Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication: Where would we be without Modern Technology?

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication: Where would we be without Modern Technology?

This article asks the question whether much of the technological development over the 20th and 21st Centuries was really of benefit at all. This may seem an outrageous claim, but I will present the case nevertheless. Let us look at Apple's claim when it released the Apple II that "Simplicity is the Ultimate in Sophistication". If this is true, then the most sophisticated business are the ones that don't rely on a highly complex machine that in itself relies on an incredibly complicated industrial system that ships energy and materials to multiple nations across the globe to manufacture these machines and to keep them operating. But how could businesses function if they don't have computers you say? The same way they functioned before computers came along - with well designed filing systems, even backup systems based on carbon copies. This was not even that long ago - I recall working at one of Australia's largest paper sellers when the sales people all used paper cards to record customer discounts, sales and stock levels. It worked fine. I myself later worked for a wholesaler of manufacturing materials that used a similar card system. In fact this company also had computers to track stock levels at is various branches around Australia, but this was mostly unreliable as sometimes goods had been promised to customers and stock still showed as available, so a phone call-around the branches was often the preferred method. In any case, a phone call was still needed so as to organise interstate shipping. Perhaps one of the reasons for the productivity paradox (i.e a lot of new technology and little evidence of improved productivity) is all the time and money lost building systems that are only marginally better than those that they replace, but which come at enormous cost and need to be constantly updated or later replaced themselves. You may point to the benefits of companies like Amazon. But I am going to argue that viewed holistically Amazon is incredibly inefficient. The Amazon model encourages everyone to buy their own copy of a book (I accept that this is changing with eBooks but I will come back to that). An alternative is the slowly decaying public library system. This was (and still is) an incredible system with branches available locally such that the vast majority of Australians had a library within walking distance of their home. Libraries encourage shared resources greatly reducing the number of books that need to be printed and thus the number of trees that need to be cut down. If a book is not available locally then you can request one from another library and it will be sent across. In a spirit of public service unequalled in today's profit driven world, libraries’ operations cut across institutional boundaries with a co-operative attitude that still persists as perhaps the best example of generosity and sharing between institutions. As a society, rather than investing resources in a privatised profit-taking Amazon perhaps we would have been better creating better catalogs of books and collections in local libraries? I know it does require people getting out of their seats and away from their computers, but then they do get to socialise briefly with a real person. And who knows? They may build up some lasting relationships, if not with staff then perhaps with other interested readers.

They also get a little exercise. And to top it off, they will certainly save money - libraries are cheap to use, and unlike Amazon you can browse through the whole book, even read large sections - without having to pay a cent and without the worry of your every move being logged and tracked by private marketers. This low cost makes libraries even cheaper than eBooks and better for the environment as you don’t need a computer or an electronic reader - something I come back to later.

What about mobile phones - we need them don't we? Well we never needed them until the last decade or so. They are expensive, costing probably more each month than the traditional landline ever did. I must admit they are becoming more and more necessary - particularly as the pay phone network is gradually being dismantled. On the whole though I would argue that they are net negative. The rate of turnover of phones creates a huge e-waste problem and the search for resources to make them and their toxic batteries is almost certainly tainted with blood. Socially also they are a problem. Many workers get little respite and are constantly interrupted by mobile calls, even on weekends. Some people appear to be addicted to their smart phones, needing to constantly check them. Including when they are driving and even (rather rudely) if they get bored whilst talking to someone. Furthermore there is increasing evidence that the high-frequency micro-wave emissions associated with mobile technologies (phones and wireless) is downright dangerous and may have unpredictable consequences on the health of children. Not to mention the hideous towers and infrastructure associated with them.

