back to article We're ALL Winston Smith now - and our common enemy is the Big Brother State

The latest thing we've all got to worry about in this brave new world of ours is that the young, not having read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, are simply too eager to give up their information and privacy to the tech giants. Those richer in years have been forewarned by the novel and are thus less likely to get sucked into …

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  1. Chazmon
    Big Brother

    Niven has this one covered

    To quote Larry Niven "F × S = k. The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. To gain more freedom of thought and/or action, you must give up some security, and vice versa."

    The magnitude of these has changed beyond recognition in recent years in accordance with another of his laws; "Ethics change with technology."

    Personally as someone who has read 1984 I think a lot of what saves us is our utter indifference. The system in the book only works due to the scary level of commitment from the government employees. At the moment we simply lack this (hooray for bureaucracy!). In the future? Not so sure.

    1. RyokuMas
      FAIL

      Re: Niven has this one covered

      And how does giving up freedom of thought/action to Google increase one's security, exactly?

      1. Chazmon

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        I see the likes of Google as facilitating 'freedom' with their tools and means of expressing oneself. Anything you give them in exchange is a net reduction in your security (of identity etc) by taking it out of your hands.

    2. Squander Two
      Coat

      F × S = k

      F × S = k

      Am I the only one who reads this as "Fuck's sake"?

      1. i like crisps

        Re: F × S = k

        I'm getting FriSK.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: "The product of Freedom and Security is a constant"

      No it isn't...

      Not as long as there is another factor called money(M) involved in the equasion...

    4. Steve Crook

      Re: Niven has this one covered

      It sort of worked in East Germany.

      You only need enough commitment from a few to get the ball rolling, once everyone else thinks there's no escape and that any transgression will be discovered and punished they'll be more compliant. Even to the extent of becoming part of the system.

      The message from the wall was, in essence, "no-one gets out of here alive". It works for the Norks and would in the UK too given the right resources.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        East Germany was scary.

        I had a friend who was a teacher in East Germany. A few years back she showed me her Stasi file, which she had requested after the wall came down and the archives were put under federal control.

        She had been a teacher at a school where many of the elite sent their children. She lost her job without any ground being given and had to find alternative work. She found out one of her colleagues was a spy and had tricked her into saying something non-positive about the government, his report was filed a couple of days before she was kicked out.

        She didn't say anything negative, just not positive. Not "the government is a buch of tossers who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes," but more along the lines of, "there wasn't much bread in the shop this week, the government could do better."

        And that was at a time when people knew they could be spied upon, when brothers, sisters, mother, fathers, spouses or best friends could be secretly spying on you.

        What have you said online or in mails over the last years that could raise the ire of your government?

    5. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Indifference

      Personally as someone who has read 1984 I think a lot of what saves us is our utter indifference. The system in the book only works due to the scary level of commitment from the government employees. At the moment we simply lack this (hooray for bureaucracy!). In the future? Not so sure.

      Stewart Lee, in stating that he hates Twitter, (half) jokingly called it "a state surveillance agency staffed by gullible idiots. A stasi for the Angry Birds Generation"

      Like all humour, there's a kernel of truth in that. It won't be the government snooping on what we do, and who we do it with. It will be us - the public.

      Most people in East Germany selection for political "re-education" were dobbed in by neighbours (probably in a pre-emptive strike) or more chillingly, their own children. A common classroom trick was to ask the kids to sing the theme tune to the news, to identify whose parents were watching the banned West German news.

      1. Daniel B.
        Big Brother

        Re: Indifference @JimmyPage

        Most people in East Germany selection for political "re-education" were dobbed in by neighbours (probably in a pre-emptive strike) or more chillingly, their own children. A common classroom trick was to ask the kids to sing the theme tune to the news, to identify whose parents were watching the banned West German news.

        This is also seen in 1984. Then again, the real-life inspiration for 1984 was Stalinist USSR, of which the GDR was pretty much a carbon copy/puppet state anyway. It is also why the fall of the GDR caused a lot of grief when the Stasi secret files were uncovered; many formerly GDR citizens started finding out that neighbors, friends or even their own family had ratted them out to the Stasi.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: the real-life inspiration for 1984 was Stalinist USSR

          that's funny, because in my reading Orwell references Hitler and the Spanish Civil War more than he ever referenced Russia. And he noted frequently that it was written for the UK and America because he did not think we are as naturally immune to fascist thinking as we too often suppose.

          While it is true that Churchill made his famous Iron Curtain speech in 1946, it is also true that he was on his way out of politics even as he made that speech. So no, Stalinist Russia was not the model for 1984. Rather even though Orwell fancied himself a democratic socialist, he was drawing on what he knew of socialism in all of its various forms as it had been practiced in and around him.

    6. BillG
      Meh

      Re: Niven has this one covered

      To quote Larry Niven "F × S = k. The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. To gain more freedom of thought and/or action, you must give up some security, and vice versa."

      This is somewhat similar to the comparison of Left vs. Right paradox. IN THEORY, the Left wants equality for all, and to do that they are willing to take away people's freedoms. The Right wants Freedom for all, and as a consequence of exercising those freedoms equality falls away.

