Re: Moving Nettime to the Fediverse

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Andreas,

I respectfully disagree with your characterisation of my remarks.

For the avoidance of doubt, I believe that the list maintainers do wish to
support the community, which is precisely why I believe that they will share
the information needed to preserve continuity of the list with their
successors.

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Thu, 15 Dec 2022 at 12:27:17PM +0100, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> Maybe, more productively, and as Allan has suggested, people can write small
> reports here about how (exactly) they are using the new Mastodon instance,
> and what their experiences are. I'd find that useful, and maybe it's a good
> time to learn and play together.
> 
> Regards,
> -a
> 
> 
> PS: Geoff, excuse my bluntness, but I think that the tone of your posting is
> completely inappropriate. Even for people who don't know the moderators
> personally, it must be clear that their commitment to the list and the
> project of Nettime is and has been substantial, and to put that in question
> in the form that you do here is in itself, for me, a mark of
> self-disqualification.
> 
> Just two things: I suggest that you strike through the word "we" in your
> posting and reconsider again who this acting subject might actually be;
> there is certainly no "we" here that can "identify", "create", or "decide".
> The composition of this 'connective' is much more feeble than you seem to
> think. And you are suggesting to send away the people who have been holding
> its foundations together, even though you admit to not knowing what that
> involves, technically, mentally, socially, communication-wise. (Maybe apply
> for an internship?)
> 
> Secondly, it may look like it for you, but Nettime is not and probably never
> will be an institution. It was much closer to that status 20 years ago. Its
> rules of operation are therefore different.
> 
> -a
> 
> 
> Am 15.12.22 um 10:53 schrieb Geoffrey Goodell:
> > Dear Allan and all,
> > 
> > The wishful thinking on the part of the list maintainers was:
> > 
> > (a) that they would be forgiven for growing weary of running the service; 
> > AND
> > 
> > (b) that they would also continue to enjoy the self-gratification from
> > volunteering to provide infrastructure support to the community.
> > 
> > The inconvenient reality is that they cannot have both (a) and (b).
> > 
> > So, I suggest that we identify new list maintainers; after all, we all knew
> > that time for a successor would eventually come.  If this is just a matter 
> > of
> > configuring and running mailman3 on one of my mail servers, then I am happy 
> > to
> > do it myself, although I suspect that there are others here who are more
> > appropriate for the task.
> > 
> > Suggest that we create a committee of volunteers to receive the knowledge of
> > how to run the list (e.g.: the list of email addresses and their settings, 
> > the
> > mailman configuration files, the historical archive, and so on) and decide 
> > who
> > should do what.  Whether or not this makes some people uncomfortable, 
> > Nettime
> > has become a de facto institution and requires an institutional approach.
> > 
> > Best wishes --
> > 
> > Geoff
> 
> 
> On Thu, 15 Dec 2022 at 10:07:16AM +0100, Allan Siegel wrote:
> > Dear All,
> >
> > I think Mastodon has certain things going for it but the experience is
> very
> > different from the Nettime LIST...
> >
> > The group who orchestrated the change in environments should have prepared
> > users for the change and described a framework on how this change could
> > work. To suddenly basically dissolve one community and imagine it will
> just
> > reappear someplace else involves some wishful thinking.
> >
> > best
> >
> > allan
> >
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Re: Moving Nettime to the Fediverse

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Allan and all,

The wishful thinking on the part of the list maintainers was:

(a) that they would be forgiven for growing weary of running the service; AND

(b) that they would also continue to enjoy the self-gratification from
volunteering to provide infrastructure support to the community.

The inconvenient reality is that they cannot have both (a) and (b).

So, I suggest that we identify new list maintainers; after all, we all knew
that time for a successor would eventually come.  If this is just a matter of
configuring and running mailman3 on one of my mail servers, then I am happy to
do it myself, although I suspect that there are others here who are more
appropriate for the task.

Suggest that we create a committee of volunteers to receive the knowledge of
how to run the list (e.g.: the list of email addresses and their settings, the
mailman configuration files, the historical archive, and so on) and decide who
should do what.  Whether or not this makes some people uncomfortable, Nettime
has become a de facto institution and requires an institutional approach.

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Thu, 15 Dec 2022 at 10:07:16AM +0100, Allan Siegel wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> I think Mastodon has certain things going for it but the experience is very
> different from the Nettime LIST...
> 
> The group who orchestrated the change in environments should have prepared
> users for the change and described a framework on how this change could
> work. To suddenly basically dissolve one community and imagine it will just
> reappear someplace else involves some wishful thinking.
> 
> best
> 
> allan
> 
> 
> On 12/14/22 17:18, Miklos Peternak wrote:
> > dear all,
> > 
> > from someone who rarely post to the list, but follows it almost since
> > the beginnig -?? as andreas was accurate, i only join him now:
> > 
> > On 2022. 12. 06. 21:20, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
> > > , i know that for me personally the move of nettime away from e-mail
> > > would mean that i would, after 25+ years, probably lose the
> > > connection. like others here, e-mail is the medium i like for this
> > > kind of communication, and i don't see myself scrolling through
> > 
> > > (...)
> > &
> > > 
> > > i know that simplicity and longevity are not values in themselves,
> > 
> > i do think, these are values - but agree, there are more values on earth,
> > 
> > by than, to all,
> > 
> > & my very bests,
> > 
> > miklos
> > 
> > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission
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> > > #?? collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > > #?? more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> > > #?? archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> > > #?? @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
> > 
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Re: Moving Nettime to the Fediverse

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Doma, Felix, and Ted

I am confused by your recurring argument that the problem with Nettime is
fundamentally technical in nature, or indeed that there is a problem with
Nettime at all.  Speaking personally, Nettime works well for me.  I read
interesting commentary from people I respect, with the reassurance that I can
always add my voice to the symphony.

