Privacy in Modern Times -- Is it being obsoleted too?

[Gregg Axley]

Add in the fact, that most newer tv's are computers, and can be hacked to turn on the internal camera, and it makes things even weirder.
While I see some of your points Sheeplady, I would also like to mention that the internet has made "research from home" a global issue.
Years ago, I had a different internet provider, and I'd get attmpted hacks from numerous places, all over the globe.
China and the Ukraine were the worst. If someone over there gets enough information, then for all intensive purposes (until these people are caught) I have suddenly moved to their country.
I do agree with another poster on here, that your information is out there and has been out there for a long time, but making it easier for people to steal your identity by posting things you shouldn't (on FB, Myspace, etc) is just asking for it.

 

[Shangas]

Shangas,



You may not get Oprah Winfry on TV there in Oz. Lucky you.

I'm familiar with Oprah Winfrey. I just don't get what you're talking about in relation to her.

 

[Foxer55]

Shangas,

I'm familiar with Oprah Winfrey. I just don't get what you're talking about in relation to her.

Oprah Winfry is probably the best example of how the just tell-us-your-feelings psychobabble got started in popular culture. Yes, I'm sure we were all just dying to hear about some woman's menstrual problems on national TV or how you were a crack addict, or...well...just tell it all to us. You'll feel better if you tell us everything. And so it began, let down the flood gates of personal and polite public discourse and just tell the world everything. Now everyone thinks they need to know everything about everybody right along with telling us they're constipated today.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Today I went to the county clerk's office and looked up deeds, sale prices, assessment values, and mortgages on several properties back to the 1850s... and thanks to the census records that are publicly available, I could have seen what these people were worth too both in income and property (granted, census records are closed for a time period). I could also look up all sorts of records on people living and dead if I went to the town's clerk office that holds marriage, divorce, and birth/death records.

The only difference between yesterday and today is that yesterday you had to use a phone book and travel someplace to get much of the same information you can get online sitting at home in your chair. I don't believe that increased access necessarily means reduced privacy if that information was always a source of public record. You can't have privacy in information that is inherently public by nature. I don't think the medium by which information is accessed changes if information is really truly public, although I think it is often perceived that if information is placed online (as opposed to in a database in a physical location) that there is a violation of privacy beyond that of having it stored in a way that isn't as accessible. In reality, you never had privacy over that information in the first place (and there is darned good reason for having accessed property values, mortgages, liens, and deeds as matters of public record).

Although online information has made it easier for people to casually check you out (and for the professionals who do it too) there were and are plenty of people checking you out in records that aren't online- I can absolutely guarantee it.

For years it was a common practice of outlaw motorcycle gangs such as the Hell's Angels as well as other criminal groups to have the wives and girlfriends of their members obtain jobs at banks, the phone company and the DMV in order to gain access to people's personal information.

 

[Swing Motorman]

I agree that sheeplady is onto something. We still share much of the same information, just in new ways. These "ways" (webcams, databases, social networking, you get my drift,) tend to create new opportunity or motivation to share something that wasn't shared previously (for instance, what color tie I wore to work today.) It all just happens faster.

I followed and grew fascinated by social networking's theory and inner workings in college, and I hope you'll humor me in sharing some observations. I found that much of MyFace-ing (my mother called it that too!) is nothing new or different, with one exception: the whole medium is an unrecognizable mixture of personal conversation, introspection, and community sharing all presented as semi-public info. The girl you get sick of on your news feed from talking about her lipstick color every morning was intending an action much like talking to a friend, (or posting here on the Lounge!) She just chose to do so in a mixed-up media. This awkwardness of misdirected information rarely gets any attention, and is a glaring flaw in social media. But realistically, few users care.

I don't see our culture's willing sacrifice of privacy as totally bad. We're not signing away our lives one EULA at a time, but carrying on with an ever-faster, ever-larger world. After all, as long as the legalese-heavy climate of today exists, we'll need to agree to waivers just to allow a service to move messages we type to their intended recipient (that's at the core of those scary EULAs we have to "agree" to...) Everything can turn bad when greed takes control, and that's certainly very present online. But as a closing thought related to the Census, won't it be grand for us history lovers to look back on 100-year-old social media posts in year 2113 and have an unrivaled batch of raw data on daily life?

Finally, aren't we all giving up some privacy right here, possibly even posting things we would've never publicly shared years ago? I suppose that's the cost of such a convenient way to talk with the largest bunch of intelligent, classy ladies and gentlemen I've ever known! :yo:

-Steven

 

[Stray Cat]

Oprah Winfry is probably the best example of how the just tell-us-your-feelings psychobabble got started in popular culture. Yes, I'm sure we were all just dying to hear about some woman's menstrual problems on national TV or how you were a crack addict, or...well...just tell it all to us.

..and I was thankful for living (up-up and..) away from it.
Yet, joyful days never last, do they? :brick: Now, I'm stuck in the same "reality-show is the new panem et circenses" swing. I'm genuinely not interested in what happens when you put dozen national celebrities on a fake Farm, nor do I give a dime for dozen of no-names (soon to turn Über-famous) disgracing Orwel masterpiece "1984".

So, I stick around the good-old Viasat History (yes, we call it that, here).. and I give out a slice of my privacy to all the Loungers. I do not own Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (what else is out there, for the folkes to prove to the world they have a social life?)

[size=+2]Privacy[/size] by Robert William Service

Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
(Though most of us seek to survive it)
Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die
Because she could never be private.
There are pebbles and reeds for aquarium needs
Of eel and of pike who are bold fish;
But who gives a thought to a sheltering spot
For the sensitive soul of a goldfish?

So the poor little thing swam around in a ring,
In a globe of a crystalline crudity;
Swam round and swam round, but no refuge she found
From the public display of her nudity;
No weedy retreat for a cloister discreet,
From the eye of the mob to exempt her;
Can you wonder she paled, and her appetite failed,
Till even a fly couldn't tempt her?

I watched with dismay as she faded away;
Each day she grew slimmer and slimmer.
From an amber hat burned, to a silver she turned
Then swiftly was dimmer and dimmer.
No longer she gleamed, like a spectre she seemed,
One morning I anxiously sought her:
I only could stare - she no longer was there . . .
She'd simply dissolved in the water.

So when you behold bright fishes of gold,
In globes of immaculate purity;
Just think how they'd be more contented and free
If you gave them a little obscurity.
And you who make laws, get busy because
You can brighten he lives of untold fish,
If its sadness you note, and a measure promote
To Ensure Private Life For The Goldfish.

..it sounded appropriate. :fish: