Info Policy 2015

[infopolicyanw-blog]

Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things, in my opinion, is a natural outgrowth of the development of technology. When we can’t grow vertically as easily as we used to, we grow horizontally, creating connections between our tech. As the Eight Myths about IOT mention, it’s not just about the data - it’s a building block and the distribution of information is the wealth. This is really when interoperability comes into play - who will get to design the standard? Or, will we use existing standards to ensure compatibility, but will that just be a crutch and stunt the growth of IoT?

An interesting aspect of AI to consider is incorporating humans to bridge the gap that machines would encounter. For example, in my other class about crowdsourcing, there was a very interesting paper about using humans to find vulnerabilities in predictive models that would not otherwise be found easily through sampling. Sampling would provide cases the model was already unsure about while humans could try to find examples they think the model <i>thinks</i> it knows about confidently and prove it wrong. It was really interesting in a way to improve the “intelligence” of this system using humans - without replacement.

It’s going to be extremely interesting when we get to the point where we think about the moral ambiguities of AI. What is intelligence, self awareness, etc? I may be probing too much into the science fiction, and I recognize that AI work is far from passing the Turing Test (except for a particular case, but I still don’t think it’s even far enough along to count). The paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” outline Turing’s philosophical ideas. The examples of trying to trick a human into thinking they’re talking to a machine are quite interesting. Should the machine wait when calculating large numbers? If it recites poetry and thinks, is that enough to convince us of its equality to our brains? Anyways, my point was that information policy along AI will get very convoluted with the morality of it all. It’s thrilling.

Lastly, for those of you who are gamers, I <i>highly</i> recommend the Mass Effect series for these kind of conundrums. There are some great examples of AI and the possibilities in the future: the Geth, where together their collective conscience becomes more advanced and yet there is still a vague sense of individuality in each machine, or the hybrid AI overlord where a human was inhumanely hooked up to a virtual intelligence system to “fill the gaps” of its capabilities with human decision. 

I think I’ve diverged a bit, but this is such a large field of study and its possibilities grow greater every day. However, in the future, will the “AI” we refer to now just be basic mathematics in the future as the level of complexity required to be intelligent grows and kids grow up learning about it like it’s 2nd grade math? I hope so - because I think that will truly mean we as humans have raised the bar and reach even higher.

And while I’m sure people are having sex with robots in some form or another, I think we’re very far from actually making intimate connections with AI. So if that’s a win or a lose, I’m leaving that for others to decide. : )

[infoleib-blog]

[infoleib-blog]

The Internet of Things: Will technology outpace human ability to adapt?

When reading the Greengard book, I must confess I had multiple emotions going on at once: on one level I was extremely anxious at how deeply the structures of human society will be completely transformed into something almost unrecognizable. On the other hand, I was in awe of what (positive) possibilities could arise because of the Internet of Things.

As a result of the Internet of Things, certain standards of living will most likely skyrocket. But obviously, as the book points out, there will be a downside to all of this as well. First of all, most human labor might become obsolete, and natural unemployment rates will most likely significantly increase. I assume this will force many governments to give their citizens a basic income in order to ensure that their basic needs are met. This might also lead to many people losing a sense of purpose (while some people do not like their jobs, others find meaning in their work), but perhaps volunteering will become a more important part of people’s lives, as will leisure.

I wonder what will happen to previously “natural” human capabilities that will eventually be phased out. More specifically, will we process emotions differently if there is not much face-to-face interaction (perhaps this is already happening)? Will our logical thinking skills increase or decrease? There might be more opportunities for education, but perhaps when everything just magically kind of works because of the Internet of Things, it will cause humans to rely less on problem-solving skills.

Another obvious issue (that is addressed very nicely in the book) is that of privacy. The Internet has already damaged our privacy, but will we reach a limit where our lack of privacy will be extremely detrimental to our well-being? I believe safeguards will be put in place, but it’s scary to think what the capabilities are. Furthermore, the hyper-quantification of each of us might also have strange effects (longer life expectancies, but increased depression and anxiety).

Finally, one of the scariest things is the issue of bad actors (such as criminals or terrorists) hijacking the Internet of Things and using it to hurt or kill others. Again, I want to believe that there will be safeguards in place, but I am certain there will also be some tragic events along the way.

Before any technology starts to revolutionize the world, there seems to be this set of pathways, where either incredible things will happen as a result of the technology, or terrible things will happen as a result of the technology (almost always the reality is a combination of both, with many people arguing over whether the good outweighs the bad or not). In the aggregate, most technologies make the world a safer place, but we should also focus on technologies making the world a happier place. I think it is vital for extensive psychological research to be done as to how we can reap the rewards of technology while still living emotionally healthy lives. While no one can ever completely predict how a technology will manifest, it is good that people are beginning to think about the repercussions of the Internet of Things now, before it becomes something that is completely engrained in all of our lives.

[panamaluisito-deactivated201605]

Helping or Forcing...

Are Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) the catalyst necessary to bring the/ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to fruition by 2030. I believe that technologies like the mobile phone and other ICTs have definitely allowed for great progression throughout the world through the instant ability to communicate and share ideas. I think of when I was a younger lad, doing research involved going to the library, finding books, and digging through those books to find the answers to my questions. Today, with a quick Google search, I can get much more information than I got doing manual searches through books, in a fraction of the time. And now with ICTs like mobile devices, I do not even need to wait until I can get to a computer to do my research. If my phone is connected, I can do almost anything I can on my computer with my phone. The simplicity and ease of doing things made the advancements of ICT so appealing to those like me. The problem I see, and this view stems from the experiences I have had working in austere and less advanced countries like Afghanistan, is that there is a need to be motivated by the improvements and capabilities to truly want to adopt it to your everyday life. Whereas I love being able to do research on my phone, a family living in the mountains of Afghanistan holds value in being able to keep their family warm and looks at a computer as tinder or items that can keep their fire going. This is a bit off topic, but this also shows the brashness in believing that because a person doesn’t have the technological capabilities you do, that they are somehow deprived and unhappy. Some of the happiest people I have ever met were people who didn’t have a single computerized or electrical item to their name. Also, if you think about it, one of our main uses of these technologies is to connect to those we love: family or friends. But what if our family and friends lived in the same village and were a shouting distance away. Would we be as quick to spend a fortune on long distance connectivity devices? I digress…the reason for bringing this up is that I just think we have to be very careful making policies that assume that because societies or communities are not technologically advanced, they are somehow in desperate need of connectivity. We have to be careful in giving the message that you can only survive in the world by conforming to today’s technological standards. I understand that there are places that are struggling with healthcare issues or other issues that could greatly benefit from the connectivity and information provided by improving the telecom infrastructure and connectivity to the more modern world. I am not in anyway against these efforts, especially in some parts of Africa where there is an epidemic of HIV and the AIDs virus. I just think we need to be careful about identifying the line between helping and forcing.

All that said, I do think it is amazing to see the efforts being made by different organizations to assess the ICT capability of different parts of the world and the effort to find solutions for improvement. I find it fascinating to see the difference in approach with respect to the difference in the region of the world. I was glancing over the assessments done by the IDRC of the different regions of the world, and it was interesting to see how much the assessments between regions differed and where they saw the effort needed to be with respect to the needs of the region.