      At least that's in theory. In practice, there is no longer a left & right except for the comedy they play out for the voting public and the partisan suckers that believe the other side is the reason why their side doesn't get what they pretend to want. In reality, only the richest 1% get what they want, while the rest of the voting public get partisan excuses. That's why they lose both freedom and equality.

      1. The last doughnut

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        @BillG

        If this idiotic ditty is what passes for political theory then its no surprise we are all of us in such deep doodo, with clowns and morons like Cameron and Milliband as leaders.

      2. Identity

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        I always liked this formulation:

        In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there's a great deal of difference.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        I was reading and listening to all the political gloating/angst over the Cantor loss here, and came to that conclusion. The misdirection being played out by both sides demonstrates that the system really is rigged and rigged for that exact reason. Keep your eye on the ball (while we pick your pocket, steal your house, and retirement). Oh well, live and learn. I just hope they realize that six plus millenia of historical record is littered by a LOT of dead elites.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Niven has this one covered

      I would argue that k varies dependent on the enlightenment of the society. In the dark ages, it was very much lower... very few personal freedoms, and the constant risk of being butchered in a viking raid. It's possible to envision a future without war, social or religious conflict, once those instinctive monkey-brain urges to form tribes are overridden, and competition for resources is reduced as manufacturing and farming efficiency rises. Let's hope that k continues to go up, rather than reaching a maximum (or, terrifyingly, already have reached it).

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        > I would argue that k varies dependent on the enlightenment of the society. In the dark ages, it was very much lower

        I'm not sure I agree with this. In the dark ages, you could always wonder off and start your own farmstead in the forest or wilderness. The volume of legal requirements was rather low, not the 5000 new laws per year coming out of the EU alone, never mind national government. The State's reach was also limited meaning that freedom and security from peer attacks were somewhat inversely related but freedom and security from state attack were directly related.

        The question is, what is the larger problem, peer attack or state attack and can the state coopt peers to attack you. Authoritarian regimes on both sides of the spectrum have shown that it certainly can. Would the State attack you? Perhaps we can learn from one of the most advanced, most enlightened, highly educated societies in the world. Germany in the early part of the 20th century. What tipped the balance and plunged the world into chaos? Probably not the rantings of a charismatic madman, but desperation caused by economic collapse which meant anyone offering hope was welcomed, regardless of their views on Jews.

        What drives stock-market bubbles? Low interest rates. With no return on investment available from loaning money to business in a format where business has a firm idea of return, the money goes on speculation. Interest rates show you what return business is really expecting, stock prices show you how desperate the gambling is. Ideally the return should be on average around the same from both markets - slightly higher in stocks due to additional risk. If the difference is massive, the risk is massive.

        So the problem is that we have built an inordinately intrusive infrastructure and new we teeter on the brink of economic disaster. I don't know if the NSA would have built their tapping infrastructure without the example of Google, or if its facial recognition capabilities are enhanced by facebook's tagging, but we with more and more of our lives held under the control of third parties its a problem. I would not be able to find work without job search engines, without email and DNS. What if the government decided I should not be able to use these things because I am an undesirable non-native? The problem with massive amounts of meta data is that it can be used to construct very convincing circumstantial evidence. When people are hurting they want swift justice and decisive action. The impartial, objective computer says that is you in the photo and you are guilty.

        Combine this scenario with the vague laws passed in the last 10 years which mean everyone is criminal. What happens when the government goes back to google, pulls up your GPS location for the last 5 years and slaps a GBP 4000 fine on you for every time it notices you arrived at your destination faster than your should have, or if you can't pay you go to jail. Perhaps only enemies of the party will be investigated like this. We could have had self-contained GPS's but most people never really twigged that live updates could be used to track you and the system is set up to do just that. It's so pervasive, that paper maps with their offline capabilities are rare.

        All our tech provides extra features, but the tradeoff is increased fragility. Turn off the mobile network and all sorts of things just don't happen. House purchasing failures on the other side of the world batter our economy.

        I wonder if the dark age death tolls were anything comparable to what we have inflicted on ourselves with our greed and tech-fueled economic capabilities?

        1. Tom 13

          Re: Niven has this one covered

          Perhaps we can learn from one of the most advanced, most enlightened, highly educated societies in the world.

          Perhaps you should read more Orwell:

          Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history2 etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side.

          http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwell-s-letter-on-why-he-wrote-1984.html (not much commentary, mostly just Orwell's letter on the subject)

          I didn't like reading 1984 and I haven't read much else by him. But I at least am aware of his primary tenets and don't try to re-write them.

      2. Tom 13

        Re: I would argue that k varies dependent

        So, did you fail basic calculus or your search engine skills?

        Niven explicitly said k is fixed only for a given individual and otherwise varies according to a great many inputs.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Niven has this one covered

      "The system in the book only works due to the scary level of commitment from the government employees. At the moment we simply lack this (hooray for bureaucracy!). In the future? Not so sure."

