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Title:
World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing
Review:
The title of Richard Hunter's book refers to the growing availability
of information about the personal lives of consumers living in
capitalist democratic states. The book begins with the assumption that
"very little of consequence can't and won't be known about anyone or
anything". Hunter approaches the subject of the erosion of personal
privacy from two angles: the business and the governmental/police
justifications for retaining information on individuals. His argument,
that citizens in democratic countries had better take responsibility
for the power of surveillance technologies while they still can,
emerges from the discussion of the increasing possibilities for
deriving behaviour patterns from recombining archived data.
Hunter's first point, that people adapt at a slower rate than the
introduction of new technologies, is underlined using examples of
Amazon.com and Acme-Rent-A-Car of Connecticut. Neither set of
consumers, when they began relationships with either company, realised
that information collected about their shopping habits and movements
would be sold to third parties or used for law enforcement purposes.
Hunter then goes on to demonstrate how organisations that create and
retail information, such as Microsoft and record companies, are
responding to threats being posed by self-organising groups using the
Internet to communicate. Hunter calls these groups 'Network Armies'
and provides an analysis of how such groups coalesce and fight their
cause, using examples of the Open Source software movement and Linux
v. Windows, Napster and digital distribution of music and the
anti-capitalist protestors in Seattle and Genoa.
The discussion then moves on to identifying social groups within the
'world without secrets'. Hunter and a team of researchers at Gartner
identify four groups: 'Network Armies', the 'Lost and the Lonely',
'Conscientious Objectors' and the 'Engineered Society'. This analysis
implies that the world without secrets is inevitable and the area of
society to which you belong depends upon whether you support or oppose
the authority of the leadership that passes legislation to eliminate
barriers to information flow.
The last two chapters are dedicated to discussion of war when all
enemy movements are known; and the possibility of a war in cyberspace.
Parts of this book were written on or after September 11th 2001 and
Hunter considers the development of terrorist network armies and the
response that an 'engineered society' can make to such attacks. The
New York Electronic Crimes Task Force is used as a model network army
for terrorist threats from cyberspace, an Internet version of
Interpol with intercontinental crime-fighting agreements.
Richard Hunter believes that a world without secrets is inevitable.
He urges his readers to take responsibility for the ways that
technologies are implemented through democratic means, such as
building in limitations for information usage by the authorities.
This book makes a compelling argument for educating both the
authorities and the public about the type and uses of recorded
information and is an excellent introduction to contemporary
attitudes towards and policies of surveillance. Readers who are
interested in the freedoms that they enjoy in their societies should
read this along with Simson Garfinkel's 'Database Nation' and Michael
Caloyannides 'Desktop Witness' and be careful about to whom they give
their personal information.
Free Pint Reviewer:
Stephen Lafferty has an MSc. in Library and Information Management and
has previously written on the subject of surveillance and privacy for
Free Pint <http://www.freepint.com/issues/030800.htm#feature>.
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