Welcome to Buster's Blog

Irregular commentary on whatever's on my mind -- politics, sports, current events, and life in general. After twenty years of writing business and community newsletters, fifteen years of fantasy baseball newsletters, and two years of email "columns", this is, I suppose, the inevitable result: the awful conceit that someone might actually care to read what I have to say. Posts may be added often, rarely, or never again. As always, my mood and motivation are unpredictable.

Buster Gammons















Monday, August 5, 2013

The Surveillance Society


[Excerpts from the 8/12/13 Time magazine article by David Von Drehle]
______________________________________________________

In 1980, IBM introduced its Model 3380 disk drive, the first device capable of storing more than a gigabyte of data.  It was roughly the size and weight of a refrigerator and cost an inflation-adjusted $100,000. Today a flash drive costing one-thousandth as much can store 50 times the data and fit on a key ring.  The amount of data that can be stored is almost infinite.

Perhaps there's consolation in the magic of the microchip.  Technology makes all secrets more difficult to keep -- not just our personal secrets but the government's as well.

This, ultimately, may prove to be our best protection against the rise of the surveillance state.  The same tools that strengthen it strengthen those who protest against it. Privacy is not the only illusion in the new age of data -- government secrecy is too. Big Brother might be watching, but he is also being watched.

Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. UnknownAugust 12, 2013 at 10:16 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BusterAugust 14, 2013 at 4:22 PM

    James Reynolds (real name?) is totally unknown to me, but he's just a schmuck salesman. My apologies. I could delete his lame pitch. Better still, you could just ignore it.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)