Author: Christopher Parsons

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

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Quotations

The Possible Implication of Letting Lying Liars Keep on Lying (Often About Their Lies)

From Salon:

But here’s the thing. Mnuchin’s shameless posturing about the administration’s tax plans—at one point he even promised there would be “no absolute tax cut for the upper class,” which was a laugher given every proposal Trump had ever backed—points to a deeper problem. The man regularly says things that just aren’t true. He’s been claiming that there was an analysis underway. There wasn’t. And while a lot of people may roll their eyes about that in the context of a wonky tax debate, his complete lack of credibility is going to be a problem if we ever run into a serious economic or financial crisis. Just ask yourself: If the markets were crashing and Steve Mnuchin held a press conference assuring everybody that the administration had an action plan in the works, would you believe him? His complete detachment from reality has mostly been an infuriating sideshow during this tax push. If stuff ever really hits the fan, though, his reputation for fibbing is going to make things even worse. Just like someone else we know.

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Expenses at University

It’s absurd that I have to carry expenses for multiple months before universities will reimburse me for expenses incurred speaking at their events. It shouldn’t take 160+ days to reimburse speakers who put aside multiple hours to prepare presentations, travel to location, present, etc.

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Supreme Court of Canada to Decide on Protection of Journalistic Material

From CBC News:

The materials at issue relate to three stories Makuch wrote in 2014 on a Calgary man, Farah Shirdon, 22, charged in absentia with various terrorism-related offences. The articles were largely based on conversations Makuch had with Shirdon, who was said to be in Iraq, via the online instant messaging app Kik Messenger.

With court permission, RCMP sought access to Makuch’s screen captures and logs of those chats. Makuch refused to hand them over.

RCMP and the Crown argued successfully at two levels of court that access to the chat logs were essential to the ongoing investigation into Shirdon, who may or may not be dead. They maintained that journalists have no special rights to withhold crucial information.

Backed by alarmed media and free-expression groups, Makuch and Vice Media argued unsuccessfully that the RCMP demand would put a damper on the willingness of sources to speak to journalists.

The conflicting views will now be tested before the Supreme Court.

This case matters for numerous reasons.

First, there has been a real drying up of certain sources, which has prevented journalists in Canada from bringing material to public light. Such material doesn’t just pertain to terrorism and foreign combatants but, also, white collar crime, political scandals, cybercrime issues, and more. The Canadian public is being badly served by the Crown’s continued pursuit of this case.

Second, this case threatens to further diminish relations between the state and non-state actors who may, as a result, be (further) biased against state authorities. It’s important to be critical of the government and especially aspects of the government which can dramatically reshape citizens’ life opportunities. But should the press gallery adopt an unwarranted and more critical and combative tone towards the government there could be a deleterious impact on the trust Canadians have in their government . By extension, this could lead to a further decline in the willingness to see the government as something that tries to represent the citizenry writ large. That kind of democratic malaise is dangerous to ongoing governance and a threat to the legitimization of all kinds of state activities.

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Quotations

2017.11.29

Most fundamentally, is it in Canada’s interest to further normalize the growing use of CNA (Computer Network Attack) activities by states? Should CNA be classified as just another tool of statecraft? Should such capabilities be restricted to a deterrent role? Is cyber deterrence, whether through CNA capabilities or more conventional responses, even a practical goal, given difficulties of attribution and the inevitable overlap between CNE (Computer Network Exploitation) and CNA? Would improved defence and resilience be a preferable, or at least sufficient, response or are all three required?

Bill Robinson, “CSE to get foreign cyber operations mandate”
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Quotations

2017.11.28

As effective encryption spreads, it may well be that the future of SIGINT lies increasingly in “end point” operations and other activities designed to cripple or bypass that encryption, and some of those activities could certainly benefit from HUMINT assistance. But there are also pitfalls to that approach. Using on-the-scene people in foreign jurisdictions can mean putting individuals at extreme risk, and such operations also have increased potential to go wrong in ways that could expose Canada to extreme embarrassment and even retaliation. If the government is contemplating going down that road, it should probably be open with parliament and the public about its intentions.

