Experiments in Communication

I generally don't think that trust is something that can be measured or secured through some device, agreement, or any kind of remote or face-to-face interaction. My feeling is you could have as many reasons to not to trust someone you meet up close as someone you meet online. I mean, if they really want to deceive or betray you, they could do it even if they were very close to you.
of course, if it is someone you have never met in person, this would be a different matter. Seeing what they look like would give you a better sense of what they are like, and if the basics of who they claim to be are true. It's possible that meeting someone online you wouldn't be sure if they are lying to you about who they are, but hopefully having a more complete image of them will help ease your worries.
That said, I am interested in the thin line between distrust and paranoia. Most of the times it only takes common sense to know whether or not you should trust someone. If you are talking to people you know nothing about, you could build trust slowly, or by getting external information about them. If you are afraid that they are not revealing something, then you could try looking when they do not think they are being observed. An idea would be a platform that connects people to each other only if they are willing to be connected to the other person whenever that person wishes, with no step in which the person "agrees" to accept the connection, then you would hopefully be a little more convinced that the other person doesn't have something to hide. But that sounds an awful lot like surveillance/spying.
On the flip side of distrust is, obviously, trust, or faith in something. An interesting commentary on the untrustworthiness of the internet as a medium to meet and interact with people would be to use the internet as a source of "trust" so as you are talking to someone, you will get a background check with any online traces of the other person, or who they claim to be. Sure that could just lead to even less trust, but it is faithful to the technology -- you have to trust something. It is also somewhat taboo, to openly admit that you are not trusting someone, and are "stalking" them to see if they are telling the truth. if the other person trusted you and found out that you were being so paranoid, would they still trust you?

Posted by kyveli at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While webcams are really about providing us with a window to a different place, surveillance cameras are most often used for security and protection. They are placed in discreet places to see who goes by and what they do, ready to catch any 'evil' deeds. They transfer the image of the place they are in to someone who is overseeing (a security guard), or to a machine that is recording, or sometimes nowhere at all. This is such a common concept that numerous websites are selling imitation security cameras that you can attach to the outside of your house if you can't afford a real one and want to scare away people with bad intentions.

Traditionally the act of seeing is considered so powerful that there is a very widespread, deeply rooted in very old traditions belief that someone can harm you just by looking at you, by casting on you the Evil Eye. To protect yourself from that, you would wear one of a variety of amulets, depending on where you are from (different cultures have different amulets). Greeks and Turks use a blue bead that represents an eye as protection against the Evil Eye. I am not sure why that is, but one interpretation is that the protective eye reflects the malevolent gaze, protecting its wearer.

By merging the iconic traditional eye with a camera, the symbolic charm turns into an active observer, perhaps one that, at a time that superstitions are frowned upon and technology is glorified, might be able to protect you better. The renewed eye contains a cell phone camera embedded into a blue bead. It is worn discreetly on your body, observing (and recording?) everything even when you are not. A blinking red light mimics the status light of video cameras and indicates that the amulet is functioning. Wearing it and believing that you are protected by it is still a matter of faith however, as it is not certain that what is seen by the camera is being sent to someone who will be able to protect you.

Posted by kyveli at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)