Changing Your Name to "John Smith"
Jun. 7th, 2013 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraThe National Security Agency apparently has been conducting a massive internal spying operation on American citizens for years and years and years, tracking practically everything everyone does on the Internet.
Senator Dianne Feinstein explains that no, the vast majority of these people haven't done anything. But they might do something. In the future.
Phil K. Dick – white courtesy telephone please!
It took a British newspaper, the Guardian, to out them.
I'm not sure if I'm outraged by this or not.
I mean, "outrage" carries the subtext that somehow you would have expected this thing not to happen, right?
At this point I think it's pretty obvious that if you want to be free of these kinds of intrusions for whatever reason – maybe you're planning to blow up the Empire State Building or maybe this kind of surveillance is just philosophically objectionable to you – then you either have to stay off the Internet altogether or you have to change you name to "John Smith." I figure there are so many John Smiths around and the NSA is so incompetent that they can't possibly keep all those prospective John Smith-planned terrorist attacks straight.
I'm also wondering to what degree this kind of phenomenon represents the economic shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. Just think of how many government jobs the NSA is providing! I like to think of them sitting around the command room with its hundreds of video monitors flashing data on a really hot day in Bethesda when the air conditioning has broken down.
Privacy, by the way, is a relatively modern concept. Right up through the 18th century, most people on the planet lived together in a single room where they watched each other eat, fuck and defecate, and listened to each other babble on endlessly. Most people on the planet still live that way, I reckon.
My oldest son uses the Internet less and less these days.
My youngest son uses it more and more.
I suppose these represent two different approaches to "privacy:" Max (not his real name) (well, yes, his real name, but I'm trying to confuse the NSA), (hey, I don't have to confuse the NSA – LiveJournal is owned by Russians and they're not spying on me!) still believes in the notion of individual privacy and is determined to protect his. RTT thinks that privacy is the Tooth Fairy and lives completely transparently. He has no secrets.
As for me, though I've often been criticized for having relatively few boundaries, in fact I guard my boundaries quite closely. I know lots and lots of secrets. I just don't talk about them. And because I babble so much about other things, the guys in the suits in that Bethesda room without air conditioning, will just naturally assume I don't have any. This is the only solution for me. It's a little too late to change my name to John Smith.
###
In other news, I've been watching a BBC documentary on the British monarchy, tracing its history from Edward the Confessor – the last Anglo-Saxon king – to the present day. It's rather fascinating because the historian who put the program together wants so desperately to pretend that the Normans were usurpers, that there was some kind of unified Anglo-Saxon presence in Britain before the Normans spoiled the party. But I think the Anglo-Saxons were pretty much usurpers too, although six centuries earlier, driving the indigenous Celts into the borderlands. And the Celts were usurpers, originally from the Baltics, believe it or not. This whole notion of usurpation and native lands is entirely specious in the long view of history.
William the Conqueror was not a very nice person, and his son William Rufus was even worse. When they put William the Conqueror into his sepulcher, they discovered that the tomb didn't fit. The Conqueror's intestines burst open, causing the Abbey to fill up with the smell of shit and everyone had to flee.
When I hear about how people lived in medieval times, I can't believe that anyone actually survived that life. It sounds so brutal and horrible. I'd really like to put my DNA in the interviewing chair, ask it, "How the fuck did you deal with things like Forest Laws?"
I'm trying to work as much as possible because I won't be working at all in the last 10 days or so of this month. Although I would like to see Shakespeare in the Park on Monday to breathe Matt Damon's exhaled carbon dioxide molecules. I have no problem with standing in line at 5 AM to snag tickets. I just don't know how I'd transport myself from Lawn Guyland to the Delacorte Theater in time to stand on line.
Progress on the Steinbeck novel remains slow but steady.
Senator Dianne Feinstein explains that no, the vast majority of these people haven't done anything. But they might do something. In the future.
Phil K. Dick – white courtesy telephone please!
It took a British newspaper, the Guardian, to out them.
I'm not sure if I'm outraged by this or not.
I mean, "outrage" carries the subtext that somehow you would have expected this thing not to happen, right?
At this point I think it's pretty obvious that if you want to be free of these kinds of intrusions for whatever reason – maybe you're planning to blow up the Empire State Building or maybe this kind of surveillance is just philosophically objectionable to you – then you either have to stay off the Internet altogether or you have to change you name to "John Smith." I figure there are so many John Smiths around and the NSA is so incompetent that they can't possibly keep all those prospective John Smith-planned terrorist attacks straight.
I'm also wondering to what degree this kind of phenomenon represents the economic shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. Just think of how many government jobs the NSA is providing! I like to think of them sitting around the command room with its hundreds of video monitors flashing data on a really hot day in Bethesda when the air conditioning has broken down.
Privacy, by the way, is a relatively modern concept. Right up through the 18th century, most people on the planet lived together in a single room where they watched each other eat, fuck and defecate, and listened to each other babble on endlessly. Most people on the planet still live that way, I reckon.
My oldest son uses the Internet less and less these days.
My youngest son uses it more and more.
I suppose these represent two different approaches to "privacy:" Max (not his real name) (well, yes, his real name, but I'm trying to confuse the NSA), (hey, I don't have to confuse the NSA – LiveJournal is owned by Russians and they're not spying on me!) still believes in the notion of individual privacy and is determined to protect his. RTT thinks that privacy is the Tooth Fairy and lives completely transparently. He has no secrets.
As for me, though I've often been criticized for having relatively few boundaries, in fact I guard my boundaries quite closely. I know lots and lots of secrets. I just don't talk about them. And because I babble so much about other things, the guys in the suits in that Bethesda room without air conditioning, will just naturally assume I don't have any. This is the only solution for me. It's a little too late to change my name to John Smith.
In other news, I've been watching a BBC documentary on the British monarchy, tracing its history from Edward the Confessor – the last Anglo-Saxon king – to the present day. It's rather fascinating because the historian who put the program together wants so desperately to pretend that the Normans were usurpers, that there was some kind of unified Anglo-Saxon presence in Britain before the Normans spoiled the party. But I think the Anglo-Saxons were pretty much usurpers too, although six centuries earlier, driving the indigenous Celts into the borderlands. And the Celts were usurpers, originally from the Baltics, believe it or not. This whole notion of usurpation and native lands is entirely specious in the long view of history.
William the Conqueror was not a very nice person, and his son William Rufus was even worse. When they put William the Conqueror into his sepulcher, they discovered that the tomb didn't fit. The Conqueror's intestines burst open, causing the Abbey to fill up with the smell of shit and everyone had to flee.
When I hear about how people lived in medieval times, I can't believe that anyone actually survived that life. It sounds so brutal and horrible. I'd really like to put my DNA in the interviewing chair, ask it, "How the fuck did you deal with things like Forest Laws?"
I'm trying to work as much as possible because I won't be working at all in the last 10 days or so of this month. Although I would like to see Shakespeare in the Park on Monday to breathe Matt Damon's exhaled carbon dioxide molecules. I have no problem with standing in line at 5 AM to snag tickets. I just don't know how I'd transport myself from Lawn Guyland to the Delacorte Theater in time to stand on line.
Progress on the Steinbeck novel remains slow but steady.
