Self Promotion
How's the Moon?
moon phases |
2006
2005
--MacBeth V.v.
“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
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This one is embedded in a larger article on whether private universities are really any better than state-run (answer: not really):
The U.S. Department of Education recently asked colleges and universities to submit enrollment, graduation, and financial records for every student, in order to better calculate things like institutional graduation rates and student costs. Yet despite the fact that strict federal privacy laws would prohibit the names of individual students from ever being released, lobbyists for private colleges put on a full-court press to block the proposal, loudly denouncing it as "Orwellian" and "an assault on Americans' privacy and security in the shadow of the Fourth of July."
Now, the universities are dragging their feet because they don't want to be shown for the overpriced textbooks they are. But there's something creepier about this. Submit enrollment, graduation and financial records on every student? What next, their grades? Does the government really need to know that I got a C in Spanish, and switched back to Latin? (Where I got a B+ because I had the flu when I took the exam, and took the easy way out of translating Vergil by relying on a dictionary--it's a long story.)
Seriously--why do you think the government isn't compiling a profile on you? Like I said earlier, it's not about actually collecting important information they think will somehow combat terrorism. It's about creating an atmosphere of fear, where your every movement is recorded, at least at some point, and you never know when. And in this particular case, you know exactly what's being collected.
Every day, they chip away at your privacy. I recently applied for a new job; I got it, on condition that I take a drug test. Now, I passed, but that isn't the issue--the job is just a stupid little data entry job. Nothing difficult, nothing earth-shattering, nothing I probably couldn't do drunk if I wanted to. I applied for another job, two months ago, and they wanted to do a credit check on me--and they did, and I have no idea if that's why I didn't get the job, or if it was just that one of the seven other people up for it was more qualified. Who knows? But now a well-known consulting firm has my credit information.
But what was I to do, refuse the drug test? the credit check? I need a job--I can't be unemployed, the least reason being that Dennis doesn't make enough to cover all the expenses. (Also, frankly, I don't want to be unemployed--I may hate my job, but I'd rather work than stay at home, for a complex set of reasons.) I, and millions like me, are at the mercy of large corporations and the government. They can find out anything they want about me, they can even demand my own body fluids and use them however they want. The alternative? Poverty, unemployment, the life of the prole.
Well, the song does day freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...
posted by Mary, 8:45 PM"Must... Not... Mention... Orwell..."
Oh, but it is so tempting.
The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what's on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was "that's cool, but dangerous".The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.
The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.
And, of course, we wouldn’t put it past Google to store that information away, along with the search terms it keeps that you've used, and the web pages you have visited, to help it create a personalised profile that feeds you just the right kind of adverts/content. And given that it is trying to develop alternative approaches to TV advertising, it could go the extra step and help send "content relevant" advertising to your TV as well.
. . .
Google says that its fingerprinting technology makes it impossible for the company (or anyone else) to eavesdrop on other sounds in the room, such as personal conversations, because the conversion to a fingerprint is made on the PC, and a fingerprint can't be reversed, as it's only an identity.
But we should think that "spyware" might take on an extra meaning if someone less scrupulous decided on a similar piece of software.
The danger, you see, isn't in Google wanting to direct the right kind of advertising your way. The danger is in a.) creating a profile on people; b.) once this technology is perfected, it isn't hard for someone else--say, oh, I don't know, the government--to come along, tweak the software, and have an easy way to listen in on people in their own homes. This is beyond tapping phones--this is bugging your own house.
Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
It's not a question of them watching you at all times. It's that you become conditioned to think they could catch you at any moment, and you never know when that moment is. You can never let your guard down. You can never assume that you're not being listened to.
That's what's coming, regardless of which party is in control.
posted by Mary, 11:30 AMEight Planets? Twelve Planets? Nine Planets?
Well, they're not sure anymore. At the very least, people want to save Pluto. In a way, it's kind of a silly business--we're deciding what is a planet, acting as though it's some exclusive country club or chasing some Platonic ideal of what a planet is, when the universe is much messier than that.
posted by Mary, 11:30 AM