The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to make it leak. \u00a0As with your bathroom, so with our technological life.<\/p>\n
Consider the computer, to start with. 1993 was the last time I had a summer job in an office that didn’t come with a computer on the desk. \u00a0Ever since then, if I’m in an office, at a desk, in a cubicle, whatever – there was some sort of computer waiting for me. \u00a0Maybe not a great one – that briefly-held HR job in 1997 meant a 486 pushing Win95, and typing 6 characters for your Peoplesoft password instead of 5 would cause the entire computer to crash – but a computer. Suffice to say that for two decades or so, the use of the computer has been normalized. \u00a0That means networking. \u00a0That means email. A computer that isn’t on a network is a computer that isn’t worth very much to Ed Earl Brown beyond Word and Excel and one-person gaming (and when’s the last time a solo game on a PC was a big deal? Wolfenstein? Maybe?) – what do we do with a computer? Email. Twitter. Facebook. Web surfing. Blogging. World of Warcraft. \u00a0Minecraft. Pinterest. Buy stuff from Amazon. Watch things on YouTube or Netflix.<\/p>\n
All things that generate data traveling over a network and stored somewhere else.<\/p>\n
That the government has all this data isn’t amazing in the least. \u00a0The data monitoring and collection is already there, in house, as a function of the services themselves. \u00a0All Uncle Sam has to do is turn up with a warrant. \u00a0We’ve clicked through enough EULAs and stuck enough pictures in Instagram and plotted our every daily move in Foursquare and sprayed our political opinions all over our friends’ walls. \u00a0And the thing is – we have an entire generation that’s come up believing that it’s perfectly normal to put your entire life on exhibit, and CEOs at places like Google and Facebook who don’t understand why personal information ought to be private at all.<\/p>\n
That split difference is becoming a serious issue. \u00a0On a more personal level, I used to see it every day from cyclists on Caltrain riding their bike up the “Dismount Zone” tunnel and directly past the “Walk Your Bike” signs before complaining about non-cyclists in the bike car. \u00a0Or Googlers arguing that their private shuttle buses are just fine using MUNI stops for pickup because the alternative is for them to all drive – not to move closer to work, or work closer to home, or actually use the public transit whose infrastructure they choose to appropriate. \u00a0When it\u2019s done by The Government, it\u2019s the oppressive heavy hand of the old-fashioned legacy powers. \u00a0But when it\u2019s done by techies, it\u2019s \u201cdisruptive\u201d and \u201crethinking\u201d and \u201cadvanced. \u00a0When really, it\u2019s all the same thing and all of similar concern. \u00a0Pious techie glibertarians go on about how \u201cGoogle doesn\u2019t have drones,\u201d but by the same token, Uncle Sam doesn\u2019t depend on advertising against your NSA profile for his income.<\/p>\n
In the real world, unencumbered by Randian fantasy, Ed Earl Brown is far more likely to see his personal data abused for profit by Facebook than the CIA. \u00a0Consider the Nest thermostat and the acquisition of Nest by Google – and the ensuing online panic about Google suddenly having access to regular data from inside the house. \u00a0Tony Fadell – the CEO of Nest and the mastermind behind the original iPod, the guy that Google is probably counting on to figure out consumer hardware for them – has come right out and said that he doesn\u2019t plan for anything like that to happen with Nest\u2019s data, but the problem is, it\u2019s not his call anymore. <\/em>Instead, his network of devices now belongs to a company that\u2019s built its fortunes on data-mining for dollars.<\/p>\n Ultimately, of all the companies in the Valley that people know, there are only two I don\u2019t hold in immediate suspicion: Apple and Amazon. \u00a0Because at the end of the day, both of them are in the same business: trading cash on the barrelhead for goods and\/or services. \u00a0Maybe they\u2019re doing a better job of it than anyone else, and that\u2019s what makes them respectable. \u00a0The second director I ever had in this industry put it bluntly: \u201cShit costs money.\u201d \u00a0And half the delusion and deception of Silly Con Valley consists of trying to persuade Ed Earl Brown otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to make it leak. \u00a0As with your bathroom, so with our technological life. Consider the computer, to start with. 1993 was the last time I had a summer job in an office that didn’t come with a computer on the desk. \u00a0Ever since then, if I’m … <\/p>\n