data points generated by and collected from other individuals.
Computer systems crunch all this data to learn each person’s
habits, thoughts, needs, and desires. Over time, this system
grows more and more sophisticated and ultimately knows what
individuals want before they know it themselves. At the same
time, the information is also sold to the highest bidder, who uses
it to sell products or to deny citizens opportunities, to influence
their opinions, or to ensure that those in power remain in power.
In fact, this scenario is not at all far-fetched. The world we live in
is only steps away from operating this way.
The stakes are enormous. Privacy is about far more than just
being left alone. It is about the space in which individuals can
be free and can be themselves. This privacy is at the heart of
a free democratic society, and many experts caution that if we
lose our privacy, we lose our freedom.
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped publicize Edward
Snowden’s revelations about NSA spying, summarizes the
potential and the hazards of a wired society in the introduction
to his book
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the
U.S. Surveillance State
. He writes, “Converting the Internet into
a system of surveillance . . . turns [it] into a tool of repression,
threatening to produce the most extreme and oppressive
weapon of state intrusion human history has ever seen.”
Greenwald concludes his introduction by stating that
humankind stands at a crossroads. He asks, “Will the digital
age usher in the individual liberation and political freedoms that
the Internet is uniquely capable of unleashing? Or will it bring
about a system of omnipresent monitoring and control, beyond
the dreams of even the greatest tyrants of the past? Right
now, either path is possible. Our actions will determine where
we end up.”
79
The Internet of Things
