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Minsky Manufactures Privacy...
Somewhere in the bowels of an active location transponder discussion on the
wearables list...
Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
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Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 14:29:19 -0500
To: [email protected]
From: Marvin Minsky <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: location vs. tracking
"David P. Reed" <[email protected]> worries:
>[they can use active tracking of you] for various 'public benefits' (such as
antiterrorism, antipedophilia, anti-anti-gov't thinking, and monitoring any
personal, non-business interactions, among employees. )
Did you mean to include antiterrorism?
>There's always a plausible reason that can be used to override
>whatever privacy policies and safeguards are designed into such a system.
If the reasons really are plausible, then those overrides should be added
to the system design.
>It's sad that our public institutions now tend to view everyone as a
>potentially evil person...
Do you mean all public institutions?
Perhaps, instead, we should try to design tracking systems that include
public review mechanisms -- so that whenever anyone (e.g., your employer)
accesses your record against the privacy policy, they'll be subject to
legal sanctions and damages.
The issues of privacy are pretty complicated: for example, if someone has
been furtively following you, some future technology might permit you to
authorize someone you trust to find out who it is. Ed Fredkin once asked a
number of people how they would feel about a new device with which you
could select almost anyone in the world, and make the device produce a loud
noise near them. They all objected angrily. Then Ed said, "It already
exists. It's called the telephone."
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-----------------
Robert Hettinga ([email protected]), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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