Will we have any privacy left.doc

Monday, Feb. 21, 2000Will We Have Any Privacy Left?By DAVID GELERNTEROur bad dreams about the haunted house called Privacy, Circa 2025 are likely to focus on those all-seeing orbiting spy cameras that are always peering at us. They already exist, capable of observing from miles overhead that your lawn could use mowing and your dog needs a shampoo. By 2025, they will be really good. Audio spy technology has been advancing fast too. But the biggest threat to privacy doesnt even exist yet. By 2025 it will be in full bloom.Today we are engulfed by the signal-carrying waves of broadcast radio and TV. Come 2025, we will be engulfed by a cybersphere in which billions of information structures will drift (invisible but real, like radio waves) bearing words, sounds and pictures on which our lives depend. Thats because the electronic world will have achieved some coherence by 2025. Instead of phone, computer and TV networks side by side, one network will do it all. TVs and phones and computers will all be variations on one theme. Their function will be to tune in these information structures in the sense that a radio tunes in station WXYZ.These cyberstructures will come in many shapes and sizes, but one type, the cyberstream, is likely to be more important than any other. A cyberstream is an electronic chronicle of your daily life, in which records accumulate like baroque pearls on an ever lengthening string-each arriving phone call and e-mail message, each bill and bank statement, each Web bookmark, birthday photo, Rolodex card and calendar entry.An irresistible convenience: your whole life in one place. Tune in anywhere, using any computer, phone or TV. Just put your card in the slot, pass a security test (supply your password and something like a fingerprint) and youre in. You see your electronic life onscreen or hear a description over the phone, starting with the latest news and working back.By feeding all this information into the food processor of statistical analysis, your faithful software servants will be able to make smooth, creamy, startlingly accurate guesses about your plans for the near future. They will find patterns in your life that you didnt know were there. They will respond correctly to terse spoken commands (Call Juliet, Buy food, Print the news) because they will know exactly who Juliet is, what food you need and what news stories you want to read.So its 2025, and the living is easy. You glide forward on a magic carpet woven out of detailed data and statistical analyses. But should anyone seize access to your electronic life story, invasion of privacy will take on a whole new meaning. The thief will have stolen not only your past and present but also a reliable guide to your future.Such information structures are just beginning to emerge. They are likely to be far safer and more private than anything we have ever put on paper. Nonetheless, by 2025, a large proportion of the worlds valuable private information will be stored on computers that are connected to a global network, and if a thief can connect his computer to that same global network, he will have-in principle-an electronic route from his machine to yours.The route will be electronically guarded and nearly impassable, unless the intended target has given out information he should not have-as people do. And unfortunately, electronic thievery and invasion of privacy are jackpots that keep growing. They are just the crimes for shameless, cowardly, clever crooks. No need to risk life or limb; just tiptoe over wires and through keyholes.So what else is new? Technology always threatens privacy. Those threats usually come to nothing. They have been defeated before, and will be in the future, by a force that is far more powerful than technology-not Congress, the law or the press, not bureaucrats or federal judges, but morality.You could, after all, get a pair of high-power binoculars and start spying on your neighbor tomorrow morning. But you wont. Not because you cant, not because its illegal, not because youre not interested; to be human is to be a busybody. You wont do it because it is beneath you. Because you know it is wrong, and you would be ashamed of yourself if you did it.Laws are bad weapons in the fight to protect privacy. Once we invoke the law, the bad deed has