AFAIK, this is an actual NSA report on gathering information legally from the internet, that was released by a Freedom Of Information case. Here’s a WIRED article on this report, which is where I “got” the report.
Report is full of things that advertisers are surely using…among a full toolbox of other proprietary means… to “know their targeted audience”; and perhaps the kind of research that DLE creators and hosts need to use to know their students and learners?
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The uses and abuses of information gathering is a gigantic debate… but the amount of what is known about each of us, by many entities we know little or nothing about, is already massive. And short of some solar storm that destroys hard drives worldwide…. that horse has long been out of that barn, and isn’t coming back. Everything can be hacked; few, if any, secrets are “safe”.
Adaptive learning is partly based on the idea that one can massively correlate data points and analyze with algorithms to determine what are “best” options in a learning situation for a specific individual. True, some of this data can be processed usefully without knowing who exactly the individual is; some of it will, for all practical purposes, identify that individual, and the record that is created by the learner’s responses.
The more you know about the person, the better the ability to address individual’s learning style, learning background, pace, motivation, and ability to “fit” into a particular SLC. It is very hard to imagine this kind of information not being connected to an actual person’s name at some point. But if it’s all in the computer, and the computer can identify the user by the matrix of all the data points, perhaps names are going to be superfluous.
Obviously there’s huge implications of being known.
Report cards, transcripts, and teacher’s evaluations already follow one around, and have a role in determining future of individuals; in our new world this is writ large and massively, and will be/ is part of employment decisions and even perhaps dating and marriage, mortgages, insurance, car loans… you name it.
Degrees, certificates, and other public records identifying one as “qualifying” will/ or already/ pale next to all that goes into our “life scores”. (think credit score but with everything part of the “formula”)
Someday we may see a news release where Knewton has partnered with the NSA. Or maybe they already have…
This report is from 2007, so one knows that this year’s guide would be a few hundred pages longer.
Another article on this from NBC:
http://goo.gl/5K7Sg
This WaPo blog entry tries to differentiate between autocratic (which we have today in US) and democratic surveillance – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/08/is-a-democratic-surveillance-state-possible/
I personally think that as Big Data and Big Data Analysis tools continue to expand, we will see a huge increase in mafia-type shakedowns; it seems inevitable.
Thanks for WaPo blog post.
Good to hear from those seeking a middle way. More power to them.
It’s a “nice try”, but “democratic surveillance”…keeping gathering just at the minimum necessary… is an oxymoron, imo. As logic might have it, that minimum necessary is going to be very very broad and deep, if the point is to reveal nefarious patterns otherwise unavailable. The purpose of it all in the first place is to supposedly allow USA to counter plots involving what certainly will be ever more “massive” weapons of destruction. Even if it’s just a few people doing it.
12 Monkeys anyone?
But maybe insisting through legislation and enforcement that there be some kind of warning that no information being located in the cloud can have the expectation of being private…would at least forearm people that it’s all being collected and “watched”.
We know whatever is on our person, or in our luggage, is going to get searched if we travel by air. It’s explicit. Let’s make the reality of online world explicit too. It’s a “cold war” out there with states, and non states, and rogue interests battling. It’s not safe, but we have to go out and live anyway.
Government having information about it’s own citizens has it’s good and it’s bad sides, as some of us are going to be various kinds of threats, and designing quality programs such as healthcare and education will depend on really knowing the state of need and what works etc.
Agree, there’s a great deal of inevitability about ever expanding Big Data and Big Data analysis, for good and for ill. Am not naive that there won’t be corruption involved in who uses this information and for what purposes.
Organized crime is always in waiting for a new niche to exploit. As are dictators and demagogues, and all manner of powerful interests, including political parties, and big corporations and for sure, the financial industry!!!
Such is our world, and such it has always been. Good and bad mixed together like the Wheat and the Tares…. according to my favorite NT parable.
And yet, it sure would be nice to have some of that good old fashioned privacy when we need it.