The last thing I want to touch on is these Technology Salons. I think those small group collaborations about specific topics covering the “intersection of technology and development” is a novel idea. I am amazed at how I had never heard of these and I lived and worked in the DC area. I think that ideas like this, where the government (assuming this is a federal program) invites people who are well studied on a specific topic to come and discuss contemporary issues in the field. I do not know what the effectiveness of these meetings were to the State Department, but I am eager to find out. It seems like the articles in the link were from 2012, but I visit the site and they are still having these meetings quite frequently. I did not take the time to look into if this exist or not, but if these Tech Salons posted wrap-ups of their meetings so those who didn’t attend could get an idea of what was discussed, that would be great as well.

[barelyopinionated]

Hi! 

I just think we need to be careful about identifying the line between helping and forcing. 

This statement stood out to me in your post (probably because it’s part of your title). I think that it is very important to find this line. I think it becomes extremely difficult because we can’t imagine life without our technology and also because, in my opinion, we often see ourselves as the cool kids on the block and assume others want to be like us. 

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if our culture had adopted a different view of technology. One such scenario is “what if we used it to live closer to the people we care about?” This is opposed to some of the ways technology allows us to be very far from the people important to us and still be a part of their lives - except it’s not the same as living near those people even when I’ve pretended it is. I don’t think that’s an inevitable future for technological nations and I definitely don’t want to push that on others.

At the same time, there *is* a lot of good ICTs can do. It can disseminate information quickly. It can keep you in touch with a loved one even when they have to be far away. They can be used to coordinate health care and many more things. Figuring out how to partner with groups in other countries and come up with solutions to known needs is important and there has been a lot of work in that area, which is cool.

[infoleib-blog]

Your point about many people still being happy without certain technologies is an important one that I think about a lot. We oftentimes think technology means progress, and thus technology is a good thing. Technology is usually a good thing, but it can certainly cause detrimental effects as well. While I think expanded Internet use across developing nations will overall be a major net positive, I also think it’s important not to assume that any one technology is the answer to helping another country / culture / society. As you mention, happiness can occur without certain technologies, especially if the community is structured differently than our own (a key example you give is how families in some of the communities you were exposed to lived closer to each other, and thus they had a stronger support network).

As life expectancies in many developing countries have significantly increased over the last few decades, we realize that the levels of poverty are not leading to significantly decreased life spans in the majority of the developing world, so there is no “right” answer per se as to how these countries should proceed. I think the majority of people in these countries would still want many things that people in America see as basic necessities, but as you mention in your post, we cannot force our technologies upon others; rather, it is their right to choose if they want them and how they are going to use them.

[jakethefakesnake-blog]

Internet and the Developing World

Very interesting report, for a couple of different reasons - it called forth for action steps governments around the world should take, just like a couple of us are doing in our projects, and it assumed that the reader is already a supporter of the Sustainable Development Goals.  That second one is non-trivial, I think.  Probably all of us in the class agree with them as worthy goals for 2030, but it’s not too hard to think of a couple of governments that don’t want to support SDG # 5: Gender Equality, at all (Saudi Arabia, for instance).  And the priority list seems a little off to me, could definitely be argued over.

           I had a couple of real problems with the methodology of the report, especially the ridiculous graph showing the “Business As Usual” path (what does that even mean?) and how it wouldn’t be good enough to achieve the “Sustainable Development Goals” path.  That chart was completely meaningless and there was nothing to back it up.  I also didn’t like how the report called for action steps without any serious mention of the funding required to achieve them.  It’s a major oversimplification of the situation.  If governments spend money on the action steps called for by the report, that means that there is less money to spend on other projects.  Those opportunity costs need to be taken into account.  

           The biggest red flag for me was the potential conflict between SDG #s 7, 11, and 13 and the rest.  The Information and Communication Technology recommendations put forth by the report would, at least in the short term, drastically increase the carbon emissions and other environmental problems of the nations that adopted them.  Sure, the report points out that eventually fast technology sharing leads to increased efficiency in systems.  We’re about at that point in Europe and the United States, where appliances and automobiles are getting ever more efficient.  But there are problems that we haven’t even come close to solving yet, like what in the world are we going to do with these lithium ion batteries that are too toxic to safely put in landfills and that are quickly becoming one of the most ubiquitous items in our waste stream.  

I enjoyed one of the later links, the one to the State Department’s Technology Salon, a lot more. Articles on that page (when I read it) were about African women having access to broadband, and how that can be accomplished.  There was also an advertisement for a talk hosted by Wayan Vota on which medium to invest in for sustainable development, mobile phones or cheap laptops.  The headline, “Mobile Phones vs. Computers: a False ICT4D Choice?” implies that it doesn’t really matter, but I think that’s a straw man argument.  It’s gotta be laptops or desktops all the way, because laptops can be used for creation whereas mobile phones are designed for consumption.  I’m not much of a coder, but I know enough that it would be excrutiating to consider designing any piece of software, or even a web page, on a phone.  Remember that one of the theses of the ICT report is that greater access to communications technology helps everyone through sharing of ideas.  But women in Africa or any other developing region will need to be able to create their own content as well as access others.  To say otherwise, I think, is to risk devaluing their own potential contributions and propping up existing thoughts.

Also!  A little bit of a tangent here, but I thought you all would enjoy reading this article about social media ranking in China:  http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-china-wants-to-rate-its-citizens?intcid=mod-yml

Sample quote:  

   “Alibaba, the world’s biggest online shopping platform, creates an incentive for customers to use its own payment service (also part of Alipay) by raising the Sesame scores of those who do. The company makes no secret of its interest in accessing the payment history of its four hundred million users, to make judgments about their creditworthiness and character. “Someone who plays video games for ten hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person, and someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered as probably a parent, who on balance is more likely to have a sense of responsibility,” Li Yingyun, Sesame’s technology director, told Caixin, a Chinese magazine. In some ways, Tencent’s credit system goes further, tapping into users’ social networks and mining data about their contacts, for example, in order to determine their social-credit score.”

[infoleib-blog]

Very interesting point you make about laptops versus phones, and how that can differentiate these technologies from those of creation to those of consumption. It’s extremely important to think about how people in developing countries can not only have access to technologies, but also how they can use these technologies as a source of empowerment.

I’m curious as to how websites like Codecademy do in nations that just recently gained access to the Internet.

That brings us to another point in general: how can we implement technologies that encourage people to use technology as a means of creation as opposed to just further consumption (not just in the developing world, but in the world as a whole)? I think they came out with a study recently that the average child spends something like 8 hours of their non-school hours using some form of screen (even crazier to think about this when you account for the 7 hours they sleep). We’re literally dealing with kids who are looking at screens all the time. There is obviously a push to get these kids (and people in general) not to just passively consume technology: examples can be seen in code.org’s “Hour of Code” as well as various initiatives Google has implemented (like their virtual summer camp for kids). I’m curious as to how things will turn out, but the crazy part is that even when only a very small part of the population contributes, you can still get huge results (take Wikipedia as a key example). Perhaps this incentivizes many people to just consume as opposed to being a part of creating things as well.

