of DRM and Privacy as dead media

Idealistic Content Warning:this post contains considerations based on personal ideals and tenets.

This morning a couple of titles in Boing Boing caught my eye:
. London’s panopticon of CCTVs aren’t solving crimes
. DRM violates Canadian privacy law

Mixed feelings. On one side I’m happy to see an evidence that intrusion in people’s privacy is not helping to fight crime, and is thus useless from that perspective (meaning the Eye will need to come up with a different excuse), on the other hand I’m not impressed at all by seeing reported as “news” a sideways attack to DRM.
DRM (well, not only digital, let’s say RM) is wrong. Fullstop. No need to hide behind the rotten corpse of privacy.

Besides, let’s admit it: the whole concept of privacy just jumped the shark. It’s the fruit of a dystopian culture based on secrets, harass, blame and deceit; we should aim at composting it, and ultimately It should be seen, at the very best, as a necessary evil, not as a coveted holy grail.

That said, I was very happy to read the headlines above: and many many kudos go to the University of Ottawa. Well done guys!!!

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  • http://im.digitalhymn.com Folletto Malefico

    As I might already have said in another place, privacy and distrust are two intertwined concepts.

    Raise trust between people, and acceptance of differences, and you don’t need privacy. And the other way round.

    I can see quite clearly how some matters protected by my own privacy could be used against me if I’ll open them to the public. So, I think that trust is the main requirement.

    Knowledge is power, if some wants maliciously attack me, it will be easier if he/she knows me. On the other way, if I’ve everything public, I should be able to parry those attacks effectively.

    I don’t know, in the end. While I completely agree on the abolition of privacy, I can’t see how it could be done entirely…

  • http://chaosncoffee.com bru

    Folletto: of course we’re in the realm of Utopia here… but if you want to speculate a bit about it, well I think the ultimate conditio sine qua non are two: the renunciation of deceit (if I’ve nothing to hide I’m virtually unattackable) and trust in the fact that self-preservation is not at risk.
    And if you think a bit more about it… also in the light of the singularity conversation, self-preservation doesn’t necessarily mean “physical” health.