Journal kevlar_rat's Journal: A Suicide Bomber's Guide to Online Privacy 1
Bruce Schneier has comments on a talk[pdf], described as "jarring" and "riveting", given by the mammal biologist and SF author Peter Watts based on his post about the "Transparent Society".
From the talk:
Back in 2003 I attended a talk by David Brin,
... People are primates, Brin reminded us; our leaders are Alphas. Trying to ban government surveillance would be like poking a silverback gorilla with a stick. âoeBut just maybe,â he allowed, âoetheyâ(TM)ll let us look back.â Dude, thought I, do you have the first fucking clue how silverbacks react to eye contact?
...
Alpha primates regard looking back as a challenge. Anyone who's been beaten up for recording video of police beating people up knows this; anyone whose cellphone has been smashed, or returned with the SIM card mysteriously erased. Document animal abuse in any of the US states with so-called 'Ag-gag' laws on their books and youâ(TM)re not only breaking the law, youâ(TM)re a âoedomestic terroristâ
...
Natural selection favours the paranoid, those who run away.
...The link between surveillance and fear is a lot deeper than the average post-privacy advocate is willing to admit.
...
A lot of critics say blanket surveillance treats us like criminals, but it's deeper than that. It makes us feel like prey. Weâ(TM)re seeing stalking behaviour in the biological sense
Instead of 'looking back', Mr Watts recommends cloud services offer a "scorched earth" guarantee:
âoeHereâ(TM)s a wild thought: Donâ(TM)t just offer data protection, especially since you canâ(TM)t guarantee it,â he said. âoeOffer data destruction instead. Iâ(TM)m not talking about having the lions lie down with the lambs. Itâ(TM)s more Darwinian than that, when the lions come, you burn down your chunk of the veldt before the lions get their hands on it. A scorched-earth society.â
He is aware this would be illegal (âoethe cats get to write the laws for the mice,â as he says) , but
âoeIt appeals to those of us who feel powerless and screwed over and want to take back some measure of control of our lives, even if it costs us. I personally donâ(TM)t use cloud-based services, but Iâ(TM)d sign up for a scorched-earth service purely for political support.â
Another write up of the talk is here
scorched earth (Score:1)