La doppietta

L’uomo ha una natura sociale, ovvero una marcata abilità ad istituire coalizioni. Il contratto sociale rappresenta il suo capolavoro.

L’antropologia ha ormai chiarito la “doppia mossa” attraverso cui questa abilità si manifesta:

1) si fissano delle regole;

2) si fissa un modo per eluderle.

La “doppietta” non è un’esclusiva dell’uomo ma una sua specialità,  è grazie ad una buona “doppietta” che le società prosperano.

Entrambi i passi presentano delle difficoltà. Il primo è ostico poiché è difficile trovare “buone” regole che facciano funzionare bene un’intera società.

Ma il secondo passo è ancora più delicato visto che è quasi impossibile violare una regola senza “svalutarla”. Inutile precisare che una regola “svalutata” non potrà mai essere una buona regola.

Una buona regola sociale dovrà essere esplicita, chiara e trasparente.

Una buona procedura di violazione dovrà essere implicita, esoterica e ipocrita.

Se l’ homo sapiens ha il cervellone che si ritrova nel cranio non è tanto per adempiere alla prima funzione quanto alla seconda. Lì sì che occorre un genio.

D’altronde, viviamo in un mondo in cui non esistono regole dal valore assoluto, un certo grado di permeabilità rende la società più prospera.

Un po’ di corruzione rende le società più dinamiche, un po’ di evasione è benefica, un po’ di sommerso funge da salva-vita per molti, eccetera.

A questo punto vale la pena di fare un esempio concreto di una tipica procedura elaborata dalla nostra società contemporanea per violare le regole vigenti restando immuni: la privacy.

Il diritto alla privacy ha buona fama anche se nei fatti serve essenzialmente per eludere le norme vigenti (sia morali che giuridiche).

Grazie alla privacy il perverso puo’ dare sfogo alle sue perversioni.

Grazie alla privacy l’evasore puo’ risparmiare sul conto fiscale.

Grazie alla privacy il lavoratore puo’ imboscarsi e tirare il fiato ogni tanto.

Un certo grado di perversione, di evasione e di imboscamento è salutare per ogni società, e la privacy lo consente. La privacy è una valvola che stabilizza la pressione sociale.

P.S. Penso alla recente polemica sui braccialetti di Amazon, si tratta di aggeggi che, a dire di alcuni, controllerebbero i lavoratori in ogni movimento. In nome di che cosa ci si è opposti a questi marchingegni diabolici? Della privacy, ovviamente.

P.S. Negli USA la circolazione delle armi è storicamente giustificata dal fatto che il popolo potrà così ribellarsi ad un cattivo governo. Ma oggi questo ruolo è assolto innanzitutto dal diritto alla privacy, che consentirà di disubbidire alle leggi di un cattivo governo.

3 Segretissimo SAGGIO

Segretissimo

Paradosso: viviamo in un mondo sempre più a bassa privacyeppure mai come oggi esistono mezzi per secretare la comunicazione.

Tutti noi sappiamo che un messaggio è codificabile e per conoscerlo occorre possedere una chiave che lo decripti.

Da sempre esiste un problema: come faccio a mandarti un messaggio personale attraverso canali con parecchie falle se insieme ad esso devo fornirti anche la chiave che lo decripti?

Mi sembra evidente che nelle falle finirà anche la chiave segreta.

Il problema è stato risolto 25 anni fa utilizzando la cosiddetta tecnica della chiave pubblica.

Con questa tecnica ogni persona può generare una coppia di chiavi (A e B): una pubblica e nota a tutti e una privata.

La coppia ha una caratteristica peculiare: i messaggi criptati con A saranno decriptabili solo con B e viceversa.

Se voglio mandarti un messaggio segreto lo cripterò con B rendendoti disponibile A.

Tu mi risponderai criptando il tuo messaggio con A, e io lo decripterò con B (la chiave privata che possiedo solo io).

Un infiltrato può sfruttare le falle postali impossessandosi di A ma non saprà mai che cosa scrive il tuo amico poiché non potrà mai intercettare B. In altri termini, non potrà mai seguire la vostra conversazione.

Ma come può un soggetto avere la chiave per criptare un messaggio e non avere quella per decriptarlo?

Ma com’è possibile produrre due chiavi in chiara relazione tra loro ma poi non poter derivare l’una dall’altra?

