May 22 2008
Another liveblog from the Coinference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy. Session on closed circuit law enforcement video surveillance and law enforrcement data sharing and mining via “Fusion Centers.” Panelist bios at http://www.cfp2008.org/wiki/in… .
EPIC’s resource on Fusion Centers
May 21 2008
Liveblogging a presentation at the 19th Annual Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy by tech advisors to the Obama and McCain campaigns, entitled the Clinton Campaign was invited to participate, but declined. The official title of the session, Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive
In attendance a blend of academics, dotgovs, corporados, civil liberties orgs, cyberpunks.
Opening, Conference Chair Eddan Katz of Yale reminds that the only tech question of the 2000 Predidential debate cycle, asked at the MYV/CNN debate, was “Mac or PC.” Apparently, the questioner had a more sophisticated question in mind, but was told to use the softball by debate organizers.
Mar 01 2008
Hundreds of high definition digital channels await you a mere 353 days, 12 hours, 10 minutes from right now. Are you impressed? No I am highly depressed. What they tell you and what is behind the scenes. It is much like the past seven years of legislation with noble sounding titles and hidden destructive memes.
This “change” is not for the better.
Jan 18 2008
Slashdot has a quick blurb on a report in the TimesOnline. Micro$oft has just filed a very interesting patent:
Microsoft submitted a patent application in the US for a “unique monitoring system” that could link workers to their computers. Wireless sensors could read “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure”, the application states.
Unique is right! Brain signals?! I wonder if they’re going to measure temperature rectally. I also wonder if the thing would know you hate it the minute you plug in. This is the kind of stuff they do with astronauts and pilots. I’m really glad there’s no diaper mentioned in the patent.
Dec 20 2007
Full piece posted on ePluribus Media 2.0.
As is often the case in hotly contested discussion, claims of invalid comparisons are often made alongside calls to compare “apples to apples” instead of “apples to ice buckets” or some other such mis-matched scale.
In order to help further along the discussion of why rendition, torture and individual rights to privacy, decency and proper representation in a court of law matters no matter the reason, I present two current stories after the fold that both concern the abuse of a man and a tortured penis.
Make the jump…
Dec 18 2007
caveat: Oxford University Press has been sending me books to review. I only read the ones that seem interesting to me.
crossposted to dailyKos
The quick take: Privacy in Peril
by James Rule, is a well-written, well-researched, and well-thought out book on privacy covering philosophy, government surveillance, commercial surveillance and the future of privacy.
If you are interested in privacy, you should probably read this book
Dec 13 2007
Well now that technology “allows” me to whip out a cell phone to pay my cell phone bill while waiting in the dentist’s office this “convienience comes at a price. It is apparently so convienient most of the internet connected world has their hand in your pocketbook. For a price these two companies will ask the question for you, “Did I Steal Myself”.
http://www.lifelock.com/
https://www.identitytruth.com/…
Now the added bonus in all this is secondary. They are getting you to pay to advance the science of data mining.
http://www.commondreams.org/he…
http://www.noahshachtman.com/a…
http://csdl2.computer.org/pers…
And you thought FISA was bad?
Anyway I think it just illustrates the principle of how some retarded ideas come to be institutionalized. People are trusting their most intimate details by loading them into a toy, a toy which has to “update” itself every five minutes because there is a “security alert”. And no, I don’t know anyone in Nigeria so I do not believe their government owes me 10 million dollars, Oh, and I don’t have an account with Bank of America.
OK, so you might say big deal, I’m not doing anything illegal so I don’t have a care right? Required homework assignment. Study fully this site. Click on it associated links, peruse the content and absorb the true evil.
The Apocalyptic horses are in great spirits today!
Nov 12 2007
Apparently, the problem we are all having with the FISA bill is a simple matter of semantics. We take the concept of privacy to mean privacy. How silly of us. As the Associated Press reports:
As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.
Trust us. We’re Big Brother. Public and private. We own you!
Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are “perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data.”
See how stupid we are? If we’ll willingly allow immigrints to handle our private data, shouldn’t we be as willing to allow Big Brother? That’s actually an astonishing revelation of Kerr’s xenophobic bigotry: immigrants as the baseline of people who shouldn’t be trusted! Coming from one of this nation’s top intel officials!
Kerr also points out that since young people post private info to MySpace and Facebook, they really don’t care about privacy, anyway; and never mind that those who post to such websites actually choose what gets posted, and who sees it.
“Those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it’s not for us to inflict one size fits all,” said Kerr, 68. “Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that.”
See, that, young people. You just don’t care about your privacy! Isn’t it nice that good Mr. Kerr is there to speak on your behalves? We also need to take another look at that second sentence:
“Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that.”
It particularly can’t be won when the principal deputy director of national intelligence is fighting against it!
(more)
Sep 19 2007
I’ve long been a fan of found objects.
They could take the form of a discarded piece of still-functional furniture hauled out to the sidewalk, and quite possibly with a hand-written “Free! Take Me!” sign affixed to it with masking tape. Perhaps a photograph. A plastic toy whose time on the street has left it gravel-scratched, and therefore, to me anyway, somehow more appealing. On a morning walk to work back in June, as schools were letting out for the summer, I happened upon a rather elaborate, hand-drawn, construction and manila paper game board that some youngster presumably crafted for a school project. The name of their invented game, delightfully, is Osos Locos, and while I was disappointed that my surruptitious treasure did not include the game cards as well, I was pleased enough with my find to share it in the office–an online retailer of games, ironically–for all to enjoy, which we still do.
For some parts of this colorful chunk of the planet I now call home, I employ an advisable look but don’t touch rule. Off-puttingly soiled or otherwise unportable items upon which I stumble may only come back home with me in memory or photograpic form.
And some found objects are truly unsettling, such as the scrap of paper that I’m going to put into the shredder imminently.