Rear Window

Thoughts about the movie Rear Window (1954)

It is interesting to be reminded that the issue of surveillance has been around for so long. The technologies advance but the basic concepts are quite similar. Is it ethical for one to spy on ones fellow human beings and to judge them by what they infer from the surveillance data that they collect? I was also interested in seeing that they had apartment buildings so close together even back in the 50’s. For some reason I thought that this was a more recent phenomena. The movie makes me wonder how the same type of scenario would play out today. Instead of just watching ones neighbor one could record everything he sees because the cost of technology is so cheap. It makes you want to keep your blinds closed permanently if you live in a downtown condo. It makes me a little paranoid of what “neighbors” could have seen and recorded during the time that I did live in a downtown condo.

RFID - Fri. Sept. 16, 2004

Our class discussion motivated me to investigate the RFID a little further starting with IBM and Accenture, two companies that I have previously worked for that I thought would be all over this technology. Both sites had information posted about how they are involved with this technology in conjunction with various other companies. It seems a little curious that all of a sudden they are all over it, seeing as the technology has been around since the ‘40’s. I guess that, as Richard said in class, this is because the technology cost is beginning to drop which makes this technology now actually affordable to use in certain scenarios. I suspect it may also have a little to do with the post 9/11 environment that is allowing citizens to be a little more accepting of this kind of interactive tracking mechanism. What surprised me about the technology is the fact that the RFIDs are meant to be both read and written (or overwritten) to. This makes them quite different from the UPCs we currently see on products. Given the widespread advance of wireless technology these devices can be updated with location, something that Accenture is all over in terms of services they want to be able to offer in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). According to their site, we should look forward to the day when we can look on-line and see precisely that our Priority Post package is on truck number 191, heading West at 100 kph and is estimated to arrive in Vancouver at 3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19. Funny, it’s not anticipation I feel right now, more like a little bit of nervousness.

Googling Yourself - September 8, 2004

Today in surveillance class we watched a 20 year old film clip which reminded me of some personal issues that I’m currently trying to address. There was a particular scene at the beginning where a gentleman was discussing how he was all of a sudden denied access to the United States and he didn’t know why, and worse yet, couldn’t find out why. I started to wonder how easy this would be to happen and how frustrating it would also be. I’ve also visited the United States without any problems, but I realized that it was mostly when I was married.

A couple of years ago I separated from my husband and I’ve been procrastinating changing my name back to my maiden name because of all of the hassles it will cause in electronic customer databases. I was originally worried about banks, credit cards, and insurance agencies. But now, 2 years later, I’m finally getting brave enough to consider the name change again. I decided before officially changing my name back to my maiden name, to first do a google search on it. I was very surprised by the results and now that I think of the potential traveling implications, I’m also concerned by the results. The search returned information about an FBI file #M-760117239. It appears that there is someone with my maiden name that is wanted for kidnapping in the United States. She has the same color hair, similar weight but a little taller and different color eyes. She also has a different middle name. I wonder what the Customs Agents would get back if they pulled up my maiden name on their computer? I wonder how they would react?

I decided to think about alternative surnames. I did a second search on my mother’s maiden name. This returned ties to a pornography database. I then considered shortening the name. Bad idea, turns out there is a bondage pornography model with that handle. What would my friends think if they decided to google me for fun? I wondered what would go through my mind if I came across this type of information if I googled them.

So, in the end I think I have two choices. Leave my name as is or make something new up that doesn’t have anything weird tied to it in a google search. At least not yet. Too bad Google, with all it's power, can't predict the future.