[extropy-chat] The end of crime as we used to know it?

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Fri Mar 19 22:04:53 UTC 2004


On Fri, Mar 19, 2004 at 10:25:37PM +0100, Erik Starck wrote:

> I think you're being a bit too pessimistic. One person with a camera 

I sure hope so. Given just today's headlines, we've been progressing down the
slippery slope towards a control and surveillance society, with nary a sqawk
but a few digerating fuming and sputtering.

The general public doesn't know, and doesn't care. In fact, it has been
silently accepting some pretty outrageous things. Things people used to riot in
the streets for.

Nowadays, people don't riot even if their portemonnaie's being bled. Now this
makes me genuinely worried.

> phone doesn't make a revolution, but add the smart mobs of Rheingold, 

Smart mobs are just a lark. Highly unpolitical, but for protester tourism
(against globalization, etc.).

> mobile blogging tools soon to hit the market big time 

I repeat, how can you blog if your channel is jammed? How can you blog if
your cellphone has been confiscated? How can you blog if you're ordered to
put it down, and your ISP will cut you off, in compliance with law XY.Z?
Your connection logs are essentially eternal, and subpoenable. Your premises
can be searched just because somebody claims you're a pirate (complete with
cutlass and eyepatch, ARRRRRR matey!). Your financial transactions and RFID
movement profile gets collected. Your cellphone location profile gets
tracked. All your voice is tappable, and tapped. Your car's license plate and
toll collect RFID are being scanned everywhere, and ditto your face on a
dozen cams on your way from home to work. All of this will be actively data
warehoused, and crosscorrelated.

How many of normal people know how much of it is already law, where, about to
become law, and what is on the drawing boards still?

> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3497596.stm) and mobile video on 
> the way and you've got something that very well may put a lethal crack 
> in some of the current power structures. The shopowner and the 

How so? Voting is your only option, and if there's just 3 candidates none of
which is representing your views, and you're not demonstrating, how does your
blogging matter?

> politician can't put the guards on every customer or voter they've got.

You cannot vote candidates *away*. You can only vote for, or abstain voting
for those candidates which are present. The political process resulting in
selection of said is a travesty in most parts of the world, US included.
 
> Of course, at this stage they respond with force as they feel 
> threatened. The watchmen aren't used to being watched. But something is 

What is the response to that response? The street is ducking, and covering. 

> happening. Something big.
> 
> Also see:
> 
> http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_overview_eight.asp?media=1
> "The only sectors seeing general audience growth today are online, ethnic 
> and alternative media."

Online people never riot. They're too busily cocooning while blogging their
rage away for that.
 
> and
> "In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw 
> elements of news as the end product."

No doubt. What is the general public doing with those raw bits, though?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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