It might be interesting to take the airport scanners that are getting attention at the moment and look at them through the lens of being false positive-centric.
Advanced technology helps find the true positives. The point of doing it is to find hidden bombs that could kill a lot of people.
However, taking a machine's representation as a stand-in for something real has problems. We also have lie detector machines, and their results are (if I have this correctly) not admissable as evidence in courtroom trials. So the scanners could be terrific, subject to the usual concerns: (a) incompetent technicians making mistakes, (b) A plant: falsified scanner images designed to target someone. It's rare, it's unusual, but not nearly as difficult to do in digital environments as in someone's dresser drawer. If the TSA starts to be used to do political persecution, what might happen next is that "the solution will unfold when the time comes, from the impact of the problem itself." People would make other arrangements - but like I asserted in the last post, if there always must be a "canary in a coalmine" or a kid must get killed at a crosswalk for the new traffic light to go in, the impact of the problem can indeed be said to have gotten the ball rolling for a general solution, but the family of that kid will see it differently.
If you trust the machine, if you trust the manufacturer (and they don't have a cloud over them, Diebold-style,) if you trust the technicians and you are confident that they are acting in good faith, I think these types of scanners could be an elimination of false positives. In a way, it's the opposite of an indiscriminate basket warrant. Or an indiscriminate camera on a street in London. It's technology being used at a very specific time and place, to make sure that nobody getting on a plane is going to do damage, to people and property, way out of proportion to its being a single event.
So leaving aside the dramatic flashpoints, most of what happens at an airport scanner is banal. As far as the banal annoyance and humiliation of having to deal with a lot of new crap at airports, I don't know. On the one hand, air travel had a martial quality in the first place. There's no mistaking the inside of an airport for a free place. I'm not that surprised that airports now feel like mini police-states, and I don't know that I mind. On the other hand, I think it's worrisome to be carving out exceptions for certain parts of a society. Airports are one point on the slippery slope. There is really no limit to the the sorts of events and social roles that could be invoked in order to gradually militarize more and more special exception zones within a representative democracy with a bill of rights, or a charter of rights and freedoms. The charter would still hold, except here, except over there, except on alternate Tuesdays, except at city hall, except at the airport and the train station and soon you have a charter that is like swiss cheese. It makes sense when we feel the militarized quality of a big airport because big airports are busy, with loads of people and objects passing through and then escaping for faraway places. And there's money involved - airplanes are expensive to replace. And passengers riding on commercial airlines hold their breath, suspend their disbelief, and put their trust in the airline for those few hours. All good reasons for carving out a militarized zone - maybe - but these same attributes also happen in many other places: other transportation hubs, downtown shopping areas and financial districts. And the impetus/pretext for a militarized zone could also unfold over time: a natural disaster, a visiting dignitary or president staying at a big hotel or attending an event at a giant convention complex. One of the points that Paul Jay made in writing and doing videos on the G20 meeting is that it's actually at the time when they are under pressure that it is the most important for rights to be retained. Otherwise you're always going to be able to find some reason to suspend, suspend, suspend.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Bedbug -sniffing Dogs
From the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/bed-bug-sniffing-dogs-are-causing-false-alarms/66448/
No grand impacts from this particular story but... I am documenting *all* false positive stories I get my mitts on, not just the really salient ones. The issue here is money and reputation. It will hurt the dogs' reputation if they don't have a good rate of having been right. So this phenomenon has some salience because it suggests that calm, Occam's Razor and a shrug about power structures is sufficient - if they do a bad job, their reputation goes in the toilet. "What are you worried about - the proof will be in the pudding. If a police chief turns out to have been wrong one too many times, the guy is sacked."
My complaint is that it makes those *first few* incidents into canaries in a coalmine. Or to repeat another phrase I have repeated in a few different posts, "some kid always has to get killed at the crosswalk to get the new traffic light put in." In the case of this news story, let's say for argument's sake that authorities could compel a hotel to do expensive fumigations because the dog sniffed bedbugs. It turns out the dog was wrong, and by that time, the hotel has already spent money. So the remedy is that the reputation of the dogs suffers. And this is better than nothing, but it sucks for the first few examples who were instrumental in bringing that problem to light. And if the domain you're talking about is something irretrievable - money can be refunded, but let's say we're talking about the death penalty based on DNA evidence which is later found to be wrong - it is a problem because you aren't going to be able to bring that person back. Even if the reputation of DNA evidence duly suffers, the actually-not-guilty person has already been executed.
