Essays, Analyses and Meditations


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You are a File

  • The person started becoming a number when telephone numbers were introduced to identify telephone customers
  • Then the number expanded to a whole set of numbers: driver's license, tax identification, credit card, employee number ,...
  • The person started becoming an individual, i.e. a statistic.
  • In the Internet age your private life is distributed among a variety of websites (from your bank's website to the various shopping websites, and, of course, social media). On each website you have an "id" and a "password". You are identified by a vast number of "passwords". If someone were to get hold of all your passwords, that person could start impersonating you with your bank, your government, your friends and your coworkers.
  • The effect of digitizing all information (text, image, video) is that now you have now become the ultimate number: a file
Proof-edited by Alexander Altaras