Is Big Brother a Big Deal?

[Lucas Corso]

Is Big Brother a Big Deal?

Big Brother isn't what he used to be. George Orwell extrapolated his totalitarian state from the 1940s. Today's information society looks nothing like Orwell's world, and watching and intimidating a population today isn't anything like what Winston Smith experienced.

Data collection in 1984 was deliberate; today's is inadvertent. In the information society, we generate data naturally. In Orwell's world, people were naturally anonymous; today, we leave digital footprints everywhere.

1984's police state was centralized; today's is decentralized. Your phone company knows who you talk to, your credit card company knows where you shop and Netflix knows what you watch. Your ISP can read your email, your cell phone can track your movements and your supermarket can monitor your purchasing patterns. There's no single government entity bringing this together, but there doesn't have to be. As Neal Stephenson said, the threat is no longer Big Brother, but instead thousands of Little Brothers.

1984's Big Brother was run by the state; today's Big Brother is market driven. Data brokers like ChoicePoint and credit bureaus like Experian aren't trying to build a police state; they're just trying to turn a profit. Of course these companies will take advantage of a national ID; they'd be stupid not to. And the correlations, data mining and precise categorizing they can do is why the U.S. government buys commercial data from them.

1984-style police states required lots of people. East Germany employed one informant for every 66 citizens. Today, there's no reason to have anyone watch anyone else; computers can do the work of people.

1984-style police states were expensive. Today, data storage is constantly getting cheaper. If some data is too expensive to save today, it'll be affordable in a few years.

And finally, the police state of 1984 was deliberately constructed, while today's is naturally emergent. There's no reason to postulate a malicious police force and a government trying to subvert our freedoms. Computerized processes naturally throw off personalized data; companies save it for marketing purposes, and even the most well-intentioned law enforcement agency will make use of it.

Of course, Orwell's Big Brother had a ruthless efficiency that's hard to imagine in a government today. But that completely misses the point. A sloppy and inefficient police state is no reason to cheer; watch the movie Brazil and see how scary it can be. You can also see hints of what it might look like in our completely dysfunctional “no-fly” list and useless projects to secretly categorize people according to potential terrorist risk. Police states are inherently inefficient. There's no reason to assume today's will be any more effective.

The fear isn't an Orwellian government deliberately creating the ultimate totalitarian state, although with the U.S.'s programs of phone-record surveillance, illegal wiretapping, massive data mining, a national ID card no one wants and Patriot Act abuses, one can make that case. It's that we're doing it ourselves, as a natural byproduct of the information society.We're building the computer infrastructure that makes it easy for governments, corporations, criminal organizations and even teenage hackers to record everything we do, and -- yes -- even change our votes. And we will continue to do so unless we pass laws regulating the creation, use, protection, resale and disposal of personal data. It's precisely the attitude that trivializes the problem that creates it.

This essay appeared in the May issue of Information Security, as the second half of a point/counterpoint with Marcus Ranum. Here\'s his half.

Posted on May 11, 2007 at 09:19 AM

Source: Schneier on Security: Is Big Brother a Big Deal?

[Marcus Marulus]

Well, a softly, slowly and gradually established surveillance society can even be worse and more efficient.

[Almost a Christian]

The typical Orwellian themed flick depicts a highly nervous lone hero amongst a blithely unsuspecting public, the latter of whom are completely insenstive to the unnatural environment in which they all live. For our hero, friends are few and almost impossible to distinguish from the great unwashed. An environment where any independent or principled thinking is quickly punished.

You get a criminal record, you go on a list. This is more and more the case and in society hurtling towards globalism that is in the midst of criminalising the very thoughts that threaten them..

[Aptrgangr]

Big Brother horror show


The controversial reality show is in deeper water than ever, reports
mark paterson

The sight of a blind-drunk young woman being assaulted by a Big Brother housemate in what may be the most public rape ever has turned the stomachs of millions of television viewers.

The incident, broadcast live by a pay-TV conglomerate across Africa, has prompted denunciations from the continent's great and good. Viewers have flooded newspapers and internet message boards with emails expressing undiluted outrage.
Many of the emails contain photo clips from the programme that appear to show Richard Bezuidenhout (left), a 24-year-old film student from Tanzania, assaulting Ofunneka Molokwu, a 29-year-old medical assistant from Nigeria.

M-Net, which airs the show have intervened. "There is no indication that she was unconscious at the time," said Joseph Hundah, an executive at M-Net.
However, viewers of the incident, which took place on Saturday afternoon after an extended drinking bout which ended in copious vomiting and apparent blackout for Molokwu, remain adamant about what they saw: Bezuidenhout lay down next to the comatose young woman and penetrated her vagina with his fingers. He carried on despite the pleas of another female housemate for him stop. Under the law in South Africa - where, on average, a woman is sexually assaulted every 40 seconds - such an act constitutes rape.

Bezuidenhout, who is married, finally desisted and went off to sit by himself while drunkenly sniffing his fingers. At this point the producers of the show did intervene, sending paramedics into the house and cutting the live feed.
Bezuindehout, defending his sexual behaviour in a show that has featured copious nudity, recently told his housemates, "Well, this is Africa."
The contest is due to reach a climax on November 11. But the $100,000 on offer to the winner may prove chump change compared to the settlement sought by Ofunneka (right) and her lawyers once she escapes the Big Brother bubble and views footage of her very public humiliation.

The First Post: Big Brother horror show

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Almost a Christian

The typical Orwellian themed flick depicts a highly nervous lone hero amongst a blithely unsuspecting public, the latter of whom are completely insenstive to the unnatural environment in which they all live. For our hero, friends are few and almost impossible to distinguish from the great unwashed. An environment where any independent or principled thinking is quickly punished.

In Orwell's 1984, the protagonist (Winston Smith) wasn't really a hero and it didn't take much to break him and make him betray his girlfriend (or vice versa). Nor am I sure that the public was blithely unsuspecting -- it was just that the inner party elite had put in place mechanisms that made it impossible for one person to trust another. Nor was it the case that independent thinking was necessarily swiftly punished -- it could take years. After all, Smith was watched for seven years and the surveillance and subsequent custody took place only to amuse an inner party insider. In the society that Orwell portrays, love, emotion, and intimacy all become meaningless. What is left is suspicion, fear, anxiety, hatred, and lust for power.