J. K. Galbraith on WG convened by ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis

[nettime's_b!lngu4l_zekretary]

< 
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/27/professor-james-k-galbraiths-statement-on-the-ministry-of-finance-working-group-convened-by-former-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis/
 >

Professor James K. Galbraith's statement on the Ministry of Finance Working
Group convened by former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis

   Posted on July 27, 2015 by yanisv

   (scroll down for the Greek language version)

   I spent five months from early February through early July in close
   association with the Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and was
   part of the Working Group that did contingency planning for potential
   attempts to asphyxiate the Greek government, including aggressive moves
   to force the country out of the euro. Since a great deal of public
   confusion has now arisen over this effort, the following should be
   stated:(1) At no time was the Working Group engaged in advocating exit
   or any policy choice. The job was strictly to study the operational
   issues that would arise if Greece were forced to issue scrip or if it
   were forced out of the euro.

   (2) The group operated under the axiom that the government was fully
   committed to negotiating within the euro, and took extreme precautions
   not to jeopardize that commitment by allowing any hint of our work to
   reach the outside world. There were no leaks whatever, until the
   existence of the group was disclosed by the former Finance Minister
   himself, in response to criticism that his ministry had made no
   contingency plans when it was known that forces within the Eurozone
   were planning the forced exit of Greece.

   (3) The existence of preliminary plans could not play any role in the
   Greek negotiating position, since their circulation (before there was a
   need to implement them) would have destabilized government policy.

   (4) Apart from one late, inconclusive telephone conversation between MP
   Costas Lapavitsas and myself, we had no coordination with the Left
   Platform and our Working Group's ideas had little in common with
   theirs.

   (5) Our work ended for practical purposes in early May, with a long
   memorandum outlining major issues and scenaria that we  studied.

   (6) My work in this area was unpaid and unofficial, based on my
   friendship with Yanis Varoufakis and on my respect for the cause of the
   Greek people.

   FOR THE GREEK LANGUAGE VERSION...

   ANAKOINW*SY JAMES K. GALBRAITH

   Apo' ton Febroua'rio e'w*s ti*s arxe'*s Iouli'ou sunerga'styka ek tou
   su%neggu*s ?e ton e'llyna Upourgo' Oikono?ikw%n, k. Gia'ny Baroufa'ky,
   w*s suntonisty%*s o?a'da*s ergasi'a*s pou sxedi'aze ?e'tra e'ktakty*s
   ana'gky*s styn peri'ptwsy e'cwthen asfuktikw%n pie'sewn pro*s tyn
   kube'rnysy, su?perila?bano?e'nwn kai kiny%sewn pou ?porei' na sto'xeuan
   tyn ekdi'wcy ty*s Ella'da*s apo' to eurw%. Dedo?e'nou o'ti ton
   teleutai'o kairo' e'xei dy?iourgythei' ?ega'ly su%gxusy w*s pro*s ti*s
   ergasi'e*s ty*s o?a'da*s ?a*s, dylw%nw ta ako'loutha:
1. Se ka?i'a peri'ptwsy y o?a'da ergasi'a*s den pro'teine e'codo ty*s
   xw%ra*s apo' to eurw% y% opoiady%pote allagy% politiky%*s ty*s
   kube'rnysy*s. Oi ergasi'e*s ?a*s aforou%san tyn e'kdosy
   reusto'tyta*s (IOU) se eurw% y% kiny%sei*s pou e'prepe na gi'noun
   se peri'ptwsy pou ka'poioi prospathou%san na ekdiw%coun tyn xw%ra
   apo' to eurw%.
2. Y o?a'da ergazo'tan upo' to aci'w?a pw*s pa'gia the'sy ty*s
   kube'rnysy*s y%tan y diaprag?a'teusy ento'*s tou eurw% kai, gia
   auto' ton lo'go, la'?bane o'le*s ti*s profula'cei*s w%ste na ?yn
   diadothei' o,tidy%pote sxetika' ?e ti*s ergasi'e*s ?a*s. Pra'g?ati,
   den upy%rcan diarroe'*s e'w*s o'tou o t. Upourgo'*s Oikono?ikw%n,
   ?eta' to pe'ra*s twn ergasiw%n ty*s o?a'da*s ?a*s, anakoi'nwse tyn
   u%parcy% ty*s w*s orthy% anti'drasy styn e'ntony kritiky% o'ti, tyn
   epoxy% pou duna'?ei*s ento'*s ty*s eurwzw%ny*s sxedi'azan tyn
   apopo?py% ty*s xw%ra*s apo' to eurw%, to Upourgei'o Oikono?ikw%n
   den ekpo'nyse sxe'dio anti'drasy*s.
3. Y u%parcy prokatarktikw%n sxedi'wn anti'drasy*s den tha ?porou%se
   na pai'cei ro'lo sti*s diaprag?ateu%sei*s, apo' tyn stig?y% pou y
   dy?osiopoi'ysy% tou*s (prin xreiastei' na efar?ostou%n) tha
   apostatheropoiou%se tyn kubernytiky% politiky%.
4. Me ecai'resy ?ia tylefwniky% ?ou suno?ili'a, a'neu ousiastikou%
   periexo?e'nou, ?e ton bouleuty% tou SURZIA k. Kw%sta Lapabi'tsa, y
   o?a'da ?a*s den ei'xe ka?i'a apolu%tw*s epafy% ?e ?e'ly ty*s
   Aristery%*s Platfo'r?a*s twn opoi'wn oi apo'qei*s apei'xan apo'
   ti*s dike'*s ?a*s
5. Oi ergasi'e*s ty*s o?a'da*s ?a*s, ousiastika', oloklyrw%thykan
   sti*s arxe'*s Mai3ou upo' tyn ?orfy% analutikou% pori's?ato*s sto
   opoi'o anafero'?astan se o'la ta zyty%?ata, kai sena'ria, pou
   ?elety%sa?e.
6. Y ergasi'a ?ou sto plai'sio ty*s o?a'da*s auty%*s y%tan anepi'sy?y
   kai a?isthi', basis?e'ny styn fili'a ?o

