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Perspectives

These weB Log entries are the net result of the network thoughts out of the advocacy.

Pendulum

A pendulum swings in our society. When a pendulum reaches it's furthest point of equilibrium, one of two things happens. Either the pendulum pauses, reverses direction and swings back - or in the case of a poorly built structure, the pendulum pulls the entire mechanism off balance and everything comes tumbling down.

Today we are approaching that furthest point of the pendulum swing in our society. There are symptoms, like extraordinary political discontent and increased random violence, and there are causes, like the degradation of trust and respect.
Our technology is now inextricably intertwined with our social conduct.
The problem with causes is that they can be a tangled web of catch 22's layered in contributing factors. The root cause is seldom obvious and is often never fully discovered.


What then does all this have to do with technology? Our technology is now inextricably intertwined with our social conduct. It is in fact an aspect of every part of our lives. The Internet is firmly at the apex of our technological state, an apex that is a contributing factor to the social symptoms we see developing in our societal pendulum quickly coming to it's furthest point from equilibrium.

It is often observed that any technology can be used for "good or evil." I see it more as technology being used to bring equilibrium, or to promote pendulum swing.

In a well built structure the pendulum, and the forces that move it, are understood. Its motion can even be harnessed beneficially.
Knowledge without action is pointless, action without knowledge is dangerous.
The Internet is a powerful force driving our societal directions today and the vast majority of those making use of this technology have no understanding for how it works, the risks of its use, or how it impacts their lives... let alone our society as a whole.


When a force as powerful as the Internet is allowed to be used devoid of the understanding necessary to control it, the result can be no different than the disastrous effects of water allowed to flow without boundaries. There is little so beneficial to our lives as water, but managed naively, there is also very little that can be as destructive.

Root cause of the forces driving our societal pendulum out of equilibrium may be complex and often unidentifiable, but the requirements of harnessing the pendulum and averting disaster are a simple two component mix. The first component is knowledge. Life can be a room full of sharp objects, stop fumbling in the dark. Learn the basics of the technology we are wielding and it's impacts. The second is action. One must take action with the knowledge they possess or they may as well not have the knowledge at all.

Knowledge without action is pointless, action without knowledge is dangerous.

Protect yourself and those you care about. Learn the realities of the Internet and do something positive with that knowledge. Today, inaction toward protection is in reality action toward peril.

Journey on...
Steve

How Does That Feel?

Today I am typing this weBLog entry from the office of a man that knows very little about me. I am here with valuables of many forms, from a beautiful watch collection stored out in the open to generally important papers carefully stacked in sight so as to not be forgotten. This is not a careless man, yet he trusts me to be alone in this epicenter of his life. It feels good.

This is not a careless man, yet he trusts me to be alone in this epicenter of his life.
While on this trip our neighbor is watching our cats, Ami and Aleatto. Everything we own is at her disposal. We are so comfortable with this woman we never even thought to lock the file cabinets. She's not family, she's not even an old friend of years gone by, but she is a friend; and we trust her. That feels good. My brother has always kept himself on the public social repositories like facebook and Skype. I love my brother and I trust him completely. It saddened me I could not be open with him knowing the gossipers in the middle were listening. I on occasion shared info by means I shouldn't, even with all I know about what will happen with the information I've sent off, because I needed to reach him and it needed to be said. I feel vulnerable, invaded when doing it.
It saddened me I could not be open with him knowing the gossipers in the middle were listening.
A good time with my brother tainted with a thread of uneasiness, like knowing there is a worm hole through a delicious apple being eaten. Last evening my brother joined my RetroShare private network. Now, when we exchange information there is no sense of someone looking over our shoulders. It is a liberating feeling.

If you're using a public social repository like facebook, Google, Skype, Pinterest, SnapChat, Instagram, and many other peddlers of information that is not their own, your every communication, your every paragraph, sentence and word is being analyzed to profile you, your life and your relationships. Your data in those public repositories is being used to profile your friends, and theirs you, all by people you don't know, certainly don't trust, and then used in ways you know even less. How does that make you feel?
Me, I am trusted, trust others and can communicate freely about it on-line with those I care about privately, outside the central repositories. Yeah, that feels good. The great thing is... you can too.