What about emergencies you say? Well let’s consider some scenarios. Say you run your own business and you are in the field a lot? I suggest a phone answering service would suffice, you can call in when you are not busy and return calls if necessary. I think a lot of tradies would be greatly relieved given a system like this. What if there is an accident in the field? CB radios. These are hardy and long lasting, relatively inexpensive and the radio frequencies are not dangerous. A channel can be reserved for emergencies (as was always the case) and it has the advantage that it is a broadcast technology - anyone in your vicinity can pick up the message and come to help, not just the one person you are dialling. These can also be used in case of car breakdowns and for cheap general chats within your neighbourhood. If everyone has one in their car (and you don't say you can't afford it - you all have mobile phones don't you?) then it runs off the car battery so there is no added problem of battery purchase and disposal. They are also not so complex to make, so can probably be made and repaired fairly locally rather than in some dubious high-tech sweat shop in a country with questionable labour practices. For doctors and similar who may need instant notification, I suggest a return to the old pager system (using a safe frequency) which worked well in the pre-mobile era.

How we would exchange ideas without the internet? What about returning to the methods of the past used successfully throughout the 19^th Century, which, incidentally was also a period of high innovation. Salons, and modern equivalents - like the Homebrew Computer Club which Jobs and Wozniak participated in when first conceiving of the Apple computer – are a very effective way of exchanging ideas (in fact Wozniac wanted to give away his original designs through the club – Jobs convinced him otherwise. See Isaacson, 2011). Furthermore, they offer some immunity from corporate agendas, including corporate control of information. That is because everyone attends these on equal footing. They are simple, informal and access is not for sale. If a forum does become too profit oriented or appears compromised in other ways, there is really nothing stopping participants creating new forums somewhere else.

Perhaps the dark truth is that in many cases the new technologies were not needed, but were rather introduced as profit-making exercises by convincing sales people using powerful marketing tools and supported by governments. In fact many of our recent technologies appear to be a net negative in terms of productive output, social impact and environmental degradation. There are even claims that we are being used as guinea pigs in a dangerous experiment involving toxic products. A classic example of how our society has been sold out by scientists and technologists (or rather by their companies’ profit motives) is provided by Masanoba Fukuoka. Fukuoka was an agricultural scientist in Japan who came to the conclusion that for every problem we solve with technology, we create three more. He took over his parent's rice farm and started going back to basics. He didn't use any chemical fertilizers, no tractors, no pesticides, no oil. Instead he used only hand tools (sickle and scythe) he also didn't plow the soil, and he didn't flood his fields. So while his neighbours are spraying chemicals like crazy and working additional jobs off their farms to pay tractor and fuel bills, Fukuoka worked only his farm, by hand, and he produced as much, or more produce, as they did. His crops were also more resistant to insect attack. He demonstrated these results over 25 years. All this is documented very systematically in his book “The Natural Way of Farming”[1]. Fukuoka argues in his book that what we call progress is really just a process of making everything more dependent on fossil fuel. Anyway, so much for the claimed benefits of technology in relation to agriculture. It begs the question: In what other ways have we been sold a cropper; technology that is not really needed, costs a lot, delivers more drawbacks than benefits in terms of our time and which damages both our environment and our social fabric?

 

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[1] Fukuoka’s farm was visited by Bill Mollison before he wrote his famous book on permaculture.

The Internet and the "American Dream"

This article poses a question.  Has the Internet perpetuated myths of freedom in America?

John Ralston Saul (1992) has suggested that most cultures are based on a kind of mythology or ideology.  In America this mythology seems to be based around the idea of the "self-made man".  In other words, the ability of any American to become rich if they just apply themselves.  If you are rich it is because you deserve to be rich.  In America, unlike Old Europe where wealth is inherited, people become rich by applying themselves to hard work either in industry, their own education or both.  Based on this concept of meritocracy America has promoted itself in the past as the "land of opportunity".

But is that true today?

Let us consider the merit of the bankers who take home enormous sums. Are the people whose ingenious inventiveness in derivatives lead to global financial collapse, really worth those large sums?  Presumably, merit in a meritocracy, such as America claims to be, should lead to benefits for all? Otherwise it is not really a system that rewards merit at all (or least not what most people would consider merit), but rather a system that rewards pure selfishness and greed. And even that at the expense of everyone else.

