back to article Welcome to the out-of-control decade

Back in the turbulent 1960s, the anti-establishment rabble was often derided as being "out of control." Fast-forward 50 years to the 2010s, when that same phrase will soon be back in vogue. But with a very different meaning. The coming decade is shaping up to be one in which we, as consumers and citizens, will see our control …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    But B2B?

    What about:

    If you want huge, mega resourced software forget about doing it inhouse (UK NHS take note).

    Conglomerates are far better getting some of the major software solution providers wares and basing working methods on those.

    Small inhouse projects are fine?

    Large inhouse projects need a different approach?

    This is good.

    For why should an enterprise deciding it needs word processing, spreadsheets and databases go about starting from scratchy scratch to provide inhouse word processing, spreadsheets and databasing applications?

    Is there good or bad?

    Truth be a little bit of both really plus a way for organisations (UK NHS take note, are you listening?) with mega projects to get them handled by mega-providers and side effect is that the organisation can focus on what it does well without too much distraction in to managing mega software projects.

    For example: health records EU wide to be solution provided by in-house? Or by mega-solution provider? I know which one I'd suggest a board of directors do, take and make manifest.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You would trust your medical records to...

      ...EDS?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "mega-solution provder"?

      Got one word for you there: TRAK

  2. Sir Runcible Spoon
    Thumb Up

    Sir

    Excellently written and a timely warning.

    Now all we need is an idiots guide to online anonymity that should sell by the bucket load.

    Startup anyone?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's a London-centric bit of paranoia missing here

    namely the pernicious evil that is the Oyster card's ability to track your every movement by bus and train pretty much in real time...

    1. Chris Miller

      IANA Oyster card user

      But AFAIK it's straightforward to obtain an anonymous Oyster card by paying cash and supplying a false name and address.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Happy

        Oyster anonymity easier than that.

        No need for a false name and address, they don't actually insist if you don't want to register it - it's just a convenience: if you lose a registered card, they'll refund you the lost balance. But you don't have to, you can just pick one up for cash and walk away no questions asked if that's what you want.

        And it is. What I want, I mean. Buy one, use it for a few journeys, cash it back in, buy another next time. Not a problem.

  4. Colin Millar
    IT Angle

    You're a glass half-empty kind of guy

    At least its not Microsoft thats taking over the world these days.

    People have been giving away their privacy for years now - facebook, twitter, youtube - anything to get some poor quality screen time and feed their illusion that someone cares about what they have to say.

    Eric Schmidt is nothing new - that attitude had been around at least since policemen were invented and the enemy within goes back way before McCarthy and certainly isn't an American concept.

    The techy angle is mistaken here - information about us in the mass forms it is being sucked up by Google, supermarkets, the state is actually of very little value except as aggregators (for which a pro with a guess would be just as good). CCTV in the UK is a glaring example of ubiquitous tech having a rep which it cannot live up to. Juries are actually quite distrusting of tech - those that don't have many tech interfaces don't believe it and those that do are aware of how crap most of it is.

    Big Bro doesn't need tech - Eastern Europe behind the curtain, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Maoist China, North Korea - where's the tech?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Big Bro & Big Tech

      "Big Bro doesn't need tech - Eastern Europe behind the curtain, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Maoist China, North Korea - where's the tech?"

      Terrorists don't need bombs, 911 had only boxcutters.... where's the bombs? So it's perfectly ok to give terrorists bombs! .. erm on second thoughts that's specious thinking.

      I don't think it's wise to create a technology that would allow for a much smaller number of people to take control of a large populous. There should be corresponding strengthening in the democratic rights to balance it. Yes they could take control before, but it required far far more people to sustain it. Think of the Stasi, a huge number of the elite needed, and ultimately unsustainable, if you could do the same with far fewer people then East Germany would still be around today.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Microsoft

    ....may in fact be not the top villian.