La risposta sta nel fatto che esistono processi matematici facili da svolgere in una direzione ma non nell’altra.

Se io e te vogliamo avere una conversazione privata mi basterà contattarti criptando il messaggio con la tua chiave pubblica (disponibile sulla guida del telefono) e tu farai altrettanto. Il vicino di casa ficcanaso o l’FBI potranno anche intercettare la nostra linea ma non capiranno mai nulla di quel che ci stiamo dicendo!

Anche se possono sapere con chi parlo, e la cosa non è irrilevante. Ma anche questo problema puo’ essere aggirato scrivendo ad un anonimo “re-mailer”, ovvero un sito che – sfruttando la tecnologia della doppia chiave – inoltra le nostre mail facendo perdere le tracce dei soggetti che conversano.

La sicurezza della doppia chiave è tale che viene utilizzata perfirmare la moneta elettronica. Se trasferite ad una banca virtuale un euro riceverete in cambio X bitcoin (sono file) firmati in modo autentico (per evitare contraffazioni). La banca li firma con una chiave privata e abbina il file alla chiave pubblica disponibile a tutti (come il suo numero di telefono). A chi li riceve in pagamento basta verificare in modo istantaneo la decriptabilità con la chiave pubblica e la convertibilità con l’ok della banca.

Esempio: chiunque di noi dotato di carta e penna può calcolare 293×751. La cosa è relativamente facile. Ma, per contro, si fa una gran fatica a risalire ai due fattori partendo dal numero 220043.

Avvertenza: quando dico che la nostra privacy nelle comunicazioni è virtualmente fortissima, intendo dire che i costi in tempo e sforzi per romperla sono troppo elevati. In teoria posso ricavare 293 e 751 partendo da 220043!

La società trasparente FIVE HL

Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World

David D. Friedman FIVE

trend began in Britain a decade ago, in the city of King's Lynn, where sixty remote controlled video cameras were installed to scan known "trouble spots," reporting directly to police headquarters. The resulting reduction in street crime exceeded all predictions;
Note:x SUCCESSO INATTESO

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savings in patrol… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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David Brin, The Transparent… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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In the early nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham, one of the oddest and most original of English thinkers, designed a prison where every prisoner could be watched… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x PANOPTICON

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In the United States, cameras have long been used in department stores to discourage shoplifting. More recently they have begun to be used to… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x USI TRAD DELLE TELECAMERE

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Consider the problem of controlling auto… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x USI POSSIBILI. EMISSIONI

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One could build a much better system using modern technology. Set up unmanned detectors that measure emissions by shining a beam of light through the exhaust plume of a passing automobile; identify… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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Another application of large-scale surveillance already being experimented with takes advantage of the fact that cell phones… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x ALTRO ES CELL. TRAFFICO INCIDENTI PERCORSI

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By monitoring the signals from drivers' phones, it is possible to observe traffic flows. That is very useful information if you want to advise drivers to route around a traffic jam, or locate an accident by the resulting cluster of phones. Currently it is anonymous information, locating a… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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c

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Few would consider it objectionable to have a police officer wandering around a park or standing on a street corner, keeping an eye out for purse snatchers and the like. Video… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x ALL APPARENZA NESSUN PROBLEMA

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What's the… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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A cop on the street corner may see you, he may even remember you, but he has no way of combining everything he sees with everything that every other cop… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x LA TUA VITA CONOSCIUTA

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large fractions of your doings are an open book to anyone with access to the… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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legal… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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A related issue is the use of surveillance technology, legally or illegally,… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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Lots of people own video cameras and those cameras are getting… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x PRIVATI

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The owner of a few dozen of them could collect a lot of information… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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Of course technological development, in this area as in others, is likely to improve… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x TECNO DI DIFESA

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We have already had court cases over whether it is or is not a search to deduce marijuana growing inside a house by using an infrared detector to… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x ES MARIU

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We already have technologies that make it possible to listen to a conversation by bouncing a… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x ES CONVERSAZIONE

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Assume, for the moment, that the offense wins out over the defense - that preventing other people from spying on you becomes impractical. What options remain?Brin argues… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x TESI DI BRIN: LA PRIVACY È DESTINATA A SPARIRE

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He proposes as an alternative to privacy universal lack of privacy: the transparent society. The police can watch you - but someone is watching them. The entire system of video cameras, including… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x UNICA DIFESA: TOTALIZZARE LA PERDITA