Journey on...
Steve

You Are The Company You keep

It has been said, for a very long time, that one should choose their friends wisely. There are a whole lot of reasons why this would be true. Not only do those with whom we surround ourselves shape our own perspectives, they shape the perceptions of others about us. This latter observation has never been more true than it is today.

Choose your friends wisely, they will make or break you.
-- J Willard Marriott
We judge one another in many ways, using many different criteria. This is a fluid process that takes place as we take in a continuous information stream during our interactions with one another. We are also judged by the company we keep on the Internet. Algorhythms are out there that examine and measure not only the quality of your character, but also the level of influence you have over others. There is a company called "Klout" that will even compute your influence value for you (and others) to see. You just know that if there is one company doing this that there are others computing this same thing using their own algorhythms. This derived value is then used to determine your worthiness to receive deals and discounts. The more influential you are the more likely someone will cut you a deal. Not so influential — not so likely to get a deal. I can't really remember anyone ever thinking that making the proverbial "popularity contest" a literal and measured way of life would be a good idea. Personally, I still don't think it is a good idea.
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
Use of the Internet is effectively an act of communication. When you are out browsing, your gathering information communicated to you at your request. When you send an email you are initiating an outbound communication to be received by somebody of your choosing. The transport mechanism is rarely, if ever, intended to be a particpant in the communication and should therefore rarely, if ever, be privy to the contents of the message passed. But for the sake of argument, lets say the messenger is a welcomed part of the conversation. We've made a friend out of the messenger.

It isn't an ideological extreme to suggest that what is said amongst friends should stay between friends. There is precedent in everyone's life for confidentiality to simply be an inherent expectation. Every one of us says things to someone else we expect will be held in confidence. This is such a universal and fundamentally basic expectation we only specify something should be held in confidence in the most extreme of circumstances, it is otherwise just a reasonable expectation taken for granted. So, is your friend the messenger upholding their end of the bargain. Is your email host scanning (reading) your email without asking? Are they holding the information they garner in strict confidence or do they alter it, pass it on and then subsequently tell you what is reasonable for you to expect of them? Read their privacy policy and find out, or consult with someone who knows factually of their practices and then form your own opinion. Now consider that the messenger is not your friend and only the courier, how much more do you feel they should be restricted?

How about the participant on the other end of the conversation? Is that web site you're reading treating you're conversation with the respect it deserves, or are they sharing the fact you're visiting them, and what your doing, with others without your knowledge? Install Abine's DoNotTrackMe, or the Evidon company's Ghostery software that shows all the third parties being brought into the conversation without asking you.
The one who is talking to you about me today is likely to talk to others about you tomorrow. Choose your friends wisely.
— Unknown
Do you know those people? How many other's are they passing your information to? There's a number of your own you can use to judge these companies in this count of third parties being told about your visit. Just as we are all judged online by corporate algorhythms measuring everything from our character to our popularity based on what we say and who we say it to, so also should we be judging them, not out of vengence, but rather as a simple act of common sense.

The Internet is an ethereal extension of our real world. It is a place we visit. It is a place we converse and share information. The word "share" is actually so ubiquitous on-line it has been diluted to be detached from having any real interpersonal connection to essentially being the passing of something between two parties. One must wonder in this day and age if we don't actually interact more on-line than we do in person anymore. With this in mind, is it not reasonable to expect the same conversational respect we used to share in person? Isn't it reasonable to expect our lives don't just become one big popularity contest?

Keeping Your Cool On

I learned about a great product awhile back. Keep in mind I do appreciate a good innovative technology as much as the next guy, but I've fairly well gotten through the phase of my life where I appreciate it much more than the next guy. Technology to me has become little more than a tool in my life to help me accomplish my goals. I don't upgrade my socket wrench set every year because of improvements in wrench color, metal or some other superficial enhancement, but I will upgrade if some standard in bolts changes that the sockets are no longer applicable. That's kinda how I see the electronics side of technology anymore as well. So for me to get wide-eyed about some new drop in the ocean of electronics that permeats our lives says something.

