Accidental Privacy Spills 585
ahem writes "A journalist attends the World Economic forum, and writes an email to a few friends. It's a chatty, casual conference report. The conference is a gathering of the 5,000 most powerful people in the world. The report gives a breezy insight into how stuff gets done at that level, and what the concerns are that keep the world's leaders up at night. That email was intended only for the journalist's friends. That email winds up getting plastered all over the net. Here is a very interesting discussion of the implications of this "privacy spill." Make sure you read down to the Epilogue. Here is the email itself." The Lawmeme discussion is quite thoughtful and in-depth, very good reading.
Idiots... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Idiots... (Score:4, Informative)
Poster says:
When will people get that email is not secure. Its the digital equivalent of a postcard, but idiots still email credit card numbers and worse.
Article says:
Encryption is fine for the digital connection, but the digital connection was already the secure part of the link. Garrett's expectations of privacy were compromised between the seat and the keyboard; the same place every technically foolproof scheme fails.
The article is more interesting than just a technological discussion, because it gets into issues of how social norms and technology interface. Of course, it's also waaaaaaay long.
Re:Idiots... (Score:4, Interesting)
Screw all that, RTFA...
Hello global economic disaster. The article is worth a read just to get some perspective on what everyone else things of america.
Re:Idiots... (Score:3, Insightful)
Read differently, that makes it sound like the US economy is the primary engine of the global economy.
But this guy went to J-school. Of course he'll slant it the other way.
society has to grow up (Score:2, Insightful)
Privacy may be an outdated idea. People want it to hide what may embarrass them. But their embarrassment really is the problem.
If something would embarrass them, either they are too weak to stand up for who they are, or they are doing something they know to be bad, and against their own stated principles.
We need to be more forgiving of people for their weaknesses, and be more careful about our own. If loss of privacy would help these two statements, then what is the problem?
Revlavent Links... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Revlavent Links... (Score:4, Insightful)
But here's the thing: I already know I'm pissing away time here, and one day I'll just stop. Usenet and MetaFilter and Slashdot are near-complete failures - no argument. But telling an addict to go out and get straight has never been effective, and I think Garrett knows that. Look at the minutes it will take me to compose this reply - and for what? It all just feeds the addiction.
And here's the other thing: I really enjoyed reading that letter. Yes, it was a slight invasion of privacy (though it wasn't particularly personal, and if it had been I'd have quit reading), but I feel like it lent me insight into what a WEF summit is in ways that Garrett's presumably carefully-crafted official piece just won't. Why isn't that kind of writing the norm? What the heck are we afraid of if it were? I already knew that all those "world leaders" and "captains of industry" were jes' folks, with all the attendant fears and irrationality, but it was nice to see such a candid (and not uncharitable) description. And for some other reader that same insight might be both novel and very useful. It might just be the thing that gets them out the door and doing something real to change the world for the better. Garrett has nothing to be embarrassed about.
Re:Revlavent Links... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Revlavent Links... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll agree that Garrett should be neither ashamed nor embarrassed by her original email. Yes, it's disappointing to see shoddy language skills from a professional journalist. And yes, it would be nice if a Pulitzer and Peabody Prize winner didn't exhibit such naiveté and ignorance about both the security and the intimacy of the internet. But she's right: The fact that a "Fwd" button simplifies the act of sharing personal correspondence, should not make it less egregious. Someone on Metafilter suggested that, because Garrett didn't specifically write, "Don't pass this along," she couldn't expect the email to remain private. I don't think we've reached that point, in our march toward the erosion of privacy...and I hope we won't.
Having written that: I think Garrett's email to Metafilter is shameful. It's ignorant. She assumes that people discussing her email on Metafilter are unproductive people who neither experience nor contribute to much of life. This ignorant presumption is beneath a professional journalist, and it's certainly beneath a Pulitzer writer. She is obviously angry, and she probably feels violated. This is understandable, and most of us sympathize. But she responds with ad hominem attacks on an entire community, invoking stereotypical references. Cracking on nerds about William Shatner, I guess, is more acceptable than cracking about blacks and fried chicken? Jews and Barbra Streisand?
Garrett was pardoned for this vitriol, by another Metafilter poster, because she was "writing in anger." And that's really the bottom line, here: Has she learned nothing? She's angry because something she wrote off-the-cuff, without the consideration she would give to a professional article, found its way into public consumption. So in response, she types an angry, bitter, off-the-cuff missive, and mails it into a discussion revolving around the incident? Has she NO sense of irony?!?
Garrett remarks that she has learned her lesson: She will no longer email personal messages; because online, "no one can be trusted." Well, as we all say, the only way to truly secure a document is not to write it. But it seems to me that she has missed the larger lesson, here: If your words are unconsidered, don't share them. A personal letter shouldn't require the effort of a professional article, of course. But a personal misunderstanding, stemming from poorly-written thoughts, can be just as damaging as a professional embarrassment.
