h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If criminals or other high risk drivers get transponders in their car, doesn't that immediately suggest that all new drivers need them as well?

I don't think the issue here is about privacy as that is non existant in this day in age unless you are unemployed, do not have a bank account, a home, live as a legal citizen in a town, city, county, state or country or pay taxes.

Anyone can legally attain information about whether or not you've got your dog registered, how much your land is worth, etc with the local town offices. Poof! They're given your name, address, phone number, and if the person enquiring for information is a citizen of the town they have legal rights to also access your tax information, which includes your social security number as a reference. Literally all you need is a relevant inquiry and you're allowed access, whether you're a state official or a private citizen.

We trust the government every day. Each time we log onto the internet, each time we pick up the phone, each time go to the post office, we're trusting the government to keep their distance and allow us the allusion of privacy. What I think is the issue here is the influence on outside factors (i.e. corporations) on the government, which is a very real issue. Laws change every day because of persistent lobbying and who's to say that 10 years down the road, after ever person is tracked by satellite down to the nearest 5 yard radius, that the information won't be misused, malapropriated? We all have to trust the government or live with our paranoia.

I have many points to make but I'll start with Marv speeding.

Speed limits are a compromise between many factors including what people are prepared to cooperate with and how many deaths per year a society will tolerate. It seems crazy that we're prepared to tolerate any but it appears that we'll accept death figures in the thousands without batting a collective eyelid. However, speed limits do represent to some extent the statistics of road accidents.

MR, have you ever had a tyre blowout? I have. I survived it without damage to myself (although the car wasn't happy) because I happened to be going at a speed such that the energy of the car could be dissipated safely and I was able remain in control. I was going at 60 miles an hour. Had I been going at 80 mph, the outcome might have been different. My reaction times might have been inadequate for me to wrench the car away from the central barrier and towards the inside lanes. The energy of the car would not have been 33% greater but nearly 80% greater than at 60mp because the energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its speed.

So, there's Marv, wrapped around a lampost. Debris scattered far and wide. How much would it cost your society to clear up the mess? Should someone really have to go to their night shift and end up putting Marv's body parts into a bag? What is the economic cost of shutting the highway, even in the early hours of the morning, while the street sweeper cleans up the bits of broken glass and washes the blood off the road?

Adult human beings have, and should have, a sophisticated attitude to rules. It isn't normal to think that rules can never be broken. But to say that the speed limit rule is only a rule unless you think it's safe to break it is courting disaster. Many people are going to make the wrong call. With speed limits it's best that the rule is the rule and not subject to a personal decision. It might be appropriate to vary the speed limit according to the time of day but that should be done by someone in possession of the facts and not left to every Tom, Dick or Marv. We all know people who are not fit to make that sort of decision and therefore we have to accept that no one is allowed to make that decision for themselves.

Most people obey the speeding laws because they recognise that they make sense and they're not prepared to risk the personal injury of going too fast but some people only obey the speeding laws - or even the law of common sense - because there's a good chance of being caught. In some people's eyes, being caught is the only crime, the only punishment and the only deterrent. And that's why they have speed cameras.

I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here...I'm certainly not suggesting that Marv go out and speed, although with that said, I drive on some of the busiest freeways in the world around here, and if I were to actually go the 65-75 mph speed limit, there is a chance I would actually get a ticket for impeding the flow of traffic. It's insane, really. But you get used to it. Or you don't drive here.

And Sporky is right, it's the illusion of privacy. If I want to look at porn on my computer, somewhere, someone can see that I watched whatever movie I chose to watch. That means they know I watched it, and can judge me accordingly. I once found myself on a site for photographers, and someone had some lovely shots of children playing, all very innocent and on the up and up, and then I clicked what looked like an interesting link to their homepage, and lo and behold, I was somewhere I never expected to be, looking at what were obviously illegal images of children. I wrote down the URL and called the police. Is that an invasion of that person's privacy, or is that reporting child porn? While I was certainly moved by my disgust at what someone had done to a child's innocence, I was equally concerned that because I had gone to that page, regardless of how I got there, someone would accuse me of trafficking in child porn!

There are electronic transactions of mine all over the web; my cell phone can be traced; each keystroke I make can be recorded. But at what point does that illusion of privacy break down and become invasive and potentially frightening.

The govt doesn't even need anything high tech to catch speeders - but it still doesn't do it. Consider this. On a road trip, on a toll road, you're given a ticket when you enter, with a time stamp. You then hand the ticket back when you exit. All you have to do is have the ticket collector check distance, and the time elapsed. Bingo, laws of physics prove you've been speeding.

You could get away with it by stopping at a rest area, and hanging out - but then you've sort of defeated the whole purpose of speeding in the first place. Why doesn't the government do this?

[GDZ]

What makes the difference these days is that getting information is much more friction-free than it used to be.