This product though, really did get my attention. What was this unique standout marvel? A thermostat for the house by a company called "Nest." Not only does it learn how homeowners like the temperature in the house by monitoring our usage patterns and allow us to operate it from anywhere in the world, it looks great with it's minimilist round styling and digital readout at the center of the device. The remote operation thing is really a nice feature for folks with a vacation home. It enables them to set the temperature at one level while away and kick it to another level when they are on the road a couple hours out, so the destination residence is all comfy when they get there. Unfortunately, this is not yet Bonnie and I's scenario.

Having been enamored in the store I looked deeper into how the device works. I was especially intrigued about the remote access capabilities. Certainly a great feature, but just how do they do that?
After looking around awhile it became apparent that "how they do that" is by funneling everything about customer energy use, including a great deal about the customer, through their "cloud" servers. Well, that was a deal breaker. Then as I learned more I decided I wouldn't use one of these devices if it paid the utilities bills for me.

I took a look at the privacy policy. After bold clear statements about protecting my "Personal Information" are details of what they collect that they don't consider personal information:

  • Information input during setup:When you install the Nest Learning Thermostat, you’ll be asked several questions about your schedule to help create an initial program of temperature settings. For example, we’ll ask questions like, “Is Nest located in a home or business?”. We’ll also ask for your postal or zip code so that Nest can retrieve weather information for your neighborhood. In addition, Nest pulls information directly from your heating and cooling (HVAC) system to learn its capabilities – such as if it has heating and cooling or is a heating-only system. Answering these questions helps us to set up an initial program that will keep you comfortable.
  • Technical information from the device:In order to improve your experience over time and help troubleshoot any problem you may encounter with Nest, we record your Nest model and serial number, software version, and technical information such as battery charge level.
  • Heating and cooling usage information:Every time your system turns on and off, Nest records the time and duration during which it was on in order to offer you features such as usage history.
  • Environmental data from Nest’s sensors:We collect data from several sensors built into the Nest Learning Thermostat. These sensors collect data such as current temperature, humidity and ambient light in the room. They can also sense whether something in the room is moving. By recording this information, the Nest Learning Thermostat can make you comfortable when you are at home and save energy when you are away. For example, if Nest senses a light being switched on or that you’ve entered the room after an extended period of time, it can adjust the setting to a preferred temperature, based on an assumption that you’ve just woken up or returned home. Similarly, if the light goes off or no one is moving in the room, Nest may turn the temperature down sometimes to save you energy.
  • Direct temperature adjustments to the device:If you change the temperature on Nest, it records and feeds that information to the Nest algorithms to learn your desired comfort level under different situations.
So, here we are. The pendulum has swung. We have gone from a society prizing our privacy for our understanding the competitive nature of the world, an understanding that trust must come before sharing, to the point where our every action, including our home comfort practices, and even what room we're in, is becoming public knowledge. This has of course become a big deal. Other companies like Honeywell and Lennox are jumping on this bandwagon to provide you the "free" service of monitoring the internal operations of your home.
We collect data from several sensors built into the Nest Learning Thermostat. These sensors collect data such as current temperature, humidity and ambient light in the room. They can also sense whether something in the room is moving. --Nest Privacy Policy
"Free" has to be paid for somehow and the initial, one time, 250 bucks paid for the device isn't going to cover the ongoing costs of maintaining millions of dollars of equipment to provide the service for decades. At least the Nest privacy policy is up front about what they are collecting and that they are "sharing" the info. The Lennox privacy policy and Honeywell privacy policy scarcely even mention these topics.