Let us examine this land of opportunity even further, it seems that many American "opportunities" for gaining work and experience in a range of fields are either disappearing overseas (to China, India and other low-wage countries) or being automated away (Ford 2007). The opportunities that are not automated away probably mostly remain with vulnerable small to medium enterprises (with varying degrees of profitability) or with large bureaucratic organisations in which work (and thus workers) is standardised and controlled such as never before.  Recent evidence suggests that active efforts are underway by large players to elliminate smaller ones as quickly and ruthlessly as possible. Particularly in relation to agriculture and food production, which appears to have a revolving door between corporation positions and government regulatory roles, much like the American financial industry (See for example: "Obama siezes farmer's money", "Baker's Family Farm under Attack" and "Farmageddon").

So if the only opportunities outside of large organisations like Walmart are to work for businesses whose jobs and services cannot be offshored or automated, and if even these are under attack from the large corporations (using fair means or more likely foul), how is America any more a "Land of Opportunity" than say, Mexico? Now I am happy to take debate here, but let me suggest that the "Land of Opportunity" claim is wearing thin. But Americans still believe in it? Why is that?

I argue that there is one domain in America which provides sufficient evidence to make this myth continue to seem plausible. That domain is Technology. The Internet and its related success stories prop up the entire crumbling edifice of American opportunity. It is the Internet that is allowing this myth to extend way beyond its use-by date, and in doing so, is thus preventing American's from making a fundamental re-examination of their entire culture.  It is the Internet that is propping up the 1% and the promise that any member of the 99% can escape to a life of wealth of fame - if they are talented enough. It is the Internet that provides sufficient rags-to-riches stories of Gates, Zuckerbergs, Jobs etc so as to beguile a whole nation. A nation not only adoring of technology for its own sake, but also because of its promises of wealth and privilige for the common-man.

To support my claim that the Internet has been used to sell the "American Dream" I draw on a joint publication produced by some of America's leading technological Evangelists namely:  Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler.  Following are some quotes from their 1994 publication "Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age":

"To some people, that statement will seem melodramatic. America, after all, remains a land of individual freedom, and this freedom clearly extends to cyberspace. How else to explain the uniquely American phenomenon of the hacker, who ignored every social pressure and violated every rule to develop a set of skills through an early and intense exposure to low-cost, ubiquitous computing."

"Those skills eventually made him or her highly marketable, whether in developing applications-software or implementing networks. The hacker became a technician, an inventor and, in case after case, a creator of new wealth in the form of the baby businesses that have given America the lead in cyberspatial exploration and settlement."

The extract above refers to the opportunities for freedom (read: wealth) that are available in America and 'the uniquely American phemomenon" (another myth) of the pennyless hacker whose talents (read: merits) lead them to success.

So the elite continue to mislead the public.  Fortunately for the elite this myth was established well before the financial crisis hit, so as to maintain the illusion even as the Occupy movements across America declared the inequalities of American society.

Social and Technological critic Langdon Winner wrote an article linking the ideas of "Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age" to right wing conservatism and suggests an influence from Ayn Rand.  This influence is quite sad, as Rand suggests that ones' abilities and talents are entirely one's own. Thus those fortunate enough to be gifted by nature intelligence and ability owe nothing to their fellow man. In fact, these unfortunates are to be despised, as most likely (according to Rand - see "The Fountainhead") their ignorance and incompetence will just hold back those who are more talented.  Is this the meritocracy of America? Where the stong exploit, rather than help, the weak? That seems to be evident in both banking and corporate behaviour more generally in America. If so, then:

God help America.

Bibliography

Ford, M.R 2009 The lights in the tunnel: automation, accelerating technology and the economy of the future, Acculant.

Saul, J.R 1992 Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. The Free Press.

Postman, N 1993, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Vintage Books, NY.

Related Articles:

Chris Hayes on the Twilight of the Elites and the End of Meritocracy

Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule America, by Sara Robinson

We need a serious critique of net activism by Cory Doctorow   

Social Impacts of Technology

This article looks at a range of issues relating technology to globalisation, community and power.  The article is primarily for your reflection. At the time of writing many of the things we discuss here are just developing, and as such are not extensively covered as yet in peer-reviewed journals which lag current affairs by two or more years given the publication schedules of the journals. As such the primary source of information here is the mainstream press (along with some not-so-mainstream sources).  The purpose is to give an overview of these emerging issues using a very broad brush approach. If you are really interested in one or more issues, then it is recommended that you research these more thoroughly using additional resources to those provided here. Please note, that while I personally strongly believe that computer technology has a place in our society and that the internet in particular provides a very empowering set of tools, there appears little doubt that this technology (in particular) is associated with a range of unresolved problems which seem to be primarily social and political in their nature.

