All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole s07e02 Is Privacy Dead.eng

we live under
a billion unblinking eyes...

a global surveillance system
that solves crime...

uncovers terrorist plots...

and helps stop abuse of power.

but are we ready
for a world without secrets...

...where not even our homes
are off-limits

and corporations know
our every desire?

should we say goodbye
to our privacy?

or is it time for the watched
to become the watchers?

space, time, life itself.

the secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

ever have the feeling
you're being watched?

well, you probably are.

if you live in a large city,

surveillance cameras
take your picture

hundreds of times per day.

every transaction you make
is electronically logged.

scanners at airports
can peer through your clothes.

the latest models can even
detect your emotional state.

and in those moments
when you're not being tracked,

we're busy giving away
our personal information

on social media.

we think of our privacy
as a fundamental right.

now it appears to be
on the brink of extinction,

which sounds like a nightmare.

but is it?

this footage was shot by the
hawkeye ii surveillance camera

flying two miles
above ciudad ju?rez in mexico.

once every second
for hours on end,

it takes a picture
of the entire city.

here it documents
the murder of a police officer

by members of a drug cartel.

but it also captures
the movements of the assassins.

it tracks their cars
as they leave the scene

and leads the police
to their hideout.

cities around the world

are beginning to use these
total surveillance systems.

one could be watching you
right now.

nick bostrom runs
the future of humanity institute

at oxford university.

he believes
constant surveillance

will radically reshape
our lives,

but we won't end up fearing it
like big brother.

nick believes we'll embrace it.

surveillance technology
might be one of those things

that could change
social dynamics

in some fairly fundamental way.

yes, already
in urban environments,

there are a lot of cameras
looking at us all the time.

so, it's a lot of eyeballs,

but they are
kind of semi-isolated.

an obvious next step,

where all these video feeds
are stored in perpetuity

and coupled with
facial-recognition systems

so you could automatically tag
and keep track

of where
any individual has been,

whom they have been
talking with,

what they have been doing.

that sounds like a bad thing,

but it doesn't have to be.

think about contagious diseases.

the virus this man is carrying

could spread across the city
in just a few days.

it could start a pandemic

that kills tens of thousands.

if you have a new outbreak,

you have sars or h1n1 or
some new disease that pops up,

it gets really important
to try to trace

who might have been exposed
to the germ.

and it's painstaking work.

you have to interview the people

and try to get
who they have interacted with,

and then you have to go
and interview those people.

but constant surveillance

could spot the origins
of the outbreaks in real time,

locating the infected,

dispatching
medical teams to them,

and establishing quarantines.

please return to your homes.

this area
is under temporary quarantine.

those things obviously
can become more efficient,

the more detailed information
you have.

so, if you nip it in the bud,

you potentially save
millions of lives.

imagine if every single
person you interacted with

were tracked 24/7.

actually to be able to see

what somebody has been up to
in the past.

have they kept their promises?

there are a lot of jerks
and cheaters in the world

who get away with it.

and by the time people wise up,

they have moved on
to their next victims.

kind of nice

to be able to disempower
the jerks and cheaters,

and it would encourage
more people

to behave in ways that --
that are good.

and if cameras tracked you
every moment of the day,

some aspects of your life

would become
a lot more convenient.

you could go into a shop
and just take what you need.

and the camera
recognizes who you are

and automatically rings it up
to your bank account,

and it's all taken care of.

if you hadn't yet
kicked the old habit

of carrying a wallet,

you'd never have to worry about
remembering where you left it.

in some ways,
it's actually a return

to a more normal
human condition.

we used to live in small tribes,
small bands.

you kind of know
what everybody's doing,

who they are,
what they are up to,

what they have been doing
in the past.

in some respects,
it's not a complete novelty.

it might be more a return
to normalcy.

life under global surveillance

might resemble life
in a small village,

but could we adapt
to being constantly surveilled,

even inside our own homes?

most people say
they don't like being watched

when they're eating, washing,
or doing anything in the nude.

but our homes
are already full of cameras,

from security cameras
and cellphones

to laptops and tvs.

they're even hidden
inside clocks

that keep an eye on the nanny.

you might think
these cameras are harmless,

but they all connect
to the internet,

which means they can be hacked.

cognitive scientist
antti oulasvirta

lives in finland,

a country known
for notoriously shy people.

they say you can spot
an extroverted finn

because they're looking
at your shoes, not their own.

antti realized his countrymen
would be perfect guinea pigs

for an experiment

to see how people react
to having no privacy.

i have a motivation
to keep the kitchen clean,

but i have an extra motivation
today -- this camera.

antti wanted to see
how people's behavior changed

when their homes were wired
for constant surveillance,

so he persuaded
several households

to do what for finns
is unthinkable --

submit to being watched
for an entire year.

we wired 10 households
in finland for 12 months,

including cameras and microfilms
and even screen capture.

so, this is bob,

and bob looks like a regular
piece of home electronics,

but he's not.

b-o-b,

which stands for
"behavioral observation system,"

records all the video and audio
around the house.

bob also keeps track
of all e-mail, web traffic,

online purchases,
and television-viewing habits.

so, we had them covered
pretty well in all areas

of ubiquitous surveillance.

we didn't want to bust people
for doing anything wrong.

we simply wanted to see
how they would react

to not being able to be alone
in their own homes.

in the first weeks of the study,

antti noticed his subjects
appeared unsettled

by the presence of the cameras.

they had to keep
their impulses in check,

control their shouting.

and if there was
a stressful situation

playing out in their lives,

that could amplify the stress.

and -- no surprise --

they were sensitive
about being naked.

being naked was,
of course, an issue,

and we left them a few spots --
for example, bathrooms --

where they could be alone
without the cameras.

they were like fish
in a fishbowl.

but as time went on,

antti noticed
something surprising.

so after surveilling
people for six months,

we asked them to draw us a graph
of their stress levels.

they were stressed out
in the beginning,

but after a while,
it leveled off.

eventually,
the subjects started to relax.

they stopped worrying about
being seen naked.

so, the mentality was that,

"now you've seen me once walking
around the kitchen naked,

so what's the point
continuing to hide?"

and when
they really needed privacy

for a delicate conversation,

they figured out how to get it.

they went to caf?s
to have private conversations,

and they avoided the cameras
in creative ways.

antti's study shows

we can adapt
to almost constant surveillance.

he admits that
this was a special case.

the subject knew him and trusted
him not to share the data.

but to antti's surprise,

some people
didn't care who was watching.

we asked the subjects

who would they least want
to share the data with,

and the most striking
feature was,

some went as far as saying that,

"it doesn't matter
to whom you share the data."

we have an amazing ability

to adapt
to changing environments.

but if we learn
to ignore cameras,

it won't be long before we stop
thinking about who's watching

and why they are watching.

they say ignorance is bliss.

but in this case,

what you don't know
could hurt you.

in george orwewell's novel "198"

everyone lived
under the watchful eye

of an authoritarian
government --

big brother.

today, in real life,

there's a different watchful eye
we should worry about --

big business.

ask yourself this --

do you know when corporations
are watching you

or how much
they already know about you?

the answer will shock you.

alessandro acquisti
always puts safety first.

he knows a helmet
will keep him safe on the road,

and the same goes for his
social-media profile picture.

i do have a facebook profile.

for my profile picture,
i wear a motorcycle helmet.

your name
and your profile picture

are public by default.

therefore, they're searchable.

so, my question is,
how much can i learn about you

starting just from a photo
of your face?

alessandro
is a behavioral economist

at carnegie mellon university
in pittsburgh.

he's trying to find out
what private corporations

might be able to find out
about you

just by taking a picture
of your face.

would you like to help us
with a study?

sure.

so, alessandro and his team

developed their own
data-mining app.

we took a shot of their faces.

and then you wait a few seconds.

in the meanwhile,

the shot is being uploaded
to a cloud,

where we have
previously downloaded

a few hundred thousand images
from facebook profiles.

the app uses

commercially available
facial-recognition software

to find a matching face online.

this information
is sent back to the phone

and overlaid on the face
of the subject in front of you.

to see if we can identify you
and see what information we...

