Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets

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I feel like I should start with a notice: This is not a product placement blog post.

The image that you see at the head of this post is for a CCTV-like mirror. I was linked to these recently and the very first thing that I thought was “Wow, my partner would never let me buy these and install them as replacements for mirrors in the house”. The second was “I wonder what the consequences of having them secretly delivered and installed while she was out would be”.

I’ve decided the consequences would far outstrip my (sure to be incredibly!) momentary amusement. That said, I would love to have something like this outside of a well-trafficed bathroom in a place that I lived in, just so that people thought a little bit about how often cameras watch them do private actions, but without a necessarily clear reason for why the cameras need to be there.

(Really, I think that I’d like them because it would be something to talk about that is a bit more interesting than the paintings that we have on the walls, because I’m really not all that competent at discussing the intricacies of fine art. Plus, I just think that the CCTV-like mirrors are kind of cool.)

Technorati Tags: Humour

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Just a quick note, but in Britain lollipop ladies may soon be outfitted with cameras to monitor traffic at dangerous intersections. It’s the children, of course, who are motivating this new deployment of cameras - cameras will presumably cut down on dangerous drivers. Whether attaching cameras to little old ladies will be effective, it has been shown that traffic cameras have been incredibly effective in some areas of the US in reducing dangerous driving. These cameras have been so successful, in fact, that cities are removing their cameras because drivers are committing fewer crimes; the cameras are simply not profitable.

I wonder if Britain will treat cameras attached to old ladies the same way?

Technorati Tags: Britain, Ubiquitous computing

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I’ve written about Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies before, and their various potential privacy issues. Generally, I’ve talked about how the possibility of having your ISP persistently monitor your online actions could stifle the substantive abilities exercising of autonomy, liberty, and freedom of conscious. I won’t revisit those issues here, though I’d recommend checking out my earlier post on DPI. What follows examines how ISPs are injecting information into the webpages that you visit, which prevents you from viewing webpages as they were designed.

Web Tripwires

When you visit a webpage, your computer downloads a little bit of code and renders it on your screen - the web is an environment where visual stimulation necessitates copying data. Recently, researchers from the University of Washington and the International Computer Science Institute have discovered that about 1.3% of the time what is displayed on your computer’s screen has been altered. This having been said,

70 percent of those modifications were caused by client proxies installed to deal with pop-ups or to block advertising. The researchers also note that not every alteration is problematic; some cellular operators, for example, will strip extra whitespace from pages or will provide extra compression for images to keep bandwidth usage low and browsing quick. (Source)

You can take a look at the program that the researchers used, and see if some of your pages are being blocked, by heading over to their research site.

Innovating for Life(TM)

Rogers announced last year that they were bringing PersonalWeb(TM) to their users. This sounds like a great thing - the news brief notes that;

. . . the undertaking will enable end users to obtain an entirely customized Web experience. PersonalWeb will deliver tailored content such as sports, news, music, video, advertisements and product recommendations based on those users’ unique interests .

. . .

[The initiative] will bring together all the content a user likes most about the web: links to their favourite sites, their email, a multi-engine search bar - all on one neatly organized page. As they surf the web, users will teach PersonalWeb what they are interested in and the software will build their page with links to Web content related to those interests. At the same time, using standard Interactive Advertising Bureau advertising units, the PersonalWeb technology serves highly relevant ads to consumers on their home page. The tool will cut through noise and clutter to bring users more of the things they like best - and help them steer clear of the rest. (Source)

This has led to some intrusive, though (currently) benevolent alterations of content. One blogger has captured an image of a Rogers-altered webpage: Google.ca/

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You’ll note the text above the Google logo, which notes that the user in question has reached at least 75% of their monthly quota. The issue, of course, is that Google didn’t give permission to having their webpage defaced, nor were you given the option of disabling the technology from inspecting your packets. Lauren keenly notes in her blog post about this that another logo has been inserted onto an ‘owned’ page. Given that this technology is meant to develop contextual links that are built ‘for you’, and given that it has the ability of inserting that information in webpages without your consent, with Rogers you are rapidly entering a space where not only can your digital activities be monitors, but they are.

Who Cares!?!?

Beyond network neutrality experts, who gives a damn? In Rogers’ case, they’re providing a valuable service, right? If this is how they are going to limit their involvement with webpages, then it doesn’t matter!

I would generally categorize ‘people who care’ into a few groups.

1. Privacy advocates - how is the information being stored? What information is being collected? Why must this information be collected? What processes are in place for individuals to inspect the digital records that are kept on them? How will these technologies affect the creation/reinforcement of data cocoons?
2. Parents - how do I know that the ads which (might) be displayed won’t be inappropriate for my five year-old child? Will the sexual interests held by my partner and I result in pornographic ads? Can I contextualize the inspection and delivery results? Will software/technical support be provided so that I can easily manage this new technology/have it managed for me?
3. Corporate business - is my brand being diminished? How can I prevent my brand from being associated with other logos? Can I protect my website from being misrendered? What will my consumers think when they realize that they are being watched while visiting my online space? Is there legal action I can pursue? I can’t just stick stickers with my logo in clothing stores, why do ISPs think they can stick their label on my stores? Will this affect my ad revenue?

These are just a few of the things that immediately come to mind. I’m sure you can think of others.

ISP injections are not something that are likely to go away without at least the threat of legal regulation/prevention. In this case, we can hope that corporations will go to war with one another, where companies like Google and Yahoo! take issue with the defacement of their corporate web spaces. Given that ad revenue will (eventually) be on the line, one can expect that they will make an issue of things. This said, I’d rather not leave things to a market solution - a democratically legitimated solution would be far, far better.

