‘Big Data Versus Dominique Strauss-Kahn’
12th June 2013
Steve Sailer puts things in perspective.
If you had access to all of DSK’s electronic communications, what kind of data mining algorithm would you craft to ferret out DKS’s greatest vulnerability? How could you best sift through terabytes of data to find DSK’s Achilles heel?
Well, you wouldn’t. You’d just call up your press secretary and ask, “What’s the gossip about DSK?”
Underlining the distinction between ‘data’ and ‘information’.
The more general point is that a lot of the information that the public assumes must be secret is actually common knowledge among the tiny percentage of people who are paying attention. To find out about it, you often just have to ask.
And most people who worry about the government having access to their personal data are the sort of people in whom the government has no possible interest.