once it matches the photo

to a social-media profile,

the software can find out
someone's name,

their birth city,
their interests, and much more.

starting from just one snapshot
of a person --

no name
and no personal information --

we were able to lock on

to the facebook profiles
of these subjects.

wow. No way.

and once you get
to the facebook profile,

a world of information opens up.

that's really eerie.

most of us post
photos of ourselves online,

but not everyone realizes
that photos are also data.

and no one stole
the data from us.

we are willingly
and publicly disclosing it.

with a name
and birthplace in hand,

deeper corporate data mining
can reveal data of birth,

criminal record,

and can even make a close guess

at someone's
social security number.

that's one digit away from my
actual social security number.

how'd you predict that?

once they have this information,

there is virtually no limit

to what else they may be able
to find out about you.

alessandro says

he designed this software
demonstration as a warning.

it took very little effort
to develop it.

imagine what the corporations
that rule the internet

might already be doing.

on any given day,

2.1 billion people
are active on social media.

they tweet 500 million times.

they share on facebook
one billion times.

they upload 1.8 billion photos.

and every time
you click on "like,"

a record is made
of what you like.

today the internet

is essentially
a surveillance economy.

companies like amazon
can sell millions of dollars

of merchandising an hour.

and much of these revenues
come through ads,

which are tailored
to your preferences.

the more a company can know you,

the more they can manipulate you

into clicking this link
or buying this product.

alessandro is convinced

we'll keep giving up our
personal data and our privacy

because corporations
make it so easy for us.

marketers entice us

into revealing more and more
personal information.

they work hard to make it
a good experience for us.

to us, it looks like
the garden of eden,

where everything is free.

you get free apps, free content,

you get to play angry birds,

all of this in exchange

for, say,
having your location tracked

1,000 times per day.

once corporations

have collected enough
of your location history,

they know you better
than you know yourself.

they can predict where you will
be at a particular time of day

with 80% accuracy
up to one year into the future.

with that kind of information,

your phone --

and the companies that control
the data in your phone --

will be able quite literally
to steer your day.

they may buy new shoes for you

before you even know
you need them.

they may influence
your decisions,

which job you're going to take.

alessandro believes

we're losing the battle
for our privacy,

and it's a battle we don't even
know we're fighting.

the problem is, then,

the system is basically built
around trying to nudge us

into revealing more and more
personal information

so that we no longer know

whether what's being collected
about us

will be used
in our best interest

or will be used to the best
interests of another entity.

but even if we wise up,

we may have a hard time
stopping ourselves

from sharing our most intimate
likes and needs online

because this scientist believes

we may already be hooked
on sharing, like a drug.

people like to share.

after all,
we are social animals.

but somehow
the age of social media

has got us sharing
more and more...

no matter how uninteresting
it might be...

even though we know
every post gives marketers

more and more information
about us.

so, why do we do it?

and could we stop ourselves
even if we tried?

psychologist diana tamir knows

she's sometimes guilty
of over-sharing...

-you gonna try this one?
-i'm gonna try this one.

...especially
when she tries out

her favorite new hobby.

it's super satisfying
to be able to do a route

that you weren't able
to do before.

that's part of the joy
of rock climbing.

getting to the top of a wall
can feel rewarding.

you don't have to conquer k2

to feel
that basic human impulse --

the impulse
to talk about yourself.

check it out.

people talk about themselves
all the time.

they talk about themselves

when they're having a
conversation with other people.

they talk about themselves

when they're sharing information
about themselves on social media

or taking pictures of the thing
that they ate for breakfast

and posting it
for the world to see.

that's a really good one.

there was a study

that looked at what people
tweet about on twitter,

and they found that about 80% of
what people are tweeting about

is just their own
personal experiences.

why do we enjoy this so much?

as a neuroscientist,

diana thinks the answer
may be hiding in our brains.

so she designed an experiment
using an mri scanner

to see how talking about
ourselves -- versus others --

changes brain activity.

picture it like
a public-access talk show,

with diana taking the role
of the interviewer...

is it rewarding
to talk about yourself?

let's find out!

...and a ficus
standing in for the scanner.