    1. Ted Treen
      Boffin

      BUT

      the chances are that they are - or, to be more accurate, that they STILL are

  6. lucmars

    That will hit the young and next generation

    Simply because all these gizmos are beloved by kids which don't get the point and certainly don't care. Hence the out-of-control will become a habit, an established practice.

  7. Steve Anderson 1
    FAIL

    Yeah, right.

    Enter the real world, please.

    Businesses do /not/ store their data on the web. Entrust my commercially sensitive data to Google? I think not.

    People /keep/ going on about the cloud. There's a reason that people stopped using thin clients. Keep that in mind.

    1. Ocular Sinister
      Alert

      Yes, they do

      Well, I sort of agree with you in that I think cloud computing is a bad idea, but the fact remains the business *are* moving their data into the cloud. I'm just glad that although our company operates a growing business of HR software 'in the cloud', our HR data is kept internal.

    2. pctechxp
      Big Brother

      Cloud computing

      The main point of the article is that customers will not have a choice when buying new equipment, it will be cloud based or nothing.

      1. Fuzzysteve
        FAIL

        hah

        I think not.

        Perhaps microsoft, or apple, might try that. but then you have open source software.

        And I don't see hard drive manufacturers not selling their products.

        You always have a choice.

    3. MH Media
      Stop

      Not right now but..

      .. when the bean-counters truly believe that they'll (a) never run out of drive space again, (b) all the data's held in a secure location and constantly backed up, and (c) it costs "far less than we're paying now" then of course they'll use every opportunity to move the company's crown jewels into the Cloud.

      I know people that think like this! (and no, I don't believe a,b or c)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Article of the day.

    To all of the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear brigade", lets have a camera in every room in your house, live fed 24/7, and yes, i do mean the toilet and your bedrooms.

    After all, nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

    That is all.

    1. Plasma
      Big Brother

      Never mind the cameras

      Even simpler: Anyone who says "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is never allowed to put curtains up in their house again.

      1. Oninoshiko
        Coat

        curtains

        curtains provide addiitional insolation, and help keep down heating costs... so we HAVE to have them to stop thermageddon!

        mine has the thick, heavy material in it...

  9. dephormation.org.uk

    Stallman, and Freedom

    "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign... Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."

    (Stallman speaking to the Guardian)

    What is acutely distressing about the hysterical use of 'terrorism' to justify civil liberty infringement is the blurring of the distinction between Government and corporate interest, at the expense of people who should be represented and protected in a democratic nation.

    Politicians find it expedient to privatise data gathering and surveillance for 'our safety'. The corporates find it convenient to exploit data harvested by the Government for marketing, and so perpetuate the fear.

    How exaggerated is the risk?

    On average, every year in the UK the same number of people die falling out of trees, as die from acts of terrorism. Yet no one is putting crash mats under oak trees, running breathless news stories of corpses found under a chestnut tree, or proposing strip searches on entry to woodlands.

    Thankfully, no one has died from an act of terrorism on the UK mainland since 2005. Tragically in that event, 56 were killed. That suggests our Security Services are doing a good job.

    Yet in the four years since 2005, approximately 114,000 people a year have died from smoking related disease caused by the poisonous products of the tobacco industry. That is around 450,000 dead. Around **half a million** dead. But no tobacco executive has been arrested and prosecuted.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Terrorism is just an excuse

      Look at the UK-US extradition treaty, originally sold as an expedited treaty need to quickly extradite terrorists suspects. That quickly collapsed into juridiction shopping and petty nuisance stuff:

      http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snha-02204.pdf

      "If this order is approved, the United States will no longer be required to supply prima facie evidence to accompany extradition requests that it makes to the United States. By contrast, when we make extradition requests to the United States we shall need to submit sufficient evidence to establish "probable cause""

      Then there was the acceptance of hearsay even in the claim made:

      "the advice we had from the US that the requirement to show a prima facie case could in some cases undermine the chances of the case ultimately succeeding at trial, if for example an inability to rely on hearsay evidence in the extradition request exposed a prosecution witness before the trial."