      The other end of the scale was covered by Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" where the Government employees are astonishingly inept but retaining the bureaucratic, oppressive nightmare where life is just as miserable and dangerous (yes i know it was meant as comedy, but sometimes with HMG it rings very true lol)

      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        Not comedy; satire. The very best satire is nearly indistinguishable from the thing it is satirising.

      2. Ian 55

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        With every passing year, Brazil looks more and more like a documentary.

      3. Roj Blake Silver badge

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        "The other end of the scale was covered by Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" where the Government employees are astonishingly inept but retaining the bureaucratic, oppressive nightmare where life is just as miserable and dangerous (yes i know it was meant as comedy, but sometimes with HMG it rings very true lol)"

        Intriguingly Brazil was inspired by a real-life incident during Brazil's dictatorship period which saw the wrong man tortured after a bureaucratic cock-up

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Niven has this one covered

        Brazil: Best. Film. Ever.*

        * My wife disagrees and just thinks it's typical of the kind of weird shit I like.

    9. Allan George Dyer

      Re: Niven has this one covered

      Whose Freedom, whose Security? Orwell was warning about the ruling group minimising the freedom of the underlings to ensure their own security. Niven's law holds for this limited case, but you get something quite different if the security of everyone is considered, and society switches to a state where there is no constant ruling group.

  2. Zane

    Good point

    Very good point here.

    I am not so worried about Google having my data, but then there are some plans that online access to government services is only available through a special government account, that needs to be verified blah blah. Whatever they say, what they want is control. I don't need that.

    With the industry, there normally is an opt-out, and mostly its anyway an opt-in. Not scary. You should just be aware what you are giving away. Do you get money for value?

    Biggest problem is: politicians have already started diversionary tactics to make the people believe Google (or whoever) is the enemy. I know too many people who believe that politcians are really here to make this a better place, so they don't get what's going on.

    /Zane

    1. RyokuMas
      Devil

      Re: Good point

      "politicians have already started diversionary tactics to make the people believe Google (or whoever) is the enemy."

      Google are doing a pretty good job of it for themselves - disregarding all the normal creepy spying stuff, not paying their taxes goes a long way to convince the average man who the bad guys are...

      1. The Dude
        Devil

        Re: Good point

        Google avoiding taxes is a bad thing only insofar as they are not helping the rest of us do the same. With all their resources and tax accountant/specialists they should easily be able to set up a bank/investment company where we could all enjoy exactly the same freedom. Or (better yet!) financially support any political party that is serious about abolishing taxes. The socialists will whine, so we might need special rules to tax just them... for their own good, of course.

        1. Goat Jam

          Re: Good point

          "should easily be able to set up a bank/investment company where we could all enjoy exactly the same freedom"

          Actually, anybody can already do what google does, or variations thereof.

          The problem is that avoiding taxes is quite expensive in and of itself. Therefore the amount of tax you avoid paying has to exceed the costs of putting everything in place to be worth it.

          For most people it isn't.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Good point (But they can't jail EVERYONE)

            Perhaps the best way to stop an unjust government is to STOP (not avoid) paying taxes.

            If EVERYONE stopped, then the government would go belly up and collapse before they could catch everyone and lock them up. There would not be a government left if nobody paid taxes

            As far as I'm concerned, all those people who went on the Dole are now my DEPENDENTS.

            The government takes my money to pay for the votes they buy to stay elected and to pay the

            "unenjoyment" for those who can't find work, and their health care and their food stamps and their "Obama Phone" and their EBC card you can use to buy booze and weed with.

            I ask you this. WHY should I continue the cycle and keep working? What's the point of continuing to throw good money (and effort) after bad?

        2. Tom 13

          Re: financially support any political party that is serious about abolishing taxes.

          What an odd thing to say given how they have informationally supported (far more valuable than any mere cash/lobbyist contribution could ever be) the party in the US that is most likely to raise taxes.

    2. Tom 13

      Re: I am not so worried about Google having my data

      You should be. Because they've selected farmed out access to their data to a single political party in the US.

  3. Irongut

    "Common to both of these stories is the mistake that private sector information-gathering is the same as (and thus as dangerous as) mandatory state collection of the same data."

    True in principle but add in the fact that the state has access to all the data collected by the private sector whenever it wants and the lines begin to blur. Especially since we have no way of knowing what or when the private sector is giving up and there are no judicial controls to moderate the state's behaviour.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Going a little bit further along this line of thought, it's also reasonable to assume that companies like Google mine you deeper and harder -because money is at stake and information is what gets that money- than a spook outfit might be inclined to.

      1. Sander van der Wal
        Facepalm

        Google's money comes from advertisers, who believe that Google's information on people will help them sell junk to the same people.

        Google can tell them all kinds of subtle lies about people and the stuff they are interested in. Who's going to know?

        1. Eguro

          Well I would certainly expect other results from buying ad-words than Google telling me it's working... I might even hope for an increase in sales o.0

          So yeah - Google could tell me all sorts of shit, most likely they wont tell me shit. I'll trust that they target the advertisements, and if I see a proper amount of return from my investment, I'll probably renew my ad contract. If nothing happens, then I'd be a fool to continue advertising using Google.

