Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
make a speech somewhere, or see a medical doctor, or get topics from a lending
library, or pay for your purchases by bank card, or write letters to newspaper
editors — nothing will be lost, and some will even land on the Internet.
Personal data are increasingly managed by private organizations, often beyond
any control, because customer lists are corporate secrets. Nobody outside these
organizations knows what happens to these data (and whether some are illegally
sold). So let's be matter-of-fact and limit ourselves to the discussion of technical
possibilities.
A security expert once said at a conference in 2000: 'It's correct that they know
all about you. It's wrong to think they all cooperate.' This is the current state
of affairs (in Germany!), but it might be totally different tomorrow. See Profes-
sor Cochrane's homepage (
www.labs.bt.com/library/cochrane/index.
htm
). We won't be permanently able to prevent a lot of personal data from
'starting to walk'. The extent of the illegal address trade suggests what the
practice looks like. Trading with data is legal in other countries. In the USA,
individuals don't own the data about themselves. They belong to the businesses
that collect them. A merchant might sell them. If you are interested in these
issues, I recommend the topic
Secrets and Lies
by Bruce Schneier [SchnLie].
It seems that nobody actually knows how to handle these problems. The article
in
txt/policy/globueberwachung.txt
shows how fateful data gathering can be
when it falls into the wrong hands by using the example of Norwegian Jews in
World War II. On the other hand, we shouldn't try to stubbornly 'stonewall',
but instead think of how to live in a world with meager privacy. Some protests
seem stilted. After all, car license plates are there for publicly showing who
a car belongs to. Is it really that bad if their registration is automated? Could
you prevent it? I don't think so. We have to learn to accept it.
There is a much harder problem: our communications are increasingly elec-
tronic, which means that they can be stored forever, as opposed to the volatility
of traditional voice communication. A silly joke you mailed out to your pals
five years ago can all of a sudden make you a target in a terror investigation.
How do we handle this?
For one thing, I think there is plenty of catching up to be done. Also — an
issue that would easily make a separate chapter — we have to ask ourselves
how far the protection of information can or may be carried. The reason is
that, in contrast to material goods, the value of information doesn't increase as
it becomes scarcer. Readers interested in this issue should read the fascinating
topic [DRM]; it only appears to be dry reading matter at first.
