Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Following the Letter of the Law

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
I've been at this privacy and security conference thinking more and more that it's not about privacy, it's about control. Jay Cross writes about a bank that spams him because it insists it has the legal right to do so. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about a telephone company that refused to cancel my cellphone account - and kept charging my credit card - despite my repeated pleas. Larry Korba (see above) today depicted hackers as evil. That's far from the case. That's a huge problem for the security and trust industry - that are actually enabling the bad guys to get away with their crimes. A team reviewed all the Enron emails - I couldn't help thinking, they will make sure that next time the next Enron isn't caught. A paper this morning talked about a network of people reporting the locations of traffic control cameras - the 'hackers' and 'spammers' are people trying to enforce traffic laws! Eventually - was the consensus in the room - this will simply be illegal. But if it's illegal for me to use trusted networks to serve my own purposes - why is it OK for you? Or for Microsoft? Or for Homeland Security? We need some common ground here - but until there is some sort of respect for civil society by government and business, we're not going to get it.

Today: 6 Total: 1099 [Direct link] [Share]

Image from the website


Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Apr 24, 2024 8:13 p.m.

Canadian Flag Creative Commons License.

Force:yes