It doesn't have to be this way. These companies need huge computers and massive amounts of storage only because they are servicing thousands, even millions of people from a central location. It is just as viable for the server software providing the service to these devices to be installed on a home computer servicing only one household so that all the data remains within the home. The one-time monies paid for the device would then cover the cost of the software and there would be no ongoing costs of maintaining computers to provide these services from a central point requiring an indirect source of income for ongoing maintenance.

There are those that would say our infrastructure can't support that model, that the technology is too complex to put in the home and needs to stay centralized. To these folks I say that the infrastructure for what they are doing now didn't exist just a few years ago, and that if a simple device with just a little spin dial to operate it can be made to set a continuously comfortable temperature with a half degree precision by correlating usage patterns with the weather forecast and whether or not someone is even in the room, tweaking the current infrastructure should be a piece of cake.

Journey on...
Steve

Impulses Nurtured

Today I got a letter from AT&T telling me about two great ways they plan selling off access to my information for my benefit. No worries, they're going to aggregate the data so no personal information will be revealed. What a load of crap.

Method 1 of "enriching my customer experience." (paraphrased)
AT&T wants to pass "things like wireless location information, U-Verse information and website browsing or mobile application usage" and other non-specific information like "age" and "gender" (not paraphrased) to businesses. In a nutshell, they want to create another revenue stream not only selling off my demographic information, but also where that demographic is and what it is doing at any given time. All in the interest of serving me better. Greed and utter disrespect for me as a customer have nothing to do with this program. Yeah, sure.

Method 2 of "delivering me more useful information" (paraphrased)
AT&T is "creating a new 'wireless location characteristic' that will help us use local geography as a factor in delivering ads." (not paraphrased) In other words, they want to send location specific advertising.

Put these two programs together and what you have is a situation where our mobile devices will be broadcasting to the businesses continuously things like "single white male in medium income bracket that reads the CNN news site, spends freely, has liberal views and gay tendencies" to business's computers so they can quickly select, even create, an ad to send to our phone with the greatest possibility of drawing your profile in. BUT... you're supposed to take solace that nobody ever mentioned your name, address or social security number.

This in effect turns the entire world into an impulse buy generating grocery store end cap. You know, those stands at the checkout register and the ends of the store aisles that have those impulse buy baiting goodies you may or may not grab "just for the heck of it." Even if you're one of those folks that says, "I never buy that stuff on impulse," you have to admit, fighting temptation is exhausting work. I'm pretty good at it, but really I don't want to deal with fighting some temptation finely crafted to provoke the weaknesses of my personality type with every step I take.


If you're an AT&T customer and you don't want to deal with it either, I would recommend using these two links from your mobile device(s).


How do I know these programs are better for them than they are for me? Three reasons:

  1. I have to opt out of them instead of opting-in (They know almost nobody would want it.)
  2. They aren't charging me one cent (The phone company, not charging for something I would want? Really?)
  3. They remind me "how good the program is for me" and that "they aren't sharing personal data," every step of the way to opting out. (The shared info is personal enough the advertisers can use it to find me in as effective a way possible)

Just Below The Surface

It was 102 degrees according the the weather service and for the next two days there would be no escaping the heat, not even while under our canopy. It was our town's annual art festival and Bonnie's first show since we moved here. My wife makes jewelry, not just any Jewelry, but magical jewelry. That's the only way I can explain it. Bonnie's work is often hailed by customers, and fellow vendors alike, as the best jewelry at the event. No quality of jewelry was going to be selling at this show though. Without customers you can't sell, and few customers were willing to come out in this heat.

Bonnie and I have long said that the people we meet is what makes doing the shows worthwhile. Yes, the money Bonnie makes is important, but the best part is the people, the conversations, the vendor comeradery. There is an overt humanity being played out that is palpable. There is also an unquestionable undertone of community in all of us who interact.

The heat of the day is being an effective deterrent and show attendance is low, very low. There are a lot of opportunities to browse and I wander about to checkout the wares of other vendors. The populace in refuge from the heat are truly missing out. This show is rife with a high percentage of quality art and I'm enjoying my conversations with it's creators.

