[projectvrm] Bruce Schneier on surveillance

[Doc Searls < >]

<http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html>

Excerpt:

> The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or 
> not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time...
> 
> There are simply too many ways to be tracked. The Internet, e-mail,cell 
> phones, web browsers, social networking sites, search engines: these have 
> become necessities, and it's fanciful to expect people to simply refuse to 
> use them just because they don't like the spying, especially since the full 
> extent of such spying is deliberately hidden from us and there are few 
> alternatives being marketed by companies that don't spy.
> 
> This isn't something the free market can fix. We consumers have no choice 
> in the matter. All the major companies that provide us with Internet 
> services are interested in tracking us. Visit a website and it will almost 
> certainly know who you are; there are lots of ways to betracked without 
> cookies. Cellphone companies routinely undo the web's privacy protection. 
> One experiment at Carnegie Mellon took real-time videos of students on 
> campus and was able to identify one-third of them by comparing their photos 
> with publicly available tagged Facebook photos.
> 
> Maintaining privacy on the Internet is nearly impossible. If you forget 
> even once to enable your protections, or click on the wrong link, or type 
> the wrong thing, and you've permanently attached your name to whatever 
> anonymous service you're using...If the director of the CIA can't maintain 
> his privacy on the Internet, we've got no hope.
> 
> In today's world, governments and corporations are working together to keep 
> things that way. Governments are happy to use the data corporations collect 
> -- occasionally demanding that they collect more and save it longer -- to 
> spy on us. And corporations are happy to buy data from governments. 
> Together the powerful spy on the powerless, and they're not going to give 
> up their positions of power, despite what the people want.
> 
> Fixing this requires strong government will, but they're just as 
> punch-drunk on data as the corporations. Slap-on-the-wrist fines 
> notwithstanding, no one is agitating for better privacy laws.
> 
> So, we're done. Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of 
> porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does. 
> Welcome to a world where your cell phone company knows exactly where you 
> are all the time. Welcome to the end of private conversations, because 
> increasingly your conversations are conducted by e-mail, text, or social 
> networking sites.
> 
> And welcome to a world where all of this, and everything else that you do 
> or is done on a computer, is saved, correlated, studied, passed around from 
> company to company without your knowledge or consent; and where the 
> government accesses it at will without a warrant.
> 
> Welcome to an Internet without privacy, and we've ended up here with hardly 
> a fight.

I think Bruce is discounting Europe and Canada to some degree here. I also 
think the fight is just beginning.

Doc