[Input Request]Why is 1984 a dystopy?

[nooBBooze]

Hi folks,
So my final exams are due sometime around next month and I had to produce some kind of seminar paper about "data privacy" and while i dug up some info about it, i got into some kind of philosphical dilemma. as i was skimming through interviews and studys, the two opposite point of views merged into one to the point where i can't even see why the overall concept of an all-seeing governments is such a bad thing.

Whats your thoughts on police states and data privacy?

[Zeph]

If you own it, it's yours. If you set it out for others to see, you have no right to complain if they see it. Passwords and encryption are a deterrent, not protection. If you dont want your data seen, dont hook it up to a public network.

[Mass]

For this kind of thing, I find it's always practical to apply Murphy's law to issues of power and government.

If someone with power can be corrupt, on a theoretical level when setting boundaries, it's best to assume that they will be. This is why, despite it's occasionally numerous inadequacies, I firmly believe in democratic government with the power in the hands of the people, because it requires the entire populous be stupid, corrupt, or massively mislead before a misrepresenting and entirely ineffective government is put into power.

Not to say these forces can't be overcome, case in point: Right-Wing Revolution in the United States.

Onward to application to a totalitarian regime. Simply: there's very, very, very much that can go wrong and much havoc that can be released upon a totalitarian state when Murphy's Law is applied to its government. For one thing, the government is just so fucking large, in that bureaucratic, hierarchical monument to arbitrary suffering something is nearly guaranteed to go horribly wrong, or worse, exactly as planned.

Furthermore, as we near the top of this lying, self-consumed, unpatriotic, behemoth pyramid we reach extremely dangerous power concentrations. A sort of political critical mass, if you will. If the leader of a regime has lost touch with reality, obsessed with a singular pointless objective, or corrupt(read: conservative) to the core--these being the nature of dictatorial Murphy's Law--the entire country is "fuxxed."

What you end up with is an entire society based around undieing, self-consuming apathy. When you can't do what you want with your life, when you don't get any rewards for doing a good job, when there's no hope for change or reform in your life, when you're thoughts and life are open for others to look at, step on, and destroy, and when your data isn't your data: You really can't be arsed to care about the common good for which you toil.

-Mass (you're free to steal mah ideas if you'd like.)

[Kornman00]

If you own it, it's yours. If you set it out for others to see, you have no right to complain if they see it. Passwords and encryption are a deterrent, not protection. If you dont want your data seen, dont hook it up to a public network.
Poor statement.

If measures are placed to protect data from unauthorized third parties, then the data is private between a server a client (not just talking computers here, so eg, a provider and a consumer). If you're trying to crack passwords or other authorization systems put in place, you're interfering with the privacy of the data, no matter if it's on a public or private "network"; security knows no bounds. Social engineering is a prime example of gaining access to a so called "private" "network".

Most encryption methods used today (namely, asymmetric) can't possibly be reversed (ie, MD5 or SHA1) or solved\cracked (RSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_problem)) with today or any foreseeable future's computation power. They are protection until a means of compromising the system has been discovered. Thus they are a means of preventing data's integrity broken and confidentiality breached. A deterrent would be placing only a monitor (ie a CCTV camera or security guard) on the data to be hidden prying eyes.

There is no such thing as a totally secure system. You just want to make a system secure enough. Don't want to compromise your data? Keep it to yourself then off yourself (preferably in means which destroys your brain in case there is a means to go that far into recovery :downs:).

Get yourself a Security+ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security%2B#Security.2B) certificate before you talk about data privacy Zeph :eng101:.

[nooBBooze]

For this kind of thing, I find it's always practical to apply Murphy's law to issues of power and government.

If someone with power can be corrupt, on a theoretical level when setting boundaries, it's best to assume that they will be. This is why, despite it's occasionally numerous inadequacies, I firmly believe in democratic government with the power in the hands of the people, because it requires the entire populous be stupid, corrupt, or massively mislead before a misrepresenting and entirely ineffective government is put into power.

Not to say these forces can't be overcome, case in point: Right-Wing Revolution in the United States.

Onward to application to a totalitarian regime. Simply: there's very, very, very much that can go wrong and much havoc that can be released upon a totalitarian state when Murphy's Law is applied to its government. For one thing, the government is just so fucking large, in that bureaucratic, hierarchical monument to arbitrary suffering something is nearly guaranteed to go horribly wrong, or worse, exactly as planned.

Furthermore, as we near the top of this lying, self-consumed, unpatriotic, behemoth pyramid we reach extremely dangerous power concentrations. A sort of political critical mass, if you will. If the leader of a regime has lost touch with reality, obsessed with a singular pointless objective, or corrupt(read: conservative) to the core--these being the nature of dictatorial Murphy's Law--the entire country is "fuxxed."

What you end up with is an entire society based around undieing, self-consuming apathy. When you can't do what you want with your life, when you don't get any rewards for doing a good job, when there's no hope for change or reform in your life, when you're thoughts and life are open for others to look at, step on, and destroy, and when your data isn't your data: You really can't be arsed to care about the common good for which you toil.

-Mass (you're free to steal mah ideas if you'd like.)
The question is, what if a democratic government [where the power is mostly in the hands of the people wich is -in my opinion- the swiss system]
actually puts it's own people under 24/7 surveillance in order to establish maximum security [doubtful if possible] and maximum comfort [less doubtful] and mostly respects what i thought you would define as "freedom" in your last paragraph - how and why would this exact repliction of the overall concept of 1984, except with democracy and that definition of freedom of yours, be ethically wrong?

[Roostervier]

The question is, what if a democratic government [where the power is mostly in the hands of the people wich is -in my opinion- the swiss system]
actually puts it's own people under 24/7 surveillance in order to establish maximum security [doubtful if possible] and maximum comfort [less doubtful] and mostly respects what i thought you would define as "freedom" in your last paragraph - how and why would this exact repliction of the overall concept of 1984, except with democracy and that definition of freedom of yours, be ethically wrong?


For this kind of thing, I find it's always practical to apply Murphy's law to issues of power and government.

If someone with power can be corrupt, on a theoretical level when setting boundaries, it's best to assume that they will be. This is why, despite it's occasionally numerous inadequacies, I firmly believe in democratic government with the power in the hands of the people, because it requires the entire populous be stupid, corrupt, or massively mislead before a misrepresenting and entirely ineffective government is put into power.

This. Sooner or later (most likely sooner) there will be some corruption going on, and the "maximum" security given to us by 24/7 surveillance could be exploited by the greediness of others. All the surveillance would do is make it easier for those who are corrupt to commit their crimes.

What crimes? I may be using my imagination here, but I can think of a few. For those who already believe in BS conspiracy theories, it would make it all that much easier for the government to abduct you for questioning/torturing/whatever you crazy kids think of. They could start to sell information to dangerous people, not caring for the repercussions. Depending on the surveillance, they could easily steal ones identity (like the already can't, but if they, again, wanted to sell the information to someone). You can probably think of a few yourself.

All in all, there are really too many things that could go wrong.

[Pooky]

PM aggy, he loves 1984 like most men love vagina

[Emmzee]

Hi folks,
So my final exams are due sometime around next month and I had to produce some kind of seminar paper about "data privacy" and while i dug up some info about it, i got into some kind of philosphical dilemma. as i was skimming through interviews and studys, the two opposite point of views merged into one to the point where i can't even see why the overall concept of an all-seeing governments is such a bad thing.

Whats your thoughts on police states and data privacy?
I think 1984 summed it up nicely:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.

If you still don't get why total government control is a bad thing, pick up the graphic novel Superman: Red Son at your local library. For a comic book, that shit gets deep.