The fact that I do not post more often is mainly testament to the fact that I
am busy with other responsibilities.  I am sure that this is true of others
here as well.  This problem will not suddenly disappear with a shift to a
different choice of underpinning technology.  In fact, it will be exacerbated,
because although I run my own e-mail server, the tools for engaging with the
so-called 'fediverse' are not part of my workflow.  And so, a shift in
technology will inexorably induce a 'shake out' in which people are forced to
either adopt new workflows or face exclusion.  I would have thought that the
moral foundation of Internet ethics would be incompatible with the use of force
in this way.

As far as I know, the argument that 'fediverse' technology, such as that used
by Hometown and Mastodon, is superior to e-mail is weak at best and has never
been articulated to this group.  As far as I know, such technology is in the
hands of a handful of software developers and has not been subject to the same
rigorous standardisation process of the sort that led to the establishment of
e-mail.  I suspect that most people on this list did not use e-mail before
1977, by which point RFC 724 was already published [1].  Of course, this
standard has evolved over the years, in a direction that has benefited the
world and is now used by billions of people.  As far as I know, there has not
yet been a comparable community-based effort to standardise the implementation
of 'fediverse' protocols.  Here, we have precisely the sort of platform-based
tyranny by fiat that the Internet pioneers laboured to bury forever.

Finally, I find the argument that new technology can solve a fundamentally
social problem to be absurd and somewhat hypocritical based on the topic of
discussion on this list.  While I am not convinced that the so-called
'fediverse' is a solution looking for a problem, I am also not convinced that
it will make things better for us.

Perhaps some of the maintainers of the current infrastructure are bored of the
job to which they volunteered, years ago.  In that case, they should step aside
and leave the task of maintaining this list to others.  Surely there are
democratic and less-than-democratic ways to achieve this; let's try something.
Perhaps a call for volunteers might be a start.

But what I can say with certainty is that if you pack up and go somewhere else,
not everyone will follow you, and even fewer people will follow if you neglect
to provide a solid argument for why.  Whether you like it or not, Nettime is
more than a toy project of yours; it provides a valuable service that works.

Let's stick together.

Best wishes --

Geoff

[1] https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc724

On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 at 11:34:35PM -0100, nettime's mod squad wrote:
> Dear nettimers,
> 
> Nettime was founded at a time when, as quaint as it sounds, email was 
> exciting.
> That's long since gone for those who experienced it, let alone for those who
> didn't. Discussion-oriented mailing lists like this are, in a word, over,
> technically *and* culturally. It's time to think more attentively about 
> whether
> or how nettime can evolve beyond email and its peculiar 'list culture.'
> 
> And it's not just email. The edifices that have displaced and replaced lists
> are on the rocks too. Twitter is widely thought to be going over a cliff as
> Facebook, already graying, sinks under the weight of its "Metaverse." As more
> and more people cast around for alternatives, net.critique has become a bit of
> a thing again.
> 
> We say: let's ditch the mailing list and start moving to the fediverse. Toward
> this end, we've set up an instance < https://tldr.nettime.org > with the
> following bare-bones "about":
> 
> tldr.nettime is an instance for artists, researchers, and activists interested
> in exploring the intersections of technology, culture, and politics.
> 
> It has grown out of nettime-l, one of the longest-running mailing lists on the
> net ??? in particular, on the 'cultural politics of the internet'.
> 
> tldr.nettime is based on Hometown, a fork of Mastodon. It's compatible with 
> the
> wider fediverse, but it also offers two tweaks we hope will help make it
> unusually fruitful:
> 
>* The character count per message is higher ??? 2000 chars at the moment.
> 
>* You can choose whether your post is public or visible only on tldr's 
> local
> timeline and only to tldr's members.
> 
> Aside from that, everything is raw by design: it's for those who make the move
> to define what this instance will be and how we can make it useful.
> 
> This is a chance to move beyond nett

Re: Biocultural Corridors

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Indeed, it might certainly be worthwhile to extend this tool to provide a means
for people to protect themselves from their own devices and spyware.

> I guess that we tend to think of firewalling as mostly protection from
> inbound connections, but

There is an increasing academic corpus that draws attention to the idea that
the enemy is within:

https://moniotrlab.ccis.neu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ren-imc19.pdf

In my view, the best use of a firewall is to block outbound connections.  You
can absolutely (using iptables, etc) block some of the prefixes that you
describe below.

iptables -A OUTPUT -s 142.241.0.0/16 -j DROP

Alternatively, suggest you can achieve most of what you want simply by blocking
DNS requests for the names of dodgy services.

