Gizmo wrote:
basingwerk wrote:
Is all this data management machinery (e.g. the internet, electronic security and surveillance, databases and automation etc.) just a passing fad which will go away after a bit, then?
It depends....A good friend of mine is a software developer for a credit card company in the USA. He always pays cash for any purchases he makes. …
Yet I use my card. That is the case for almost everyone - the system works more than it fails.
Gizmo wrote:
I think that that technology in the public sector has failed do deliver security. In fact it has given crooks new ways to screw you. The internet is one of the fastest growing sectors for criminal activity and the hardest to police.
Trade transfers remorselessly to e-bay and the network, in the same way that canal boats gave way to trains, then trucks. The Internet does facilitate crime, like the postal network, the transport network or any other system of interaction.
Gizmo wrote:
Maybe you are happy with that. In which case I can see why you think the way you do.
I’m commenting on the state of things. Systems which record their data on paper are the same as systems which record their data on the surface of a disk, but updates happen in a centralised way, faster, more reliably and the data takes up less space. If reliability is required, it must be in the design, I expect.
I hope things will be done - for example, id cloning can be prevented using spatial monitoring (a thing cannot be at two locations at the same time). Serial numbers can contain redundancy and digitally signed summaries, making it impossible to generate new ones. Biometrics can reduce or eliminate false positives. Etc. etc.
Gizmo wrote:
But all I see is more ways for criminals to prosper and greater risk of identity theft that is difficult for you to defend against or correct. It has all gone mad. We "trust" technology way too much. It does not deserve it.
Systems are systematic, and lack of systematisation does not imply trust to me either.
Fair play, you are right, though, the world is madly systematising itself, and humans have become the raw materials on which systems operate. Once, we looked in at the model from outside, but we’re all
part of the model now. Speed cameras are just the thin end of the wedge. Scary stuff, Gizmo. No wonder people hate them.