Privacy is an important concern, and Garrett's was violated. Yes, email simplifies "gossip." Yes, the internet has eroded privacy. But part of that erosion has been incidental: The internet's effect is less upon the privacy of your words, and more upon their permanence. Learn from Garrett's mistake, and remember that permanence every time you type.
crib
Re:Idiots... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that _nothing_ is secure once it's decrypted. Even if the e-mail had been sent encrypted and with "DO NOT PUBLISH" written on every other line, some random friend might still have sent the body of the e-mail (after decrypting it to read it) to a friend of theirs, who then forwards it to a friend who has a webpage... and so on. The same applies to written letters as well (ever heard of the "Xerox machine"?)
What's really amazing to me is some of those responses to the second letter. "You shouldn't write anything that you don't stand behind"?!?! Jesus, do people really think that _everything_ is for public consumption? I reserve the right to have a private life! I mean, we're talking about a letter from a woman to her pals. I would like to think that my e-mail is not innately for public consumption. But according to some people, if a person with a weblog gets their hands on one of my e-mails, then suddenly it's my fault for not somehow making my e-mails self-destruct once they've been read! I have more to say about people who think like that, but I doubt that slashdot's lameness filter will let me post it.
Re:Idiots... (Score:3, Insightful)
Talking of which, I wish someone would put a straight-jacket on my mother, before she sends me more of those chain letters. Sometimes I feel like forwarding them to a spammer address, just so the 800 people shown in the 50 included header segments all get spammed even more. But then I remember it's my mom, and I love her and all that, so I don't.
Took me 20 minutes to read. (Score:3, Insightful)
A very fascinating talk about privacy, copyright, and the failures of both. Betrayed by friends.
And of course, the assholes that chat online (blog? what a stupid word).
But it comes down to one small point- a single failure allowed that message to get out. Who's to blame? The guy forwarding it to the mass list? Did he know *everyone* on that list? Probably not. So therefore I'm saying the fault lies there. In every other case, the people that forwarded knew the others, no more than if a simple discussion was being undertaken among friends. I might not know joe and amy, but sue does, and she might mention how I had a good success at work. I wouldn't have told them, but that knowledge propogated without my help.
However, if Sue then posted on some forumn about my work success, then she'd be crossing the line. So I say, that is where the line in the sand is....and you crossed it. And Laurie is the one that pays for your broken implicit promise.
I guess.... (Score:2, Funny)
Well why the hell wasnt I invited???
Re:I guess.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I guess.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I guess.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I guess.... (Score:4, Funny)
common example: Word documents (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:common example: Word documents (Score:5, Interesting)
Word is bad about saving info. You with find previously deleted text, revisions, computer names, account names, sometime passwords embedded into the document. I would have to say that Word is one of the most insecure formats in which to deliver a message.
BTW - this same way has gotten me past passwords more then once.
Re:common example: Word documents (Score:4, Interesting)
It turns out that Windows didn't use to bother zeroing out RAM when it handed it over to an application, so I guess at times you could call malloc() and get random junk from other running applications. And Office of course doesn't actually write files out in a known format, it pretty much just dumps memory out intact (which is why it's such a pain to reverse engineer the file format). The combination of the OS not clearing RAM and Office writing out memory which it had allocated but never bothered using resulted in email headers in Word documents. This was fixed years ago, of course. I kinda missed it, though. I still routinely run strings on Office docs to see what shows up.
Re:common example: Word documents (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhm, no, you are mistaken in your understanding of malloc. This is the standard for malloc:
Taken from malloc (1).
It is not the operating systems responsibility to clear the memory of something recently allocated, and it is good programming practice to set the bits to 0 after a malloc unless you know for a damn well certainty that you will fill the entire segment.
C Library versus OS kernel (Score:4, Informative)
Just think about the privacy implication of such cross-application leaks on a multi-user system. Rather than relying on a broken word processor, an attacker could write a program that intentionnally malloc'ed large chunks of memory, and then went searching through them for interesting data of his fellow users...
Re:C Library versus OS kernel (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong. Apparently nobody here has ever coded on a system with only 1-2 megs of RAM available. I'm done explaining it, but read the thread or go read a book on what is and isn't possible with malloc() and not blitting zero to your memory segment.
Re:C Library versus OS kernel (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily -- it is feasible that process A has allocated some pages of physical memory and then A stops running. Process B then allocates some memory and is given those same physical pages. Unless I have a fundamental misunderstanding of how virtual memory systems work, there is no guarantee that those pages get cleared.
Of course, if you care about security then you would want that memory zeroed. But that would be up to the kernel implementer. Apparently, the behavior of brk is not really consistent across the different standards (BSD, POSIX, ...)
Re:common example: Word documents (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, that would create a sparse file which ls(1) would report as having a size of "large" bytes, but du(1) would report as occuping zero blocks.
