Yeah I am definitely down for the IDESG meeting, as long as my work schedule doesn't conflict with it, and I can carry four passengers. Speculation on strategies for identity protection: Assume that we can win on any/all issues regarding "names and nyms." There still remains the problem of other unique identifiers, including your face, your voiceprint, your gait (posture while walking), and now (according to Dystopia Online, er uh Wired Magazine) the thermal pattern in the air that is caused by the way your breath passes through your mouth and nose on the way out. After all, what good is choosing your names/nyms, when something else about you can be used by the Bigs to tie you into the Facebook Timeline you never knew you had (because you don't have a Facebook account in the first place, or so you thought)? Here's a little detail from the intel community, which I'm quite sure nobody here knows about (as far as I know it is not classified): face matching can be performed solely on the geometry of the "seven holes": the pupils of your eyes, your ears, your nostrils, and your mouth. Geometry as in, the distances, angles, and ratios, of the measurements between them. Copyright laws protect the right of _owners of products_ to be free from having their _products_ copied against their will. What about making the assertion that all of the uniquely-identifying characteristics of your face and voice are also not merely natural occurrences but are _your property_ in some way? No doubt this would be fought bitterly by Facebook and Google (may they die ignominious corporate deaths and rot in their graves in bankruptcy court), but that strategy is worthwhile just to stake out the territory. However: what if you go about making your face an art piece? Then it's no longer an act of nature it's a copyrightable property by every legal definition. "Camouflage makeup" is an area of "practical fashion" being pursued here and there for exactly this purpose. Strictly speaking it won't camouflage you, as long as your eyes etc. are visible. But it could be used to assert that your face is a canvas upon which you have painted a copyrighted artwork over which you can exert some control. So: First thing we need is copyrightable artwork. That's easy enough, get some makeup and draw something interesting on your cheeks and chin and around your eyes and on your ears. If you have a kid, have them draw stuff on your face occasionally, that adds the cuteness factor. Note that image-processing software can probably remove some of that artwork particularly if it's in wild colors, so if you stick to the normal human skin spectrum from pink through all the shades of tan, brown, and nearly-black, it'll be harder to strip off the artwork and reveal the skin within. (In any case, that usage of image-processing software is arguably identical to producing "mixes" from snips of copyrighted songs, thus illegal as hell, all the more so because there must first be an illegal copy in order to proceed.) Second thing you need is a copyright announcement that is lawful. As a practical matter you can't write it in makeup on your forehead every day... but.... How'bout a headband that goes around your head, and that contains the copyright announcement, for example: "Copyright 2013, Nym Media (or whatever name, see below) all rights reserved; unauthorized duplication of this facial artwork will be subject to legal action." Third thing we need is a legal entity other than your individual person, that can sue copyright violators, for example "Nym Media, an unincorporated association" or "a project of (whatever nonprofit)..." That will serve as an umbrella for everyone using this method, and it can hire lawyers to go after offenders. The association could sell those headbands (you'd need a new one every year) as part of its membership, and the yearly dues wouldn't have to be much at all (target: $12/year) if enough people subscribed. Fourth thing we need is to cover up those other "holes," and fortunately there are ways of doing that without obviously wearing a mask. Mirrored sunglasses take care of the eyes. A dust-mask of the type commonly worn to contain coughs and sneezes takes care of your nose and mouth (really: you don't want to spread germs, do you?). A dust mask also obscures the thermal pattern made by your breath in the air (lovely coincidence, that!). And a knit cap or many other styles of hat, covers your ears nicely. The good thing about hats is, there is already long-standing precedent for refusal to remove a hat in various places: the Quakers famously revolted against "hat honor" (keyword search that phrase, use Ixquick.com as your privacy-protected search engine) and were successful in certain venues (courtrooms may not be one of those). Merely encouraging the wearing of hats, something that was an _extremely_ common style up until the point where President Kennedy was seen in public without a hat and the style changed, would make a dent in the problem. (How'bout a SudoRoom outing to a hat store some day?) There are also hats from some national traditions, that include little flaps that cover your ears: practical in cold places such as Russia in the winter, always kinda' cute, and even useful for reducing noise. Alternately, over-the-ear headphones or hearing protectors (or a "hearing aid" system that combines hearing protectors and amplification with compression to block loud sounds) will take care of the ears, though your hair (or absence thereof for guys as we get older) will still be an issue. This leaves enough facial real estate to cover easily with a couple of clever drawings in the makeup style of your choice. An alternative approach to makeup, would be to use the "fashion accessories" as "embodiments" of copyrighted artwork, for example the headbands, face masks, and hats. These could be issued in matching or complementary/synergistic designs, that, when worn together, form the complete art piece, thus alleviating the need to become a makeup artist (all the more helpful for people who are allergic to makeup). At first, folks who go this route will stick out like the proverbial sore thumbs. But it could become a fashion. Dammit, it _should_ become a fashion. With enough people doing it, we can throw a monkeywrench into face-based surveillance & stalking (tracking). I have other strategies in mind for dealing with voiceprint and so on, about which more some other time. Hint: voiceprint is not just about frequency distribution, it's about rhythm as well. Watch those hard consonants! -G. ===== On 13-04-05-Fri 3:41 PM, aestetix wrote: