flynn23 wrote:

A set of technical standards being developed behind closed doors by a United Nations agency that would potentially curb users’ ability to remain anonymous on the Internet has privacy advocates and technologists alarmed, according to a Friday report. The standards are proposed by the Chinese government and the US National Security Agency is also part of the IP Traceback drafting group, named Q6/17. Headed up the by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, the group is due to meet next week to work on the proposal, though the meeting will be closed to the media and public, the report suggests.

I've been groping around this for awhile, but it just hit me like a ton of bricks last week. Data is the Singularity. That is to say, that every "problem" we have as a society can be solved by more and more accessible data.

Disease control and eradication? Data.
Economic stability and growth? Data.
Safer and healthier food? Data.
More effective medications? Data.
Weather and environmental stability? Data.
Health and well being? Data.

You already see it. Informatics against large and complex data sets are yielding unprecedented gains in understanding, development, and refactoring. With the net now ubiquitous (ahem, telecom infrastructure investment notwithstanding), and people conditioned to contributing content to it, the cost of acquiring data is next to zero and moving closer all the time. Aggregating data is still a tricky thing, but that is getting cheaper and easier all the time as well. Put those two things together and you have the ability to divine incalculable knowledge for the benefit of society.

The price? Loss of anonymity, privacy, and the rising potential for abuse. But what do you want? To be omni-prescient or obscure?

I know this is totally beside the point, but the controversy over the traceback feature appears to be bunk... the combination of some notes drawn up by a single individual and suspicion generated by the ITU's closed door process.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:

A set of technical standards being developed behind closed doors by a United Nations agency that would potentially curb users’ ability to remain anonymous on the Internet has privacy advocates and technologists alarmed, according to a Friday report. The standards are proposed by the Chinese government and the US National Security Agency is also part of the IP Traceback drafting group, named Q6/17. Headed up the by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, the group is due to meet next week to work on the proposal, though the meeting will be closed to the media and public, the report suggests.

I've been groping around this for awhile, but it just hit me like a ton of bricks last week. Data is the Singularity. That is to say, that every "problem" we have as a society can be solved by more and more accessible data.

Disease control and eradication? Data.
Economic stability and growth? Data.
Safer and healthier food? Data.
More effective medications? Data.
Weather and environmental stability? Data.
Health and well being? Data.

You already see it. Informatics against large and complex data sets are yielding unprecedented gains in understanding, development, and refactoring. With the net now ubiquitous (ahem, telecom infrastructure investment notwithstanding), and people conditioned to contributing content to it, the cost of acquiring data is next to zero and moving closer all the time. Aggregating data is still a tricky thing, but that is getting cheaper and easier all the time as well. Put those two things together and you have the ability to divine incalculable knowledge for the benefit of society.

The price? Loss of anonymity, privacy, and the rising potential for abuse. But what do you want? To be omni-prescient or obscure?

I know this is totally beside the point, but the controversy over the traceback feature appears to be bunk... the combination of some notes drawn up by a single individual and suspicion generated by the ITU's closed door process.

It was irrelevant really. I think the UN will continue to pursue an agenda of eroding privacy. I think most influential nation-states will as well, in the name of security. The benefactors might be industry and possibly research, but it's too early to tell.

What I was really getting at is that privacy is dead. Once someone cracks a really interesting problem that just requires sensitive data to be collected, shared, and analyzed, then all bets are off. People's resistance to it will crumble.

Your anonymity will quickly become just an illusion.

flynn23 wrote:

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:

A set of technical standards being developed behind closed doors by a United Nations agency that would potentially curb users’ ability to remain anonymous on the Internet has privacy advocates and technologists alarmed, according to a Friday report. The standards are proposed by the Chinese government and the US National Security Agency is also part of the IP Traceback drafting group, named Q6/17. Headed up the by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, the group is due to meet next week to work on the proposal, though the meeting will be closed to the media and public, the report suggests.

I've been groping around this for awhile, but it just hit me like a ton of bricks last week. Data is the Singularity. That is to say, that every "problem" we have as a society can be solved by more and more accessible data.

Disease control and eradication? Data.
Economic stability and growth? Data.
Safer and healthier food? Data.
More effective medications? Data.
Weather and environmental stability? Data.
Health and well being? Data.

You already see it. Informatics against large and complex data sets are yielding unprecedented gains in understanding, development, and refactoring. With the net now ubiquitous (ahem, telecom infrastructure investment notwithstanding), and people conditioned to contributing content to it, the cost of acquiring data is next to zero and moving closer all the time. Aggregating data is still a tricky thing, but that is getting cheaper and easier all the time as well. Put those two things together and you have the ability to divine incalculable knowledge for the benefit of society.

The price? Loss of anonymity, privacy, and the rising potential for abuse. But what do you want? To be omni-prescient or obscure?

I know this is totally beside the point, but the controversy over the traceback feature appears to be bunk... the combination of some notes drawn up by a single individual and suspicion generated by the ITU's closed door process.

It was irrelevant really. I think the UN will continue to pursue an agenda of eroding privacy. I think most influential nation-states will as well, in the name of security. The benefactors might be industry and possibly research, but it's too early to tell.

What I was really getting at is that privacy is dead. Once someone cracks a really interesting problem that just requires sensitive data to be collected, shared, and analyzed, then all bets are off. People's resistance to it will crumble.

Your anonymity will quickly become just an illusion.

The killer app that everyone will want is increased longevity. There are efforts to bolster patients' privacy now, but when the ability to tailor effective medical treatments to you based on your genome, your genome will be the first thing you will want to reveal.

There are levels of privacy. Privacy while out and about derives primarily from anonymity. Seeing a friend or neighbor at Wal Mart early on Saturday morning before you've showered and shaved is a good illustration of the violation of this anonymity-based privacy. Every day we are photographed by countless TV cameras as we drive around. No one ever bothers to think about who is watching those video streams, but people are watching. Eventually they will track all vehicles by their license plates, and automatically check your registration and insurance status. This could be a good thing. Unlicensed/unregistered drivers are probably a hazard.

Being surveilled while in your own home or another location you think is secure, is a much more egregious violation of your privacy. I think it will be a lot longer before this form of privacy is given up.

bwrich wrote:

The killer app that everyone will want is increased longevity. There are efforts to bolster patients' privacy now, but when the ability to tailor effective medical treatments to you based on your genome, your genome will be the first thing you will want to reveal.

It's not even your genetic data that will help here. As it stands now, HIPAA is a huge barrier to getting the broken health care system in the US to actually work. It was meant to protect patients privacy, but its unintended consequence is that it makes it prohibitively expensive and risky to exchange much needed data. You don't need genetics to improve longevity or costs. You need basic information like prescriptions and immunizations. Things that are very difficult to follow you around because of this law.

Over the next few years, you can kiss this kind of stuff goodbye. It's becoming too risky and too expensive for us to "protect" privacy. The more data liquidity we have, the more efficient things can become. And with that, comes mashups of that data which could yield unprecedented innovation and development. Yes, I'm saying the glass is half full.