Author: Christopher Parsons

Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.

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Videos

TVO: Beyond the Blinders

So, I pointed to some of the issues with Steve Paikin’s comments a few days ago. Recap: he posted to his blog that he had significant problems getting women onto his program, and used some insensitive/poorly considered language in expressing why he thought TVO was facing challenges.

TVO’s put on a show that (more or less) takes Paikin to task. It’s worth a watch, and it reveals both how Paikin views the challenges of booking as well as a set of women who take him to task. More discussions like this need to happen, and at length, in more of our popular media venues.

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Links

The colossal arrogance of Newsweek’s Bitcoin “scoop”

Talking with Salmon, Goodman said she has an “enormous amount of evidence, including evidence which is not public,” persuading her Dorian Nakamoto is the right guy. “Goodman has not decided whether or how she might publish that evidence… What’s more, she has also made it clear that she was in possession of evidence which other journalists could not obtain,” Salmon wrote.

And that’s a problem, because many aspects of the story already look like a caricature of journalism gone awry. The man Goodman fingered as being worth $400 million or more is just as modest as his house suggests. He’s had a stroke and struggles with other health issues. Unemployed since 2001, he strives to take care of basic needs for himself and his 93-year-old mother, according to a reddit post by his brother Arthur Nakamoto (whom Goodman quoted as calling his brother an “asshole”).

If Goodman has mystery evidence supporting the Dorian Nakamoto theory, it should have been revealed days ago. Otherwise, Newsweek and Goodman are delaying an inevitable comeuppance and doubling down on past mistakes. Nakamoto’s multiple denials on the record have changed the dynamic of the story. Standing by the story, at this point, is an attack on him and his credibility.

Ars Technica has written one of the better critiques of the Newsweek story which (likely incorrectly) identified the man believed to have invented Bitcoin. It’s worth the read, if only to have the current state of debate over Newsweek’s story nicely summarized.

Source: The colossal arrogance of Newsweek’s Bitcoin “scoop”

Categories
Quotations

2014.3.20

It is disconcerting to realize that the reassessment of classification policy described by Mr. Litt was not prompted by the diligent exercise of congressional oversight or by judicial review or by ordinary advocacy. Rather it was explicitly inspired by the Snowden leaks, which Mr. Litt described as “criminal.” The upshot is that leaks emerge as a uniquely powerful tool for shaping intelligence classification policy, while conventional checks and balances appear all but irrelevant by comparison.

Moreover, the purpose of the newfound push for greater transparency seems to be instrumental, not principled. In other words, it is driven by tactical considerations, not by statutory requirements or any other objective norm.

“I strongly believe that the best way to prevent the damage that leakers can cause is by increased transparency on our part,” Mr. Litt said. “Transparency can both lessen the incentive for disaffected employees to disclose our activities improperly, and provide the public appropriate context to evaluate leaks when they occur.”

That implies that what is needed is only as much transparency as it takes to achieve these imprecise and transient goals. It is a unilateral move that can be unilaterally reversed.

Steve Aftergood, “ODNI Rethinks Secrecy and Openness in Intelligence”
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Links

Practical Steps Towards Telecommunications Transparency | Technology, Thoughts & Trinkets

I’ve just put up a longish thought piece on how Canadian telecommunications companies can practically move to improve the transparency of their corporate practices. Sometime in the next few weeks I intend on writing up how governments can develop accountability reports, and the importance in distinguishing between corporate transparency and government accountability as it relates to state surveillance.

Categories
Writing

Theme Update/Simplified

So, ever since I did my last theme refresh here at Quirks in Tech I’ve actually been disappointed. I mean, the last refresh was better than what it replaced but still had a litany of issues around responsive formatting, header issues, and a lot of ugly cruft that I had to do (the theme that served as its base was…problematic).

The single most infuriating aspect of the previous theme, however, was its inability to properly format quotations. It made me angry each time I saw one at the site (as opposed to on the Tumblr dashboard).

A few days ago I massively revamped how the site looks. There are a few little niggles here and there that i need to tease out (and wow, is Tumblr ever weird to work in as someone more accustomed to dealing with WordPress) but on the whole stuff’s sorted out. It’s much, much more visually minimalistic while simultaneously being functional. And because it’s nice to look at, I’m here a lot more!

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Aside Links

In-depth with Android Wear, Google’s quantum leap of a smartwatch OS

We take a look at how Android Wear works, and even manage to break some stuff.

