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.

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

It was a simple leapfrog from that intelligence related war edge to a civilian privacy abuse and invasion. 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 would agree with the argument that attests that the Internet was created for civilian control and not ultimately for knowledge dissemination.

Evil 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. The truly evil comes 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.

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. 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 evil 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 privacy abuse (since we are not doing anything wrong, right?). 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 jewelries offered, such as the fancy and cool gadgets, 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.