Le monde du vieux bandit

I love it when people take a radical stand against what seems to be common sense. I love it that Peter McWilliams, while alive, had all his books online for anyone to download or read, simply because his books are meant for everyone and can help millions. I love that genius architect Avi Friedman doesn’t keep track of who builds smart houses following his designs, simply because his homes are good and should be available to thousands. So I really enjoyed finding out about Hasan Elahi, who reacted to the United-Statian authorities putting him on one of their many blacklists by putting his entire life online. Hey, FBI, want to know exactly where I am? Look at my site. Hey, CIA, want to know what I had for lunch and where? Ha.

“I’ve discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away,” he says, grinning as he sips his venti Black Eye. Elahi relishes upending the received wisdom about surveillance. The government monitors your movements, but it gets things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately. Plus, no ambitious agent is going to score a big intelligence triumph by snooping into your movements when there’s a Web page broadcasting the Big Mac you ate four minutes ago in Boise, Idaho. “It’s economics,” he says. “I flood the market.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 3:49 pm and is filed under humanit(é)y, * in english, news. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.