Economist goes futurist?

The Economist is running a survey/series of articles on the Internet Society, starting with Digital dilemmas:

Despite the dotcom boom and bust, the computer and telecommunications revolution has barely begun. Over the next few decades, the internet and related technologies really will profoundly transform society, argues David Manasian

... The taste for hyperbole of Mr Barlow, Mr Lessig and their sort may be easy to mock, but they are right in their fundamental claim: the internet and its related technologies are capable of transforming society. Far from being over, the computer and telecoms revolution that created the internet has barely begun. These technologies will change almost every aspect of our lives—private, social, cultural, economic and political. In some areas, the changes may be marginal, but in most they will be profound, and unprecedented.

Other articles in the survey include: No hiding place; Only disconnect; A fine balance; Power to the people; Caught in the net; Through a glass darkly. Worth a look.

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  RSS feeds now up! The Controlling Content and Controlling Networks blogs now have RSS feeds: http://manymedia.com/blog/content_rss.xml and http://manymedia.com/blog/networks_rss.xml  ¶ 7:18 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Content and Networks News Hillary Rosen to ISPs: pay up! Microsoft to Hollywood: we got you covered. SBC to states: chose us, or else. This and more in Controlling Content and Controlling Networks blogs.  ¶ 10:10 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  something completely different The future is uncertain. A useful tool for looking into the uncertainty is a set of scenarios. Good scenarios explore the extremes of what is likely or possible (but they don't forecast the future). This blog project uses four scenarios to explore the future of the Internet and communication as we have come to know it.

To start, I define two significant market and political forces that affect the Internet and shape my four scenarios: intellectual property laws and common carrier laws. Tying intellectual property laws to availability of content, and common carrier laws to the proprietary nature and uses of the network, these forces become axes that define four possible worlds:

• Many Walled Gardens: highly competitive, open content but a proprietary and restrictive network,
• Just Route the Bits: open and available content on an open and accessible networks,
• You Will: monopolistic, restricted content on proprietary, restrictive network, and
• The 10,000 Mickeys: monopolistic, restricted content on open and accessible networks.

These four scenarios help me understand where development of our telecommunications future is headed. I made blog for each axis (content and networks) so I can add news about forces that affect these scenarios. I also invite you to participate in the discussion on my related wiki.  ¶ 6:05 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  speaking of fish in a barrel In these days of lower threshold of scrutiny on law enforcement activities and increased concern for terrorist potential, it's way too easy for me to find incidents of airport search injustices and police shooting the family dog. I'm rearranging here and it'll take me a day or so. The whole digital identity conversation is part of a much bigger picture that I want to explore: controlled or open networks, and controlled or available content, and how those two axes might intersect. You can see one version of a recent paper I did on this topic using scenarios. More to come once I get my seat rearranged.  ¶ 5:28 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Talking trash Portland's cops used the trash of one of their officers to make a case against her. These days, that's ok in most states. It didn't sit well with a few investigative journalists at Willamette Week. This story isn't all that new, but it is revealing what you can learn from someone's trash. Now this kind of stuff is part of a personal identity!  ¶ 9:35 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Eye scans for school lunches A school in England is going to use eye scans of students to figure out which are supposed to pay for their lunches. Seems the poor students who get free lunches are being stigmatized. The article doesn't mention that the database of eye scans will become part of the students' permanent records which follows them for the rest of their lives.

Names, fingerprints, eye scans... many people will know exactly who we are.  ¶ 6:20 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Testing for public drunkeness (in bars!) Bar owners are now being subject to stings by Virginia police looking for signs of public drunkeness. They're hauling customers who fail the breathalizer test off to jail.

Police have access to a fabulous FBI database in Virginia. Surveillance and the police state tighten.

Later: my friend Audrie asked why the police aren't out catching murderers. I answered that it's easier to shoot fish in a barrel. heh.  ¶ 8:22 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Me, in the world What would it be like to live in a society where the only freedom I have is defined by the digital identity that the government or its corporate representatives assigned to me? Something like a caste system? or wierder? How?  ¶ 7:44 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Digital identities take many forms Do I think for one moment that the DNA identities of 50-100 people won't be included in a database? A news bit, Serial killer probe goes door to door, states:

Investigators also will knock on the doors of homes and businesses in Lafayette and St. Landry parishes to gather information that they hope will help them catch the man responsible for the deaths of four women. ...

The people who refuse to have their DNA tested will be forced to submit by a court order, the sheriff said.

Lemme see... 100 people, one probably guilty, 99% of the innocent people (suspects) searched are unnecessarily added to a police database with personal detail. Feels a bit like the "security" at the airport these days.   ¶ 6:45 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Why (Marketing) Databases are Evil As networks become more restricted and tightly controlled, and as content is more restricted and tightly controlled, we have less freedom to express our wishes and desires and the databases are used more pervasively to tell us who we are and what we want.

Declan imagines where the government could take this idea in his article George Orwell, here we come.

