Natasha Lomas at TechCrunch talks about how “Systematic Surveillance Will Eat Itself“. She talks about how there is some positives product from this surveillance epidemic. In main it is represented by:
1) whistleblowers, e.g. Edward Snowden; and,
2) the rise in ephemeral type technologies that place information online in a more transitional, temporary state than what is normal today.
My take is more the move towards a ‘transparent’ society, but I am now thinking that maybe this is either the compromise, end-point that we come to, or maybe a stopping house on-route to transparency. The reason why I really do not see a strong place at this ‘half-way house’ is because it is still assuming that governments are lying to its citizens and the rest of the world, and hence the need for whistleblowers (who pay a hefty personal price for their efforts) and hence the need for ephemeral type technologies for the citizen to cover their backs… not cool!
Transparency will never be so “transparent” that we can seriously say that everything the government should tell us will be in public knowledge. That would most likely drive them out of power. Even in “transparent” Sweden they have secret service that spies on the citizens because of a hunch. Most the time governments are so corrupt that even the ministers them self are ashamed and do everything to hide the corruption. In that sense the Russians are being honest. They don’t hide it. It is just the way of life.
You know there is a technical report on a process to open for whistleblowers and protect them. (Have it somewhere on my computer.) Actually companies can implement a very good process to protect whistleblowers. Still the whistleblowers lose their jobs most the time! That is a heavy punishment for telling about the unethical things they have discovered. And the government lead the way. Manning and Snowden are just two of far too many whistleblower that opened up the wrong accounts, showed the dirty secrets of the wrong body. And as expected neither the armed forces nor the US government were too thrilled that somebody revealed their double standards.