Media: CNET interviews Sterling on Future Privacies

In "Big Brother and the next 50 years" by Declan McCullagh, CNET is running an interview with author Bruce Sterling, whose latest book mixes technology and projection. The interview takes him off to consider how his thinking relates to the Pentagon's recent call for Total Information Awareness.

More often a writer of fiction and social commentator by analogy, Sterling discusses his latest, a non-fiction piece called "Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years". But most of the interview is a chance for him to sound off about the future of data-mining. Sharp, unsentimental and uncomfortable, it's worth a browse...

'Better media means better surveillance. Cams are everywhere. A security cam is one small part of a much larger universe of cams. The much larger effect, socially, politically and economically, is going to come from a much larger trend.

'It's difficult to escape a tragedy in your life that's not your own fault. Years ago, if your husband died in a house fire, you could get a covered wagon and go to Oregon. Now, as soon as you arrive in Oregon, someone could google you. "Oh, well, widow Simpson. Really sorry to hear about the house fire." You don't get to cut that chain of evidence and start over. You're always going to be pursued by your data shadow, which is forming from thousands and thousands of little leaks and tributaries of information.'

And on he goes...

Associated Link: CNET: Big Brother and the next 50 years" by Declan McCullagh

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