Folks: I thank some of you for posting your comments on the e-privacy bulletin board that the CBC has set-up. I'm not sure how long the discussion group will last, so please feel free to continue to share your thoughts on the crypto-canada mailing list <http://crypto-canada.greatvideo.com> Regards Robert Here's a message I really like... http://interact.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/WebX?14@119.UM22aQsobAM^4@.ee768e0 (see e-prvacy discussion section) I think that it should be written into Canada's constitution that ANY information about any Candadian citizen belongs to that citizen. That any agency who wants to store, retrieve, review, transfer or in any way duplicate that information must obtain formal consent from the citizen involved. That every citizen has the right to know what information an agency is storing about them, and who they have shared this information with. I think treating personal information with the same rules as private property would solve our privacy fears. The really scary scenario is that with the proliferation of public video cameras and wireless technologies, our every move may someday be recorded in a database somewhere. Even cars are now being equipped with technologies that track where we are and how we are driving at all times. That is really Orwellian, in my opinion. Cell phones do the same thing by continuously traingulating your position, in fact, if cell nodes didn't do this, cell phones wouldn't work. The next big wave that is coming, with the convergence of television, telephony, broadband internet and wireless networked home electronics is that everything - even your box of Cheerios will have an IP address. I attended a recent lecture at UBC that was given by Dr. William J. Raduchel, the Chief Strategy Officer of Sun Microsystems, and he said that Sun and many other companies are hard at work putting the finishing touches on the technology that will make it possible for your fridge to recognize that you are running out of milk, and automatically add it to your shopping list, and automatically shop for it if you want - but here is the really freaky part: In the near future, Dr. Raduchel said that all advertising will be targeted based on your 'electronic behavior'. Picture this: You come home from work and your house sees you coming and the door opens and the net-enabled television in your livingroom comes on, and there is a commercial for Cheerios that says, "Did you know that the box of Cheerios in your cupboard is almost empty?" - and a coupon for Cheerios will print out of your net-enabled refrigerator, and the General Foods corporation will be able to run a report that tells them exactly how many boxes of Cheerios there are sitting in cupboards in wired homes across Canada, and how full each one is. This is not science fiction - this is reality, and it is coming to a net-enabled home near you. If you think your privacy is an issue now, just wait until your TV set knows what you had for breakfast, and your toilet knows the blood-sugar levels in your urine, which is automatically appended to your medical records. Big brother is here, and he is about to become far more powerful that Orwell could have ever imagined. I encourage you to look this up for yourself, look at the Sun Microsystems website and review the white papers on Jini technology and how companies like Whirlpool are building it into new appliances. Sun is just one example, of course, there are hundreds of companies who enthusiastically embrace these new technologies. Ken MacAllister Vancouver, BC -- "...as we transfer our whole being to the data bank, privacy will become a ghost or echo of its former self and what remains of community will disappear"...Marshal McLuhan -- Robert Guerra <rguerra@yahoo.com>, Fax: +1(303) 484-0302 WWW Page <http://pgp.greatvideo.com>, ICQ # 10266626 PGPKeys <http://pgp.greatvideo.com/keys/rguerra/>