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Parents can keep an eye on their children, children on their parents, spouses on each other, employers on employees and vice versa,… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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The Upside of… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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Qui custodes ipsos custodiet? "Who shall guard… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x UN PROB CHE LA TS PUÓ RISOLVERE

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The transparent society offers a possible solution. Consider the Rodney King case. A group of policemen… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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x CASO R.K

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Unfortunately for the police, a witness got the beating on videotape, with the result that several of the officers ended up in prison.
Note:c

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In Brin's world, every law enforcement agent knows that he is on candid camera
Note:c

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But there are… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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Selective… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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Brin's version does not seem likely. All of the information will be flowing through machinery controlled… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x QUALCUNO RESTA IN POSIZIONE DI CTRL

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If police are setting up cameras in police stations, they can arrange for a few areas to be… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x ES POLIZIA

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The situation gets more interesting in a world where technological progress enables private surveillance on a wide scale, so that every location where interesting things might happen, including every police station, has flies on the… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x TECNOLOGIA PIENAMENTE INVASIVA

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information is valuable to others, it can be shared. Governments might try to restrict such sharing. But in a world of strong privacy that will be hard to do, since in such a world information… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x COMMERCIO DEI DATI E CRIPTAGGIO

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one can imagine a futurewhere Brin's transparent society is produced not by government but… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x SORVEGLIANZA PDIVATA

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The information will be produced privately only if the producer can both use it himself and sell it to others. So a key requirement for a privately generated transparent society… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x PRE REQUISITO. MERCATO DELL INFO

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The Downside of… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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the transparent… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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One might instead view it as a step into the past. The privacy that most of us take for granted is to a considerable degree a novelty, a product of rising incomes in recent centuries. In a world where many people shared a single residence, where a… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x ZERO PRIVACY. RITORNO AL PASSATO

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consider a primitive society such as Samoa. Multiple families share a single… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x SAMOA

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the community is small enough to… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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Infants are trained early on not to make noise. Adults rarely… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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to communicate in code, to use words or expressions that your intimates will correctly interpret and others will not. For a milder version of the same approach, consider parents who talk to each other in a foreign… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x CODICI

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In Brin's future transparent society, many of us will become less willing to express our opinions of our boss, employees, ex-wife, or present husband in any public place. People will become less expressive… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x IPOCRISIA

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WHAT IS PRIVACY AND WHY DO WE… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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Think of "privacy" as shorthand for an individual's ability to control other people's access… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x DEF PRIVACY. CODICE

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I have almost complete privacy with regard to my… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x INTROSPEZ

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If someone invented an easy and accurate way of reading minds, privacy would be radically reduced even if there were no change in my legal rights.'
Note:x SCANNER. DIRITTI E FATTI

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The Case Against Privacy
Note:t

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On net, is an increase in privacy… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x DOMANDA

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The reason I value my privacy is straightforward: Information about me in the hands of other people sometimes permits them to gain at my expense. They may do so by stealing my property - if… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x VANTAGGI PRIVACY: GLI ALTRI NON GUADAGNANO A MIE SPESE

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Information about me in other people's hands may also benefit me - for example, the information that I am honest and competent. But privacy does not prevent that… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x VANTAGGI CHE MI ARRECA IL FACILE ACCESSO ALLE MIE INFO

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my privacy protects me from burglary - in which privacy produced a net benefit, since the gain to a burglar is normally… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:CASO IN CUI LA PRIVACY CONVIENE SOCIALMENTE

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One of the risks of bargaining is bargaining breakdown when a seller overestimates the price a buyer is willing to pay or a buyer makes the corresponding mistake the other way and the deal falls through, making both parties worse off than if they had each more accurately… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:LA PRIVACY RENDE PIÙ DIFFICILE CHIUDERE I CONTRATTI

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In situations involving involuntary transactions, privacy produces a net gain if it is being used to protect other rights (assuming that those rights have been defined in a way that makes their protection desirable) and a net loss if it is… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note: BENEFICI NEI CASI DI COERCIZIONE E COSTI NEGLI SCAMBI

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Privacy and… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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Governments engage in involuntary transactions on an… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x GOVERNO E COERCIZIONE

