Miraz produced this interview for The NZ Herald this morning. Cheap as chips - your networked chair
What would you say if I told you the chair you're sitting on is reporting back to the network? It might not be happening right now, but the way Adam Greenfield sees it that scenario might not be far away.
He points out that computer devices are becoming ever cheaper and easier to use and connect. If the pattern of history holds true we'll soon be connecting all sorts of objects around us into a network.
That could easily include the chair you're sitting on, the water cooler nearby, streetlights, the bridge across the river or harbour.
Computer chips are cheap, and getting cheaper. Connecting to a network is cheap. Soon, instead of saying "Why would I connect this chair?" we'll say "Why not? Let's do it. We'll figure out later how that could be useful."
Well, actually Adam, you might want to think a bit more about that before doing it. Especially since we already have more than enough intrusion into our privtae lives. Like, oh, I don't know, schools setting up their laptops so they can spy on what kids get up to, in their own bedrooms.
School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and homeAccording to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.
If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don't know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I'm getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students' clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.
Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.
But when schools take that personal information, indiscriminately invading privacy (and, of course, punishing students who use proxies and other privacy tools to avoid official surveillance), they send a much more powerful message: your privacy is worthless and you shouldn't try to protect it.
So Adam. Still think that networked chair is a good idea? Go on. Defend it please.
Oh, and while we are at it, all that shemozzle last year about Section 22a of the copyright act being the thin end of the wedge, and the notion that letting the DIA filter internet traffic "to block child porn and of course it wont be used for anything else but we wont release the list of blocked sites because, you know, that would only encourage people to try and find them" etc etc.
Try this.
Move over, Australia: France taking 'Net censorship leadCritics of government-mandated filtering schemes contend that such programs first focus on "child pornography" because it's such an unobjectionable target for censorship—but once the program is in place, it's much easier to extend it to more controversial areas, such as copyright protection. At least the French have the decency to admit that this is what's happening.
The French lower house, the National Assembly, has just passed a security bill known as LOPPSI2, and it's expected that the Senate will follow suit in the next few weeks. As we've previously reported, LOPPSI2 is a grab bag of security items that includes state-sanctioned computer Trojans, a massive new database of citizen data (dubbed "Pericles"), and a requirement that ISPs start censoring sites on a government blacklist.
At our 2020 trust meeting last night we hosted Vikram Kumar who is the new
CEO of Internet NZ, one of the points I made to him was that we are in danger of losing the freedom of the network and that INZ needs to lead the way in making it clear to all of us why that matters.
I'm prepared to bet that we are already too late.
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