Privacy issues: Ed Felten writes on FreedomToTinker about the college police using a website the students use to identify rule-breakers. The students think that violates their privacy, but Felten thinks that these students just don’t realize how public their info is. ¹
I think we’ll have to figure out a user interface for the interim, but in the long run, there will be a need for a new definition of privacy. At least where the law is not concerned, it will be more and more out of the question to drag old issues out from Internet archives.
Ghost of Usenet Posting Past
Dr. Fun by David Farley
Why? Because either you are visible on the net, and will therefore have made mistakes and gained experience, or you are invisible, without credentials, inexperienced, a potential spook, etc. Similarly, looking at private pictures and diaries will be possible, but taking advantage of the information gained will be socially unacceptable: Just like in real life, prying into your neighbour’s windows, having cameras pointed at their garden, or staring at people in the train is possible, but frowned upon.
People will realize that their secrets are available to their friends as well as to their foes, but they will also learn that their foes will not go away when they hide all their secrets. It will be possible to hide your private life, but it will also diminish your public life, and people will make new compromises.
Oh, and making pictures of yourself breaking the rules or the law and publishing them, or writing in public about your sex life, will remain as frowned upon as telling it to the local blabber. Don’t do it. 😄
People’s idea of a public is traditionally bounded by space, time and audience - the park is a public that people understand. And, yet, this is all being disrupted. In talking about “super publics,” I want to get at the altered state of publics - what publics look like when they are infused with the features of digital architectures. What does it mean to speak across time and space to an unknown audience? What happens when you cannot predict who will witness your act because they are not visible now, even though they may be tomorrow? ²
#Blogs
