data-intensive.md

• I am not qualified to comment on the merits of these technologies as currencies or mechanisms for agreeing contracts. However, from a data systems point of view they contain some interesting ideas. Essentially, they are distributed databases, with a data model and transaction mechanism, in which different replicas can be hosted by mutually untrusting organizations. The replicas continually check each other’s integrity and use a consensus protocol to agree on the transactions that should be executed.
• Outside of the hype of cryptocurrencies, certificate transparency is a security technology that relies on Merkle trees to check the validity of TLS/SSL certificates
• Let us replace the word data with Surveilance - “In our surveillance-driven organization we collect real-time surveillance streams and store them in our surveillance warehouse. Our surveillance scientists use advanced analytics and surveillance processing in order to derive new insights.”
• Even the most totalitarian and repressive regimes could only dream of putting a microphone in every room and forcing every person to constantly carry a device capable of tracking their location and movements. Yet we apparently voluntarily, even enthusiastically, throw ourselves into this world of total surveillance. The difference is just that the data is being collected by corporations rather than government agencies
• Perhaps you feel you have nothing to hide—in other words, you are totally in line with existing power structures, you are not a marginalized minority, and you needn’t fear persecution [97]. Not everyone is so fortunate. Or perhaps it’s because the purpose seems benign—it’s not overt coercion and conformance, but merely better recommendations and more personalized marketing
• Moreover, data analysis can reveal surprisingly intrusive things: for example, the movement sensor in a smartwatch or fitness tracker can be used to work out what you are typing (for example, passwords) with fairly good accuracy [98]. And algorithms for analysis are only going to get better.
• data is extracted from users through a one-way process, not a relationship with true reciprocity, and not a fair value exchange. There is no dialog, no option for users to negotiate how much data they provide and what service they receive in return
• When a company goes bankrupt, the personal data it has collected is one of the assets that get sold. Moreover, the data is difficult to secure, so breaches happen disconcertingly often
• "REMEMBERING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION" - It took a long time before safeguards were established, such as environmental protection regulations, safety protocols for workplaces, outlawing child labor, and health inspections for food. Undoubtedly the cost of doing business increased when factories could no longer dump their waste into rivers, sell tainted foods, or exploit workers. But society as a whole benefited hugely, and few of us would want to return to a time before those regulations [87].
• Data is the pollution problem of the information age, and protecting privacy is the environmental challenge. Almost all computers produce information. It stays around, festering. How we deal with it—how we contain it and how we dispose of it—is central to the health of our information economy. Just as we look back today at the early decades of the industrial age and wonder how our ancestors could have ignored pollution in their rush to build an industrial world, our grandchildren will look back at us during these early decades of the information age and judge us on how we addressed the challenge of data collection and misuse.
• We should try to make them proud.