Author: Christopher Parsons

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

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Women in politics: Why Ottawa isn’t quite as equal as we think it is

Women in politics: Why Ottawa isn’t quite as equal as we think it is:

Theoretically, more women on ballots means more women in office, as research shows voters have no bias against them as candidates. But Thomas’s own research shows that parties are not setting up female candidates for a fair fight. In 2011, she found that all three national parties (the Green party did not run a full slate) placed more women than men in “unwinnable” ridings. Women were more likely to run in another party’s stronghold (59 per cent vs. 47 per cent for men), less likely to run in competitive battlegrounds (24 per cent vs. 28 per cent) and less likely to run in their own party’s strongholds (17 per cent vs. 25 per cent) than men.

A good long-form piece on gender equality in politics. It digs a lot deeper than most of the often-feelgood pieces that are written about the federal government’s gender policies, providing both historical information on gender equality, analysis of contemporary practices, and how other jurisdictions work far more diligently to foster equality in public offices.

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Hackers Hijack a Big Rig Truck’s Accelerator and Brakes

Hackers Hijack a Big Rig Truck’s Accelerator and Brakes:

When WIRED reached out to trucking industry body the National Motor Freight Traffic Association about the Michigan research, the NMFTA’s chief technology officer Urban Jonson said the group is taking the researchers’ work seriously, and even funding future research from the same team. And Jonson acknowledged that the possibility of the nightmare scenario they present, of a remote attack on heavy vehicles, is real. “A lot of these systems were designed to be isolated,” says Jonson. “As automobile manufacturers are increasingly connecting vehicles with telematics systems, some of these issues need to be addressed.”

That the Association’s reaction is to work with researchers instead of trying to sue them is a very good sign.

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How foreign governments spy using PowerPoint and Twitter

How foreign governments spy using PowerPoint and Twitter:

Right now, there are probably many journalists, human rights organizations and democracy activists walking around oblivious to the invisible tracking that is going on behind their backs. It’s time to wake up to the silent epidemic of targeted digital attacks on civil society and do something about it.

The protections built into our technologies are flimsy and routinely subverted. The merits of a ‘first to market’ ethos that predominates technical innovation must be contrasted, and weighed, against the mortal risk these same technologies pose to some users.

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How Not To Get Hacked When Renting An Airbnb Apartment

How Not To Get Hacked When Renting An Airbnb Apartment:

The problem is that, thanks to the rise of home-sharing services such as Airbnb and HomeAway, thousands of people are letting strangers into their houses and apartments, and, potentially, into their networks and routers.

That’s why, Galloway argues, we need to be careful when connecting to Wi-Fi networks in Airbnbs, and just treat them like we treat airport or Starbucks connections.
“When you’re traveling and you’re on an unfamiliar network, you should behave like it and not behave like when you’re at home,” Galloway says. “You don’t use the Airbnb toothbrush, and you should probably think twice before just jumping on their network and putting your bank credentials in there.”

If you’re a renter, Galloway says the first thing to do to stay safe is using a virtual private network, or VPN, that will encrypt and protect all your connections. (There’s a lot of easy to use options out there, such as Freedome or TunnelBear.) Another, slightly more complex precaution, is to hardcode DNS settings into their devices, switching to Google Public DNS, for example.

I don’t disagree with this advice but admit it’s only something I consider when travelling for work (in part because I do so few ‘risky’ things when vacationing and decision to mostly rely on apps which I hope – though often cannot know – are transmitting credentials over SSL). But more broadly I think that what is being argued for is out of touch with how people are generally taught to understand computing and out of touch with how most Airbnb hosts operate: guests rarely meet their host and it’s unclear how often hosts themselves ever really look in on their properties. So maybe before we insist that people be wary of landlords and Airbnb hosts we should be considering what baseline requirements for offering such services themselves should be.

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The Security of Our Election Systems

The Security of Our Election Systems:

Government interference with foreign elections isn’t new, and in fact, that’s something the United States itself has repeatedly donein recent history. Using cyberattacks to influence elections is newer but has been done before, too ­ most notably in Latin America. Hacking of voting machines isn’t new, either. But what is new is a foreign government interfering with a U.S. national election on a large scale. Our democracy cannot tolerate it, and we as citizens cannot accept it.

