The difference is I'm quite confident in our industry being able to help people protect their privacy now that it's a mainstream issue. The markets reacting. I'm a strong believer in decentralized web services replacing monolithic ones like GMail. These companies may even get pressure from new information privacy laws about data retention/sharing similar to HEPA and health records.
Whereas I'm completely pessimistic about the possibility of state-surveillance being repelled by policy or technology.
But agreed right now, infosec/privacy is a class war. Only those with sufficient knowledge and resources can live a truly private life.
I would think Upton Sinclair's statement would more likely apply: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
And entrenched power interests rarely choose to give up their power willingly.
That said, I agree along the lines that the tech savvy can assist by making all/nearly all Internet communications encrypted sufficiently that those who wish to spy are once again searching for a needle in a haystack without the benefit of a large electromagnet.
Then it remains to educate non-savvy about the true costs of participation in "free" services. Maybe allowing the "creepiness" factor to be more prominently in evidence, as the images from the "naked body scanner" did for back-scatter scans.
How is the guy marketing the decentralized services going to beat the guys who hate decentralized services, considering those guys already know everything about everyone's customers?
One way might be to let the user push a button to get $20 for giving up some purchase patterns. Ugh ;)
Comments
The difference is I'm quite confident in our industry being able to help people protect their privacy now that it's a mainstream issue. The markets reacting. I'm a strong believer in decentralized web services replacing monolithic ones like GMail. These companies may even get pressure from new information privacy laws about data retention/sharing similar to HEPA and health records.
Whereas I'm completely pessimistic about the possibility of state-surveillance being repelled by policy or technology.
But agreed right now, infosec/privacy is a class war. Only those with sufficient knowledge and resources can live a truly private life.
I would think Upton Sinclair's statement would more likely apply: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
And entrenched power interests rarely choose to give up their power willingly.
That said, I agree along the lines that the tech savvy can assist by making all/nearly all Internet communications encrypted sufficiently that those who wish to spy are once again searching for a needle in a haystack without the benefit of a large electromagnet.
Then it remains to educate non-savvy about the true costs of participation in "free" services. Maybe allowing the "creepiness" factor to be more prominently in evidence, as the images from the "naked body scanner" did for back-scatter scans.
How is the guy marketing the decentralized services going to beat the guys who hate decentralized services, considering those guys already know everything about everyone's customers?
One way might be to let the user push a button to get $20 for giving up some purchase patterns. Ugh ;)