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While I can protect myself from my fellow citizens with locks and burglar alarms, I can protect myself from government actors only by keeping… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x PROTEGGERSI DAL GOV CON LA PRIVACY

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If government is the modern equivalent of Plato's philosopher-king, individual privacy simply makes it… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:LA PRIVACY È UN MALE SE IL GOVERNO È BUONO

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Most Americans appear, judging by expressed views on privacy, to be close enough… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x CHI AMA LA PRIVACY GIUDICA IMPLICIT IL GOV

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tax… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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technology could enable a tyranny that Hitler or Stalin might envy. Even if we accept Brin's optimistic assumption that the citizens are as well informed about the police as the police are about… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x CON HITLER LA SOLUZIONE BRIN NN REGGE

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It does not follow that Brin's prescription is wrong. His argument, after all, is that privacy will simply not be an option, either because the visible benefits of surveillance are so large or because the technology will make it impossible to prevent it. If he is right… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:MA IN BRIN LA PRIVACY NON È UN'OPZIONE

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SAY IT AIN'T… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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My wife is suing me for divorce on grounds of adultery. In support of her claim, she presents videotapes, taken by hidden cameras, that show me making love to… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:I VIDEO COME PROVA IN TRIBUNALE

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With modern technology I do not, or at least soon will not, need your cooperation to make a film of you doing things; a reasonable… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:FABBRICARE VIDEI FALSI... E PROVE FALSE

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There are possible technological fixes - ways of using encryption technology to build a camera that digitally signs its output, demonstrating that that sequence was… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x SOLUZIONE TECNOLOGOCA PER AUTENTICARE

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SHOULD WE ABOLISH THE… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t DEPENALIZZAZIONE TOTALE

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criminal law and… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

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In the criminal system prosecution is controlled and… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x RUOLO DELLO STATO NELLA GIUSTIZIA

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Criminal law provides a somewhat different range… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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is there any good reason to have both? Would we, for example, be better off… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x IL DUBBIO

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One argument against such a pure tort system is that some offenses… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:ARGOMENTO PER LA LEGGE CRIMINALE

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In Brin's world that problem vanishes. Every mugging is on tape.
Note:x LA SOC TRASP CAMBIA TUTTO

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The normal crime becomes very much like the normal tort - an auto accident, say, where (except in the case of hit and run, which is a crime) the identity of the party and many of the relevant facts are public information.
Note:c

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If someone steals your car you check the video record to identify the thief,… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:c

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Even as late as the eighteenth century, while the English legal system distinguished between torts and crimes, both were in practice… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:UN PO' DI STORIA: GB 700

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WHERE WORLDS… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:t

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It does no good to use strong encryption for my email if a video mosquito is sitting on… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x COMBINAZIONE ENCRIPT E TS

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privacy in a transparent society requires some way of guarding the interface between my… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:CORPI REALI E CORPI VIRTUALI

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A low-tech solution is to type under a hood. A high-tech solution is some link between mind and machine that… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:x SOLUZIONI A BASSA E ALTA TECH

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If we are sufficiently worried about other people hearing what we say, one solution is to encrypt… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:CRIPTARE ANCHE LE CONVERSAZIONI REALI

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We could end up in a world where physical actions are entirely public, information… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:CORPI FISICI INTERAMENTE PUBBLICI CORPI VIRTUALI TRASPARENTI

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Private citizens will still be able to take advantage of strong privacy to locate a hit man, but hiring him may cost more than they are willing to pay, since in a… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
x CASO DEL KILLER

Contante nemico della burocrazia - 6 ecash HL

ecash Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World

David D. Friedman

One is that a seller does not have to know anything about me in order to accept cash. That makes money a better medium…
Note:VANTAGGI DEL CONTANTE. FIDUCIA

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better medium for small transactions, since using cash avoids… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:EVITA COMMISSIONI

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money leaves no paper trail, which is useful not only for criminals but for anyone who… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:PROTEGGE LA PRIVACY

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The advantage of money is greater in cyberspace, since… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:NELLO CYBERSPAZIO

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The disadvantage is less, since my ecash would be stored… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:NIENTE CASSEFORTI

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Despite its potential usefulness, there is as yet no equivalent of… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:XCHÈ MANCA L ECASH?