Last April, the Obama administration issued an executive orderoutlining how we as a nation respond to cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure. While our election technology was not explicitly mentioned, our political process is certainly critical. And while they’re a hodgepodge of separate state-run systems, together their security affects every one of us. After everyone has voted, it is essential that both sides believe the election was fair and the results accurate. Otherwise, the election has no legitimacy.

Election security is now a national security issue; federal officials need to take the lead, and they need to do it quickly.

The effects of a decade of focusing on attack capabilities at the expense of defence is now becoming apparent. And I’d bet that we’ll see democratic governments call for heightened national ‘defence’ capabilities that entail fully inspecting packets. Which will require laws that water down communicative privacy rights. Which will themselves damage the democratic characters of our political systems.

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Dollar Shave Club and The Disruption of Everything

Dollar Shave Club and The Disruption of Everything:

The implications of this go far beyond P&G: fewer Gillette razors also mean less TV advertising and no margin to be made for retailers, who themselves are big advertisers; this is why I argued last month that the entire TV edifice is not only threatened by services like Netflix, but also the disruption of its advertisers, of which P&G is chief.

The importance of looking at secondary consequences of product disruption – in this case with regards to men’s razors – is key to mapping out the still-developing Internet-inflected economy. If it’s razors today, what might it be tomorrow?

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Can we design sociotechnical systems that don’t suck?

Can we design sociotechnical systems that don’t suck?:

Many hard problems require you to step back and consider whether you’re solving the right problem. If your solution only mitigates the symptoms of a deeper problem, you may be calcifying that problem and making it harder to change.

Ethan’s essay is a long response to Shane Snow’s proposals for prison reform. In short, Snow is aiming to adjust conditions inside of prisons without considering whether there is a broader series of social issues that are responsible for actually leading to incarcaration. And, worse, he’s making his proposals without lived experiences of what prison itself is like.

The crux of Ethan’s argument, really, doesn’t concern the kinds of prison reform which are(n’t) appropriate so much as this: is it appropriate for a given person, or group, to solve the problem(s) in the first place? Are they capable of even identifying what are the problem(s)?

I think that this kind of attitude – of humbleness and appreciation for one’s limited perspective on the world – is something that should be taken up by more technologists, policy makers, and law makers. Too often we assume we know how to help without even knowing whether, and if so why and under what conditions, help is needed in the first place.

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Chelsea Manning Could Face Additional Punishment for Her Suicide Attempt

Chelsea Manning Could Face Additional Punishment for Her Suicide Attempt:

U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning tried to kill herself on July 5 in her cell at Fort Leavenworth military prison. Now, military officials are considering filing charges in connection to the suicide attempt that could make the terms of her imprisonment much more punitive — including indefinite solitary confinement — while possibly denying her any chance of receiving parole.

According to a charge sheet posted by the American Civil Liberties Union, Manning was informed by military officials on Thursday that she is under investigation for “resisting the force cell move team,” “prohibited property,” and “conduct which threatens.”

After engaging in the equivalent of torture, the US government considers doubling down and to make Manning’s live even more unbearable after driving her to suicide. A ‘just’ state indeed.

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The Best Coffee Roasters in Toronto

Only helpful for those local to Toronto, but it’s great for those of us that are. I particularly enjoy Pilot and Propeller, though admit that my favorite place to get coffee these days is from Ideal Coffee (the Red Sea beans are absolutely terrific). Still, I look forward to trying the whole list and determining if there is a company that can unseat Ideal Coffee or Pilot and Propeller!

The Best Coffee Roasters in Toronto

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Roger Ailes Got Us To Mistrust Everyone—Including Himself

Roger Ailes Got Us To Mistrust Everyone—Including Himself:

The best evidence that Ailes no longer wields the power he once did? If reports are to be believed, Ailes himself is about to step down from the network he defined. On its surface, the reasons have nothing to do with Fox News’ diminishing political influence. Gretchen Carlson, a former anchor, has accused Ailes of harassment, and apparently a number of other women—including Kelly—have come forward with their own accusations. James and Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s sons, have long looked to boot Ailes, and now they seem to have found the opportunity to do so. Still, it’s hard to imagine that Ailes would be so vulnerable if his role as GOP kingmaker were still secure.

He wouldn’t be ‘vulnerable’ to being fired for sexual misconduct if he still was influential in, or with, the Republican Party. This is the definition of casual sexism in journalism.