    2. Squander Two

      Judicial controls

      Judicial controls are indeed the kicker. I have no objection whatsoever to Tesco knowing that I have a toddler: they use that information to (Oh! The infamy!) give me special offers on nappies. And I approve of the law which says they're not allowed to pass my information on to Sainsbury's without my permission. So I was a bit bloody pissed off when the Blair Government simply announced that they were commandeering all personal records held by the supermarkets because they felt like it.

      In my republic (whenever I get around to founding it), it will be illegal for politicians to vote away constraints on their powers.

      1. tlhonmey

        Re: Judicial controls

        In a constitutional republic (like a lot of countries are) it already is. Doesn't help much though as the government simply builds a big enough military/police force that they can then vote away the prohibition on voting themselves more power and break the heads of the first few people who complain. The other 80% of the population are sheep who don't pay attention and are too afraid to stand up for themselves.

    3. Gordon 10

      @Irongut and others

      Where is the evidence that the state has access to all our data? The potential to access it all via a MITM attack via our ISP's I grant you but thats not quite the same thing.

      1. Eguro

        Re: @Irongut and others

        I think it was a reference to national security letters in the US, where by a secret court gives a secret authorization to secretly demand data from a company that is not allowed to tell anyone that this even took place.

      2. Identity
        Black Helicopters

        Re: @Irongut and others

        Have you not heard of the 'secret room' at AT&T at 611 Folsom St. in San Francisco outed by former AT&T technician Mark Klein?

        https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

  4. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Honesty is the best policy

    One of the inter-generational differences (whether it's the metaphorical cart the or horse in this argument I don't have the insight to say) is attitudes towards honesty: telling the truth - whatever "truth" turns out to be.

    One of the many throwaway lines in the BBC sitcom Just Good Friends (other than the innoculation classic: "didn't you feel a prick?" "Well, Penn, I was a bit embarassed") was Penny's admonishing Vince for telling lies and getting the reply "That's because I'm a liar" and after that the whole topic was dropped and the story moved on. Vince tells lies: it's no big deal.

    These days, it seems, that "being a liar" doesn't mean telling people that it's "black" when really it's "blue". But that lying now means not volunteering every single piece of relevant, or otherwise, information at the earliest opportunity - what used to be called "blabbing". Worse than that: being caught lying (telling actual black is blue untruths) is portrayed as being such a heinous crime that the very thought of it is, well, unthinkable. So much for "ooops, you got me" and brushing it aside.

    In such an environment, where information is offered freely to or even: forced on a person, how can the generation brought up thinking that way act any differently? They have it drummed into them that giving information is mandatory. That withholding it is "sinful". That you must tell the truth all the time, to everyone, no matter what the consequences for anyone involved.

    So when a big, bad, internet giant says "tell us everything", they blab. Age, height, weight, most intimate thoughts, address, list of 50 closest friends, political leanings, shoe size, suspicions about classmates, inside leg measurement, which musician they'd most like to have sex with, hair colour, medical history, favourite programmes and fantasies about their teachers. Hell, even PV-ing is less intrusive.

    Whether this is considered "being honest", or is simple naivety, or some sort of catharsis we'll never know. The good thing is that all this data gets lost in the mix along with the billions of other personal records. Fortunately for all these data-givers, so little of it is either interesting or relevant.

    1. Squander Two

      Re: Honesty is the best policy

      We live in a nation of informants.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Honesty is the best policy

        "We live in a nation of informants."

        Do we? People nowadays seem more inclined not to want to get involved in other people's business. Either they fear being dragged into something - or they think "live and let live" - or "there for the grace of god go I".

        In the old days there was solidarity within a social group - but there were also the venomous attitudes that were wrongly justified as defending "Christian" morality. Those who considered themselves "holier than thou" took pleasure in criticising or denouncing other people.

        1. Mark 85

          Re: Honesty is the best policy

          Quote: Do we? People nowadays seem more inclined not to want to get involved in other people's business. Either they fear being dragged into something - or they think "live and let live" - or "there for the grace of god go I".

          Familiar with the term "yenta"? They are in abundance and not just femeal. They thrive on knowing what's going on in everyone else's lives.

      2. Gordon 10

        Re: Honesty is the best policy

        No we dont. Informants generally make a conscious choice to inform. When you dont make that conscious choice you are just being used as a tool or a dupe.

        Its an important point - most people dont seriously consider the data will be used against them, and in a right thinking and operating society they shouldnt have to.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Honesty is the best policy

      Not sure the younger generation are that honest. They might be a little more naive about incriminating themselves because they don't look ahead. Especially when they feel they are only interacting with their peers.

      The older generations had many more things to conceal - there were many social taboos. They learned from an early age what might lead to a punishment. Either they avoided it - or more usually made sure they weren't caught. They were schooled in, and by, hypocrisy.

      To be fair to the younger generation. Although many things are no longer taboo - the punishment of an innocent transgression is likely to be a jobsworth over-reaction that can blight their future. They generally find that out when it's too late.

      Adults expect kids to be able to fathom out new situations without being told about them. Adults generally have forgotten that kids are learning to handle these new situations and their illogical nuances. In the same way politicians are continually passing laws that criminalise the population - and expect everyone to know them by chapter and verse through some mysterious process of osmosis.

