From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 09:37:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Minsky Manufactures Privacy...
Message-ID: <v0400278db0a273148101@[139.167.130.248]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Somewhere in the bowels of an active location transponder discussion on the
wearables list...

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
--- begin forwarded text


X-Sender: minsky@mailhub.media.mit.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 14:29:19 -0500
To: wearables@media.mit.edu
From: Marvin Minsky <minsky@media.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: location vs. tracking

 "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com> worries:

>[they can use active tracking of you] for various 'public benefits' (such as
antiterrorism, antipedophilia, anti-anti-gov't thinking, and monitoring any
personal, non-business interactions, among employees. )

Did you mean to include antiterrorism?

>There's always a plausible reason that can be used to override
>whatever privacy policies and safeguards are designed into such a system.

If the reasons really are plausible, then those overrides should be added
to the system design.

>It's sad that our public institutions now tend to view everyone as a
>potentially evil person...

Do you mean all public institutions?

Perhaps, instead, we should try to design tracking systems that include
public review mechanisms -- so that whenever anyone (e.g., your employer)
accesses your record against the privacy policy, they'll be subject to
legal sanctions and damages.

The issues of privacy are pretty complicated: for example, if someone has
been furtively following you, some future technology might permit you to
authorize someone you trust to find out who it is.  Ed Fredkin once asked a
number of people how they would feel about a new device with which you
could select almost anyone in the world, and make the device produce a loud
noise near them.  They all objected angrily.  Then Ed said, "It already
exists.  It's called the telephone."

--- end forwarded text



-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>