To add one final thing to this messy post, I want to mention the idea of "it could be you." Someone who tries to point out the fallibility in a given system can use the argument, "it could be you, you might feel differently if it were you or someone you know." The vast middle class comes back with Occam's Razor.
"It's just not going to be."
"Why not?"
"It's just not going to."
So we are more comfortable and less concerned with "canary in a coalmine" situations where something can be remedied gradually, when it is at someone else's expense. Possibly race and economics comes into it, because if the person saying "you're being an alarmist," is well off and/or not part of an ethnic group that tends to be poorly treated, they are subtly taking advantage of that, even though they might decry it out loud.
So to be more specific, a poor black man is a suspect for murder. Through DNA evidence, he is found guilty, gets the death penalty and is executed. He's later exonerated. People start to have second thoughts about DNA evidence. But if someone was trying to drum up more attention for the flaws in the DNA-evidence process before the wrongful execution happened, they wouldn't have gotten very far. And one of the reasons they wouldn't have gotten very far is that "it could be anyone, even you!" arguments wouldn't have caught fire because the center can fire back, "it won't be me so it's not my problem." Ultimately it seems to me like a subtle exercise of might makes right.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/bed-bug-sniffing-dogs-are-causing-false-alarms/66448/
No grand impacts from this particular story but... I am documenting *all* false positive stories I get my mitts on, not just the really salient ones. The issue here is money and reputation. It will hurt the dogs' reputation if they don't have a good rate of having been right. So this phenomenon has some salience because it suggests that calm, Occam's Razor and a shrug about power structures is sufficient - if they do a bad job, their reputation goes in the toilet. "What are you worried about - the proof will be in the pudding. If a police chief turns out to have been wrong one too many times, the guy is sacked."
My complaint is that it makes those *first few* incidents into canaries in a coalmine. Or to repeat another phrase I have repeated in a few different posts, "some kid always has to get killed at the crosswalk to get the new traffic light put in." In the case of this news story, let's say for argument's sake that authorities could compel a hotel to do expensive fumigations because the dog sniffed bedbugs. It turns out the dog was wrong, and by that time, the hotel has already spent money. So the remedy is that the reputation of the dogs suffers. And this is better than nothing, but it sucks for the first few examples who were instrumental in bringing that problem to light. And if the domain you're talking about is something irretrievable - money can be refunded, but let's say we're talking about the death penalty based on DNA evidence which is later found to be wrong - it is a problem because you aren't going to be able to bring that person back. Even if the reputation of DNA evidence duly suffers, the actually-not-guilty person has already been executed.
To add one final thing to this messy post, I want to mention the idea of "it could be you." Someone who tries to point out the fallibility in a given system can use the argument, "it could be you, you might feel differently if it were you or someone you know." The vast middle class comes back with Occam's Razor.
"It's just not going to be."
"Why not?"
"It's just not going to."
So we are more comfortable and less concerned with "canary in a coalmine" situations where something can be remedied gradually, when it is at someone else's expense. Possibly race and economics comes into it, because if the person saying "you're being an alarmist," is well off and/or not part of an ethnic group that tends to be poorly treated, they are subtly taking advantage of that, even though they might decry it out loud.
So to be more specific, a poor black man is a suspect for murder. Through DNA evidence, he is found guilty, gets the death penalty and is executed. He's later exonerated. People start to have second thoughts about DNA evidence. But if someone was trying to drum up more attention for the flaws in the DNA-evidence process before the wrongful execution happened, they wouldn't have gotten very far. And one of the reasons they wouldn't have gotten very far is that "it could be anyone, even you!" arguments wouldn't have caught fire because the center can fire back, "it won't be me so it's not my problem." Ultimately it seems to me like a subtle exercise of might makes right.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Common Carriers
I got this metaphorical story from my friend Orion. Suppose there is a cadre of mob criminals. They want to communicate about their plans for a new heist, and do it securely. So they all pile into two cars and set off for a deserted highway. It's reckless, but they start communicating about their next job by flashing morse code with their headlights. Everybody signals "OK, we got it!" at the end and this is the only conference they ever have about what turns out to be a bungled heist where a bystander is killed.
If these mafia members can be caught and it can be shown that they had this morse-code conference, can the Transportation Agency responsible for the highways be held liable?
