Kathy Sierra and 1984
Too sad if Kathy Sierra isn't blogging anymore. We'll miss her.
Kathy isn't blogging anymore...
... because some stupid people have anonymously threatened her.
So she is thinking of giving up blogging and of not giving presentations any more.
That's indeed too sad. She's a great blogger and all her blogs are insightful, informative and a real joy to read.
She's one of my favourite bloggers.
I don't know what I'd do in such a situation. I assume I'll continue to blog as usual. After all you just can't hide from stupid people around (take, for instance, all spammers :-D).
By the way, Kathy is accepting ideas on what to do next so if I were you I'd visit her blog and suggest something there.
... and 1984 and the FBI ...
If you don't know about George Orwell's 1984 novel I'd recommend you reading it. Or even watching the film or going through this online comic.
The fact is that if you use the Internet nowadays you have to deal with something similar to 1984's "Big Brother" in one way or another.
If you use a Gmail/Yahoo!/MSN mail account (as I do) then Big Brother is there, reading your email
And since Big Brother owns the DNS, then Big Brother can easily build a "man in the middle attack" against whatever web server they want, and log all incoming requests.
And if you post anonymously at Kathy's blog, then your IP is being logged as well, because all your online activities are being logged and tracked by Big Brother.
And if your IP is being tracked then they know where you have connected from, and may even track you at home.
So yes, the fact is that Big Brother is watching us all.
So where's Big Brother when we need it?
I don't mind Big Brother watching all my activities. I don't think I do nothing illegal, so I don't really mind.
(I know we europeans have a different view on this than US citizens, who are probably more concerned with their privacy).
I don't really mind if they track my passport number whenever I fly, or if they make me travel with less than 100ml liquid content, or if I have to get my shoes off at airports.
But then, are they doing something useful with all that information?
And, if so, why don't they track/arrest/send to jail those stupid people threatening Kathy?
After all that's what police is expected to do, right?
Or am I wrong and all this tracking and logging is not only to protect people like Kathy?
Is it the police or the Thought Police ?
Ah! Big Question, brother: that's food for thought.
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