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The reason is in part the hostility of governments to competition in the money business, and in part the… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:RILUTTANZA DEI GOVERNI

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giving at least one example of why it would be useful - for something more important than allowing men to look at pornography online without… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Note:OLTRE IL PORNO

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SLICING SPAM
Note:IL PROBLEMA DELLE SPAM

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There is a simple solution to this problem - so simple that I am surprised it is not yet in common use. The solution is to put a price on your mailbox.
Note:MAIL A PAGAMENTO

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Give your email program a list of the people you wish to receive mail from. Mail from anyone not on the list is returned with a note explaining that you charge five cents to read mail from strangers - and the URL of the stamp machine. Five cents is a trivial cost to anyone with something to say
Note:SOLUZIONE 5 CENT

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The stamp machine is located on a web page. The stamps are digital cash. Pay $10 from your credit card and you get in exchange 200 five-cent stamps - each a morsel of encrypted information that you can transfer to someone else who can in turn transfer it.
Note:FRANCOBOLLO

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If lots of strangers choose to send me messages, I can accumulate a surplus
Note:SOLUZIONE MAIL

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What is in it for the stamp machine - why would someone maintain such a system? Part of the answer is seigniorage
Note:SIGNORAGGIO

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If your stamps are popular, many of them may stay in circulation for a long time - leaving the money that bought them in your bank account accumulating interest.
Note:INTERESSI DEL SIGNORAGGIO

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Note:PUBBLICITÀ

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Note:QUANDO L ECASH

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Note:PRIVACY

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Note:CONTRAFFAZIONE

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Note:FIRMA DIGITALE

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Note:CHIAVE PRIVATA

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Note:QUANDO LA BANCA PAGA

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Note:COPIARE LA MONETA

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Note:NUMERO IDENTIFICATIVO

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Note:NIENTE PRIVACY CON L ID

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Note:FIRMA CIECA

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Società trasparente SAGGIO

“Surveillance technology. The Universal Panopticon” è il titolo del saggio in cui David Friedman si occupa della privacy del futuro.

***

Tutto cominciò in Inghilterra…

…trend began in Britain a decade ago, in the city of King's Lynn, where sixty remote controlled video cameras were installed to scan known "trouble spots," reporting directly to police headquarters. The resulting reduction in street crime exceeded all predictions…

Le telecamere furono un successone: calo drastico nel crimine e collasso nei costi della sorveglianza. Ormai il futuro era tracciato.

L’idea di fondo era quella di Bentham: sorvegliare tutto da un unico punto d’osservazione…

…In the early nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham, one of the oddest and most original of English thinkers, designed a prison where every prisoner could be watched at all times. He called it the Panopticon…

Le telecamere nei posti pubblici o aperti al pubblico sono già da tempo una realtà…

… In the United States, cameras have long been used in department stores to discourage shoplifting. More recently they have begun to be used to apprehend drivers who run red lights…

Ma si possono immaginare molti altri usi possibili, facciamo il caso delle emissioni inquinanti delle automobili…

…Consider the problem of controlling auto emissions… One could build a much better system using modern technology. Set up unmanned detectors that measure emissions by shining a beam of light through the exhaust plume of a passing automobile; identify the automobile by a snapshot of the license plate…

Altro esempio: cellulari e traffico…

… Another application of large-scale surveillance already being experimented with takes advantage of the fact that cell phones continually emit positioning cues… By monitoring the signals from drivers' phones, it is possible to observe traffic flows. That is very useful information if you want to advise drivers to route around a traffic jam, or locate an accident by the resulting cluster of phones. Currently it is anonymous information, locating a phone but not identifying its owner. As technology evolves that may change…

All’apparenza nessun problema, solo comodità e una quantità di problemi risolti…

… Few would consider it objectionable to have a police officer wandering around a park or standing on a street corner, keeping an eye out for purse snatchers and the like. Video cameras on poles are merely a more convenient way…

L’uso spot della sorveglianza sembra innocuo, ma l’uso pervasivo consentirà di ricostruire l’intera tua vita…

… A cop on the street corner may see you, he may even remember you, but he has no way of combining everything he sees with everything that every other cop sees and so reconstructing your daily life… large fractions of your doings are an open book to anyone with access to the appropriate records…

Si tratta di una potenziale perdita completa della privacy.

Oltretutto, un conto è l’uso limitato e legale della tecnologia di sorveglianza, un altro l’uso pervasivo e illegale, magari da parte di privati.