At this point we will summarise the legal issues as they relate to internet use based on Schneider (2007).  Typically all businesses in a jurisdiction need to follow a set of laws or face fines and possibly jail. As to what laws they need to follow, traditionally these would be demarked by territorial borders. As such, geographical boundaries logically coincide with changes in culture and law and when crossing physical boundaries people receive notice that one set of rules is being replaced with another as physically moving geographically requires visas and checks. Thus people receive constructive notice of legislative change when crossing international boundaries, even if they are not informed specifically. Laws in the physical world normally only apply to people who live within the jurisdiction of the respective governments and legal systems (which may be inter-governmental). Thus setting up a business requires an awareness of local laws and businesses that trade between countries are required to become familiar with and to obey multiple sets of laws. Again in the physical world, effects are determined by proximity. For example, businesses with the same or similar names may cause problems if located in the same suburb, but possibly not if they are in different cities or states.

The right to create and enforce laws in a physical area derives from the mandate of those who are subject to them. Some cultures allow a high degree of autonomy and authority while others have strict limits on government authority.

Schneider (2007) argues that any business on the web is automatically a global business. This creates a number of complications, particularly for the small business that has maybe traditionally only operated in a local area. Once they create a web-page for the convenience of their customers, like it not, they are now a global business. Similarly, users of the web may be purchasing from businesses whilst unaware of that business’s physical location. For one thing, it is not always obvious that one is moving across jurisdictional boundaries (i.e there is no physical constructive notice). Also the fact that a person may be physically located in one jurisdiction whilst participating in transactions in another can lead to difficulties in determining which jurisdictional laws apply when there are disputes.  Courts may defend the laws of other jurisdictions according to a principle of judicial comity (friendly civility), but are reluctant to serve as forums for international disputes. 

Often a factor in any disputes will depend on the agreement, or contract, between the parties. Contracts consist of the following elements:

1.      An offer of a good or service at a specified price;

2.      An acceptance of that offer and its associated terms; and

3.      Consideration, the exchange.

An implied contract may exist if parties act as if a contract exists, even if no contract has been written or signed.  But we will see as we continue that contracts are only one possible complication in relation to operating over multiple jurisdictions. In fact, if the popular press is any measure then a large number of disputes are based around issues of copyright and also intellectual property (which also link to jurisdictional disputes).

Intellectual property includes all products of the human mind. This includes protections offered by the issuing of patents and granting of copyright. Copyright is granted by a government to the author or creator and gives the holder the sole right to print, publish or sell the copyrighted work. Copyright applies to books, music, artworks, recordings and architectural drawings, choreographic works, product packaging and computer software. Copyright does not include ideas, just their expression. Note though that under copyright laws an arrangement of facts could be considered subject to copyright, such as a directory of services that have been categorised. Considering these implications of copyright you may ask the legitimate question as to whether or not copyright is breached when you download a web page, as this produces a copy of the web-page (which is subject to copyright) on the client machine for you to view? However, under the law this is considered fair use of the copyrighted material. If you were to redistribute it then that would probably be another matter. In the USA fair use of copyrighted material (in the USA) includes: 

  

• Copying work for use in criticism; 
• Comment and news reporting; and 
• Teaching, scholarship or research.  

Being so broad, this can be difficult to interpret and courts play a key role here. If you make fair use of a work, you must include a citation to the original work to avoid charges of plagiarism. One interesting and famous case in relation to copyright involved Napster. Napster provided a network that allowed millions of people to share music copied from CDs into MP3 format. Recording companies considered this copyright violation on a grand scale and sued Napster. Napster argued that it had only provided the “machinery” used in the violations, much as VCR’s allow the copying of videos.  Controversially the court found Napster was guilty of vicarious copyright infringement, in other words, that it was capable of supervising the infringing activity and that it profited from it.

