Here's a little bit of what's going on in my world today, in a nice bite-sized morsel. I'm a pretty big fan of free speech, and it doesn't seem like there is any better place for it than on the internet. Things have certainly come a long way from the early days when the online world was mostly unknown or ignored outside of a fairly small crowd of geeks and hackers.
Today the idea of network connectivity pervades almost every area of modern life. Our societies and economies largely depend on it. This is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's safe to say we haven't quite gotten all of the kinks worked out. Ubiquitous networking and exponential increases in computing capability have disrupted our lives. The disruption is still in progress.
With that context in mind, there are a few examples of the "adjustments" that are being made which stood out to me over the past day. There are a ton of people reporting on the potentially slimy use of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica. It has become quite the scandal. My take on this is, yeah, what did you expect? Anyone who thought Facebook was a paragon of virtue regarding data they collect probably hasn't been paying much attention. Beyond that, I still stand by my original take on this topic which is to say "Don't put anything online that you don't want the whole world to see". Assume it's all public from the beginning, and these kind of things become a lot less shocking. That's a good way to look at the blockchain(s) too. It's probably easier to take such a view from the beginning, since blockchains are explicitly "public read-only". At least as far as I understand them.
China is quickly approaching a full dark mirror implementation, which also has some "hmmm" implications for blockchain activities and systems. They have implemented an idea which attempts to make society better by using a "social credit score" to keep bad actors from using public transportation (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/china-travel-ban-bad-social-credit-from-planes-trains/). Coming soon, to a government near you would be my guess on that one. It might be worth speaking up before it happens, if you care about that kind of thing.
And to round out the "of course they did" category of bad stuff being done by powerful people, SESTA passed the US Senate by 97-2. Not quite as close as SOPA, but that's what you get when a well-funded organization plays a long game. Mike Godwin has a discussion about why this is a bad idea at http://www.rstreet.org/2018/03/21/the-roots-of-section-230-show-why-we-shouldnt-abandon-intermediary-liability-protection/. You can find lots of other discussion about it all over the internet if you look, which it seems very few elected representatives spend much time doing.
And all of that just goes to show that we MUST design systems that deal with bad actors. While I have great faith in humanity and people, in our capability to treat each other well, the simple fact of the matter is that some people do profoundly bad things. Don't let them.
And with that, we're off to the next thing. Tomorrow's Friday. Thought I'd end on a happy note :)