[infoleib-blog]

Improving Quality of Life in the Developing World

When I read the article on how information and communications technology can achieve the Sustainable Development goals, I was struck by how big the goals were that were laid out in the beginning part of the article. They were all obviously good things to strive towards, but some of these goals were extremely ambitious; specifically the first goal: no poverty. While it is certainly a good idea to define what we are to aim for in making the world a better place, I think it would be worthwhile to set up objectives that can be executable in a reasonable period of time. For example, with regards to the developing world, I feel very strongly about the labor conditions many workers are subjected to in order to maintain employment. I believe that the United Nations should draft a Worker’s Bill of Rights that ideally all countries should sign off on. Would this bill pass in the UN? Would many countries even sign off on it? I don’t know, to be honest, but I think that is something that can be executed within reasonable means. Ending poverty is such an ambitious goal; I can’t even fathom how or when we could reach this point. The wealthiest countries in the world still have members of their population that struggle with poverty, so I am uncertain if we will ever get to the point where no humans have to be subjected to the humiliation of poverty.

Another issue I am curious about is how effectively developing nations can “leapfrog” certain technologies, and whether all metrics will increase as a result, or if certain technologies will only improve very specific things. I don’t know the answer, but thankfully there is a good amount of data from the past few decades that could help answer this question. The article shows some really interesting graphs that emphasize that there are models that can be used to understand how developing nations will adopt certain technologies. One thing that sticks out for me is a memory I have from when I was a teenager: I went to South Africa to visit some family members who live there (believe it or not, there is a sizable Jewish community in this country). When I drove past a poor community on the outskirts of Cape Town, I was completely stunned by the fact that almost all the people in this extremely poor neighborhood had television sets, even though most of the people also had distended bellies. It was shocking to me because I assumed almost a transitive property to how wealth is accumulated (surely, if people owned television sets, they had enough money to feed themselves). My disturbing realization was that this was not the case. While I do believe the Internet is not analogous to television (because the Internet can help people more easily organize and congregate, thus improving certain efficiencies), I still think there is a relevant point that we can take away from this: giving people access to technology will not ensure that their basic needs are met.

I am optimistic about developing countries improving their citizens’ quality of life over the next few decades. One need only look at the data from the last few decades to see how immensely the quality of life has improved through many of these countries already (significantly increased life expectancies serve as a key reminder of this). I also think, however, that we must be realistic about how hard it is to improve certain quality of life metrics.

[barelyopinionated]

On The Global War for Internet Governance:

This week’s book by Laura DeNardis is a somewhat in depth view of many different aspects of how policy relates to the internet. There are multiple sections in the book, each of which describes a different aspect of the conflicts over who implements the rules on the internet. In this post, I am going to focus on the “Cybersecurity Governance” section because I think it is an interesting contrast to last week’s book Cyber War.

The Global War for Internet Governance addresses many of the same issues as Cyber War but comes at it from a different perspective. This book doesn’t make policy recommendations so much as describes the current structures in place for cybersecurity. It is very interesting how much changes in the two years since Cyber War was published. And the same amount has changed since The Global War for Internet Governance was published. The book talked extensively about how worms, viruses, and DDoS work. In essence, these form two groups: malicious access to a computer and disabling a computer through normal means. In my opinion, DDoS ties most closely with the current structure of the internet. Of course, normally in order to DDoS a server, one needs a botnet which has been created by a virus or worm. DDoS is one of the simpler yet very effective tools for attacking a person or organization. I think the main reason it’s so effective is that it takes advantage of the current structure of the internet (TCP/IP, ICMP) to perform an allowed action but at the same time overwhelm the victim server. There is also something called DNS amplification  which, through IP spoofing, gets a legitimate DNS server to flood a target. The entire structure of the internet allows this to happen and it is difficult to stop. The only thing seems to be to respond as servers get flooded and as botnets are formed.

This book talks about Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) which I hadn’t heard about before, strangely enough. These seem to be an organized way to combat computer vulnerabilities. The current system of protecting computer systems is to install patches as quickly as possible and occasionally hope your antivirus software will work (sad fact: it doesn’t work well against new viruses and worms). The CERTs seem to be a method of disseminating information quickly. Realizing that I keep learning new elements of cybersecurity policy is a little humbling because I get to see how monumental a problem it is. And I see how seemingly impossible it is to fix. We have an entire infrastructure of protocols and physical networks which are a patchwork of security. And it would be a major undertaking to fix the current systems. So we have to make do with what we have. And encryption is one of those methods. It’s also one of the few systems where the defender has an overwhelming advantage against an attacker when implemented correctly. Tied up with encryption is identification. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are using encryption unless you know that the person/server on the other line is who/what you’re intending to talk to. This is the realm of Certificate Authorities. I agree with the author, the system is rather absurd. Essentially you have to assume that the CA is credible. If your computer’s trust is misplaced, then a rogue or unscrupulous CA can sign certificates for other websites. There have been instances of CA creating fake certificates for sites such as Google. This allows anyone with that certificate to impersonate a Google website (often without the user knowing). The system is broken yet running. The problem is that changing the current system is difficult because so much depends on the way things are.

That is what I’ve taken away from the previous two books. The current system won’t work for cybersecurity. The current system was designed for a mostly trusted environment and many of the protocols have difficulty adapting to untrusted environments. There are at least two problems in changing the system: 1. all the hardware and software is designed for the current system. 2. Any new protocols would have to be agreed on by many different organizations in different countries. The second part seems particularly impossible. Question: can you imagine a situation where the majority of the internet community would agree on one set of protocols and standards which are also secure? Is it ok to fragment the internet and develop a secure system in the US only and hope everyone else follows along?

[infoleib-blog]

Good point about wondering whether it is “okay to fragment the Internet and develop a secure system in the US only and hope everyone else follows along.” While your post refers more to the Internet from a security perspective, I also think it opens up an interesting set of questions as to how the Internet can be used in general.

While a universal Internet that operates similarly throughout the world sounds nice in theory, I am willing to accept an Internet that doesn’t work this way. I still feel the Internet can be useful, almost regardless of how it is customized to a country’s liking. At the end of the day, the Internet helps spread ideas, regardless of what controls certain governments might put into place. In countries with a more restrictive Internet such as China, I would like to believe (although I may be mistaken because I do have enough background in this) that people in the country are still able to more easily spread ideas than before they had access to the Internet. My guess is that more controversial ideas can perhaps be spread in “coded” ways: basically, people can talk about certain things without referring to them directly. Furthermore, the Internet is a more efficient way to find people with like-minded viewpoints, even if you have to be careful about making those viewpoints knows. Perhaps under very totalitarian governments, there will enough people spying on others’ Internet use and there will be harsh enough penalties to prevent people from expressing unpopular viewpoints, but I would also argue that this is actually very inefficient due to the vastness of the Internet, and there will be people who will be able to spread their viewpoints no matter what because of the Internet medium’s powerful ability to disseminate information easily and efficiently.

