Week 10 Article Review

DATE 07/10/10 TYPE Blog in Wired Magazine accessed online through Wired.com
Reference Details:
Ratliff, Evan. “Gone: Shedding Your Identity in the Digital Age.” Wired December 2009: 17 (12). Accessed 7 October 2010 .

Relevance:
Source type: primary
Importance: update
This blog is relevant to the topic of virtual ethics and issues involving privacy and digital surveillance.

What:
In a series of blog entries, Evan Ratliff recounts his attempt to disappear and start over with a new identity in an age of traceable cell-phone batteries and digital surveillance. He leaves everything behind, from his name to his car, taking care to erase any trace of his previous identity's existence - he even makes false purchases to throw off his followers. His story, which includes a contest for others to find him within one month for the prize of five-thousand dollars, reflects just how much of our world is under technological surveillance and how hard it is to escape from the digital footprints we leave behind.

Key words/phrases:
“I told no one my plans, not my girlfriend, or my parents, or my friends. No one knew where I was going, or my new name. I left no hints. If anyone found me, it would be because of my own mistakes.”
“You can be anybody you want online, sure, but can you reinvent yourself in real life?”
“What had started as an exercise in escape quickly became a cross between a massively multiplayer online game and a reality show.”
“It turns out that people — ordinary people — really can gather an incredible dossier of facts about you.”

Issues: Evan argues that he had “shown that a person, given enough resources and discipline, could vanish from one life and reinvent himself in another.” I both agree and disagree with this statement as eventually, Evan did get caught. However, he had a host of people looking for him, including a professional investigator hired by Wired, so I think he deserves some credit for lasting as long as he did.

Use in forming argument: support, example
Evan's experience could be used as an example to support the argument that the loss of privacy is a consequence of today's increasingly technological world. Ordinary people who were involved in the search for Evan managed to find the most minute information about him using technology such as his most recent bank transaction. Eventually someone was able to track him down to his exact whereabouts, despite the fact that he had changed all of his personal details and was taking care not to leave traces behind. In this way, Evan's story could be used as evidence to support the claim that as technology advances, privacy decreases.

Relationship to other references: support, example
In relation to the readings we had for this topic, the blog could be used as an example to support Alison Adam's claim in "Cyberstalking: Gender and computer ethics" that issues such as electronic invasions of privacy have arisen out of the world's widespread adoption of information and communications technologies. The blog would also be very relevant to other references dealing with virtual ethics and issues of surveillance and privacy.

Critical Evaluation:

1. Character
reliable: Yes - Evan is describing his own real-life experience of attempting to shed his identity. This is supported by the use of various Twitter and Facebook wall quotes which are integrated with the blog and support the accuracy of the events.
Source Title: “Gone: Shedding Your Identity in the Digital Age”
edition / revision: 17.12
bibliography: n/a
evidence: Evidence is given to support the events that happened, including various ‘Tweets’ and Facebook posts occurring over the duration of his disappearance.
writing style: emotive

2. Currency
current: Yes - this article is not yet a year old and therefore I would consider it quite current.
date: December 2009
Location: United States
current links: There are various links in the blog connected to the webpages involved in the search for Evan, including the connecting Twitter and Facebook accounts.

3. Intention
credible: Yes
Author: Evan brings a very honest and unbiased account of his attempt to create a new identity, providing factual evidence to support his arguments.
Audience: Everyone and everyone online – mostly followers of Wired, Facebook, and Twitter.
Source: Wired Magazine publishes articles that deal with issues surrounding contemporary science and technology. Users are free to view the articles and comment on them, fostering discussion and allowing any and all viewpoints to be expressed.
Audience: Anyone connected to the internet that has an interest in current topics surrounding technology; open to the public.

4. Authority
Author:
reliable: Yes
credentials: Evan Ratliff is employed as a writer for Wired and has published many articles for the magazine.
institution: n/a
expertise: Specializes in technology, science, crime, and the environment. His thorough knowledge of technology and the internet are exemplified by his writing.
references: Evan has also written an article for the New York Times which was featured in The best of technology writing 2006. He has also co-authored a book entitled Safe: the race to protect ourselves in a newly dangerous world.
address: n/a
cited by: n/a
Publisher/source:
reliable: Yes
credentials: Wired magazine is a monthly print publication that is housed online by Wired.com. The magazine itself has been in published since 1993.
institution: Wired magazine is a division of the Condé Nast company.
expertise: Wired magazine specializes in contemporary issues in science and technology.

Notes: I found this article very interesting in that it is a real-life example that shows how certain technological advances have evolved into ethical issues of privacy and surveillance. Also interesting is the way that the internet allowed for the rapid spread of information about Evan's whereabouts, as well as access to a wealth of information - everything from his previous addresses to the telephone number of his cat-sitter. Evan's experience provides a very sinister depiction of how privacy is becoming almost impossible in the digital world of today.

Other links:
All of the information and publications in the magazine involving Evan’s experiment are posted here.