Outdated Checks

JERUSALEM — Great Britain might phase-out checks in the next several years:

The board of the UK Payments Council, which oversees payments strategy, is meeting to discuss whether the cheque clearing system could end by 2018.

Cheques, first written 350 years ago, are widely regarded by experts as being in terminal decline.

However, the failure to find a suitable replacement has meant no date has yet been set for the system to end.

Not only are checks in danger, printed money itself might become extinct. This worries me for two reasons: increased cost to the consumer, and less anonymity in general.

When people pay with a credit or debit card, roughly three percent of the purchase price goes to the issuer of the piece of plastic. (Think of it as a “service” or “convenience” fee, but it’s really just an ingenious way for banks to generate a lot of profit because the cost to process the transaction is essentially zero.)

As a result, business frequently raise their prices to pass along that cost to the consumer. For example, I once bought a girlfriend here flowers at a small kiosk with my Bank Leumi debit card because I had forgotten to bring cash. The owner simply told me: “It will five shekels (roughly one dollar) more.” Imagine this exchange occurring in every sale throughout the world. If checks no longer exist and a suitable alternative is not found, then a reliance on plastic would lead to a general increase in prices.

Still, as the article mentions, banks are looking at electronic means including mobile phones through which purchasing can occur. While the cost to perform the transaction would be next to nothing, private commerce would no longer be anonymous. There would always be a digital, paper trail.

Obviously, I do not depend on cash as a means to buy drugs, sell them, or engage in any nefarious activities like organized crime, but I do not like the idea of the possibility that someone, somewhere could theoretically see every item that I buy and sell as well as possibly have access to my private, financial data. Hackers will always find a way.

If Cellcom, for example, would own my Israeli cell phone, then Cellcom would be responsible for the security of my financial transactions processed through and stored on the device. And if the electronic safeguards prove costly to them, then I might have the cost passed along to me anyway.

Elsewhere: Many companies are fighting the credit-card fees. Good for them!

Facebook Exodus

Getting sick of the social-networking website? You’re not alone.

Letter from Israel: The Bright Side of Life

Fifteenth in an ongoing series

RISHON LEZION, Israel — So much of Westerners hear about the Middle East is serious. As a result, most people probably do not know the bright side of life here (with apologies to Monty Python). So here is a list of ten, random anecdotes that you might find interesting.

1. On my second vacation to Israel is 2007, I was trying on some clothes in the dressing room of a Tel Aviv mall. Without any warning, the clerk threw open the curtain after a few minutes and asked, “So, do you like it?” I was halfway undressed, and there were tons of people in the store! (At least the clerk, as usual in stores, was a cute girl.) There is little personal space here. When I lived with roommates, they would open the door and walk into my room without even knocking. It’s a casual country.

2. Even business is casual. At my first job in the high-tech industry here, my boss — the director of the department — usually wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt to work. Men go for days without shaving, even to job interviews. “Dressing up” consists of wearing a nice pair of jeans and a short-sleeve, button-down shirt. That is the typical dress for a wedding (unless you are the bride or groom) or even going to a synagogue. As one Israeli remarked to me: “Only lawyers and the prime minister wear suits here.” I love it — especially the part about not having to shave every day. Most Israelis outside the fashionable parts of Tel Aviv could care less about high fashion. It is common to see most people in cheap, comfortable clothes.

3. I love haggling! You can do it almost everywhere. I was doing my Friday shopping before Shabbat earlier today, and I saved fifteen percent from the sticker prices when I bought a CD player and some posters for my apartment. I have my own secret: Since most sales clerks are high-school girls or young women just out of the army, I flirt shamelessly and intentionally speak Hebrew worse than what I actually know. They always think the American accent is cute! The next time I go on vacation to the United States, I think I will try my haggling skills there. Perhaps I’ll even put on a fake — and bad –
Israeli accent.

4. The funniest thing I have seen to date: A bar full of drunk Israelis singing aloud — in their heavy accents — to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.

5. Whenever you walk through a busy part of town, it is common for members from an outreach group of Orthodox Jews called Chabad to come up to you (if you are a man) and ask, “Did you pray today?” (It is optional for women to do the thrice-daily prayers.) Then they will try and try to get you to put on tefillin — traditional, leather straps around your left arm and forehead containing pieces of paper with words from the Bible — and say the prayers right on the sidewalk. One rabbi in Jerusalem offered a free bagel sandwich to anyone who would do it. (I took the free food.)

6. I was wheeling a shopping cart full of groceries to a taxi waiting outside a supermarket when three Israelis came up and asked if I needed help loading them. You’d never see that in the United States, at least on the East Coast.

7. The enthusiasm of street vendors can be startling. I was walking by a group of young men on a sidewalk bench when one of them shouted suddenly right at me, “One orange for a shekel (twenty-five cents)!” I declined and wished them the common greeting on Thursdays and Fridays of “Shabbat Shalom (Peaceful Sabbath)!”