Is there a way to remove undo history? (Score:2)
Thank you in advance.
Corp Policy on Documentation Release (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, following all of that is a royal pain in the arse, so it only gets done on vendor communications and whatnot, and typically it's iffy then. But it is funny to see a template that had gotten hit by a virus from my boss once- I called him up and had him panic about having another bug on his box
Re:common example: Word documents (Score:5, Interesting)
I know absolutely nothing about PDF but I assume they have layers.
Ironically it was a report about some Israelis trying to gather information on DEA agents and there they had all their names and addresses published in the internet.
Re:common example: Word documents (Score:3, Informative)
Exposed for all to see (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to have anything not exposed would be to of encrypted the messages for each person.
The next step? Go the Microsoft way and have either a timed encrypted message or some way to have a message self-delete after so much time. Both are possible but either add it's own complexities or possiblities of comprimise. (ie. the timed message abitliy is out there but basically you view a message which exists on an external server and is displayed on your machine via a doc.write comand. Not the best way.
Re:Exposed for all to see (Score:2, Insightful)
Encrypting e-mail only protects it in-transit or while stored in its encrypted form. The recipient (obviously) has to decrypt it to read it, thus the message is now plaintext. Uhnless the message is prevented from being save as plaintext, encryption won't help this case.
I remember seeing some time ago a software package that would give a "expiration date" to e-mail; after a certain amount of time, the e-mail message automatically deletes itself. If only I could find it...not that it would help this situation, as cutting and pasting operations render the expiration date useless (unless such operations aren't allowed).
Re:Exposed for all to see (Score:2, Interesting)
Two ways I've gone about this was once I made a pdf with a password of an important letter and sent that. That automatically stops the basic forward or copy paste methods of sending it on. The second was I used a program called EyeMage [proporta.com] and encrypted a number of messages to a friend who worked for a nosy boss. All the boss saw were a series of photos of family and scenes sometimes "resent" that had messages hidden inside. This also makes it a little more difficult to forward... but not copy paste.
PGP (Score:2)
You can't stop someone from taking a screen-grab or retyping the text. But there's a good chance this level of crypto would have prevented the sort of 'hey check this out' forwarding that got this letter posted all over the 'web.
Heh, whoops. (Score:3, Funny)
Having the fact your message was sent to too many people sent to everone. An insult to injury.
Isn't slashdot posting the original message and letting everyone know just adding injury to injury? Or is it merely priceless.
I call bullshit! (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. (Score:3, Funny)
Conspiracy? Sure. Would you listen to Bill Gates if he publicly came out against the war or would you rather get an insight in a sneaky and naughty way?
Sincerely,
-Matt
Re:I call bullshit! (Score:2)
Simple get more trustworthy friends. (Score:3, Insightful)
Technology gives us more speed and a larger play field but gossip is gossip and it will spread via word of mouth over the backyard fence or on somebody's blog. There is nothing new here except the speed and scope.
Re:Simple get more trustworthy friends. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm afraid I find both the author of this article's sympathy for and defense of Ms. Garrett and his alarm about the memetic and viral nature of digital information misguided.
As to the former, let's get down to brass tacks - if you read the original email, you clearly have a person that is enjoying the cache of being a capital-P Pullitzer Prize Winning Journalist!!! so she gets to hobnob with the Ubermenschen Clubs Rule-da-Woild fun fest. She want to share her aw-shucks I'm a regular girl (but oh so smart and important 'cause see who I'm rubbing elbows with) reactions with a select group of friends. She either doesn't pick her friends too good and/or doesn't explain the rules to them and/or just doesn't get the nature of the internet. And she gets widebanded.
Well, she's embarassed. Why? Because her regular person persona has clashed violently with her respected and erudite journalist persona - the very thing that got her into the "inner circle" to start with. She was, plain and simply, made to look foolish.
Hey, it happens. I more or less left a job out of fallout (or more precisely my reaction to it) to a poorly considered email I wrote. I chose to view it as a learning experience, I certainly didn't see it as an excuse to rail against the facts of the medium. I learned two things - one is, indeed: once you hit send it is out there and you absolutely can't control it. Two: I stand up and take responsibility for what I say, absolutely.
Instead of taking this lesson gracefully, she writes a letter that basically tries to rip down netheads and blame them for the situation. She scoffs at their discussion, how dare these grubby little geeks presume to enter discourse on the high and mighty, compares them to Star Trek fans in full fanatic mode and tells them to get a life. The letter is linked in the sidebar of Metafilter and it is worth a read for the context of this article.
This is the nature of information. This is why my sig says what it does. I'm frsked if I know if information "wants" anything but I know that it is its nature to jump the boundaries, be fungible, replicate and spread. There is no "solution." No solution is needed. Deal with it.
A person who wants to claim to be a professional in the field of disseminating information had better accept this or they will find themselves irrelevant very, very quickly.
