Surveilled to death

You want to know all about my personal details? Easy, all you need is the power or the money because the data is there for the taking.

[ Worst moments in network security history. ]

So, how is this data acquired? Let me count the ways: For a start there are all of your commercial transactions, such as your bank accounts and money transfers (remember my Backspin column about the "Nationwide Suspicious Activities Reporting (SAR) Initiative"?).

There are also your credit card purchases, your tax records, your medical records, all interactions with government agencies and your police records (even those from when you got a visit from the cops because your neighbor thought you were being too loud).

But wait, there's more! There are also your telephone and cell phone records and, potentially, your Web browsing, your interactions with any major Web site, anything you might blog or tweet or post on Facebook or MySpace. Oh, and there's your entire e-mail usage.

Add to that video surveillance and it becomes clear that there's a staggering amount of detail about your life available to anyone with the right connections and or the right amount of money.

What's also interesting is that while there's a lot of evidence that video surveillance does little to deter or solve crime, there are all sorts of technological developments that are making video a great way to monitor people's activities. For example, check out the way cool People Tracking Demo from Numenta which will give you a taste of what can be done.

And here's the thing: It doesn't matter how many laws we enact or how vigorously we prosecute those who are dumb enough to get caught or fail to pay enough to the right people, all that intelligence about you and me is out there, waiting to be used and abused. Forever.

What makes this worse is that we've also become obsessed with social networking and we now reflexively share way too much and in so doing just help build a more detailed picture of ourselves for the world to peruse.

Forget the common complaint about Twitterers sharing their luncheon plans. It's the photos, jokey messages, dubious comments and indiscreet postings that we put into the public domain through e-mail, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, et al, and do so without much thought. (See 12 tips for safe social networking.)

There are no end of stories about people not being hired because they posted something to Facebook or told the world something that should never have been made public (by the way, the recent Mashable article about a young lady being accidentally and spectacularly indiscreet was not true – her account was apparently hacked).

Now I hear burglars and other ne'er-do-wells are monitoring potential victims looking to see if they announce vacation plans or are just posting less, indicating an optimal time do a little breaking and entering.

This whole "being open to the whole world" business has already gone too far and will, without doubt, go much further and then what will happen? Will we all start to be constrained, as comedian Marc Maron suggested, by "surveillance induced morality" and feel compelled to do "the right thing" for fear of getting found out, or will we become a society of pathological obfuscators?

Already most of us who spend a lot of time online are used to being "economical with the truth", to short-circuit things like filling in forms and establishing online accounts. For example, I rely on a tool called Roboform that allows me to fill out subscription forms at the press of a button using multiple fictitious profiles. This saves me all sorts of aggravation and keeps my real persona (that of an IT superhero) safely hidden.

So, here's my question: What happens when the idea of being discreet and obfuscating online becomes something that isn't restricted to the digerati? Will social networks collapse? Will people start to be more guarded about the details of their lives? Or will that never happen because people in general will never "get it"?

Of course, whatever we do or don't do won't matter that much as the lowdown on who we are and what we do will be out there anyway. And whether we like it or not our details are always available to those who are really interested and have the power and money to dig deep.

Gibbs isn't in Ventura, Calif. Tell him all about yourself at backspin@gibbs.com.