Re: [9fans] OT: Ubiquitous data vs. Reality, WAS: Re: The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook

[Wes Kussmaul <wes@ReliableID.com>]

On 04/02/2016 10:30 PM, cigar562hfsp952fans@icebubble.org wrote:

> That's one of the reasons why it's so important to maintain control and
> ownership of OUR OWN data.  My data + my programs = my image of reality.

This went out Friday...

THOUSANDS TRAPPED IN MINING DISASTER

While exact figures are not available at this time, the total number of 
victims in this latest mining disaster will surpass the total from any 
mining accident in history. Subsurface PII mines are known to stretch 
for miles in the underground economy south of San Francisco and beyond, 
where large veins of gold made up of the personally identifiable 
information (PII) of every user of a phone, computer or tablet are 
relentlessly excavated by skilled data miners.

“It's hard to get a handle on just how many people are trapped along 
with the sources of PII gold” said an official at the scene. “The miners 
built a whole economy by breaking into your information home, stealing 
your personal information and putting it on their balance sheet as a 
money-making asset. As it starts to sink in just what they've been up 
to, people feel trapped.” Much of that feeling, he noted, “is 
exacerbated by earlier pronouncements about doing no evil.”

Wes Kussmaul, author of Escape The Plantation, noted that the data mines 
have much in common with plantations during the era of slavery. “In the 
information age, ownership of information about you, your relationships 
and habits and affiliations and finances is like owning you” said 
Kussmaul, adding that “breaking into your information home is an act of 
burglary, and taking your information assets out of your information 
home should be considered grand larceny. The perpetrators of these 
felonious acts should consider getting into another line of work before 
law enforcement and the courts wake up and see the burglary and theft 
that are being perpetrated right in front of them in broad daylight.”

Asked whether the use of the plantation metaphor might be controversial, 
Kussmaul responded, “My book is about ownership of people. The word for 
that is slavery. Since the ownership of people via their digital selves 
is new, the metaphor may strike some as insensitive. My hope is that 
those who feel that way will take a good look at where we are headed if 
we don't do something about rampant burglary of, and theft from, our 
information homes. That practice leads to enslavement.”

Escape The Plantation goes beyond describing enslavement to presenting 
the Authenticity Infrastructure and its Personal Information Ownership 
Component, offering a viable way for people to take ownership and 
control of information about themselves. Characterized by Kussmaul as 
“PKI done right,” the Authenticity Infrastructure's credential “lets you 
log in anywhere using one single password. And just as your car's 
license plate makes you accountable but doesn't disclose the identity of 
the driver or owner of the car, this credential lets you assert your 
identity without disclosing your identity. If you use it to digitally 
sign a document, the relying party knows that the true identity of the 
signer is available, given his or her consent.”

_Escape The Plantation_, 387 pages, ISBN 978-1-931248-23-5, published by 
PKI Press, is available in ebook form ($12.98) and in print ($24.95) 
from PKI Press at https://pkipress.com .