-hey, adam.
-hey.

do you get excited
to dress up for halloween?

diana asks her subjects

to respond to questions
about themselves or other people

while showing them
corresponding photographs.

does your dad like
being photographed?

do you enjoy
spending time in nature?

do you like
being photographed?

do you enjoy
having a dog as a pet?

for diana,
the answers weren't important.

what mattered was

how her subjects' brains
responded to the questions.

all of them activated
the prefrontal cortex,

a region associated
with higher thought.

but something else happened

when a subject answered
questions about themselves.

diana saw activation
in two brain regions --

the ventral tegmental area
and the nucleus accumbens.

they belong
to what neuroscientists call

the reward pathway.

so, we have these
reward pathways in our brain

that motivates our behavior

by helping us to learn
what things in the world

feel rewarding

that we need or want or desire,
like food or sex.

the brain's reward system

is powered by
a key chemical called dopamine.

a surge of dopamine
can trigger pleasant feelings,

which motivate us
to seek further rewards.

it's the same system
that fires up

when people do drugs
like cocaine

or eat chocolate.

so, like drugs,
sharing can become addictive.

but why does
the dopamine system activate

when we talk about ourselves?

humans have
a fundamental need to belong

or connect with other people.

so, social connection
and making friends

and interacting with people

are something that
we're highly motivated to get.

so, being part of a group
gets you more resources, food,

reproductive options
than if you were by yourself.

self-promotion
helps establish us

as members of a group.

and for hundreds
of thousands of years,

being part of a group has been
essential to our survival.

even when we can't see
the other people in our group,

we still have the instinctual
urge to promote ourselves.

part of the reason people share
so much on social media

is because it activates
the same sort of neural systems

as self-disclosing in person.

sharing stems from
a deep evolutionary drive.

that's why it's so easy
to get hooked on it.

diana wanted to know
how easy it would be

for her subjects to kick
the habit of over-sharing...

...so she tried bribing them.

what we were looking at
is whether or not

people would kind of forego
some extra monetary rewards

in order to answer a question
about themselves.

this time,
diana let her subjects decide --

talk about yourself
and earn nothing

or get paid
to talk about somebody else.

can you tell me about
whether you or your friend

like spending time
in nature?

money activates
the dopamine system.

in fact, our neural wiring
has taught us to chase it.

but they say
money can't buy happiness --

at least,
not as much happiness as you get

when you talk about you.

while some participants
chose the money,

most turned it down.

we see that people place
significant amounts of value

on answering questions
about themselves

and significantly less value

on answering questions
about other people.

it kind of really
brought the point home

that sharing information
is rewarding.

our compulsion to share

is part of
our biological makeup.

but our biology
could be the next target

in the assault on our privacy.

our most sensitive
personal information

may already have been sold
to the highest bidder.

which would you hate to lose
the most --

your phone or your wallet?

if either one of these
is stolen,

it's a total hassle.

your private information
is exposed.

however,
you can cancel bank cards,

wipe the data from your phone,

and change
all of your passwords.

but there is something else
you leave behind every day

that could be far more
devastating to your privacy.

a single strand of hair

contains the most private
information you have...

...your dna.

yaniv erlich is a former hacker

who used to break into banks
to test their security.

now he's
a computational biologist,

and he's concerned
about the security

of a different kind of bank --

a dna bank,

which can store
the individual genetic code

of hundreds of thousands
of people.

he believes that hackers

will soon be able to break in
to those biobanks

and steal our most valuable
and most private asset.

a number of large-scale biobanks

offer you the opportunity to
contribute your dna to science.

it just takes
a simple cheek swab

to get the dna
out of your mouth.

and then, in a matter of days
with the current technology,

we can analyze
your entire genome.

companies like
23andme and ancestry.com

will sequence your dna

and send you back information
about your family tree

or whether you are at risk
for certain inherited diseases.

and scientists are using

this huge database
of genetic information

to develop new cures
for a wide range of diseases.

so, with all these types
of information,

scientists can really understand

how the vulnerability
within the population

is affected
by the dna material we have.

if the contents of your dna

were stolen and disclosed,

the consequences
could be disastrous.