This is the most in-depth analysis that I’ve seen of the Android Wear API and functionality. I have doubts that predicating most/many of the ‘active’ uses of the Wearable through voice is going to be a super popular thing: I can’t recall the last time that I saw someone ask Siri a question, or used Google’s voice-based search. I’m sure that some people do engage in such behaviours, but I’ve never once seen it while riding public transit or walking around the cities I’ve visited or lived in. As a result, I’m left wondering: who is actually using voice-based commands to control their devices? And will expanding the kinds of devices that can receive such commands actually lead to mass changes in how people engage with technologies?

Source: In-depth with Android Wear, Google’s quantum leap of a smartwatch OS

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Aside Links

How I Left Academia: A Recovering Academic’s Introduction

I can take issue with an awful lot of academia, but was fortunate to have an incredibly supportive dissertation supervisor who did (and continues to do) his best to ensure that I landed either in a good academic, government, non-profit, or corporate position. And there’s never been a stigma attached when I’ve pursued these various options (really: there’s just been support and encouragement!)

But I know that my experiences aren’t common. The series that Karen is running over at her website on leaving academe is useful in just exposing what it’s like to leave an academic ‘life’, and the baggage that is often associated with that choice. Allesandria Polizzi’s pieces, in particular, strike me as explaining to academics and non-academics alike what it’s like to straddle academe and corporate life, and the difficulties that a lot of people face in simply trying to explain themselves to their academic and corporate colleagues.

Source: How I Left Academia: A Recovering Academic’s Introduction – Polizzi 2

Categories
Aside Quotations

2014.3.19

…undercutting this fair-to-strong record on the policy side is Mr. Flaherty’s general approach to the budget process, which could only be more opaque if it were one of Frank Underwood’s schemes on “House of Cards.” As the finance minister has tackled the budget deficit with across-the-board spending cuts, it has been impossible to get reliable information on what was being cut. Compounding the problem has been the use of omnibus budget implementation bills, which have included a host of things not directly related to the budget, such as changes to environmental regulations and policies affecting First Nations.

Not even the parliamentary budget officer, a position created as part of broader “accountability” reforms, could obtain the information needed to see what programs were being affected by the government’s austerity measures. Rather than operating on the basic democratic principles of transparency, Mr. Flaherty attacked the PBO, Kevin Page, as exceeding his proper mandate.

This is a pronounced stain on a legacy that is otherwise up for legitimate debate. Whether the GST or corporate tax cuts were inappropriate or whether one ideologically favours or disapproves of the government’s efforts to reduce the size of government, we should all agree that Canadians deserve to know, with clarity, what the government is doing. While much of the focus on Flaherty has been his ability to return the budget to balance, the climate of obfuscation surrounding his budgets is a significant and lamentable background to everything else he accomplished.

Emmett Macfarlane, “Flaherty’s policy brilliance overshadowed by darker politics”

What will be most damning is if, whenever another party is elected to govern the country, they merely change policy positions without also ending the current practices of omnibus legislation and budgetary obfuscation. Fiscal policies are something that Canadians can legitimately debate the merits of. There should be little to no debate that legislation, regulations, and budgets should be accessible to citizens who just want to understand what these things mean, how they are implemented, and the implications of their implementation. A representative democracy is farcical when citizens and their representatives alike cannot discern the actions of the day’s government; as it stands today, much of Canadian democracy is little more than a bad farce.

Categories
Aside Quotations

2014.4.19

the [Australian Security Intelligence Organization] ASIO said that Snowden’s leaks will make it more difficult for the organization to collect meaningful data about a person, so the organization should be given more leeway to perform its surveillance duties. In its proposal, the ASIO asserted that certain technological advances are detrimental to its spying on bad actors (a refrain that is not often heard, as it’s generally accepted that technology is making it easier to spy on citizens).

…

Smaller state police organizations joined the ASIO in asking that telecom companies be obligated to retain customers’ metadata for a substantial period of time. (The ASIO cited as a preferred model President Obama’s proposal earlier this year to compel telecom companies to keep customer data rather than having the NSA siphon that data into its own repositories.) But police organizations like the Northern Territory Police and the Victoria Police also went further in requesting that the Australian government require companies to keep IP addresses and Web browsing history as part of its metadata collection.

The Northern Territory Police, for example, argued for a two-year retention of Web browsing history. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the police thought “a shift away from traditional telephony services to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and others meant that data may be included in browser histories and was ‘as important to capture as telephone records.’”

Megan Geuss, “After Snowden, Australia’s cops worry about people using crypto”

So, given that Australians are decreasing their trust in their government based on what they’re learning their intelligence services are presently doing, the same services argue that they should have even more access to Australians’ private communications? Because more data retention combined with shadowy access to telecommunications data will improve trust in government and, as a result, strengthen the democratic spirit of the Australian people, right?

Categories
Aside Humour

NSA Photoshop Win

Andrew Hilts wins the photoshop war on NSA today!