Slashdot Mirror
Government Admits Spying Via Facebook
Velcroman1 writes "Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg famously said that the age of privacy is over. And the government wants to ensure that, it seems. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's FOIA request has revealed government memos encouraging agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share — and to spy on them. Thanks to this request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS), and one revealing how the DHS monitored social media during the Obama inauguration."
It's a way for individuals to connect and organize in a way that many of them think is private. Ripe fruit for wandering government eyes.
Living With a Nerd
Anyone who was on Kuro5hin in 2002 knew the Secret Service was keeping an eye on it. I'm sure they watch /. as well.
Best Slashdot Co
It isn't actually "spying" if the person is willingly sharing information, or has information posted that everyone can read. "Spying" is getting information that a person doesn't want others to have.
When the summary of the article is cut and paste from FoxNews a part of my interest in Slashdot dies.. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/13/government-spying-social-networks/
In the future only terrorists don't use facebook!
Next they'll be reading billboards, magazines and, well, every other place where people post information for others to see.
I don't see any issue with this as long as they are requesting access and not being fraudulent about their request. If Joe Governmentworker sends you a friend request, and you accept it, you are giving him permission to view your data. If you don't know him, then you shouldn't accept the friend request.
Now if they are using fake profiles and false information to do this, then I see an issue, but as long as they are legitimate accounts, I don't see a problem with it at all.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
the practice of law enforcement is an actual valid endeavour. what is going on here is less east german secret police tracking innocent civilians, and more plain old gum shoe police work against actual criminals
and really, to get right down to it: you don't have any protection from what you put out on the web being revealed. this includes old friends from high school, potential employers, spamvertisers... and the government. so if you don't want it revealed or shared, DON'T PUT IT ON THE WEB. why does this amazingly obvious fact escape people?
it just seems kind of insane to me that people want to share stuff in public on an open medium, and then act shocked and dismayed that someone MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE IT. its some sort of human pscyhological blind spot: for some unknown reason, people trust the web with really personal details, when the web is about the exact opposite of the kind of place you want to put those personal details. its as if people don't actually understand that the internet is the most searchable, most wide open medium invented by mankind, but we treat it as if it is our private diary stashed under our bed. why is that? what is the source of this glaring psychological defect so many of us share about the nature of the internet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is not a case of more spying by the government rather more volunteering of information by the citizens. There's a very simple solution if you don't want government spooks reading your facebook information: Don't post sensitive information on facebook (or anywhere on the internet for that matter)!
..as I naively thought that the rule about writing down stuff whenever one wants the world to know it, is already a common knowledge. Those refusing to understand full potential of writing should take datamining courses.
I'm glad someone's using all the tools available to them to legally catch bad guys.
Also, I don't quite catch the "spying" aspect of this. You befriend suspicious people and engage them in conversation. Is that spying?
I work for a bank, and as I'm sure you might guess, our Accounts Control folks (they are the people who repo delinquent property) use Facebook, Twitter, and others all the time to find where people are and where to find the delinquent property. It's incredibly effective.
So the government is just doing what every other person does.
...is this surprising? The Patriot Act "dramatically reduced restrictions on law enforcement agencies' ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records."
;)
Facebook just makes it easier.
So, Slashdot...what information are you divulging to our government overlords?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
So basically....
Government: Hey, can we spy on you?
You: Sure, friend request accepted.
If you're being spyed on, its pretty much your fault. Its like giving the police access to your home and saying "Hey, come in whenever you want."
How is this related to YRO? This isn't a threat to anyone's rights online, not even privacy.
I'm sure they watch /. as well.
Do you think they have an agent provocateur on /. as well? Assuming they do, it might be interesting to hold a Slashdot Poll on who we think it is.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Robert S. Mueller, III just poked you. Poke him back? Robert S. Mueller, III tagged you in a photo. (picture of you sitting at your computer right now)
my site of misleading and incorrect information!
The last story had a nice comment in the headline. Why not this one? Something along the lines of "Huge Shocker".
We all are suspects these days. It sucks and we should do something about it.