imagine being denied health
insurance or losing your job

because your genes show

you're at high risk
for a heart attack.

so biobanks say they make sure
your dna remains anonymous.

to increase the security,

biobanks usually don't store
your identifiers

together with
your genetic material.

they will keep your name,
telephone number, and address

totally separated
from this information.

this way, no one knows
what is the origin

of the genetic material
that you gave.

but yaniv has found
a serious flaw

in biobank security.

in fact, he's discovered
that even those of us

who have never had our
dna sequenced are at risk, too.

our dna is vulnerable
to theft every single day.

just think about what happens
when you get a haircut.

although dna
is something very personal,

you shed it everywhere.

you go to the barbershop.

you get a shave,

you leave some of your dna
on the blade.

you take a sip from a glass.

you have some of your saliva
on the glass,

you leave behind
some of your dna.

maybe if you're chewing gum
or you smoke a cigarette,

you leave
the cigarette butt behind.

you left some of your dna.

if a gene thief
got ahold of your dna,

they could discover which
inherited diseases you have,

whether you have a tendency

towards alcoholism
or mental illness,

and threaten to reveal
that information

to employers or insurers
unless you pay up.

aah!

the key to being able to tie

a piece of anonymous dna
to a name,

whether in a biobank
or a barbershop,

is in the "y" chromosome.

if you're a male,

we can know more
about your paternal ancestry

because you inherited
a short piece of dna

called the "y" chromosome

that you just get
from your father's side.

now, here is the funny thing
about your "y" chromosome.

you get your surname
from your father.

he got it from his own father.

and you got your "y" chromosome
from the same path.

this creates a correlation

between "y" chromosome
and surnames.

in men, the "y" chromosome

contains patterns
of repeating letters of dna,

a genetic fingerprint

that passes from grandfather
to father to son unchanged,

just like the surname does.

to prove that our genetic
privacy is under threat,

yaniv pretends to be
a gene thief.

he downloads an anonymous
dna sequence from a biobank

and zeroes in on its unique
"y" chromosome patterns.

then he log on
to a genealogy database,

where people voluntarily upload
their "y" chromosome sequences,

along with their names,
to locate long-lost family.

that allows him to match
the anonymous biobank dna

to a specific surname.

and since the anonymous
biobank sequences

are tagged with the age
and state of residence

of the person
who supplied the dna,

a simple internet search
reveals their identity.

he has done this
successfully 50 times.

i was so shocked by the results

that i have to take a walk

to think about the implications
of our method

to genetic privacy.

it means that if hackers can get

the identified
genetic information

that is allegedly anonymous,

it means that we cannot promise,

we cannot guarantee
full privacy,

and we need to seek
a different way

to engage participants
in these large-scale biobanks.

in the wrong hands,
a single strand of hair

can ruin the life of the person
who left it behind.

how can we shield ourselves
from this privacy onslaught?

lock ourselves in our homes
and never go outside?

sterilize every room
we've been in?

one scientist thinks

there's only one way
to save our privacy.

for him, the best defense
is offense.

feels like pretty soon,

there won't be
a minute of the day

when we aren't being watched.

any device you own
could be hacked into

and used to spy on you.

so, what's the answer?

go completely off-grid?

maybe there's another way.

we could develop technology
to know when we're being watched

and when we truly have privacy.

steve mann has worn a computer
every day for the last 38 years.

in fact, he's been called

the father
of wearable computing.

his ideas inspired better-known
devices like google glass.

but back when he began,

his digital eyeglass
was so bulky,

he was often the subject
of ridicule.

so, 35 years
of digital eyeglass,

and finally we see
how the industry is catching on

to some of these concepts.

so i feel kind of vindicated
after people laugh at me

for all the sort of stupid
eyeglasses and crazy things.

steve, a professor
at the university of toronto,

has a cult following
among his students

as the original cyborg.

his digital eyewear
is bolted to his skull.

his interest in using technology
to augment what he could see

began when he was a kid.

then in the 1970s,

i started to notice
these things watching us

and sensing us --

microwave motion detectors
and burglar alarms

and stuff like that.

and i was wondering,

"well, why are all
these machines spying on us?"

