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a man slumped on his desk, from 'The Sleep of Reason Produces
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Oblomovka

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Archive for May 19th, 2004

2004-05-19

do i have the right to give your mail to google?

Lee, NTK’s chief moral compass, wonders about mail he sends that ends up with a third-party *cough Gmail cough*. He suggests that if Google was trying to be truly not evil, it should perhaps work on a “Disposition-Notification” header that would optionally the original sender know what’s happening to their mail.

This reminds me of mails from Boogah, who is organising Layer One, and whose .sig reads, in part.

this email is: [x] bloggable [ ] ask first [ ] private

My second thought, which is playing on me a lot these days, is how openness is viral. When one lives or works with someone who is more open or free with their own personal information, you find yourself become less able to maintain your own privacy. Your information is part of their information.

How can we maintain high levels of privacy – or indeed, maintain high levels of honesty – when our associates disagree on those levels?

This isn’t a new problem, of course. But something is changing. I have friends who dive out of the way of cameras to protect their privacy when they are with me. The time when there is somewhere to dive might end someday.

(In the meanwhile, if you send me something with X-No-Archive: in the headers, it won’t get forwarded to my Gmail account).

from a new revised pratimoksha (buddhist monastic code)

“A revised version of the Pratimoksha (Buddhist Monastic Code) was released on Monday March 31, 2003 in Seoul, Korea, which is one of the Mahayana Buddhist countries of Asia. This version has been compiled by the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh in the International Buddhist Practice Center called Plum Village in France. Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic delegation are currently on a teaching tour in this country.”

44. A bhikshu who has his private e-mail account with the result that he spends an inordinate amount of time in making unnecessary communications or communications which foster attachment commits an offence for which he must express regret.

46. A bhikshu who plays electronic games including those on the computer, commits an offence for which he must express regret.

So many new sins, so many regrets.