      American Bar Association’s symposium (the US lawyers discussed the treaty) discussed how the UK authorities conspired to misuse the treaty:

      "But perhaps the most disturbing part of the Standard's Las Vegas transcript is when the Department of Justice man describes how Britain decided to reinterpret the law to help out its American friends with the Norris case. As we have heard, price-fixing was not an offence at the time in Britain. Happily, however, conspiracy to defraud was. So, said Hammond, "the UK Government looked at the information we provided in support of the extradition, and said: 'You know what? That looks like conspiracy to defraud to us'."

      And Jacqui Smith, is REQUIRED to uphold *UK* law, if UK law says the penalty is 1 month and US law says it's 1 year, and the crime was committed in the UK, it's not for Jacqui Smith to seek to apply US law.... yet that is exactly what she did:

      "In December 2007, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, referred to “inaccurate claims in the press” that she was about to introduce an additional statutory bar to extradition called “’forum’ which could prevent extradition where a case could be tried in the UK”, adding that the key issue was to ensure that offences were dealt with in the place where they could be most effectively prosecuted,"

      So you see how terrorism is just an excuse, once the right is taken away, it's taken away for all crimes. So now we have extradition without evidence, hear say evidence, jurisdiction shopping, uncontrolled surveillance, and a security mechanism working like the AIDS virus causing the immune system to attack itself.

      Now we have a smart device that knows you every move, who you communicate with, when, even the direction your phone was at the time, we have companies collecting all this information and arguing that collecting this info is a *good* thing. We had a privacy directive that should stop them, but an EU Commission that won't enforce it. We have a collapse in civil protections, secret blacklists, warrantless surveillance the lot.

      It's like a slow motion train wreck we're all witnessing.

  10. blackworx
    Alert

    Can we get a redux?

    Great article. Very much preaching to the choir though. I'd love to send this on to folk, but I doubt anyone would actually take the time to read the three long pages it comprises.

    I vote El Reg should prepare a "Mr & Mrs Average Consumer" version so we can send out a link to something that folk might pay some attention to.

  11. KenBW2

    Someone lock this guy up

    everyone's out to get him!

    Seriously, don't you think if there's a need for control over data, the market will provide it? Your comments about being locked in come down to how businesses assess their options. If they fail to go with open standards - whatever that will mean in 2015 - then they deserve all they get.

    Calm down for god sake...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      KenBW2

      No Ken, they're out to get YOU, which is why you're hiding behind a false name. Calm down FFS!

      For the market to provide a solution, people need to be aware of the problem, so stories like this causing people to think about the privacy implications are part of the free market.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @Rik Myslewski

    Nice article, scary.

    You might want to add that here in the UK we have probably the most, fixed and mobile, vehicle registration plate readers.

    These OCR cameras track our movement on many (unknown number) main roads and are linked to big databases which spew out everything the cops want to know about me.

    Damn! I knew I should have returned that library book ;-)

  13. Inachu
    Flame

    2009 will be remembered by toxic religions.

    The bible is clearly against any type of NEW WORLD ORDER

    or any one big govt for the world run by any one man in charge but

    the christian neocons are the very builders of this new empire and call it

    democracy wrapped in a guise called christianity to make it sound wholesome.

    Want more death in the world? Hire a neocon.

    1. Rob McDougall

      Fakers

      Neocons aren't religious at all. They worship themselves. They may pretend to go to Church but that's only to get votes from the massive (at least in the US) religious right.

    2. I didn't do IT.
      Flame

      Of Course They Are

      Any fervently religious zealot will tell you (or scream at you, take your pick), that the END TIMES must come for the absolute, best, mostest happy event in the world; the "return" of <insert diety nickname here />.

      Without the mass death, war and other generally profitable activities, it would just be another day where "paradise" was not realized. If there is no NEW WORLD ORDER, then there will be no one (and no need) to save us.

      Flames - because they WANT the world to burn, eh?

  14. John Sanders
    Linux

    What?

