Viridian Note 00283: Geeks and Spooks

[Bill Stewart]

http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/251-300/00283_geeks_and_spooks.html

I'll echo Ken Brown's "Yee-hah!" rating for this article.
When Bruce goes on a rant, he goes on a rant, and this rant is worth reading
just for the literary value of a good rant, even if we get bashed
at least as much as Microsoft and the Spooks and the
Nixon/Reagan/Bush/Bush Administration do.

Bruce's suggestion for a recording device is somewhat different in style
from David Brin's various RodneyKing shouldercams and other ubiquitous cameras,
and a bit different from his fictionalizations in "Distraction",
but, hey, it's doable, and this is a ranting essay, not a calm book like
"The Transparent Society".

Bruce:
>."... I am suggesting secure, accountable devices with digital signatures 
>built in. They're cryptographically time-stamped, their voice signals and 
>photographs are cryptographically overwritten, proving their source. They 
>are tamperproofed, and very sternly verifiable, and usable as proven 
>evidence in courts of law. They're not civilian toys, they are genuine 
>weapons of information warfare, in much the same way that an unarmed 
>Predator surveillance aircraft is a weapon. They are people's media 
>weapons. Their proper use requires some training and discretion; it's like 
>a citizen's audiovisual arrest. This is the civilian militia Minuteman 
>version of surveillance. The omnipresense of this kind of civilian- owned 
>and civilian-deployed surveillance would not make anyone's society kinder 
>and happier. But it certainly would make that society a very dangerous 
>place for urban guerrillas. And it would not centralize the great power of 
>surveillance in the unstable hands of unelected functionaries...."