10….
Tesco card
Hotmail
Facebook
South Bank card
Visa
Mastercard
Airmiles
Boots card
Yahoo
Google
Sainsbury
KLM

I can see that it is sensible to be on your guard against the potential threats to individual and collective liberty which this kind of thing might represent…. but isn’t it also worth remembering that the internet, social networks, mobile phones etc., can also be a power for good?

The example of the uprising in Egypt is encouraging; there is a tension for authoritarian regimes like China for example between promoting growth and technology, and trying to keep a lid on freedom of information and access to external, non-censored sources.

Yes, there are threats…but there are also oppostunities.

@ Galen10
It is very true that the technologies of surveillance are also the technologies of liberation, or can be, in the right hands. To that end, technology is just a tool, a means to an end. There are many instances in the book where the technology of the internet, Twitter et al are used to scrutinise the abusers of power and foment democratic movements. But the main focus of the book is how such technologies are too often, for the most part, just part of an array of means to keep individuals, people, under control and in check.
Robin Tudge

You don’t need such technology to undermine democracy. As the author must know:

Born in London, Robin Tudge has lived and worked in Moscow, Hanoi and Beijing, and as a journalist has written for scores of publications worldwide. His first book was the pioneering Bradt Guide to North Korea in 2003, then in 2005 he co-wrote the best-selling Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories.

He has plenty of experience in totalitarian countries that do not even begin to get close to these sorts of databases. They do not need them. The threats to our democracy come from the same source – well meaning people who wish to make the world perfect. Not technology.

“Looking to the near future he cites the Real World Web, trillions of ‘smart dust’ tiny sensors deployed to monitor all data via Wi-Fi about people, the environment, weather and the traffic, like ‘electronic nerve endings for the planet’.”

This sounds just a little too, well, paranoid to be plausible. Why would anyone even bother? Precisely how big would the computers running with this data have to be?

He has plenty of experience in totalitarian countries that do not even begin to get close to these sorts of databases. They do not need them. The threats to our democracy come from the same source – well meaning people who wish to make the world perfect. Not technology.

The idea that we could face more than one threat isn’t all that radical, is it? I mean, if your car is rapidly approaching a cliff edge you don’t think, “Nothing to worry about. It’s walls you shouldn’t drive into.”

5. BenSix – “The idea that we could face more than one threat isn’t all that radical, is it? I mean, if your car is rapidly approaching a cliff edge you don’t think, “Nothing to worry about. It’s walls you shouldn’t drive into.””

I agree the idea that we could face more than one threat isn’t that radical. But your analogy is wrong. It ought to be if your car is rapidly approaching a cliff edge and someone is telling you not to worry because it is not a wall. When faced with a cliff we ought to be worried about cliffs. If someone else tries to distract us, we should ask why they are talking about walls when we are so close to a cliff.

And if it turns out they have a vested interest in our car going off a cliff, we ought to ignore them.

@So Much For Subtlety

You don’t need such technology to undermine democracy. As the author must know… He has plenty of experience in totalitarian countries that do not even begin to get close to these sorts of databases. They do not need them. The threats to our democracy come from the same source – well meaning people who wish to make the world perfect. Not technology.

Exactly, technology is a means to an end, and the book is not solely about modern surveillance technologies – which are nonetheless coming into use worldwide. Biometric ID cards for example, may have been ditched in the UK, but in many countries in Africa, international aid agencies are demanding such cards be prioritised for national use before potable water supplies, for example. The book looks at surveillance, its past, present and future, sociologically, politically, and so forth. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, certainly, the most evil outcomes are often achieved, and can only be achieved, with the support of masses of well-meaning folk thinking they’re doing the right thing. East Germany was not run by folks who’d wake up, thinking, ‘I’m going to be a right git today.’ A few might have done, but by no means all. Motives vary and conflict. Many a western company has made money from developing the internet in China – great, the internet facilitates the sharing of information, and democracy activists to network, etc – but said firms have compromised their own desire not to be evil by working with Beijing in handing over dissidents to the state police. Which isn’t a tradeoff of one step back for every two forward, it’s ‘we’ll here to make money, and we’ll do what we need to secure that aim.’

“Looking to the near future he cites the Real World Web, trillions of ‘smart dust’ tiny sensors deployed to monitor all data via Wi-Fi about people, the environment, weather and the traffic, like ‘electronic nerve endings for the planet’.”

This sounds just a little too, well, paranoid to be plausible. Why would anyone even bother? Precisely how big would the computers running with this data have to be?

The trouble is, smart dust is being developed, for the end goals of research, profit and power, among others. The uses to which it could be put are vast. Where you don’t have a billion tiny censors picking up on whatever’s going on, you have one censor on a Google van illegally tapping into people’s Wi Fi networks from which to draw information about them. Regarding the computers, they’re joined up in networks which enormously multiplies their computing power. That’s how the internet works, for one.