We really have very little privacy left in this country. The issue is both big and small. Obviously, it is too easy for the government to get away with snooping on us without getting a warrant. That’s the big issue. But people probably care more that both parties are placing cookies on their computers to find out if they are religious or watch porn, or both. I suggest that the first party to seriously take up the idea of protecting people’s online privacy from corporations and the government and political parties is going to get a lot of support.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
If it weren’t for those devoutly “religious” people jerking off in front of their high-speed connections the porn industry would be out of business!
this is sadly true.
Booman? Are you nuts?
Every single advance in digital recording was driven by the porn industry: first, last and always.
5.5′ floppies? First industrial use was dirty pictures. Same with 3.5′ “floppies”.
larger and larger drives were designed and the first large scale use was invariably porn.
I was in personal computing from the beginning. My first computer was a Commodore PET. 4K memory, teeny-tiny keyboard 5.5′ screen and a cassette tape for “mass storage”.
I saw it all, and without porn we’d still be using Apple II.
am I nuts?
Because I don’t like religious hypocrites?
I think you may have a rather exaggerated opinion of the gifts bestowed on the nation by the porn industry, but I really don’t care one way or the other.
I was there too. My first computer was a homebrew S-100 that I programmed myself with boot code, assembler, BASIC in ROM, and editor. Porn never entered my mind. What was in my mind was how fascinating these machines were and a great urge to write clean, quick, and elegant code.
Porn was interesting to me as a virgin teenager, but once I had sex with real live girls, seeing and feeling real live women was my goal. Porn lost it’s interest and from then on, I really did read Playboy in the barber shop for the articles, particularly the political articles. Who needs fantasy when you have the real thing?
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80. I’d spend hours typing in BASIC code to play “nibble the cheese” and other such favorites. Once I spent a day or two punching in Hammurabi, but there were so many errors due to syntax differences between IBM and Sinclair code that I had to give up after several attempts to translate.
Eventually we got the cables to attach our cassette recorder, but the poor thing burnt up about 2 months after that. It wasn’t suited very well to porn. I guess you could draw your own naughty pics with ascii characters on it. Maybe.
Even sadder thought: Jeter is out for the year (kidding BooMan – the privacy thing is troubling. Also, my site donation is a bit delayed but I’ll send something to you in the next couple days.)
I don’t think most people care about their privacy at all. They willingly give it up on the principle that they have nothing to hide. It was interesting to me that my coworkers back in ’91 had no problem with urine testing, for instance. They didn’t see it as the employer invading their private life and leisure time. Most of them shrugged it off as no big deal. They weren’t only testing for illegal drugs either. The group insurance provider wanted to know if someone was on tranquilizers, had a glass of wine with lunch or too much to drink the night before. I was outraged and my coworkers did not care! It blew me away.
Let’s move ahead to now. I absolutely love Netflix “knowing” what kind of movies I might enjoy watching. The fact that Google gleans content from my emails and puts up ads–heck, I often click those ads because it happens to be something I want or need to buy. Then there’s Facebook. Holy cow! I won’t give them my phone number or put up where I live but the wealth of information I give in exchange for a “free” platform to see photographs of my grandchildren makes my former libertarian self cringe. And I do not care.
In the cyber realm, I’m wide open. Just being a member here gives me a 98% probability of being a Democrat. My user name doesn’t stop someone from tracking my IP and inferring my location. For all I know, we’re all in a special govt. database labeled “dangerous free thinkers”. This is a non-issue. We’ve been compromised already.
I have no problem with Netflix analyzing my taste in movies AS LONG AS IT IS BASED ON MY NETFLIX BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP. i.e. they analyze my orders. When they or anyone else inserts tracking cookies to see what I’m doing on the web, then they are spying. But notice I order a lot of noir movies and suggest some others? That’s just good business.
Amazon notices I buy a lot of books by a certain author and e-mails me when (s)he has a new novel? Just good business!
Track me and see what I’m looking at on newegg.com and suggest I buy similar electronic items from Amazon? SPYING!
I think your suggestion is just wrong. Not that I disagree, it’s just incorrect.
While it appears that they use twitter and facebook less than the people who are in their 20s, current teenagers have less expectation of privacy than ever. So as time passes people will just say that is how things are.
Personally, I’m more concerned with the government spying on me to see if I’m engaging in copyright violations.
How about that google. I was emailing on gmail to a friend with a fairly unusual name, author of some books, but nothing pertinent to his books was in my email. Gmail put up ads pertaining to the content of his books!! I hate this lack of privacy.
I suggest that the first party to seriously take up the idea of protecting people’s online privacy from corporations and the government and political parties is going to get a lot of support.
Probably too early yet. People are really only just beginning to notice how deeply data mining encroaches into their personal lives and habits, and as others have pointed out, the consequences aren’t yet all that apparent, so many of them don’t even care.
Also, social networks and other various web entities are really only just beginning to hit their stride with intrusive tech. God knows where this conversation will have evolved to 5 years from now. I keep thinking that with the way things are going, privacy as such might actually become impossible to preserve, even if we have the political will to do it.
I’m truly amazed by the things some people put on their Facebook pages.
The Warren Commission report was a crock the day it was delivered.
Oswald was a fall guy, sure.
Suspects high on my list are Castro, the Mob, and the Klan.
Or any combination.
The more you learn about Castro and the Kennedys the less you like any of them.
But especially the less you like Castro.
Whoops. Wrong thread.