  5. h4rm0ny

    There's a fundamental flaw in this article and it's a big one.

    >>" Those guys slurping the Big Data streams couldn't give a hoot how we get our jollies, nor what our political beliefs are."

    That can change. Very fast.

    These companies can be easily suborned by the government or law enforcement. Once that data is gathered, good luck keeping it out of their hands next time there's a witch hunt.

    And as to choice: I recommend spending a week trying to avoid all tracking. It's pretty bloody hard. Just blocking google-analytics at the router level causes about a third of the sites I visit to stop working. And so long as the information can all be joined up it doesn't matter if most of it is anonymous. It only takes the linking of one part of it to a real person to link all of it. And that's near trivial to do when you have so much information.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There's a fundamental flaw in this article and it's a big one.

      I'm sure there's something that can be done about that. Google and everybody else has their tracking code on the webpage in the form of some JavaScript. So either subvert the JavaScript engine itself, and lie to Google, or rewrite the code on the webpage.

      I mean, how hard is it to subvert a C compiler to add all kinds of backdoors to compiled code like Tor or TrueCrypt?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There's a fundamental flaw in this article and it's a big one. @h4rm0ny

      How true

      After all IBM sold the punchcard machines to the Nazis and we all know what they were used for.

    3. PJI

      Re: There's a fundamental flaw in this article and it's a big one.

      Non-state firms/business are very dangerous collectors. They treat it as their property to trade or provide as suits or required. They charge or make it difficult to know or correct what they have.

      Worse, as governments at all levels pass off more and more functions to the private sector, that sector has got your data about health, police matters whether guilty or prosecuted or not, about your travel, your work and school records, the tiff with your neighbour, the acrimonious divorce and civil action, the tittle tattle on the internet about your family, how much wine you order and your odd interest in weapons or war history or militant feminism. Or that time you were warned about noise from a late party. Or you missed a payment when on holiday and forgot or you wrote a snotty complaint.

      One day you or your child or wife go for a job or a charity activity and some jobsworth pays a checking company for a view of you. They put two and two together and come up with five.

      Oh dear, whatever went wrong? Why do police make so many enquiries at my door? Why are my children being asked at school if I drink much?

      No. Information is power and a weapon. Private companies are further beyond control even than governments, especially multiple nationals. Do you really trust SERCO or their rivals. Why would you trust an USA Google who has been forced to bow to USA and China governments and has shown a cavalier disregard for data about you all ready?

  6. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Flame

    Industry opt outs .....

    on a related note, I have recently encountered two online news sites (the Birmingham Mail is one) where the *only* way you can leave comments, is to "sign in with Facebook".

    As of 4 weeks ago, my email to their published "contact us" email address has gone unanswered.

    Now that's a private, commercial site. But how long before anyone who doesn't have a Facebook account becomes a second class citizen, and can't sign into a government site.

    The irony is, I was a big proponent of putting stuff online. I saw it as similar to the 70s when people complained that *only* dealing with people by phone was unfair on those without a phone (yes, it really happened). My argument being that internet access in the 2000s was becoming like having a phone in the 80s (I had some friends in the early 70s whose parents chose not to have a phone. They were extinct in the 80s).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: Industry opt outs .....

      Had the same thing with an online shop that wanted me to sign in

      with a FaceCrook account before I could place an order...

      F*ck em ! I'll just take my bussiness elsewhere...

      1. JimmyPage Silver badge

        business elsewhere ...

        fair enough. However the implication is, over time, certain sites for the expression of opinions and discussions will only be used by a self-selecting audience.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: "self-selecting audience"

          Sounds great !

          Makes it a lot easier to identify the morons...

        2. Dan Paul

          Re: business elsewhere ...

          Almost all the news outlets have dumped public email addresses and gone to Twatter and Farcebook for comments. Just look at the "Contact us" part of most websites.

          It's pretty obvious what they are trying to do.

          IMHO, This is a clear limitation of public "free speech" because you can't flesh out or support your arguement in 140 characters and you have to use a proprietary system to do it. The fact is that media could give a flying fuck about you or your opinion. They are only interested in soundbites that support THEIR viewpoint so they only get the results they want.

          On top of that, they get an almost instantaneous popularity poll at the same time.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Industry opt outs .....

      The reason they want you to sign in with FB is due to a program that FB offers. The business gains access to a certain amount of intel that FB has hoovered based on a subscription level and FB gets more data.

      Avoid, Avoid, Avoid. Write an old fashioned letter (paper, pen, stamp) that you will no longer do business with the company due to their affiliation with FB.

  7. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Meh

    Not today, but maybe tomorrow

    A comment under a similarly themed article in the Grauniad summed it up nicely - "You don't have to worry about today's Government, but you may have to worry about tomorrow's".

    I still believe that the foundation of social democracy is (relatively) strong in the UK and that currently, checks and balances protect the average citizen. But like a house built on an eastern-coast cliff top, it's suffering from an accelerating rate of erosion as the post-war consensus disappears into history.

