Weblogs: Dog poop girl

(via Schneier on Security: Dog Poop Girl) "A woman and her dog are riding the Seoul subways. The dog poops in the floor. The woman refuses to clean it up, despite being told to by other pass[e]ngers. Someone takes a picture of her, posts it on the Internet, and she is publicly shamed -- and the story will live on the Internet forever. Then, the blogosphere debates the notion of the Internet as a social enforcement tool.

The Internet is changing our notions of personal privacy, and how the public enforces social norms. [...]

If this incident is any guide, then anyone acting outside the accepted norms of whatever segment of humanity surrounds him had better tread lightly. The question we need to answer is: is this the sort of society we want to live in? And if not, what technological or legal controls do we need to put in place to ensure that we don't?"

(I suggest that anyone interested in these questions read Earth by David Brin. Written 15 years ago, it presents a society that is plausibly extrapolated from our own where privacy does not exist.)