[musingsoninformationpolicy]

The Global War for Internet Governance

‘The Global War for Internet Governance’ is a fairly recent book by Dr. Laura DeNardis. I felt that the book did a really good job of taking a complicated policy area and breaking it down into parts in such a way that an information policy enthusiast can make sense of the mess. As we’ve discussed in class many times, information policy is a complicated area because of the large number of standards and policies already in place, and the decentralized nature of these. The author says that most of what goes on in the world of internet governance is hidden from the average user, and I agree with this assessment. Typically, we think that the government is responsible for “governing”. We, as citizens, have the right to voice our opinions, but in the end we leave it up to the government. It’s more complicated with the internet, because of a number of reasons (which have been described in detail in the book).

Dr. DeNardis says that the six main policy areas that dictate the state of the internet are - control of critical resources, setting internet standards, cyber security, interconnections within the internet, the role of information intermediaries, and the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The interesting thing here is that there is no single institution of government body that can lay claim to governing or dictating policies for all six of these areas. These are all policy areas that grew as the internet grew, and in which a need for governance arose and was met by different players. These policy areas may seem independent of each other, but they need some form of governance because they all affect civil liberties (freedom of expression and privacy), national security, global innovation, and also democracy. For my main discussion this week, I want to talk about the role of information intermediaries in the context of all four of these areas.

As discussed in Chapter 7, information intermediaries, or search / social media companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, have a large amount of control over the global flow of information over the internet. The best example of this is Twitter, which has now become the source of breaking news across the world. During drone strikes or in warzones, Twitter is sometimes the only source of unbiased information about what’s happening on the ground. Tweets from celebrities and politicians are now quoted in traditional news.

While platforms like Twitter encourage and allow for freedom of expression, this can sometimes be curtailed, when a company decides to block specific content or people based on orders from the local government or on humanitarian grounds. These private companies also collect a large amount of data about their users, and they may either sell this data to advertisers for profit, or be asked to disclose a person’s information by law enforcement. These platforms (including technical information intermediaries like GitHub and Apache) also control the flow of technical knowledge, thereby impacting global innovation. And finally, as evident from the heavy online campaigning for the upcoming Presidential election, these platforms have the ability to dictate the democratic discourse.

As a specific example of the role of information intermediaries, let’s look at content blocking on Facebook. According to this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/03/16/block-in-india_n_6876648.html), India makes the most requests to block Facebook content, with almost 6000 pieces of content being blocked during July-December last year. This is a staggering statistic - many would argue that it’s a curtailment of free speech. Do you think a nation’s government has the right to moderate what its citizens are talking about on social media? And what about the social media company’s role in this? Are they right to acquiesce to all content blocking requests made by a nation’s government? How does this change when an international incident is involved?

Another area that interests me, and that we’ve talked about in class before, is enforcement of intellectual property rights. There are two different discussions here - one is the attempts to stop illegal streaming or downloading of movies, music, and such, and the other is wilful hacking in an attempt to gain access to someone else’s intellectual property, such as code or writing. I feel like the similar treatment of the two under the umbrella of “intellectual property rights” is a mistake, and we should develop policies that address each of these areas separately.

Finally, I’d like to briefly mention another point from the book - the media’s role in the shaping the debate on information policy. Because of the lack of general technical knowledge, the media have the power to sensationalize information policy incidents (either exaggerate or underplay) such as the Snowden leak. Because traditional media is still how most of the political discourse around this area is shaped, I feel that they have the responsibility to present policy issues responsibly, and in a manner that a layperson can understand.

[infopolicyanw-blog]

I like that you brought up the role of the government. I personally believe the government exists to protect our rights and keep others from infringing on them. Is this censorship and regulation of the internet by the government a form of protecting us from others? You talk about how these policy areas affect our civil liberties, and I appreciate that you brought that into view as I feel like that goes back to the core of why we even have a government to regulate.

I had no idea that India was requesting so many blocks and you bring up a lot of great questions. I think it’s fine for the government to censor IF, as I had mentioned, it’s to protect the people and the stability of the community they live in. That’s obviously a gray area, however. But blatant misuse of power can be better evaluated in this mindset, in my opinion.

[infoleib-blog]

Really interesting what you brought up about Twitter. Something that I find particularly interesting (that I feel is quite relevant to what we have been discussing on Tumblr) is the difference in policy between Twitter and Facebook. Facebook will delete things it finds inappropriate, but Twitter won’t. Thus Twitter is a very raw slice of the Internet, for better or for worse. An example of this is that ISIS has it’s own Twitter account, even though this would clearly be disabled on Facebook. This is an interesting policy on Twitter’s end because it is the extreme version of the Internet being this medium where truly anyone can put anything they want up if they so choose. A tragic example is ISIS tweeting out horrific executions. As you point out, this unbiased flow of information makes Twitter extremely powerful for up-to-date news, with news usually coming out on Twitter before the mainstream media reports on it.

Does anyone have thoughts on whether Twitter’s policy is overall positive or negative? I don’t know how I feel, to be honest. Twitter is obviously extremely powerful, and an argument can be made that if someone wants to put something up on the Internet, people are going to find a way to see it no matter what. That said, I feel like ISIS has helped spread their propaganda through avenues such as Twitter, and Twitter could perhaps take a more active effort to remove things like this that may feed off of this ease of disseminating their hateful propaganda and gruesome executions.

[infoleib-blog]

When should the Internet be turned off?

In the section that discusses “The Dark Arts of Internet Governance”, the author highlights something very interesting: many governments (often times totalitarian ones) have turned the Internet off at certain times. More specifically, they have forced Internet service providers to withhold their services. While many of these occurrences have been to prevent unrest in times of mass turmoil (Egypt revolution, Iran election protests, etc.), we should still consider when it is appropriate or inappropriate for the government to force the Internet to shut down.

If we go by the argument we listened to during a previous week (that suggests the Internet is a human right), we would simply say “never.” I am curious, however, if there are times this would be appropriate within the context of national security, and if so, how we could prevent the government from abusing this power. The author gives a good example of a terrorist attack that is being coordinated via cellphones in order for it to be successful. Most people would say in a scenario like this that it would be fine to turn off the Internet as well as cell phone use. But this is an extreme example on the spectrum of possibilities. What if there were riots in a city? Should the government have the right to turn off Internet and cell phone access if this prevented looters from organizing? The obvious disadvantage (besides the government’s arguable abuse of power) is that it would be harder for people who are not rioting to ensure they are in a safe situation, and it would also be harder for an effective dispatch of emergency services. It is a tricky cost-benefit analysis to consider in many situations, but one that should be thought about in detail.

The government’s forcing Internet Service Providers to shut off their services also brings about another important topic (that is also discussed in the book), one that perhaps even has bigger ramifications because it is a more common situation: what responsibility do private companies have to comply with a government’s demands? As highlighted in the book, there’s really not much of a unified policy for this; rather, most companies have to address these issues on a case-by-case basis. I see this as becoming an increasingly tense situation between private companies and governments. The Edward Snowden leaks showed how many private companies were forced to give the government big chunks of their data. Important to note, many companies spoke out about how they felt uncomfortable doing so. Whether these companies were simply saying that to prevent a backlash against their brand, or whether they truly felt this way is up for debate. However, this highlights how the separation between private companies and governments (specifically with regards to personal data) is becoming increasingly blurred as governments are oftentimes strong-arming companies to comply with their demands.

