« Simplicity is key. | Main | Phone Call 2.0 (2.0) »

January 17, 2006

Doubleplusgood Big Brother Minipax

speakwriting bellyfeel blackwhite prolefeed plusgood.

My Orwellian nightmare continues. (Little Brother series Part 4. Also see 1, 2 and 3.)

The title of this post, written in Newspeak, translates into Oldspeak as “It is very good that our government’s National Security Administration is illegally wiretapping and recording our citizens’ communications, and I feel deeply and emotionally, without question, that whatever reason our government gives our citizens to justify it is very good.”

Of course, in the Orwellian future, I would have to say such a thing because language has no accommodation for a heretical thought, or a thought diverging from the principles of the government. It would be literally unthinkable, or at least inexpressible in words.

Even if I could say something like “doubleplusUNgood Big Brother Minipax,” it would be crimethought and the thinkpol would surely show up and make me an unperson if I uttered such words anywhere near a telescreen.

Dayorder duckspeak plusgoodest Minitrue.

In the Orwellian future, ubiquitous “telescreens” that were essentially two-way flat-panel TVs ensured no citizen ever escaped the watchful eye of Big Brother. Such a system would make sense at the time Orwell was looking into the future – he had not been able to envision a future where we would conduct our personal interactions not on the street in face-to-face encounters, but via electronic transmission of bits and bytes. The fact that all electronic communication consolidates somewhere (through a mail server, at your ISP, a switch, a google server) means that the present-day version of the telescreen is a reality, it just happens in the form of such patriotic and in-the-best-interest-of-the-people sounding projects as Carnivore.

Do you think a domestic spying program is a positive move to increase the safety of the American People? Do you think it is an utterly reprehensible abuse of power and an encroachment on the personal liberties upon which America was founded?

Before you consider your opinion, think about the concept of surveillance in general and decide whether you have already very happily invited into your life a certain decrease of your personal liberties.

Technology has accelerated us into a reality of connectedness – not just to each other, but to other things. The bi-directional nature of our communication tools has transformed each of us into transponder nodes on a massively connected media network. Some of the nodes on that media network are not people at all, but are valuable media sources that add value to our daily communications by knowing where we are, what we consume, who we know and how we communicate.

Do you want a mobile coupon to make your cell phone vibrate when you walk by a Starbucks? Then the media network will need to know where you are at all times. Do you want your TiVo to automatically record a new show for you? Then it has to compare your viewing habits to that of everyone else like you on the media network and provide you with that valuable service. Do you use LinkedIn for professional networking? The only way that service works effectively to is know the relationships of every user of the system through the media that you provide – in this case, a resume showing everywhere you have ever worked. Do you use mobile IM? It knows the communication presence and habits of everyone who uses it, and necessarily maintains the interrelationships of every user.

You may not think of it this way, but as valuable as the services that I mentioned are to you, they require your complicit surrender of a certain degree of personal privacy. In order for these technological advancements to add value to your life, they literally have to surveil you and your actions. What’s more, your participation is not completely passive – you have to provide a certain amount of information to participate in these surveillance-based services, and without the collective participation of every user, the services cease to provide any value.

So what is the worst-case scenario of massively distributed participation-based surveillance? A Starbuckian society where barely-human automatons happily line up, often out the door, to receive a third daily injection of caffeine because they got a half-off coupon to do so, not because they opted in, but because Starbucks tracked their purchasing behavior through their Starbucks debit card? How about TiVo replacing programming executives (and indeed, the very notion of scheduled viewing) based on proprietary volumetrics provided collectively by every TiVo owner, not because they affirmatively opted in to having their viewing habits used as such, but because the implicit value of the service requires it? What if you get introduced to a hot business opportunity based on a tenuous professional relationship with someone who knows someone who knows someone who wants to meet you, not because you were looking for such a relationship, but because you were simply findable? (Just happened to me today, in fact.) What if AOL serves you locally relevant, time-sensitive ads to your mobile AIM client whenever you get handed off to a new cell tower, not because you asked them to do so, but because it is the price you pay for a free version of the service and the ads are so targeted and relevant that you actually appreciate it? What if an NSA agent shows up at your door to inquire about the curious string of emails you sent to your distribution list which includes various representatives of the Carlyle Group, known members of a terrorist sleeper cell and a couple of friends of yours who work at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, not because you opted in to be surveilled, but because such an active surveillance system is designed to extract relevance from extraordinary patterns for some (real or imagined) benefit?

