I am still waiting on an announcement update from the developers of Bonnie Bots, the highly controversial project that collects and publishes publicly accessible Second Life user data on the web. In the meantime, I've been wondering how to quantify all the controversy over Bonnie Bots, when other data collecting bots have garnered far less outrage.
And then the Chinese Communist Party were caught floating a spy balloon over US soil.
Causing much of the American public to collectively freak out. And that reaction also seemed out of whack, because whatever data the balloon gets is a relatively minor form of surveillance, against far more pervasive and intrusive projects that generate way less outrage. (Hello, TikTok.)
But this exchange between KCRW's Madeline Brand and New York Times security expert David Sanger explained why the reaction is so different:
Madeline Brand
And so the fact that we can see [the balloon], we get all outraged over it. But as you say, this kind of surveillance and scooping up of personal data and all sorts of technological spying has been going on between our two countries and other countries. Of course, Russia comes to mind and. And yet, this balloon story has really had sticking power.David Sanger
Because you could see it and because it's a physical intrusion on our sovereignty, and people react to a physical intrusion of our sovereignty more than they react to a cyber intrusion on our sovereignty.
Emphasis mine. Because, yes: The Bonnie Bots are basically acting like CCP spy balloons hovering over the virtual world of Second Life.
Bonnie Bots' spokesperson Skyler Pancake agrees with that analogy:
"There's connections there. I'm not convinced most people truly realized China was spying on the US as much as they are, or vice versa. Like in Second Life, most of the data gathering is kept under the rug and unless you're involved or happen to know someone involved you probably won't hear much about it. Even when you do hear about it, it's an isolated incident and you compartmentalize it as such.
"It's hard for people to conceptualize just how much data is constantly being gathered about them and the organizations they are associated with, in part because there's no way to truly know how much is being collected."
By that logic, of course, Bonnie Bots would be far less controversial if they were much less visible and conspicuous.
Also notable: While the CCP isn't sharing the data it collects on the US with United States' citizens, Bonnie Bots' data is being shared with Second Life citizens, so to speak. But apparently that doesn't allay every SLer's outrage.
Hopefully random mysterious UFOs don't start showing up over the skies of SL too.
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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