Patrick Ball: Human Rights Through Databases

wendyg writes "Thought some folks here might be interested in this interview with Patrick Ball, in which he talks about the work he's doing coding human rights violations into databases that can then be used for data mining to bring the perpetrators to book." This story from last October ("Why Human Rights Requires Free Software") mentions Ball's work in this area; this interview adds a broader look at what he's doing and why.

Comments

How many CPUs per RIAA lawyer or lawsuit will even

[Rares Marian]

the odds?

Will the odd finally get even?

-rares

"coding"

[hackwrench]

So how is teaching databases to commit human rights violations a good thing?

Wish I could hear the whole story on this

[Radical Rad]

While I was there, I had several quite heated exchanges with different people from the tribunal - we disagreed about the relative importance of truth and justice. I argued that it was important that the world, and especially people in Kosovo, should know what really happened during the war and try the people accused of having committed or ordered violations of human rights. But truth should be first. The tribunal's field people saw things differently so I did my work independently.

I wonder what they were asking him to do for him to have to say that Truth comes before Justice.

Re:Wish I could hear the whole story on this

[mbogosian]

I wonder what they were asking him to do for him to have to say that Truth comes before Justice.

Truth always comes before Justice. You can't have Justice without Truth. You can have Truth without Justice.

Justice, for the most part, is institutionalized revenge. Most religions and passivists teach that revenge is best left for the afterlife, but the search for Truth and Enlightenment is a noble goal to be sought in this lifetime.

Try this as a mental exercise:

Imagine that you could choose to know for certain whether or not the Juice really killed Nicole. Would you choose to know or to remain ignorant?

Now say that you possess the knowledge that he did. You must now choose whether or not carry out Justice, but you must do it yourself. You must place the barrel of the gun to his temple and pull the trigger, or tighten the noose around his neck and release the latch that is holding up the floor beneath his feet, or insert the syringe and depress the plunger releasing a lethal dose of Insulin into his bloodstream. Would you choose Justice now? It's not such an easy decision.

Re:Wish I could hear the whole story on this

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows who killed Nicole. OJ was pronounced "not guilty" not "innocent". I think they did it because the bloody glove did appear to be planted as a false pretense to search his house and the mostly african american jury were encouraged to believe that it was done out of racial prejedice. This is supported by the fact that he was found "responsible" for her death in the civil trial.

This is "Onn---Topic?" How?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what on Earth does it have to do with databases, and SQL in particular?

Re:This is "Onn---Topic?" How?

[at_kernel_99]

It has to do with using technical tools to solve real world problems. I found that Mr Ball had some interesting comments on how they analyze the data they collect. Yes, a little light on the details, but enough to give a person some ideas.

Re:This is "Onn---Topic?" How?

[wendyg]

YOu can get more details on how he does his work from his pages at shr.aaas.org (I think it is), which have a number of papers and explanations of how they construct the data model.

wg