ordinarily been done, and society has lost. Attempting to restrain technological progress is another bad strategy-its a fools game and wont work. The best method for protecting privacy in 2025 is the same method we have always used: teaching our children to tell right from wrong, making it plain that we count on them to do what is right.Outrageously naive advice for a high-tech future? Think again. It has been field-tested, and it works. All over the country, people leave valuable private papers in unlocked mailboxes along the street. Astonishing! Suburban mail is a vastly easier mark than anything in cyberspace will ever be. But our mailboxes are largely safe because we are largely honest. Some technology pundits have been startled by peoples willingness to confide their credit-card numbers to websites. But for years we have been reciting those numbers over the phone. And we have all sorts of other long-standing habits (paying our taxes, for example) that reflect our confidence in the honor of our fellow citizens.As we venture further into the deep waters of technology, temptations increase. When it comes to temptation resistance, we are admittedly not at the top of our game in early 2000. This is an age of moral confusion. We love to talk about law; we hate morality talk. But we will snap out of this dive, as we have snapped out of others before. Among our characteristic American obsessions, two have been prominent since 1776-our technological inventiveness and our stubborn desire to know and do what is right.And by 2025, the issue will be framed differently. We are obsessed with privacy because we have temporarily mislaid a more important word: dignity. We talk about our right to privacy, but we dont really mean it. This broken-down, ramshackle idea falls apart the moment you blow on it. Privacy to commit murder? To beat a wife or child? To abuse an animal? To counterfeit money? To be insane, refuse treatment and suffer never-endingly? Privacy is no absolute right; it is a nice little luxury when we can get it. Dignity is a necessity to fight for. And come 2025, life will be better: not because of the technology revolution but because of a moral rebirth that is equally inevitable and far more important.David Gelernter is chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, art critic of the Weekly Standard and a professor at YaleSpeculates on how technology will affect privacy by 2025. Spy technology, information structures, or cyberstructures that threaten privacy; How teaching children to tell right from wrong will be the best method of protecting privacy; Prediction that there will be a moral rebirth in the United States星期一,2000年2月21日我们会有任何隐私离开吗?由大卫格勒恩特尔我们的坏梦关于鬼屋称为“隐私,大约在2025年“有可能集中在那些无尽的轨道间谍相机,总是盯着我们。他们已经存在,能够观察你的草坪从英里开销可以使用除草,你的狗需要一个洗发水。到2025年,他们将会变得很好。音频间谍技术不断发展快也。但最大的威胁到隐私都还不存在。到2025年它将盛开。今天我们卷入传讯一波又一波的广播电台和电视。2025年来,我们将会陷入一个“cybersphere”中“信息结构”的数十亿美元将漂移(无形但真实,就像无线电波)轴承的话语、声音和照片,我们的生活依赖。这是因为电子世界将在2025年取得了一些连贯性。而不是手机,电脑和电视网络肩并肩,一个网络将做这一切。电视,手机和电脑都是一个主题的变化。他们的功能是收听这些信息结构在某种意义上,一个收音机收听电台WXYZ。这些cyberstructures将有许多不同的形状和大小,但一个类型,“cyberstream”,很可能是更重要的比其他任何。一个cyberstream是一种电子纪事报你的日常生活中,像巴洛克珍珠记录积累在不断加长的字符串,每个到达的电话和电子邮件消息,每个法案和银行声明,每个网络书签,生日照片,名片盒卡和日历条目。不可抗拒的便利:你的整个人生在一个地方。收听任何地方,使用任何电脑、电话或电视。只是把你的卡片在槽内,通过安全测试(供应你的密码和指纹一样的东西),你在。你看你的电子屏幕上听到一个描述生活或通过电话,从最新的新闻和工作回来。给所有这些信息入食物处理器的统计分析,你的忠实仆人软件能够使光滑,奶油,惊人准确的猜测关于你近期的计划。他们会发现模式你的生活中不知道在那里。他们会正确回答简短的口头指令(“叫朱丽叶”、“买食物”、“打印新闻”),因为他们会知道到底谁朱丽叶就是,什么食物你需要,什么新闻故事你想读。所以是2025,生活很轻松。你在魔毯滑翔前进编织出来的详细数据和统计分析。但如果有人抓住访问你的电子生活故事,“侵犯隐私”便会有全新的意义。小偷会偷来的不只是你的过去和现在也是你未来的可靠向导。这种信息结构开始显现出来。他们可能会更安全、更有私人比我们曾经放在纸上。尽管如此,到2025年,世界大部分地区的的有价值的私有信息将被存储在计算机上,是连接到一个全球网络,如果小偷可以连接电脑到相同的全球网络,他会在电子线路原理从他的机器的。电子线路将被保护着,几乎无法通行,除非预定目标进行信息他不应该当人们做的。不幸的是,电子偷窃和侵犯隐私是积累,不断成长。他们只是为无耻的罪行,懦弱,聪明的骗子。不需要风险生命或肢体;只是脚尖在电线和通过钥匙孔。还有什么新鲜事?技术总是威胁到隐私。这些威胁通常是没有的。他们被打败之前,和将在未来,通过这种力量的强大远远超过技术而不是国会,法律或媒体,而不是官僚或联邦法官,但道德。你可以,毕竟,得到一双大功率望远镜,开始向你的邻居明天早上。但你不会。不是因为你不能,因为它是非法的,不是因为你不感兴趣的,是人就会成为一个爱管闲事的人。你不会做它,因为它是在你。因为你知道这是错的,你会为自己感到羞耻,如果你做到了。法律是坏的武器的战斗中来保护隐私。一旦我们调用法律,坏的行为通常被完成,和社会已经失去了。试图抑制技术进步是另一个糟糕的策略这是一个傻瓜的游戏和不工作。最好的方法来保护隐私在2025是同样的方法我们一直使用:教育孩子分辨是非,使它明显,我们指望他们为你做什么是正确的。建议一个高科技凶残地天真的未来?再想想。它已经经过考验的,和它的工作原理。在这个国家,人们把有价值的私人文件在沿街解锁的邮箱。惊人的!郊区的邮件是一个非常容易马克比在网络空间会。但是我们的邮箱基本上是安全的,因为我们基本上是诚实的。一些技术专家感到震惊的人愿意吐露他们的信用卡号码来网站。但是多年来我们一直在背诵这些数字电话。和我们有各种各样的其他长期习惯(付税,例如),反映我们的信心在我们的公民的荣誉。当我们风险进一步进入深水技术,诱惑增加