Re: Lori Emerson: What's Wrong With the Internet and How

[morlockelloi]

The Internet *is* it's lowest protocol layers. The ideology and politics 
are embedded in protocols, and attempts to 'solve' the problem without 
addressing these fundamental issues are doomed to fail.


Example: the asymmetry of DSL and cable bandwidths in the two 
directions is built into the link layer, and it was purely political 
decision, little to do with technology.


On 7/27/15, 11:53, Florian Cramer wrote:


It seems as if a more apt title for this interview would be "What's
Wrong With TCP/IP and How We Can Fix It", since the Internet is now
much more than its lowest protocol layer. - That said, one should make
all "net neutrality" activists take note of Day's excellent critique of
this concept.Â



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Re: Lori Emerson: What's Wrong With the Internet and How We

[Florian Cramer]

   On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 3:11 PM, t byfield 
   wrote:

 Via RISKS 
 
 Â  Â loriemerson
 Â  Â July 23, 2015
 What's Wrong With the Internet and How We Can Fix It: Interview With
 Internet Pioneer John Day

   It seems as if a more apt title for this interview would be "What's
   Wrong With TCP/IP and How We Can Fix It", since the Internet is now
   much more than its lowest protocol layer. - That said, one should make
   all "net neutrality" activists take note of Day's excellent critique of
   this concept.Â
   -F


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WhiteSave.me -- The App That Delivers Privilege

[Dmytri Kleiner]

WhiteSave.me

The App That Delivers Privilege

WhiteSave.me enables White men to help non-Whites to succeed in life 
without disrupting existing systems and long-standing traditions.

http://whitesave.me
http://whitesave.me/#release
http://whitesave.me/#call


Just released this new work.


--- fwd ---

We were brought together as a team through the Art-A-Hack initiative.

Our project is “Imbalances in Tech.” We want to push people to reflect 
on digital saviorism, the danger of biased algorithms and binary 
approaches, the ridiculousness of simple solutions to complex 
deep-seated problems, and the folly that techno-utopian fixes can 
address issues like poverty, inequality and exclusion without addressing 
power imbalances and the entrenched historical privilege of certain 
individuals, institutions, and nations.

To explore those topics, we chose to focus on a complex, historical, 
systemic and touchy issue – white privilege – because it is highlighted 
by and a strong driver of all of the above.

We created a real/fake tech start-up with a business model, an app, a 
cheesy self-centered founders story, and everything else that a real 
start up aimed at “doing social good” typically has. We used the 
language bandied about by those in tech and social good – focusing our 
fake start up on ‘doing good while making a profit.’ We purposely 
centered our fake app on white people and their user experiences, and 
set it up so that non-white people would foot the bill through both 
cash, data mining and targeted advertising.

The app enables white men to ‘deliver privilege’ to the less privileged. 
We chose this language because ‘delivering privilege’ is just about as 
impossible as ‘delivering development’ or ‘delivering democracy’ through 
tech applications. We created a special discount for getting advice from 
white women - 77% of the price of a white man to reflect the current pay 
gap between men and women.