Brafman and Beckstrom (2007) describe how the large record labels approached internet swapping of music using their traditional approach of bringing law suits against the companies associated with these activities. Napster is a case in point here. However, Brafman and Beckstrom (2007) describe how with the new technologies of the internet these strategies have not been effective; that for all the law suits they are bringing against piracy, there appears to be no material change in pirating.  Why is this? What has changed to make a time honoured business model suddenly so vulnerable? (and you may well also ask: Why doesn’t the music industry realise that this is not working? - Brafman and Beckstrom have an explanation for that too, but we will not go into that here).  Brafman and Beckstrom (2007) describe how the music industry was successful against Napster because it wasn’t decentralised and this allowed the labels to cripple the company’s central server and to pursue the corporate management in the court system. Following Napster Niklas Zennstrom released a peer-to-peer file sharing program called Kazaa.  Within 12 months 250 million copies of the program were downloaded and music swapping continued.  Kazaa had no active server that could be shutdown and Zennstrom used a range of strategies to minimise legal cases with the large labels (and also physically avoided being handed subpoenas by men on motorbikes working for the large labels).  When eventually the record labels sued Kazaa and its users, Zennstrom adopted a nomadic strategy and moved the organisation to Vanuatu outside of the jurisdiction of American and European legal systems.  Meanwhile the labels pursued legal action against Grokster and eDonkey. For every legal battle conducted by the labels new file sharing software was being released, and it was becoming more and more decentralised. Brafman and Beckstrom (2007) describe how this culminated with a program called eMule.  eMule is completely decentralised. It is open-source, there is no owner to sue, no-one even knows who started it. Brafman and Beckstrom (2007) quote Sam Yagan, head of eDonkey: “eMule is a rogue network, its open-source, there’s no way for them to pursue the entity eMule” (p. 25). Thus the record labels’ dogged determination to hold on to a traditional centralised business model seemed only to accelerate the development of the new decentralised model.  Now it appears that, perhaps out of sheer desperation, these organisations - being unable to sue the organisations that provide the software - pursue individual users as scapegoats for their legal ire.  It seems that they do this in the hope that these high profile cases will deter others in an apparent attempt to create a regime of fear so as to maintain their market power. We will see some examples of this in the following notes.

Case Studies

In the following sections we look at some case studies from the media (mainstream and not so mainstream) to gain a broad-brush picture of some of the issues associated with information and technology in recent years. We begin with intellectual property law and copyright.

IP and Copyright

In addition to controversy around copyright, there is the related concept of intellectual property.  A prominent case in this regard was the patenting by Amazon of a One-click Online Purchasing System.  Amazon sought, and received, patent rights for this technology which has been criticised as being a trivial and obvious technical approach to online purchasing.  Amazon used this patent to seek royalties from many other online businesses, a most famous case being against Barnes and Noble booksellers, but also issued a licence to Apple. The contentiousness of this patent has resulted in many suggesting that a reform of the patent system is necessary, as the justification for the patent system is to allow organisations a period of exclusive rights to an idea so as to recover the costs of development and to thus encourage investment in research and development (Engleman 2010).  The argument is that the system is being abused when trivial technologies, which required little development, are being patented.  Amazon’s patent was contested in 2006 by a disgrunted New Zealand customer who found evidence of the technology pre-existing the Amazon claim in 1997 (Engleman 2010).  This lead to a review of the patent, but ultimately resulted in only minor restrictions to its application (Crouch and Ratanen 2010). 

