Topic: Privacy
More and more people are using mobile phones with integral video cameras to capture events. Some of the most harrowing pictures from the London bomb attacks in July came from amateur video taken underground by passengers with camera phones. We seem to be heading towards a future where everything we experience will be captured and stored for retrieval. Perhaps only the sheer scale of the numbers of people involved will be the biggest safeguard we have against the nightmare of 'Big Brother' surveillance. [Accelerating Change Audio from IT Conversations]
How can the U.S.A. protect private data and improve security without blocking progress or harming the economy? Former General Counsel to the Department of Homeland Security Joe Whitely discusses these questions, and more, with Sondra Schneider. [Frontline Security audio from IT Conversations]
"I wish I could've predicted more," says the father of the Internet, Vint Cerf. He didn't think about the worries parents would face ten or fifteen years later of their children seeing pornography, or becoming prey to Internet predators. He didn't think of the thousands of companies who would try to make money by sending unwanted e-mails, or the hackers who would illegally share movies, music and software. Larry Magid speaks to Vint Cerf about these issues and new developments in the Internet Protocol, IPv6. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations]
In the future, we will all be monitored all the time - by each other, and that future is beginning now. Learn how your camera phone is starting a snowball effect that will end not in Big Brother Watching You, but in hundreds of thousands of little brothers and sisters watching everyone and everything. This empowering and disturbing vision is articulated by Jamais Cascio in a keynote address from MeshForum 2005. [MeshForum audio from IT Conversations]
How have "sex laws" and American culture defined the path of technological advancement? It's an interesting idea; one that Annalee Newitz, freelance writer and Media Coordinator/Policy Analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explored in her presentation "How Sex Laws Incite Technological Change" from the 2005 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. She discusses the legal and social restrictions and influences that have driven the adoption of new technologies for often unintended purposes. [ETech 2005 audio from IT Conversations]
In his lated book, Beyond Fear, security guru Bruce Schneier goes beyond cryptography and network security to challenge our post-9/11 national security practices. Host Doug Kaye says, "This is the one interview I hope everyone will hear."
Daniel Solove doesn't use the familiar metaphor of "Big Brother" when
he discusses privacy; rather he uses Kafka's play "The Trial." He
says we're not as much in danger of having our privacy violated by
someone with evil intent as we are of having our lives turned upside
down from the interactions of unapproachable and faceless
corporations and bureaucracies. [Technometria with Phil Windley;
audio from IT Conversations]
Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Evan Ratliff, author of "SAFE: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World." They talk about making America safe - or at least the issues which underlie it. (Tech Nation podcast on IT Conversations)
Dick Hardt is founder and CEO of Sxip Networks, developers of SXIP, the Simple eXtensible Identity Protocol. At Digital Identity World 2004, Scott Mace talked with Hardt about why SXIP decided to build its own federated identity system, rather than go with the SAML-based Liberty Allliance; why the mechanism of separating asserting ones' identity from the authentication mechanism is the path to true digital identities on the Web; how Slashdot karma could be an alternative currency; transferring reputations from one social network to another; where SXIP and Identity Commons complement each other, and where they compete; privacy considerations when using SAML and SXIP; and why technology such as SXIP may shape future privacy legislation.
The Gillmor Gang: Google Desktop Search is this week's hot topic even though Doc isn't happy that it's not available on either Mac or Linux. No doubt it's a powerful personal tool, but what does it mean for IT departments? If it sneaks in at the desktop level, what about security and privacy? For that matter, what does it mean that "the application sends non-personal information about things like the application's performance and reliability to Google?"
Does Microsoft continue to have a blindspot for search? There were rumors of a pending Google browser. Is this even better for the company and for us? What's the commercial value for Google, and will Yahoo! follow suit? Finally, is GDS just a platform for additional services?
All of this plus the podcasting phenomenon on another chock-full edition of The Gillmor Gang. This week's special guests are Scott MacGregor (Mozilla Thunderbird architect) and Brendan Eich (chief architect) of the Mozilla Foundation.
