Schneier on Security

rgaff • May 2, 2015 7:01 PM

Several years ago, I was at a technology-related trade show, where a little robot came up to me and started talking to me… during the conversation, it shared details about me that seemed a little surprising… I indicated that it (or more precisely, whoever’s controlling it) must have learned it all on the internet… The robot seemed to think that was funny and continued on down the aisle to talk to some of the other people.

Afterward, I learned that the guy who was controlling it was off on the side, and expertly looked away any time I looked in his general direction, so I wouldn’t notice him. And that he was talking to my companions over there, getting those details from them, not the internet. They all thought it was quite funny, of course 😉

It’s all gotten much much worse since then. The most intimate details of everyone’s life are everywhere. This was the expected outcome of the “information age” really.

What was NOT expected, was in a so-called “free country” for general LAW ENFORCEMENT to be hoovering it all up and trying to apply algorithms to me to see how likely I am to commit each crime in existence. Data (and metadata, which is simply data about data) can appear to say all kinds of things when seen without context, or when seen with an agenda. It does not tell the whole story. And so now everyone is very much more at risk of being imprisoned at any time, and this is why freedom is lost with mass surveillance.