I'm concerned about email privacy, too (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm concerned about email privacy, too (Score:2)
Should've learned a long time ago... (Score:3, Interesting)
yet another symptop of the ubiquitous forward (Score:5, Insightful)
The "forward" has become a replacement for an actual composed email message. Its easier to maintain the illusion of staying in touch by forwarding some insipid crap rather than taking the time to actually *gasp* drop someone a personal note.
As a result, most email is not private, or more importantly, personal. I can easily imagine what went through the recipients mind - "wow, this is cool, let me forward it to ____". Why wouldn't he ? After all, we foward crap to each other all the time, why should this very interesting email be any different ?
You get something that looks interesting, you forward it. It couldn't POSSIBLY have been intended for ONLY you.
I would bet that had this letter been handwritten, the recipients would not have shown it around.
Welcome to the global communication era.
Fw:yet another symptop of the ubiquitous forward (Score:3, Funny)
[original message]
This is a symptom of what has become all too common in todays email society - the trivialization of communication.
The "forward" has become a replacement for an actual composed email message. Its easier to maintain the illusion of staying in touch by forwarding some insipid crap rather than taking the time to actually *gasp* drop someone a personal note.
As a result, most email is not private, or more importantly, personal. I can easily imagine what went through the recipients mind - "wow, this is cool, let me forward it to ____". Why wouldn't he ? After all, we foward crap to each other all the time, why should this very interesting email be any different ?
You get something that looks interesting, you forward it. It couldn't POSSIBLY have been intended for ONLY you.
I would bet that had this letter been handwritten, the recipients would not have shown it around.
Welcome to the global communication era.
Let me see... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a liberal bastion that opposes the way not because of the people, but because there investments will get screwed.
Power is sexy
Swiss is a hick way of saying "expensive"
Al Qaeda's threat is mostly done with...
Nope... No major news here... Move along... nothing to see.
Re:Let me see... (Score:5, Insightful)
What? Where's the "liberal bastion"? These are "free-market capitalists".
I found the email fascinating because of how weird and out-of-touch the Americans look. This is supposed to be our swimming pool -- the business elite. Instead well look like religious wackjobs trying to have a 'splendid little war'.
Re:Let me see... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
You know, as a resident of this planet, I don't want it "cleansed" by some clown in Washington. The days when there was a standoff between the USA and the USSR, so that neither got to "take out" as many countries as they wanted, look pretty attractive in hindsight.
Questionable authenticity.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Reading email violates the DMCA. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Redistributing is an even bigger no-no. . .:)P
My favorite (Score:2)
Yeah... OK. They could support the quick liberation of the oppressed peoples in Iraq and lose a paltry couple of million... but they'd rather let the Iraqis suffer and keep the cash. Well, I can see looking out for your own self interest, but wow... makes the whole thing seem rather mercenary.
It's not evil to be rich, and you can't force compassion and altruism (unless you are the government)... but it makes you think....
Re:My favorite (Score:2)
She sounded like she had just graduated from the Moscow School of Economics in 1920 (if there was one under the old system), "ruling class" etc.
Can the problem be solved? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's compare it to a real letter, or better yet, a company memo (in dead-tree form), since real letters typically only have one recipient. Let's say a memo gets sent to all 5 members of the HR department of a company. That memo warns that there will be no holiday bonuses this year. It goes on to say that the employees will be informed of this later, but HR is getting a heads-up in advance. Now, one of the HR employees, pissed off about this, decides to scan it, and post it on the company web site. Is he wrong to do this? Most people would say he is, I'll bet.
Now, the question is, why is it so different with e-mail? If I send a printed letter to a friend, I have the expectation that it will not be plastered on bulletin boards around town. If I send an e-mail, people would argue that I can't expect it to remain private. Why? I think the answer is because it's so easy to distribute an e-mail. Clicking the forward button is trivial.
So what's the solution? Disclaimers and confidentiality statements like some companies have on their e-mail? Doubtful. Even if they would hold up in court, who's willing to fight it? How about some sort of flag that specifices whether a message can be forwarded? That smacks of DRM, and no one's going to like that, nor will every client implement it. PGP? Well, that's nice, but once the recipient decrypts it, it's plain text, which can be forwarded. As much as it sucks, we may just have to rely on personal judgement.
So was the person who forwarded her e-mail a jerk? Probably. Should he have asked permission of the author? Definitely. Is there anything that can be done about it? Nope.
So Who Are Your Friends? (Score:3, Insightful)
-- Rick
Insundry? (Score:4, Funny)
S/he's a reporter but thinks "insundry" is a word? The phrase is "...and sundry".
But wait, it gets funnier, I googled (tm) for "insundry" and got more than 100 hits. I guess a lot of people hear "and sundry" as "insundry". Is there a word for that? It's like a meme, but it's something you've heard. A heme! Oh, wait. Taken. A misspelleme?
