Quotes About Data

I used to say that Google knows more about what I'm thinking of than my wife does. But that doesn't go far enough. Google knows more about what I'm thinking of than I do, because Google remembers all of it perfectly and forever.

Surveillance is the business model of the Internet for two primary reasons: people like free, and people like convenient. The truth is, though, that people aren't given much of a choice. It's either surveillance or nothing, and the surveillance is conveniently invisible so you don't have to think about it.

The world now knows that US telcos give the NSA access to the Internet backbone and that US cloud providers give it access to user accounts.

Worldwide, Google has the capacity to store 15 exabytes.

This is why regulation based on the concept of "personally identifying information" doesn't work. PII is usually defined as a name, unique account number, and so on, and special rules apply to it. But PII is also about the amount of data; the more information someone has about you, even anonymous information, the easier it is for her to identify you.

Apple has a worldwide database of Wi-Fi passwords, including my home network's, from people backing up their iPhones.

The bargain you make, again and again, with various companies is surveillance in exchange for free service.

our personal information is being bought and sold without our knowledge and consent.

Surveillance is the business model of the Internet for two primary reasons: people like free, and people like convenient.

We saw this in late 2014 when Apple finally encrypted iPhone data; one after the other, law enforcement officials raised the specter of kidnappers and child predators. This is a common fearmongering assertion, but no one has pointed to any actual cases where this was an issue. Of the 3,576 major offenses for which warrants were granted for communications interception in 2013, exactly one involved kidnapping—and the victim wasn't a child.

The overwhelming bulk of surveillance is corporate, and it occurs because we ostensibly agree to it. I don't mean that we make an informed decision agreeing to it; instead, we accept it either because we get value from the service or because we are offered a package deal that includes surveillance and don't have any real choice in the matter.

SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM CONTINUES TO DRIVE THE INTERNET

Free" is a special price, and there has been all sorts of psychological research showing that people don't act rationally around it. We overestimate the value of free. We consume more of something than we should when it's free. We pressure others to consume it. Free warps our normal sense of cost vs. benefit, and people end up trading their personal data for less than its worth.

Our privacy is under assault from constant surveillance. Understanding how this occurs is critical to understanding what's at stake.

Because we all use the same products, technologies, protocols, and standards, we either make it easier for everyone to spy on everyone, or harder for anyone to spy on anyone.

Verizon, for example, reports that it received 320,000 "law enforcement demands" for data in 2013. We know that every three months Verizon is served with a single National Security Letter that requires it to turn over the metadata of all 290 million of its customers, so what does that 320,000.

More members of Congress must commit to meaningful NSA reform. We need comprehensive strategic oversight by independent government agencies, based on full transparency. We need meaningful rules for minimizing data gathered and stored about Americans, rules that require NSA to delete data to which it should not have access.

We're still in the honeymoon phase of connectivity. Governments and corporations are punch-drunk on our data, and the rush to connect everything is driven by an even greater desire for power and market share.

I do have two data identities. I have my name, Bruce Sterling, which is my public name under which I write novels. I also have my other name, which is my legal name under which I own property and vote.

The reader is not a "customer" of Facebook because he never paid for Facebook. Facebook's genuine customers are the marketers – those who pay Facebook for the hard labour of surveilling the billion people on Facebook. Facebook is one of the "Big Five" of Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple.

The terms of the Vienna Convention require me to tell you of your legal position. First, your speech is being recorded and you are being filmed. Your statements will be kept on file by various agencies of Vienna Convention signatory governments. I am not required to specify these agencies or the number or the amount or location of the data from this investigation. Vienna treaty investigations are not subject to freedom-of-information or privacy laws.

It is irrational to be politically well-informed because the low returns from data simply do not justify their cost in time and other resources.

int i = inputStream.read(readData); while (i != -1) { outputStream.write(readData, 0, i);

Eukaryotes thus launched a great leap forward in data mix-and-matching, one which roils and churns within us to this day. We latter-age eukaryotes call the resulting DNA cut-and-shuffle sexuality.