GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK: News of the World survived nearly 170 years before News International's most recent phone-hacking scandal. The public was fine with the tabloid's exploitation of celebrities and royals but did not like it when the focus shifted to crime victims and war casualties.
Image: COURTESY OF NEWS OF THE WORLD, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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Voice mail hacking was practiced for years at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid in the U.K. prior to its dramatic public implosion a few weeks ago. Murdoch's media empire was shaken this time because his employees were found to be spying on victims of tragedy, including a murdered teen and families of dead soldiers, rather than on celebrities and royals. This revelation prompted retaliatory online hacks against several of Murdoch's media properties by a group known as Lulz Security (LulzSec).
One victim of this scuffle between an elite, multinational corporation and a shadowy network of cyber vigilantes may be privacy itself. Despite Murdoch's grilling by Parliament and the FBI's takedown of several members of another prominent hacker group—called Anonymous—this week, information seems to be more than ever at the mercy of those with the means to take it.
Award-winning science fiction author and physicist David Brin has a long-held belief that the loss of privacy is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as this transparency applies to everyone. Scientific American spoke with Brin about Murdoch's fall from grace, the state of privacy as hacking becomes more endemic, and why Wikileaks is in a better position than hacker groups like LulzSec and Anonymous to defend against abuses of power.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Does the phone-hacking scandal at News International raise any new issues surrounding privacy and access to information that have not already been raised in the past?
The fundamental matter is equality of vision. For 6,000 years, civilizations were hierarchical pyramids with a few on top hoarding not only wealth, power and access to weapons but also information. It's very human—you and I would do it—and ethics never prevented it. One thing does: Light. The Enlightenment's great innovation wasn't sweetness or morality—it was reciprocal accountability, empowering many groups to hold each other accountable.
Instead of being appalled that some oligarchs obey human nature and abuse power, we should focus on how they were caught. Can we make the Enlightenment's immune system work even better, next time?
Given that News International has been in trouble in the past for phone hacking, why is it such a big deal this time?
The thing that broke this story from mere rumor to fill-blown scandal was our modern, sliding scale of victimhood. In Britain everyone knew about hacking and snooping and bribes under the table. But the public shrugged, so long as it involved celebrities. That changed when tabloids were caught preying on innocent families, even teenaged crime victims. In the U.S. private citizens can sue over privacy violations, while public figures can't. Laws differ in Britain. Yet, in both places there's an implicit sliding scale. We assume the mighty won't shrivel under a spotlight. The meek deserve to be left alone.
Even though News International employees and even the U.K.'s Metropolitan Police were eventually caught up in this scandal, their actions went on for years before anyone took action. Does this mean people should have no expectation of privacy and that the only time when it will be defended is when the people invading it slip up?
In The Transparent Society I forecast that tomorrow's "privacy" will be smaller and redefined. But humans need some privacy. Ironically, we'll keep some if most of us can see most of what's going on, most of the time, maintaining our power to catch those peering at us. "Sousveillance" means looking back at the mighty, from below.
Take the struggle being waged now across America, as police officers arrest bystanders for filming them in action. Now, I sympathize with skilled professionals doing a difficult job, and one can see that all these cameras add more stress. But there can only be one acceptable outcome—an absolute right to record our encounters with authority. What recourse does a citizen have, other than the truth? Anyway, technology will settle this in our favor, even if the law doesn't.
See what we're tweeting about
17 Comments
Add CommentIt's always been a battle between the forces of the dark and the forces of the light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe light illuminates and produces accountability.
The dark forces need to hide their evil doings away from the light.
It was the invention of the printing press that brought 600 years of Inquisitions to an end.
This ongoing battle is hardwired into the Human psyche and is a natural consequence of evolution itself.
Excellent article.
Mr. Murdoch won't have the same problems in America as he has over in Britain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith all his money he can buy his way out of trouble, as there is a different law for the rich , if they are rich enough.
I'm not so sure that Rupert will be able to buy his way out of this here. He's well into his 80's now, and his sun is setting. So is his influence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if he skates on this, those who give him favor cannot expect much in return. Rupert simply doesn't have the time left.
However, on a grander scale--we could be witnessing the end of the News Corp. Era. And that, my friends, is BIG NEWS.
