Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds but the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote goes on to refer to Pythagoras, Socrates and Newton and so may it doesn’t refer to logical consistency but rather to the ability to learn from new information and form a new opinion based on that. Be that as it may (any Emerson scholars here?) there seems to me a logical inconsistency in the arguments of many staunch privacy advocates. They want to be simultaneously pro strong privacy yet anti DRM and pro Gener...

Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds but the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote goes on to refer to Pythagoras, Socrates and Newton and so may it doesn’t refer to logical consistency but rather to the ability to learn from new information and form a new opinion based on that. Be that as it may (any Emerson scholars here?) there seems to me a logical inconsistency in the arguments of many staunch privacy advocates. They want to be simultaneously pro strong privacy yet anti DRM and pro Gener...

Too many people seem to be having a moment of Schadenfreude in the wake of the Ashley Madison hack – what were “those” people thinking of having an affair (estimates for the overall percentage of married adults having affairs range from 30-60%) or at least of being so “dumb” as to use a service to arrange their affair. But this is just the latest instance of information being disclosed that people thought would be private. Just shortly before it was disclosed that 4.5 million medical records ...

Too many people seem to be having a moment of Schadenfreude in the wake of the Ashley Madison hack – what were “those” people thinking of having an affair (estimates for the overall percentage of married adults having affairs range from 30-60%) or at least of being so “dumb” as to use a service to arrange their affair. But this is just the latest instance of information being disclosed that people thought would be private. Just shortly before it was disclosed that 4.5 million medical records ...

I have been meaning to write this post ever since I read about Tim Cook’s speech on how Apple protects its customers’ privacy. Since then there have been posts arguing that Google’s (and others’) approach has merits because it allows for creating a better customer experience and also because it supports free services that are accessible by more people. But neither convenience nor price is the most important tradeoff here. Instead it is the limitations on general purpose computing that Apple i...

I have been meaning to write this post ever since I read about Tim Cook’s speech on how Apple protects its customers’ privacy. Since then there have been posts arguing that Google’s (and others’) approach has merits because it allows for creating a better customer experience and also because it supports free services that are accessible by more people. But neither convenience nor price is the most important tradeoff here. Instead it is the limitations on general purpose computing that Apple i...

Having grown up in Germany, I am well acquainted with “Datenschutz” or literally “data protection” – a set of attitudes, laws and regulations around how companies should deal with data collected from individuals. In the wake of the NSA disclosures there has been a lot of debate about how to further strengthen these protections. Much of this is well meaning but it seems to me a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. We can never perfectly protect data nor should we ...

Having grown up in Germany, I am well acquainted with “Datenschutz” or literally “data protection” – a set of attitudes, laws and regulations around how companies should deal with data collected from individuals. In the wake of the NSA disclosures there has been a lot of debate about how to further strengthen these protections. Much of this is well meaning but it seems to me a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. We can never perfectly protect data nor should we ...

My blog post on Monday about privacy and DRM was read by some as suggesting that we abandon any and all notions of privacy over night. That was not the point I was trying to make so let me try again, this time with an analogy. We secure our homes by closing and (generally) locking the front door. That serves as a demarcation and keeps out a completely opportunistic thief. It does not, however, prevent anybody even remotely determined from entering. For that we rely on some combination of soci...

My blog post on Monday about privacy and DRM was read by some as suggesting that we abandon any and all notions of privacy over night. That was not the point I was trying to make so let me try again, this time with an analogy. We secure our homes by closing and (generally) locking the front door. That serves as a demarcation and keeps out a completely opportunistic thief. It does not, however, prevent anybody even remotely determined from entering. For that we rely on some combination of soci...

In the future we can’t have privacy for the same reason that the record labels and Hollywood can’t have DRM and that’s ultimately a good thing. DRM has proven a fool’s errand because it is not compatible with general purpose computing. At some point a song or movie has to be decrypted in order to be played back and short of tamper proof and “trusted” hardware at that moment it can be digitally copied (and even if we had all of that it could be re-recorded or re-filmed during playback). That i...

In the future we can’t have privacy for the same reason that the record labels and Hollywood can’t have DRM and that’s ultimately a good thing. DRM has proven a fool’s errand because it is not compatible with general purpose computing. At some point a song or movie has to be decrypted in order to be played back and short of tamper proof and “trusted” hardware at that moment it can be digitally copied (and even if we had all of that it could be re-recorded or re-filmed during playback). That i...

There is so much happening with privacy right now that it is enough to make my head spin. What is clear though is that individuals, companies and government all want it both ways. Some parts of government want private enterprise to do a better job of protecting individuals’ information from other individuals and companies. At the same time other parts of government are looking for wholesale access to individual data bypassing any and all privacy policies and constitutional rights. Sorry, you ...

There is so much happening with privacy right now that it is enough to make my head spin. What is clear though is that individuals, companies and government all want it both ways. Some parts of government want private enterprise to do a better job of protecting individuals’ information from other individuals and companies. At the same time other parts of government are looking for wholesale access to individual data bypassing any and all privacy policies and constitutional rights. Sorry, you ...

One of the major issues we are struggling with in this flood of data is the question of what data belongs to whom and in particular how much access and control endusers should have over their data (or for that matter what “their” data even means). In California a “Right to Know” bill has been introduced that would require companies to let endusers access what data has been stored about them and which third parties that data has been shared with. The definition of personal data in the bill is ...

One of the major issues we are struggling with in this flood of data is the question of what data belongs to whom and in particular how much access and control endusers should have over their data (or for that matter what “their” data even means). In California a “Right to Know” bill has been introduced that would require companies to let endusers access what data has been stored about them and which third parties that data has been shared with. The definition of personal data in the bill is ...

I have written on and off about my ambivalent feelings about a society where we value individual privacy over collective intelligence. Whenever I bring up this argument there is a counter to the effect of “but we need secrets” or “concealment is a condition of civilization” (from this piece by the NYU philosophy professor Thomas Nagel). While I completely agree that our society at present is constructed in a way where secrets and concealment abound, it still seems fair to ask whether that is ...

I have written on and off about my ambivalent feelings about a society where we value individual privacy over collective intelligence. Whenever I bring up this argument there is a counter to the effect of “but we need secrets” or “concealment is a condition of civilization” (from this piece by the NYU philosophy professor Thomas Nagel). While I completely agree that our society at present is constructed in a way where secrets and concealment abound, it still seems fair to ask whether that is ...

So yesterday the Feds busted the guy behind Silk Road, the marketplace for drugs and other illegal things paid in bitcoin. The indictment reads like a screenplay for a movie or Breaking Bad style television series (not that I watched Breaking Bad, just basing this on the inevitable flurry of tweets about it that I had in my stream). There should be one key takeaway here: law enforcement is easier online, not harder as government would generally have us believe. It is basically impossible to o...

So yesterday the Feds busted the guy behind Silk Road, the marketplace for drugs and other illegal things paid in bitcoin. The indictment reads like a screenplay for a movie or Breaking Bad style television series (not that I watched Breaking Bad, just basing this on the inevitable flurry of tweets about it that I had in my stream). There should be one key takeaway here: law enforcement is easier online, not harder as government would generally have us believe. It is basically impossible to o...