Technology moves faster and more efficiently than law or politics.

BBC reported today (hat tip to Techmeme) that the world’s market leader in internet browsing software, Microsoft, will integrate more sophisticated privacy features into IE8.  This is on the heels of other browsers seeking Microsoft’s market share in part by offering better privacy features–Safari already offers this kind of protection, and Firefox soon will officially (but probably already does unofficially through one or more user-created add-ons).

You can already search and browse the Internet almost totally anonymously, so circumstances where legislation is necessary to protect user privacy should be pretty limited.  Gmail’s privacy filters (and those of its competitors) do ever-better jobs of protecting consumers from spam and phishing atatcks.

You do eventually get to a place where the free market bumps up against privacy–how web sites handle data you enter.  Should a web site have the legal right to sell data you provide?

Tough one.  On the one hand, the FCC has stated that if a web site provides a privacy policy that they have to comply with it (presumably the one in place when you entered your information . . . you saved a copy of that, right?).  So you certainly have the right to review a site’s privacy policy before entering your information and submitting it.  Sites do not have to have a privacy policy–should the law fill one in with default terms regarding the handling of data if one is not provided?  The law already fills terms into contracts that are silent on certain points.  And it isn’t as if sites like Facebook or Amazon.com are so important that they represent an essential public service that must be provided to everyone under privacy terms explicitly set by the government.  More than that, if sites are generating revenue through some limited data selling, prices will increase for consumers if that revenue stream is cut off.

On the other hand, who is actually going to sue based on the FCC’s statements, and how easy is it going to be to prove that one particular web site violated a user’s privacy?  Is it really fair to put such an onus on the average consumer to protect his/her personally identifying information and online activity?

I work in the software industry for a vendor whose software may handle credit card transactions and other types of sensitive data.  While some people may decry large corporations (I have my own conceptual issues with the legally-created fiction that is the corporate entity), it is those large corporations that have the leverage to push out non-legislative initiatives like the Payment Card Industry Data Standards.  It’s not going to protect the pictures you put up on Facebook, but it is a system designed to integrate safeguards regarding the handling of transactional information.

I’d like to see legislators take a light, measured touch in these areas.  Technology, and the market, is going to move faster than legislature, so look for those areas where the market is making adjustments, and seek to only provide a net underneath that, ideally, will be rarely, if ever, necessary.

A cautuonary tale for bloggers and anyone who uses the internet regarding identity theft.

How I Stole Someone’s Identity.

I have a Facebook account. I have a private, password-protected family blog. But this guy, really, barely put any work in and he accessed (with permission) a friend’s bank account just based on information publicly available on the web. Quite scary, given the tools that technological and social hackers have available to them!

Definitely a cautionary tale.

But there is a lot of information out there you give out that you no longer have control over. How do you know that the personal data you enter into web sites is being held securely? Think about how many times you use the same or similar password reset questions. One breach, and someone may be able to access a variety of your online accounts.

Working in the business software industry, I can tell you that major businesses and retailers are very concerned about your privacy and the protection of your data–thefts of large amounts of personal information and data over the past few years, exposing big businesses to major liability, have gotten just about everyone’s attention. PCI Data Standards are becoming a big deal. But the smaller players often can’t afford the best protections, so be cautious!

One of the earliest stories that made my question my religion.

When I was young, I was a voracious reader. Particularly science fiction and fantasy, but pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I read the Dragonlance Trilogy . . . the whole thing . . . on the way to Florida in the car. I loved the Thomas Covenant series, among others. But science fiction writers really just took a blender to my imagination. I read Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov, and I loved in particular anthologies and collections of short stories. The medium of the short story, and the skill of particularly adept authors–to take a single idea and turn it into a powerful communication of that single idea within just a few pages–always amazed me.

Asimov was by far my favorite science fiction short story author. I have a tattered old copy of a collection of his short stories in my basement that is practically falling apart from use. In that specific and particular book is my favorite short story of all time, The Last Question. It challenged my preconceptions of religion, about what could be. And it does it in a way that is framed, in retrospect, subtly against the backdrop of everything you learn growing up. That is, in part, the genius of it, its introduction of minute dischord. Make it too foreign to your culture, to your frame of reference, and an idea will slide off like water off the back of a duck.

So many things, as we age, turn out to be not as good as we remember them. This short story has always to me bucked that trend. It could be because of the personal value I attach to it, but I read it today and the last lines still make my arm hairs raise on end.

So, if you have the opportunity, I recommend taking a quick read of The Last Question. I am not naive enough to think that it will in any way change the perspective of an adult, entrenched in their thinking–either it will be preaching to the choir, or beating on the brick wall–but you may just enjoy it for what it is, a short story of excellent quality by one of the best writers of the 21st century.

Technology is evolving in new and awesome ways. The free market will keep up, but will we allow it?

Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games.

I really like the technology industry. It is still in America among the freest of markets, and the breathtaking advances that seem to move ever-faster I believe are a direct result.

So far even the most professional, most expensive computer animation has come up short. But the pace of progress has been increasing, and this video is the best I’ve seen. There are still minor things that would tip someone off that this is a CGI job, but still, just excellent! If AMD isn’t blowing smoke about the capabilities of its current high-end card, the 4870 X2, being able to work with not just video playback but actualy polygon and image processing and manipulation . . . we’re talking about consumer cards here, not professional video cards costing thousands of dollars!

And while the headline talks about games, think about the wide-ranging ramifications once technology like this, and better, becomes widely available. When you can create a virtual persona that is indistinguishable from a real person. It will change everything about media content, about what is possible. I just can’t stress enough how this will change media. It will be a leap forward of an order of not just kind, but an exponential magnitude. I know this pales in comparison, but if you have a chance to peruse even fan sites of content created from last-generation graphic engines . . . there is good, funny, free stuff out there even now (Red vs Blue . . . Halo humor). People with the skill to take these technologies and run.

The law will struggle and strain to adjust and compensate for the new types of issues this kind of technology will raise, and politicians . . . will they be able to help themselves or will the upcoming years be rife with new laws intended to regulate these new technologies?

I personally don’t think it will be necessary. Existing laws regarding misappropriation of someone’s image, or fraudulently misrepresenting the opinion of others, and identity theft laws (which will be entering their maturity), will do the brunt of the work. I would hate to see technology like this trigger the equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley in the animation development sector–an overbearing morass of regulations that don’t really address the problems they were purported to be passed for, and push businesses overseas. You might see the laws do more to protect the average person, but again hopefully it is more a natural extension of existing laws and less a series of new, over-arching regulation.

It is a truly exciting time to be following technology. Keep your hands off, Washington!!