A wider issue for consumers is that programs such as Rogers’ may sound benevolent, but they fail to capture how these ‘personalized’ experiences will be generated - they make no mention that delivering this environment requires a constant surveillance of your online actions. Rather than just clicking ‘I like sports, politics, not technology, not women’s issues, and I like comics’ your ISP will monitor where you go and deliver results to you before you even ask for them. While perhaps convenient in some cases, this threatens to cut us off from information that deviates from our routine interests - rather than experiencing the ‘New York Times’ effect, where you find a random article that shapes your views and attitudes while browsing to page 78 of the paper, you’ll never see that article on page 56, and only ever see the items on page 78 and others like it. This isn’t healthy for a developing mind, nor a mind that wants to be critically engaged in society.

Technorati Tags: network neutrality, puppy, Rogers, Surveillance, Technology

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Honda has released a new GPS system for their vehicles where it will warn drivers when they’re about to leave their car in areas where there is a high chance of theft, vandalizm, or other criminal activity. I have two, relatively short, things to note about this:

A Comical Note
I can just imagine programming this thing for Rio - all the device would say was ‘If you’re stupid enough to think that this will help you here, you’re almost certainly a tourist’.

A Less Comical Note
This continues the pervasive surveillance of what you’re doing AND associates it with databases that you can’t be certain are terribly secure. I imagine that if a particularly enterprising individual surreptitiously made a few changes, and the the GPS was followed to the letter, that badness would ensure. Beyond fear-mongering, however, this technology associates perpetual vehicular monitoring with safety, and mistakenly presents the notion that police equally monitor and respond to reports in all areas of GPS coverage. This is a legitimate badness - it further complicates the problems surrounding self-awareness and unquestioned reliance on external data sources, sources that can become significant factors in one’s daily life.

Of course, it won’t be sold that way: Live in safety! Let us watch you! Surveillance stops all crime! Just look at CCTV in Britain.

Gizmodo link

Technorati Tags: Surveillance, Ubiquitous computing

Jim Harper, Esq.
Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute
Editor, Privacilla.org
Washington, DC

In a recent presentation to the Summer 2007 Privacy Symposium, Jim Harper lays out a series of concerns about a national identification system. I’m just going to run through them quickly - watch the video that I link to at the end of the post to view his presentation yourself.

Authentication versus Identification

• Authentication is where you are challenged to provide a set of items/data in order to gain access to something. An example would be the requirement to have both a banking card and a PIN to access your bank account - this authenticates your access to the resource, but it isn’t a wholesale validation that it is actually Christopher Parsons who is accessing my bank account. Instead, what this does it is gives enough information to the bank that it is comfortable providing access to my bank account, without actually knowing for sure that it is me accessing the account.
• Identification draws on unique characteristics that make up who you are, and validates that person attempting to gain access to X or do Y against the recorded characteristics that identify that person. This involves validating a person against facets of their constitutive being, with a popular identifier coming from biometric information. This passes beyond authentication systems because the person is certifiably identified. Whereas I can give you my bank card and PIN, I would have a far harder (and more painful) time giving you my right eye and left thumb.

What is Identity for?

• While it is helpful for both communication and business, it is perhaps even more valuable for when we need to associate responsibility for particular actions, something that is especially important if something goes wrong. Case-in-point; when a politician fails to perform their tasks in a fashion meeting community standards, it is because of our ability to identify that politician that we can find a way to sanction them. Without an identification-based system it would be incredibly challenging to hold individuals responsible for actions that they have taken and, simultaneously, we would be less likely to effectively reward those who performed exemplary services.
• Identity can be valuable because it is multifaceted - we project and have projected upon us different identities depending on the particular relationships that we are in. This is valuable since I don’t necessarily want the identity that I share with my parents to be the same as the one that I share with my friends or my bank. In essence, identity is multifaceted/multivariate, whereas my personality (ought) to remain uniform.

Identity Compression

• When we compress identity to a single point of contact, by instituting something like a unified state or national identification system, we create a single point of vulnerability and/or failure that lends itself towards identity theft. Effectively, by consolidating information to a single space, we make it a more valuable target and eventually someone will gain illegitimate access to the system.
• Drawing all information into just a few databases increases the risks of dataveillance dramatically. It allows for a substantial degree of usage-creep, where the intended uses of the ID systems gradually extend beyond its initially defined confines. Harper notes that this kind of data-creep has, historically, led to genocidal activities.

Forcing Analogue to Digital

• The attempt to move everything to a unified system is entirely at odds with how we live our lives. We have multiple sets of keys so that we can let someone drive our car but not gain access to our house. Effectively, our ‘traditional’ systems take into account the fact that we don’t really want to be in an environment where we have a single point of failure or hold a lone identity. Moreover, our analogue history has shown us, time and time again, that we like to let different people access different parts of our lives depending on the relationship that we have with those particular others. The attempt to force changes in digital environments that are out of sync with our historical attitudes should be, if nothing else, a warning that we’re trying to change something with considerable historical and social precedent.

The Inefficiencies of Databases

• I won’t spend much time on this here, because I talk about it reasonably frequently, but as soon as your actions are validated against a single database you become incredibly vulnerable to inaccuracies in that database. In the case of the US SSN Administration Database, Harper notes that there is a 4-5% error rate in that database. Imagine what will happen if, after compressing identity to a mere handful of databases, there is an error!
• While Harper doesn’t not this, we should remain mindful of the regenerative characteristic of many databases, where changes in slave databases are only temporarily effective.

Link to Video: http://www.icvclients.com/ehcca/privacy_2007/2_245/

Technorati Tags: Identity, Surveillance, Transparency