Extra Credit: Secrecy and it’s Discontents

Most people know that America has secrets; however, before this presentation I never thought about the people who keep these secrets and how difficult it may be. The speaker talked about how those who work in secret laboratories live two separate lives. They have their job and their home life. This can result in the lack of intimacy in marriages and can result in extreme paranoia. The speaker gave an example of an individual who didn’t clap for certain politically themed plays because they were worried an FBI agent were watching them. The speaker argued that there was an over classification problem present in America. He gave three reasons for this which he labeled the laws of secret dynamics.

The first law of secret dynamics given by the speaker was to avoid embarrassment. The government, national defense, sometimes makes mistakes that end up harming other people, and it is both embarrassing and difficult for them to explain these situation. Often classified data is there as a safeguard, so if mistakes happen the government does not receive a steady flow of backlash.

The second law of secret dynamics is to play it safe. The speaker talked about how people never get in trouble for classifying information, but they often get in trouble for not classifying data.

The third law of secret dynamics is information connectivity creep, which means that individual pieces of information may not be dangerous on their own but combined with other data they become sensitive.

This topic relates to big data in several way. First I think that while a lot of secret, government information is over classified. Big data is under-classified. We read an article this semester called, “The Beginner’s Guide to the Quantified Self.” The article was written by Under Armour and attempted to help people to begin their self-tracking; however, in the privacy and ethics section I actually looked at the terms and conditions of Under Armour’s apps only to find out that they have access to a lot of our information. When it comes to using apps I also tend to follow the second law of secret dynamics and never provide more information than I have to. I don’t want companies to collect all of my data, I only give them what I have to so I can use the app. This relates to the third law of secret dynamics. It may be safe for companies to have my gender, age and fitness logs; however, when they begin to collect personal data about my medical history or when they identify me by name in association with my data it may be more dangerous for them to have access to my data. Especially since we have talked about how health insurance companies may begin to collect data to pro-rate health insurance plans.

I also looked back on the graphic novel we read at the beginning of the semester titled, “Terms of Service.” I looked back on the section when they discussed how upset people were about Google taking data from personal Gmail accounts. It makes more sense that people would be so upset about this in a culture of over classification. Now with the influx of the Internet and hackers, it seems that we have greater access to information and even classified information can be accessed. However with the Internet, it must be even more difficult for individuals with security clearance to keep their double lives because now they not only have to watch their behavior in public but also online.