Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Boyle , Rob and Cross, Brian (2011-06-15), Eclipse Phase - Panopticon, Retrieved on 2013-06-17Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: futurism rpg Memes
17 JUN 2013
The Surveillance Ecosystem
Lifeloggers capture every instant of their existence
for their own reference. XP stars live, love, and die
with passionate abandon so everyone can enjoy it
on demand. Habitats depend on constantly updated
operational and environmental data as well as troops
of transhuman observers to function seamlessly and
provide the day-to-day necessities of transhuman
life. Hypercorps, governments, organizations, and
individuals safeguard the information they need to
survive and seek out what they need to... 1 
notes
notesA futuristic peak at the world of public sharing and private protection and the different motivations for them.
17 JUN 2013
The Strategy of Releasing All Data
The response many organizations adopted then
(and continue to pursue AF) is to provide overwhelming
amounts of data to the public. This
provided a two-fold defense. First, it allowed immediate
deniability to any charge of withholding data.
Second, the sheer volume of data available meant
that almost any argument could be made or refuted
with selective referencing and correlation to other
publicly available information. This is a rapid, cheap
response that puts the onus back on the accuser to
... 1 notes
notesInteresting idea: be completely transparent, releasing so much data that any hypothesis can be cherry-picked from it, then hire spin-doctors to do just that.
18 JUN 2013
Brainscans as a Form of Identification
Brainprint scans are considered the definitive method
for identifying egos. Contrary to popular misconceptions,
the term “brainwave scan” is a misnomer,
as this form of identifier is not based on simple
electroencephalography (EEG: a reading of the electrical
activity created by neurons firing within the
brain). The actual process for recording brainprints
for identification purposes goes much deeper than
that. It is based on the electrophysiological responses
(event-related potentials) t... 1 notes
notesThe problem is that they must be updated regularly because the brain is always changing.
16 JUL 2013
Sleepwalking into the Surveillance State
The historians say that we sleepwalked into a surveillance
state. They meant that the technology for widespread
surveillance progressed and was implemented
in a gradual manner, though quick considering the
actual time scales, and with little in the way of open
discussion about the ramifications, so that before
anyone thought to object it was already ingrained
into society. When the tables turned and the same
technology was used to watch the watchers, there
was a bit more resistance, but by th... 1 notes
notesExerpt from a futurist vision.
16 JUL 2013
Accountability in the Surveillance State
Where power intervenes, transparency fails to provide
accountability. This is the main fact that the residents
of the Planetary Consortium and their ilk must grasp.
Public-accessible cameras and citizen sousveillance of
police is not enough. To truly hold the people at the
top accountable, publicams should be placed inside
police stations, interrogation rooms, jails, security
checkpoints, congressional chambers, and anywhere
government officials meet with lobbyists, make
decisions, and otherw...Folksonomies: technology surveillance
Folksonomies: technology surveillance
1 notes
notesCameras must be everywhere, in politician's offices, interrogation rooms, everyone must watch everyone.
16 JUL 2013
Constant Surveillance Builds a Better Identity
There are some who argue that individuality
suffers under universal surveillance. When everything
about you is known, and you have little or
no control over how your identity is presented to
others, you become just another person in a mass
of similar persons. With no way to define yourself,
individuality is eroded. We all become everyman
and everywoman, or so the argument goes. To the
contrary, the amount of detail provided to everyone
around us in a transparent society helps to show
all of t... 1 notes
notesIf people know a great deal about you with a simple web search before they meet you, social interactions are smoother.
16 JUL 2013
Seeding Untruths as an Act of Rebellion
Conceding that the battle to stop documentation of people’s
private details and lives was a lost one, the Decepticons have
taken a different approach: make this data unreliable. Decepticon
hackers work hard to penetrate mesh databases and seed false
information. They have released numerous worms and trojans
into the wild with the sole purposes of gaining access to
archives, selecting random entries, and replacing the data with
autogenerated material (similar enough to pass, but false). Some... 1 notes
notesAs a protest against sousiveillance, some hackers turn to filling the Web with false data to make all data unreliable.
16 JUL 2013
O'Neill Cylinders
The O’Neill cylinder is named after an American
physicist and space scientist who sought to engage
his students by getting them to think about big
problems—space settlement, in particular. He also led
symposiums where the concepts behind large, permanent
space habitats—including the cylinder that bears
his name—were hashed out.
