It depends on what you're doing? Maybe what your doing is simply exercising your right to free speech:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/11/20/2218252/bp-hired-company-to-troll-users-who-left-critical-comments

| Whether it's a negative or a positive depends on what you're doing

It doesn't. It depends entirely on what is done with the information. If having such information causes no harm, then observation is benign. But information is power, and given the number of innocent people who have been executed in federal prisons, we need to acknowledge the potential for abuse of power and create safeguards for individuals. The ones who are most at risks are the weak, the poor, and those unable to defend themselves. We need to acknowledge the dangers and that history has repeatedly shown that absolute power corrupts absolutely. J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to collect evidence using illegal methods. Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.

| The solution isn't to ban the distribution ...
Agreed, but I present no solutions, only pointing out that Vint Cerf's postulation is specious.

it's the nearness, not the ability to determine how accurate or encompassing the information is. But I'm glad you pointed that out, since it make the situation worse because it distorts and skews the viewer's perspective.

even with the advent of the party line. Humans, apparently are subject to a voracious propensity for voyeurism.

Serfs did not, and there are other exceptions, but I posit that these are but motes in the eye of the vastness of the history of human civilization.

for adultery as they were in the North-American Puritan settlements of the 17th century with an "A" on their chest or bosom, or with a "BC" for Bad Character as they were in Canadian military prisons?

Whether they actually moved or not is not relevant. They usually had the ability to move if they wished, and thus choose their peer group. That is what is important. If they were happy with their peer group then they were happy with it.

It's the ubiquity of the observer base and indelible record of our actions that make this a new and different problem.

Historically, people have usually had the ability to move to a location where they are in proximity to and observed by like-minded people. The internet brings all people into proximity and therefore we subject to a raft of populations who we we would have historically avoided. This is like being put into prison, where all inmates are able to see all other inmates actions and are under constant watch by authorities. It's demeaning and oppressive. Not much good comes out of it except to keep the inmates segregated and controlled.

The other great difference is that, for the first time in human history, an indelible, incontrovertible record can be and usually is created of all that is observed, especially that which is posted to the internet. It the past, what was observed was always subject to interpretation by the observer, and it was not usually recorded, and even if it was, it was always subject to human bias. If it was not recorded, small transgressions could be forgotten, and forgiven by the small number of potential first-hand observers. Even if recorded, the scope of who would find the record was still limited, and an act of volition was usually required to read it. So the past situation was one of inherent "you could usually leave your mistakes behind", you could grow up and correct your mistakes (because we all make them) and most could be not haunted forever by a single misspoken word or misdeed. It was organic, and inherently forgiving.

The cold, hard, oxide that records most of what is observed now is neither forgiving nor fades with time (if backups don't fail lol,) And that makes the situation different. Small misjudgements are spread to an immense population instantly, and recorded forever. This makes the impact of what used to be small, gargantuan. In short, everything is amplified, judged, and impermeable.

This can be an unpleasant a way to live, is a lot like prison, and is very different from the past.

'Cause they were engaged in "secret talks." You know that can only lead to trouble. Conspiring to perform a comedy I'll bet would be the charge.

All the news that matters,,,

Not mentioned was which encryption schemes Yahoo is considering. Maybe it's simply HTTPS, but is that good enough? Are there other possibilities?

Since the NSA has backdoored encryption schemes in the past, how can Yahoo determine if the scheme they implement is actually going to prevent the NSA from decrypting it? It's a serious question, and you can patly answer "you can't", but if I were responsible for implementing this scheme, this is the question I would pose to the team and require some sincere digging because it would be an even bigger embarrassment to implement the encryption, and then read another Snowden-esque revelation showing it was for nothing, and I was made a fool of.

A nice example of panspermia.

Another crash, yeah let's patrol the US skies with these. What could possibly go wrong?

I kinda miss it.

Oh Slashdot - you're so edgy. Calm down.

1 trillion seconds over 1.6 million drivers is 7.2 days per driver. ( 1000000000000 / 60 / 60 / 24 / 1600000 = 7.2 )
Thank-you Captain Obfuscation.