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[FYI] Not just Big Brother - we're all watching you
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- Subject: [FYI] Not just Big Brother - we're all watching you
- From: Horns@t-online.de (Axel H. Horns)
- Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 20:07:37 +0100
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=001319205832015&rtmo=awpRRe3L&atmo
=99999999&pg=/et/missions/connect/ecf198410.html
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Connected
(The weekly technology and science download from
Electronic Telegraph) Text-only version Thursday 10
June 1999
Not just Big Brother - we're
all watching you
Information technology and poor legislation
have brought Big Brother to life, says Simon
Davies
FIFTY years ago this week, a bizarre and terrifying
new novel went on sale in bookshops across the world.
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four caught the
imagination of millions, and in the process
catapaulted "Big Brother" into the international
lexicon. For socialists and libetarians alike, the
phrase became short-hand for the power of the state,
and the fear of intrusion by authority.
For the digital generation, large computer systems
have begun to represent the all-seeing, all-knowing
Big Brother. An adult in the developed world is
located, on average, in 300 databases. As these
converge with the telecommunications spectrum, nearly
everyone becomes entangled in a web of surveillance
enveloping everything from bank accounts to email.
[...]
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