Author: Christopher Parsons

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

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Aside Quotations

2013.3.30

The determination by Congress and President Barack Obama’s administration to protect networks of critical U.S. industries from hackers and cyberspies is creating an explosive growth opportunity – for lobbyists.

There were 513 filings by consultants and companies to press Congress on cybersecurity by the end of 2012, up 85 percent from 2011 and almost three times as many as in 2010, according to U.S. Senate filings. Twelve firms have submitted new registrations this year on behalf of companies including Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Motorola Mobility unit, Symantec Corp. (SYMC), United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) and Ericsson Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Stockholm-based Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson.

Eric Engleman & Jonathan D. Salant, “Cybersecurity Lobby Surges as Congress Considers New Laws”

I’m sure the lobbyists are only there as good patriotic Americans, aiming to best ensure that Americans are kept safe and Congresspeople and Senators (and their associated staff) just get the best information possible. No way that, in the wake of US scaremongering, lobbyists are looking to massively expand ‘security’ projects to the detriment of Americans’ privacy and (almost comically) security interest. Right?

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Quotations Writing

“Commercially Friendly” Privacy Rules

Dr. Pentland, an academic adviser to the World Economic Forum’s initiatives on Big Data and personal data, agrees that limitations on data collection still make sense, as long as they are flexible and not a “sledgehammer that risks damaging the public good.”

He is leading a group at the M.I.T. Media Lab that is at the forefront of a number of personal data and privacy programs and real-world experiments. He espouses what he calls “a new deal on data” with three basic tenets: you have the right to possess your data, to control how it is used, and to destroy or distribute it as you see fit.

Personal data, Dr. Pentland says, is like modern money — digital packets that move around the planet, traveling rapidly but needing to be controlled. “You give it to a bank, but there’s only so many things the bank can do with it,” he says.

His M.I.T. group is developing tools for controlling, storing and auditing flows of personal data. Its data store is an open-source version, called openPDS. In theory, this kind of technology would undermine the role of data brokers and, perhaps, mitigate privacy risks. In the search for a deep fat fryer, for example, an audit trail should detect unauthorized use.

Steve Lohr, “Big Data Is Opening Doors, but Maybe Too Many”

So, I don’t really get how Pentland’s system is going to work any better than the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) work that was done a decade ago. Spoiler alert: P3P failed. Hard. And it was intended to simultaneously enhance users’ privacy online (by letting them establish controls on how their personal information was accessed and used) whilst simultaneously giving industry something to point to, in order to avoid federal regulation.

There is a prevalent strain of liberalism that assumes that individuals, when empowered, are best suited to control the dissemination of their personal information. However, it assumes that knowledge, time, and resourcing are equal amongst all parties. This clearly isn’t the case, nor is it the case that individuals are going to be able to learn when advertisers and data miners don’t respect privacy settings. In effect: control does not necessarily equal knowledge, nor does it necessarily equal capacity to act given individuals’ often limited fiscal, educational, temporal, or other resources.

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Aside Humour

Cat vs Packing

thefrogman:

[video] [h/t: cineraria]

And in this biology video, we see the white cells of your average packing box surround the intruder, with the effect of excising the hostile specimen from the otherwise healthy host organism/box. It’s amazing how organisms in nature develop extraordinary defences!

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Quotations

2013.3.28

Right now, in Montreal, the very right to protest, that most fundamental right to freedom of expression, is under assault. If we give in, and stay home for fear of these preposterous tickets, we will have lost not just the battle but the war itself. Indeed, the worst part about these tactics is that they work. I know many friends who will no longer go to protests for fear of arrest and a ticket they cannot afford. What a sad state of affairs when the police bully and intimidate citizens out of exercising their right to criticize the government. So go to the demos, go to all the demos, and prove you will not let fear and intimidation win out. If you get a ticket, contest it. The legal resources to ensure you succeed are freely available. And no matter what you do, make sure to go to the demo on the 22nd of April, which I think should be branded as a manif in defence of our civil liberties. If there are enough people in the streets, the cops can’t do a thing. Small crowds are what allow these abuses.

When our police force denies that we have any right to peacefully express our dissent, there is no recourse but to fight tooth and nail to protect our rights. This is far too important an issue to let slide.

Ethan Cox, “‘There is no right to protest’: Montreal police deny Charter rights”
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Aside Links

New credit cards vulnerable to electronic pickpockets

Fortunately, only ‘advanced payment cards’ are currently affected by this. Well, and the BC Services Card once it’s in people’s hands and the chip has been activated.

Categories
Quotations

2014.3.26

That smartphones allow us to imprison twice the number of people at half the cost is the kind of cutting-edge innovation that only management consultants and tech entrepreneurs would be excited about. Such breakthroughs would be worth celebrating if they didn’t distract us from the more radical (and simpler) solution to the problem of overcrowded prisons: incarcerating fewer people.