We talk about many things, but every conversation has two common factors. First we always talk about the artwork. The stories are unique, even in similar art forms. The reasons for creating, the methods, the shows people do well at and strategies for making sales are all topics that seem to come up. As slow as the show is the conversations last longer than usual and other topics begin to creep into the discussion. We discuss everything from kids and grandkids to politics and social issues.

The second factor common to the conversation is the social Internet. It's inevitable as the net touches every other topic we have discussed. Communications with family, advertising or hunting up shows, political issues and of course social topics are all influenced by the net. The conversations all start out with a cheerful commentary by the artisan that quickly changes tone when I maks simple statements contrary to the common sentiments of general acceptance. One vendor asked me to "like" them on facebook to be awarded some sort of coupon or something. When I replied, "I don't facebook," the response was immediate and almost reflexive agreement, "I don't like it either."

In every case the conversation revealed the cheery embracing of the current social network to be a thin veneer over deep concern for the impacts of this technology that is so poorly understood. At this show of diverse personalities, backgrounds and needs the response is consistent with the experiences I've had in countless other conversations, an uneasy feeling that something is wrong, but not knowing quite what; or what to do about it.

People of this country, and very likely this world, are uneasy about the current direction of our technology and the lack of governance over how it is used. It's time that this majority stand up, protect themselves and be heard. It's time to share our knowledge in a way that we also retain our data.

Journey on...
Steve

Hero?

In my last weBLog post I called Edward Snowden, the NSA operative that pulled the veil back on the U.S. government's broad data collection program, a "brave hero." My comments are not praise born of contempt for my country and excitement for having seen a security breech that aids her enemies. My comments are instead motivated by my love for America and her citizenry.

First, I have a great respect for anyone that stands in the face of normalcy, convenience and comfort in support of their principles and values. It makes no difference if their beliefs are in conflict with my own. When someone has the fortitude to put principle ahead of profit in the interests of the community they believe in, that is a trait to be respected. When the person doing this must give up all they have earned to stand alone for the benefit of others, that is bravery.

My comments are based on the facts I have. In the articles I've read and the video interview with Edward Snowden I saw, everything points to his being a person concerned about fellow citizens in an America he loves being put at risk by our own government. Of course the government is going to paint him as a traitor. He has attacked our government on your behalf. Our government will defend itself at your expense. Edward's character will be slain and the issues he has raised will be minimized by the friends of the government he has exposed. Our conventional avenues for information are going to euthanize Edward's reputation, his cause and if possible Edward himself as a treasonist.

Until facts contrary to Edwards own words, words very consistent with his actions, come forward I will continue to see him as a man giving up everything for the sake of his fellow countrymen. There are many ways Edward could have profited immensely from what he exposed. He did not. If profit were his motivation, Edward could have grabbed information even more valuable that would have put the lives of others in jeopardy, he chose instead only the most innocuous information that made his point.

What Edward revealed isn't really news to anyone except those who needed to hear it most, Americans. The terrorists already know all this. They are already taking extreme measures to safeguard their communications. This would barely classify as a leak if it didn't provide factual affirmation to our enemies that they were correct to protect their communication.

Edward's real message, the people he is really talking to, the one's he most hopes heed his actions are you and I. Turning your protections over to another claiming to look out for you serves no purpose but to leave you defenseless. Protect your own communications. Use secure storage for your information. Use encrypted methods to pass that information. It's that simple.

Journey on...
Steve

The Bigger Picture

Today's post is short. I'm going to let three links do most of the speaking. What I do urge you to do is look through each of these links in detail. Consider the implications of each one. Then look at the big picture of what they mean together.

