A politician from Germany’s Green Party, whose success in recent state-elections certainly has more to do with such long-standing insults as described and corporate steam-rolling autocracy rather than reactionary fears over atomic energy from just yesterday, presents a marvelous and disturbing expose (auf Englisch) on the dastardly ways that big business has at its disposal for keeping tabs on anyone, and introduces it with the prescient words of Kraftwerk’s Computerwelt.
In order to highlight how a person’s day-to-day activities could be easily triangulated to limn a more than complete picture of one’s movements, dealings and interests and what repercussions changes in data retention rules (
Vorratsdatenspeicherung) could have. After winning a lawsuit again the telecommunications firm that warehouses such logs, the politician made these records, six months' worth, available to Die Zeit. Gadgetry should not present the consumer a conundrum between convenence, functionality and being spied upon. Technology does not advance solely as fodder for marketers or advertising space. A second
article (auf Deutsch) in the series is also quite an interesting read, addressing not only the trade-off but what is so willing offered up as incriminating evidence.