Can somebody please program an add-on that encrypts messages, pictures and text on facebook?
E.g. like the blowfish add-on that exist for IRC programs, that makes text unreadable for people without the correct key.
Really interesting would be if someone managed to compile statistics on what the success rate for such fishing expeditions is, so that the public could see what an efficient use of public funds and time such methods provide.
When will people get their heads around the fact that the law-breaker always has the initiative? The only way you can successfully prevent all crimes is to chain everyone to a wall and gag them. All of this "prevention" necessarily comes at the cost of individual freedom and privacy. However as a side effect it produces data and situations that can easily be exploited by corrupt law enforcement officers and/or politicians. Western society is traveling down a very dangerous road, and most people seem oblivious to that fact.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So, what we should make of this is that the government has no other way of spying people on Facebook than befriending them.
How reassuring! Don't befriend unknown people and your privacy is safe from the guvmint's prying eyes!
Isn't this the best of all possible worlds? Thank you, Zuckerberg! Thank you, government!
P.S.: if you use Facebook, you deserve this crap.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Sadly, Slashdot is not on the list of social sites to monitor for activity. We're all just too dorky to matter. I mean, come on, Huffington Post? The girls are hotter over there, I guess.
The information on you that worth "spying" is already public. Not only the government (that should be more or less trustable) can access it. The NOT trustable people (for whatever reason, be plain thieves, scammers, lawyers or car dealers, pick the worst) can access it too.
If you don't have a FaceSpaceTweetBook account (or one in your proper name), they can't spy on you. It's really very simple really.
not here, in america, 'god's' country? reminds us of the last regime to (pretend to) conquer terrorism. that was the third reich, which was adolf's answer to facebook types of behaviours. here in 'god's' country, we now have dozens of gestapo (police) like 'agencies' designed to 'keep the peace'/things quiet. nothing new, or anything that 'really matters', thank 'god'.
the corepirate nazi holycost is increasing by the minute. you call this 'weather'?
continue to add immeasurable amounts of MISinformation, rhetoric & fluff, & there you have IT? that's US? thou shalt not... oh forget it. fake weather (censored?), fake money, fake god(s), what's next? seeing as we (have been told that) came from monkeys, the only possible clue we would have to anything being out of order, we would get from the weather. that, & all the monkeys tipping over/exploding around US.
the search continues;
google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=weather+manipulation
google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=bush+cheney+wolfowitz+rumsfeld+wmd+oil+freemason+blair+obama+weather+authors
meanwhile (as it may take a while longer to finish wrecking this place); the corepirate nazi illuminati (remember, (we have been told) we came from monkeys, & 'they' believe they DIDN'T), continues to demand that we learn to live on less/nothing while they continue to consume/waste/destroy immeasurable amounts of stuff/life, & feast on nubile virgins while worshipping themselves (& evile in general (baal to be exact)). they're always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck. if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their (slippery/slimy) 'platform' now. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
never a better time to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?
greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere/planet (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)
"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems whe
I seem to recall that this was a story about 6 months ago or so. I will say that what is considered private is relative when it comes to technology and doing anything online. Just like security cameras and doing anything outside your home... There is "no reasonable expectation of privacy".
the policeman drives up and down the street, looks at cars, looks at people walking on the street, looking at residences...
is that a fishing expedition in your mind? of course not
but that's what you are calling a "fishing expedition" on the internet. you have this bizarre idea that information freely and openly and publicly published is somehow immune to public viewing of it by the government, by advertisers, by people you don't want to reconnect with. it's not just you, it's some sort of mass delusion, some sort of cognitive disconnect about the nature of the internet. people treat it as if it is their private keepsake box in their closet, when the internet is about the exact opposite of such a concept. you expect shock, dismay and disgust, that the police would look at something "private" when it isn't even remotely private. the problem is not the police. the problem is people who have this cognitive disconnect about the nature of the internet like you are demonstrating
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, think of the gov cost savings now that they can just use Bing ...
I was thinking much the same thing... What we're actually seeing here isn't spying, but a form of undercover work.
