On 9/25/13 9:44 AM, glen wrote:
While it makes perfect sense to use a digital classification scheme
(confidential, secret, top secret, nuclear, etc.) as a guide for an
individual (artifact or human) making a decision, it is unreasonable
to expect that classification scheme to arise naturally. The thing
about measures is that they can't really be planned, at least not
completely. E.g. whether George W. Bush will be considered anything
other than an idiot 100 years from now is not something we can
specify. Hence, measures tend to produce continua, even if forcibly
discretized.
I don't really see what you mean by "arise naturally", nor do I see why
W's historical significance is something that needs to be anticipated.
People, I think, can come to `classify' the importance of their
information. For example, if a gay person applies for a job and has
reason to think that their employer would be biased against that, they
might either avoid that employer, or keep their status a secret.
A person might not disclose their age or marital status for similar
reasons, say, because they believed the employer preferred a young,
single person would work harder. The process of growing up, and
observing how social systems impinge on individuals forces a person to
extrapolate to anticipate outcomes, and to discriminate how they reveal
information. It seems to me the difference between the
`classification' that government or a corporation performs is just that
the rules are formed by powerful organizations rather than individuals
or families, political advocacy groups, churches, etc.
I suppose this is just another form of Stallman's argument for viral
openness in the face of the weaker forms. The real target is the
behavior of the humans. The fossilized imprints of their behavior is
only a side effect.
Of course..
But that takes me back to the main issue, which is the privileged
access of the morlocks. Can the eloi _ever_ expect privacy?
I think no, unless they go to the trouble of thinking hard about how
they reveal information, and employ a means by which they enforce it
(not just relying on mechanisms provided by a company that will happily
betray their users when the government comes down on them). This may
just make them, or select them as, morlocks.
Marcus
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