  8. User McUser

    A Fair Trade, Except When It Isn't

    Sure, you can track my web visits if doing so means that I get free searches of the accumulated wisdom of mankind.

    Fair enough, but suppose Google tracked you and collected data on you and your behaviors without you ever using their service?

    Google's ubiquity in the online Advertising market means that even if I intentionally avoid ever going to Google.com directly, my browser and all the web sites I go to happily exchange all sorts of information on me and my habits with Google. And in exchange for this information, they give me what exactly?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: A Fair Trade, Except When It Isn't

      In many ways, they do track you without you using them knowingly. The place ads on sites and those ads do the tracking in the sense that data is collected and sent back to the mothership where it is collated. If El Reg is the only website you use, you're being tracked by the ads as to stories, comments, etc.

    2. Dan Paul

      Re: A Fair Trade, Except When It Isn't

      Interesting tidbit, those grocery loyalty cards that get you a slight discount in exchange for your purchasing habits are the biggest ripoff as that data is worth thousands to the grocer over a few years.

      This came from a fellow who used that database to tell the grocer what to buy and when. This info is apparently worth enough to pay for a complete modern point of sale system including card swipes, cash registers and computers and leave lot's of money left over.

      And in answer to the last question, bupkiss, nada, zilch, nichts, not a frikkin thing. And they owe you THOUSANDS for that info.

  9. chris lively

    Yes, the usage of the information collected by business vs government is very different.

    However, the invasion aspect isn't. Any data collected by a business can be obtained by the state. The very fact that this is not only possible, but verified to be happening, means that your conclusion that data collection by businesses is not as dangerous as that collected by governments is ignorant at best.

    It doesn't matter if google collects your browsing habits in order to serve up more targeted ads. Nor does it matter if AT&T tracks the location of your phone and it's usage in order to make sure they have enough cell towers in the right areas. What matters is if the state can "request" access to that data at any time and for nearly any purpose.

    This means the very collection of that information, by any entity, is therefore a massive intrusion into your privacy and may very well be used against you either personally or in general. I see only two ways to fix this: either guarantee that a States cannot force a company to hand over it's data OR for those companies to be barred from collecting it in the first place. Unfortunately neither is ever likely to happen.

    Ultimately it doesn't matter if the kids today haven't read 1984: they have no control over it. Simply living in a technology driven country means you have "opted in" to giving up any semblance of traditional privacy. I appreciate what Snowden has done. At the same time, anyone paying attention for the past 30 years should only be surprised that things haven't gone even further.

    1. (AMPC) Anonymous and mostly paranoid coward
      Boffin

      @chris lively

      There are other ways to make information gathering less intrusive>

      1) Make all collected personal data more anonymous and collect only what is needed.

      By all means, let AT&T gather and collect cell phone usage data to improve service, just ensure it can not be easily collated later and linked back to an individual.

      This is slightly tricky but workable if the phone companies begin to police themselves. Google et al are already becoming proactive with encryption policies. It is high time that other businesses storing our personal data begin doing the same.

      Personal data could be maintained separately for law enforcement purposes and billing. But this should only be for a reasonable amount of time (see below) and accessible only with a search warrant (remember those?).

      We can also ensure that collected Personally Identifiable Data is assigned a fixed shelf life. Data owners (you and me) can then opt for either a) data persistence or b) data correction or deletion.

      In fact, with a bit of effort, privacy, like security, can quickly become part and parcel of a good service/product design. Of course, it will require that policy makers and service providers speak and interact with some privacy experts.

  10. Al Jones

    Maybe it's just me, but "the government" couldn't piggy-back on big-data's surveillance if that surveillance wasn't so pervasive. I'm far more concerned about the implications of higher health-insurance premiums because big data has developed a profile that fits some high-risk category (analysis of my spending patterns, or cell-phone location information showing where I eat or socialize). I'm more concerned that a future potential employer will pass me over for a job because they've bought a "job-candidate-profile" score from some spin-off that analyzes my social network footprint and decides that I have too many or too few of the right kind of friends, and has nothing to do with my technical skills or otherwise. These are commercially driven invasions of my privacy that aren't "opt-in". Different attitudes to privacy might mean that EU citizens would have some degree of protection from this type of thing, but if there's a way to monetize it, US citizens will definitely be subject to this type of profiling.

    Even in the ultra-partisan political environment of the US currently, "the Government" doesn't care about me, and just doesn't have any incentive to slice and dice the data to get at me. Yeah, the knowledge that spending a lot of time looking for certain topics on the internet is going to raise flags has a chilling effect, but that was true before the internet too. But so far, the sort of "social control" that people seem to be afraid of doesn't come from deep-data analysis - Kansas gets Creationists on the local school boards, Colorado votes for pot, Arizona votes for a Cactus Curtain largely by very broad brush "old media" campaigns.

  11. Hurn

    Orwell spoke too soon

    "Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were 'explore every avenue' and 'leave no stone unturned', which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. "

    George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946 (Linked to at bottom of article.)

    Too bad these phrases didn't stay dead. Politicians now use them daily.

    Need more jeering.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    actually

    more shades of "Brave New World". Some unholy mixture of the two. We have the Orwellian control state, with the lies and manipulation, with the orgy-porgy, dope-'em-all, distract and bury them with entertainment of Huxley. I suspect the "breed 'em for the job" thing is slowly coming along as well.

  13. Eugene Crosser

    Bravo, but..

    Thanks Mr. Worstall for spelling the word of reason! Data gathering in the interest of commerce has indeed quite different implications from data gathering in the interest of the state.

    But, monopolization of commercial data gathering greatly simplifies state data gathering, and for this reason is dangerous. I share the view that we'd be better off if more of our Net life happened in distributed systems (similar to email) and less - in centralized (similar to Facebook).

  14. Wanderingone56ish

    A better book

    For a more relevant - and more chilling - analogy read The Bellringers by Henry Porter.

  15. Frank Bough

    Wilfully naive

    The problem is that it's far easier for governments to gather data on us by raiding Google, Facebook, Apple et al than bothering to do it themselves. Look at the road pricing / car tracking installations slowly being built all over the UKs major road network. Before it's finished, it will be hopelessly outmoded compared to the data extracted via Android and iOS mobile phones. And the CIA could have never dreamed of profiling the population to the extent Facebook does.

  16. zanshin

    The separation of concerns seems very thin

    Other posters have mentioned this, but I'll pile in. If some company like Google has a wide-ranging amount of information about my interests, my communications and my movements, it's not much consolation to me that these private companies don't want to abuse that power where the state government might. The reason is that the government has the power to demand that information from the company (or to take it without their knowledge) for the sake of whatever it is the government might want to investigate me over.

    As we've seen with the Snowden releases in the US in particular, the very act of the government tapping corporate intelligence stores can be contrived to occur in such a way that almost no one outside the channels that make it possible knows about it, and anyone involved who would like to make it public is under threat of severe criminal prosecution should they try.

    It's fine and well that our governments have not not, seemingly and so far, meaningfully the abused civil rights of their citizens using the information they now have access to. That is not a sufficient defense of the practice. The reason democratic nations have historically sought to reign in the knowledge freely available to a government's apparatus about the people governed is to limit the *possibility* of government abuse.

    Quite simply, if a system that can be abused is left in place long enough, two things happen. One is that many of the governed people become inured to it, assuming it's OK because "it's always been like that". The other thing, which often comes only after the first is established, is that someone *does* abuse the system. It's human nature - either someone eventually won't be able to resist committing abuse, or someone will seek a position of power *specifically* because they recognize the potential for abuse they can execute.

    As a species, we humans like to live under the conceit that conditions we enjoy now will persist into the future without bound - that because no historically decent government will ever change to be otherwise. I think this is imminently foolish.

    I'm hardly a doom-sayer, but it's hardly impossible for me to imagine future situations of civil disorder, most believably due to some natural disaster or resource constraint (water, power, food, etc.), where governments of what are today democratic and free societies might resort to more totalitarian means simply to try and keep things under control. (Martial law.) In situations like this I believe you very much would not want to mix in such abuse-prone tools such as a way to track basically everyone all the time (pervasive cameras, facial recognition, cell phones, centrally managed driverless cars, etc.) It's unwise to trust leaders with such tools to do the right thing in situations where civil rights are so specifically curtailed History does not show good precedent.

    On that note, one thing I'll disagree with in the original article is the notion that we owe Orwell for the caution of people my generation and older. While 1984 certainly stood out for some time and doubtless influenced many readers, for cautious people I know it is real, historical events that serve as more sobering reminders of what abusive governments can do with the power of extensive information about the people they govern. The examples set by the Soviet communist party, Nazi Germany, and the Red Scare in the US are much more frightening to me than any fiction. Imagine those regimes or movements with access to the information they could gain on their citizens today, especially if those citizens were raised to use the internet with limited caution.

    Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Enabling pervasive surveillance is unwise, even if it is not the government who directly surveils us..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The separation of concerns seems very thin

      "[...] where governments of what are today democratic and free societies might resort to more totalitarian means simply to try and keep things under control."

      Read the "The Old Men at the Zoo" (1961) by Angus Wilson. Looks like the 1983 TV mini-series adaptation is on DVD - and extracts are on YouTube.

      In that plot the catastrophic tipping point is a Middle Eastern country unexpectedly attacking London with their nuclear missile. When a survivor asks what happened next he is told something like: "That country is now a cloud of radioactive dust floating round the atmosphere". The result is a totalitarian Government.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It seems very naive to assume you can opt out. Google has my address, and knows when I talk to my friends because they use Android, my opting out has no impact. Facebook uses pictures of my children to sling ads (yuk , creepy) because friends post them, and I can't stop it without becoming the crazy guy with long straggly grey hair and a twitch.

    It would beggar belief to think that Google is not taking some of the many millions it charges the US govt, to use its search engine to check every Gmail for verboten/interesting words/phrases, and forward them to the govt.

    This is a straightforward commercial application of the search hardware, quite legal under the Ts&Cs, and very much what Google is in business to do. The only credible reason they might not be doing it, is if the spooks don't want to tell google what they are interested in.

