So we’re about to get a new law that apparently is designed to Protect Information.

From what?

And from whom?

Are we under attack by corseted terrorists strapped and wrapped and ready to explode for some god or other?

No.

Are we exposed to venemous cross-border raids and the government in danger of being overthrown by a bunch of minority fascists?

No.

Its all so silly really.

That the ANC government thinks by passing a law – that’ll have the effect of scaring away proper journalists.

I think folks in power have been drinking that intoxicating drug called despot for too long.

Or many in government are not aware of what happened to a previous SA government that tried to stop information from getting around?

And that was in the day before digital…

Think of our South African information as a balloon .  Squeeze one part,  and another will extend.  That’s what’s going to happen after this Bill becomes law.

The government will squeeze newspapers,  and out will pop the information online.

Then it’ll squeeze online and out will pop the information on phones.

It will squeeze the phone companies and out will pop the information on pamphlets.

It will squeeze the pamphleteers and out will pop the information on Facebook.

It will squeeze Facebook and out will pop the information on Billboards.

It will squeeze billboards and out will pop the information at bars and taverns.

It will squeeze bars and taverns and then the people will squeeze the government.

And POP !

that will be the end of the ruling party – and that’s the truth.

Role on the Info bill I say.. let’s get this over with quickly chaps…

You have been warned.  Facebook is now working with law enforcement agencies and handing over wads of your data including all those weird friends at Venezuela Drug Trade,  Mexico Marijuana PTY ltd,   Blonde-Swap CC in Moscow, and Biggus-Dickus Sex Aid corporation.

Reuters has dug out information in the US showing that since 2008, judges have given various cops the right to scrutinize Facebook’s database at least 24 times.  And these include personal messages, status updates, links to video and photographs, calenders of all events, wall postings,  and all friend requests.

So imagine your surprise,  sipping a nice rooibos one sunny morn’ when absailing through your venster comes Mr Anderson from the Matrix.

Eina ! Forgot this was the real world ....

What happens in Syria or in a future dictatorship-run one-party socialist warlord-feudal independent state of Az-anus?

I’ve looked at this in various ways over the past year and found that online users are extraordinarily naive.   They provide a vast swamp of detail for the critters that reside within the murky depths to wade in and pluck.

From bank details to exact description of your location.

That’s not wise.   Think of it like this.   You have a house and a car and cash.   And you’re telling people where you are 24 hours a day.  That means you’re not somewhere.  Which makes it easier for house breakers to target your property.

That’s not being paranoid.  That’s just common sense.  Don’t talk to strangers,  don’t let on all your confidences – a basic human tendency for self-survival.

Yet there we are,  letting it all hang out  so that our friendly digital mugger can creep up and cosh us while we meander along Facebook paths poking around in the pretty friend-flower requests.  We are all online lemmings, running together towards the digital privacy cliff.

Facecrook has just owned up to hiring a PR company to spread malicious and false rumours about Google in the US.  Nothing is more odious than a rich Harvard brat using sandpit crotch logic booby traps to defy the growth of a competitor.

Not that Google is much better at this openness bit.  They’re refusing to explain why competitor ads fail to appear in the correct sequence on their various applications and France and Germany are investigating both companies for scraping data and invasions of privacy issues.

There lies a danger in this new technology world.

It’s supposed to be about smarts,  but turns into cunning.  There is a difference.

Smart is outwitting your opponent.  Cunning is about laying booby traps.

The digital world is a war zone alright.   But how different is the business strategy than, say,  a Rockerfeller building a railway line and bribing the mayors across the mid-west to take his lines as opposed to competitors?  Or JP Morgan ordering his “police” to attack strikers in the ’20s?

Zero.

Still,  if you invest early, you can make enough dosh out of Vleisboep.   Let someone else worry about whether its using legal or illegal methods as it competes for market share.   A bit like watching chimpanzees fighting over a section of the forest.

Speaking of chimpanzees,  have you heard that one about  Strauss-Kahn and the New York Domestic worker?   Money, power, sex.  Sounds like Dallas.   (The TV show) .

The big story is a journalist Tristane Banon who claimed Strauss-Kahn molested her in 2002 is suddenly being taken seriously.  At the time she referred to her attacker as  a“rutting chimpanzee”.

Walking upright for the moment, Strauss-Kahn with real bipedal creatures alongside

Ja-nee.

Data is like stats.  Lies and more lies.

Except when its cookies.   You go to sites and you’re watched.  Every move you make.  Every click,  the data is stored in a repository for future sale.

No lies.

I enjoy cookie free internet surfing.   Except for the data-stealing sites and hackers and so on.  As soon as a session-based machine discovers it can’t tag you with anything,  the device prefers not to receive your SMTP request through whatever internet server you’re using.  Particularly Social Networking sites.

The big secret is that you can browse virtually ALL internet sites with Cookies switched off.  On Internet Explorer,  go to TOOLS,  then INTERNET OPTIONS,  then PRIVACY,  and set the slider at the highest level.   That means your privacy is now ensured.

Or does it?

All that does is makes it difficult for Facebook to steal your clicks,  or Google.  And you won’t be able to save your passwords.   So you’re going to have to remember to type them in each time.

While I happily entered Businessday.co.za,  and Fm.co.za, and a host of news sites,  my social networking sites went off the boil.

That’s how Facebook is going to make money.  Steal your activity then sell that data and your email to someone you don’t know.

I suggest you think very carefully about what that means.

As the US begins investigating the protection of privacy and invasiveness of some of these Social Networking sites,  I wouldn’t be too quick to invest in the theft of data which is blatantly supported by investment banks at the moment.

What happens if the state enters Facebook’s servers and gets all your clicks, all your cookies,  your confidential movements online?  Will you face a Syrian-type firing squad?

Syria.

Damascas.

Plot.

Facebook.

Game theory.

End Game.

Tanks.

Snipers.

600 dead.

Uprising.

Friday.

al-Assad.

All sad.

Protesters with pieces of bread shout slogans during a demonstration to show their solidarity with the protesters in Deraa

Been watching the denizens of Twit-land over the past week and doing a media analysis.  No,  I didn’t need a government tender to do this.  Just some constant attention to detail.

Here goes.

The yanks are blowing their chances of doing anything in Libya as the people there suffer the equivalent of the Brits bombing Boston.

Rather than tweeting about real issues  Americans are all talking about Miracle Whip’s facebook page,  or toddlers and tiaras today.

That’s as a bloody carnage rages in a region of the world that will affect Americans through the price of oil.  Libyans are telling twitter and facebook about blood on the streets and their own airforce gunning them down by the hundreds and overnight the trends on social networking inexorably turn to canned cream and puff pieces.

Americas advanced thoughts today ...

A quick sequeway.

I’ve heard that recently some South African local government communication officials removed their leaders’ facebook profiles after comments from really unhappy citizens.   They were posting nasty comments, say the government pr-types,  all nervous and eyeing their jobs.  So they terminated the social network id instead of answering the comments.

Now doesn’t that tell you something?  Rather than face the music and then organize the orchestra,  these PR ja-baas men and women would rather remove the offending Facebook page ENTIRELY.

We all agreed that all this did was open up the space for these angry commentators to form their own interest groups - and eventually – their own activities.

And these activities,  instead of being deflated by monitoring the nasty comments and acting on them,  will eventually lead the very same commentators to the front doors of the government officials.   Crazy that officialdom has the opportunity to properly monitor levels of frustration by using digital products – instead when the going gets tough,  they run away from the problems.

The herd is not far behind and in SA they won’t be twittering about miracle whip, they’ll be carrying whips.