Informed consent. Because it’s 2017.

Bill Robinson, “CSE and Bill C-59 overview”
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Christmas in Coffeeshops

I’m certain that it’ll eventually drive me mad, but at the moment I’m enjoying the holiday music that’s playing in the coffee shops I work out of. Bring on Christmas and the holidays!

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I’m Not Linking to the Clickbait

The title of an article The Verge put up today — “My $2,000 iPhone X” — is the worst kind of clickbait. The article’s title is misleading (the phone was about $1500) and doesn’t actually inform the reader of the topic (the author bought extra stuff). It’s stuff like this that best exemplifies the bait and switch problems with online writing.

And no: I’m not linking to the clickbait.

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Consolidation of Writing

One of the long(er) term goals of this site is to host my personal thoughts. But it’s meant consolidating stuff from medium-personal (as opposed to journal-like) sites. Today marked when I migrated + published more than 600 items. Only multiple hundred left!

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Metadata in Context – An Ontological and Normative Analysis of the NSA’s Bulk Telephony Metadata Collection Program

Abstract:

In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, the National Security Agency (NSA) responded to fears about warrantless domestic surveillance programs by emphasizing that it was collecting only the metadata, and not the content, of communications. When justifying its activities, the NSA offered the following rationale: because data involves content and metadata does not, a reasonable expectation of privacy extends only to the former but not the latter. Our paper questions the soundness of this argument. More specifically, we argue that privacy is defined not only by the types of information at hand, but also by the context in which the information is collected. This context has changed dramatically. Defining privacy as contextual integrity we are able, in the first place, to explain why the bulk telephony metadata collection program violated expectations of privacy and, in the second, to evaluate whether the benefits to national security provided by the program can be justified in light of the program’s material costs, on the one hand, and its infringements on civil liberties, on the other hand.

A terrific paper from Paula Kift and Helen Nissenbaum.

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How severe will this flu season be?

From the Globe and Mail:

Every year, around February or March, the World Health Organization provides its recommendations on the composition of influenza vaccines for the northern hemisphere for the next flu season, based on its projections of what viruses are likely to be in circulation. But it’s hard to predict just how effective the vaccines will be.

In general, flu vaccines are around 50 per cent effective. But for the 2014-15 season, the vaccine effectiveness against H3N2 was less than 10 per cent. Flu shots are by no means perfect, but they’re still considered the best way of protecting people from getting sick.

The trivalent flu vaccine given this year, which contains three components, is comprised of an H1N1 vaccine component, an H3N2 component, and an influenza B component.

While the H1N1 component in this year’s flu shot has been updated for the coming season, the other two components have remained unchanged from last year’s flu vaccine, Skowronski says. Depending on which is the dominant strain this year, this could spell trouble.

“If it turns out to be a H3N2 season, then that means the vaccine effectiveness is likely to be suboptimal,” she says. That’s because last year, with the identical component, the vaccine effectiveness for H3N2 was around 35 to 40 per cent. And since the viruses are constantly changing and mutating, Skowronski says it’s unlikely the effectiveness of the same vaccine component will be any higher for the coming season. “That’s one of the unfortunate, concerning factors, frankly, from my perspective: that the H3N2 component is unchanged, yet we know the virus is changing.”

Even so, just because this year’s flu shot contains two out of three of the same components as last year’s, don’t think you won’t need to get vaccinated again if you got the shot last year. The updated influenza A component may help protect you in an influenza A outbreak, Warshawsky says. Plus, she adds, “We also know that the duration of protection doesn’t necessarily last well from one year to another. So relying on last year’s vaccine will not necessarily carry over protection to this year.”

The amount of information covered in the Globe and Mail’s article is really, really impressive. I learned a lot about the flu, vaccination, and how different vaccines interact with flu. Highly recommended.