[markmgray-blog]

Cyber War and the “Internet of Weapons”

Actual website: http://map.norsecorp.com/

I am proposing that we rename the “Internet of Everything” to the “Internet of Weapons.” After reading Cyber War by Clarke and Knake I can see this high level of interop resulting in various new vectors of attack. To backup my claim I want to cover some history of TCP/IP, specifically IPv4 our current routing system. IPv4 uses a 32-bit addressing schema to generate IP address for routing traffic all over the world. A 32-bit address space gives us 2^32 IP addresses to utilize. This means there are exactly 4,294,967,296 addresses to be used world wide. That sounds like an extremely large number. However, currently there 7.125 billion people on earth, close to doubling the number of IP addresses. Today there are 2 billion smartphones in circulation, and each of these has the ability to tie up 1 address. That is already half of the address space. You may be thinking, “so what, how does this turn connected homes into weapons?” In short, it doesn’t! The premise here is that creating an interconnected home will undoubtedly (at our current pace) exhaust our remaining address space. Ok, so we are going to run out of addresses for all of our devices what is the solution?

IPv6 is the latest version of the internet protocol (IP) and with it a whole new playground for cyber warfare. IPv6 supports a 128-bit addressing space (2^128 addresses) which is more than enough to support the internet’s infrastructure for the foreseeable future. Why do I state that it will open up new attack vectors in the word? Simply because it is new (in practice) and has not undergone the rigorous exploit attempts that have been performed on IPv4 since its beginning. IPv4 has been subject to many different exploits including the Ping of Death, DDOS, and system specific packet exploits. The ability to perform each of these attacks has been documented and in many cases there are firewalls in place to prevent them from happening again. In the “Ping of Death” attack a packet exceeding the 64 kilobytes of allowed data is sent to the destination server and causes the system to crash due to an overflow exception. This has subsequently been fixed in all known operating systems that were affected. This attack was crafted to target the Internet Protocol being used by the destination host. Thus moving to an entirely new system that has not been tested throughly will allow for these types of exploits to arise again. New systems come with new exploits and what these are we’ll just have to wait and see. It is not a far cry to imagine these exploits giving control of your connected house to a malicious user and thus causing the “Internet of Weapons.”

I want to comment specifically on one part of the book, that is when the author describes his vision of what a cyber attack would look like on a national scale. He describes trains running into each other, and power grids shutting down. These are not unlikely given an on-site hacker or intruder, but many of these systems are not connected directly to the internet. This is a common misconception and any company that has security as a relative thought creates separate networks within their company that many times do not talk. I worked for BP in their Digital Security and Counter Threat Unit over the summer and learned that all of their critical systems are behind strict security and do not have access to the internet. These systems require on-site users to operate, enable, and disable them. There are other ways that these can be infected, such as exploits in the applications, operating system vulnerabilities, and even unintentional installation of malware. It is not as simple as a hacker in Russia pressing a few keys in a terminal and disabling the entire Eastern seaboard. I can however see the Internet of Things giving hackers a way to simulate a power grid failure without actually disrupting power by taking control of home systems and rendering them inoperable on a large scale.

[infoleib-blog]

I am very happy to hear that most of the crucial infrastructure we worry about is completely unconnected from the Internet for security reasons. That said, you bring up a really good point about the Internet of Things and the danger it poses. While we have not reached the “Internet of Things” unit yet, I wonder if it is really as inevitable as we say it is given that there are so many inherent security risks (not to mention privacy risks). More simply, will it be embraced as something where the good outweighs the bad, will it not be widely adopted due to reasonable fears, or will there be something in between?

It is interesting that in our quest to make things efficient, we often times also make things more vulnerable. That said, redundancy can be employed as a safeguard to make a system more rugged, but it also obviously can make a system less efficient as well.

Your comments about IPv6 make me hope that a lot of people are trying to rectify this, but I guess there is only so much that can be done under a short time frame where we had to switch over quite quickly because we simply ran out of IP addresses.

[aksullyopinions-blog]

Cyberwar: The Next Threat to National Security and What to do About it?

Cyberwarfare is something I think all of us knew about in concept. But honestly, I really wasn’t educated on the details. From my background, I can guess and have a pretty good idea about the general things that happen in cyberwarfare, but its still just an educated guess. In high school, I took my first computer science class – and everyone jumped to thinking I can suddenly hack – definitely not true.

That said, this does remind me of something I read recently. Hola is a Google Chrome extension that people would use to mask their current IP address – usually because they wanted to watch a video that wasn’t available in their country. As a work around, they could install Hola and then pick what country they want to appear to be from. The service was “free” – we’ve mentioned in class that things that are free aren’t really. There is usually something else that is being gained by the company. So what could it be for Halo? The ever popular collection of information to sell to advertisers? Unfortunately nope. Hola decided to sell your IP address. They use it for their own purpose (they use your idel PC cycles) but they also sell it. And for some unfortunate Hola users, that meant they suddenly were involved in a botnet attack.

This isn’t the first story of its kind I’ve seen. But its alarming none the less. In Hola’s “terms and conditions” they actually tell you what they will be doing, but people say a “free” extension that would help them stream videos so they didn’t stop to think of what the consequences could possibly be.  In the past, we’ve talked about how we’ve given so much of our personally information away on the internet for free. Look at Facebook: our jobs, education, family relationships, friends, etc are all out there. To collect it, all Facebook had to do was make it an option for us to post it. What happened with Hola feels like a similar situation. People gave away their access point to the internet all on their own. Suddenly, their connection wasn’t their own anymore and anyone could do anything on it – and if its something illegal it traces back to the Halo user and not the real initiator. It crazy to think that we have the battle for our privacy on the internet but also a battle to  protect the privacy of the connection itself.

In terms of personal experience, I’ve mentioned before that I interned at the Naval Research Laboratory this summer, during which there was a series of notifications about the security clearance office being compromised. Information from people’s security clearance request forms were siphoned off. It was believed at the time to be China. The lesson: no one is invincible to cyber warfare. There are minor and major attacks that happen around us. Honestly, I wasn’t aware of so many of the examples in the book. Considering the impact these attacks can have, I’m surprised its not a bigger focus in media coverage when it does happen – but we all knew about Target and its credit card scandal. I guess it’s a matter of perceived threat – the credit card threatens my personal money while I’m less concerned about a cyber attack on some random country.

I’m really curious to see how we shape our policy around this domain. Like other topics, I feel this one is on the fringe of people’s minds. We are aware but we don’t grasp what the full impact is/can be.  At the end of the book, the author essentially outlines his own suggested steps for how the US should deal with this issue. The steps sound nice as you are reading it but then that makes you pause – if he is suggesting this as a future action doesn’t that mean that we currently don’t account for this? Time will tell how the US and the world adjust to the impact of the internet in the military domain.

