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June 9, 2002
Political effects of technology: Matt
Political effects of technology: Phonecams in Saudi Arabia describes how some men are leaving new cellphones with digital cameras in areas reserved for women, hoping to get photos of people without veils. I guess they don't have X10 popunder ads there yet. We used to worry about the centralized state possessing many surveillance cameras and databases, but it's very much more likely that visual surveillance will be a far more decentralized activity -- the eyes of individuals will become more powerful, and civil-rights laws won't have an effect on this. Simple Al Qaeda web codes shows how mere juxtapositions of images or nonsense phrases can be used for prearranged messaging. Encryption technology has been classified as a munition for some reason, but when you outlaw encryption only outlaws will have encryption. Encoding is simpler than encryption and can't be outlawed. We can't realistically stop the advancement of human intelligence and personal power... the big task is to figure how to create sustainable social systems around these rapidly changing new abilities.
Posted by John Dowdell at June 9, 2002 9:38 PM