  18. Chris G

    Prism

    Prism pretty much blows any idea that corporate information gathering about us is any safer or different from the State gathering it. Since the NSA paid at minimum Google and Yahoo millions for their compliance in passing on information about their customers and we have seen articles in this last week about BT and Vodaphone receiving payments for their passing on of customer info, it seems that there is little difference in who we opt to take our details as it is all likely to end up in the same places.

    The main concern is what and how different data mining programs can be used to our detriment; insurance companies will be looking expressly for those facets of our lives that they can capitalise on, health providers similarly, marketing companies will be interested in our consumer related interests and of course government will be looking for anything that can show anti govenrment, anti social or criminal tendencies etc.

    It is not who you allow to take information it is where it is likely to end up! Then again if you are doing nothing wrong................

  19. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Gimp

    The difference between the real monopoly and the virtual monopoly

    Note that governments don't just the data they demand from us to do business with them (and promptly sell/loose with astonishing regularity)

    They also want all other data for "security"

    The "oh you can use another provider" but how many people realize that Google has invested billions in hardware to deliver it's service and how deeply it's API's are dug into how many websites for content management?

    This is known in monopoly theory as the "Barrier to entry," and it's high.

    I think it's pretty clear Google have been taking lessons from Microsoft.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Orwell did not predict the power of trans-national corporations

    What George Orwell did not predict was the possibility that the power of trans-national corporations would become comparable to that of states, in some cases greater. Yes, information is power, and the ability of these corporations to play across jurisdictions, especially on the internet, in order to aggregate personal data should ring alarm bells everywhere.

    1. VinceH

      Re: Orwell did not predict the power of trans-national corporations

      "What George Orwell did not predict was the possibility that the power of trans-national corporations would become comparable to that of states, in some cases greater."

      Quite. If a novel like 1984 has a valid place in an article about data collection, then so too do novels in which corporations have become all-powerful - and when you look at the likes of Google today, and it's not too much of a stretch to see a path leading from here to there. A long one, thankfully, which would most likely not be completed until I'm nothing more than ash, but the potential path is there.

      In that future, Orwell got it half right - so dismissing the private corporations' collection of data as not being Orwellian is missing the point, or rather the possibilities.

    2. Dan Paul

      Re: Orwell did not predict the power of trans-national corporations

      Try reading the "Unincorporated Man" where that subject and it's implications are covered.

      This has been a theme (Corporations becoming Nation states) of several dystopian novels and none of them were too "friendly".

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The rebuttal to Mr. Worstalls screed is here:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/23/the_internet_of_things_helps_insurance_firms_reward_punish/

  22. Allan George Dyer
    Joke

    Allow me to upvote your dissing of the "utterly terrifying concept of Newspeak". Commentards would flame anyone who used it.

  23. big_D Silver badge
    Holmes

    Wilt

    not that some book-selling site knows we have a penchant for books featuring pneumatic blondes.

    Ah, you've read Wilt as well?

  24. Roj Blake Silver badge

    Just because large corporations aren't as big a threat to freedom as governments, it doesn't automatically follow that they're no threat.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We need viable alternatives...

    "Another way to put this is that the NSA or GCHQ monitoring everything is what we should be worrying about, not that some book-selling site knows we have a penchant for books featuring pneumatic blondes."

    ..........Agree to a point.. But as corporate shopping sites aggregate info it may in time offer up juicy profile data. Remember that this is still a young science. If so, expect the NSA to come calling whether by stealth or by force...

    "Google takes too much information? Use DuckDuckGo. Facebook too much? MySpace is still around, isn't it? We have choices here and each of us can make our own. Unlike Nineteen Eighty-Four, the entire point of which was to detail what happens when the state won't allow us any choices at all."

    ..........But until enough people switch to alternatives like DuckDuckGo or until there are real alternatives to Facebook, people won't switch. Hell I'm still waiting for Diaspora! Ultimately we need a series of non-US based alternatives...Preferably in regimes that are not pro-US, and where the NSA can't come creeping. Look at how hard MS fighting to protect Office 365 data in Dublin data right now!!!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google ~~~ NSA

    As a US company, Google is required to share all its data with the US government.

    So any distinction between them is illusory.

  27. frobnicate
    Thumb Up

    "books about pneumatic blondes"

    This must be a reference to Huxley. Brave New World is certainly at least as relevant as 1984, but alas, lacks the cheap thrill of terror.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oblig Grammer Nazi

    "hoover" not "hover" - referencing the Hoover © Company floor-care manufacturer, as in sucking up everything like a vacuum cleaner.

    1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Oblig Grammer Nazi

      We cannot vouch for inferior, sub-editor free web publications like the Telegraph. But we can stick a sic in there to make clear it's their typo and not ours.

  29. captain veg Silver badge

    just for bucks

    "Those guys slurping the Big Data streams couldn't give a hoot how we get our jollies, nor what our political beliefs are. They're just out to make a buck or two by getting us to use their services."

    Certainly they are in it for the money, but it ain't as benign as just getting us to use their services. The reason for trawling so much personal data is to analyse your behaviour in order to change it. It's really not just about paid advertising.

    -A.

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