Politics: Surveillance

Why is it even important… and why should I care? I’ll get to the why…

Spy vs Spy

Spy vs Spy

Recently the Dems and GOP have been fussing about what is or isn’t spying. It doesn’t take exceptional intelligence to figure which side has staked their position in the debate in the Land of Dumb… Is it spying or surveillance? That seems to be the crux of the debate.

SPY ∙ verb

  • work for a government or other organization by secretly collecting information about enemies or competitors.
  • observe (someone) furtively.
  • discern or make out, especially by careful observation.

SURVEILLANCE ∙ noun

  • close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal.

Is there really a difference? Is any difference enough to matter? If not, then what is at play?
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Sansar Privacy Anxiety?

The 6th item of Canary’s list of anxieties is about privacy in Project Sansar®. Will we have privacy in Sansar? A separation between our in-world persona and our RL identity?

For the list see: Are Second Life residents anxious about Project Sansar? For an answer on privacy read on.

Trompe Loeil - Autumn Cottage

Trompe Loeil – Autumn Cottage

The answer to whether we will have privacy in Project Sansar® is yes and no, at least from what has been revealed so far. It will be a bit like it is in Second Life™ but, different.

Sansar is going to have a slightly different account style. We have been told there will be a base account. We will need RL ID and financial information for the account, if we plan to move money and upload content. Government protections on money laundering and terrorist funds require the Lab have RL information for anyone receiving money. But, to jump into sansar and visit with a minimum of abilities it appears we will need to provide very little personal information. Continue reading

Privacy!?!

It seems very few mainstream media organizations are following the privacy scandals in the USA. Honour has a post on what Facebook is doing. See: Second Life, as Idiotic as it Sounds, Gave Me an Illusion of Privacy. She has a good collection of links to prove the points she is making.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is talking in the following video. Colleen Taylor notes that people don’t know what they are giving up or why such data gathering is a big problem. But, she does not explain. If you are not into history and politics, you won’t have a clue what is being given up. So, if you are one of the ones wondering about that… you need to be educating yourself. Fortunately Colleen touches more on those points later in the video (around 16:00).

Only one or two media organizations covered the shocking revelations made on CNN in story by Erin Burnett in her show Outfront. (Clip 1 and Clip 2) Within a couple of weeks all that chatter seems to have been forgotten. Even the EFF seems not to get how extensive the data gathering is. Even Erin seemed to miss the point that the CONTENT of ANY ONE’s calls can be recovered. How do you recover a voice conversation that was not recorded?

Get: http://www.ghostery.com/ see how many people are tracking you.