What names should you block?  Well, you can start with lists maintained by
others:

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt

https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/zero/hosts

https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?mimetype=plaintext

You can also block other horrible names too, such as, for example:

"incoming.telemetry.mozilla.org."

Bonus points for pointing this name at a web server that runs locally and
returns the response that Microsoft Windows expects:

"www.msftconnecttest.com."

Happy hacking --

Geoff

On Tue, 23 Aug 2022 at 01:27:33PM +0100, mp wrote:
> 
> cool, thx!
> 
> Disclaimer: I did not write this code, I merely downloaded, typed 'cmake .'
> and 'make' and then ran it.
> 
> It is discussed here (on evil Twatter):
> https://twitter.com/bert_hu_bert/status/1561466204602220544
> 
> It is a simple, indicative tool, but it is a sort of proof of concept and
> wake up tool that potentially could be expanded with blacklisting those
> outbound connections of the apps/cookies/whatever they call home and
> elsewhere.
> 
> I guess that we tend to think of firewalling as mostly protection from
> inbound connections, but
> 
> ...
> ..
> .
> 
> On 23/08/2022 12:08, Geoffrey Goodell wrote:
> > Hi mp,
> > 
> > This is a great idea.  I hypothesise that:
> > 
> > (1) People have no idea how much data they are sending to online services;
> > 
> > (2) People have no idea how often their various devices (not only PCs and
> > smartphones but also 'internet of things' devices) send data, even when the
> > user is not actively using them; and
> > 
> > (3) People have no idea how often routine activities such as web browsing to
> > ostensibly unrelated sites, email checking, and so on result in telemetry 
> > being
> > sent.
> > 
> > And of course, people might not realise that their physical movements and 
> > the
> > cadence of their activities over time are part of the accumulated data set.
> > 
> > I'm surprised that the Google prefixes are hard-coded.  Suggest using the
> > updated prefixes from the global routing table instead.
> > 
> > https://thyme.apnic.net/ipv4/ap/2022/08/23/
> > 
> > (replace with whatever date is today)
> > 
> > Download and unpack the five files in this directory.
> > 
> > Inside you will find a file 'data-used-autnums'.  You can search this file 
> > for
> > the names of autonomous systems (networks), or 'ASes', that together 
> > comprise
> > the Internet.
> > 
> > You can search this list, e.g.:
> > 
> > $ grep " GOOGLE" data-used-autnums
> > 
> > Let's not single-out Google.  Indeed you can look for other possible 
> > offenders
> > too, e.g.:
> > 
> > $ grep " MICROSOFT" data-used-autnums
> > 
> > The first column of the results are the AS numbers.  There is another file,
> > 'data-raw-table', which maps the numbers to prefixes.  You can use this 
> > file to
> > identify all of the prefixes you want to examine.
> > 
> > $ grep -w 15169 data-raw-table
> > 
> > I hope this helps.
> > 
> > Happy hacking,
> > 
> > Geoff
> > 
> > On Tue, 23 Aug 2022 at 10:18:12AM +0100, mp wrote:
> > > 
> > > Great, thanks.
> > > 
> > > Though, just for reference, this:
> > > 
> > > sudo tcpdump -n -l dst net 192.0.2.1/32 $(for a in $(cat 
> > > goog-prefixes.txt);
> > > do echo or dst net $a; done)  |  ./teller
> > > 
> > > from here:
> > > 
> > > https://github.com/berthubert/googerteller
> > > 
> > > .. makes the map noisy: https://map.casariolab.art
> > > 
> > > Ear opening tool.

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Re: Biocultural Corridors

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi mp,

This is a great idea.  I hypothesise that:

(1) People have no idea how much data they are sending to online services;

(2) People have no idea how often their various devices (not only PCs and
smartphones but also 'internet of things' devices) send data, even when the
user is not actively using them; and

(3) People have no idea how often routine activities such as web browsing to
ostensibly unrelated sites, email checking, and so on result in telemetry being
sent.

And of course, people might not realise that their physical movements and the
cadence of their activities over time are part of the accumulated data set.

I'm surprised that the Google prefixes are hard-coded.  Suggest using the
updated prefixes from the global routing table instead.

https://thyme.apnic.net/ipv4/ap/2022/08/23/

(replace with whatever date is today)

Download and unpack the five files in this directory.

Inside you will find a file 'data-used-autnums'.  You can search this file for
the names of autonomous systems (networks), or 'ASes', that together comprise
the Internet.

You can search this list, e.g.:

$ grep " GOOGLE" data-used-autnums

Let's not single-out Google.  Indeed you can look for other possible offenders
too, e.g.:

$ grep " MICROSOFT" data-used-autnums

The first column of the results are the AS numbers.  There is another file,
'data-raw-table', which maps the numbers to prefixes.  You can use this file to
identify all of the prefixes you want to examine.

$ grep -w 15169 data-raw-table

I hope this helps.