[infoleib-blog]

Very interesting point you make about how we all know about the Target hack, yet not many of us are aware of cyber warfare. I wonder if the U.S. government is purposefully trying to be quite secretive about what is happening with cyber warfare or if there is just not enough public interest. When I read the book, I was actually kind of shocked that Richard Clarke, one of the most powerful people in the government at one point, revealed the things he did. It was unreal to actually find out what was happening on the cyber warfare front.

I am curious if cyber warfare is going to become a part of the national conversation, or if it is something that will be clouded in secrecy for quite some time (unless a major act of cyber warfare happens and the general public is forced to be made aware of what happened).

Clarke’s suggestions were nerve-wracking in the sense that it made clear where our security flaws are. The book was published in 2010, however, so I assume the picture is a little different now. I am sure many of the things he brought up have been dealt with in a more thorough fashion, although I worry that cyber security is a continuously changing situation where as soon as one threat is dealt with, a new threat pops up as technology further evolves.

[infoleib-blog]

Cyber War: Who should we be scared of?

Clarke’s book on cyber warfare is one of my favorite readings for the class so far. It was written in 2010, so obviously I assume a lot has changed since the book was written. That said, I still think the book is very relevant. What struck me more than anything was Clarke’s insistence that although the Internet makes it very easy for a “lone wolf” to do a lot of damage, these are not the people we should be worrying about the most. Rather, we should be concerned about other countries that are not our closest allies. I wonder how much has changed since he published this book 5 years ago (many of the updates I assume are classified), but I will address his concerns assuming that other countries are the biggest threat.

If we are to assume that countries remain the biggest threat on the cyber warfare front, whom should we truly be afraid of? Clarke discusses several countries that he is concerned about: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. I will discuss each of these nations in turn. First, to our more clear “enemies”: Iran and North Korea. I simply do not believe that Iran is capable of conducting a high level attack at this time. Furthermore, while the Iranian government has hateful rhetoric to the U.S. government, I also believe they are actually much more rational behind the scenes, and they see no reason to instigate a confrontation with America. It is important to note that Iran is traditionally not an “offensive” country in the sense that it almost never begins wars with other countries (although it promises extreme retribution if another country attacks it). As long as we do not attack Iran, I do not see them as a significant threat.

North Korea, on the other hand is much more unpredictable. In fact their dictatorship relies on it. Because other countries do not view North Korea as a rational actor, it is harder for these other countries to employ effective strategies to deal with North Korea. That said, North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. I think they would much rather steal intellectual property from the United States and sell it on the black market instead of trying to attack our country. The one threat I do see from North Korea is this: they could (and most likely do) steal military secrets from us in order to sell them to more powerful countries such as Russia or China.

Although China is often seen as one of the main traditional military threats to America, I simply do not agree with this notion. Our two countries are two economically interdependent for China to ever see it in its best interest to fight a war with us. Thus, economic interdependence can be a major method of stabilization between two countries. I assume China will continue to steal intellectual property from us, but I do not see them instigating an actual cyber war with us.

Out of the four main countries that Clarke discussed, I see Russia as being the biggest threat to America in terms of cyber warfare. Russia is a once powerful nation that has been in rapid decline over the past few decades, and it has not taken this decline well. Understandably, it is humiliating for a once great power to realize that they are not as powerful as they once were. However, Russia does still have a very strong military, and it has increasingly asserted its dominance in the Eurasian region over the past ten years (engaging in wars with local states and taking a more antagonistic doctrine on the world stage in general). I do believe that Russia is not suicidal, but they are still a country that could escalate a cyber war with America due to deep distrust and misunderstanding between the two nations, an increasingly antagonistic Russian foreign policy, and not enough economic interdependence to act as a major deterrent.

While I am hopeful that America (and the rest of the world) can devise safeguards in order for the worst-case cyber war scenarios to ever manifest, I also found Clarke’s book to be incredibly frightening, and it made me realize that perhaps cyber warfare is one of the biggest threats to our nation’s safety.

[voyager307]

Interop: Striking a balance between the promises & perils of interconnected systems

[infoleib-blog]

I also found the “lock-in” mentality that was explored in the book to be very interesting. I guess that’s what happened for a while with the vast majority of people using Windows as their operating system (not as much today, but more so in the 90′s), even though many tech-people argued that superior operating systems existed. The network effect is an extremely powerful concept. I guess a product does not have to be the best to win. Rather, a product has to be most ideal at a certain point of time that serves as a turning point for people deciding to adopt a technology. That said, the network effect can operate in reverse as well: Myspace used to be more popular than Facebook, but Myspace was so buggy, that eventually enough people jumped ship for the website to not serve a useful purpose anymore.

[musingsoninformationpolicy]

Interop

The core idea of the book “Interop: The Promises and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems”, is interoperability. The idea is a simple one, and it has been around, at least in the field of computer science, for a long time. In my mind, this is how I look at it - how can we make different things function together synergistcally? And, can we do so in a cost-effective way that makes it worthwhile?

Interop is an idea that is not limited to the tech domain. The railroad example from the book illustrates this very well. Automobiles are another example - if you know how to drive a car, you can probably drive any car. Most of the essential functions and features of a car are probably built in a standard way, independent of the manufacturer. There are probably regulations that require carmakers to do this. Was it always so, though? After cars were invented and started becoming common, I imagine there was a period where different manufacturers did different things with their cars before things became standardized. I also feel like we will go through another such phase when self-driving cars become an everyday thing.

Talking about software interoperability, the idea remains the same. The core requirement of interop is some form of standardization that allows different people to build different things that will be able to talk to each other and function together with little to no extra effort, by virtue of the standardization. Low-level communication protocols at the network level are already standardized - TCP/IP is the backbone of the internet. Now that our systems are starting to collect and process big data, the ideas of standardization and interoperability are being applied at a higher level of abstraction. SQL queries are a standard way to interact with any relational database, regardless of which specific database is being used in an application. Hibernate is an Object/Relational Mapping framework for Java which allows code to be written in a database agnostic way, and only requires some configuration files to make everything work. These things have existed for a while now.

With the backdrop of things becoming more and more connected, I’d like to talk about three things. First - the open source movement seems to be a step in the right direction for interop, and with the exception of Apple, tech companies which follow an open source development philosophy generally seem to be doing better than companies which do things the proprietary way. Second - at my previous job, I worked on a team that built proprietary frameworks to allow client-server applications to be written in any programming language and work seamlessley together. While these frameworks worked very well, we started having problems because code was not compatible with RESTful web services, which is pretty much the standard way of building client-server applications now. Third - I believe that the cloud computing industry will go through a period of upheavel because, as of now, there’s no standard way of interacting with cloud servers provided by various Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers, with Amazon WebServices being the biggest player. Given that it already has a large market share, there is no motivation for Amazon to standardize it’s APIs, but other, smaller companies are pushing for standardization to allow them to try to capture a larger market share. I’ve heard of companies attempting pseudo-standardization by writing a wrapper that internally maps commands to the specific cloud implementation, not unlike Hibernate for databases.