… Lots of people own video cameras and those cameras are getting steadily smaller… The owner of a few dozen of them could collect a lot of information about his neighbors…

Sarà possibile conoscere tutto del vicino… Il caso della marijuana…

… We have already had court cases over whether it is or is not a search to deduce marijuana growing inside a house by using an infrared detector to measure its temperature from the outside…

Il caso delle conversazioni private…

… We already have technologies that make it possible to listen to a conversation by bouncing a laser beam off a window…

La tesi di David Brin: la privacy è destinata a sparire, prendiamo le giuste contromisure…

… Assume, for the moment, that the offense wins out over the defense - that preventing other people from spying on you becomes impractical. What options remain? Brin argues that privacy will no longer be one of them…

Soluzione: imporre (o comunque auspicare) la trasparenza totale…

… He proposes as an alternative to privacy universal lack of privacy: the transparent society. The police can watch you - but someone is watching them. The entire system of video cameras, including cameras in every police station, is publicly accessible…. Parents can keep an eye on their children, children on their parents, spouses on each other, employers on employees and vice versa, reporters on cops and politicians…

Il ragionamento: il governo e i soggetti più potenti prima o poi si avvarranno della nuova tecnologia (quel che è possibile diverrà realtà), meglio allora rendere libero l’accesso alle info in modo che la “guerra” non sia asimmetrica.

Vediamo cosa c’è di buono nella società della trasparenza ipotizzata da Brin.

Il problema del “chi controlla i controllori” è in parte risolto: il caso Rodney King…

… Qui custodes ipsos custodiet? "Who shall guard the guardians?" … The transparent society offers a possible solution. Consider the Rodney King case. A group of policemen captured a suspect and beat him up… Unfortunately for the police, a witness got the beating on videotape, with the result that several of the officers ended up in prison… In Brin's world, every law enforcement agent knows that he is on candid camera…

Ma c’è un problema: la trasparenza selettiva. Difficile pensare che qualcuno non resti in una posizione di controllo…

… Brin's version does not seem likely. All of the information will be flowing through machinery controlled by some level of government…

L’esempio della polizia…

…If police are setting up cameras in police stations, they can arrange for a few areas to be accidentally left uncovered…

Ma ammettiamo che la tecnologia sia talmente invasiva da impedire di fatto ogni controllo asimmetrico…

… The situation gets more interesting in a world where technological progress enables private surveillance on a wide scale, so that every location where interesting things might happen, including every police station, has flies on the wall watching what happens and reporting back to their owners…

Nascerebbe un mercato privato delle info riservate: una società trasparente non voluta dalla politica ma dalla società…

… information is valuable to others, it can be shared. Governments might try to restrict such sharing. But in a world of strong privacy that will be hard to do, since in such a world information transactions will be invisible to outside parties…one can imagine a future where Brin's transparent society is produced not by government but by private surveillance… The information will be produced privately only if the producer can both use it himself and sell it to others. So a key requirement for a privately generated transparent society is a well-organized market for information."…

Ma la trasparenza totale è anche pericolosa.

L’azzeramento della privacy è di fatto un ritorno al passato, quando si viveva tutti insieme…

… One might instead view it as a step into the past. The privacy that most of us take for granted is to a considerable degree a novelty, a product of rising incomes in recent centuries. In a world where many people shared a single residence, where a bed at the inn was likely to be shared by two or three strangers…

L’esempio delle isole Samoa…

… consider a primitive society such as Samoa. Multiple families share a single house -without walls… the community is small enough to make gossip… Infants are trained early on not to make noise. Adults rarely express hostility.'…

In una piccola comunità il pettegolezzo è potente quanto internet.

Si parlerebbe molto meno, il politically correct impererebbe, i caratteri meno conflittuali avrebbero più opportunità ma soprattutto si svilupperebbero lingue e codici esoterici, un po’ come fanno i genitori quando in presenza dei figli parlano una lingua straniera…

… to communicate in code, to use words or expressions that your intimates will correctly interpret and others will not. For a milder version of the same approach, consider parents who talk to each other in a foreign language when they do not want their children to understand…

La società della trasparenza sarebbe la società dell’ipocrisia all’ennesima potenza…

… In Brin's future transparent society, many of us will become less willing to express our opinions of our boss, employees, ex-wife, or present husband in any public place. People will become less expressive and more self-contained, conversation bland or cryptic…

Ma perché molti di noi considerano la privacy un bene prezioso?

