His blog posts reflect his varied interests, often citing Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche and even the sociable behavior of his beloved bonobos, the primate species that is the closest relative to humans in the animal kingdom.
Ahh … a man after my own heart, at least when it comes to a diverse range of intellectual and sundry interests.
Smart grid technologies and systems as envisioned also raise concerns about individual privacy rights. Part of what makes the smart grid is its ability to know a lot about the energy-consuming devices in our homes and to monitor activity for those devices to help determine when power should be used or limited. Such knowledge is useful in regulating power consumption to use energy more efficiently. In addition to reaching into homes to regulate devices, information about usage and activities could be extracted from homes.
This article is a bit dated but perfectly sets out, at least one of, the issues I would like to focus on in this new-old blog. What do you think? Should a smart grid come into effect without some form of an opt-out?
I’ve been interested in information privacy for quite a while … ever since my Cyberlaw class in law school. I think it is a fascinating field that is just beginning to mature. Still, even with my interest I never though to blog about it. But then a couple of things happened recently that got me to thinking in a new direction. First, after three years of working in criminal defense, I needed a change. But into just what exactly? I had no clue. Then I read the Wired Magazine article Vanish, which chronicled Wired writer Evan Ratcliff’s attempt to go off the grid for a month. Soon after I read the article came the Tiger Woods’ scandal, which was brought on by the frenetic activity of the paparazzi. What I got from these seemingly unconnected stories was that in today’s digital society where almost every aspect of your life is either observed or recorded, there is no such thing as real privacy. Moreover, from what I observed as an attorney interested in but not practicing privacy law was that in today’s legal environment there is not much stopping some creative and determined individual (or organization) from finding out what’s in your closest or, at least, where it is. But information privacy in today’s world is so rarely discussed that many/most people doubt or don’t realize that its protection is important. Ergo the phantom menace. This reignited my interest in information privacy. But it had been a number of years since I really dug into the subject and much has changed. I have, at this time, little knowledge or understanding of what information privacy really is and what options are available to me. So then I decided to start this new blog as a sort of research project. As a lawyer I am particularly interested in the legal and policy aspects (and the employment aspects too) but I want to keep the focus broad enough so that my research doesn’t become to myopic . And so there you have it … my new mission for this blog will to explore, analyze and reflect on information privacy law and the role it plays in the world at large.
With privacy being such a “hot button” issue nowadays, I thought it wold be interesting to see how it has been handled by Hollywood in the recent past. Below is my list (in no particular order) of the top films of the decade that I found had some connection with information privacy or data security:
Enemy of the State (1998)1
Minority Report (2002)
Syriana (2005)
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
The Good Shepherd(2006)
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Eagle Eye (2008)
Batman-Dark Knight (2008)
… and The Bourne Trilogy (2002, 2004, 2007)
I have no doubt, I’ve missed some and also that in the next decade will see even more films touching on this subject. Just you wait and see.
- it’s not technically in the decade but close [↩]
Ten or so years ago, I was a die-hard Windows OS fan. In fact the first three computers I owned where all Windows OS based machines. In 2006, that all changed with the purchase of my Apple MacMini. I love my Mini and I for all intents and purposes I have thoroughly enjoyed my Apple experience. Indeed, it been an experience that has given me serious reservations about ever buying a Windows based PC again. But, now as my Mini slowly moves closer to its 6th year and the strains of usage are increasingly apparent, I’ve been contemplating its eventual retirement. Surprisingly, I am not looking for another Apple as its replacement. Since I spend most of my time with a computer online, I’ve been rather intrigued by Google’s forthcoming netbook based Chrome OS (see video below). It seems like the perfect OS for a highly mobile individual that needs a quick connection to the Internet no matter where they are located. In fact, unless my use of the computer drastically changes I suspect that make next PC will be a Chrome OS machine. Whether it will give me serious reservations about ever buying an Apple again, I’m not sure but I see it as an evolution in my knowledge of information technology (got to experience it all before finding what it best) and I look forward to testing out Google Chrome’s theory of “always online.”
