The linked article was written based upon the statement that in the next several years, companies and governments are going to effectively lose the ability to hide information from their competitors. I am not going to pretend to be able to tell you if the CIA Speaker's statement is accurate or not. What he says and the subsequent article do however bring up some interesting thoughts with regards to how we deal with privacy- politically, professionally, and even personally.
Businesses, governments, and people have overal reacted just as Spaulding mentioned when it comes to the internet and privacy. Most pile on more and more security measures and pray that the walls are high enough to keep out prying eyes. The problem with this mentality is that the walls are never truly tall enough. The secrets never safe enough. Partially this is because those who are looking for information have better and better methods of finding information. Partially this is because we open our gates every so often to take advantage of some of the info that is waiting for us outside our fortresses.
With these major disadvantages, in order to keep hidden, we must wage a constant war, never relenting without risk of failure. The idea that Spaulding brings up about adapting to a more transparent world, seems to be far more beneficial, a lot less time consuming, and a lot more freeing.
Knowledge is power. Sharing knowledge is the surest way to gain it. The truth is better than a lie. Three simple statements that basically explain the foundation of my beliefs in this area. I choose not to live in a world cut off from information. I think that the more we have access to the better things are; the more problems we can solve, and the more connected world we can live in. The universities that share information amongst themselves as they work on advancing human knowledge almost always come far ahead of those who only fly solo. The countries that have often hidden their darkest problems have faced the worst horrors when those skeletons break free and overwhelm them.
Much of this was mentioned by Spaulding, and I don't want to rehash her arguments. What she barely touched on however, was how this applies to us as individuals. More and more people are using the internet in "personalized" ways. We can now click "like" on nearly any website, and let our friends know that we think something is worthwhile. The same action also allows the same sites to guess at what else we might be interested in. This "guessing" technology is becoming smarter and smarter every day. Most of us like the advantages of this technology. That's why we use it. Some are concerned about what this means for our privacy. I think the reasons for their fears are obvious, but to all of them I say, "So what?"
So what can we do? How do we protect ourselves? Should we micromanage our internet settings? Get bigger firewalls? Boycott sites with weak privacy policies? No. In a phrase, Get over it. Rather than try and run from the information that we have begun to have out there, we should embrace it. Doing so would indeed require a shift in the way we think. It would require us to be less scared on one end and more accepting on others.
Don't think that I am ignoring risks when I say this. We do need to make sure that we protect ourselves where we can. We need to make sure that our identities can't be stolen, and that people can't take what is rightfully ours. The way to do this, like everything else, is not to hide deeper and deeper, but rather to pay attention to what is ours and to make sure that we are cognizant enough to see a problem before it gets too big to handle.
If you become more aware so you can protect yourself, you can step out into a more open and informative world. See more of the people around you, and share more of yourselves with them.
Am I saying that you shouldn't care if your boss sees a picture of you drinking like a madman last Friday night? Yep. Frankly, you weren't concerned about your privacy when you dumped pitchers of beer over your head out in a public bar. Why the worry later?
I think that Americans more than most societies love to hide things, and then pretend that we don't. We don't want to seem Puritanical, and yet we are scared to talk to our kids about sex. What happens with that brilliant plan? Kids end up having sex anyway, normally in a less safe way than if they had just been accustomed to it as an idea. The same is seen in countries that are open about drinking, sexuality, etc. We hide and hide and hide, and then wonder why it suddenly blows up in our face. Humans are meant to be open creatures. We are meant to relate to one another and to share with one another. The people with the biggest problems in life are often those that have those issues because they hid something far smaller.
If we can learn as a society to be more open, we force ourselves to be more accepting as well. If you can see my skeletons, how can I judge yours? Yes, the internet can show us at our worst. Often it does. The thing to realize is that it can also show us at our best. The more we hide, the easier it is for the scary things to make a big splash when they leak out. By being open, we can see that the scary parts of our life are really a small part of the whole, and when related to the world, far more manageable than they seem while hiding in a dark corner.
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