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About Google Wave
I'm placing this posting on my
web site as a means of making it available (by means of being
linked to) in places out there on the web which won't allow a
posting of this one's length; or which only allow links to
relevant postings such as this one. So, wherever
possible, I'm trying to post the below as a comment beneath
articles about Wave, on the same page as said articles; but in
some places (and only where absolutely necessary), I am,
instead, linking hereto.
At the end of
May, 2009, at
Google I/O, a remarkable new (and
surprisingly open-source) product and accompanying technology was
introduced called "Google
Wave."
AS. THEY.
TYPE.
Think about that, please, for
just a moment. It's a far larger problem than, perhaps, it
initially seems. Like how sausage is made (or, as some joke,
like how laws are passed), some things in life may better be left
something of a mystery to those who ultimately consume (or who are
regulated by) them; and perhaps most importantly, solely at the
creator's option.
Of what else (if anything) in Wave
should we who hold inviolate our privacy be wary?
To appeal to at least thinking
Americans, the makers of Wave need to take steps to ensure that if
the end-user wants to protect his/her absolute privacy while using
this admittedly exciting and seemingly paradigm-shifting new
product, it can, via easy configuration settings, be satisfactorily
and incontrovertibly achieved at all possible levels, and in all
possible ways.
About Google's new "Wave"product
The reaction around the Internet has been both swift, and little
short of amazing. Nevertheless, I have some privacy
concerns about Wave,
as I understand the product.
Additionally, many out there have written that email and chat
itself, among other things, will ultimately be replaced by Wave.
To all of that, I respond as follows...
By Gregg L. DesElms
Posted:
June 2, 2009
Thinking of Wave in terms of "replacing" such as GMAIL (or even
email itself) is just silly. Not every Internet
communication needs to be (or even should be) as would be in
Wave. Traditional email, at the very least, should (and likely
will) never go away. Of this, I think there should be
little fear or doubt.
Now, that doesn't mean there won't be a place -- and quite likely a
potent one -- in our lives for such as Wave and its
ineluctable variants. It, too, will be useful, under the right
circumstances. In fact, from my admittedly only-cursory
analysis of it to date, I'm thinking that what actually may
be "replaced" by Wave, as a practical matter, is traditional "chat,"
as we now know it (though traditional chat, mark my words, will
continue to be around for years and years, too, no matter how
good Wave ultimately gets).
Regardless, one thing about which we should all be clear in our
minds is that we're not talking about the mere replacing of
anything, here. Wave, for better or worse, seems very nearly
of the nature of paradigm shift... and far be it from
me to suggest that that's, necessarily, a bad thing.
It does, however, come with pitfalls about which we should all be
watchful, if not actually downright concerned. For example,
though it's now coming out in articles (and/or rebuttals to such as
I am posting here) that it's likely to be user-configurable, initial
writings about Wave touted the ability (and represented it as
essential to Wave's very way of operating) of all persons in a
"wave" (or a thread) to be able to see, in real time, all others'
keystrokes, as they type.
Allow me repeat the most salient words of that:
The ultimate impact and meaning to the reader of anything written
would be inordinately influenced by said reader's having been a
witness to its creation. If one is a thoughtful writer who
doesn't just blurt out every wayward thing which flits through one's
brain, then one is going to pause to think while one types, and
back-up and delete and re-type, and whatever else behind-the-scenes
activity goes into what ends-up being the finished written product.
If the reader were able to witness what the writer merely paused
before writing; or actually did write, but then thought better of
and either removed or changed to something else, then the bell of
what the reader saw along the way cannot be un-rung; and the
reader's ultimate interpretation and understanding of the final
written result will be indelibly affected in ways (even if not
immediately obvious) more likely than not to be inherently bad for
all concerned.
Now, if it's true, as some who challenge such as my assertions,
here, are now saying, that the ability of others to view one's
keystrokes as one makes them is (or at least will be)
user-configurable in the version of Wave which is finally released
to the end-user wild, then my concern, at least on this particular
privacy-related point, is happily ameliorated.
However, of larger philosophical concern to me is that the creators
of Wave apparently believed, even if only briefly, that something as
basic as this issue would not be important. What, then (if
anything), does that mean we should also be wary of in the realm of
personal privacy protections, just generally, for users of this new
and groundbreaking product? For what else should we be
watching which may, ultimately, negatively impact us because of
fundamental, and at least initially seemingly harmless, privacy
encroachments...
...encroachments which may not even be recognizable as such to
Wave's creators because, perhaps, of their nationality and
upbringing (nothing negative, mind you, intended by that wording,
I assure).
One potentially troubling impact (at least from the standpoint of
Americans, in my opinion) of globalization (which, incidentaly,
I'm not fundamentally against, despite how what I'm about to write
may make it seem) is how the sensibilities of those
non-Americans who create things which all others on the planet
end-up using can unintentionally contravene that which Americans
hold perhaps nearer and dearer to their hearts than do non-American
others. Those who grew up and still live in countries where
such things as privacy and freedom of speech are not as absolute and
paramount as in the US may or may not necessarily value such rights
to the same degree as do Americans; and it sometimes shows in their
work which then, in turn, affects us all.
It has not escaped my notice that the two brothers -- brilliant
though they clearly and indisputably are -- who created and continue
to develop Wave were neither born and raised in, nor now live in,
the US. So, I fear (and I may be completely wrong about this,
I realize, but absent, at this point, any reason not to, I am
nevertheless fearful that they) may not place as much of a premium
on the notion of absolute privacy (if desired by the end-user
of Wave) as do Americans.
Or, who knows, maybe they do. I don't know them, and it's
probably unfair of me to presume . One way or the other,
though, if the default behavior of Wave may be used as an indicator,
it should be at least a concern to all that said behavior seems so
inherently and joltingly privacy-denuding and/or -depriving.
So, then, again, begged by it is the question:
Moreover, perhaps, as it is developed, the makers of Wave and its
open-source adders-on might need to realize that they may, because
of their nationality and upbringing, not necessarily even
recognize what all of those levels and ways might be; and the
Americans (or even the non-Americans who at least fully grasp the US
viewpoint regarding all this) who work on the development of Wave
should ensure that no privacy holes such as I'm suggesting here
remain anywhere in it when it's finally and fully released into the
end-user wild.
Or so it is my opinion... my "two cents worth," as it were...
...which my ex-wife, for example, among others, has been known to
quickly attest tends to be about all it's usually worth.
Copyright
© 1994- by Gregg L. DesElms.
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