Why Is Obfuscation Necessary?
Why Is Obfuscation Necessary?
This chapter concisely defines obfuscation in terms of data, and information and power asymmetries. What can those whose data is being collected know and do about how data about them is captured, accumulated, transmitted, analysed, and used? Discussing these challenges creates the context for the necessity of obfuscation in the larger domain of privacy strategies and techniques, including governmental regulation, business best practice, and purely technological solutions. The authors argue that “opting out” to protect private data is not a reasonable solution, and build on James C. Scott’s concept of “Weapons of the Weak” to distinguish obfuscation from other privacy approaches.
Keywords: Surveillance, Philosophy, Privacy, Data, Obfuscation, Asymmetries
MIT Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