Talking specifically about data interoperability, with the rise to prominence of schemaless / NoSQL databases like MongoDB and Cassandra, and standard ways to transmit / receive documents like XML and JSON, we’re already well on our way. It may seem counter-intuitive that the key to data interoperability was not more structure, but less structure.

We’re starting to cross a threshold, and very soon the Internet of Things will be all pervasive - everything will be connected, devices constantly transmitting and receiving, exchanging data. This may lead to privacy concerns, because the same data can be accessed in multiple ways, with automatic authentication. However, I believe that the benefits outweigh the risks, and we’re heading towards a better, safer world.

[infoleib-blog]

Very interesting last paragraph about the Internet of Things. Do you think the Internet of Things will be inevitable, or will it be the sort of thing like Google Glass where it really depends how consumers react (with early adopters being really into it, and most people staying somewhat hesitant)? It seems like the sort of thing that could be a nightmare if hackers were able to access, but perhaps those kind of scary scenarios would only start popping up once there is heavier market penetration. If the Internet of Things becomes a part of our homes, will many people try to find some kind of sanctuary where they can have complete privacy?

[infoleib-blog]

Interconnectivity and its relationship to trust

Interop basically deals with the ramifications of a highly interconnected world. The Internet has radically restructured human connections, but while reading, I kept thinking about how high levels of connectivity have changed our concept of trust. More precisely, has this high level of interconnectivity forced us to trust others more? Or have we become a more trusting society, and technologies that promote interconnectivity have flourished as a result?

It is important to remember that no technology is inevitable; people have to adopt a technology in order for it to take off. Whenever I am having a particularly bad day, I try to remind myself of a pretty amazing fact: the percentage of people in the world who die from violence has significantly decreased. In fact, it’s at an all-time low. As in, never before in human history has violence been this low. Check this article out for more details: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent-stats_n_1026723.html

It’s such a powerful statistic to wrap our heads around, but it also makes me think that perhaps we are at an ideal time to be so interconnected with one another: we are capable of trusting each other much more easily than we would in the past. I think of this often when I cross the street or drive a car. There are so many moments during the day when I am putting my life in the hands of complete strangers, and yet I have almost no stress about this because statistically there is no reason for me to.

Obviously, this gain in trust is not simply because I live in a more interconnected world. There are many variables at play. But technologies that increase interconnectivity only succeed if the majority of people are okay with being more interconnected. The fact that so many people feel that the good outweighs the bad with interconnectivity leads me to believe that the human species has not only become less violent than ever before, but also more trusting of others.

[bingut]

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.“ The book tells us how governments and corporation have built an unprecedented surveillance state. People have been working for decades to crack the security and researchers claim to have created a modified version of Apple software development tool, Xcode, allowing them to sneak surveillance back doors into APPs and programs. This is not really new, the CAA has been working to find back doors in the computers that we use everyday, many people all over the world are trying to find the back doors into the devices we use.

In terms of commercial corporate surveillance that the public are willing to giving up their data in exchange for some kind of reduced price or a lot more efficiency in their ability to communicate. This apparent willingness on our part to give away true information about ourselves. We give away information all the times, our cell phones know exactly where we are at all the times otherwise, they cannot work. Facebook, email or paying with credit card, everything we do that generates data which are given to the third parties. We do it willingly or without any notice, or with full knowledge. We do that without any intention, because that’s how the system works. Whenever we are asked value of privacy, we say uniformly. I think we do not really think fully about what we are giving up. Just think when we go on the Facebook, use the Gmail, or do any of the services where the data is collected.

The powers of the surveillance do more than just simply store the information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news, articles and advertisements we see each day, but also the prices were offered. Companies using surveillance for persuasion for advertising which is done very finely personally. We see the Ads and someone else will also see the same one not only based on their interests but also based on what the companies believe our income level, how good customers we are. We are going to see some different results than somebody else. So depending on our political persuasion, we will see different Ads just as different offers. For example, we might get a different credit offer than someone else based on our income, proxies for our status. Many of these very personalized advertising designed to influence ourselves and influence our responses to others. There are companies collecting license plates looking for cars for repossession, sharing it with the government with homeland security, and we think this is necessary for security. But unfortunately, the evidences show that this is not. There is not a huge crime were unsolved because of the no surveillance in there. There are not a lot of crimes being solved by the surveillance. The crimes are solved by following the leads, that’s how terrorism plotter foiled. Whenever we asked the government to show how this surveillance is necessary, they can never come up with good examples. They occasionally come up with examples that do not past scrutiny but this really does seem to be were collecting it because we cannot because we need to.

Government surveillance and corporate surveillance are very similar, and they are partnership. The government surveillance is caused by fear; the other one is caused by convenience. They both collect very intimate data, where we live, work and what we are interested in. They shared these data back and forth, and these data are legal for the government to collect. Then corporations purchase the data from the government. It goes into databases, and the profiles are generated. These profiles are used in many cases to make decisions about us, to judge us and in all cases we do not have the ability to look at these data to correct them, to see why we’re being judged in how we’re being judged in secret.

At the end of this book, the author argues that Data is a pollution problem of the information age and protecting privacy is the environmental challenge all most all computers produce personal information, it stays around festering how we deal with it, how we contain it and how we dispose it. It is essential to the health of our information economy. The data we produce, the data computers produce, and what happens to the data, who is access to it, how do we recycle it, how we dispose of it. These are really important problems, and none of them can be solved overnight. As the author stated that it will take a couple of generations to figure these problems out. May be we should think ahead as to the problems and really consider where the data should be used? Where it should be disposed? How personal it is and how we cannot just give it to third parties for free.

I think there is a fundamental rights issue for the data related concerns. I agree with the author that privacy is not something to hide, is not something we only have if we are a criminal. Privacy is about individual autonomy, it is about presenting ourselves to the world, it is about being in charge of what we say about ourselves and what we reveal about ourselves. Privacy is a fundamental human need and it’s not something to hide.

What can people do to protect our privacy? This is a very difficulty question. No one wants to not carry a cell phone and not use email or not be on Facebook since these are the tools of society, we need them to be fully functioning members of society. The problems can be political and society. I agree with the author that we need political change. What people should do now is to observe surveillance and talk about surveillance. This should be an issue people should care about it. And the more we talk about it and make it an issue, the more it will get changed.

We are living in a world where we are being judged by our data, we are being judged in secret. We cannot figure out why we cannot, or how do we dress that we are denied for a mortgage or a job because of these data. Algorithms will make decisions not our human beings. If you think if you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide is convincing, then you have given up control of what kinds of things ought to be hidden to the mass surveillance authorities, and they will abuse it to eliminate anyone they perceive to be a threat, no matter how small it is.