In order for someone to participate in the WhiteSave.me experience, they 
need to first prove their qualification to be a White Savior through the 
“whiteness detector,” which is based on a faulty algorithm. It uses a 
video camera to determine whether a person is white or not white. The 
algorithm is both simplistic and biased. It’s also often wrong. Once the 
algorithm determines if a person is white or not, the person is matched 
a 'White Savior' or a non-white ‘Savee’. The White Savior provides 
privileged answers to the Savee’s lack-of-privilege-related questions 
through SMS, voice, video or in person (depending on how much the Savee 
is willing to pay).

We created a satire because because satire can be deep and cutting, and 
it often makes people think while they laugh nervously (or sometimes 
hysterically). We want people to look at this site and feel unsure if 
it’s real or not. We want people to feel uncomfortable with both 
imbalances in tech and with white privilege. We want some people to see 
themselves in the caricatures and reflect on the 'solutions' they 
design. People of Color are normally well aware of the issues we 
highlight, but often white people shy away from talking about them or 
they talk about them in a way that puts whiteness at the center, 
reconfirming white privilege. Our site purposely puts white people at 
the center in an over the top way, as commentary on this tendency.

Through the project, we highlight how technological quick fix solutions 
are Band Aids that do nothing to resolve deep historical and 
institutionalized inequalities and biases. Tech often serves to distract 
people from these deeper issues and potential longer-term changes that 
will necessarily touch issues of power and require change by and in 
those who hold power. Through the “white or not” algorithm, we show how 
tech, as a binary tool, does not do a good job with nuances and complex 
issues. We also use the algorithm to comment on the false idea that race 
is binary, or that it even biologically exists.

 From the start of the project, we’ve consulted and shared the project 
with a diverse group of advisors and testers (white and not white) for 
orientation, criticism, commentary and other feedback. We felt this was 
especially important given that the three of us are white. We've taken 
the feedback and incorporated it into the site. We wanted to avoid 
offending People of Color, while we did want to call out white people of 
all political persuasions for overt and unconscious bias. One commenter 
pointed out our own white privilege in creating this site, saying that a 
person of color would seem too angry doing a site like this. Others 
cautioned us about offending or shocking white people, or creating 
feelings of guilt and stress. One person suggested that we might be 
targeted and harmed by white supremacists. We hope that is not true. 
Through the creation of the website and the fake app, we were able to 
explore and comment on imbalances in tech and how they reflect the 
world’s wide

Lori Emerson: What's Wrong With the Internet and How We Can Fix It: Interview With Internet Pioneer John Day

[t byfield]

Via RISKS 



   loriemerson

   July 23, 2015

What's Wrong With the Internet and How We Can Fix It: Interview With
Internet Pioneer John Day

Below is an interview I conducted with the computer scientist and
Internet pioneer John Day via email over the last six months or so.
The interview came about as a result of a chapter I've been working on
for my "Other Networks" project, called "The Net Has Never Been
Neutral." In this piece, I try to expand the materialist bent of media
archaeology, with its investment in hardware and software, to networks.
Specifically, I'm working through the importance of understanding the
technical specs of the Internet to figure out how we are unwittingly
living out the legacy of the power/knowledge structures that produced
TCP/IP. I also think through how the Internet could have been and may
still be utterly different. In the course of researching that piece, I
ran across fascinating work by Day in which he argues that "the
Internet is an unfinished demo" and that we have become blind not only
to its flaws but also to how and why it works the way it works. Below
you'll see Day expand specifically on five flaws of the TCP /IP
model that are still entrenched in our contemporary Internet
architecture and, even more fascinating, the ways in which a more
sensible structure (like the one proposed by the French CYCLADES
group) to handle network congestion would have made the issue of net
neutrality beside the point. I hope you enjoy and many, many thanks to
John for taking the time to correspond with me.

*

Emerson: You've written quite vigorously about the flaws of the TCP/IP
model that go all the way back to the 1970s and about how our
contemporary Internet is living out the legacy of those flaws.
Particularly, you've pointed out repeatedly over the years how the
problems with TCP were carried over not from the American ARPANET but
from an attempt to create a transport protocol that was different from
the one proposed by the French Cyclades group. First, could you explain
to readers what Cyclades did that TCP should have done?

Day: There were several fundamental properties of networks the CYCLADES
crew understood that the Internet group missed:

 * The Nature of Layers,
 * Why the Layers they had were there,
 * A complete naming and addressing model,
 * The fundamental conditions for synchronization,
 * That congestion could occur in networks, and
 * A raft of other missteps most of which follow from the previous 5,
   but some are unique.

