Data -- mere information -- is neutral. The power of information that is linked and accessible is magnified by many orders of magnitude. The pattern is what matters.

Technology advances. Software that matches patterns and flags anomalies is getting pretty good. But ultimately, computers aren't about technology. They're about people.

The real power of the Net derives from the intention and intelligence of the people who use it. When we choose our response to what we learn online, that's when we bite the apple. That's when we engage our capacity for good and evil. Consider the cookie, how it works.

Netscape's little "cookie file" is a snapshot of a clickstream, the tracks we leave in the virtual snow whenever we go online..

The "cookie" is left on the hard drive. Any site can access the cookie and therefore our history. This is a marketer's dream.

Alex Zoughlin, President of Neoglyphics Media Corp., described the value of the cookie file for a catalog company.

"As soon as we know where you're calling from, a response is customized. Say you call from Chicago in January. The first pages you'll see are winter coats, tropical getaway vacations.

"If you visited the site before and spent three minutes looking at a snow-blower but didn't buy it, we'll show you that snowblower on sale.

"Then we can use the data on the cookie-file to cross-reference the clickstream with everything in databases built from the electronic transactions in which you've engaged."

Our social security numbers, admission tickets to the world of virtual purchases, is an index number, a universal identifier linking our interactions with governments, schools, and businesses, building a composite portrait of our habits and our lives.

That pattern is in turn enhanced by surveillance.

Consider ITS, the Intelligent Transportation System.

The Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee corridor is being wired with transponders, sensors, video cameras. The plan calls for quiet incremental implementation, then a propaganda campaign to explain why what's in place is good. ITS will be sold in the name of safety and efficiency,

Zoom past a toll booth at highway speeds, letting the sensor debit your account. Sounds good. But now there's a record of who, where, when.

Speeding? Trigger a sensor that snaps a camera that prints a picture of the license plate over the radar readout and sends you the fine. The ticket gets home before you do.

Trucking companies are ahead of the curve. Console computers and satellite dishes tell the home office the location, speed, and fuel consumption of every truck. The trucker is transformed from a road warrior into spam in a can.

"They say it's to empower the trucker," a caller told me during a recent radio interview, "but that's crap. It's more centralized, more hierarchical than ever. All that data feeds back to command central. As long as you stay within the guidelines, there's no red flag. But deviate an inch and you're juice in a blender."

That's the new paradigm. Life in Singapore is a model for life in the barb wired world.

It's called the Panopticon.

The Panopticon is a prison dreamed up by Jeremy Benthem in the 19th century. Cells with glass doors are arranged in a ring, a watchtower in the center, Prisoners can see neither one another nor the guard but the guard can see them -- all of the time.

The panoptic sort is the name for how every computer transaction is cross-referenced, then used by persons we don't know for undisclosed purposes.

Color your life inside the lines and stay safe. Deviate and set off the sirens.

Once our medical records are on smart cards, a swipe through the authorization reader can liberate the data. Or say you visit a tailor and your charge card entry includes the fact that your waist grew four inches. That data is tagged for the insurance company that owns the bank that issues your card. Your rates go up or your policy is cancelled and you never know why.

If something has value and can be sold, it will be sold. Banks do it now. So does the government.

"Remember, it isn't the technology," says Dean Schober, a Milwaukee cybersleuth. "It's the mind using the technology that makes the difference.

Schober is connected to more than 15,000 data bases in 123 countries. His value doesn't lie in accumulating data but in putting it together for clients. Competitive business intelligence is the growing edge of his business. Clients pay big bucks for the Big Picture.

You don't even need to be inside the computer to get the data. Suppose it was possible to aim a device at your apartment or home from across the street or down the block. Suppose you were working on a confidential business project on your PC. Suppose that device could read what you were typing and viewing on the CRT.

Such a device does exist. You can buy one. It monitors everything you do on your computer by collecting electromagnetic radiation emitted from your computer's CRT, CPU or peripheral equipment, then reconstructs those emissions into coherent signals and stores them.

One agent reports that he was able to view the CRTs of computer users from 300 yards away. He observed CRT screens at ATM machines, banks, a doctor's office, the police department doing a DMV license plate check, and a branch office of a securities trader making a trade. Then he borrowed an office near the World Trade Center and read passwords, files, proprietary data and records right through the glass walls.

Who's surprised? The French government bugged every first class Air France seat to eavesdrop on foreign businessmen. The battlefield is the global economy. "Privacy brokers" who know how to encrypt, decipher, capture, or secure communications and proprietary information are growing in numbers and sophistication. Building the mediating structures that protect our data is big, big business.

What should we do? It's a waste of time to cry for the past. Privacy as we once knew it is over. Better to learn to defend ourselves, engage in disinformation if need be, protect our boundaries. Teach our children how to hide. Build virtual scarecrows in the wired world to confuse the enemy.

Turn around street signs.... don't call attention to yourself.... and above all, be still... be very very still ...

June 15 1997