Forwarded from the media ecology list, further to the WikiLeaks discussion: some interesting speculations from Umberto Eco. Recall as well the William Gibson short story "Johnny Mnemonic (text available here http://project.cyberpunk.ru/lib/johnny_mnemonic/ ) in which couriers must carry sensitive data in brain implants between contracting parties, because regular computer networks are not secure. This dystopian view no longer seems far-fetched, if it ever was.....Alex Kuskis Umberto Eco on Wikileaks. Enjoy! http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/414871-not-such-wicked-leaks Technology now advances crabwise What will be the consequences of this wound inflicted on a very mighty power? It's obvious that in future, states won't be able to put any restricted information on line anymore: that would be tantamount to posting it on a street corner. But it is equally clear that, given today's technologies, it is pointless to hope to have confidential dealings over the phone. Nothing is easier than finding out whether a head of state flew in or out or contacted one of his counterparts. So how can privy matters be conducted in future? Now I know that for the time being, my forecast is still science fiction and therefore fantastic, but I can't help imagining state agents riding discreetly in stagecoaches along untrackable routes, bearing only memorised messages or, at most, the occasional document concealed in the heel of a shoe. Only a single copy thereof will be kept - in locked drawers. Ultimately, the attempted Watergate break-in was less successful than WikiLeaks. I once had occasion to observe that technology now advances crabwise, i.e. backwards. A century after the wireless telegraph revolutionised communications, the Internet has re-established a telegraph that runs on (telephone) wires. (Analog) video cassettes enabled film buffs to peruse a movie frame by frame, by fast-forwarding and rewinding to lay bare all the secrets of the editing process, but (digital) CDs now only allow us quantum leaps from one chapter to another. High-speed trains take us from Rome to Milan in three hours, but flying there, if you include transfers to and from the airports, takes three and a half hours. So it wouldn't be extraordinary if politics and communications technologies were to revert to the horse-drawn carriage. One last observation: In days of yore, the press would try to figure out what was hatching sub rosa inside the embassies. Nowadays, it's the embassies that are asking the press for the inside story.