[privacy] The Internet Anonymity Experiment

[Gadi Evron]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, Paul Ferguson wrote:
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> Via PopSci.com.
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> [snip]
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> In 2006, David Holtzman decided to do an experiment. Holtzman, a security
> consultant and former intelligence analyst, was working on a book about
> privacy, and he wanted to see how much he could find out about himself from
> sources available to any tenacious stalker.
>
> So he did background checks. He pulled his credit file. He looked at
> Amazon.com transactions and his credit-card and telephone bills. He got his
> DNA analyzed and kept a log of all the people he called and e-mailed, along
> with the Web sites he visited. When he put the information together, he was
> able to discover so much about himself—from detailed financial
> information to the fact that he was circumcised—that his publisher,
> concerned about his privacy, didn’t let him include it all in the book.
>
> I’m no intelligence analyst, but stories like Holtzman’s freak me out.

Give me a break. We live in a world where privacy has been redefined, 
assume it is all public or easily attainable, and keep what you want 
private, secret.

Privacy in the sense of what you do in your own home or choose to think 
about, is your concern. Privacy as far as your reading preferences doesn't 
exist. Privacy as far as your DNA goes may be a concern, but it is not 
one you can protect if someone wants it and is willing to spend resources 
on getting it.

What privacy policies those entitites you give information to follow, is 
a valid concern, but can not be treated as a secret when so many have 
access. It is the same as expectation of privacy from friends, are they 
aware and are willing to follow your expectations? What do you do when 
breaches happen?

The reason privacy nutters such as us can't get around the fact privacy in 
the old sense no longer exists, so we can defend what we can, is 
because nutters like you refuse to acknowledge what's already gone, is 
gone. As we say in Hebrew, what was was, was was.

"The avalanche has already fallen, it is too late for the pebbles to 
vote." - Kosh, Babylon 5 (I think episode 8 of season 1)

Leaving practical sensibilities aside, I know many ideologists who believe 
being "here" where privacy in most senses no longer exists is reversible 
and they will refuse to travel by the air as 30 years ago you didn't have 
to show an ID. I respect them (John Gilmore and friends) and I follow 
the same path, but my take on it is different.

I am an idelologist, and believe ideologists in a world of oposing 
extremists on everything from toilet paper colour and email client to 
terrorism, is necessary. Things even themselves out. I combine it with a 
sense of functionality, practicality and the world around us. I am just 
happy we could last without an ID for that, for so long, ans choose to 
look at the world around me and deal with reality.

This does not mean I am not hoping for days where privacy is once 
again there, and it does not mean I won't work to make it more 
common-place. That, of course, if privacy is not something we invented and 
future generations will live better without--I hope not.

 	Gadi.