Prublic

-- By CarolineVisentini - 28 Feb 2015

The idea of privacy abuse might have bolstered with the World War I. For sure, it evolved fast enough to be a remarkable part of World War II and for the years that followed it even though “atomic bomb” and “man on the moon” were trending topics on the media. Spooks were already in the backstage. All these facts should have brought society to think and reflect about itself, its values and protections, as well as to question the status quo – but the society just questioned it and nothing more was done but to seat back and watch our privacy to become public – a different public, definitely.

I think this means that "privacy" decayed over the course of the 20th century, largely without public or organized response, although I'm not sure why it wasn't said simply, in a sentence, rather than archly, in a paragraph.

From the time when civilization gathered in cities things have been changing fast.

Meaning, over the last five thousand years, with equal fast-ness? Or less fast for the first 4,500 years, and then in some cities rather faster for the last 500? Or something else?

When tribes became towns and then cities and countries, humans were able to gather intelligence and information from each other and accelerate the brain development.

Sounds to me mostly like a summary of me, details aside. I don't think one could show any significant anatomical or physiological change in the human brain in the last 5,000 years. That's slow for natural selection.

The advent of intelligence started to gradually diminish the power of the physically stronger. The ones able to merge physical and mental capabilities, information and politics were way ahead in the odds of winning. And that became more factual as years went by: the interest on data and information grew exponentially due to its power to control people and generate financial or political value for States.

I don't think this is tenable history. The advent of intelligence over what time-span? Is this a story about cultural rather than biological evolution, about learning rather than intelligence? In which historic era did the advent of learning reduce the importance of physical strength and to whom?

It was a simple leapfrog from that intelligence related war edge to a civilian data obsession. Quick and easy, the “acquired” enemy information helped States to win wars, civilian information and data would have the same value, the powerful people or corporations were even more interested in influence and money. Technology was advancing each day more. Once that became reality, no privacy could be expected anymore.

I don't see the coherence of these ideas.

Our Environment

In the famous Nineteen Eighty-Four book written by George Orwell, the idea of a “big brother” based on social control through cameras became a reality in our lives. That unfolded to what we have today on the traffic of persons with “security” cameras and facial recognition, smartphones with tracking devices and batteries that never turn them off, or even televisions that “hear” and record our conversations. Our environment results from the unification of all of the above in one and unique network, the World Wide Web. That gives unlimited power to the ones controlling the network.

Does something "unfold" from fiction into reality? The Web is not the Internet.

Big brother or big data? The two concepts merged and this merge happened faster than Moore’s law would be able to predict: as the processing power of machines grow, the amount of our personal information generated, and obviously gathered, is pouring and being stored in third-party servers.

This is all approximate about reality, not accurate, perhaps meant to be metaphorical, but not part of an argument that a reader could understand if she wanted to.

With that, the capacity of those few (companies or Governments) who control the databases and this superorganism to manage and control society becomes tremendous. Mr. Snowden made this crystal clear in 2013.

The capacity to unveil personal information is very powerful. Managing to merge that with a lot of other related facts such as climate, time, prices, among other things, and to correlate and compare them (which we also call linkability), provide the controllers with the ability to predict and define our next steps. Predicting sounds like the ability to read the unconscious of people, to know what someone is aiming to willing to do. Machines are already able to read, store, process and react to data, and from data they are creating information about us. Personal consumption can start to derive from an exogenous will.

The State is one clear beneficiary of this environment. Its welfare provision created a reason for society to giveback. Initially, it was taxation. Now, we also handle in our personal information as a bargaining chip for that alleged welfare. For the State, controlling all of the information that circulates through the Internet is a huge asset. It needs surveillance, thus the need to have our information available. After decades, they found a great value deal for any alleged welfare given.

The Way Forward

The question is: Am I part of that? and the answer would be: We are all loosing the game already. The ultimate question might be: Is this generation the last one able to change that pattern, in which machines train us to consume specific products, to follow Governmental will and to accept data obsession. With the time running away fast, the few ones born prior to the Internet revolution and to the data obsession, the ones who have seen things from another point of view but also interacted a lot with this “new” framework, are the links to a possibility of change.

This silent war is not lost yet. Now, we shall create an awareness culture around the tech and cool gadgets offered, as well as the online and “free” services available online, to recreate our society with concepts that were once given, but were long ago taken from us from States: our privacy and freedom. With these in hands, consumers and citizens will be empowered to make informed choices about their own lives.

What was the idea around which the draft was organized? A better draft could be made by stating the primary idea clearly, providing specific facts in interpretive context to explain the idea, and to respond to foreseeable questions and objections.