Happy hacking,

Geoff

On Tue, 23 Aug 2022 at 10:18:12AM +0100, mp wrote:
> 
> Great, thanks.
> 
> Though, just for reference, this:
> 
> sudo tcpdump -n -l dst net 192.0.2.1/32 $(for a in $(cat goog-prefixes.txt);
> do echo or dst net $a; done)  |  ./teller
> 
> from here:
> 
> https://github.com/berthubert/googerteller
> 
> .. makes the map noisy: https://map.casariolab.art
> 
> Ear opening tool.
> 
> On 19/08/2022 03:02, Brian Holmes wrote:
> > At night on the Parana, the stars still shine. The boatman cuts the motor;
> > we drift silently under the light of a full moon. This is the end of a four
> > thousand kilometer-long river, it's the "Delta front." The low islands to
> > the east extend fingers of land into the Rio del Plata estuary, and those
> > forested fingers grow about 70 meters longer every year, catching the last
> > of the sediments carried from the Andes and the Brazilian jungle. To the
> > southwest, the lights of Buenos Aires glitter on the horizon. Someday in
> > the future - quite soon, in geological time - the Delta front will reach
> > the city. Every month it's six meters closer. The mutability of this
> > territory makes my head spin. The stars, the moon, the lights, the islands
> > and the uncanny mirror of the river all come together like a wheel spinning
> > weightlessly in infinite space, or maybe it's a whirlpool, a cosmic gyre. A
> > homegrown joint makes its way from hand to hand, through the calm of a
> > winter night that is windless by good luck, and warm by devastating climate
> > change. The journey is well underway.
> > 
> > With Alejandro Meitin of Casa Rio we're making tactical media in the
> > wetlands, along a meandering path that leads from Punta Lara, south of
> > Buenos Aires, all the way north through the Pampa and the arid reaches of
> > the Grand Chaco to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. I wrote the paragraph
> > above a week ago; now we're at the halfway point. Our aim is to reach out
> > to riverside communities and build ecological awareness, while also helping
> > to accelerate the process of information-sharing among a network of
> > ecological NGOs called "Humedales sin fronteras" or Wetlands Without
> > Borders, whose member organizations are located in Argentina, Paraguay,
> > Bolivia and Brazil. My contribution as an artist-cartographer is an online
> > map and multimedia platform that can display text, scientific information,
> > photography, video, audio and social networks (it's FLOSS, built by Majk
> > Shkurti to my specs, see info below). The color scheme and iconography of
> > the map has been designed by Dani Lorenzo of Casa Rio, and most of the
> > videos you'll find inside were done by Andres Irigoyen. Lots of others are
> > involved, it would be long to list every one of them. As for Alejandro
> > Meitin, he's an artist, lawyer, environmental activist and
> > jack-of-all-trades who's been doing this kind of thing for thirty years,
> > first with the artists' group Ala Plastica, and now with the broader
> > community-based constellation of Casa Rio. We've taken similar journeys
> > before, stretching back to 2014 when Critical Art Ensemble generously
> > invited me to come along to Argentina for a roving seminar organized by Ala
> > Plastica under the name "Watersheds as Laboratories of Governance." In 2019
> > we brought an exhibition called "The Earth Will Not Abide" from Chicago to
> > the riverport city of Rosario, and Casa Rio 

Re: Fwd: [far...@keio.jp: [IP] CCRC/IP-Asia June 6, 9pm JST: Jeff returns - The United States of Anonymous]

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi Charlie,

You already have the link (see below)

https://ip.topicbox.com/groups/ip/

The mail archive is public, and there are instructions for joining as well.

