Ephemeral For Ever

Here's an interesting post on Bruce Schneier's blog. It talks about the growing trend of governments and corporations to store almost all on-line and telecommunication information indefinitely. Given that so much of our lives and business is moving on line, this leaves little space for the "ephemeral" conversations, which are not intended to be "on the record".

Unless you buy the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument, this is a worrying trend.
It is hard to see how to role back this tide of surveillance and perhaps the way to deal with it is to change the way we think about what can be considered binding and "incriminating" (in the widest sense). The ability to be untraceable or unrecorded does "oil the wheels" of society and business. Many people do things that are quite legal, but would not like them to be generally known for all sorts of legitimate reasons. There are also plenty of "grey areas" where people do things that are on the margins or beyond the margins of legality. We may find many unintended consequences if ever-increasing surveillance technology stamps out these practices.