Privacy is a function of sharing information with a limited set of people. You may want your wife to see you naked, but that doesn't mean you want everybody walking by your house to look in your bathroom window. You may want to share that embarrassing problem with your doctor, but that doesn't mean you want it in the newspaper. You may want your credit counselor to know about all your bad debt, but that doesn't mean you talk about it at the company picnic. You may want your friends to know where you're going to be this weekend, but that doesn't mean you want government workers to keep an eye on your movements.
What is spying if not one entity trying to obtain information that the counterparty does not want shared with it? What is undercover work if not planting spies to obtain such information?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Even before the Patriot Act was enacted HIPAA is giving the government free access to our health information. Funny how the MBA droids in healthcare drone on and on about the privacy afforded a patient's medical records, but are deathly silent on how this law gives up our health information to the government on a silver platter.
the average joe just don't think like a computer scientist. a computer programmer can look at the internet and see a giant dataset ready to be be algorithmed to death. an IT guy, right before he or she hits the "Submit" button, can visualize the web spider that will arrive 10 minutes later, heuristically puree and flambee those words and pictures into an intelligent hierarchy, and offer it up for consumption to anyone typing search terms into a search engine 10 minutes later. the average joe just doesn't think like that
computer folk have a robots.txt file sitting between their brain and their fingers:
the average joe has no such mental robots.txt
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously: Are the rest of the myopic public going to finally come to their senses and realize this is now the truth? The good news is that it's not irrevocable: we can recover our privacy, it's just going to take effort and sacrifices to accomplish.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
that you have no expectation of privacy when you stand naked in the middle of times square screaming the secrets of your sex life?
then you understand why posting your private life on the MOST PUBLIC MEDIUM INVENTED BY MANKIND is not just a legal no-starter, but really is a completely logically incoherent concept
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
so if you don't want it revealed or shared, DON'T PUT IT ON THE WEB
What about when everything's on the web?
Sounds like you're referring to all the Black-American workers at the company I was at during the last presidential election.
They only watched Foxtard, so they truly believed Obama was a Muslim. After the election, they thought it was kool that America finally elected the first Muslim-American! And not a single one had ever read Glen Ford.
Gee, what could ever be wrong with the American voter?
But, unfortunately for the pseudo-dems, there are quite a few of us authentic democrats and progressives who plan to sit this election out, as we know that regardless of whom is elected, there will be plenty more "free trade" agreements in the future (something Obama has been pushing for lately). And there are plenty more of us authentic dems who can point to at least fifty of Obama's presidential appointments directly respponsible for the economic meltdown and the Long Depression. (Contrary to those faux crats, who claim ONLY the R-Cons were responsible for it.
Get out of it while you can.I am glad to see my misgivings coming true, I never subscribed to it. Besides the whole idea is stolen intellectual property.
understanding the implications of lack of online privacy. I have said it many times, there is a fortune to be made in solving the problem of online privacy.
But it's also a function of discretion on the user's part. You protect your privacy by having translucent bathroom windows and curtains, doctor-patient priviledge, and discretion to not talk about it.
Online, there is no privacy unless you take action. Relying on a third-party for that action isn't action (i.e., relying on Facebook to keep your "private" actions isn't). Posting on facebook may appear more secure than sending an email, but it really isn't, and you're just relying on someone else to assume they won't use your information for their benefit. If you want to be private, you encrypt your email. With facebook, it's harder, but youc an still encrypt your posts before you post it. Relying on facebook's privacy settings is like assuming your company's IT admins can't read your email.
Or think about it this way - why has "email DRM" failed? Friends repost, retwit, resend etc. all the time. Your plans for the weekend might just get into the government's hands due to indiscretions by your friends. Once it's posted out there, it's best to consider it out in the wild for anyone to see.
It's not spying or privacy violation or whatever other "bad thing" this is suppose to be if people are willingly giving away information. Don't want to be "spied" on? Don't use facebook or other public social networking sites.
You mean what I post on the interwebs isn't private?! SHOCKED, SHOCKED, I say.
Duh! That's not spying, that's research. If you "friend" someone you don't know, than it's your own dumb fault! If the government ordered Facebook to allow them to see ALL profiles, that's spying.