and today he runs
an entire research team

dedicated to developing
technology

that can sniff out
when we're being surveilled.

so, this device
will help you identify

what devices
are recording your sound.

so, the lights over here
move faster and bigger

near a microphone.

and then it locates the mike,

and that's how
you can sweep bugs.

they have devices
that can pick up radio waves,

including those
from your cellphone.

so, the radio waves coming
from my smartphone here,

for example --

if i block that with my hand,
the wave is very weak.

see how weak that wave is
when it's going through my hand,

and then, whereas if i hold it
like this,

the wave is much stronger.

perhaps
his most important invention

in this age
of near total surveillance

is technology
that can detect precisely

when you're being watched
by a camera.

so, there's a camera
inside this dome,

and we don't know
which way it's pointing

because it's shrouded
in this dark dome.

but the light here,

when it comes into the field
of view of the camera, glows,

and when it goes out
of the field of the camera,

it goes dim again.

and so you can see here it sort
of paints out, if you will,

the sight field of the camera.

if i put my coat in front of it,
my jacket, the bulb --

i haven't moved the bulb at all.

i've just blocked it
with my jacket,

and when i unblock it, it glows.

most of us are used to
seeing cameras everywhere.

but steve believes that if we
knew when we were being watched,

we'd start asking more questions
about who's watching and why.

it could be the police.

it could be a computer.

it could be
artificial intelligence.

it could be machine learning.
We often don't know.

many times,
surveillance embraces hypocrisy,

wanting to watch
and not be watched,

wanting to see and not be seen,

wanting to know
everything about us,

but reveal nothing about itself.

to redress that balance,

steve is working
to commercialize technology

to detect the zones
where a camera sees us...

what he calls
its veilance field.

ryan jansen
is working with steve

on getting a veilance-field
detector into a wearable device.

these are some glasses where
i can see the veilance fields

from this surveillance camera.

so, what it does is pokes
and prods at the optical field

until it figures out
how much the camera is seeing.

so, you can really
take this around

and measure
a whole veilance field

from a surveillance camera.

what i'm excited about is to be
able to finally see and know

how much we're watched,

know how much the watchers
are watching us.

veilance fields

aren't always places
you want to avoid.

sometimes
you may want to be watched.

a lot of people who say, "
you're into the sensing cameras,

so must be against cameras."

sometimes i'm walking home
late at night in a dark alley

and there's somebody
sharpening a knife

and somebody
loading a gun down there,

i might say, "you know what?

i think i'd like to be watched,"

sort of say, "there's
a veilance flux over there.

i think i'm gonna move
towards the camera."

what i'm really against
is the one-sided valence.

government or big business

use cameras
to watch regular people.

but regular people
rarely turn their cameras

on big business and government.

steve believes wearable devices
like his digital eyeglass

can help us watch the watchers.

"surveillance" is a french word

that means
"to watch from above."

when we're doing the watching,

we call that undersight,
or sousveillance.

but steve has already discovered

that sousveillance
can invite trouble.

recently, he walked
into a fast-food restaurant

wearing his digital eyeglass

and was confronted by employees
enforcing policies

that don't allow filming
in their buildings.

hey!

despite the eyeglass
being bolted to his skull,

the employees
tried to remove it,

damaging it in the process.

the cameras want to watch
but not be seen.

and, in fact,
even if you photograph cameras,

you find very quickly people
come running out to tell you,

"no cameras are allowed here."

and you say, "well, aren't those
all cameras around here?"

"no, but
those aren't cameras. They're surveillance."

steve believes that if
we know when we're being watched

and if sousveillance
becomes widespread,

we'll finally have
the weapons we need

to fight back against
the governments and corporations

that constantly peer
into our private lives.

the goal is to create systems

that improve the quality
of people's lives,

systems in which people
are innately aware

of what's happening,

to create a society in which

sousveillance is balanced
with surveillance.

one day,
widespread digital eyesight

will merge sousveillance
and surveillance

and transform society.

although someone
may be watching you,

you can now
do your own watching.

but what will a world
where everyone is watched

and everyone is a watcher
look like?

what will life be like
in a world with no more secrets?

we stand
on the brink of a new era.