This story is on my themes, somehow. I'm not going to take too much time mulling over right now how, but I wanted to get it down before I forget.
If these mafia members can be caught and it can be shown that they had this morse-code conference, can the Transportation Agency responsible for the highways be held liable?
This story is on my themes, somehow. I'm not going to take too much time mulling over right now how, but I wanted to get it down before I forget.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Technology
I have felt for a while that the concentrated powers of high tech get a free pass from scrutiny. The reason why it's relevant to this blog is that false positives and false negatives are the kinds of things you can get away with when no one is holding your feet to the fire. I have a cluster of thoughts that I don't see being expressed anywhere - it's very possible I'm mistaken, but it's something that I think is on the horizon. Recent terror incidents in the U.S. suggest that the types of things that would need to be considered fair game in order to prevent/preempt them are changing. It becomes more of a psychological question, when this notion (either accurate or cynically trumped up) of "homegrown" terror gains credence. And when it becomes more of a psychological question, it becomes OK to ask questions about people's thoughts and ideas even on a quiet day. Supposedly, the ends would justify the means. (And as always, I have room in my conception of how things work for all four quadrants of the FP/TP/FN/TN grid. I'm interested in good police work by good police, and accurate and fair apprehension of true-positive criminals before they are able to commit any human-rights violations. The thing I don't know about is harm to innocents in the course of the authority figure's job, either accidental or deliberate.)
When it becomes OK to ask these questions, it becomes important to talk to people where they are. And where they are is tech. Where they are is their devices, smartphones, PDAs, computers. Therefore, it seems to me that the big concentrated powers of high technology are very likely to be comandeered, semi-nationalized, or enlisted for help in the "war." The NSA asked for help from AT&T and other telcos because they needed to be where the foot traffic is. It seems like a no-brainer to me. So the place where I feel at odds with a lot of people is that this premise colors how I feel about Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Motorola maybe, Google, the Blackberry people, and whoever else, Amazon. I am suspicious of them and I am suspicious of the role of coolness, cachet and status in letting them off the hook from a skeptical eye.
When it becomes OK to ask these questions, it becomes important to talk to people where they are. And where they are is tech. Where they are is their devices, smartphones, PDAs, computers. Therefore, it seems to me that the big concentrated powers of high technology are very likely to be comandeered, semi-nationalized, or enlisted for help in the "war." The NSA asked for help from AT&T and other telcos because they needed to be where the foot traffic is. It seems like a no-brainer to me. So the place where I feel at odds with a lot of people is that this premise colors how I feel about Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Motorola maybe, Google, the Blackberry people, and whoever else, Amazon. I am suspicious of them and I am suspicious of the role of coolness, cachet and status in letting them off the hook from a skeptical eye.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Obama Administration Sued over Plan to Assassinate US Citizens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhaDWmYNZ2E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0p9ibGp5Y
New addition to the topic that got me writing this blog in the first place. I suppose a moderate would say "you should read between the lines, it's in their interest to do it as modestly as possible. If they say they don't target people for free speech but for doing things with language and communication that demonstrably lead to attacks, the program should be analyzed in that light - it's not a cover for killing just anyone if they say it isn't."
It doesn't matter. The false positives are the point: accidents, mistakes and scapegoating, either now or by a future administration.
What about the rather level-headed and calm rebuttal that if the powers are used unfairly, the outcry will force them to back down? It makes every person a canary in a coalmine. And there is a quality here that needs to be identified and labelled: unfolding over time. Paul Jay's interviews have been talking about this phenomenon, where Toronto police detained people outside the G20 meeting and charge them, and later the charges were dropped. It unfolds over time. It is like a Trojan Horse. When the arrest is happening, the police are entitled to belittle the person and abuse them - or act as though they are - because they are contextualizing the person as a suspect. They might do this disingenuously with no intention of pursuing the charges. What you're left with is a few days of treatment that is supposed to be prohibited. That particular case is a Canadian story because it's the Charter that it would be violating. The one-two punch is a thing unto itself, and should be encapsulated with both episodes together, with a rubber band around them.
