attitude the politicos and law enforcement agencies have! "Leave everything to us. We know what is best for you." They firmly believe they know what they are doing (and probably do 90% of the time).
*sheesh*
effective affect (Score:1)
The effect of the effect is affecting my affect.
My actions will effect change [dictionary.com]
My affect will be flat after I burn my brains on slashdot [dictionary.com]
IBM and the Nazis (Score:2)
There is a fascinating article [theregister.co.uk] on the Register about how IBM helped out the Nazis during WWII. All of that data processing capability IBM sold to them allowed the Nazis to be far mor efficient in implementing their "final solution." Granted, it was "only" punch card technology, but it still helped them tremendously.
This is the marriage of bureaucracy and privacy concerns.
Re:Privacy Legislation vs. Copyright Enforcement (Score:1)
I know all about mailing lists and how valuable they can be. But when retailers and advertisers and other players trade mailing lists, the information is still not "open", "public" or "free" in the sense you are (I think) interpreting it. If nothing else, these companies have a strong economic incentive NOT to let this information get into the wrong hands, and to a greater or lesser extent, this works "somewhat" to the advantage of the consumer (since otherwise the information would be totally free and identity theft would be totally rampant).
(Remember that simple economics can often exert as much control as software or laws)
In any case, identity theft STILL is not *super-rampant* on the Internet nor anywhere else (and it probably never will be *rampant*, although it will always be a risk), which suggests that the privacy problem on the Internet is not one where there is *NO* control over personal information, and it does not stem from the fact that there are no technical "controls" over personal information possible on the Internet. Indeed, there is still a TREMDENOUS amount of control over the personal information on the Internet and there ALWAYS will be.
The privacy problem, by and large, stems from that fact that individual consumers (who supply the personal information) are not included in the overall value chain as personal information is sold and traded. A quintessential example is Amazon and their database of customer buying habits. The reason people have a problem w/ Amazon's new policy is (a) Amazon takes the position that it (not the consumers) owns the purchasing profiles and (b) that it can decide what to do w/ those profiles.
If an economic, legal or technical (I don't care which, take your pick!) architecture were contrustructed whereby individuals would "own" their personal information and they could control how Amazon handles this information after a transaction is completed, there would be no privacy problem.
The notion of consumer property rights over personal information is not so far-fetched.. it's part of the new HIPAA health care legislation that is rolling into effect over 2002-2004.
Paul Sholtz
PrivacyRight - www.privacyright.com [privacyright.com]
Re:Privacy Legislation vs. Copyright Enforcement (Score:1)
The specific techniques involved in either case, however, differ. In copyright, you see a lot DRM-type software. In privacy, it seems to more about laws, and protections (in the forms of auditing and permissioning and other security measures) around large database systems.