    "Ten years from now, the concept of keeping all your personal apps and files on your local device - except for high-end systems used by pro-level content creators - may be as passé as booting your PC using toggle switches."

    All I can say is: not me mate, not me, maybe my customers, maybe my relatives. Me? no way jose.

    I already made the "personal" decision of not running at home anything MS proprietary beyond XP/2003, and that's because I do not trust Vista/7/2008 privileged system processes that I can not see or control.

    I'm IT old school, the penguin so far is my democratic IT friend and does allow me to do as I please with my files and my data.

    1. blackworx
      Headmaster

      Point of order

      Did you read to the end of the article?

  15. disgruntled yank

    wish I could find it

    Thirty and more years ago I read something that Ortega y Gasset had written 40 years before that, praising the English preference for liberty over the appearance of security. Evidently from the days before the Metropolitan Police, he quoted a speaker in Parliament as preferring that (roughly)

    a half a dozen men have their throats cut in Miles End Road every year than that we suffer a system of police on the French model.

  16. xyz Silver badge
    Alert

    2020: Why are you using a hard drive?

    If you've nothing to fear or hide, put it in the cloud. Only criminals use hard drives.

    Nuff said.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Licence

      I know someone who knows someone who says he can sell me a hard drive with the GPS disabled and it will turn on without passport verification. He's lying of course.

  17. Fred 24
    Badgers

    Have to wonder...

    .. if this is the view of a troubled personality, or somebody paid to write an article to down the two main competitors to M$???

    Actual facts would clarify the situation, until any are provided articles such as this join my template list for ignored news threads.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Did you read the article?

      Firstly, there are various references to the "facts" referred to and additionally, since the article is a comment on a "possible" future, I think you will find it hard to find "facts" until the future actually arrives...

  18. adnim

    My friends

    have sometimes told me that I can seem a little paranoid at times. When I was in fact just thinking ahead. I agree with blackworx suggestion of a redux that can be linked to. I just worry that all the links that I would post in all those forums I use with differing nyms may leave enough of a bredcrumb trail for my true identity to be fathomed ;-)

    Our childrens children will likely be ignorant of what choice and privacy actually were, will these words be absent from dictionaries in a hundred years time?

    I told a friend who got her first computer a week or so ago and subsequently signed herself up for a windows live mail account that her email can be read by Microsoft staff. She was shocked and didn't believe me at first, thinking the email traversed directly from her PC to mine, she has not read the T&C's either. Most new users to computers think that email goes direct between PC's and they don't read T&C's either, many wouldn't even understand them because of the words used. And what is the point anyway when they can be changed at a moments notice or be so worded as to be ambiguous or have unclear boundaries? Somewhat akin the to the laws here in the UK me thinks, and this is just one example of general ignorance of the tech involved.

    I don't believe it is possible to provide an all encompassing solution to new users, consumers and those ignorant of how the technologies behind todays tech gadgets and indeed political systems work, that would be sufficient to protect them from the erosions of choice, freedom and privacy that we face.

    As more and more information technology enters our lives and homes so are created more avenues for abuse of that information, any solution has to be an ongoing strategy. That strategy should be education. Sir Runcible Spoon suggested an idiots guide to online privacy, there are a few sites out there that cover this, just as there are sites that cover consumer rights, privacy laws, encryption, the data protection act. And things I haven't yet thought of that would be of use to the unwary tech user . But there are no, at least none of which I am aware of, sites that cover all these topics on one easy to navigate domain. This is something I am certainly interested in creating or becoming involved with, or perhaps developing my own site in that direction.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Reg is good but not for the timid

      "But there are no, at least none of which I am aware of, sites that cover all these topics on one easy to navigate domain."

      Well, this Reg security site sort of comes close to that EXCEPT for the, er, 'colorful' articles/commentary/etc that tends to turn off the very people who need the info the most.

      Doesn't bother *me* (with very few exceptions), I talk like that myself and this site is quite tame compared to other stuff, but I know a lot of conservative people who would totally freak if I showed them some of the security articles and comments here, in un-edited original form.