[barelyopinionated]

Hey! I think you made a couple very good points. One I agree that privacy is a right. I don’t think that we can ever 100% control how others view us (nor do I think that it is healthy) but I think the current system gives most of the control to the data collectors. It is extremely difficult to control what data is produced on your computer because the computer produces a lot of it. (Did you know that facebook also keeps track of how long you view a post?) I know I often feel like I’m living in a glass house when I do stuff on my computer. And of course data collectors aren’t calling up our friends and telling them stuff about us. Often the data is used for a helpful purpose or in a benign manner. But data hacks happen and our data can get exposed. There is little accountability for abuse of data. IF I find out that my data has been used in a way I don’t like, I can’t do anything about it. Although, thinking about that, I can’t really control what a friend says about me either. Since data is constantly produced by our computers, it’s kind of like having a friend who blabs about you all the time but you have to keep talking to him in order to live in our society… ok that simile broke down somewhat but I hope it made sense.

Oh, also, somebody kind of hacked XCode.

[infoleib-blog]

[jakethefakesnake-blog]

Data Surveillance and Use

Bruce Schneier outlines a strong case that there is basically nothing we can do to remain anonymous with even the smallest amount of data matching.  In chapter 3, he throws out examples like professional hackers from China, Israeli assassins, and a member of the most notoriously elite hacker group in the world, all getting caught using data correlation.

I probably didn’t use enough italics to emphasize that.  It’s mindblowing stuff.  Professional hackers who know more about information technology than I ever will can’t hide themselves.

Schneier and other theorists (like us in class) often posit the choice like this:  we can take much stronger measures to protect our data, or we can give up privacy as a possibility.  For the first month of class, I might have been a little more on the first side of that choice.  

Now, though, I’ve learned a little more about just how easy it is to identify people using correlations.  The Netflix example has been brought up in at least two of the books for this course so far, and it remains compelling.  By checking that I watched Inglorious Basterds, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Man on Wire this summer, a researcher could knock on my door and say hi?   What the hell?  If it’s that easy - and bear in mind that anecdote is from 2008, algorithms are probably 32 times as powerful now, according to Koomey’s Law - then I’m going to have to wave the white flag on privacy.

Instead, I think it’s much more important what a specific company, researcher, or government actually does with the information.  After all, I willingly provide the federal government with a ton of information, all the time, in ways that have nothing to do with the internet.  When I move, I register for a new driver’s license, I tell the US Postal Service my new address and my old address, I remind the IRS my social security number when I want to get paid (setting up a W-2), and I tell the world my passport number whenever I fly.  Those things are ok for me to let the government know, because I have a certain amount of trust that the information won’t be abused.  (Not total trust, of course, but enough to relax and live a normal life.  Not too much alternative there).

The same applies to Google and Facebook.  They can have fun with my Likes of friends’ baby pictures and funny pet videos.  Go wild!  Sell me advertising!  But there are certain things that I don’t want them to do.  For instance, I don’t want to have higher or lower health insurance premiums based on genetic information.  I don’t want to be hauled in for questioning by the police based on correlations of scrubbed data unless granted a warrant by a judge.  I don’t want

I’m well aware - we all should be after reading Data and Goliath and Big Data from last week - that companies can do these things.  I’m also well aware that there’s basically no way to stop them.  So we should make them illegal.  It’s an imperfect solution, obviously.  An illegal act is by no means an impossible act.  But I think it’s the only way to simultaneously acknowledge that the cat’s out of the bag already regarding data correlation, and at the same time protect ourselves as best we can.  The legal system, warts and all, will by my shield.  

In the end, my solution is no different than our approach to any number of other dangerous activities possible in our society.  Practically anyone can get ahold of a gun (even easier now that they can be 3d printed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printed_firearms) or a car or some gasoline and matches, for that matter.  The only thing keeping our society from chaos is the mostly shared willingness to abstain from these activities, and the mostly shared agreement that these are wrong.  Why not apply the same standards to datamining activities we can agree are wrong?

[bingut]

There are too many different facets of online privacy, and I think it’s nice that we are finally starting to pay attention. However, how best to preserve our privacy in the digital age is a big problem. We have a pervasive sense that we are under surveillance when in public and very few feel we have a great deal of control over the data that is collected about us and how it is used. I think we will start seeing more and more online privacy tools. In the lead generation industry, I am amazed every day at how easily consumers online will give up their personal information for something that a website may offer. Online service providers are among the least trusted entities when it comes to keeping information private and secure. We are all naturally trusting people, and, therefore, don’t envision our personal information being shared, added to phone dialer systems, subscribed to drip email campaigns, sold to creditors, hacked, exploited, and generally taken advantage of. Some companies respect privacy and secure data, but the ones that don’t ruin it for the good guys! This is the primary reason that we started so that consumers can quickly generate temporary and disposable phone numbers and email addresses when they share their personal information online.

[infoleib-blog]

[infoleib-blog]

Privacy as a basic human right

I remember we discussed last week whether the Internet should be a human right or not. This led me to think what should or should not be a human right. I would have to say that I strongly believe privacy is a human right, and it leads to a richer and more diverse society.

While there are many disturbing quotes in this book from powerful tech hotshots (Scott McNealy, Eric Schmidt, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.), I found one of Zuckerberg’s quotes to be the most disturbing:

“You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly. Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”

I place great importance on the fact that I can show different facets of myself to different people. My relationship with my parents is not the same relationship as the one with my close friends, which is not the same as the relationship I’ve had with a romantic partner. Even within these groups I’ve mentioned, there are still many subgroups of what I show or do not show to a person. In fact, one thing that makes a friendship or relationship so special is that you can share a side of yourself that you don’t share with other people (in fact, this might even be one of the central tenets of intimacy). Having only one identity can one-dimensionalize a person, and it forces her or him to be pressured into a continuous role that is unreasonable to expect of that person. Context is so vital to the human experience: if people are viewed the same way in every context, I see this as one of the most unfortunate things imaginable.

I really like the author’s discussion of “the ephemeral.” Ephemerality allows us to make mistakes. It allows us to experiment, to explore. It allows us to take chances, to experience a diversity of things without fear of permanent judgment and shame. The coming permanence of every action we take is indeed tragic. The beauty of the human condition relies on the fact that we are in a process of changing, that we are able to improve ourselves. A healthy society allows people to mess up and mature as a result. I worry that this loss of ephemerality will force the majority of us to walk around with our very own scarlet letters. Some of us will have a stupid remark we made 20 years ago permanently circling the Internet, others will have nude pictures on the Internet, and the list goes on. Many of these things are not even morally wrong; they’re just simply private artifacts that have been made public.

Even if we do commit morally inappropriate acts and get “found out” as a result, the truth is that we all have made mistakes in our lives, and every single one of us has regrets. It is truly despotic, however, when we are not allowed to make any mistakes without facing severe repercussions.

As a final aside, I often think about what it means to so easily “look up” a person online. When you “Google” someone, you know things that this person hasn’t chosen to share with you, and yet it’s so easy to access. I no longer have a Facebook profile, but when I did, I remember how bizarre it was that I could know so much about a person I just met (or even hadn’t met at all!). One of my favorite parts about making a new friend is being able to see someone so completely new that my perspective shifts as to why a person might be the way they are. When that person’s whole identity is just out there in this easily digestible form (a la Facebook), I find that the beautiful mystery of that person has somehow been compressed into this bastardized summary of who that person actually is.