You may want your wife to see you naked, but that doesn't mean you want everybody walking by your house to look in your bathroom window.
You also don't invite your neighbors over while you're walking by the window naked. If you are friending someone you don't know on facebook, you are basically inviting them to sit in the room and watch while you sleep with your wife.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Am I the only one here who is starting to lament the passing of the honey-trap? I can't get laid any other way...
If you post a picture of yourself in a public space, you are seriously increasing your circle of privacy.
Getting information someone has kept private is spying. Gathering information from several public places is undercover work.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There's no general right of privacy guaranteed by the Constitution or any other U.S. document. We're generally protected from Search and Seizure. There are only specific privacies guaranteed, such as medical records and school records.
Courts have ruled that there is no expectation of privacy for e-mail. It's not a far stretch to say that covers Facebook and other social networking sites as well. It immediately includes those sites when the user has e-mail notifications enabled.
It's not spying. Maybe information-gathering. We can only call it spying if they're actually playing "I spy."
I spy with my little agent eyes, something slutty.
--"insert clever quote here"
Gathering information from several public places is undercover work.
No, that's police work. 'Under-cover' explicitly involves deception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
CowboyNeal
Relying on a third-party for that action isn't action (i.e., relying on Facebook to keep your "private" actions isn't).
How is this any different than relying on the post office to keep your communications secret? Sure, there's a law on the books, but the law doesn't exist as an arbitrary coin-flip, it enforces peoples' natural expectations.
Facebook (for example) can operate legally and unethically at the same time - the two are related but frequently not intersecting concepts (that being an idea at least as old as St. Augustine, probably much more ancient).
But people nonetheless expect that Facebook will honor their privacy. Foolish, perhaps, but only insofar as most people are susceptible to sociopaths. Having sociopaths provide societal infrastructure... boy, that's a tough one. (perhaps why I have PGP and x.509 certs installed in my MUA...)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
What are you talking about? How would things like "property rights" exist without government? You can call it a "basic right" all you want, but you expect everyone to acknowledge your rights without a governing (there's that word again) body to settle disagreements? Otherwise your property only exists in your ability to protect it until the next round of bandits tries to take it from you. Although that could be construed as the bandits realizing the fruits of their labor.
Your idea of natural rights is interesting but ultimately unproductive. If your believed rights are not agreed to by the larger society or social constructs, these rights will quickly cease to exist. The codification of the larger society and social constructs is government
I've met a lot of EFF people. It's kind of funny how unconcerned they are about the government knowing about their personal lives.
No, I will not work for your startup
We're generally protected from Search and Seizure. There are only specific privacies guaranteed, such as medical records and school records.
I think the struggle here is weakly defined property rights. IMHO, my medical records and my school records are my property, therefore searches or seizures of them ought be forbidden, except by specific oath/affirmation and warrant. That's the conceived balance.
Courts have ruled that there is no expectation of privacy for e-mail.
They have, but e-mail is a clear analog to 'papers'. The courts ruled against the intent of the Constitution here (shocker). It's not a very well done instrument, so these things happen.
It's not a far stretch to say that covers Facebook and other social networking sites as well. It immediately includes those sites when the user has e-mail notifications enabled.
Good point. I'd extend my above comments to Walls and hosted messaging services. They fit most definitions of 'property'.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The Sun appeared to move from east to west today.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
we're not talking about east german stasi looking to frame you. we're talking about police doing basic gum shoe investigative work of actual crimes. no different than any other undercover work
you have this bizarre point of view that the police are your enemy out to destroy your life for no particular reason. the police work for you. there are real criminal activities out there for which this behavior is perfectly moral and legal
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You're attempting to extend property rights such that they provide privacy. I don't think that works, except in cases of Intellectual Property, wherein the idea itself has monetary value and can therefore be "stolen" simply by being seen. But the only way to legally protect your IP is to disclose it via the patent office, so still no.
I own a car. Yes, I am about to make a car-Facebook analogy. I am very sorry.