Where do you draw the line at intrusive? All of these scenarios require some level of active surveillance, and some level of participation on your part. That participation is via the media you create, whether it is in the form of an email, a profile, (created or derived) activity log or location.

And so we are entering an Era of Surveillance, where every person is an active node on a massive media network, and personal feelings and politics aside, it is impossible to discuss the future of media without considering its impact on personal liberties. The ACLU has published an interesting report on the subject.

If the future of media is two-way, and it is created at the edge of the network and distribution is via a series of overlapping personal networks within a geographically relevant media networking grid, the interface to which is a portable location-aware Personal Media Device, (PMD) then the very far-reaching implications of a new media future extend much farther beyond the evolution of, say, your television viewing experience.

Media, communication and surveillance are colliding into one new form. Gone is the notion of media passivity, sitting on your couch and letting the cable television wash over you. Don’t bother trying to make that experience any better. Media is active, facilitating connectedness. There are more people sending an SMS at this moment than there are watching digital cable.

Tune in, Turn on, Get laid
When Timothy Leary coined his counterculture phrase “Tune in, turn on, drop out,” he was advocating that young people initiate cultural change by ingesting psychedelic drugs and voluntarily removing themselves from society.

The difference between then and now is that through technology kids literally live in a different world from adults and so there is no reason to even recognize the prevailing culture as something to which one must be counter. The “dropping out” part makes no sense to a generation that recognizes the benefit of increasing one’s social capital by simply being findable and available to the largest possible number of potential connections.

The recently coined phrase “MySpace Generation” is a nice way of saying that from this generation forward, people simply won’t care about being surveilled, because the word “surveillance” has been replaced by the term “plugged in” and the notion of “logging in” to The Internets has no meaning to a generation that never logs out.

Participative, shared experiences facilitated by electronic tools are the glue that connect this generation, and the stigma of an oppressive Big Brother has dissolved into the benefit of having multiple Little Brothers all watching each other, to the great benefit of everyone watching. Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between your level of participation and the degree to which you are surveilled. And, as unfathomable as it may sound to Timothy Leary’s generation, more is better.

And that is one of the most profound implications of the new media future: To not be a contributor in some form means to not benefit from the media networking collective. Sure, privacy will be available at a cost, but most people will say, “I’d prefer half off my triple grande latte.”

Whether you think a surveillance society is good or bad, I would argue that it cannot exist without the willing participation of the members of society. Maybe you think it is net positive because it provides value in the form of new friends, new music and coupons. Maybe you think it is ultimately net negative because you fear a future where the flow of media is unfairly one-way.

In either case, there is a solution to balance the equation: Empower Little Brother. Put a two-way “telescreen” in the hands of every citizen and see what happens.

If you are a right wingnut conservative and your political orientation is just to the right of Rush Limbaugh and you advocate a decrease in personal liberties in exchange for an insular, secure society and favor a policy of blind and belligerent nationalism, then an increase in domestic spying is a good thing for you, and you should see the value of putting a spying device into the hands of every man, woman and child so that no interloper will ever be able to escape the watchful eye of the good citizens of society. There is anecdotal evidence of ordinary citizens assisting authorities to apprehend alleged criminals in this way.

If you are a bleeding-heart liberal, are registered to vote with no party affiliation because you are disgusted with the political climate in our country, believe that giving up personal freedoms for security makes you neither free nor secure, and think that the government’s domestic spying program is not only wrong, but illegal and an unchecked abuse of power, then a decrease in the efficacy of the government’s spying program through forced transparency is a good thing for you, and you should see the value of putting a spying device into the hands of every man, woman and child in America to spy on the government as a counterbalance measure. There is anecdotal evidence of ordinary citizens assisting in the legal cases of people wrongfully accused by lying NYPD officers who falsified their police reports.

Ah, the fresh smell of the future. To some it smells bad, and to others it’s like roses. To me, it is too early to tell, but one thing is for sure: The order of the day should be the democratization of media and information. Only by doing so can we ensure the good aspects of a participative media future continue to bear fruit and also make sure the potentially worst outcome never sees the light of day – at least not if billions of people can vote with their feet. We have already begun the march toward total personal transparency. The more we empower each individual participant on the mobile media network, the more valuable the network and the greater the benefit to everyone participating. If that information starts to flow too much in one direction, and not to the benefit of its providers, the massive crowd will simply unplug from that grid and find a new route around it to connect with each other.

Posted by Shawn Conahan at January 17, 2006 11:46 AM

Comments

Posted by: David at January 19, 2006 09:46 PM