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Mon, 06 Jun 2022 at 09:15:37AM -0400, charlie derr wrote:
> Thank you so much!
> 
> i followed your advice, and indeed the conversation ahead of the
> "scheduled talk" was truly fascinating.
> 
> When i asked (in the zoom chat) about how to be kept apprised of future
> events in the series, it was suggested that i subscribe to Dave Farber's
> Interesting-People list (which it looks like you pasted from below,
> though without full email headers).
> 
> However, what i found is
> 
> https://seclists.org/interesting-people/
> 
> and while there are archives available (and an RSS feed), i can't see
> how i might add my email address to the recipient list. Perchance does
> anyone have any direction for me on this? i'd love to attend future
> sessions (on almost any topic, as the group of thinkers that attended
> this one was amazing!).
> 
> thanks again,
> ~c
> 
> 
> On 6/3/22 17:22, Jos?? Mar??a Mateos wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > This might be of interest to members of the list. I've attended a few of
> > these virtual encounters and they're very, very interesting.
> > 
> > I'm currently enjoying "ReadMe!" and many of the discussions there could
> > have been chapters of the book. One thing is what's planned, another
> > what ends up being talked about, specially the conversations prior to
> > the start of the actual event. Make sure to connect one hour to half an
> > hour before, if that's feasible.
> > 
> > - Forwarded message from ?? ??? 
> >  -
> > 
> > Subject: [IP] CCRC/IP-Asia June 6, 9pm JST: Jeff returns - The United
> > States
> > of Anonymous
> > From: ?? ??? 
> > Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2022 17:54:57 +0900
> > To: Ip Ip 
> > Reply-To: ip 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Dear CCRC colleagues and friends
> > 
> > As part of our ongoing activities, Keio University Cyber Civilization
> > Research Center, David Farber and Dan Gillmor are continuing their
> > weekly online gathering over Zoom.
> > 
> > CCRC/IP-Asia is a platform for sharing new ideas, exchanging information
> > and getting around people with common interests. We have had a good
> > crowd from East and West to discuss topics ranging from network
> > infrastructure to media & disinformation to supply chains to information
> > tracing, and much more. Here is the list of previous topics that we've
> > discussed: https://www.ccrc.keio.ac.jp/cyber-ipasia/
> > 
> > In the coming session, Professor Jeff Kosseff will talk about his new
> > book, The United States of Anonymous, which traces the history of legal
> > protections for anonymous speech in the United States. The discussion
> > will consider the costs and benefits of anonymous speech, and compare
> > the legal protections in the United States with those of other countries.
> > 
> > Note Professor Kosseff has requested that we not record his comments, So
> > don???t miss.
> > 
> > We hold these conversations every Monday! Please invite people you think
> > can contribute to the discussion.
> > 
> > Put this on your calendar: Monday, 9 pm (2100) JST on June 6, 2022.
> > (EST: 8am | BST: 1pm | CEST 2pm )
> > 
> > Here is the link for this Zoom gathering:
> > https://zoom.us/j/966864863?pwd=bXNmR3ZBUVJOdzE1VExZZHhsM1Y2Zz09
> > Password: 076743
> > 
> > See you on Monday!
> > 
> > Dave and Dan
> > 
> > PS: The meeting is held under the Chatham House Rule. Here's what that
> > means:
> > "When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule,
> > participants are free to use the information received, but neither the
> > identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other
> > participant, may be revealed
> > 
> > --
> > ip: ip
> > Permalink:
> > https://ip.topicbox.com/groups/ip/T8a77427913558ed0-M1b849b98183c85c2d06c2d07
> > 
> > Delivery options: https://ip.topicbox.com/groups/ip/subscription
> > 
> > - End forwarded message -
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Charlie Derr   Director of Instructional Technology
> Bard College at Simon's Rock  https://simons-rock.edu
> Encryption key: http://hope.simons-rock.edu/~cderr/
> 413-528-7344   Pronouns: he/him/his




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Re: CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics:, left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Carlo

You're certainly right that this issue is not really about pandemics: It is
about the government subjecting citizens (and visitors) to compliance with
procedures that put their personal privacy at risk.

Concerning the mobile apps: You're also right that many people use smartphones
and that smartphones give rise to all sorts of negative externalities.  But
some of us (including yours truly) choose not to use mobile phones at all.  The
fact is that at least some of us (a privileged few, perhaps) still have a
choice.  It is not appropriate for government to use this moment to take that
choice away, nor is it appropriate to argue that because 99% (your number, not
mine) of the population is already being robbed of their privacy by horrible
businesses, it is acceptable to assume that no one's privacy is worth anything.

Concerning the scanning devices: I reject the idea that because something is
illegal it will not be done.  That is false.  Illegal things are done, and they
will continue to be done.  Devices will be compromised by attackers.  Telling
me that I should give my data to an electronic device because it would be
illegal for the electronic device to record it is like telling me that it is
safe to walk in dark alleys at night because assault is illegal.

Even if we assume that everyone obeys the law and that governments are not
engaging in some explicit plan to eventually start recording data collected by
scanning the documents of ordinary persons engaging in routine activities, the
act of normalising such scanning is problematic.  Future government leaders
might find reason to allow data collected in this way to be recorded, perhaps
silently, and it is only a matter of time before police start asking for data
collected in this way, or before platform operators start requiring the ability
to analyse data as a condition of providing service at low cost.

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Mon, 07 Feb 2022 at 12:38:48AM +0100, carlo von lynX wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 05, 2022 at 04:25:05PM +, Geoffrey Goodell wrote:
> > Part of what makes the 'vaccine passport' scheme so worrisome is the extent 
> > to
> > which it makes the decision to not carry a mobile phone less tenable and 
> > more
> > difficult.  Speaking personally, I do not use a mobile phone, largely for 
> > the
> > reasons you rightly describe.
> 
> Just imagine that the large majority of politicians isn't able to
> comprehend how *all* mobile phones can spy on *all* of us *all* the
> time and how *all* of that data can amount to an ability for one or
> two governments to predict and influence the moods and choices of
> *all* of us. It takes too much understanding of computer technology
> to become aware of how risky it is to let this happen.
> 
> If you accept that this is the reality we are living in, then it
> makes totally sense that the remaining risks are perceived as
> negligible compared to the huge advantages a smartphone brings about.
> 
> And in the end there's no escape for us either, since all the people
> that we spend time with, put their smartphones on the table and have
> the Facebook app pick up all the conversations we're having.*
> 
> This is a serious issue, but it has nothing to do with the pandemics.
> 
>  *) I can provide 5+ articles on how probable it is, that Facebook's
> app is indeed listening to conversations while you're not using
> your phone.
> 
> > > > (Also, the argument about counterfeit documentation has often been 
> > > > combined
> > > > with distrust of human document verifiers to promote the use of digital
> > > > identity proofing, e.g. via biometrics, thus raising even more human 
> > > > rights
> > > > concerns along with the question of whose security we are protecting.)
> > > 
> > > I only see such kind of promotion on covid anti-science channels.
> > 
> > I sincerely hope you're right about that.  My experience suggests otherwise.
> > Admittedly this is a bit off-topic, but consider how prominent digital 
> > identity
> > system providers tout their solutions.
> 
> Private companies may, depending on purpose and jurisdiction, be allowed 
> to employ such systems for their own purposes, but I don't see how the 
> pandemic could possibly justify a governmental use of biometrics if an
> approximate respect of the rules by the majority of the population has
> been sufficient to defuse the exponential growth. Any level of totalitarian
> control isn't necessary, isn't appropriate and isn't factually happening.
> 
> In ten years time from now we'll look back at the covid craze like we look
> back at the '80s "no future" paranoia that atomi