Re:Insundry? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I have this problem on slashdot. (Score:2, Flamebait)
I strongly suspect that her grammar was one of the reasons she did not want it read. She possibly *can't* spell or construct proper sentences when she rights, and depends on an editor to fix her writing. If so, then the change in public perception will damage her credibility as a journalist. It shouldn't, but it will. If she *can* spell, then the poorer level of writing may still make people assume she can't, with the same result.
But it really was her own fault. I have this problem myself, not only with email, but on Slashdot.
There are lots of times when I see an article, and write a post, and then think "I don't want to post this". Or "I don't want to post this in my name."
When I have those thoughts, I think about why. Usually, rather than clicking "Post anonymously", I simply click "x" in the upper right hand corner.
You see, often what I think I don't want to be associated with, shouldn't be said, even if it is is true.
It is for this same reason that within the Catholic Church, one of the things that can really hurt a person's candidacy for sainthood is their writings. People simply need to not be frivolous with things they write, because what they write can spread. And if it's wrong, or evil, or even right and good -- but in the wrong context to do good -- then it was a bad idea to write it down.
[But just so you know, I too later discover grammar errors in my writing, and I too use my writing skills professionally. My most common mistake is to use "to" where "two" or "too" belongs. My second most common mistake is broken sentence structure, that appears when I go back and edit my writing, and use the "Submit" butten instead of the the "Oewcuwq" button.]
Re:Actually, I have this problem on slashdot. (Score:2)
No kidding. :)
*Writer takes bow* (Score:2)
Nonetheless, it is truly precious when my post is funny enough to get the notice of *four* posters.
Should it be classed as flamebait?
Well, maybe it should. But at least it's high quality flamebait. Glad you enjoyed it -- we each do our best in our own way.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I too have this problem with Slashdot. (Score:2)
I love this place! Classic!
Re:Actually, I have this problem on slashdot. (Score:2, Funny)
But just so you know, I too later discover grammar errors in my writing, and I too use my writing skills professionally. My most common mistake is to use "to" where "two" or "too" belongs.
You might want to check for other common mistakes in your rightings.
Sorry. I had to.
Privacy and public participation... (Score:2, Interesting)
---
[Garrett] "Do you imagine for a moment that the participants in the WEF--whether they be the CEOs of Amoco an IBM of the leaders of Amnesty International and OXFAM--waste their time with Internet chat rooms and discussions such as this? Do you actually believe, as you type your random thoughts in such Internet settings, that you are participating in Civilization? In Democracy? In changing your world?:
Whereas rcade says:
"The world doesn't need to wait around for professional journalists to carefully predigest the news for us any more. We're capable of collecting and analyzing information from a thousand different sources and directions, even an injudicious e-mail by a chatty Pulitzer Prize winner to at least one loose-lipped friend."
To these two feuding flamers and their dueling versions of democratic discussion, it seems to me, the only sensible response is "Do we have to choose?"
[...]
Remember how everyone keeps saying that distance is irrelevant on the Internet? Well, this is what happens when distance disappears. You wind up right next to the damndest people.
---
So, Slashdot- are you participating? Are you participating in a political or democratic process? And if so, what is it that you are participating in?
The metafilter thread can be found here. [metafilter.com]
I am part of the problem (Score:2, Interesting)
The art is having it both ways. . . (Score:2, Interesting)
But there's also justified screaming when we read stories about Microsoft researching how to extend DRM all the way through the Windows asset model, from Word docs to e-mail.
I hope that at the very least this blurs the black-and-white approach many people have allowed themselves to take on this. DRM can be more than useful than making somebody pay for the new power ballad from the latest band you're exploiting. It can suck when it keeps me from transferring tunes more than three times to my mini-disc. It can be okay when it keeps people from stealing music from some musical artists that are just squeking by to begin with. But it can be very useful in making sure that (for example) some correspondence don't accidentally leave a designated group of recipients. If we're talking, for instance, about distributing documents to doctors, or investors, that might contain sensitive information, then there are some benefits.
So I think this is at least a step towards realizing that we might be able to have it both ways, that there are real benefits for real people to an encryption system suited to offering content to an audience that is larger than might be easy with pgp, but smaller than cc:world
A facinating read. (Score:2)
If it's not though. Wow. We're all fucked.
Even when they get it, they don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that in the case of email, you can't. Repeat after me, kids:
All you can do is make it difficult or illegal. But give me the most-secure email system, and I can probably do any of these:
But by all means, if someone wants to develop a huge expensive system that "guarantees" uncopyable email, be my guest. It'll be good for laughs.
Nothing to be ashamed of (Score:5, Interesting)
That was a damn fine read.
Sure, it could use some editing, but it's not that bad. It's easy to find worse in the print press, let alone on the internet. Besides, that's just form and style... content is what really matters.
And in content, it is actually very interesting and eye-opening. I would be delighted if the author were to write a more lengthy and involved piece on WEF in Davos that actually *is* intended for publication. After this little debacle, it's sure to get a lot of exposure, and I bet she's got a lot more she could say on the subject.
