The Black Swan ...of Absence of Secrecy
Note 99
In the past, pre-Web days, people used to stash money in Switzerland. They felt safe --the last spot in the world where they could be found out is such a place with a long tradition of banking secrecy. Today, UBS –who lured many into concealing assets in its “safe” harbor – is going to hand the names of the clients to the US Justice department. All clients. Weakened by the subprime crisis, UBS (and other banks) are vulnerable. Now... surprise. The clients were not paranoid enough. For hundreds of years, Switzerland was a black hole of information. Then, suddenly...
This extends to the Web. People do not realize that EVERYTHING they have done on the web, in the illusion of anonymity, has traces. And these will remain for 5, 10, 100 years! Everyone was shocked to see Yahoo handing over to the Chinese the name of a dissident (now in jail). A simple subpoena can make any entity deliver all details about a web subscriber. But that is not even necessary: the weak point in any organization is the employees. Just as the Germans bribed employees in Luxemburg banks (and the French have been getting anything they want out of Geneva), I AM CERTAIN that you can bribe someone at any web server to deliver anything (Web detectives?).
The other problem is that someone who wants to sue you can arbitrage forums. If I want to sue someone for libel in the UK, all I need to do is prove web hits in the UK –so a US resident can sue another US resident in the UK, the Philippines, or Lebanon –wherever the laws are more favorable and the definition of defamation is broadest.
I thought the web would make us anonymous... we are no more anonymous than if we lived in a small pre-industrial settlement where almost nothing you do can be secret. We just don’t know it.