governments and corporations

are peering into every corner
of our lives.

and we are developing tools
to watch the watchers.

so, will life in a world
with almost no secrets

be a living nightmare?

or will the naked truth
set us free?

futurist and science-fiction
author david brin

thinks there is no point
in trying to hide,

so he's putting it all
on display.

in this modern era,

when eyes are
proliferating everywhere,

with the cameras getting
smaller, faster, cheaper,

more numerous every day,

the human reflex is to say,

"get those things away from me.

ban them."

but over the long run,

that approach
is not only futile.

it also is kind of cowardly.

david has got used to the idea

that even private spaces
aren't so private anymore.

he thinks the key
to getting comfortable

is to look to the past.

after all,
for most of human history,

we lived without privacy.

-thank you.
-sure.

cheers.

our ancestors didn't have
much of a concept of privacy.

families would crowd
into single cottages,

knowing each other's business,

seeing everything
that was going on.

the advantage was
everybody knew your name.

there was
some sense of solidarity.

but the olden times
were no utopia.

the disadvantages were huge.

you were dominated

by the lord on the hill
and his thugs

and by the local busybodies
who knew everybody's business.

today, we have our own
versions of these watchers.

you can think of
the lord of the village

as the nsa or the fbi.

the busybodies are
the media and your neighbors,

who can see
almost anything you do.

david thinks
it's with our fellow citizens,

not the government,

that the battle to reclaim
our privacy must begin.

the first step is to make sure

people who are watching us
and talking about us can't hide.

we're all so used
to personal gossip,

where exchanging stories
about other people is so natural

that we put up with

the filthier,
more destructive aspects

as just being part of life.

what's going to bring this
to a head

is what's happening online.

we all know about
horrible crimes of bullying

that have taken place online,
empowered by anonymity.

but we can use
the tools of surveillance

to expose prying eyes.

the way to deal with the eyes
is to spot them.

hey!

to find out who's looking
and hold them accountable.

if we all look back
at the watchers,

we have the power to change
the way they behave.

it's a step towards what david
calls the transparent society.

transparency
can stamp out bad behavior

from nosy neighbors.

they won't be so quick
to talk about you

if they know
you could talk about them.

but it doesn't stop there.

it ripples
all the way up our society.

2013 was the best year
for civil liberties

in the united states of america
in a generation.

that was the year

that the administration joined
the courts

in declaring
a universal right of citizens

to record their encounters
with police.

it is empowering the good cops,

but it's empowering groups
like black lives matter to say,

"what you do to us
is what matters,

and now we can prove it."

a loss of privacy
for those in power

can make society better.

in fact, to make
the transparent society work,

david believes the government's
right to secrecy

must be massively curtailed.

it should be able to keep
secrets for a while,

like plans to arrest criminals
or military invasions,

but nothing should
stay secret forever.

any practical,
tactical value to a secret

is going to decay over time.

let's say government agencies,
corporations

can get five years of secrecy
for free.

after five years,

you have to cache the secrets
in a secure place

and pay money to extend it
another five years.

it's for this reason
that david supports

whistle-blowers
like edward snowden.

they shine a light in the dark
corners of government.

and in a free society,

their leaks
ultimately make us stronger.

everything leaks.

not a month goes by

when something
has not hemorrhaged

all over the internet,

getting headlines.

but somehow western governments

and western civilization
keep surviving.

in fact, it makes us better.

now think about our enemies --

terrorists,
tyrannical governments,

and criminal gangs.

to them, it's lethal.

the world is never going back

to the way it was
just two decades ago.

eyes will be everywhere.

there will be no escaping them.

but if we change our behavior,
we can keep the privacy we need.

privacy is essential
to be human.

we're just going to
have to defend it differently

and redefine it.

we will probably look back
on the last couple of centuries

as a golden age of privacy,

a time before the age
of almost total surveillance.

but there is an upside.

if we accept that
we are going to be watched,

then governments
and corporations

must accept the same.

we need the privacy
of our bedrooms.

government needs the privacy
of its war rooms.

beyond that, our society
will be transparent.

and this loss of secrecy
could herald a new age,

the age of honesty.

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