(And sure, the fuss may have all been a marketing gimmick for a forthcoming article. I don't really care, because if so it was really well done!
Re:Nothing to be ashamed of (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed --- I found the original email fascinating. It really highlights the disconnect between how issues are marketed by PR professionals in the national media and how they are discussed behind closed doors. Frank coverage like this should be (and isn't) available in any public forum, only in private correspondence.
And won't be available in the future, because there's no way that reporter is being invited back to WEF in the future.
Re:Nothing to be ashamed of (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't heard much that came out of WEF, and this letter gave me some insight into the stuff they don't tell us.
I wonder if it will have an effect on the world as a whole. The "Global Economy is FUBAR" - so the global economy shrinks because of it.
Re:Nothing to be ashamed of (Score:3, Insightful)
I learned from American security and military speakers that, "We need
to attack Iraq not to punish it for what it might have, but
preemptively, as part of a global war. Iraq is just one piece of a
campaign that will last years, taking out states, cleansing the planet."
The amazing thing is that the White House has been vehemently denying these charges. "Iraq is not the lynchpin of a broader assault on the middle east." says Ari Fleischer...
Are they afraid that if we understand their own true motives and the motives of Arab leaders we might start seeing this war as something bad??
recapture the glory days of 12-13th C Islam. That means
finding tolerance and building great education institutions and places
of learning. The King was passionate on the subject. It also means
freedom of movement and speech within and among the Islamic nations.
Yep, pure evil. I guess the US placed puppets in Afghanistan and Iraq are our last line of defense against free-speech and higher learning.
~Hammy
hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Good. (Score:2)
The Bilderberg (sp?) Group is a similar example. In a nutshell, the self appointed elite get together in some secret location (different every year) and discuss whatever it is these people are interested in. That's a fact. I'm not suggesting they eat babies or worship Satan or anything (although defendents of the group will try to smear opponents with the lunatic conspiracy brush), I simply question why the most powerful men on the planet can get together in secret. What are they discussing? Why are we, in a democratic country, left out of the loop?
not mentioned?! (Score:3, Informative)
Really? [cnn.com]
Re:not mentioned?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Stephen Roach was one of the speakers at Davos (chief economist at Morgan Stanley) -- he just knocked down his growth estimates [morganstanley.com] for the next few years.
From what I've head from different sources, there's really no reason to be too excited about the economy right now -- we're in a transition, and it's going to take a long time to find a new balence.
disclaimer: I work for Morgan Stanley
Audio/transcripts available (Score:3, Insightful)
On their website [weforum.org], they've got video/audio, and transcripts of the more important speakers. The C. Powell one is pretty decent.
Boo fucking hoo, Laurie (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you imagine for a moment that the participants in the WEF--whether they be the CEOs of Amoco an IBM of the leaders of Amnesty International and OXFAM--waste their time with Internet chat rooms and discussions such as this? Do you actually believe, as you type your random thoughts in such Internet settings, that you are participating in Civilization? In Democracy? In changing your world? I beg of all of you--the Internet addicts of the world--to turn off your TVs and computers now and then and engage the world. Go have actual eye-to-eye conversations with your family, friends and neighbors. Read a great book. Argue politics over dinner with friends. Go to City Council meeting. Raise money for your local public library. Teach your 12-year-old algebra.
Laurie - can I call you Laurie? - fuck you. Are you so proud that you could hobnob with "cute" Vicente Fox and "huggable" David Stern that you don't see the value of other people's opinions? People who might in fact be active doing things in the real world, in addition to taking advantage of online sites like slashdot, MeFi, etc. for debate, education, info relevant to work, and (though it must not be as "fascinating and fun" as "a day spent with Bill Gates", or as "hilarious" as "the CEO of Heinekin" (sic)) fun.
Do not begin to impugn our work in the real world, just because we don't have the direct access to oil-company executives and NGO bosses that you seem to enjoy so much. We do quite well without it, thanks.
Re:Boo fucking hoo, Laurie (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, I'm glad I've read it... it's decent news coverage of such a relatively important event. I mean, good use of sources of all types is what journalism is all about [metafilter.com]... Thanks, Laurie! :-P
Incidentally, this diatribe is from someone who posted a personal note from ex-President Clinton [lauriegarrett.com] on her website. Presumably with permission, natch, but it's no less private by nature.
email - the gift that keeps on giving (Score:2)
Back then part of my job was overseeing a subcontractor writing some software for us.
One day I learned that they had modified some code without sending us (me mostly) the
analysis they'd promised on how the changes would solve the problems we'd identified.
I sent a flaming email back to my contact at the subcontractor about how many times
they'd violated their contract and that I felt they'd lied to us and I didn't feel like
dealing with them anymore yada yada yada and cc'd a couple of coworkers.