Re: CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics:, left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi Carlo

On Sat, 05 Feb 2022 at 04:23:59PM +0100, carlo von lynX wrote:
> Politicians and even the technicians and cryptographers involved in developing
> this technology are assuming the proprietary operating systems provided with
> our devices will not spy on such data. Snowden has shown us, that this is not
> a realistic assumption, but we failed to take the drastic measures that need
> to be taken since 2013, so now we are walking this slippery line by which some
> entities on the planet have a totalitarian knowledge about us - but it's the
> same entities that also digest all of our emails and automatically transcribe
> all of our phone calls, so a vaccination document is not going to enhance that
> database all that much. Also, recent attacks on democracy have not originated
> from the powers in place, but from players who learned to aggregate gullible
> human beings. Still, I chose not to scan that QR code into my phone so that
> there's a ghost of a chance left that my identifying data isn't aggregated
> with the communications I do over the phone.

> It's nothing compared to having Facebook or Whatsapp installed, which I also
> don't have. But most users do - it isn't even illegal to ship phones with
> such spyware preinstalled in many parts of the world. We have much bigger
> issues in technological madness than CoViD-19 measures.

Part of what makes the 'vaccine passport' scheme so worrisome is the extent to
which it makes the decision to not carry a mobile phone less tenable and more
difficult.  Speaking personally, I do not use a mobile phone, largely for the
reasons you rightly describe.

> > (Also, the argument about counterfeit documentation has often been combined
> > with distrust of human document verifiers to promote the use of digital
> > identity proofing, e.g. via biometrics, thus raising even more human rights
> > concerns along with the question of whose security we are protecting.)
> 
> I only see such kind of promotion on covid anti-science channels.

I sincerely hope you're right about that.  My experience suggests otherwise.
Admittedly this is a bit off-topic, but consider how prominent digital identity
system providers tout their solutions.

> That's why it isn't considered a privacy issue, that the QR code contains all
> of your identification data, because within the architecture of the solution,
> that data never leaves the phone neither of the citizen nor of the venue.

This is too much to trust without the ability to verify.  To be clear, data
subjects are not only being forced to trust that the intentions of the software
developers are purely benign and that the software is free of security bugs,
but also that the devices that read QR codes (and, depending upon
implementation, possibly share what they read with the network) are not
compromised.  So data subjects are also trusting the intentions and security
practices of the venue operators, their service providers, and the owners of
the devices that read the QR codes as well.

> If that were the case, the CCC or other privacy groups that have a very
> strong media presence would have brought this aspect to public attention.
> I also doubt such an approach is legal within the EU privacy framework.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  I'd like to see a detailed
analysis by CCC or Privacy International on these schemes.

> > (3) Even if we assume that the governments issuing 'vaccine passports' are
> > truly benign, the data subject is expected to present the same barcode
> > every time, meaning that the venues doing the scanning can pool their
> > knowledge of the barcodes they have seen to build profiles of data
> > subjects.  We could
> 
> If they make a custom modified version of the app, they could potentially
> abuse the data. It would be a felony, like any other illegal collection of
> data, too.

Suggesting that a relying party or issuer would go to jail, if it is proven
that they abused the data to which their systems had access, is little solace
to someone whose information had already been collected.  The fact is that
governments are forcing users to trust the intentions and security of all of
the actors, including technology developers and platform service providers, who
potentially have access to sensitive data.  This is a bridge too far.  The only
solution is privacy by design, wherein the data subject knows that he or she is
not providing information to a computer, either via a device or via a sheet of
paper, that could be used to construct a profile.  This is technically possible
as long as we avoid computer-mediated identity proofing, but to my knowledge,
it has not yet been done with 'vaccine passports'.

> Smart cryptographers could probably come up with improvements to the system,
> yes.

Until they do, we are exposed.

Best wishes --

Geoff
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Re: CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics:, left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Carlo

Thank you very much for your thoughtful exploration --

I think many of the parties on both sides of this debate are missing the bigger
picture.

For the sake of argument, suppose that we are agnostic about:

(a) whether vaccinations should be a condition of entry to popular venues,

(b) whether the management of popular private venues can demand documents from
their patrons and deny admission to individuals on the basis of their
vaccination status, and

(c) whether the management of popular private venues can be held liable for
failing to enforce rules of behaviour or entry on the basis of their
vaccination status.

Even in this case, we should still be concerned with the 'vaccine passport'
schemes that have been established in Europe and elsewhere in the world.  The
reason is not about whether government should interfere with private commerce
or gatherings, nor about whether private venues have a right to discriminate
against certain persons.  Although those are valid concerns, they can be
weighed against the interests of public health.

