Comments on: Nanotechnology surveillance & privacy: an interview

By: Surveillance Expo

Surveillance Expo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:06:51 +0000

This type of nanotechnology being used by individuals will leave noone with any privacy. Nanoprivacy laws may be required to prevent everyone from becoming too paranoid as other commentors have mentioned. Image a paranoid wife (or husband) detecting another mans (or womans) chemical signal on their spouse and using it as grounds for divorce etc. It may just have been someone they brushed up against in the lift or sat next to on the bus.

By: Eric Tulloch

Eric Tulloch — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:32:29 +0000

I read the transcript of the interview. Your comment about transparency was spot on. However, it seems that as our “privacy” disappears, many of us develop a self-deception to match. Or other issues could surface: a woman could have a sensor suite that detects the DNA of another woman on her husband’s clothes/skin. But is this necessarily evidence of unfaithfulness? I can envision someone spraying a wealthy businessman, a powerful politician, or the head pastor of a megachurch with the “essence” of a woman (or a man, as the case may be…) to serve as blackmail material.
On a related note, I can envision that it will take an incredible amount of work to eliminate false positives in such sensors–we’ll first need to understand what molecules and particles are floating around willy-nilly before we can begin to use such information as legal evidence. For example–did a child whose parents indulge in illegal substances merely catch some second-hand smoke, or did he actually participate (referring to your school example from the interview). Could that then be used as evidence of “environmental child abuse”?
And although much is being developed to render our world and our lives more transparent, there are always going to be advancements to create opacity, if not in general, at least in some areas.

By: Watching

Watching — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 23:10:47 +0000

There will come a point when these tools pass themselves from the government and big business to the hands of individuals, and divisions of crime fighting and prevention, and justice will multiply. Voting polls will fill to the brim with individuals choosing whether or not they feel that their right to privacy is being violated by others analyzing their emitted chemical substances. The majority of these votes will likely come six months to a year after this technology is passed to the hands of the public, and few long before.

By: jvangils

jvangils — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 21:59:41 +0000

It is very nice that you have a feeling for what we call the international system of law. Because when you look at the issues around nanotechnology the most talk that the human is only a biochemical/ technical being. In the circles of transhumanism there is little place for the feeling of rights. Popper spoke about 3 levels of mankind. The physical, emotional en intellectual. Related to these three levels of a human being there are three levels in society, the economical, the system of law en the culture/ education/ art/ space of freedom.
When we look to the problem of the nanotechnology we should think in these three levels. This is from the beginning important to tackle this question.