If you look at my car, you haven't violated my property rights. If you write down my license plate, you haven't violated my property rights. If, from my bumper stickers and whatnot, you determine that I have a kid named Billy who plays football, a daughter named, Billy, who plays cello, that one of my kids is an honor-roll student (Billy, most likely), that I have a wife, that I most likely voted for Ralph Nader in 2004, and from the make and model of the car ascertain with reasonable certainty which socio-economic bracket I fit, you still have not violated any of my Constitutional Rights. Would it be creepy? Yes. The same is true of gathering info on Facebook, message boards, etc.
However, if you set your privacy settings and they circumvent them, that's totally different, and may fall under DMCA protection, since "You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings." [Facebook terms of use: http://www.facebook.com/terms.php ]
--"insert clever quote here"
Privacy is a function of sharing information with a limited set of people.
and there is a setting on facebook for that.
You may want your wife to see you naked, but that doesn't mean you want everybody walking by your house to look in your bathroom window.
a better metaphor would be if you were on your front lawn naked.
You may want your friends to know where you're going to be this weekend, but that doesn't mean you want government workers to keep an eye on your movements.
the dont put that information for everyone to see.
your expectations to have an opaque bubble around all governments is ridiculous.
Democracy leads to mob rule no matter how carefully you plan it.
Switzerland begs to differ...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What is spying if not one entity trying to obtain information that the counterparty does not want shared with it?
But you're posting it online on Facebook for everybody to see.
It's not spying. It's data mining and due diligence. I expect them to do these things. They'll get a lot of false positives, but they may get leads too.
Just like if you go out there and announce to everybody within hearing distance that you're a terrorist, you don't have the expectation for any law enforcement to turn the other cheek if they hear you. Nor, for that matter, anybody who ends up alerting law enforcement after hearing you. Now, if you get jailed for just saying something, then your freedom of speech is being violated. But I don't see this here.
The only difference is that online, "hearing" distance is basically the whole internet-connected world.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Stuff I wrote on this theme:
"CNC Machinist job related to custom bicycles & CIA version & comments" :-) as well as so Smári and Bryan and others here can be proud of them too. :-) And, given the CIA is hiring machinists, build a movement where, in a good way, you assume everyone in it is working for the CIA, :-) but where you still get important stuff done in moving the world towards a post-scarcity open future. Just like people should assume Google is a division of the NSA and/or CIA. :-) An impossible task? Well, consider it more like a creative challenge. :-) "
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/ae28e8971f8f9669?hl=en
"My advice to people here is to build movements in such a way that the CIA can be proud of them
"The need for FOSS intelligence tools for sensemaking etc."
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/2846ca1b6bee64e1
"Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
We need to openly work to calm all sorts of social storms (like involving a military/industrial/schooling/prison/disease-care complex out of civilian control) and thus help keep all sorts of big organizations accountable to the needs of the people (including giving them less cause for paranoia) as well as reduce tensions leading to individuals and small groups doing generally harmful things. So, we need to try to build some sensible healthy joyful educated and mutually/intrinsically secure middle ground. Some suggestions towards that end:
"Beyond a Jobless Recovery: A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics: Four long-term heterodox alternatives"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Good points.
If you look at this evolutionarily, humans are adapted for hundreds of thousands of years to living in small groups or tribes (of mostly family or more distant relatives). Living in cities is only a few thousand years old (and old cities were more like today's towns of 50,000 people). And living on the internet is only a decade or so old for most people. So, we are not adapted to it at all. So, we can either adapt to it or we can adapt it to us. :-) Or we can let things fall apart. Or we can do some mix of all three? :-)
My wife made a related point here about Facebook: ..."
http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2010/01/water-water-everywhere-nor-any-drop-to.html
"I got off Facebook today. I was only on it for about a month, but I learned some interesting things from the experience about the internet and social connections, some of which will help me improve my own social web application (Rakontu), and some of which may be useful to others.
There is yet another trend that I mention here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/2846ca1b6bee64e1
"As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM computers in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete."