Before we move on to look at examples of copyright violation, it is recommended you watch the following video as an overview to these topics:

Everything is a remix (video)

The video raises a couple of issues. One is the one-sided use of the law to defend the rights of large entertainment companies, which on one hand make liberal use of the ‘creative commons’ yet on the other hand ruthlessly pursue those who make use of their own work (which itself is often based on our cultural capital). The other issue is the use of legal mechanisms to ensure that the rights of these large organisations (as they see it) can be enforced across the globe, regardless of changes in jurisdiction. The use of trade agreements is the primary vehicle for this, and is perhaps considered efficient, as they circumvent much parliamentary debate and many democratic processes.  These treaties are highly contentious. In January 2012 protests were held in Poland following the UK and 21 other European Union member states signing an international copyright agreement treaty called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The protesters believed that this treaty could be used as a basis for censoring the internet (a topic we will return to later) (Arthur 2012). Zappone (2012b) describes how a US sponsored Trans-Pacific Partnership may allow US domiciled businesses to deal with legal issues originating in Australia with legal processes operating outside of Australia.  This same treaty was the subject of a petition signed by 30 Australian organisations and sent to Federal Parliament on 14 March 2010 (AFTINET 2010).  The petitioners argued that, among other things, the treaty would allow US businesses to sue the Australian government if Australian legislation, such as environmental protections or other public interest laws, ‘harmed’ their investments here. 

This issue of international jurisdictions extending beyond or outside of a country no doubt came as a surprise for Hew Griffiths who must be one of the first people in the modern world to find himself sent off to stand trial in a country he had never visited for laws that apply only in that country and not his home country, where the so-called offences were committed (Nguyen 2007).  Hew was extradited for intellectual property crime; allegedly "cracking" copy-protected software and media products and distributing them for free.  At that time he was facing 10 years in jail in Nevada USA. Needless to say, this extradition practice has been questioned; NSW Chief Judge in Equity, Peter Young, is quoted as saying: "International copyright violations are a great problem. However, there is also the consideration that a country must protect its nationals from being removed from their homeland to a foreign country merely because the commercial interests of that foreign country are claimed to have been affected by the person's behaviour in Australia and the foreign country can exercise influence over Australia”. Peterson (2012) also questions this behaviour saying:  “The US will go to the ends of the earth to protect its big entertainment corporations […] The Americans have no qualms about interfering in our domestic politics and local legal systems”.  Peterson (2012) continues to describe how the US entertainment industry (through the Motion Picture Association) targeted the relatively small ISP iiNet to try and establish a binding common law precedent that would make ISPs responsible for the unauthorised file-sharing of their customers.

The latest move in this regard on the Australian landscape appears to be the introduction of the Cybercrime bill which is described by Bessant (2012) as follows:

“The Cybercrime Bill proposes to expand the power of local police and ASIO to access Australian citizens' digital communications, and to supply that data to foreign police and intelligence agencies. It does this by tying Australia to the European Convention on Cybercrime (2001) to which we recently became a signatory. The aim of that convention is to create a common legal framework that eliminates ‘jurisdictional hurdles’ and fosters co-operation for securing global protection against cybercrime. “

Censorship

Another issue commonly in the press is the perception of attempts by governments to censor the internet.  China is famous for its “Great Firewall” that filters the information Chinese citizens can access. Branigan (2010) begins her article with:

“When vicious inter-ethnic violence broke out in Urumqi last year, Chinese authorities flooded the city with soldiers. But next came an unexpected step: they cut off internet access across the vast north-western region of Xinjiang. Controlling the information flow was as crucial as controlling the streets, it seemed.” 

Perhaps having witnessed the role of communications media in uprisings as part of the Arab Spring (Pollock 2011) governments are wary of online and mobile communications technology?  These concerns may also be behind a proposal by British Prime Minister David Cameron to restrict the use of services such as Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger in the case of riots (Moses 2011). For their part, internet companies and internet users are wary of attempts to restrict access to the internet or other communications.  Wikipedia protested against proposed legislation in the US (refered to as SOPA or iPirate) aimed at online piracy. Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales is quoted as saying: “we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world" (Rushe 2012).  In Australia censorship laws have been proposed aimed at blocking child-pornography and other illegal sites.  Critics argue that the legislation, and the processes around the filtering, are open to be used more broadly and may include legal sites also (Moses 2009).