"a few on top hoarding not only wealth, power and access to weapons but also information. It's very human—you and I would do it—and ethics never prevented it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is to categorically state that not all humans partake of such *irrationally* human practices - I am one such who does not, never has and never will. Widest valuing, longest range thinking (which surely is the best of human capabilities) makes it patently clear that such practices will *not* optimally increase one's lifetime happiness.
"some oligarchs obey human nature and abuse power"
A similar comment applies to this quote. There is no such "human nature" to obey! Rather such activities are contrary to the essence of human nature which is to use as fully as possible the large intellectual abilities which characterize the human species.
Furthermore, if such irrational practices were really the essence of human nature, then there would simply be no solution possible because of the infinite regress logic of the "who polices the police" problem. Therefore a full and consistent solution can only be obtained by understanding that such practices are *not* essential attributes of human nature, but rather are aberrations of and contradictions to the rational thought capabilities which *are* the essence of being human.
Nevertheless, it is very true that information is the essential ingredient by which society can be self-ordered, with full liberty and maximal possible freedom for everyone. This can and will occur when people learn to be proud of everything that they do (or else don't do it!) and therefore to want everything about them to be available to everyone else. Such total personal openness coupled with public social preferencing based on that information will be the arbiter of all social practices, without any need for laws or other actions involving physical force.
For more details, see "Social Meta-Needs:
A New Basis for Optimal Interaction" at: http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html
"Does the Murdoch Hacking Scandal Signify the End of Privacy?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, it just makes the death of privacy impossible to ignore. All that is left is to rationalize it as something that was never all that big a deal in the first place. Like Brin wants to do.
Mark me down as one less potential reader of anything Brin has ever, or will ever write.
Live free - or die.
rwstutler typifies why we are in this problem. Instead of actually paraphrasing what his (apparent) opponent has said, in order to check if he actually understood, he instead leaps to erect a straw man, in order to feel good about hating it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNotice that he doesn't even remotely address the key point... whether freedom is best defended by aggressively looking BACK at authority. In fact, no person who actually read even a paragraph of the article would conclude what he stated.
His "refutation" of the title must please him. I am satisfied not to have him as a future reader.
david brin
To contend that you would not give in to the temptations of power is all very good... and a bit arrogant, I'm afraid, since 99% of human societies that gained both metals and agriculture soon settled into some form of feudal stratification. What makes you different?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, some kings tried to be good and wise rulers. Still, until the enlightenment, kingship (and similarly stratifications) simply was the pattern. If it wasn't "human nature" to rationalize monopolizing power and status, why did it happen so often?
Notice what happened here. By quibbling over whether a 99% pattern was "natural" he avoided discussing the really interesting issue... why and how the enlightenment seems to have BROKEN the old pattern! Not perfectly! (Oligarchy seems to be making a strong bid for a comeback.) But far better and more effectively than at any time since Periclean Athens.
Why and how we managed to do this... what methods used to work, what NEW methods might work better... was the point of this interview. I contend that "sousveillance" is an important contribution to the Transparency that made freedom and accountability possible. It might have been nice to see people discussing that.
david brin
lack of privacy is not freedom, and it is not a useful tool against tyrants or tyrany. Total Information Awareness has been a reality for over a decade.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFreedom is not defended by exposing the citizens lives to corporate or government actors. It is not defended by wikileaks and Julian - Julian was played for a fool, and used, by the State Department to disemminate false information. Freedom is defended by the likes of Deepthroat, who remained anonymous till his death, or by Daniel Ellsberg, who risked his life and liberty.
Transparency is not freedom.
This whole affair has been blown way out of context.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was only the saved voice mail messages that were being retrieved, not actual phone conversations.
Technically I don't believe that you can 'hack' a cellphone conversation unless you sit with some very sophisticated channel hopping digital radio equipment between the cellphone and the nearest cell phone tower.
(it is much more difficult than 'bugging' your old landline telephones that only needed someone to attach two wires to the line).
If your messages are being retrieved, it is the same as your emails being read - either you have not password protected them or the password is too 'weak' or easily guessed.
Depending on your cell service provider, messages have a fixed life, for example a week after which they are automatically deleted.
You can choose to save them, but then it is once again your responsibility to protect them.