The analogy here that goes back to the U.S. government basically relates to this idea of a bleeding edge of controversial, alarming assertions. Of disingenuously "floating a trial balloon" to see what will happen. The point is that the person/people caught up in the implementation of controversial programs ARE the story. And replies of "we ended it, what more do you want!" is not enough, and is phony in itself. We ended rendition, we ended torture. It's not enough only to look at one time slice at a time. The point is what effect does it have upon the whole phenomenon of trying something out that will probably not last more than a couple of years? And how many peoples' lives are being disrupted in ones or tens or hundreds by something where the refrain will later be, "We stopped it! The people have spoken, what more do you want?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0p9ibGp5Y
New addition to the topic that got me writing this blog in the first place. I suppose a moderate would say "you should read between the lines, it's in their interest to do it as modestly as possible. If they say they don't target people for free speech but for doing things with language and communication that demonstrably lead to attacks, the program should be analyzed in that light - it's not a cover for killing just anyone if they say it isn't."
It doesn't matter. The false positives are the point: accidents, mistakes and scapegoating, either now or by a future administration.
What about the rather level-headed and calm rebuttal that if the powers are used unfairly, the outcry will force them to back down? It makes every person a canary in a coalmine. And there is a quality here that needs to be identified and labelled: unfolding over time. Paul Jay's interviews have been talking about this phenomenon, where Toronto police detained people outside the G20 meeting and charge them, and later the charges were dropped. It unfolds over time. It is like a Trojan Horse. When the arrest is happening, the police are entitled to belittle the person and abuse them - or act as though they are - because they are contextualizing the person as a suspect. They might do this disingenuously with no intention of pursuing the charges. What you're left with is a few days of treatment that is supposed to be prohibited. That particular case is a Canadian story because it's the Charter that it would be violating. The one-two punch is a thing unto itself, and should be encapsulated with both episodes together, with a rubber band around them.
The analogy here that goes back to the U.S. government basically relates to this idea of a bleeding edge of controversial, alarming assertions. Of disingenuously "floating a trial balloon" to see what will happen. The point is that the person/people caught up in the implementation of controversial programs ARE the story. And replies of "we ended it, what more do you want!" is not enough, and is phony in itself. We ended rendition, we ended torture. It's not enough only to look at one time slice at a time. The point is what effect does it have upon the whole phenomenon of trying something out that will probably not last more than a couple of years? And how many peoples' lives are being disrupted in ones or tens or hundreds by something where the refrain will later be, "We stopped it! The people have spoken, what more do you want?"
Saturday, August 21, 2010
a soothing balm
Aieee, it's a balm! Somebody's got a balm!
NSA analysts flagged internal communications by top officials at Hawaiian Tropic, on suspicion that they were making balms.
NSA analysts flagged internal communications by top officials at Hawaiian Tropic, on suspicion that they were making balms.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
NSL against Calyx ISP story
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/
The use of gag orders around NSLs is one of the most viscerally alarming things about post-9/11 security policies. Also, these situations where secret evidence is introduced in trials and the other side can't challenge it because they aren't allowed to be told what it is. It's interesting what Merrill says at the end: "
I either want to inspire others to follow the example [his example in fighting back] ... or develop technology that makes it more difficult for people to be snooped on." I think it works with the tiers I came up with for how to approach AFP/DFP dangers.
- civil libertarian ("this shouldn't be happening because it's wrong")
- civil efficacian or civil-liberties efficacian ("this is being done in a shoddy fashion and too many false positives are getting hurt - if you're going to do it, do it well, or the leeway to have this authority/power should be tightened or revoked")
- strong encryptor ("Privacy is dead. It's unrealistic to expect them not to do it, or not to make mistakes. I am going to use defensive technology so I won't be one of the false positives.")
There are things I like about all three of these positions.
The use of gag orders around NSLs is one of the most viscerally alarming things about post-9/11 security policies. Also, these situations where secret evidence is introduced in trials and the other side can't challenge it because they aren't allowed to be told what it is. It's interesting what Merrill says at the end: "
I either want to inspire others to follow the example [his example in fighting back] ... or develop technology that makes it more difficult for people to be snooped on." I think it works with the tiers I came up with for how to approach AFP/DFP dangers.
- civil libertarian ("this shouldn't be happening because it's wrong")
- civil efficacian or civil-liberties efficacian ("this is being done in a shoddy fashion and too many false positives are getting hurt - if you're going to do it, do it well, or the leeway to have this authority/power should be tightened or revoked")
- strong encryptor ("Privacy is dead. It's unrealistic to expect them not to do it, or not to make mistakes. I am going to use defensive technology so I won't be one of the false positives.")
There are things I like about all three of these positions.
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