26 Apr 09, 10:47 AM
MasterOfMe
UK(WD), 6 yrs
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Iasgatg wrote:
*Sighs* Again nobody learns from history. Let them collect all the data they want. Seriously, more the better.
Back when Berlin was split in two, the Russians had an extremely sophisticated way of keeping track of what everyone was doing. They had one family paid off to spy on another, and then that family paid to spy on another, and so on an so on, so they effectively could know what everyone was doing.
Now this seems great, but the amount of information they were getting back was so extreme, in such massive quantities, that they could keep track of any of it. They had massive warehouses, filled with detailed documents about peoples activities, that never got read, because there were not enough people to read it all, to make sense of it all, to find useful information.
The best thing in this situation, is to swamp them.
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Except that now we have super-computers, server farms, fuzzy algorithms and all sort of nice geeky things like that. Google can index virtually the entire WWW - and that technology can easily be co-opted for things like this.
Give me an SQL database with data for everyone in the country and I can tell you everyone who had baked beans for breakfast in 30 seconds...too many people? Ok - everyone who had baked beans for breakfast while wearing a blue top...
Or how about everyone who is a member of IC and works with children? I could do that now if I had access to the CRB database and IC's database...
When you make a phone call the contents of that call are deemed to be private and if BT started snooping everyone's call in order to send them targeted advertising there would be an outcry. But they did an illegal trial monitoring the entire internet/web browsing activities of thousands of their customers without even informing them (and in fact denying it was happening to people who were running into problems because of it). The government took no action, the police took no action...no-one was interested and in fact there is a case in europe at the moment to finally force our government to do something about it.
The problem isn't for you or I right now - we live mostly legal lives. Maybe spanking someone a bit hard (technically illegal since Spanner) or doing 80 down the motorway. So you carry on, and they collect the data and are swamped with it.
But then you piss someone off. Maybe a member of your local police did something wrong and you complained - or you caught your local MP out in something. Then they want you - so they go trawling back through all this old data...and next thing you know you are in court with 16 driving offences, 5 cases of ABH, registered as a sexual offender, barred from working with children, etc, etc, etc.
Worst case scenario? Sure...Possible? Very definitely...
Did you know that the police and armed forces are very deliberately split up with no one person in command just to prevent that person having too much power. (Essentially a conspiracy required to perform a coup would involve too many people for it to be kept quiet).
The exact same principle applies here and I return your "sigh" with interest that you are willing to throw away what little privacy we have left without realising just how much more effective information gathering and processing technology is now than it was 50 years ago.
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26 Apr 09, 11:00 AM
kisses_for_me
UK, 5 yrs
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MasterOfMe wrote:
Iasgatg wrote:
*Sighs* Again nobody learns from history. Let them collect all the data they want. Seriously, more the better.
Back when Berlin was split in two, the Russians had an extremely sophisticated way of keeping track of what everyone was doing. They had one family paid off to spy on another, and then that family paid to spy on another, and so on an so on, so they effectively could know what everyone was doing.
Now this seems great, but the amount of information they were getting back was so extreme, in such massive quantities, that they could keep track of any of it. They had massive warehouses, filled with detailed documents about peoples activities, that never got read, because there were not enough people to read it all, to make sense of it all, to find useful information.
The best thing in this situation, is to swamp them.
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Except that now we have super-computers, server farms, fuzzy algorithms and all sort of nice geeky things like that. Google can index virtually the entire WWW - and that technology can easily be co-opted for things like this.
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However when there is too much data, it becomes much easier to slip things through any indexing algorithms, or else those self same criteria will throw up so many false positives as to make checking them all out virtually impossible.
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Give me an SQL database with data for everyone in the country and I can tell you everyone who had baked beans for breakfast in 30 seconds...too many people? Ok - everyone who had baked beans for breakfast while wearing a blue top...
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Only if you actually have that data, the more you collect the easier it is to either miss data, or to base searches on misleading, or even incorrect data.
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Or how about everyone who is a member of IC and works with children? I could do that now if I had access to the CRB database and IC's database...
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The assumption being that everybody has been completely honest about their personal details when registering on IC, and of course the assumption that the CRB database is itself correct and complete.
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When you make a phone call the contents of that call are deemed to be private and if BT started snooping everyone's call in order to send them targeted advertising there would be an outcry. But they did an illegal trial monitoring the entire internet/web browsing activities of thousands of their customers without even informing them (and in fact denying it was happening to people who were running into problems because of it). The government took no action, the police took no action...no-one was interested and in fact there is a case in europe at the moment to finally force our government to do something about it.
The problem isn't for you or I right now - we live mostly legal lives. Maybe spanking someone a bit hard (technically illegal since Spanner) or doing 80 down the motorway. So you carry on, and they collect the data and are swamped with it.
But then you piss someone off. Maybe a member of your local police did something wrong and you complained - or you caught your local MP out in something. Then they want you - so they go trawling back through all this old data...and next thing you know you are in court with 16 driving offences, 5 cases of ABH, registered as a sexual offender, barred from working with children, etc, etc, etc.
Worst case scenario? Sure...Possible? Very definitely...
Did you know that the police and armed forces are very deliberately split up with no one person in command just to prevent that person having too much power. (Essentially a conspiracy required to perform a coup would involve too many people for it to be kept quiet).
The exact same principle applies here and I return your "sigh" with interest that you are willing to throw away what little privacy we have left without realising just how much more effective information gathering and processing technology is now than it was 50 years ago.
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There is however a big but, all this info still requires human beings to act upon it. Taking the simplest technological sytem, automated speed enforcement there are still many places where a human bing cann hrow a quite small spanner in the works and cause the system to fall over. A determined person can drive at double the speed limit all day long and never have to worry about it. It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right. Elise Kraft, The Siege.
People really need protecting from those who want to protect them.
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26 Apr 09, 10:33 PM
MasterOfMe
UK(WD), 6 yrs
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kisses_for_me wrote:
There is however a big but, all this info still requires human beings to act upon it. Taking the simplest technological sytem, automated speed enforcement there are still many places where a human bing cann hrow a quite small spanner in the works and cause the system to fall over. A determined person can drive at double the speed limit all day long and never have to worry about it.
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Which makes it even worse - as the determined wrong-doers get away with it and the people who make a mistake pay.
Swamping with information is one option. Personally I'd rather they never had it in the first place. Frankly, it's none of their damn business.
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26 Apr 09, 11:15 PM
OnCallSlut
3 yrs
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maidie wrote:
Just to say, porn isn't half of internet traffic. Opinions vary, because nothing stands still on the internet, but a brief bit of Googling reveals the percentage is around 10%, give or take.
Apparently the "half" thing came from a flawed study in 1995. 
Edited to add: I still think the best way to "protect the children" is to keep that responsibility firmly where it belongs, with their parents/guardians. If a child isn't fortunate enough to have a parent sufficiently responsible to do that... I'd say exposure to internet porn is the least of their worries.
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I agree with the 'parents responsibilty' thing wholeheartedly - too many parents hide behind the 'I'm computer illiterate' excuse. If you don't know what your kids are doing then you are not much of a parent
Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.
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