The problem, which in my view is the elephant in the room, is about the extent
to which governments and other actors can use the 'vaccine passport' systems to
track the habits, movements, and circumstances of individual persons as they
engage in routine activities.

Consider:

(1) Many 'vaccine passport' schemes encourage, or even require, individuals to
carry with them mobile devices with a range of identification information
on-board, such as mobile phone numbers, IMEI, secure enclave keys, and so on,
and to install certain software on those devices.  Even if we were to assume
that the software would strictly conform to free software guidelines and be
subject to rigorous security auditing, a plethora of metadata (think location,
IP address, and so on) would nonetheless be available to such applications and
the network services that they use.  To assume that such metadata would not be
accessible to the platform operators, or to the police, or to criminal
organisations would be a profound miscalculation.  Although many governments
provide a way for people to use their 'vaccine passport' schemes without mobile
devices, such paths are often cumbersome and de facto discouraged.

(2) It is still possible to avoid mobile devices (thankfully), but even the
paper forms have are problematic, following from the dubious but
widely-accepted assertion that the preponderance of counterfeit documentation
justifies online verification.  Specifically, they often include barcodes or QR
codes that reference a specific database entry that the issuer had associated
with the documented person.  This means that the online verification service
knows who is using the 'vaccine passport' scheme, both the data subject and the
venue performing the check (the relying party).  As a result, the online
verification service has access to time and location information about every
check that is performed, and that information can be used to track the movement
and behaviour of the data subject from venue to venue over time.  By and large,
the online verification services are not issuing barcodes or QR codes via blind
signature schemes or zero-knowledge proofs to allow data subjects to isolate
their identities from the verification step, nor are they circulating databases
of hash values to relying parties so that the checking could be done without
phoning home.  (Also, the argument about counterfeit documentation has often
been combined with distrust of human document verifiers to promote the use of
digital identity proofing, e.g. via biometrics, thus raising even more human
rights concerns along with the question of whose security we are protecting.)

(3) Even if we assume that the governments issuing 'vaccine passports' are
truly benign, the data subject is expected to present the same barcode every
time, meaning that the venues doing the scanning can pool their knowledge of
the barcodes they have seen to build profiles of data subjects.  We could
imagine working around this by issuing a series of cryptographically unrelated
one-time keys to scan, although by and large, this has not been done.

So we're in a tough spot.  Too many people use apps that leak metadata that
compromise their privacy, and even with the paper system, electronic
verification exposes individuals to privacy risks.

We have optimised the 'vaccine passport' systems to make individual persons
accountable.  As a result, the public has lost essential freedom.

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Sat, 05 Feb 2022 at 02:17:11AM +0100, carlo von lynX wrote:
> No-one has replied to this one, so I'll carefully try to do so.
> After all it happens to be a reply to a post of mine.
> 
> On Fri, Feb 04, 2022 at 01:25:55PM +0100, Luca Barbeni wrote:
> > Hi to everyone,
> > I don't write frequently on the list but I'm pretty tired of the
> > association of provax with science vs novax against science.
> > I'm definitively against the vaccine mand

Re: The Left Needs a New Strategy

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Iain,

I'm not sure whether it adds anything to the discussion, but I've experienced
this before.

I am on a mailing list for alumni of a particular house at my undergraduate
university.  One particular contributor to this list has unleashed (and
continues to do so) an unending stream of email nonsense, mostly in support of
right-wing propaganda.  The nonsense is not completely incoherent, and it is
also not stateless, as one might expect to find if it were the output of a
comment-generating algorithm like this one:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/ai-powered-text-from-this-program-could-fool-the-government/

It carries arguments over long threads, days and even weeks at a time.  So it
seems to have been created by a real human.  But nobody really knows anything
about this person, or who he claims to be.  We cannot find any records of his
name in our alumni register, nor do any of us recognise his email address.
Yet, there he is still, subscribed as he must have managed somehow to do, with
all traces of linkages to any university-run system having vanished years ago.

The propaganda itself is toxic.  It is not entirely clear whether our mailing
list subscriber is trying to convince us of its truth or simply trying to warn
us of the existence of such arguments.  Either way, he continues to defend its
messages with sophistry, and he seems to have more than a bit of extra time on
his hands to argue with other subscribers to the list.  Every now and then,
people talk of forcing his removal, but for various logistical reasons this
seems not to be possible, and moreover the other people on the list want to
profess openness to debate.  Frankly it reminds me of what had happened at the
University of Cambridge last year:

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-55246793

What is striking about the pseudonymous contributor on that mailing list is
that he keeps contributing, despite the discordance with the mood of the group,
with voluminous messages that would surely take an ordinary human many hours
per week to compose.

So, I must ask: Is it possible that our pseudonymous contributor is
deliberately seeking to exploit our respect for anonymous speech as a way to
undermine our forum?

>From a technical perspective, it is a form of 'poisoning', not unlike this
attack on keyservers:

https://gist.github.com/rjhansen/67ab921ffb4084c865b3618d6955275f

If we think this is what is going on, then I suggest that we ignore it.  I
shall certainly do so going forward.  Some of the more adventurous contributors
to my other mailing list have chosen to respond to our relentless agitator with
funny images.  I'm not sure that is a good idea, mostly because higher list
traffic will invariably discourage some list members to unsubscribe.  At some
level, I suspect that this might be our relentless agitator's objective.

