Institute For The Future

Outlaw Planet

 

To: Sam Chen (gh0stsh3ll@ googlezonmail.com)

From: Hindsight Report

Subject: Your July Report

According to our tracking, your public biographical information was accessed 3,482 times in July. We are able to connect legitimate uses to 82% of these access attempts. Your entry on biography-wiki.org was changed twice from different IP addresses, with both changes reverted by anti-vandalism bots. Your public carbon record is 989 kilograms of CO2e; your carbon footprint calculated by monitor scans is 1 metric ton, within acceptable range of difference. You received 14 negative ratings on ethicapedia for your public consumption, 12 from the same IP address. This is unusually high. Hindsight Report suggests checking for any correlations with angry or disgruntled colleagues. Receive 10% off your first year if you use Oversight Report for this service.

 

Big Brother, Little Sister, everyone is watching. Everyone with a phone or computer can access public monitoring networks, for just about every kind of behavioral data. There's little that can't be measured or estimated, with or without consent: body weight, calorie intake, carbon footprint. Some call it "mutual assured transparency," some call it the biggest invasion of privacy in history, but nobody can figure out how to restrict its use without undermining the technologies we've come to depend upon.

 Supporters argue that it helps us live healthy lives, which in turn leads to a healthy planet. But as environmental conditions continue to worsen, frightened and angry individuals have begun to attack people and companies behaving in an environmentally careless fashion. Pranksters, competitors, and paid vandals distort signals from eco-sensors to skew corporate images, and "pollute" public records with false or misleading information. This growing antagonism over environmental behavior emerges at the international level, too, with nations arguing over eco-crimes the way they used to over human rights violations. Meanwhile, black market dealers trade in carbon-controlled substances, and griefers massively disrupt budding attempts at true civil consensus. The proponents of radical digital democracy find little support for their cause.