We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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State of paranoia Home Office plans to require registration of mobile phones (and to register the identities of hotel guests (pdf), record who calls whom and what they read online, etc …) have a familiar feel. In the Soviet Union, all printing machinery and typewriters were registered just in case they might be used for ‘anti-social’ purposes, when the people who had access to them could be tracked-down, watched and questioned.
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Guy, sorry for nitpicking, but the poster is not relevant to the issue you are discussing, as it deals with keeping state secrets, not private ones. Or am I missing something?
I didn’t know where to post this…but here is as good a place as any.
Some of you will remember I used to write this question fairly often:
“How many wake-up calls do you need?”
Just to remind you that, despite our current economic come-uppance, the question remains relevant.
The registration of mobile phones is a pointless move. Those who seek to destroy or steal or whatever the criminals and terrorists want to call it will find plenty of ways round this – not least stealing someone else’s mobile phone and using that. Duh!
It will inconvenience whole swathes of law abiding people, but who cares? It’s another law to beat the ordinary citizen with. Another triumph for our Nulab oafs.
Alisa,
Yes and no.
The ostensible message of the poster is indeed the same as “loose lips sink ships”, but it has a clear secondary one in the context of Stalin’s Russia: ‘don’t complain because you are being watched’. And the pretext for the watching and the curtailing of the complaint is the same – a threat to the good society. Under the new totalitarianism of the database state all private information is to be the state’s province. The actual existence of external spies threatening the state becomes an irrelevance if all deviations and potential deviations can be collated for future reference. The terror is self-sustaining.
Guy, the poster is from 1941, so I doubt any secondary meaning. Still, I could be wrong.
Let’s see…
I (everybody) had to replace a few “old” cell phones because they didn’t have GPS tracking technology, for my safety. The clerk required (not)a social security number to “activate” them.
Ask your local knowledgeable printer repairman about
hidden “registration marks” on each and every page your home and business printer copies.
Apparently DNA evidence is now economically feasible enough to mis-apply to “lessor” crimes.
I just got my new RFID chipped passport and “travel card”. The card comes with a metallic lined envelope for “when not in use”. Apparently the threat of available technology for malicious “scanning” by evil-doers, just by passing by, is upon us.
The passport does not come with such an envelope, but promises no “vital” information is stored there, merely a flag toward information stored on our computer.
I recently noticed that the bags that whole bean coffee comes in are metallic lined. I wonder…..
We all need to start wearing aluminum foil hats.
visions of “The President’s Analyst” and the phone company pushing to get a chip in every head.
The James Coburn solution was an M16
“Take that you hostile son of a bitch!”
But then you have a rough time getting your hands on one in the UK
I know that most Samizdatists are fairly libertarian, and sure enough, government regulations are red meat (not to mention that they introduce inefficiencies). However…
1. Malaysia, which is NOT a free state by any stretch of the imagination, had this registration requirement since last year. I say if you can avoid it, do so, but if it is inevitable, marshal your strength for something bigger. Definitely don’t let these issues snowball.
2. The effect of this will be minimal on the truly paranoid and outlaws. Skype is encrypted, and offered on mobile phones nowadays. I can think of a few other technological ways in which this can be made into a useless, futile exercise.
3. It could be worse. Malaysians are only allowed 10 lines per person…
Gregory,
The effect of this will be minimal on the truly paranoid and outlaws.
Directly, yes. But what most people either opposing it or advocating it naively don’t seem to get is that the point of mass surveillance and population management via technology is not to deal with the exceptional cases: it is to encourage mass compliance and ease mass processing. That’s why the discussion of the poster is relevant – social conformity is to be obtained by appeals to fear: ostensibly fear of the external or internal enemy of ‘right-thinking people’ and national security, but much more palpably fear of the consequences of not complying when one is potentially being watched, of betraying yourself as someone with something to hide.
Doesn’t this have something to do with the tracking down of the Madrid railway bombers?
I seem to remember reading that Spain had this mobile phone registration requirement at the time and that this had helped to catch those responsible?
Before or after the explosions?
Alisa, something else to consider. There was no real separation between ‘State’ and ‘Private’ in Stalinland, so I think the poster is relevant
Could someone translate the poster for those of us who were so lazy that we took Spanish in school instead?
CaptDMO:
I’d be interested in what you mean when you mention DNA evidence. It’s still pretty spendy, as lab analysis goes.
Nick, in practice (as opposed to the doctrine) there was always a separation between ‘State’ and ‘Private’. It’s just that the ‘State’ part was much larger than in the West.
Sunfish:
Nick, I’ve just realized that I may have missed your point, and that you were referring not to the nature of the Soviet regime, but to the nature of war. If that is the case, than I absolutely agree.
The US had plenty of similar posters in WWII; “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships” was the main one. The Russian lady in this poster is certainly more intimidating than any Allied version I’ve seen!
Alisa, thanks for the translation.
Laird, you are welcome.
I was wondering about similar propaganda in the West. My hunch was that there just had to be – thanks for the link. As to intimidating images, I always found Uncle Sam (who also figures in your link) as intimidating as anyone else:-)