Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
7
Dataveillance and Countervailance
Rita Raley
It's what we call a massive data-base tally. Gladney, J.A.K. I punch in the name, the substance, the exposure
time and then I tap into your computer history.Your genetics, your personals, your medicals, your psychologi-
cals, your police-and-hospitals. It comes back pulsing stars. This doesn't mean anything is going to happen
to you as such, at least not today or tomorrow. It just means you are the sum total of your data. No man
escapes that.
— Don DeLillo,
White Noise
What is most unfortunate about this development is that the data body not only claims to have ontological
privilege, but actually has it. What your data body says about you is more real than what you say about
yourself. The data body is the body by which you are judged in society, and the body which dictates your
status in the world. What we are witnessing at this point in time is the triumph of representation over
being.
— Critical Art Ensemble
The Data Bubble
As I set about the process of wiping my machine of all cookies a few summers ago in
preparation for the cloning of my hard drive, I was somewhat naively surprised to learn
about so-termed Flash cookies, or LSOs (local shared objects). Internet privacy has
always been a concern: I have long made a point of systematically deleting cookies along
with my cache and search history, researching the plug-ins and extensions best able to
anonymize my browsing, and using search engines that do not record IP addresses,
particularly those that work against search leakage.
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I have also made a point of provid-
ing false personal information and developing a suite of pseudonymous identities (user
names, avatars, anonymous email addresses), the purpose of which has been to convince
myself that I am able to maintain some aspect of control over my own data. My error