The next morning I hear that my boss's boss's boss's boss had gone to my boss with
a printout of my email, asking my boss whether I'd written a letter of resignation.
I don't think this big boss actually had email, but it shows how far the email had gone.
Actually I was already looking for a new job. I left a month later. :)
domain name confusion an additional factor (Score:5, Interesting)
At its peak, about once every few days (slower since the dot-bust), I'd get a message directed to an address that bounces into my postmaster recycle bin containing all sorts of wonderfully cool private information: business plans, financial spreadsheets, customer contact lists, credit reports. Obviously, this was intended for the identical address at the VC firm, but the sender (wrongly) presumed that they could shorten that to just stonehenge.com.
What's odd is that nearly every time I responded with my curt message of "hey, you shouldn't be sending private info with big financial impact without either verifying the recipient or encrypting the data", they would come back at me, like it was my fault! Weirder, they'd ask me what the proper email address was, like I knew (or cared).
I spent about 20 minutes one day talking with the IT director at the VC company. I tried to make him understand that ultimately, it was his company that might be held liable for not making their email address clear to the clients they were dealing with. But he seemed to think that all I needed to do was agree to forward the misdirected email. We never did agree on that.
I still get misdirected emails for a video production house in Canada as well.
Why don't people understand that every character in an email address matters?
email != mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Mail (in it's traditional form) is slow, hard to copy, and difficult to compose. Email is fast, easy to copy and easy to compose. Neither are very secure. Combining composability with easy copying gives you forwarding.
With forwarding being so easy, people do it as second nature to share interesting/relevant information. It would not surprise me for a minute to see something I didn't want passed around forwarded because the recipiant didn't realise it was confidential, mostly due to not taking the time to rub two brain cells together. Nevermind the technolgical security issues, which make me place email as being way less secure than calling someone on my phone.
If I'm going to send anything at all that that I don't want forwarded, I'll make it painfully obvious with 'DO NOT FORWARD, PRIVATE, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY' etc. Of course, even with that, I still would not forward anything other than the lowest of privacy concern on my part, since email is so insecure.
If I want to keep it secret, the most secure form is to tell no one. If I'm going to tell someone, at the highest security level, it would be in person where I have the least chance of being overheard. Email is LAST method on the list, used only for trivial secrets.
Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the writer went to the conference as a journalist, she was expected to publish something. With a bit of cleanup, she could have published that as a column. Nobody in Europe would be upset.
The US media is very gentle on the Administration. You don't see publicly in the US media that, to most of the world's elites, Bush and his cronies are viewed as inept and dangerous. "Jesus freaks with nuclear weapons" is a bit harsh, but it's mainstream British opinion.
On the economic front, everybody who can read the numbers knows it's going to be at least a few years before things get better. Whole countries are going bankrupt. IMF policy doesn't work. The bubble in the US still hasn't fully deflated. Japan has been in the tank for a decade, and nobody knows how to fix it.
Again, none of this should surprise anyone other than heavy TV viewers.
Re:Big deal (Score:3, Insightful)
Examples:
CNN has 3 versions:
* CNN for the US market
US mainly; sugar coated
* CNN "International" for the US market
International news, but sugarcoated.
* CNN International
For the rest of the world.
Time magazine has a US and an international edition for the same reasons...
In some cases the SAME PROGRAM/ARTICLE can have almost a completely different skew on the SAME events; written/presented by the SAME reporter(s)...
Try Google News (Score:3, Insightful)
Understanding a Middle East story is only possible after having read both the Israeli and Arab takes on it.
fuck that's my opinion and i'm an american (Score:3, Interesting)
they are jesus freaks with nukes, and bush is pushing a holy war
and ashcroft is a jack-booted goose stepping nazi and i'm glad to see the rest of world is leery of him too he alone has made me reconsider my citizenship more than once
i've been reading news.google.com caches the last few days basically saying that 2/3rd's of the english don't support their prime minister at all, i wonder what similar polls in teh US would (have?) reveal(ed) and even went so far as to say 1/3rd would not support a war even if a second resolutoin from teh UN said so.. they had a "revolt" in the house of lords over some war-related issue, it seems that bush isn't the only one with a dissenting public
if you disagree with me REPLY have the balls not to moderate
this is not an email problem (Score:4)
Somebody she trusted, violated that trust.
If I tell you a secret, and you just start telling people it, it is not the peoples fault, it is the person who violated that trust.
Of course, peple with 2 or more brain cells will usually indicated it is not for the public. Like "please don't spread this information".
Once it is out, it is out. Personally, I think she should of encrypted it.
A modestly serious issue (Score:3, Informative)
Suddenly my personal e-mail to him was circulating in the inboxes of thousands of the group's members, and I started getting calls from the media, family rights groups, etc. Several other 'family rights' groups published the story on their websites; it went national rather quickly. I later apologized for the e-mail, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. The issue is likely to haunt me for a while, even though the hubbub from it has died down now.
