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Loading... The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between…by David Brin
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. An excellent examination of the computer privacy, cryptology, and the need for both in our society. Brin makes the point that perhaps transparency is better than privacy, and would provide its own form of privacy. Very interesting reading. (  ) Karlstar | Oct 13, 2008 |  This book has become more and more prescient in the years since its publication. Indispensable. (  ) wfzimmerman | May 9, 2007 | A thought-provoking read. I find it convincing support for creating a society that minimizes surveillance-- but if we fail to do that, I favor Brin's notion of letting everyone watch everyone else instead of leaving it to the privileged. ( ) slothman | Dec 5, 2006 | A non-fiction book about how future technologies will impact privacy and freedom. Brin's position is that the best way to ensure freedom is to have technologies that allow reciprocal transparency. If everyone can see what everyone else is doing then it will be harder to hide wrongdoing. He feels that solutions such as encryption technologies will not preserve freedom, because the wealthy and powerful will always have better tools, and because there are numerous other ways to find out the content of encrypted data even without being able to break the encryption. Brin puts together a good case for his points, but the book is from 1998, so he does not have the opportunity to talk about a lot of things that have happened in the world since then. So far, we do not really seem to be moving in the direction of transparency. ( ) sdobie | Nov 14, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
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While this has the makings for an Orwellian nightmare, Brin argues that we can choose to make the same scenario a setting for even greater freedom. The determining factor is whether the power of observation and surveillance is held only by the police and the powerful or is shared by us all. In the latter case, Brin argues that people will have nothing to fear from the watchers because everyone will be watching each other. The cameras would become a public resource to assure that no mugger is hiding around the corner, our children are playing safely in the park, and police will not abuse their power.
No simplistic Utopian, Brin also acknowledges the many dangers on the way. He discusses how open access to information can either threaten or enhance freedom. It is one thing, for example, to make the entire outdoors public and another thing to allow the cameras and microphones to snoop into our homes. He therefore spends a lot of pages examining what steps are required to assure that a transparent society evolves in a manner that enhances rather than restricts freedom. This is a challenging view of tomorrow and an exhilarating read for those who don't mind challenges to even the most well-entrenched cultural assumptions. --Elizabeth Lewis
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)
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