La privacy perfetta la ottengo pensando tra me e me, ma anche in quel caso è possibile immaginare violazioni…

… Think of "privacy" as shorthand for an individual's ability to control other people's access to information about him… I have almost complete privacy with regard to my own thoughts… If someone invented an easy and accurate way of reading minds, privacy would be radically reduced even if there were no change in my legal rights.'…

Aumentare la privacy è un bene o un male?

La privacy ha dei chiari vantaggi…

… The reason I value my privacy is straightforward: Information about me in the hands of other people sometimes permits them to gain at my expense. They may do so by stealing my property - if, for example, they know when I will not be home… my privacy protects me from burglary - in which privacy produced a net benefit, since the gain to a burglar is normally less than the loss to his victim

Se il ladro sa che mi assento, andrà a colpo sicuro. Certo, io potrei essere il ladro ma il vantaggio netto della privacy resta.

D’altronde se io voglio cedere info che mi riguardano, posso farlo come voglio, la privacy non me lo impedisce…

… Information about me in other people's hands may also benefit me - for example, the information that I am honest and competent. But privacy does not prevent that information from being available to them…

C’è un caso in cui però la privacy è un costo…

… One of the risks of bargaining is bargaining breakdown when a seller overestimates the price a buyer is willing to pay or a buyer makes the corresponding mistake the other way and the deal falls through, making both parties worse off than if they had each more accurately read the other…

La privacy avvantaggia chi bluffa, e questo potrebbe rappresentare un costo, per esempio, a causa dei sospetti infondati che ingenera, potrebbe non far chiudere contratti convenienti ad entrambe le parti.

… Privacy makes it harder to know things about other people… It looks as though privacy produces, on average, a net loss in situations where parties are seeking information about each other in order to improve the terms of a voluntary transaction, since it increases the risk of bargaining breakdown.`…

Conclusione: la privacy ci avvantaggia negli scambi involontari (furti) e ci svantaggia in quelli volontari (commercio)…

… In situations involving involuntary transactions, privacy produces a net gain if it is being used to protect other rights (assuming that those rights have been defined in a way that makes their protection desirable) and a net loss if it is being used to violate other rights (with the same assumption)…

E la politica? Il rapporto tra governo e cittadini è quasi sempre di natura “involontaria”…

… Governments engage in involuntary transactions on an enormously larger scale…

La privacy, in altri termini, consente al cittadino di proteggersi dal governo, è questa la sua funzione fondamentale…

… While I can protect myself from my fellow citizens with locks and burglar alarms, I can protect myself from government actors only by keeping information about me out of their hands….

La privacy è come la libera circolazione delle armi: un modo per difendersi dagli abusi governativi.

Come giudicare questo scudo? Semplice: è buona se il governo è cattivo, è cattiva se il governo è buono…

… If government is the modern equivalent of Plato's philosopher-king, individual privacy simply makes it harder for government to do good. If, on the other hand, a government is merely a particularly large and well-organized criminal gang, stealing as much as it can from the rest of us, individual privacy against government as an unambiguously good thing…

Chi ama la privacy implicitamente giudica l’azione di governo…

… Most Americans appear, judging by expressed views on privacy, to be close enough to the latter position…

La privacy, per esempio, favorisce l’evasione fiscale.

Difficile che il progetto della società trasparente possa reggere con un Hitler al potere, ci sarà sempre asimmetria…

… technology could enable a tyranny that Hitler or Stalin might envy. Even if we accept Brin's optimistic assumption that the citizens are as well informed about the police as the police are about the citizens, it is the police who have the guns…

Ma ricordiamoci comunque che nell’ipotesi di Brin la privacy non è un’opzione: il governo – Renzi o Hitler – se potrà violare la privacy, prima o poi lo farà (vedi l’accesso nei c/c personali). Solo per ristabilire la simmetria si auspica l’avvento di una tecnologia altamente intrusiva disponibile per tutti…

… It does not follow that Brin's prescription is wrong. His argument, after all, is that privacy will simply not be an option, either because the visible benefits of surveillance are so large or because the technology will make it impossible to prevent it. If he is right, his transparent society may at least be better than the alternative…