Smart technologies are not just disruptive; they can also preserve the status quo. Revolutionary in theory, they are often reactionary in practice.

…

Smart technology, thanks to its ubiquity and affordability, offers us the cheapest — and trendiest — fix. But the gleaming aura of disruption-talk that often accompanies such fixes masks their underlying conservatism. Technological innovation does not guarantee political innovation; at times, it might even impede it. The task ahead is to prevent our imagination from being incarcerated by smart technologies. Or should we settle for gamifying ourselves to death?

Evgeny Morozov, “Imprisoned by Innovation”
Categories
Quotations Writing

2013.3.26

But in the long run that’s a problem for Google. Because we tend not to entrust this sort of critical public infrastructure to the private sector. Network externalities are all fine and good to ignore so long as they mainly apply to the sharing of news and pics from a weekend trip with college friends. Once they concern large swathes of economic output and the cognitive activity of millions of people, it is difficult to keep the government out. Maybe that deterrent will be sufficient to keep Google providing its most heavily used products. But maybe not.

Huh. This Economist article seems to be in favour of nationalizing the internet? And most other services?

(via towerofsleep)

I think that the focus was more on the services provided by private companies, as opposed to infrastructure itself (i.e. not the wires, but the stuff that runs on the wires). But I think The Economist has a point that governments could be involved if services that are perceived (note: perception does not necessarily correspond with empirical facts) as essential are threatened.

What really threw me in the piece was this paragraph:

But that makes it increasingly difficult for Google to have success with new services. Why commit to using and coming to rely on something new if it might be yanked away at some future date? This is especially problematic for “social” apps that rely on network effects. Even a crummy social service may thrive if it obtains a critical mass. Yanking away services beloved by early adopters almost guarantees that critical masses can’t be obtained: not, at any rate, without the provision of an incentive or commitment mechanism to protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service.

I mean: I really, really, really use Google Reader. I use the shit out of it on a daily basis. I’m the definition of one of their power users, with hundreds of sites subscribed to – often ones that only get updates every month or two, but that are super helpful for my research – and so I’m far from impressed that Google’s shuttering the service. Reader lets me hold onto the long-tail of the Internet.

But: I’m not certain how a writer can clearly link ‘early adopter’ with yanking away Google Reader. I mean, it’s an older(ish) service. We’re not talking about something that was spawned a few months ago. I get that the write might have been obliquely referring to the social functions of reader that were stripped out a year or so back, but still: there’s no way (at the time of Reader’s social demise) that you can imagine those individuals as ‘early adopters’. The product was mature (as far as many Internet products go) and just didn’t have a lot of people using the service for social purposes beyond a pretty vocal minority.

I want to be clear that I’m already dreading the loss of Google Reader. Seriously dreading. But the article in The Economist is kind of weird insofar as it mixes what are arguably fair points with insider baseball and vaguely suggested ‘beware government regulators if you screw with the services your users really use.“

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Aside

Brazilian BBQ

imathers:

nudewave:

Ian and I are going to Texas De Brazil in less than two weeks:

Treat yourself to our 50-60 item seasonal salad area including appetizers, gourmet vegetables, soups, and salads. Turn your place card to green and prepare to be swarmed by a troop of carvers generously serving various cuts of seasoned beef, lamb, pork, chicken and Brazilian sausage, all accompanied by traditional side items and house-baked Brazilian cheese bread. As you dine endlessly on Brazilian fare, let one of our in-house wine connoisseurs select the perfect pairing from our extensive, award-winning wine lists, or sip on a freshly-made signature cocktail-the Caipirinha. Complete your dining experience with one of our many decadent dessert selections, and then relax with an after-dinner drink, steaming espresso or a hand-rolled cigar and enjoy the ambiance and service perfection that is uniquely Texas de Brazil.

So, I mean, if we die in Ron Swanson’s wet dream, it’s been real, y’all. I’ll just be singing MEAT to the tune of LMFAO’S SHOTS until then (EVERY ANIMAL!).

Apologies to my non-meat-eating followers, but “Ron Swanson’s wet dream” is right; next to being in the same room as my wife, this is the thing I’m most excited for. As I said to Anaïs, we are going to feel so awesome/horrible after.

Brazilian BBQ is just a terrific experience. Was sad to not get a chance to enjoy it last time I was in Rio.

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Links

Trojan can hijack smart cards, says researcher

Well, at least this technical threat isn’t a problem in Canada, where we aren’t moving towards advanced electronic identity cards meant to subsequently be accessed using personal computers to access sensitive data held by government services.

Oh. Wait. I forgot: we’re doing just that, aren’t we.

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Videos

John Cleese on how to be creative