Now, it's quite true that I should have known full well that if I send something out in e-mail, it could get re-distributed; it's the nature of the beast. So I'm not really too upset at anybody but myself. Even so, the flippancy of people in dealing with personal e-mail is quite striking. You also see this when people CC or BCC to people other than the primary recipient.
I feel sorry for the journalist (although her e-mail was fascinating to read!). There ought to be a higher level of trust allowed in e-mail, but since there isn't, we ought to watch what we write.
Obvious hoax (Score:3)
Lots of journalists attend the WEF, yet this is the only "letter" we've seen like this. Why is that? Because it's not real, that's why.
Privacy concerns are moot when you're talking about hoaxes, propaganda, and articles intended for public consumption from the start. You're all missing the point here.
How Laurie Garrett should have responded (Score:4, Insightful)
"That email was private and intended for a only a few friends. I am sorry it has been exposed to the world, it was never meant as perfectly accurate, peer-reviewed report of the Davos forum, but rather my quick impressions. Please take it as such, and do not base any business or investment decisions on it. Ciao."
The fact is, she was naive and unthinking to fail to realize the possibility that one of her friends may forward it, and that the email would get out. Yes, she should have a right to privacy, but the possibilty certainly exists, and instead of relying upon a nebulous "right", she should have taken steps to minimize or eradicate that possibility instead. Both she and her friend made a mistake, and the email got out into the news-hungry metanet where it snowballed. But ranting at random people for that only made matters worse. Something for us all to keep in mind.
I'm More Interested In These Questions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Did she write an "official" report on the WEF - and if so, how does it square with her "unofficial" one?
Otherwise, the analysis makes no sense. Intellectual property is what's in your head. Once it's outside your head and outside your direct control (i.e., encrypted on your hard drive), it is no longer property and no longer yours. You can use encryption - which works only if the decryptor agrees to maintain the encryption. Or you can use a non-disclosure contract - which works only as long as the second party does not breach the contract and also imposes the same contract on anyone to whom they are allowed to forward. These things are merely delaying tactics.
Once one of these events occurs, do you then go back and complain about the whole history of technology that you didn't use a quill pen and the Pony Express?
And if you react irrationally and decide to forego the Net, is that supposed to alter the technological and economic impact of the Net such that we should be worried about it?
None of that makes any sense...
I think Garrett's complaint stems not so much from the privacy issue but from her concern over her public, social, and professional status as a result of off-the-cuff remarks. And this is not an issue anyone should be concerned with.
Re:war... (Score:2)
In the immortal words of Mr. Shakespeare, "First, let's kill all the moderators."
Re:war... (Score:2)
Re:war... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You have been trolled! (Score:2)
Re:Poor guy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Poor guy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I hate to say this (Score:2)
Re:Understanding (Score:4, Insightful)
I took it all as perfectly correct reporting, without even being run through a 'should I actually publish this' filter. In some ways I'd call that MORE accurate and correct than a more carefully worded story.
Being alarmed about war planning myself, and also very skeptical of the prospects of economic wellness from uncontrolled laissez-faire globalization, I found it incredibly encouraging to learn that yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as Reality.
It's not just that these rich movers and shakers are 'just people'- it's that they're not in control, and that they are capable of recognizing when the policies of those like them lead to olgiarchy and the collapse of the worldwide economy. These aren't a bunch of Socialists but they're not having any of the economic social darwinist garbage- if holding to parody-Libertarian dogma means the poor get poorer and it affects THEIR PROFITS, they'll recognise that relatively quickly and they will do something else! I like that these are pragmatic people. They'll go with what works...
I think that was worth dismaying a journalist, I really do. I think the truth is much more important than her feelings of chagrin at being mocked for spelling mistakes or whatever- some people don't seem to 'get' that her ability to REPORT was terrific and plainly on display, and the news was desperately important.
Re:In which much of made of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Newsflash yourself, guy. The full quote, which I'm guessing you haven't heard, is from Stewart Brand [anu.edu.au], stated in print for the first time as follows:
The quote was never meant to be used as a bludgeon to claim that all information should be free; it was part of an illustration of exactly the kind of tension going on here.
You're essentially claiming she should have been more careful in some fashion that would have prevented the email fro being leaked in the first place. Careful in what? Her use of email for delivery only to the intended recipients? Her choice of friends?
I'd like anyone with that attitude to look back over all the emails they've written since they've been online and to consider ones they've written that they only wanted a selected group of individuals to see. Don't think of claiming you've never written an email like that. Can you honestly tell me that if that email showed up suddenly on a web discussion board, you wouldn't be incensed? (And can you honestly tell me that if people responded to you with "information wants to be free!" you wouldn't want to break their kneecaps?)
Having said that, I agree Ms. Garrett should have been more careful in her responses to this trust violation. She displayed a snitty disdain for all internet discourse that, as a fan of her writing, I find considerably disappointing.