Using Me Using You

http://news.com.com/Phishers+get+personal/2100-7349-5720672.html

This is a predictable evolution of heavy web use.  The more 
we use it, the more the bad guys can know about us.  Of course, 
the next step in personalization will be text analysis of lists 
such as this one to make more detailed profiles and predict 
behaviors.  That one isn't hard.

Over the years of skrying in the deep bowl of distributed public 
hypermedia systems, I keep coming back to the end of "Atlas Shrugged" 
by Ayn Rand.  More and more of the smart independent and capable 
people begin to withdraw from the web and create better means to 
innovate and insert technology without exposing themselves to 
it's childishness and predatory behaviors.  At the same time, 
some attempt the kind of futile behaviors one might compare to 
the Symbionese Liberation Front crimes.  At the same time, 
the growth of limited members-only gated web communities increases 
and external communications only pass through proxies.

It's dreary, I admit it, but I think it imminent and unavoidable.

len