If you are interested in learning more on the iPirate legislation see the following short video:

iPirate (video)

Politics, Power and Cyberwars

Wikileaks has played a role in the embarrassment of a number of political figures and nations through its release of diplomatic cables which were intended to be confidential (Associated Press 2010; Mann 2010). In 2010 Amazon (which hosted Wikileaks) shutdown the Wikileaks servers, apparently at the request of US government officials. PayPal and the credit card organisations (Visa and MasterCard) also stopped processing funds directed towards Wikileaks: and all this even though Wikileaks had not been convicted of breaking any laws (Townsend, Duval smith & Halliday 2010; Saul 2010).  As a result a minor cyberwar broke out whereby a group of hackers referred to as ‘Anonymous’ started denial of service attacks on the organisations that withdrew their services from Wikileaks bringing some of them down (Townsend et al 2010; Moses 2010).  This war has continued in relation to crackdowns on internet piracy resulting in the 2012 arrest of some Anonymous members (Associated Press, 2012).  However, cyberwar is not just conducted by disgruntled activist citizens, it appears that sovereign states also engage in these activities. Australian government sources suspect that Chinese intelligence agencies were involved in a hacking scandal in which the computers of federal ministers, including the Prime Minister, were accessed (Benson 2011). Benson (2011) states that one MP said they regularly received informal warnings from security agencies that "foreign" interests may be trying to access computers and telephones. However it seems that use of the Internet by national security agencies is not limited to interstate snooping, but also directed at citizens.  Lévesque (2012) quotes Joseph Fitsanakis as the co-author of a study into the use of the internet by intelligence agencies as follows:

“We explain that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a host of other social networking platforms are increasingly viewed by intelligence agencies as invaluable channels of information acquisition. We base our findings on three recent case studies, which we believe highlight the intelligence function of social networking.”

However, Lévesque (2012) suggests the results of the study described by Fitsanakis are misleading.  She argues that the study leads us to believe that social media is solely an intelligence gathering tool, when other reports show that it is also used for the creation of fake identities in support of covert operations, thus such social media tools may also be used to spread propaganda or mis-information.

It seems that even this does not cover the complete extent of cyber snooping.  Millar (2010) discusses claims that Australian government departments were interfering with the opposition’s communications and email systems. But the most concerning claim in relation to the manipulation of information in domestic politics is the evidence that Fitrakis (2011) provides on how the electronic voting system used in the US during the 2004 elections were manipulated to distort the voting outcome so as to ensure a victory for President Bush.  There are also claims by the Iranian government that the US government has deliberately infected computers operated by the Iranian government with the Stuxnet virus in an apparent attempt to hamper the development and use of nuclear technologies (Dehghan 2012). This virus has also allegedly affected the oil export industry in Iran as well as the ability of everyday people to use fuel cards when filling vehicles.

Privacy and Personal Vulnerability

The next two issues we cover in this lesson are those of online privacy and personal vulnerability.  Online privacy is a topic that most active internet users have at least a passing familiarity with. Arthur (2012) summarises some issues including, smart phone apps that copy all your contact details (your friend’s names, emails and phone numbers), search engines that track the sites you visit even if you are not using that search engine, and the now familiar example of the supermarket identifying a teenage girl as pregnant from her purchases. Add to this the ability for mobile devices to track your physical movements over time and there seems to be little information about yourself that is not available for information collection (Arthur 2011).  However, a more sinister example of stores using your data against you is offered by some cases where Ikea is accused of illegal surveillance practices whereby they aimed to collect information on unhappy shoppers who were engaged in litigation with the company, and also its own employees (Chrisafis, 2012).  In fact, even if organisations do their best to try and not identify customers you may not be protected.  Chakrabortty (2010) describes how data provided by AOL to researchers, which was deliberately designed to protect the identity of individuals, was sufficient for an average person to identify at least some of the people whose data had been collected.  The ability to secretly record conversations using mobile technology is another area of concern - enough to lead some into purchasing,  and using, illegal devices which jam mobile phone use in a small local area (Grubb, 2012). Perhaps the recent evidence of illegal hacking by News corporation provides evidence that such fears are somewhat justified (Sabbagh & O'Carroll 2012).  Even legal searches of online data may be used to damage the reputations of people as in the case of an Australian employed as a nanny by British PM David Cameron (Levy 2012).  In this case, the article in the British tabloid Daily Mail seemed to take advantage of the employment relationship to a prominent British citizen to create sensationalised press.   This perhaps can be explained by the overall effect of the WWW on traditional print media business models as best explained elsewhere.