      Now there would be a job opportunity ;) for someone there at the Reg, to translate important security-related Register articles *and* comments (often the *comments* are as much or more valuable as a source of extended info, in addition to the articles themselves; there are a lot of smart people who read this site) from Klingon er I mean cussing-like-a-sailor IT-speak ;) into something more tame that won't make Aunt Betty or Uncle Bob keel over from shock and heart failure.

      Bit unrealistic though.

      Besides, I enjoy profanity too much :) to want to stop. :)

      However, a suggestion: Maybe this site could cut back a little on the "c" word - that's *so* 1950s anyway, rather like some other outdated words which most smart people don't use anymore such as the "n" word, etc., same category of hate-speech and negativity.

      Anyway, all that aside, I've learned a *lot* of important stuff from articles *and* other people's comments at this Reg site, things that I probably wouldn't have found out about otherwise, about many different computer-security-related topics. On the other hand, I've also *boycotted* this site for a few years at a time, due to 'content' annoyances.

      (Years ago, I used to only read this site because some of the odd British humor is amusing, but found myself learning stuff in the process.)

  19. cschneid

    Welcome to the year 2000...

    ...when Simson Garfinkel's "Database Nation" was first published.

  20. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Life in the Fast Lane .... Yes, Please.

    "Welcome to the out-of-control decade ... We have seen the future, and it doesn't belong to you" .... Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

    Err, that is NOT quite so, Rik, for things are under control although for all of the best security reasons, you are never to know who would be exercising the power levers.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same, for has that not always been the case?

    And wouldn't you rather have a Google or an Apple in Control rather than imagining that an arrogant bunch of ignorant self-serving politicians forming a temporary government would know anything about what they are doing? At least with the former have you experts in their fields at the helm.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      IT Angle

      Who watches the watchmen?

      >"And wouldn't you rather have a Google or an Apple in Control rather than imagining that an arrogant bunch of ignorant self-serving politicians forming a temporary government would know anything about what they are doing?"

      Actually, I'm not so sure about that. I can't vote Google or Apple out of office. I may have only limited and flawed means of accountability and control over politicians, but that's still infinitely more accountability and control than I have over any private corporation. There's nothing inherently better about an arrogant bunch of ignorant self-serving businessmen than there is about an arrogant bunch of ignorant self-serving politicians; I mistrust them both pretty much equally, they are all primarily motivated by their own self-interest over mine, so there's little to choose between them on grounds of likely harm, and the amount of mitigation/control/options for self-defense open to me becomes the only deciding factor.

      >"At least with the former have you experts in their fields at the helm."

      See, I agree that this is a problem, but I don't then conclude that the solution is to hand unaccountable executive power to technocrats. I reluctantly reach the conclusion that if we - as technology users and developers - and commentards! - want things to improve, there is an increasing onus on us :-) to get engaged with the existing mechanisms of political power and control. I think more of us might have to get involved with campaigning organisations and political parties and even do things like stand for election, rather than all just posting comments on web forums ....

      RMS for President!

    2. Snert Lee

      Who ya gonna trust?

      So you'd rather be in the hands of temporal corporate interests who might decide it's better return on shareholder value to have your body corporal disassembled and sold for parts?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    'Tis all true

    And anyone who thinks they can evade all these will find it increasingly difficult to hide their data locally, stop people tracking their movements by foot or by car, stop their every purchase and rubbish disposed being measured and analysed...the system just won't let us stay out of it.

    Cheques will be gone soon, and dare I say it, cold, hard (untraceable) cash may be next...

    Then try staying in control!

    Paris, because we're all being breed to be as dumb as her and take it up the ass as a matter of habit...

