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net.wars: Big Brother comes under the spotlight: can't hide from CFP

The rapid erosion of anonymity was the theme of a day-long workshop on the first day of  CFP - the 15th conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy in Seattle.

Evidence piled upon evidence: electronic road toll systems, RFID in passports,surveillance cameras, ID cards, federally mandated standards for US driver's licenses…all of these are combining together to make total surveillance possible.

This is particularly true in the US and Canada, where there exist few data protection laws. The ACLU  recently ran an ad on national US television that demonstrated the prospective future.

In it, a man ordering a pizza progressively is talked out of his original four-meat order and into a sprouts-laden healthier alternative while the telesales operator reveals progressively just how much she knows about his life, credit, and personal habits - while the viewer is shown a succession of computer screens displaying the information she's working from.

(Exactly why the guy doesn't bail out of the conversation and decide to make his own damn pizza is not covered.)

Over and over again, although systems such as toll collection can be designed to allow anonymous payments and include privacy protection, they are instead designed for maximal invasiveness.

The only mistake Orwell made was in thinking there would be only one Big Brother.