So why do societies and great civilizations collapse? Guns, germs and steel did for many nations, such as the Aztecs. In many cases strong empires simply succumb to the second law of thermodynamics; systems tend towards disorder. Any ordered system of knowledge - scientific progress being an example - will also find itself subject to entropy.
Evolution backing superhero Richard Dawkins is finding himself battling evil creationists yet again, this time from within the education system and, ironically, using the second law as an argument. Read the article to discover how our hero wins the day - or not depending on how you see these things.
The battle against evangelical Christians, who are tapping into deep resources to attack evolution with negative memes like "intelligent design", seems to be never ending. I suspect fundamentalism is simply a modern guise for universal disorder. Capitalism also eats away at science by moving capital away from pure research and towards the production of mobile phone ring tones. Its not reasonable to pick on one source of dissent to fight against a general trend.
That common spelling mistakes are not entered into the OED isn't due to academic elitism. As an ordered system, a dictionary can't really include examples of entropy. I think the education establishment is right in fighting hard to keep creationism away from school science lessons for the same reason.
But the forces of entropy will eventually topple any system, and establishment science seems to be losing arguments in many areas at once at the moment. Oddly the internet seems to be accelerating entropy, as single sources of information fracture into multiple channels and personal content. Big science is going to go the same way. Who is to say that Quantum physics has more to offer than Palmistry?
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Anonymous
Privacy is nice, but I wouldn't lose much sleep if a secret film showing my most embarrassing moments was available to all the people on the planet who don't know me and will never meet me. That is, as long as I am not identified. Its anonymity that is essential.
A celebrity can be defined as someone who has lost their general anonymity. Their name, image and accomplishments are known to more than just their circle of friends. To them, privacy is worth keeping because anonymity is already gone. For everyone else, anonymity provides enough isolation to live with.
As surveillance increases in the public sphere, its important to be clear about what matters and what is irrelevant. We know that no one is going to take the high street cameras down - increased snooping is here to stay.
What breaks the protection of anonymity is the correlation of information that links different pieces of data - sometimes called data mining, or even "joined up government".
Take the good old Oyster card. When I go into an underground station, a camera probably picks up my image. My card, which is registered, makes a record as I pass through the barrier. I will then appear on other cameras as I leave the tube system. Maybe my voice will be picked up be Police eavesdropping equipment.
Now lets rewind.. what connects my image on camera to my registration? With access to the camera and the barrier data, its no problem for someone to take a guess that the person seen walking through the barrier at 10:24 is the same as the registered user passing through the gates. Two separate pieces of data, correlated by a human.
And I couldn't give a fig about that. Human detective work moves at human pace. The same bloke that linked the two pieces of data could have done a similar task by asking the station manager or a nosy newsagent. If someone is trying to track me down, then someone must think I really am worth the effort.
Its when computers talk to other computers that liberty disappears. Because a computer can correlate countless bits of data and create new records that would take many humans exponentially longer to do. And that gap, or grace period, is actually where anonymity lies, or did.
In the digital era the process of correlation is not humans talking to humans, its programs interrogating databases. A credit card is used in a store. A high street camera tracks a face in the crowd. Now I am identified and located.
One probably essential point to freedom is choosing which realm, public or private, we want to be in at any one time. A blog, for example, may act as a public keyhole into the bloggers life - even if the identity of the writer is unknown. A columnist on a broadsheet paper could use a pseudonym. The choice is the writers.
When the cameras on the congestion zone see my car, they automatically check DVLA to see if I my licence plate has any infringements. In short, my movements are immediately being linked with criminal activity - and never with my authority. And of course the cameras are on even while the zone is not in force.
While the good side of sharing data - federation - helps us work with others in trade and commerce, correlation is the evil twin. It is the unauthorised creation of connections that you didn't know you were making. Remember; your mobile is tracking you, your calls are logged, your home power usage is recorded, your browser visits are saved, and needless to say your credit card bill is as good as a diary. What unintended connections could be produced with all that lovely stuff?
Too much data created by correlation will quickly produce a shadow representation of yourself, that is beyond control. Accurate enough to be implicate you in a terrorist plot, but never complete enough to illuminate your motives.
A celebrity can be defined as someone who has lost their general anonymity. Their name, image and accomplishments are known to more than just their circle of friends. To them, privacy is worth keeping because anonymity is already gone. For everyone else, anonymity provides enough isolation to live with.
As surveillance increases in the public sphere, its important to be clear about what matters and what is irrelevant. We know that no one is going to take the high street cameras down - increased snooping is here to stay.
What breaks the protection of anonymity is the correlation of information that links different pieces of data - sometimes called data mining, or even "joined up government".
Take the good old Oyster card. When I go into an underground station, a camera probably picks up my image. My card, which is registered, makes a record as I pass through the barrier. I will then appear on other cameras as I leave the tube system. Maybe my voice will be picked up be Police eavesdropping equipment.
Now lets rewind.. what connects my image on camera to my registration? With access to the camera and the barrier data, its no problem for someone to take a guess that the person seen walking through the barrier at 10:24 is the same as the registered user passing through the gates. Two separate pieces of data, correlated by a human.
And I couldn't give a fig about that. Human detective work moves at human pace. The same bloke that linked the two pieces of data could have done a similar task by asking the station manager or a nosy newsagent. If someone is trying to track me down, then someone must think I really am worth the effort.
Its when computers talk to other computers that liberty disappears. Because a computer can correlate countless bits of data and create new records that would take many humans exponentially longer to do. And that gap, or grace period, is actually where anonymity lies, or did.
In the digital era the process of correlation is not humans talking to humans, its programs interrogating databases. A credit card is used in a store. A high street camera tracks a face in the crowd. Now I am identified and located.
One probably essential point to freedom is choosing which realm, public or private, we want to be in at any one time. A blog, for example, may act as a public keyhole into the bloggers life - even if the identity of the writer is unknown. A columnist on a broadsheet paper could use a pseudonym. The choice is the writers.
When the cameras on the congestion zone see my car, they automatically check DVLA to see if I my licence plate has any infringements. In short, my movements are immediately being linked with criminal activity - and never with my authority. And of course the cameras are on even while the zone is not in force.
While the good side of sharing data - federation - helps us work with others in trade and commerce, correlation is the evil twin. It is the unauthorised creation of connections that you didn't know you were making. Remember; your mobile is tracking you, your calls are logged, your home power usage is recorded, your browser visits are saved, and needless to say your credit card bill is as good as a diary. What unintended connections could be produced with all that lovely stuff?
Too much data created by correlation will quickly produce a shadow representation of yourself, that is beyond control. Accurate enough to be implicate you in a terrorist plot, but never complete enough to illuminate your motives.
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