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Law in the Internet Society
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Trust issues-- By LianchenLiu - 26 Oct 2015Section ISubsection AThe level of trust we are willing to place on things that we have no idea of is surprisingly high. I personally have never given much thought to privacy issues until very recently. I do not know how iPhone work, but I store my credit cards information on it; I do not know how cloud works, but I store all my photos on Baidu Cloud; I talk freely on Wechat on topics that I probably should not talk freely about, without knowing who else might have access to it. I often read about data securities or cyber security, but I never gave much thought about it, for several reasons: first, I do not understand it; second, I have (almost) nothing to hide; third, I am not important enough for anyone to watch; and fourth, even assume my browsing history was sold on the market, what is the harm? I have never been a paranoid about privacy and data security, nonetheless, I have expected my credit card information would not be leaked by just using my phone; my photos on Baidu Cloud would not be shown to a third party; and my conversation on WeChat? remains private. Why should I have any expectation of privacy? After all, storing my photos on the cloud is like storing it in a box and leaving it on the street. In real life, when we try carry a private conversation, we say to the other person “let’s go somewhere else”, or at least lower our voice. When it comes to cyberspace, we have a false sense of security—we make no attempt to obscure our voice, we do not even check our surroundings. That false sense of security comes from our ignorance: if we cannot see it, it does not exist. I do not see anyone is viewing my conversation on WeChat? , therefore, no one is. If we have to use a legal term for it, it is probably willful blindness. For me, I have never been into “tech stuff”. I do not know how to code; I do not know what kind of information software or apps are gathering. How to secure my activities on phones or computers is beyond me, and I am not going to bother. I think most people share my attitude of indifference: they do not know how computers or phones work, and they are not going to bother figuring it out. Because we do not know, we trust the people who know, whether they have a good intention or not. When software becomes a necessity in human life, the ability to create software is power, just like the ability to read and write in ancient societies was power as well. In a typical Han society in ancient China, the capability to read and write was in possession of a class that has exclusive access to the ruling power. This class is called Shi (士). This scene has come up in many literature depicting the life of ancient Chinese. A messenger from the royalty posted a piece of paper on the wall of the town hall, and people started to gather around that post and discuss the content on it. Peasants, merchants, soldiers, who think they can recognize one character or two on the post, argued with each other on what the post says, until an old Xiucai (秀才), who is at the lowest level of the Shi, clears his throat. Recognizing the sound, the crowd becomes quiet; they parts away to make room for the learned man to come forward. In reverence, the crowd listens as he reads each character. In the age that most men are illiterate, the men who are not hold the power: they communicate commands to generals thousands of miles away, make tax record of the remotest village on the land, and write history about the deeds of every emperor. The Shi derives the power from the fact that most men struggled feeding themselves and their families, and had no time to learn to read and write. Coding is a new form of power, and the power is derived from the fact that most men are too lazy to learn about it. One thousand year ago, when time was scarce in a common man’s life, the class that can afford the time to learn is warranted access to power. Nowadays, time is no longer scarcity, as technology has freed human from most of the repetitive work that our ancestors spend most of their time on. With money becoming the new scarcity, the capitalists are given the access to power. The class of Shi, while trusted with the lives of their people, had done more ill than good. Similarly, why capitalists/ coders who run the biggest technology companies should be given trust freely by the public, relying on nothing but their good will? When Zuckerberg spoke in fluent Chinese at Tsinghua University about devoting his time and energy to serving the community, one should be on notice that many members of the Shi had vowed to save the people from sufferings. Not that they were making intentional lies. It is just that human can hardly resist the temptation to achieve personal gains by screwing their fellow men, when no consequence will attach. Our ancestors were limited by time constraint to learn to read and write. However, our limitation is only our laziness. While a peasant, living in the Ming Dynasty, could not possibly be blamed for being illiterate, the public in our age has a civil duty to educate themselves on things that are running their phones and computers. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Facebook might have been established with the simple intention to connect people, but when such connection has been established, it is almost impossible not to exploit it. I am not saying that the public should stop using Facebook. I am saying we should inform ourselves and evaluate what kind of risk we are exposed to.Subsub 1Subsection BSubsub 1Subsub 2Section IISubsection ASubsection BYou are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
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