Link 1:
Every Liberty, every privacy right, that is taken in the name of protection is actually a transference of your capability to protect yourself to someone else. How vulnerable are you willing to become?
Note: I am adding an article with a video of Edward Snowden as an addendum to this link. Mr. Snowden is the brave American that came forward today as the whistleblower that brought this "Link 1" information to light. It is an excellent video I encourage everyone to watch.
Link 2:
In the words of Sir Francis Bacon circa (1561-1626), "scientia est potentia" or "knowledge itself is power." How much power over ourselves as a global community are we willing to relinquish?
Link 3:
It has been demonstrated time and again that people in places of power will stretch and even go beyond laws of men and morality to achieve their own goals. The greater the tools and resources, the greater the abuses.The message between the lines is, "we've manipulated an election result out of a nation, imagine what we can do for your company."


The populace is being convinced there is nothing they can do, but there is. Much of the technology you need to communicate privately exists today, and we're working to build more of the critical pieces. Stay tuned. We're here to make the difference you need and we all have a right to.

Steve

A Moment of Your Time?

I have long held that there is more than one currency for us to work with in our lives. After having said this for so long I decided today to search around on the net a bit to see just how many monetary currencies there are. I found varying answers, presumably because the answers were posted at different times and these sorts of answers have a short life-span for accuracy. In my searching I found numbers ranging from 157 to 167 national currencies, but then none of those are related to my comments about multiple currencies.


Looking at the currency numbers I realize I should be saying there is more than one “currency system” to be more to my point. When speaking of currencies, or currency systems most people go to some form of financial system, but I hold that there is a far more valuable currency than any of those supported by any form of bank. That is the currency of time.

don't get me wrong, I fully realize currencies of the monetary systems are of tremendous societal importance. They can also be manipulated. Not enough money in your account? Go do a little investing. Go pick up another job. Not enough money in the economy? Well then let's just print a little more. We don't get to do this with time. Time is a constant.

We get 24 hours in our day. Period. Yeah, we could play games and say that days are now 12 hours with the sun rising on even numbered days and setting on odd numbered days, but the fact remains that the same amount of time will have transpired at the same rate it always has. We get what we get, we cannot possibly get more and we all receive it at the same rate (Mr. Einstein's theories aside). What's more, none of us know for sure how much we have in total. We can watch our bank accounts grow and shrink, but with time we all have one account of an unknowable size that we draw from at the same rate. All of this then makes time far more precious than any other currency we deal with in our lives.

So then, when someone asks if they may have a moment of our time, we are indeed spending something precious on them. Of course in an equitable arrangement they are in turn spending time on us and the outcome could be worth the expenditure.

What about when someone comes along and takes our time? We've all experienced it, and it actually feels akin to theft. An example of this theft is when we are spending our time as we have decided to be important, whether it be intimately with loved ones, in meditative solitude, or in entertainment with a hobby or friends; and the phone rings... with a marketer on the other end. Not only have they taken our time to answer the call, they keep grabbing for more of our time from the other side of the phone. The theft isn't complete with the termination of the call, we still spend time processing anger over the call, bitching about the entire practice of cold-calling. It takes more time to get back to what we were doing than simply hanging up the phone.
More and more our time is being stolen from us, in smaller and smaller, but much more numerous increments.

With the advent of today's social network architecture our every action has potential for interruption stealing time away from us to fully experience whatever it is we are doing. Worse yet is that our interruption is usually again interrupted by some sort of distracting advertisement. Marketing has evolved to becoming a part of every experience. It isn't as simple as a billboard along side the road or a television commercial anymore. Product placement is designed to inject advertising into your entertainment experience. The clothes many people wear are walking billboards. Even receipts of one purchase carry advertisements to persuade to buy something else before we can enjoy what we bought in the first place. The marketer's goal is to share every moment of our life with us, not as companions, but as manipulators representing their own interests in the guise of helping us. As the unregulated technology explosion continues to flourish, they are well on their way to achieving it.

The bottom line is that until we begin to see our time for the commodity of immense value and limited availability it is, and begin protecting it, others we don't even know will continue to grab it away from us like vagrants in a tourist trap.

