The podcast “The Privacy Paradox – note to self” (WNYC Studios) consists of 5 newsletters, which include “tips and a short podcast explaining the science, psychology, and tech behind that day’s challenge.” (The Privacy Paradox, https://project.wnyc.org/privacy-paradox/) Now that you have listened to all five episodes, it is time for us to reflect upon each day’s challenge.

Please use this blog entry to write about two episodes of the Privacy Paradox that particularly spoke to you. Which two episodes and their challenges provided the most interesting learning experience for you? For example, in the fourth episode, “Fifteen Minutes of Anonymity” the question is raised how someone can be close to oneself. In which ways could the challenges support you feeling “close(r) to yourself”? Additionally, did you further engage with recommended apps, browser add-ons, and your social media privacy settings? If yes, what did you do? What was interesting to find out about yourself? And last but not least, in which ways did the challenges encourage you to take back control of your digital identity? What are your “Personal Terms of Service”?

Discipline, control, and health of the body are the three pillars of THE METHOD, which declares health as the principle of state legitimacy. Juli Zeh’s dystopian narrative of THE METHOD examines the notion of a society that is established on the optimization of the individual as a result of the harmony between the body and mind. By monitoring the well-being of its citizens through an implanted chip in the upper arm, THE METHOD makes human actions and information readable, collectible, and sharable to governmental control and the greater public. As a rewrite (palimpsest) of George Orwell’s 1984, Juli Zeh’s work engages with the question of what it means to be human in a world in which “a person’s data trail can be taken apart and reassembled in a million of different ways” (Zeh, The Method, 199)

The video game “Orwell – Keeping an eye on you” invites us to partake in data mining processes as an informant of the state of “The Nation.” By targeting the artist Cassandra Watergate, the player is in charge of creating a data double, taking apart her personal data trail, and to reassemble it in different ways to move her case forward.

Please use this blog entry to answers one of the following questions:

1. Both “The Method” and “The Nation” depict fictional surveillance states, which implement predictive analytics and data mining processes in the reasoning process of their legal system. Describe the data mining processes of the “Nation” in the video game “Orwell – Keeping an Eye on You.” What are the potential benefits, repercussions, and ethical challenges of data mining? How did you decide which information are worth sharing and need to be further investigated?

2. The concept of “Data doubles” (Haggerty, and Ericson The Surveillant Assemblage challenges the idea of individuality. In which ways does our understanding of what it means to be human change when one becomes a bundle of information that is readable, collectible, and shareable with other entities. What does it mean for Cassandra Watergate when her data trail can be taken apart and resembled in various ways?

http://youtu.be/up-yaDbqH2k
Image sources: http://fellowtraveller.games/games/orwell/