Problema: le info saranno disponibili per tutti ma saranno anche falsificabili. Esempio della causa di divorzio per tradimento…

… My wife is suing me for divorce on grounds of adultery. In support of her claim, she presents videotapes, taken by hidden cameras, that show me making love to three different women, none of them her. My attorney asks for a postponement to investigate the new evidence. When the court reconvenes, he submits his own videotape. The jury observes my wife making love, consecutively, to Humphrey Bogart, Napoleon, her attorney, and the judge. When quiet is restored in the courtroom, my attorney presents the judge with the address of the video effects firm that produced the tape…

L’unica soluzione è affidarsi sempre alla tecnologia…

… There are possible technological fixes - ways of using encryption technology to build a camera that digitally signs its output, demonstrating that that sequence was taken by that camera at a particular time…

Altro argomento correlato: senza privacy sarà molto difficile delinquere. O comunque sarà molto più semplice fare indagini. Ma soprattutto: le indagini potranno essere privatizzate. L’agenzia investigativa si farà consegnare tutti i file e ricostruirà la vicenda risalendo ai colpevoli.

Domanda: il diritto andrebbe totalmente depenalizzato? Oggi abbiamo un codice civile e un codice penale, quest’ultimo, infatti, esiste poiché si ritiene che lo stato debba avere un ruolo…

… In the criminal system prosecution is controlled and funded by the state…Criminal law provides a somewhat different range of punishments…

Se nella società trasparente non ha più senso dare un ruolo nelle indagini allo stato, non ha più senso nemmeno la legge penale con il PM e il suo ufficio…

… One argument against such a pure tort system is that some offenses are hard to detect. A victim may conclude that catching and prosecuting the offender costs more than it is worth, especially if the offender turns out not to have enough assets to pay substantial damages. Hence some categories of offense may routinely go unpunished… In Brin's world that problem vanishes. Every mugging is on tape… The normal crime becomes very much like the normal tort - an auto accident, say, where (except in the case of hit and run, which is a crime) the identity of the party and many of the relevant facts are public information… If someone steals your car you check the video record to identify the thief, then sue for the car…

Se qualcuno ruba la tua auto, controlli i video e denunci il colpevole.

E’ un’idea radicale ma lo è solo per noi oggi: nella Gran Bretagna del ‘700, per esempio, le cose funzionavano esattamente così…

… Like many radical ideas, this one looks less radical if one is familiar with the relevant history… Even as late as the eighteenth century, while the English legal system distinguished between torts and crimes, both were in practice privately prosecuted, usually by the victim."…

Le cose cambiarono poiché la società si allargò diventando anonima, e potrebbero di nuovo cambiare in seguito ad una nuova trasparenza…

… One possible explanation for the shift to a modern, publicly prosecuted system of criminal law is that it was a response to the increasing anonymity that accompanied the shift to a more urban society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century."-" Technologies that reverse that shift may justify a reversal of the accompanying legal changes…

Ma l’ipotesi della società trasparente si scontra col fatto che noi non abbiamo mai avuto tanta privacy nella nostra vita telematica: la possibilità di criptare i messaggi li rende completamente inaccessibili. Sono due mondi che collidono: massima privacy nella comunicazione telematica, massima trasparenza nella vita reale…

… We could end up in a world where physical actions are entirely public, information transactions entirely private…

A prima vista la trasparenza della realtà sembrerebbe vincente…

… It does no good to use strong encryption for my email if a video mosquito is sitting on the wall watching me type… privacy in a transparent society requires some way of guarding the interface between my realspace body and cyberspace…

Ma si possono immaginare soluzioni a bassa tecnologia o ad alta tecnologia…

… A low-tech solution is to type under a hood. A high-tech solution is some link between mind and machine that does not go through the fingers…

La “tastiera mentale”…

Le conversazioni faccia a faccia potrebbero diventare wireless…

… If we are sufficiently worried about other people hearing what we say, one solution is to encrypt face-to-face conversation. With suitable wireless gadgets, I talk into a throat mike or type on a virtual keyboard…

Probabilmente potremo ancora assoldare un killer in modo sicuro ma probabilmente non lo troveremo mai poiché lui non potrà mai agire impunemente…

… Private citizens will still be able to take advantage of strong privacy to locate a hit man, but hiring him may cost more than they are willing to pay, since in a sufficiently transparent world all murders are detected….