Natural Progression to the Wrong Destination

We've all done it, that foolish - definitely dangerous - act of driving down the road with no hands on the steering wheel. Perhaps maybe you've not done this literally, but have instead done the equivalent in the way of "knee steering" or "message sending" or "phone dialing" or like I saw one time, "newspaper reading" while traveling blind down the road in the drivers seat. Whether it be by distraction, tiredness, haste or just simply not paying attention; we have all relinquished control of our moving vehicle to chance.


When we do this it is generally with a perspective, that might not even be consciously acknowledged, that we need only reverse what we did to regain control. The natural mindset is, "Hands off the wheel" can be corrected by "replace hands to the wheel," or "distracted" can in theory be reversed with "pay attention." Though this may seem correct and logical on the surface, there is a problem here in that, simply put, it's just not that simple. If a problem arises putting our hands back on the wheel is only a part of the solution. We need to reassess our entire situation and maybe even learn some new skills in the moment.

Suppose I had lived my life in Florida and was on a trip to Canada in the late Fall when I decided to text Aunt Norma about the beautiful weather that is clear, but cold and damp. Quicker than I can press the "Send" key on the phone I could find myself in a skid on black ice I never saw coming. Now I have to get my focus back to the driving, reassess my situation, decide what is going on, regain a physical posture that will allow me to act, learn to handle a skid and get to work at resolving the problem of alternately seeing taillights and headlights as I'm spinning down the road. Simply grabbing the wheel is not enough.

If I were in the vastness of space where there is very little to affect my course I could point my vehicle in a direction and then take a nap, a very long nap, with confidence that when I awoke I would be going in the same direction with no external forces having imposed changes requiring my attention.

Our society is a vehicle that sits someplace between these two perspectives of the car that is going to get in trouble pretty quick if left unattended and the spaceship that is just going to go where it's pointed.

Compare our society to that of 50 years ago. Fifty years ago computers filled rooms. Today we carry them in our pockets. Fifty years ago people basically communicated in person, when there was a land-line phone available or when they had time to write a letter. Today, we can reach someone almost instantly through such a myriad of methods it would take a research paper to just identify them all, let alone explain them. That's where we were and where we are, but how we got here is on a path that we took for granted and slipped our hands off the wheel. We started shaving at the wheel, putting on makeup while the vehicle careened down the road; we started reading the paper from the drivers seat and just doing what we were told. We may have put our hands on the wheel and embraced technology today, but we've not checked our mirrors and we're still in a skid.

What we can do at this place we call "today" is phenomenal, but we've gotten here without any real plan. We've created all this fantastic new technology using a veneer of innovation on top a core of old ideas and concepts. We initially had to go to a centralized architecture for our social network for two fundamental reasons.

1) The substrate infrastructure of low powered commodity compute resources and slow Internet connectivity to the home prohibited decentralized hosting of personal communication. In other words, home computers were too under-powered, and residential Internet connections too slow, to support the general public hosting their communication needs directly from their residences.
2) The general public was not technology savvy enough to understand what could be done or how to do it.


Consequently we have wound up with these massive data repositories facilitating the public's communication needs. This architecture was necessary and worked when their use was basically for entertainment purposes. Today however, communication on the Internet has become a necessity if one is going to keep pace in our society. This means that all forms of information once held as "personally significant," everything from love letters to bank statements, is going into these giant repositories fully accessible to only a privileged few.

The veneer of great social network innovations and technology is still riding on an outdated concept of inadequate compute capabilities at the network end-points. Rephrased, most people now have, or at least have access to, the network speed and compute power to host their personally significant data privately where it belongs.

The public is now also generally savvy enough to understand how they can benefit through the use of the recent, and astounding, technological advancements we have made as a society. The only piece missing is for the populace to now learn how to steer their way off the black ice of exposing every nuance of their lives to someone else's computers and use the existing tools to regain control of their life's vehicle.

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Seven steps to using the Internet in privacy as a respected Netizen.
  1. Perspective
  2. Search
  3. Email
  4. Social Security
  5. Have Presence
  6. Take Control
  7. Break The Ties

Shoutbox

Steve: Fautore 0.6.0.0 is now released and available to our registered Alpha participants!
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