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the limits of big data to perform social engineering

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  the limits of big data to perform social engineering RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-18 14:15 +0000

#2425 — the limits of big data to perform social engineering

From the «I knew you would say that» department:
Title: The Limits of Social Engineering
Author:
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0400
Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/review/526561/the-limits-of-social-engineering/

Tapping into big data, researchers and planners are building mathematical
models of personal and civic behavior. But the models may hide rather than
reveal the deepest sources of social ills.


In 1969, Playboy published a long, freewheeling interview with Marshall
McLuhan[1] in which the media theorist and sixties icon sketched a portrait
of the future that was at once seductive and repellent. Noting the ability of
digital computers to analyze data and communicate messages, he predicted that
the machines eventually would be deployed to fine-tune society’s workings.
“The computer can be used to direct a network of global thermostats to
pattern life in ways that will optimize human awareness,” he said. “Already,
it’s technologically feasible to employ the computer to program societies in
beneficial ways.” He acknowledged that such centralized control raised the
specter of “brainwashing, or far worse,” but he stressed that “the
programming of societies could actually be conducted quite constructively and
humanistically.”

Links:
[1]: http://www.understandingnewmedia.com/mm1/class_materials/mcluhan-playboy.pdf (link)

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