I'm a trustee of a small non-profit organization (a historical society) and I have been talking some with the board about how, like with fire, we can in theory use computers effectively without getting burned by them. But, to get a lot more good than bad out of computers (relative to who we are or who we want to be), we really have to ask first, what are our values, goals, and priorities and how can we create a technical infrastructure out of all the possibilities that reflects those values.
Political scientist Langdon Winner raised this sort of issue in "Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-control as a Theme in Political Thought" from 1978. From:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/aq/summary/v058/58.3pena.html
"Langdon Winner ends his Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought with a corrective to what he believes is an inaccurate popular understanding of the message in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It is not, he argues, a monster story of the inevitable dangers of technological wizardry. Rather, it is a story of "the plight of things that have been created but not in the context of suffic
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I agree with a lot of the things you write, Paul. I am curious if you would provide a brief explanation of whether or not you are a civilian. If yes, is the money in your bank account also civilian?
I know asking things like this can get a person in trouble, which is why I am not posting AC... no threat intended. Forgive me if the question is out of line.
Thanks,
Ush
But you're posting it online on Facebook for everybody to see.
Only if you don't set your privacy controls.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It says somewhere on the CIA public website (or used to) essentially that if you are applying for a job there, you should not tell anyone. I guess, the first rule of the CIA is no one works there, except Valery Plame. :-) But the CIA suggests that in part for the reasons you imply, as it can presumably make people a target (although it also would complicated covert things). Of course, who is not a target in some way in this world? Things become an issue of "risk management", like so much in life. It's unfortunate that the US has such an organization that mixes up sensemaking, spying, and covert operations. I think a "COIA" (Central Open Intelligence Agency?) that just worked in public would be much more effective for US security. :-) Maybe to complement the "Department of Peace" Dennis Kucinich and others have worked towards? :-) Although various different agencies and parts of agencies all do part of that task, but there may be poor integration of all that. And, of course, nothing is going to work right as long as our economic religion is so messed up (and a top priority has to be rethinking economics for the 21st century so it stops being primarily a faith-based dogmatic religion that denies it is a religion. :-) Related:
"The Market as God"
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm
As to me and my funding, under our current socioeconomic paradigm, I'm right now mostly one step above Kryten as a toilet-scrubbing homeschooling stay-at-home Dad, supported by a wife doing data-analysis consulting for "civilian" corporations these days, where my hobbies include developing FOSS software, writing long essays like this that hardly anyone reads, taking care of three elderly chickens, and taking part in a global "Blessed Unrest" http://www.blessedunrest.com/ towards saving a world that, way more often than not, is uninterested in being saved from its own internal contradictions and ironies. A world going mad from simple things like vitamin D deficiency and not eating enough vegetables, fruits, and legumes:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
Best job I ever had. :-)
But if the CIA came along and offered me a big grant to do publicly available FOSS Intelligence software and related content, would I ask my wife to do even more of the homeschooling and chicken care than she does already, or maybe even hire a multilingual tutor for some of the time and/or buy a toilet scrubbing robot? Probably. :-) How's that for ethics? :-) Would I rather such work was funded some other way? Sure. We tried a bit and failed with the NSF and NASA:
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/nsfprop.htm
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
Maybe we did not try hard enough perhaps... I have to admire these Concord people for their success and doing stuff mostly the right way (at least, as right as you can be if focused mostly on the needs of compulsory schools):
http://www.concord.org/
Politics and FOSS can make strange bedfellows. A few years ago there was a slashdot story on someone doing FOSS who lost a military-related contract after he said he took military money because it meant one less cruise missile or something. But he was right in a way. Imagine what some FOSS developers could do with the time otherwise made available by the money tied up in just one Tomahawk cruise missile (US$6
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I salute you. Not sure how meta you were trying to be, but I am grinning.
I will think about you, and I don't think about potential pen-pals like artichokes... onions at best ;)
If you and your wife are real me and my lady might also be real. Goodnight - in the morning I will have to explain why I drank the last two beers (it's 'cause it took two to gain a perspective on that post ;) )
The age of privacy may be over - but seeing how people of all ages eagerly embrace things like Faecesbook and Twitter, it would appear that this is what they want, so what is the problem? Is it just that some are being prudish in the sense that "I don't like that, so I don't want to see others liking it"?