For a hint at what the future might bring, it's worth reviewing some of the projects already under way at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is the parent agency for Poindexter's Information Awareness Office. Combine that information with the technology trends toward smaller sensors, cheaper hardware and ubiquitous wireless networks, and the possibilities are immensely disquieting. We could face the emergence of unblinking electronic eyes that record where we are and what we do, whenever we interact.

Reminds me of Vonnegut's ballerinas who had to wear weights when they danced, so that they would not be any more graceful than anyone else.  ¶ 7:14 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Why Marketing Databases are Worthless All the time and money spent compiling our habits, purchases, preferences and desires into vast databases is a picture of a moment in time. We change over time, and while perhaps our change is less measurable than we think it is, the moment in time–who we are–changes. When we are ready to buy a car, for instance, we want all the info we can get our hands on. Then we buy it and we're done. (Why 5-6 car or truck commercials per TV show? Didn't we get the message the first time through? Under current income situations, I doubt many of us can afford to go right out, after watching a dozen Ford Truck commercials, and buy one if we aren't in some need of one.)

Except for food and toilet paper, what do we "need" every day that requires commercial influence? Will marketing databases inform us? Educate us? Make us more self-realized human beings? Give us a higher purpose? No, commercialism isn't about human betterment except as consumers. The databases help marketers develop our "needs." They tell us who we were, not who we are or who we might become (unless we want to become the sheepish consumers that I fear many of us already are). The marketing databases are about the past.  ¶ 6:18 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Is it an extension of my digital identity or a reputation monkeywrench when I create an agent to act on my behalf?  ¶ 9:47 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Categories What reputational behaviors categorize a silly idealist like me? Instead of going to everybody else's servers to subscribe and unsubscribe to newsletters and updates, why can't I maintain a database of my own, on my server, that takes care of updates? Some kind of interface with all the other servers, like a Personality Interface where I can check and uncheck my interests and agreements. Stupid network, smart controls at the edge.

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  Merchants of Vengeance I suspect one reason that people don't like advertising (spam, billboards, commercials, etc.) is that it's obstructive and irrelevant. Catalogs and mass mailings get, what? a 2-3% return? How many people that receive this stuff actually buy? My mailbox fills up with recycling material every day, which keeps the trash guys busy every week. I don't even look at most of it. I don't shop at the stores that send this shit (unless I asked for it, or I absolutely have to).

Now I ask: how is it that the marketing/PR industry–those that spend so much to know all there is to know about us, paying large sums to develop databases full of our habits and preferences, our reputations and digital personas; those who would claim ownership over these databases, and who pay more large sums to lobby on the behalf of their database ownership–how is it that they know and care so little about us?

What do they think they own, anyway? Why don't they get their shit together and build an online place (or set of places) where we can find ads when we want them? Where do I go if I want to buy a widget? About a dozen online shopping comparison sites, each one offering different results... Their work serves them poorly. The industry's own reputation needs attention.

Heh. Imagine if spammers were compelled to do the right thing before sending?  ¶ 5:47 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  A matter of some agency Is it an extension of my digital identity or a monkeywrench to my reputation if I create an agent to act on my behalf?

What's the significance of an identity if your reputation rules your world? and what if your reputation doesn't match your identity very well?

I was working for a while with a person who did not have or want Internet access. However, she wanted the convenience of it through someone else. I ordered all kinds of things, delivered to my address, that don't have anything to do with my identity. Amazon had some thoughts on my ordering habits and made recommendations accordingly. I still get catalogs and newsletters on her behalf, even tho' I've "unsubscribed" from those merchants.

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  Something about me There are a few folks (Doc, Mitch, Eric N, with several others; one place to start is Doc's) carrying on about identity, mostly of the digital variety. Identity, it was reported, falls into three "tiers:" assumed/personal, assigned/commercial, and abstracted/aggregate/marketing.

I see, but I don't agree. Identity is different from reputation: reputation is outside looking in, identity is inside looking out. The second and third tiers are really reputations of a commercial sort. The second tier, assigned, arises as a result of an agreement between two entities (e.g., a person and a store). The third tier, abstracted, is a generalized, functional sort relative to aspects that the owner/utilizer group wants to see. We don't get to "own" our personas in either tier; rather we make an agreement by use of services or goods (like shopping carts &/or or credit cards) to be represented, abstracted, and relationalized.

Calling them digital identities is a bit of a misnomer. More truly we are creating digital reputations, for our identity may or may not align, and in fact our personal identity may not even be the only one adding to our digital reputation. (What happens when our "digital ID" is stolen?)

Ok then. My identity has several parts (as I see it): I am not happy about our current politics, I hate commercials (why do advertisers treat me as if I were Stooopid?), I've been poor too long. I have no respect for liers, personal or corporate. I still don't know what fires my soul. I want to donate my organs when I die. Exactly how many of these bits do I think are appropriately represented by my corporate reputations? Zero. They can't even categorize the stores I shop in properly. But that goes to my reputation.  ¶ 7:49 PM 0 Comments Links to this post