8. Once you get used to it, Israeli bluntness is quite amusing and refreshing. People here have no patience for anything, and they will always get right to the point as quickly as possible. A friend of mine was telling a story about another friend of hers, and I asked which one it was because I did not remember. Instead of saying something like, “My friend who works at Cellcom and studies communications,” she merely said, “The fat one.” Immediately, I knew to whom she was referring.

This attitude stems partly from the fact that Hebrew is a blunt, concise language. When I was working part-time in a kitchen in a bar, the manager would hand me dishes that needed washing. Instead of saying, “Here are some more dishes,” he would say in Hebrew, “Take.” If a person disagrees with someone (sometimes even a boss) about something, he will not raise polite counterpoints. He will say, “You’re an idiot!” and then explain why. It’s not being rude or bossy; it is just how people talk. Once you get used to a new alphabet with weird-looking characters that you read right to left, Hebrew is a comparatively simple language to learn. Moreover, you learn to develop a thick skin here.

9. Shabbat begins every week at sundown on Friday. Ten minutes before, rabbis from Chabad — the group I mentioned earlier — will turn on loudspeakers on top of a building in the center of the city and announce that Shabbat is starting. Then they will blare a recording of “Shalom Aleichem” (“Peace Upon You”) for everyone to hear. The song is a traditional one that is sung at the beginning of Friday night dinner. It is a greeting to the two angels who, in Jewish thought, accompany everyone on his way home from the synagogue to eat. (I like the announcement, but I have never thought to ask secular Israelis what they think.)

10. Israeli teenagers love fireworks. In addition to the backfiring cars that I mentioned in a prior letter, one always hears the noise of firecrackers — or larger — going off. When I was walking through downtown Jerusalem with a friend one time, a group of nearby children set off what sounded like an M-80. The buildings and our bodies seemed to shake. I was not used to the noise at that point, so my friend and I jumped and thought the worst when we heard the explosion. When I saw the children, I was about to walk over and strangle them myself. But then the police arrived and got them to go away. Now, I realize that it is just kids being kids.

Prior letter: Stories from the Desert III

Abortion Politics

North Dakota might throw down the gauntlet on abortion:

A measure approved by the North Dakota House gives a fertilized human egg the legal rights of a human being, a step that would essentially ban abortion in the state.

The bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that extended abortion rights nationwide, supporters of the legislation said.

Representatives voted 51-41 to approve the measure Tuesday. It now moves to the North Dakota Senate for its review.

The bill declares that “any organism with the genome of homo sapiens” is a person protected by rights granted by the North Dakota Constitution and state laws.

Regardless of what one thinks about abortion, this legislation can only be described as absurd. After only a few moments reviewing Internet comments, readers there have thought of several future scenarios (realistic and humorous ones):

• A woman who has a miscarriage could be investigated and possibly prosecuted for murder
• If the pregnancy was unplanned, could the woman charge the fetus with trespassing?
• Would this apply to carpool lanes and the limit of people that can be in a car?
• People could file lawsuits on behalf of a fetus since it would be a minor
• Women could be prosecuted for smoking or drinking alcohol since the fetus is underage
• Doctors fertilizing a large number of eggs for in-vetro fertilization would be guilty of mass murder since all but a few would die
• Is a fertilized egg a dependent for tax purposes?
• Would a fertilized egg be a U.S. citizen since all citizens must be “born” or “naturalized”?

I am sure that this law will be voted down, vetoed, or overturned by the courts.

Privacy is Dead

The New York Times offers a glimpse into the future:

Propelled by new technologies and the Internet’s steady incursion into every nook and cranny of life, collective intelligence offers powerful capabilities, from improving the efficiency of advertising to giving community groups new ways to organize.

But even its practitioners acknowledge that, if misused, collective intelligence tools could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.

Collective intelligence could make it possible for insurance companies, for example, to use behavioral data to covertly identify people suffering from a particular disease and deny them insurance coverage. Similarly, the government or law enforcement agencies could identify members of a protest group by tracking social networks revealed by the new technology. “There are so many uses for this technology — from marketing to war fighting — that I can’t imagine it not pervading our lives in just the next few years,” says Steve Steinberg, a computer scientist who works for an investment firm in New York.

A friend of mine from Boston once put it best: The entire world is now the equivalent of a small town in which everyone knows — or can know — everything about everyone. Choose your online actions carefully.

Gee, Thanks, Democrats

So much for standing up to the Bush adminstration’s efforts to spy on Americans.

Teenagers and Privacy

Fox News reports on a disturbing trend:

Forget about passing notes in study hall; some teens are now using their cell phones to flirt and send nude pictures of themselves.

The instant text, picture and video messages have become part of some teens’ courtship behavior, police and school officials said.

The messages often spread quickly and sometimes find their way to public Web sites.

“I’ve seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed,” said Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio. “You name it, they will do it at their home under this perceived anonymity.”

While Fox News does sensationalize its reports even more than other media outlets, I would not be surprised if this were true.

Imagine growing up in a world where secrets and privacy do not exist. Imagine growing up in a world where everyone knew everything about you. Imagine growing up in a world where sexuality is increasingly acceptable — even for pre-teens and schoolchildren. Imagine that you have had the Internet for your entire life. This is the world in which today’s teenagers are living.

