RealInternetComment

While governments collecting data is a big problem, what can we do to stop this in the private sector, where companies are even less accountable? Seems like private companies can sell data to each other without informing the consumer. I don't really want my health insurance company to know how much time I spend at the pub!

So I'm currently in the middle of a book that talks about Stewart Brand and the impact of the Whole Earth movement and its influence on the cyberculture movement. Have you read the book, and if so, what did you think of it? How did the "Dead Heads" (for lack of a better term) become drawn to WELL (the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link)? When did you first start to become involved in "cyberculture"?

Thanks for your great work!

Thanks for that response; it's sometimes too easy to forget the reasons that certain people within subcultures leverage improvements in networking. That early peer-to-peer technology leveraged Deadheads' needs in terms of trading resources (whether tapes, drugs, a place to crash, or just good online conversation) makes perfect sense to me in hindsight. The internet is so ubiquitous these days it's easy to lose sense of what the world was like without it.