Personally, I find it hard to see what I would want to use facebook for, but I am old. When I grew up, I wanted to have long hair and smoke cannabis, and those of my my parents' age were scared that we would all go to hell - but here I am, with high stats in the game of life, and the only hell around is what people create for themselves. So, stop whining about those "useless hippies" or whatever they are called now; if you don't like their way of life, don't live that way.
And, honestly - how can you spy on what people do on a website that is designed to put your things out in the public view? Is the government also spying when they read newspapers?
"I salute you. Not sure how meta you were trying to be, but I am grinning."
Glad someone else around here gets my jokes. :-)
I'm not sure either how meta I was trying to be. :-)
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On your other point, I don't have much advice about women, and of course, men being around women tends to lead to kids which is a whole other issue. :-)
And of course, be careful what you wish for. :-)
"Bedazzled Trailer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xUnFbyqNr4
And then there is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Parents
But I can tell you Morton Deutsch has good advice about relationships in general:
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
http://www.forums.alliance21.org/d_read/pax/articles/Deutsch.htm
If you can practice the things Morton Deutsch talks about, you will probably find more healthy relationships of all sorts than you have time for. :-)
Milton Mayeroff's "On Caring" is also worth reading, about how it is caring and being cared for (in all sorts of relationships with all sorts of different relationships) that matters more to feeling at home in the universe than understanding, possessing, and so on:
http://www.auuf.net/about-auuf/sermons/71-caring-sermon
The more people you interact with in a healthy way, the more likely you'll have good relationships of all sorts. There was some advice on basic conversation that says, talk with everyone, as you are improving your conversation skills, and you also never know who (someone's grandmother?) might connect you to someone else if they think you are a likeable sort (that is not to say to be ungenuine -- just to say to be out there interacting with the world in positive ways). Of course, you can pick where you spend a lot of your time:
http://www.idealist.org/
And stuff on life's ups and down and how even the down times are valuable:
"Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals"
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC
"Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. Are you going to hide out in self-delusion and distracting entertainments? Are you going to become cynical or depressed? Or are you going to open your heart to a mystery that is as natural as the sun and the moon, day and night, and summer and winter?"
And a lot of human interpersonal reactions have nothing to do with formal logic or politics, but with things like pheromones related to maximizing genetic diversity for disease resistance in offspring. :-) Or, from another angle, happiness in relationships also depends on many small things, as my undergrad adviser told me, if you like to sleep with the window open, and your wife likes to sleep with the window shut, you two are never going to be happy. But, as someone else told me (someone in the military, by the way :-), love is about working through those kind of things, so maybe my adviser was wrong about that specific thing, even as his point in general is true that little things make a big difference?
Another thing is that people change over time, even as relationships may endure. To an extent, a relationship is somewhat a separate thing than the people in it.
Also, if you wo
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If somebody reads stuff about you and looks at your pictures because you willingly put them out for viewing, then that is not spying. In my field, we call this "open source" intelligence. Think of it as open source spying if you must. Or, I dunno, don't put stuff on the Internet if you don't want the governments looking at it.
Still not seeing any reply to this question:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1820998&cid=33897352
Your post got modded up to 5 for being all wonderfully idealistic. But how will you make it happen without getting politicians to do it for you? (i.e., see above link.)
It's easy to espouse a perfect world. Metagovernment makes no claims to being perfect. Just much better than the current situation, and: actually feasible.
Would it be creepy? Yes. The same is true of gathering info on Facebook, message boards, etc.
However, if you set your privacy settings and they circumvent them, that's totally different
Right, that's the essential difference - the bumper stickers on your car are things you mean to broadcast to the world. The stuff inside your car - that's a bit gray; your bank bill on the seat, no, the zebra-stripe seat covers, probably.
Most people on Facebook aren't intending to share their information broadly. Facebook may have poor default privacy settings, and people may be technically inept, but the intent is pretty clear. LEO's finding ways to circumvent that intent may not be breaking the law but they are violating the trust.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)