8.15.2005

 

End of anonymity 2

In July we talked about The end of anonymity. Here are three examples of the process in action:
  1. Security Cameras Multiply in Manhattan: "Six surveillance cameras could be seen peering out from a chain drug store on Broadway. One protruded awkwardly from the awning of a fast-food restaurant. A supersized, domed version hovered like a flying saucer outside Columbia University. To the dismay of civil libertarians and with the approval of law enforcement, they've been multiplying at a dizzying rate all over Manhattan."

  2. Bush signs prescription drug abuse measure: "The measure provides grants for states to establish and improve electronic programs for monitoring controlled dangerous substances and sharing that information with each other, in a bid to stop people from crossing state lines to get prescriptions filled and avoid monitoring."

  3. Wired News: Brit License Plates Get Chipped: "The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away. Officials in the United States say they'll be closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable."
This article from a couple of weeks ago indicates one of the many advantages of the end of anonimity: U.S. Teen Not Found in Aruba Landfill. If there were no anonimty, we would not be having to dig through a landfill in the hope of finding her body. We would know exactly where her body is and who she was with at the time of death. See also Robots and felonies.

Comments:
That's right, Marshall. The reasons to get the Mark of the Beast will outweight the reasons not to in the end days. Whether you believe it or not, it's happening because the people who are in a position to cause it...are causing it.
 
There is a big difference between being seen as a human and being identified as human X.

The latter would be needed for the end of anonymity, but not for most applications.

Further, there is a notion of public and private spaces that needs to be addressed. It is illegal to survey into private residences in the US.

People should forget the idea that they are invisible in public, but not that they don't have to give sensitive information out randomly.

We should continue to embrace the idea that private property is just that.

As for cars and license plates, well, the registration was the violation of liberty. Anything beyond that is in the same vein.
 
Perhaps the end of anonyminity will come about voluntarily.

Perhaps people will want to self-identify, because it makes it easier to meet people, and assume roles within societies.

If Pro-Am continues, and I believe it will, then people will want to connect with their groups on the lunch break, on the weekends, stuff like that. Just like how people cluster in high-school.

It see a trend towards self-identification on the Internet. Internet communities are starting to request that their members self-identify. You look "weird" when you're hiding behind a mask online. The pressure is to identify.

There are no assurances when you're working with someone who won't self-identify. There are online processes that require Internet Bonding. You can set up a bond while still being anonymous, but it's much weaker. Many of us have been burned by the hiding.

I was working on a project with a serial identity. Only, he just disappeared one day, dropped off the face of the Earth. No way to find him. Everyone was asking, "where is he? where is he? where did he go?" We learned our lesson: Only make an emotional and labor investment with people who are using their real name, and have a verifiable existance on the Internet.

We know that the Internet world and the material world are merging, by way of augmented reality. Our identity and reputation will bleed from one to the other.

One day, colleges will not look at your grades and SAT scores; they will instead look at your actual schoolwork and Internet record of accomplishments.

So, I don't know that all these government measures are really the central reason for this change. I think we're all going to do it by ourselves.

-- Lion Kimbro
 
Anonymity in public is a corollary of the big city -- it is impossible in a small town. -- blzbob
 
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