28
October
2013
|
09:16 AM
America/Los_Angeles

The Loss Of The Unmonitored Self

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Historians will look back at the past 20 years as a unique period, a time when there was great opportunity to see deep into the collective soul of entire societies because people’s online behavior was largely naked of any fears of being judged or monitored.

Novelist Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez wrote: “All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” We once had insight into that secret world. 

People now go “dark” — ditching their natures, becoming self-monitored, self-critical, and second guessing themselves and everything around them, in the wake of the NSA disclosures and the enormous amount of corporate spying on individuals, so that they will buy more products. We lose far more than we gain.

The individual and their search box was almost as private and sacrosanct as the communion box — and exhibited the same honesty.  You can see this in the search data that AOL released in 2006 as part of a research project. It anonymized 658,000 users but for the first time we got to see a narrative from each user that pointed to great sorrow and drama within ordinary peoples’ lives that could not be revealed in any other way.

Here is a list of searches by user “005315”:


letters and responses written by women to emotionally
abusive partners
men that use emotional and physical abandonment to control their partner
warning signs of a mans infidelity or sexual addiction
the sociopathic relationship
southern california newspaper stories about woman murdered by boyfriend in pomona december2005
names of females murdered or found dead in pomona california in 2005
characteristics of a sociopath in a relationship
a person that shows lack of empathy
help in writing a letter to a abusive narcissistic ex boyfriend
how to hurt the narcissistic man
retaliating against the narcisisstic man


AOL search user “4331025” seemed to be going through a divorce:


cheer up plaques
mass custody definitions
kids health
visitation schedule
kids gym places in worcester
counter surveilance products
sample visitation schedules
how are fat girlfriends
revenge for a cheating spouse
civil war a fathers guide to wining custody
first date dos and donts
how to satisfy a woman
penis enlargement
how to get revenge on exwife
how to do a background check with a liscense number


There’s lots more, some of it can be very disturbing.

Selfies and self-centered life…

For a few years, the search box became a new form of confessional and the answers offered some salvation.  Now, that’s gone because the innocence has gone.  However, there’s a ton of archives for future anthropologists to sift — if they become available from Google, et al.

What’s worse than self-censoring your entire life is the boost Internet technologies have given to the incumbent powers. The early utopian ideals of blogging, citizen journalists, and transparency — have not been realized. Those “transformative” technologies have in fact, helped the ruling powers continue to survive amid greatly magnified levers of control and abilities to impose their ideas onto larger masses of people. The social media promises of challenging the status quo failed to be realised and instead, social media became the social distribution of mass media (SODOMM).

Security expert Bruce Schneier, recently wrote in The Atlantic: The Battle for Power on the Internet 


There is more government surveillance than ever before. There is more government censorship than ever before. There is more government propaganda, and an increasing number of governments are controlling what their users can and cannot do on the Internet. Totalitarian governments are embracing a growing “cyber sovereignty” movement to further consolidate their power. And the cyberwar arms race is on, pumping an enormous amount of money into cyber-weapons and consolidated cyber-defenses, further increasing government power…

The interests of corporate and government powers are aligning. Both corporations and governments benefit from ubiquitous surveillance, and the NSA is using Google, Facebook, Verizon, and others to get access to data it couldn’t otherwise.


Mr. Schneier believes that by being nimble, it is possible to use technology to out-fox the ruling powers. However, it doesn’t take long for governments, and corporations to catch up. And as the cloaking technologies become more complex to use, fewer use them, and users can then become very exposed by using them even if their content isn’t.

This is why cloaking technologies should be ubiquitous and built-into the fabric of online infrastgructure because they are essential to a modern democracy. Their absence should be considered anti-democratic and a form of human rights violation because peoples' access to free speech and freedom to organize cannot be guaranteed.

Nearly eight years ago I wrote: The future transparency of the past--we live in glass houses | ZDNet


Will we have Big Brother? Yes, because we can. Because once we digitize something, we can process it, and we can store it--very easily. We can monitor the inventory in coke machines, and we will monitor everything else soon too.

And if we can track people, we will, because we can. If reasonable technologies exist to prevent crime, terrorism, or any other illegal acts, then we would be negligent in not employing those technologies. That will be the logic of the lawyers and legislators.

Welcome to the future transparency of your present moments.


When Big Data can predict who will buy shoes it can also be applied to predict crimes and criminals. Predictive analytics might sound benign when applied to business but in the hands of government or police states it becomes truly frightening. 

When Big Data can predict who will buy refrigerators it can also be applied to predict crimes and criminals. Predictive analytics might sound benign when applied to commerce but in the hands of government or police states it becomes truly frightening.

We could easily paint ourselves into a corner, as in North Korea, or Nazi Germany and become trapped inside hideous societies ruled by inhuman idealogies because of our advanced technologies of control.

This is why techno-optimists must also become techno-activists to ensure that we get the right future — there are many to choose from but only a few that are worthwhile.

We could easily paint ourselves into a corner, as in North Korea, or Nazi Germany and become trapped by our advanced technologies of control.

This is why tech-optimists must also become techno-activists to ensure that we get the right future — there are many to choose from but only a few that are worth fighting for.