{"id":6876,"date":"2016-04-01T08:41:38","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T14:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=6876"},"modified":"2016-04-02T05:42:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T11:42:57","slug":"the-internet-of-watchful-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=6876","title":{"rendered":"The internet of watchful things"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"marble\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, as the commercial internet took form, the web’s default setting was switched to “surveillance” when it might have been switched to “privacy.” As is often the case with defaults, no one much noticed at the time. Today, with the Silicon Valley surveillance complex set to expand further\u00a0through\u00a0the Internet of Things, we have another opportunity\u00a0to think carefully about digital surveillance and its\u00a0consequences for how we live. That opportunity, as I argue in a Los Angeles Times<\/em> op-ed<\/a>, probably\u00a0won’t be open for long. A new default setting is about to be established.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans live their lives on their phones now.\u201d So wrote 15 prominent technology companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Snapchat, in a legal brief<\/a> supporting Apple in its now-moot fight with the Justice Department over unlocking the San Bernardino killer\u2019s iPhone. Our phones have become \u201can extension of our memories,\u201d the companies argued, and \u201cto access someone\u2019s cellphone is to access their innermost thoughts and their most private affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the companies are right, their earnest defense of privacy is deeply ironic, if not hypocritical. They are, after all, in the business of surveillance. They collect personal data on a scale that would make most law enforcement agencies blush. The very existence of firms like Google and Facebook hinges on their ability to monitor our innermost thoughts and our most intimate affairs, to tap into our digital memory pretty much continuously. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read on<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image: JLS Photography<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty years ago, as the commercial internet took form, the web’s default setting was switched to “surveillance” when it might have been switched to “privacy.” As is often the case with defaults, no one much noticed at the time. Today, with the Silicon Valley surveillance complex set to expand further\u00a0through\u00a0the Internet of Things, we have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6876"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6885,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions\/6885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}