As a result of Facebook, MySpace, Google, and every other Internet utility, everyone’s life is now an open book (at least for those who choose to make it so). Since teenagers have always had the Internet, it is extremely natural for them to use it to the fullest extent possible because they have never known a different world. And since they are young, they do not understand the ramifications.

One case in point: Disney actress Vanessa Hudgens (of “High School Musical” fame) caused a furor when she sent a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend, and it found its way online (of course). (No, that link does not go to the photo itself, and I’m not going to look for it either.) When teenagers combine their naive comfort with technology with a lax attitude towards sexuality, this is what naturally results. (Although sometimes the attention is not even the person’s fault: Allison Stokke, a high-school pole vaulter, became an overnight sensation after photos of her were placed online.)

The solution, of course, is for parents to talk to their children about the dangers of technology. When parents do not discuss sex and birth control with their teenagers, they are more likely to have unsafe sex and become pregnant. When parents adopt puritanical attitudes towards sex, that usually makes children rebel and pursue the other extreme. When parents believe that their precious daughter (or son) would never place provocative photos of themselves on the Internet, they should think twice.

Once something is on the Internet, it is there forever. This is the world in which we now live.

Google Maps and Privacy

Google Maps has added a feature that, I’ll admit, is very cool. (Watch the above YouTube video for a demonstration.) People can walk through streets virtually in neighborhoods and cities — and even turn around for a full 360 degrees.

In a press release, Google states that:

With Street View users can virtually walk the streets of a city, check out a restaurant before arriving, and even zoom in on bus stops and street signs to make travel plans.

But the new application doesn’t stop there. Street View has captured a woman’s underwear and other, um, delicate situations:

Pictures show what appears to be men urinating streetside. Young women are pictured in skimpy swimsuits sunbathing near Stanford University, the California alma mater of Google’s founders.

There is a picture of a man climbing a home’s security gate, hopefully without criminal intent. People are pictured going into a pornography shop.

A couple can be seen embracing on a sidewalk while another couple gets intimate on a bus stop bench. A homeless man pictured sitting with his dog on a street corner has reportedly died since the photograph was taken.

It is perfectly legal to photograph or otherwise document peoples’ activities in public places (except, in some states, through wiretapping), and Google’s Street View does provide a neutral, objective depiction of what occurs on city streets.

But what are the implications? Of course, privacy is increasingly dead. As I stated in prior posts on the sudden fame of pole vaulter Allison Stokke and the ubiquitious presence of camera phones, privacy is increasingly non-existent due to the Internet. Virtually anything one wants to know about a person can be discovered instantly — or at least easily communicated to a limitless number of people worldwide.

As a commenter stated in my post on Stokke, the entire world is indeed resembling a small town or village tribe where everyone knows everything — good and bad — about everyone. Unless we destroy the Internet and electronic communication, there is no way to prevent this. So we may just have to learn to live with it.

Privacy and Pole Vaulters

Everyone, so the adage goes, will have fifteen minutes of fame. But because of the Internet, you may become famous without even knowing about it and without your consent. Take the case of Allison Stokke, an attractive, 18-year-old, pole vaulter from California:

In her high school track and field career, Stokke had won a 2004 California state pole vaulting title, broken five national records and earned a scholarship to the University of California, yet only track devotees had noticed. Then, in early May, she received e-mails from friends who warned that a year-old picture of Stokke idly adjusting her hair at a track meet in New York had been plastered across the Internet. She had more than 1,000 new messages on her MySpace page. A three-minute video of Stokke standing against a wall and analyzing her performance at another meet had been posted on YouTube and viewed 150,000 times…

The wave of attention has steamrolled Stokke and her family in Newport Beach, Calif. She is recognized — and stared at — in coffee shops. She locks her doors and tries not to leave the house alone. Her father, Allan Stokke, comes home from his job as a lawyer and searches the Internet. He reads message boards and tries to pick out potential stalkers.

“We’re keeping a watchful eye,” Allan Stokke said. “We have to be smart and deal with it the best we can. It’s not something that you can just make go away.”

Unfortunately, there’s little that anyone can do in a situation like this. As all journalists and photographers know, anyone in public is legally fair game for photos. (See my prior post on camera phones.) If a person is walking down the street, you can take any pictures of him you want. And the plethora of detailed information on the Internet is making it increasingly easy to find personal information about people. The speed of communication allows one to become famous — or infamous — that much more quickly.

The law has not caught up with technology, and I’m not sure whether it will — or should. There are free speech issues as well. People may just have to get used to having less privacy. Stokke will not be the last person to deal with a situation like this. (Normally, I would include a photo of the public figure about whom I’m writing, but in this case I don’t want to encourage such behavior since Stokke and her family seem fairly upset.)

But there is one benefit to society from such technological abilities: People may be less likely to act unethically, immorally or illegally if it is much easier to document and communicate that behavior. Still, do we want to live in a world without a reasonable expectation of privacy?

Earlier: The Internet is one of the reasons that we’re living in a hypersexualized society (and the fanfare surrounding Stokke is just one more example). But is the Internet a cause, a symptom or a reflection?