The future of proof

One of my favourite authors and bloggers, Bruce Schneier, recently posted an interesting blog on "The Future of Ephemeral Conversation". Essentially, the premise is that conversation, as it increasingly occurs over electronic mediums, is becoming less ephemeral, meaning that it is now lasting for much longer periods of time than we have previously experienced. This has complex ramifications on privacy as, due to the nature of storage and retrieval that electronic mediums provide, "private" conversations can potentially come back to haunt one years later.

There is another part to this. Electronic mediums provide not only a longer lifetime for communications, but also a wider spread. We no longer just experience direct conversation with our friends or colleagues, but we also experience the conversation they are having with their other friends or colleagues. It is now much more common to 'carbon-copy' communications, to post notes or details on (semi-)public and aggregated mediums like blogs, facebook, myspace or twitter, such that our conversations reach a much wider audience than in the past.

The effect of this is facinating and concerning. Firstly, it leads to the "information overload" that I believe our society is currently grappling with. There is much more information available, especially of a more personal nature involving our friends and colleagues, and we need to be more rapid in our consumption of it. There are many ramifications of this, which are all worthy of their own discussions, but I believe one direct result is that we have, or will, become increasingly less critical and more trusting. We will no longer critique each item of communication for it's accuracy or it's authenticity. This is result of necessity, as we will need to be more efficient at processing information and reduce wasted time. With so much more information available, and the barrier to dissemination of it so much lower, the vast majority of the communications we are privy to will be both accurate and authentic, so the assertion of this naturally become a task to compromise on.

The ramifications of this on our systems of law will be profound.

One ramification will be on the nature of "proof". Currently, a person cannot be held responsible for a written letter unless it is proven in some way that they wrote it. In an electronic world, this proof is almost impossible and yet we can already see that we no longer look for it or think of it as required. There are many legal cases already that are premised on emails sent and yet email is both trivial to forge and has no identifying traits like a writing style or signature to authenticate on. It is incredibly hard to prove who was sitting at the keyboard, or even which keyboard. But our increasing implicit trust will (if it hasn't already) sway people away from this sort of critical thinking. If the overwhelmingly majority of communications they have been privy to are authentic, then they will likely a have greatly reduced level of scepticism when it comes to proof.

The second ramification will be on due process and the burden of proof. Under our existing process, it is required that reasonable proof be supplied before a person is considered responsible for their words or actions. In addition to lowering the expectation for proof, the rapid and wide dissemination of information will result in a great potential for consequence to be enacted before proof has been offered. We are already starting to see this in media, when reporting influences the opinion of the public on an issue before it has been determined in a court. Whilst our existing system has mechanisms to prevent this perversion by the official media, there is no such mechanisms in place for the myriad of alternative information channels that are now becoming available. Combining rapid, wide and personalised dissemination of information with an increased trust in the accuracy of it creates a risky new landscape in which we all tread.

I do believe that electronic communications, with all their ramifications, are overwhelmingly a good thing for our society. The value they provide is massive. But we must consider the consequences in terms of (reduced) privacy, increased visibility into the past opinions of an individual that may no longer be correct or even relevant, the nature and burden of proof and legal due process. We just have to consider the effect these consequences will have on our systems and adjust them accordingly. Ignoring the changing environment and assuming our systems are, and remain, perfect would be a failing for all of us.