The basic principle is fairly simple. Construct a
cylinder at least half a kilometer in diameter so that it
can be rotated at low speed and provide 1 g of art... 1 notes
notesConcept for a space station with gravity.
16 JUL 2013
Directionality in Zero-G
Phrases like “things are looking up” and “look at the upside” once
meant something like “consider the good in the situation,” but
they went through an ironic shift in the solar system’s early spacecolonial
culture, mutating in the microgravity of early tin-can
stations to mean a variety of practically sarcastic sentiments, typically
something like “be careful” or “let’s be realistic.” The joke
(that is, that there is no “upside”) wore off in a hurry, but use it
wit... 1 notes
notesMany of the phrases we use on Earth make no sense in space.
16 JUL 2013
Physiological Effects from Exposure to a Vaccum
Vacuum doesn’t have a temperature of its own,
so space is not really that cold. It’s a great insulator
too, meaning that your core body heat doesn’t get
sucked away. Without an atmosphere to transfer heat
away, the risk of exposure is somewhat mitigated. The saliva on your tongue may boil off, as it’s not
pressurized like your blood is, and you may get some
frost on your skin. Sunburn from direct contact with
the sun’s ultraviolet rays is a more immediate danger
than perishing from ... 1 notes
notesA good description.
16 JUL 2013
The Web is the Death of the Anecdote
Surveillance serves not just as a legal and historical
record but as a record of rep: proof that you’ve done
what you say you’ve done. You bark, and anyone on
the mesh can search to see if you also bite. It’s the
foundation of the reputation economy.
It’s not just video, of course, but surveillance of all
types. Ubiquitous, ever-present surveillance has become
the new public record in countless habitats. You’ve
seen the phrase, “Links or didn’t happen,” right?
Without footage... 1 notes
notes"Links or it didn't happen," if something is not on video, the oral history is worthless.
16 JUL 2013
The Future History of Uplift
The active pursuit of uplift really took hold as a scientific
field during the great flowering of transhuman
culture, an era that also gave us the widespread settlement
of space, extensive human genetic modification,
nanotech, cognitive science, and the digital emulation
of consciousness. It is in fact the convergence of these
fields, and the feedback loops spawned between
them, that enabled the uplift project to make so much
headway so quickly.
It’s easy to see uplift as a breathtaking cu... 1 notes
notesRecognizes we have been manipulating the evolution of life on Earth for thousands of years.
16 JUL 2013
What is a Person?
What is a person?
This seems like an easy question, but appearances
can be deceiving. Throughout the long sweep of
human history, the answer to the question of what
a person is has continually changed. Was a woman
a person, or was she a piece of property? Or was she
even a liability, something that had to be compensated
for with a dowry before a man’s family would agree to take her on? Was a man alien to their immediate
culture a person? Not if you were of African descent
in the United Sta...
1 A great passage on the history of personhood and its possible future.
16 JUL 2013
DNA Divergence is in How You Count
It’s a common misconception that chimp DNA
differs from Homo sapiens sapiens genes by only a
single percent, but this number is apocryphal. In actuality,
the degree of similarity of human and chimp
genetic code depends mostly on how you count.
Since all complex organisms from Earth possess
great swaths of junk DNA inherited from a distant
common ancestor, there tends to be startling similarity
between many organisms. Sure, humans are like
chimps—but they’re also like flatworms and fruit...Folksonomies: dna genetic drift
Folksonomies: dna genetic drift
There's much more to the differences between Chimps and Humans than counting genes.
17 JUN 2013
Beginnings of the Reputation Economy
The formal reputation networks that exist AF arose
organically from the informal social media developed
through the 21st century. An early barrier to
interacting with strangers online—particularly when
engaging in financial transactions—was not knowing
if the person you were dealing with was reliable.
Primitive reputation scores were the first solution,
enabling buyers to rate sellers. These systems rapidly
spread to social networks, discussion forums, and
filesharing sites, as a way of v...
1 How an alternative economy based on reputation could form in the future.
16 JUL 2013
Covering Your Tracks Online is Suspicious
The drawback to covering your tracks like this on
a daily basis is that it sometimes makes you look
like, well, like you’re covering your tracks. People
who engage all of their privacy functions sometimes
stand out in a transparent society. It may make
people suspicious, thinking that you’re up to something.
If you’re only encrypting your communications
with certain people, it sometimes makes it look
even worse, like you’re collaborating—and it also
pinpoints who you’re in cahoots...If you do not show up in searches, then it appears as though you have something to hide.
