Digital Democracy or Digital Dictatorship?

If you are totally happy with the world and the direction in which it is heading don’t bother reading this article.

However I am not happy and am becoming concerned. It all started with some mail I received, followed by a phone saga, a computer issue and a live broadcast of a public forum. If you bear with me you will quickly see how this is serious and pertinent to all things web based.

First, that letter; a questionnaire sent by an apparently well qualified medico offering me hearing aid advice – all free if I would care to return their questionnaire. The questions had nothing to do with my aural state but if answered would certainly have created a very substantial profile of me.

The phone saga was with my bank. I rang, in accordance with their web published directives, to report a potentially fraudulent transaction on my credit card. That was information available only to me online; however they refused to discuss any aspect of my problem since I had been blacklisted in their system since I had not correctly identified myself in the past. Not a result of my actions but perhaps somebody failing to answer whatever security questions they chose to ask when maybe attempting to impersonate me. Bingo, anybody can do that yet I was dead in the water until I re-established my identity with proper ID such as required for passports.

The computer issue was simple. A friend had bought one of those net book type machines only to discover there was no way he could access email as there was no Outlook, which he was familiar with, provided with Windows 7 and my computer illiterate friend did not know what to do. Somebody in the very high profile store sold him the device had recommended he install Windows Live Mail. So he arrived on my doorstep for assistance the afternoon prior to leaving on holidays as he needed his email services to be as mobile as he was.

The public forum came from the BBC and alerted me to the fact that Google (and shortly probably Facebook) would be insisting that for you to join their social networks real names had to be used. No more hiding behind pseudonyms to be rude, nasty or down right criminal with one’s comments.

But back to the email program issue: it actually turned out that my friend had installed Windows Live Mail and suddenly found that all his mail and contacts from Hotmail were already installed plus some he did not recognise. These puzzled him until, by doing a search, we discovered that they were simply those from a few single emails that he had not bothered to delete. Isn’t that making life easy for spammers?

That is unacceptably intrusive. Like many of us he has several mail accounts. All were transferred without any opportunity to intervene. This really was a case of “my way or highway” and totally intrusive.

The Windows Live stable provides a variety of opportunities to share pictures and documents with your friends. Indeed it allows access to your computer from remote places. But that means you are connected via the Internet.

The sharing feature obviously relies on cloud based systems and most likely so does the Windows remote access feature called Windows Live Mesh. To make all this happen you are required to obtain a Windows Live ID. Sounds fine until you read their privacy statement: “In order to access some Microsoft services, you will be asked to sign in with an email address and password that we refer to as your Windows Live ID. By signing in on one Microsoft site or service, you may be automatically signed into other Microsoft sites and services that use Windows Live ID.”

To me that is again a blatant breach of privacy that removes my ability to exercise my choices. Fortunately you can use other email clients in Windows 7 and that is what we finally did. One would not want to have private correspondence treated with this type of naivety.

In my view, worse still is that Windows Live Mail enables Microsoft to insert advertisements at will into your personal mail. Pretty cute as you do not see them but your recipient does. That set me very much against it as I really do not want to spam my recipients be they friends or otherwise. All this is supposed to “better serve your needs”.

This technique has been in use with their restricted versions of Office that you may continue to use in a “free” mode as long as you are happy to have ads appear at the bottom of the screen. Since these refresh it means that whileI have an operating Internet connection this material is downloaded by stealth to my machine without my prior approval to be displayed when the program is brought into use.

The news that social media networks such as Google +1 and Facebook will only become available to those who are prepared to use their real names takes us to a higher level. Nothing wrong were we in a perfect world but besides the obvious issues it also adds to an ever growing data base of what we used to consider private.

Add to that the suggestion that there will be a search engine capable of using face recognition techniques to find our images just adds to the concern. Just imagine how the global business of data brokers will expand. My above questionnaire is obviously just a small part of the ploys being employed to aid expansion.

What more convenient way to monitor what we are saying be it by government or corporation? I suppose if they don’t get us the mob will to spread hatred and unrest.

If one adopts that view then our privacy, already on shaky grounds, is at great risk.

The government can be called to account. That is not so simple for corporations.

The largest owner of private data that includes credit card details must be iPhone through their iStore. It also explains the stellar performance of the company’s balance sheet and may just be the reason why both Google and Facebook are playing catch-up.

But, of course, our loyalty cards have been doing much of that for quite a while. How often have you been asked whether you have a loyalty card at checkout prior to paying your bill? Have that card swiped and your shopping preferences are recorded as indeed is your method of payment. Those data bases identify you, the product, aisle and quantity you purchased and in part your financial status. Over time it generates your profile making it easier to sell to you.

Perhaps I am just cynical but my suspicions are aroused when I am constantly assured in warm fuzzy terms that things are being done to make it easy for me to share, be found by friends and gain enormous benefits – all of which to me remains somewhat obscure.

Is all this part of acquiring power to control and “politicise” the Internet?

If you accept that all this is for your enjoyment and that the web is a huge inconsequential playground then things are looking pretty rosy; if you are a serious user of this wondrous tool then beware.

Or is it just that the younger generation does not value its privacy and is giving it away as an almost worthless commodity?

Maybe I am past my use-by date but I am concerned.

Arvo Elias
Cybercons