A final example for the collection and use of personal information is provided in a Wall St Journal article by Efrati and Clark (2012) where they discuss Google’s collecting of private data from Wi-Fi’s as they drove around streets and took photos for the Google Street View project. This lead to the company being fined for breaching privacy laws.

In relation to privacy there appears to be a kind of propaganda war developing between proponents of personal privacy and states in regard to the roll out of increasing powers of state surveillance (both legal and technical). These include allegations that the FBI created and distributed key-stroke recording devices to circumvent the need to obtain court orders to install spy software on personal computers. It also seems that that may have been done with collusion of at least some companies who produce and distribute virus checking programs (Jackson 2001).  Pressofortruth.tv released what appears to be a promotion video calling for action against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act (known as CISPA) on April 27 2012. If you are interested a link is provided below (7.22 minutes):

PressforTruth video

Burghardt (2012) makes the following statements in relation to his concerns:

“From driftnet surveillance to data mining and link analysis, the secret state has weaponized our data, "criminal evidence, ready for use in a trial," as Cryptohippie famously warned.”

And:

“With the exponential growth of fiber optic and wireless networks, the mass of data which can be ’mined’ for "actionable intelligence," covering everything from eavesdropping on official enemies to blanket surveillance of dissidents is now part of the landscape: no more visible to the average citizen than ornamental shrubbery surrounding a strip mall.”

The “Report on the Surveillance society” produced for the British Information Commissioner in 2006 summarised a range of benefits and risks of surveillance (mostly risks).  One of their points was (Wood, 2006):  

“.. most profoundly, all of today’s surveillance processes and practices bespeak a world where we know we’re not really trusted. Surveillance fosters suspicion.  The employer who installs keystroke monitors at workstations, or GPS devices in service vehicles is saying that they do not trust their employees. The welfare benefits administrator who seeks evidence of double-dipping or solicits tip-offs on a possible ‘spouse-in-the-house’ is saying they do not trust their clients. And when parents start to use webcams and GPS systems to check on their teenagers’ activities, they are saying they don’t trust them either. Some of this, you object, may seem like simple prudence. But how far can this go? Social relationships depend on trust and permitting ourselves to undermine it in this way seems like slow social suicide” (pg 3).

A BBC News article summarising the report’s concerns and the Information Commissioner’s reaction is available here. There are also some who are concerned about the effects on individuals in the modern internet environment with its culture of constant communication.  However, this appears to be highly contentious, with strong views either way (Hughes, 2012). Perhaps evidence of people’s concern regarding the use of computers by children is provided by Richtel (2011) when he describes a school in Silicon Valley that avoids computers and technology, even though many of the students’ parents work in technology fields:

“While other schools in the region brag about their wired classrooms, the Waldorf school embraces a simple, retro look: blackboards with colourful chalk, bookshelves with encyclopaedias, wooden desks filled with workbooks and pencils.”

He quotes one parent as follows:

“At Google and all these places, we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There's no reason why kids can't figure it out when they get older.''

Society and Business

There are two remaining social aspects we identify here.  These, and many others, will be looked at again in other posts.  The first is the growing dependence individuals and institutions have on ICT for the day to day running of our affairs.  Examples of this vulnerability are provided by recent bank ICT failures. One serious failure at the NAB prevented customers from accessing their accounts for 2 days (and also appears to have not processed transactions associated with those accounts during that time) (Zappone, 2010).  This is not an isolated incident, as CommBank ATMs also went down recently (Zappone 2012). The final issue we look at here is in relation to the production of our high-tech gadgets and tools in sovereign states that do not have very strong labour movements or environmental protections.  This has been dominant in the mainstream press recently as a result of the efforts of Mike Daisey to publicise problems at Foxconn, the large factory that manufactures many of Apple’s products.  This has lead Apple to seek independent audits of conditions at the manufacturer (Garside, 2012). 

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