Bruce Schneier had a good reputation in the somewhat recondite field of cyber-security. He runs a company that advises on such matters, and his writings on the topic make sense and easy to grasp, as long as you are not down too deep in the engine room of check-digits and authentication strings and other apparatus of the security wonk’s trade. The link posted here goes to an interesting survey piece in which he compares the current digital user scene to the feudal order of medieval society in the West, and by that I mean, roughly, the lands west of the old Roman limes or fortified border that marked the Empire off from the barbarian lands to the east. Anyway, back to Schneier. His comparison is just that; a comparison. But a lot of what he says is direct and right on point.It does seem as though a kind of ‘digital feudalism’ is emerging, or even, that it has emerged and is functioning as the de facto social order in Digitopia. In feudalism, there were vassals and lords. The vassal surrendered something to the lord, in return for protection. That ‘something’ was service of one sort or another. The digital vassal surrenders something to Amazon, or Google, or Apple or something. In return, the vassal gets protection: automatic updates, auto backup, etc. The security of these services is much greater that that any individual could get personally. But the ‘service’ the individual yields can be fiscal, in that s/he is more or less bound to buy the Lord’s products and pay the Lord’s fees. OK, medieval society was a great deal more complicated than what we read in the college history texts, and that’s because it had people in it. People always mess up everything, mostly by not fitting neatly into one of the categories they were supposed to fit into, and they were tolerated because they could do something interesting or useful. Anyway, read it here:
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/feudal-security/
