DAVID BRIN's transparency page

leaky privacy — and other hacks

Media discussions of privacy, freedom and the information age are starting to get more interesting, as folks finally start to realize a core truth... that everything eventually leaks. That the reflex of whining and demanding shadows to hide-in will never work. The data we entrust to banks and retail chains? The trade secrets that companies rely on for competitive advantage? The cherished spy programs of our governmental professional protector caste (PPC)? If these do not leak because of hackers, or accidents, then would-be (or self-styled) whistle-blowers will see to it, sooner or later.

snooping vs. privacy

The Edward Snowden revelations sparked a debate about transparency, security, and privacy, and (naturally!) David Brin was asked to respond. One result was this Christian Science Monitor op-ed article about how privacy intrusions have gone global. What are today's knights-errant — Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden — teaching us?

can we keep secrets anymore?

This roundtable discussion by the Washington DC Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-DC) and the Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center asks: "The Internet, social media and the Internet of Things are dramatically reducing the cost of collecting and sharing information. One result is that it is becoming easier to track what companies and governments are doing. Another result is that whistleblowers, malicious hackers, and organizations like Wikileaks can disseminate huge quantities of confidential information (e.g. government memos, Swiss bank records, and phone recordings). Are we seeing an inevitable trend towards transparency? Or will companies and organizations find ways to lock down their networks and their information? If radical transparency is inevitable, what should organizations do to adapt?"

counter NSA surveillance with citizen "sousveillance"

Intrinsically, you can never be certain what elites see or know. But actions can be observed and held accountable, by insisting that all watchers be supervised, answering top-down surveillance with "sousveillance," the habit of a brash citizenry monitoring from below — with a goal to preserve both freedom and safety. Sousveillance isn't just a response to surveillance, it is the wellspring of freedom.

check, verify — then trust

This humanity+ interview cites Brin's speculations about how a positive sousveillance can arise: "He reckons that if sousveillance became a reality, new patterns of social tact would likely evolve, and society and psychology would self-organize into some new configuration, which would leave people significant privacy in practice, but would also contain the everpresent potential of active sousveillance as a deterrent to misdoings. This can be illustrated by extending the restaurant analogy; if universal sousveillance means that all peeping toms are always caught in the act, then such a society might wind up with more privacy than you’d expect."

world cyberwar & radical transparency

In this article Brin predicted the future of cyberwar, post-WikiLeaks: "We've seen a maelstrom of indignant fury with all sides claiming the moral high ground. Banks and credit companies that reject doing business with WikiLeaks have been punished by leaderless networks of online activists — who are in turn attacked by 'patriotic hackers.' Meanwhile, similar cycles of sabotage or theft, followed by retaliation, are seen when hackers from China or the former Soviet bloc invade Western computer systems, compromising either intellectual property or stores of personal identities, or destabilize systems like Facebook and Google that empower citizen movements in other countries. Accusations fly amid a growing cast of intermeshed characters."

who owns our ideas?

Intellectual property law has become a warped thing, twisted by lobbyists to serve the interests of large corporations and not the public or progress. The chief villains are those who exploit "ownership" to make "intellectual property" serve lawyers and oligarchs, rather than creative people. But the potential harm goes deeper.

For example, have you ever heard of the Antikythera Device? The Baghdad Battery? The fabulous piston steam engines of Hero of Alexandria? Our ancestors were creative people! Yet, all of those technological advances and a myriad others were lost. Why? Until you can answer that question clearly, you will never grasp why patents and copyrights were invented in the first place.

is transparency unequal?

To commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of the publication of The Transparent Society Wired.com commentator Bruce Schneier poked a short-sharp critique at it. I responded with this short-sharp defense: "For we already live in the openness experiment, and have for two hundred years. It is called the Enlightenment — with 'light' both a core word and a key concept in our turn away from 4,000 years of feudalism."

speaking of surveillance...

a collection of DAVID BRIN's speeches

cyber Surveillance & silicon valley

David Brin speaks to the Internet Society about how to discover errors before they happen.

privacy vs. omniveillance

Brin gave this speech, which looks at Big Picture AI, at IBM's World of Watson, Las Vegas, October 2016.

found a good hiding place?

In 2005 Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow Jr. published his book, No Place to Hide, and David was asked to review it for the July 2005 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Naturally, he disagreed with its gloom-and-doom conclusions.

let's keep things civilized

The more open a civilization is, and the more open its competition, the more it becomes a matter for the accountability arenas — markets, science, and democracy — to create beneficial synergies out of competition, instead of reciprocal destruction. Further, the more open the playing fields, the more standing its individuals have, contributing their billions of eyes to a network that can detect errors and criminality, and helping professionals to do their jobs.

will transparency result?

Even if you do manage to restrict what the government sees, that will only be temporary. Time and technology are changing rapidly. Take Brin's Corollary to Moore's Law: that cameras get cheaper, smaller, better, more mobile and more numerous — each year — at a rate that is much faster than Moore's Law.