Digital Data, Koans, and Legal Implications in Information Technology

Bits

The zeroes and ones that make up all modern digital communication and storage (e.g., cell phone calls, photos, bank records).

Digital Explosion

The name given to the sudden, massive, and exponential increase in digital data and computing power over the last few decades.

Tanya Rider Case

Illustrated how cell phone location records (pings) are stored, enabling her rescue but raising questions about privacy and law enforcement access.

Eliot Spitzer Case

Illustrated how a bank's computer-based pattern recognition found a suspicious money transfer sequence, leading to his exposure, even though transfers were below the reporting threshold.

Koan 1: It's All Just Bits

The concept that all digital data (photos, calls, texts) is fundamentally the same (just ones and zeroes).

Implication of Koan 1

The law struggles to regulate different types of bits equally (e.g., common carrier rules for phone calls don't apply to text messages).

Common Carrier

A legal status for services (like traditional telephone) that are prohibited from discriminating against any customer or content.

Koan 2: Perfection Is Normal

The concept that digital copies are always perfect, identical clones of the original, with no degradation.

Implication of Koan 2

The legal notion of an 'original' has become meaningless, leading to major conflicts over copyright and file sharing.

Koan 3: There Is Want in the Midst of Plenty

The paradox that even with vast data storage, we are losing information that is not digitized or easily searchable online.

Missing Data Problem (Koan 3)

Data stored on obsolete devices or paper files may as well not exist because it is inaccessible by modern systems.

Koan 4: Processing Is Power

The rapid, exponential increase in computer speed and capability.

Moore's Law

The observation that the density of transistors on an integrated circuit (and thus computing power) doubles approximately every two years.

Implication of Koan 4

Technologies that were once theoretical (like face recognition or robot vacuums) become economically feasible very quickly.

Koan 5: More of the Same Can Be a Whole New Thing

The idea that exponential growth goes unnoticed for a long time before suddenly crossing a threshold and causing radical change.

Kodak Example (Koan 5)

A company that was overwhelmed by the exponential growth of digital photography (driven by Moore's Law) and failed to adapt.

The Epidemic Analogy (Koan 5)

Shows that a devastating epidemic is only half as bad on the next-to-last day before it overwhelms everything, illustrating the lack of warning.

Koan 6: Nothing Goes Away

The concept that massive, cheap disk capacity makes it possible to save everything forever, and data is virtually impossible to permanently delete.

Privacy Tax

The extra cost a customer pays (by not using a loyalty card) to keep their purchasing habits private; the discount is the store paying for the data.

Implication of Koan 6

Detailed personal data (e.g., medical records, purchase history) is kept indefinitely, raising risks of loss, theft, or misuse (blackmail, blacklisting).

Koan 7: Bits Move Faster Than Thought

The near-instantaneous flow of information across the globe over the Internet.

Implication of Koan 7

Global outsourcing of jobs (separating the worker from the work) and instantaneous spread of news (e.g., from protests in Myanmar).

Libel Tourism

An effect of Koan 7: Lawsuits filed in foreign countries with strict libel laws against online publishers whose content is globally accessible.

The Basic Moral of the Chapter

Information technology is inherently neither good nor bad; it is a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill (e.g., encryption).

Regulation Focus

The text argues we should regulate the use of technology, not its creation or existence.

Risk of Technology

New technologies can be used for monitoring, surveillance, tracking, and the mass control of information received by citizens.

Opportunity of Technology

Access to information (e.g., via search engines) frees society from old limitations of geography and social status.

Economist Term: Non-Exclusive

A characteristic of bits: Once a few people have them (like an idea), it is hard to keep them from others.

Economist Term: Non-Rivalrous

A characteristic of bits: When someone else gets them from me, I do not have any less.

Blacklist

A list of parties who are banned from using a service (e.g., banned bidders on an auction site).

Whitelist

A list of parties who are allowed to use a service, with everyone else excluded (e.g., only subscribers can access content).