The phrase "I own all information" started as a joke. It was my reaction to Facebook's bottomless appetite for information about people, the increasing use of cameras in public places, and the existence of sites like Pipl, Intelius, and Spokeo. The thought was "Hey guys, you have it all wrong. You don't own this information. I own all information. Hand it over." The unspoken thought was that Facebook certainly didn't "own" this information they have saved from their users. You could make an equally logical case that it belonged to me.
Then there is the democratization of surveillance. As surveillance becomes cheaper, governments and giant corporations will use more of it. But just around the corner is the era of super-cheap surveillance, in which ordinary people, you and I, will perhaps begin to collect vast amounts of information too. Anything a corporation can collect, we can collect. It is purely symmetrical, and only fair. And with the vast expansion of computer storage space on modern desktop computers, you can store your collects indefinitely. Your modern desktop or laptop computer today has enough hard disk space to store a (short) brief on every single person on this planet.
Sometime ago, I created a bookmark folder named "I own all information" in my browser. I used it to capture links to articles on passwords, surveillance cameras, Facebook, warrantless demands for data, and the like that caught my attention. Over the course of a few months I found so many items for this folder that it quickly grew to hold vastly more links than all of my other bookmark folders. While writing my Vorpal Trade blog I would occasionally write an article about oversharing of information, and I started to think it might be useful to have my "I own information" links on a web page, or at least collected in blog posts.
So here it is. I'll post links and comments about emerging trends in privacy and information collection. I'll also keep permanent pages of links grouped by category. Collating this stuff is not necessary better than Google, but it is better than keeping the links just in my Bookmarks folder.
Despite the title of the blog, I don't own all information. You do. It is just a joke.
