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Nov. 2nd, 2009 20:24Thursday October 22, 2009 More science fiction becomes obsolete. Minnesota Public Radio had an NPR program on living in the panopticon age; the time when all of our past and present can be known to anyone who wants to make a search. Everything is now in electronic archives, which don't decay or get lost. [Yes, I know this isn't entirely true.]
One person inteviewed has two Facebook pages. The one under his own name has only innocuous material. The other has content which might get him in trouble if tied to him.
I see two problems with this solution. 1) There's software which looks for stylistic similarities in texts. It was developed to spot plagiarism; but it's also been used to find the authors of anonymous writing. 2) What's innocuous today might not be in five, ten, or twenty years.
The earliest science fiction story about this privacy problem I know of: T. L. Sherred's "E for Effort" (1947.) The technology there was a time viewer, and the problem was mostly Real History being revealed. Isaac Asimov's "The Dead Past"(1956), also about a time viewer, concentrated on the problem of individual privacy.
Roger Zelazny's stories collected in _My Name is Legion_ focused on the threat to individual privacy. The series protagonist had written himself out of data bases and set up false identities.
Would it work? I suspect not. My purchases and downloads are idiosyncratic enough that a false identity could probably be spotted (given availability to grocery, bookstore, and thrift store data, sufficient computing power, and a reason to give finding me priority.)
***"Your dog is probably a socialist." Ask Doctor Science.
( Read more... )
One person inteviewed has two Facebook pages. The one under his own name has only innocuous material. The other has content which might get him in trouble if tied to him.
I see two problems with this solution. 1) There's software which looks for stylistic similarities in texts. It was developed to spot plagiarism; but it's also been used to find the authors of anonymous writing. 2) What's innocuous today might not be in five, ten, or twenty years.
The earliest science fiction story about this privacy problem I know of: T. L. Sherred's "E for Effort" (1947.) The technology there was a time viewer, and the problem was mostly Real History being revealed. Isaac Asimov's "The Dead Past"(1956), also about a time viewer, concentrated on the problem of individual privacy.
Roger Zelazny's stories collected in _My Name is Legion_ focused on the threat to individual privacy. The series protagonist had written himself out of data bases and set up false identities.
Would it work? I suspect not. My purchases and downloads are idiosyncratic enough that a false identity could probably be spotted (given availability to grocery, bookstore, and thrift store data, sufficient computing power, and a reason to give finding me priority.)
***"Your dog is probably a socialist." Ask Doctor Science.
( Read more... )