As every man goes through life he fills in a number of forms for the record, each containing a number of questions . .. There are thus hundreds of little threads radiating from every man, millions of threads in all. If these threads were suddenly to become visible, the whole sky would look like a spider’s web, and if they materialized as rubber bands, buses; trams and even people would all lose the ability to move, and the wind would be unable to carry torn-up newspapers or autumn leaves along the streets of the city. They are not visible, they are not material, but every man is constantly aware of their existence…. Each man, permanently aware of his own invisible threads, naturally develops a respect for the people who manipulate the threads.
–Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward, 1968.
Its a truly great novel by the way. Laughter and tears amongst industrialised mastectomies and other procedures.
Could it be that the we are all so busy patting ourselves on the back for the "end of Communism" that we have failed to see the rise of pervasive surveillance and potential authoritarianism in our own societies? Be aware of your invisible threads… its time to go back and learn from writers like Solzhenitsyn… any suggestions folks?
Tags: Schneier, Solzhenitsyn, privacy
Dan Davies Brackett says:
June 5, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Everything has a price.
Capitalist societies grow in two ways: they either get more efficient at extracting value from things they’re already extracting value from, or they find new things to extract value from. (Often a combination of both.)
Ultimately, we bought the internet with our privacy, just as we bought the evening news with our sense of peace.