[LINK] Why Irkut ?

[Craig Sanders]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 01:53:16PM +1100, felipe rodriquez wrote:
> I find Irkut to be similar to BBS systems I used to use in the 80's and 90's,
> all rights would be limited to the sysop, who could do whatever he wanted. I
> also found a large number of hacker friends from the 80's who I first met on
> such bulletin boards. And one of my best schoolmates I lost contact with for
> many years, and an old friend who also happens to have MS. I would never have
> stuck there if there where not a large community of my international friends
> online.

bulletin boards were (for the most part) run by pimply-faced geeks on a
computer in the corner of their bedroom.  they were amateur boards, run on a
non-profit basis (most didn't even recover costs).

a "social networking" site like irkut (or whatever), run by or associated with
a company whose income comes from advertising and marketing is a different
thing altogether.

(note I am deliberately ignoring the existence of commercial dialup systems.
they weren't part of the BBS scene, at least not here in Australia).


> There are also some issues with the potential of Irkut being used for
> intelligence gathering. But I already anticipate that all my Email, faxes and
> phonecalls are in the public domain as far as spooks are concerned. I use
> tunnels and PGP and all that, but I still feel that it could potentially be
> cracked and archived.

that's not a reason to become blase and complacement about privacy issues, it's
a reason to be outraged (and enraged) and to vehemently insist on maintaining
your privacy wherever and whenever possible.  it is a reason to kick up a fuss,
to protest, or simply to refuse to participate.

the greatest threat to privacy doesn't come from new technologies or spooky
government departments or even from marketing lobby groups, the greatest threat
comes from the fact that many people just don't care, or at least, don't care
enough to do anything about it.

or worse, from those who are willing to sell out their privacy for some trivial
benefit or convenience (look at flybuys and other "loyalty" schemes for example
- you get to give up all your consumer rights to privacy in exchange for such
wonderful over-priced items as silver-plated nostril hair pluckers and the
like)

craig