The Murdoch scandal means that we all are confronted with the fact that privacy doesn't exist. We may have been ignoring this, but as the power of computers and the ways of tracking people increase, our privacy is going towards zero, we just were blind about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that the powerful will access whatever information they want, the most potent counterstrategy is total transparency. The FBI or NSA agent who reads your e-mail must have his or her home address, phone number, and picture publicly available. Also where his or her kids go to school, license number and make of car, and the route he or she takes to work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you Mr. Murdock for playing a part with our government and the wealthy in making the H.G. Wells novel, 1984, a certain reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd all those against Christians and America, look as though they are playing a part in making the predictions in Revelation of the Bible, a reality.
It makes me sick, but you are right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is human nature enjoy gossiped,unnatural events, abnormal behavior those newspaper provided them people avarice to read them.This is going on birth of newspaper only tempo accelerated now because of modern equipment. It is now easy to exposed the anyone private life. I don't consider Murdoch did any thing wrong if people only read dirt and his paper sale tremendously why should not he take advantage of weakness of mankind? If anyone is guilty that one is scientist who discovered modern equipment and abnormal aviarices of reading public.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPart 1 of a multi-part reply:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi David,
Right off, I want to commend you for following and responding to the responses to your interview article, something that so many authors do not do.
David Brin wrote:
>
> To contend that you would not give in to the temptations
> of power is all very good... and a bit arrogant, I'm afraid,
At 73 years of age and with a wealth of experience behind me in several countries and many varied occupations, I did not say this lightly or with arrogance.
> since 99% of human societies that gained both metals and
> agriculture soon settled into some form of feudal stratification.
That fact of history does not at all imply that the majority of people would act as you stated. It only implies that a sufficient number of them did to enable the formation of ruling elites subjugating the majority.
> What makes you different?
I am different because I have an excellent philosophical understanding of the foundations of what is required for a society of total liberty and maximal possible freedom, which you would have seen if you had followed the link given in my first response - "Social Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Interaction" at: http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html. In addition, I can make the same claim for both my wife (of 11 years) and a 32 year old friend who we have known intimately for over 5 years now.
> Sure, some kings tried to be good and wise rulers.
> Still, until the enlightenment, kingship (and similarly
> stratifications) simply was the pattern.
Yes, but major stratification did not end with or was it even vastly modified as a result of the enlightenment. All current States are essentially just continuations of feudal stratification, just less obvious and more carefully disguised.
End of Part 1
Part 2 of my reply
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Brin wrote:
> If it wasn't "human nature" to rationalize monopolizing
> power and status, why did it happen so often?
Because there are always going to be short term thinking individuals who will seek power over others to gain by deceit and coercion the value that they are incapable of producing by creativity, labor and voluntary exchange to mutual advantage. Only the adoption of a social structure which strongly preferences against such individuals long before they get very far in that direction, and totally ostracizes those that will not change, will prevent such people from developing and gaining power over the rest, who want to gain only by production of value to others and exchanging it to mutual benefit. Admittedly, my experience suggests that the percentage of people in society who think that way is growing smaller as the years progress, but I think that this is largely because of so many people such as yourself constantly telling them that such behavior is fully human and totally natural - it *is* human nature (as least for children) to response according to what is expected of them by people whom they respect.
> Notice what happened here. By quibbling over whether a
> 99% pattern was "natural"
I was not "quibbling" at all. As you can see from this response, I consider the statements that you made, to which I responded, to be highly important, even if you do not. I was not attempting to do a critique of your whole interview.
> he avoided discussing the really interesting issue...
> why and how the enlightenment seems to have BROKEN the
> old pattern! Not perfectly! (Oligarchy seems to be
> making a strong bid for a comeback.) But far better
> and more effectively than at any time since Periclean Athens.
I only did not address it because it was so obvious to me already and, besides, it is also highly overblown, as I have now argued in this response - an extension of your own parenthetical remark just above (but composed before I read that remark).
End of part 2
Part 3 of my reply:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Brin wrote:
> Why and how we managed to do this... what methods used to work,
> what NEW methods might work better... was the point of this interview.
> I contend that "sousveillance" is an important contribution
> to the Transparency that made freedom and accountability
< possible. It might have been nice to see people discussing that.
That would be for others who hold that the current best social structure (democratic governments) is salvageable by a few tweeks. I do not, but rather contend that a whole new structure must be adopted if society is to prevent the cyclical resurgence of more stratification and top down rule.
--Paul Wakfer