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Happy New Year

      "Cheques will be gone soon, and dare I say it, cold, hard (untraceable) cash may be next..." ... Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 31st December 2009 17:46 GMT

      Already in Beta, AC ....... http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1222/1224261108475.html

  22. jubtastic1
    Stop

    iPods & iPhones

    "the iPhone and iPod Touch are computing devices, not merely phones and media players"

    I assume this is true because underneath that oh so beautiful UI they run UNIX, a proper computer OS and no mistake, but if simply running *NIX makes something a computer then surely there are a whole host of gadgets & devices that also qualify as locked down computers that nobody thinks twice about; routers, external HD's with media serving capabilities, PVR's, TV's, games consoles, washing machines etc.

    Fact is that pretty soon every internet connected product is going to be running either a cut down *NIX, or some other less capable OS, and pretty much everyone is going to want those things to run reliably, just like they did before they became computers. That your new toaster could run MS Office or the Gimp is unlikely to be seen as a feature if all the toast comes out with a cock motif burned in*.

    *own up, whose been browsing porn on the toaster again?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But...

    Apple DO know better than most what should be on their computers.

    Consider Microsoft - they left it in the hands of the users and what did it lead to?

    Consider Apple - growing nicely. Good sales, strong fan base.

    People are sick of setup.exe. endless bloody spyware, malware, adware and so on. You don't get any of that crap with Apple.

    @zyx

    Yes, that's a big worry. That's the point at which some will log off and not return. That, and the feckin BBC becoming the UK's ISP.

  24. william henderson 1

    dumped....

    google, eat apples.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    japanese

    "This is not news. Just ask the 100,000 or so Japanese Americans from California, Oregon, and Washington who received all-expense-paid vacations in sunny Arizona, Utah, Wyoming and elsewhere during World War II."

    In Canada, at least, and I believe the United States as well, that "all-expense-paid vacation'" was paid for by selling of the interees property at less than market value.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Great Article

    Very interesting article. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing here on El Reg. The cloud is a friend to every snooping, invasive and controlling government out there and nobody should forget it. In this sense the writer is absolutely correct: it's a mandate for loss of personal privacy on a massive scale, as if the interweb isn't under enough of a constant attack from governments and police forces of all nations.

    In the end, all it takes - all it's ever taken - to encourage entire populations to surrender their freedoms are our old friends, the terrorists and the peadomonsters. Like magic talismans held dear by government and law enforcement alike these twin agents of evil (whether real or imagined - and, let's face face it, that's hardly the point, is it?) have done and will continue to wreak havoc on personal freedoms. Charlatans and self-interested maggots like nothing better than to stoke a society's primal fears with misinformation and distractions, whilst they go about their real business untroubled by critics or dissent.

    And it will all get worse. Anyone here imagine - seriously - that an incoming Tory administration will attempt to roll back 12 years worth of p*sspoor NuLabour legislation? It doesn't work that way. The police rather like their brand new edifices built on the altar of 'national security' (at taxpayer's expense) - so much so, that they are very, very keen to see these structures expanded, remits widened. Will David 'Call Me Dave' Cameron and his chums object or will they defer, like every politician before them, to the likes of ACPO - who, if they say such measures are 'necessary', must surely be right? We all know how supine, uncritical and completely dumfounded your average politician becomes when faced-off by law enforcement agencies.

    But, handily, governments themselves distrust the internet, never mind their police forces, and they are all now at war with it. Their mission is simple: to get control. All the indications now are that the next ten years should indeed see our quaint notions of 'online freedom' quietly shuffled away into massive government data centres, while the general population, guided by media-friendly campaigns to 'safeguard' children and weed out the terrorists, blithely tap-tap away with their social networking, their online shopping and emailing...

    Sinking, like a bug on a peach.

  27. Rob McDougall

    Oyster

    I still don't fully understand the Oyster paranoia - you don't have to register it. You can buy it from a machine with 3x£1 coins and use cash to top it up...

    If you can be arsed.

    I guess that's where they get us.

    The same reason I use Google Calendar and GMail and will probably soon have a Google phone...

    Convenience.

    The trouble starts when the basket I've put all my eggs into starts to sell my eggs. Or throw my eggs at buildings, if you'll allow me to push the metaphor that far...

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