Sure, it used to be possible to go to the local government offices, search through the electoral role, and find out who was living at a specific address. Then you would have to go to Somerset house and spend days or weeks in their counter-intuive and extremely manual filing system to find out the dates of birth of the people living there. Now that information is much more easy to come by.

It didn't really matter what information was available before computerisation and the internet, because it was so hard to find.

Now it does matter because it is so easy.

Ben

good point Ben. Can I call you "B" for short, as in, yo B whats up?

Sure, d, I "answer to 'hi' or any loud cry".



B

One thing I did do was to tick the box on the electoral roll form that removed me from the public list that gets sold on. The amount of junk mail I receive has fallen dramatically as a result. I didn't do it for reasons of privacy, after all I'm still there for all to see on 192.com, but at least I feel I'm preserving a few trees.

Kelli, it is possible that ID cards could contain everything about you, medical records, credit rating etc. But I seem to recall reading that they are currently having problems squeezing all the data on the chips. You might find this of interest:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/comrace/identitycards/index.html

The one I carried in Berlin had my name, address, dob and a photo. The number linked me to a larger file at the HM's Forces GHQ. As the military are renowned for never destroying records, I expect the file still exists.

On the tracking device, H says that if it saves him a few quid on the insurance and doesn't cost more to have it fitted, then he will have one.

[Teuchter]

Out of the loop today - catch-up with y'all tomorrow.

[fg]

OK I guess I had better clarify my position. It is my feeling that we have lost so much already that we should hold on to the few "rights" and "freedoms" that we have left. One of those "freedoms" (and I am quite aware that this is an illusion, but in this age illusions are better than the alternative) is the supposed right to privacy. It's a slippery slope we walk on, but it is one we must traverse.

I am often called a crackpot libertarian. I hold to the notion that we CAN retake our liberties, but it is a very long path ahead. I make my choices with my votes, as well as my actions.

As for me speeding, I've done it and just may do it again, but never again in a manner that will endanger me or those around me.

I'm not quite sure how my name got pasted to all of the prior ideals of naive libertarianism, but it does make me a bit uncomfortable. I do realize that I ranted at length this morning about my feelings, but I don't want peoples opinion of me to based soley on that. We have all had to agree to disagree on various topics in the past and this may very well be another of those topics. I was not intent on making anyone angry with my comments, but the subject is one that I feel quite strongly about.

Oh, Dave, there is exactly one toll road in the state of Utah that I am aware of, and it is not even built yet. As a result, your solution would be impractical. I do think that our police need to do more in teh way to curb agressive driving and in Utah over the last two weeks our state troopers have been ticketing many people who were agressivly driving. It is a new campaign that will hopefully act as a deterrent but I am sure that it will not last long.

"The energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its speed" - I will have to remember that. The formulas that they taught us in driver's ed to calculate stopping distance were much more linear than that.

Transponders in cars would not help prevent these sorts of crimes at all. I'm not opposed to them on privacy grounds, just the simple logical fact that they tell were a car is now, not what unknown car was at a certain place and time. The hit-and-run drivers would still get away with it. Of course, the government could collect the data on *every* car at *every* moment, but the cost of that would be so prohibitively expensive that it would not justify the benefit of the crimes solved. Which leads to another point, if put into place, transponders in every car that were tracked continually would at most solve the crime, not prevent it. There would still be people killed by hit-and-run drivers.

The thing that most amazed me about Janet Jackson exposing her breast during the SuperBowl was that the TiVo corp. knew exactly how many people re-watched that and how often, within minutes. But no one seemed to be bothered by that, and I find that truly strange. That's the sort of data that is truly dangerous, because it has the ability to shape culture and opinion through the media.

Marv, I hope you don't feel singled out in any way -- I'm sure everyone here understands what kind of mood I've been in today after watching someody's pet dog die in front of me, concerning the driving habits of Some People. It put me in Execution Mode.

I would love to see some kind of automatic speeding ticketry be installed in the A District of Lincoln, the part that the tourists walk around in. At the moment its anarchy and contempt for law, contempt for other "citizens."

Agh! it's anarchy -- not its anarchy.

I had to look twice to notice a difference.

As did I.

[mr]

for Marv, I am sorry you were feeling picked on.

The new tenants have moved in next door, three young children, climbing frames and swings have gone up in the garden. We have got rather used to a peaceful life here, so the noise will take a little getting used to. Their landlord ~still~ hasn't done anything about the fence, but the letting agent assures me they have informed them of the state of it and the quote we got at the same time as ours.

Meanwhile my tenants will be benefiting from a new fence as the old one blew down and I have arranged for a quote. The property behind them has hacked down the 60' Leylandii hedge and although it wasn't blocking direct sunlight, it is amazing how much more light now filters around the garden.

Off to the gym later

Just waved the stepson off for a six day visit to his mother. The boy is walking on air, which underlines the extent to which he is putting himself on hold while he is here. There is little I can do about that, but I do feel sorry for him.

In the meantime, while the boy's away the girl can play!

Ben