First and probably foremost was the concept of layers. Computer
Scientists use "layers" to structure and organize complex pieces of
software. Think of a layer as a black box that does something, but the
internal mechanism is hidden from the user of the box. One example is a
black box that calculates the 24 hour weather forecast. We put in a
bunch of data about temperature, pressure and wind speed and out pops a
24 hour weather forecast. We don't have to understand how the blackbox
did it. We don't have to interact with all the different aspects it
went through to do that. The black box hides the complexity so we can
concentrate on other complicated problems for which the output of the
black box is input. The operating system of your laptop is a black box.
It does incredibly complex things but you don't see what it is doing.
Similarly, the layers of a network are organized that way. For the
ARPANET group, BBN [Bolt, Barenek, and Newman] built the network
and everyone else was responsible for the hosts. To the people
responsible for the hosts, the network of IMPs was a blackbox that
delivered packets. Consequently, for the problems they needed to solve,
their concept of layers focused on the black boxes in the hosts. So the
Internet's concept of layers was focused on the layer in the Hosts
where its primary purpose was modularity. The layers in the ARPANET
hosts were the Physical Layer, the wire; IMP-HOST Protocol; the NCP;
and the applications, such as Telnet, and maybe FTP.[1] For the
Internet, they were Ethernet, IP, TCP, Telnet or HTTP, etc. as
application. It is important to remember that the ARPANET was built to
be a production network to lower the cost of doing research on a
variety of scientific and engineering problems.

The CYCLADES group, on the other hand, was building a network to do
research on the nature of networks. They were looking at the whole
system to understand how it was supposed to work. They saw that layers
were more than just local modularity but a set of cooperating processes
in different systems, and most importantly different layers had
different scope, i.e. number of elements in them. This concept of the
scope of a layer is the most important property of layers. The Internet
never understood its importance.

The layers that the CYCLADES group c

Fwd: Hacked Team [getting off-topic...]

[Radovan Misovic]

Hi,
I found an interesting article related to this topic.
Cheers,
rad0


Hacking Team: a zero-day market case study

This article documents Hacking Team's third-party acquisition of
zero-day (0day) vulnerabilities and exploits. The recent compromise of
Hacking Team's email archive offers one of the first public case studies
of the market for 0days. Because of its secretive nature, this market
has been the source of endless debates on the ethics of it's
participants. The archive also offers insight into the capabilities and
limits of offensive-intrusion software developers. As a private company,
Hacking Team had to contend with the fact that many vendors would only
sell directly to governments and would not work with them. As a result,
their 0day providers tended to be small and unestablished. Some
established exploit vendors, like VUPEN and COSEINC, did offer to sell
Hacking Team exploits, but they were predominantly overpriced,
second-rate, and not even 0day. As a result, Hacking Team was seriously
exploit supply constrained because they had difficulty finding suppliers
that they deemed reliable and reasonably priced. Their competitors, like
Gamma International and NSO Group, prominently advertised their 0day
capabilities, forcing Hacking Team to be defensive with prospective
customers.

Despite the lurid journalistic depictions of 0day markets, most of the
emails offer a more mundane perspective. Buyers follow standard
technology purchasing practices around testing, delivery, and
acceptance. Warranty and requirements negotiations become necessary in
purchasing a product intrinsically predicated on the existence of
information asymmetry between the buyer and the seller.
Requirements—like targeted software configurations—are important to
negotiate ahead of time because adding support for new targets might be
impossible or not worth the effort. Likewise warranty provisions for
buyers are common so they can minimize risk by parceling out payments
over a set timeframe and terminating payments early if the vulnerability
is patched before that timeframe is complete. Payments are typically
made after a 0day exploit has been delivered and tested against
requirements, necessitating sellers to trust buyers to act in good
faith. Similarly, buyers purchasing exploits must trust the sellers not
to expose the vulnerability or share it with others if it's sold on an
exclusive basis.

On a technical level, it's interesting to note the difference in price
for different vulnerabilities. 0day markets allow unique qualitative
comparisons for how difficult it is to exploit a given piece of software
or bypass certain exploit mitigations. However, the reader should be
warned that price comparisons for different exploits should be taken
with a grain of salt. Exploit developers have an incentive to state high
prices and brokers offer to sell both low-quality and high-quality
exploits. If a buyer negotiates poorly or chooses a shoddy exploit, the
vendor still benefits. Moreover, it's difficult to compare the
reliability and projected longevity of vulnerabilities or exploits
offered by different developers. Many of the exploits offered by exploit
brokers are not sold.

Hacking Team's relationships with 0day vendors date back to 2009 when
they were still transitioning from their information security
consultancy roots to becoming a surveillance business. They excitedly
purchased exploit packs from D2Sec and VUPEN, but they didn't find the
high-quality client-side oriented exploits they were looking for. Their
relationship with VUPEN continued to frustrate them for years. Towards
the end of 2012, CitizenLab released their first report on Hacking
Team's software being used to repress activists in the United Arab
Emirates. However, a continuing stream of negative reports about the use
of Hacking Team's software did not materially impact their
relationships. In fact, by raising their profile these reports served to
actually bring Hacking Team direct business. In 2013 Hacking Team's CEO
stated that they had a problem finding sources of new exploits and
urgently needed to find new vendors and develop in-house talent. That
same year they made multiple new contacts, including Netragard, Vitaliy
Toropov, Vulnerabilities Brokerage International, and Rosario Valotta.
Though Hacking Team's internal capabilities did not significantly
improve, they continued to develop fruitful new relationships. In 2014
they began a close partnership with Qavar Security.

The rest of the article is a loosely ordered recollection of Hacking
Team's relationships and correspondences with various 0day providers.
Vitaliy Toropov

Vitaliy Toropov is a Russian freelance exploit developer. He approached
Hacking Team in October of 2013 and offered to sell them exploits for
various browser components.

Business model: Vitaliy is a freelancer that sells his own exploits and
is not incorporated. He has reported dozens of bugs, primarily in
browser components, to iDefense

Re: Franco Berardi 'Bifo': I refuse to visit Germany [two

[Andreas Broeckmann]

Dear Bifo,

with all due respect, I find your argument untenable and 
counter-productive. I would particularly want to take issue with the way 
in which you call up the spectre of "the German nation" as a key agent 
in the current political and economic crisis of Greece.


As far as I can see, there is a huge propaganda operation at work at the 
moment in the different countries, and findings on "public opinion" 
there are communicated as part of that propaganda. In my view, the 
propaganda operation is there to occlude the maze of social inequalities 
in the European Union, and more importantly, to occlude the fact that 
what is at stake is the legitimacy (or not) of the global financial 
system that, in Greece, is represented by the "Troika" institutions. I 
understood Varoufakis' stake to be the challenge of elucidating - at 
least for a moment - the fact that this is the enemy that we are up 
against. Schäuble and Merkel have made themselves the mere house-keepers 
of a global financial system that is built on debt, - the Greek state 
and large portions of the Greek people are one of its latest victim. The 
World Bank, the IMF, many others have been building this system over the 
past 40 years. (For you to mention the [privately owned] "Deutsche Bank" 
in this context, rather than, for instance, "Goldman Sachs", suits your 
polemical purpose, but your remark is little more than manipulative. And 
the idea that the plight of the Greek people can be improved by removing 
the current Merkel government is, in my view, ludicrous; there will be 
other Schäubles, just as - in another part of the playing field - 
Tsipras has been back in the talks with the Troika only days after the 
clear "No" from Greek voters.)


Bifo, I cannot understand how you can reduce the necessary political 
analysis of the current moment to the simplistic equation: Greek crisis 
= Schäuble/Merkel = "the German State=Nation=citizens=population" = 
heirs of Nazis. For me, this reduction smacks of the populism that has 
been used, throughout the last century, to find scape-goats for 
something (and in this case: for a global financial system), that in 
itself appears too complex, too dangerous, too stable, too whatever, to 
challenge.


I completely agree with you that German intellectuals, along with all 
others, have an obligation to critique that system and its vicious 
social effects, not only, but also in Greece. But I also believe that 
just as Berlusconi was not only an Italian but a European problem, and 
Fidesz is not a Hungarian but a European problem, - and both have not 
been reasons to boycott these other former "Achsenmächte", - your 
disgust about "people in Germany" is awfully misplaced, and even if you 
feel like that, I believe that giving way to the sentiment is not the 
answer that the current moment requires.


Sincerely,

abroeck


Am 24.07.15 um 12:50 schrieb nettime's msg collector:


First Message: 9th July 2015


To the organisers of International Literature Festival "Poetische
Quellen 2015" To the coordinators of 100 Jahre Gegenwart Eröffnung.

I thank you for inviting me to take part in the 14th edition of the
Festival in the day August 30, and to the Haus der Kulturen der Welt
in the days September 30-October 4rth.


However I must inform you that, although I accepted to participate in
your prestigious manifestations, I’m now obliged to renounce because
given the present circumstances, I refuse to visit a country whose
population is predominantly following the stance of the fanatical
persecutors of the Greek people and of the overall population of the
Eurozone.

<...>


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