A closing thought exercise: Who might pay to poison a forum like this, and how
much would it cost?

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 at 09:13:12AM -0800, Iain Boal wrote:
> Nettimers,
> 
> I???ve no idea of the identity of the sinomane telecommunist (???Kleiner') 
> defiling this conversation, or their whereabouts, or their condition (though 
> the aggressive logorrhoea is suggestive). However, to call Brian???s profound 
> - and profoundly open, generous, and dialogical - contributions to the 
> discussion ???mccarthyist gatekeeping??? is either wild self-satire or 
> grounds for a strategic ???intervention' from our moderators. Ted?
> 
> IB  
> 
> 
> On 18 Jan 2021, at 08:28, Dmytri Kleiner  wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2021-01-18 13:42, Felix Stalder wrote:
> 
> > So, what exactly is the lesson that China holds for "us", that is,
> > cultural/knowledge workers
> 
> While these questions hold promise, it feels to me like the precondition is 
> that cultural/knowledge workers in the west stop carrying water for US 
> intelligence and work on developing a respectful relationship with the global 
> left.
> 
> I'm not sure that many who are here in the core realize how badly we are 
> viewed by our comrades abroad due in no small part to the cartoonish cold war 
> pejoratives we see here on this list all the time.
> 
> I understand not knowing, it's hard to know what is said about us at MST 
> schools or among comrades in Kerala or in shop-floor meetings among Numsa 
> members, as we are most often not there.
> 
> What I do not understand is not caring, and when this is mentioned, reacting 
> with white rage and mccarthyist gatekeeping and doubling down on chauvinist 
> denouncements, as we've seen from some contributors here.
> 
> While asking "what lessons" can we learn from China is interesting, in my 
> view there are far more pressing questions. What role should we play as 
> tensions heighten with China? How do we deal with the fact that in many cases 
> progress of our comrades abroad are directly sabotaged by way of aggression 
> from our own countries? How do we deal with the fact that in many cases 

Re: Once Again, Online Communications are Heroic

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Molly,

I'd like to suggest that the main problem of online communication technology is
not that it is online but that its present form involves platforms operated by
powerful intermediaries (such as Microsoft, Zoom, Google, and so on) who
harvest metadata against the interests of the users of the platforms.

Until online communication is truly peer-to-peer, without control points to
capture rents or profile its users, it will not be an adequate substitute for
human approaches that do not rely upon the blessing of third parties.

Best wishes

Geoff

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 02:58:04PM -0700, Molly Hankwitz wrote:
> Dear nettime - Here is the start of a piece I am thinking about partly to
> quell a tide of rejection of online learning delivery by art students,
> professors, and the elsewise ???real??? community which has been demonstrating
> a customer-mentality towards the shift online - and missing the point of
> the overall deep and lasting value of online communications - as a medium
> of embodied human interaction, correspondence, VOIP, video streaming etc



 
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Re: Should use mobile phone data to monitor public health

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi Ana,

The problem with this proposal is that it focusses on the 'processing'
of personal data, when the focus should be on the 'collection' of
personal data instead.

There is no way to prove that data, once collected, have not been used
for malicious purposes or any purposes. There is no way to prove that
data have not been exposed to malicious insiders, business partners,
law enforcement, foreign governments, hackers, or indeed anyone.

In this environment, both before and after COVID-19, the prevailing
wisdom has been to 'collect all the data' with a justification that
the benefits of 'serendipity' will outweigh the human costs and that
it is a good idea to have the data 'just in case'. These arguments are
dangerous and wrong.

Any serious attempt to protect personal privacy must start with
privacy by design, and the first principle of privacy by design is not
to collect any data more than what is absolutely necessary to deliver
a service.

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 08:33:17PM +0100, Ana Peraica wrote:
> 
> Hi all, just a quick note, 

<>



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Re: Should use mobile phone data to monitor public health

[Geoffrey Goodell]

On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 10:20:02AM +0100, Felix Stalder wrote:
> Is it likely that we manage to enact these? No. But simply calling for
> the protection of personal privacy, or accepting the general state of
> emergency, will be even worse.

???If the ends don't justify the means, what does -- Robert Moses

There is a tendency for people to seek to wield exceptional power during a
crisis, perhaps because they fear regret or blame in the event that they defer
to the legitimately authorised limitations on their power.

But what good are controls if there is always a means to override them?  We
need mechanism, not just policy, to ensure that power is not abused.

In the case of mobile telephone data, if this means establishing a future
system that allows me to establish a virtual endpoint independently of my
carrier for the purpose of receiving calls, and a mechanism for providing
blinded tokens to cellular towers to demonstrate that I have paid, then so be
it.

The problem with the Internet protocols is that we designed them to expose too
much information to the network operators, in the expectation that they would
always act in the interests of their users.  That was a mistake, and abuses
like this show why, even if the intention in this case is benevolent.

Best wishes

Geoff



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Re: Facebook

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Alan,

"if you have not spent significant time here, you would not realize"

Can you please elaborate on this point?  What is it that we need to realise?  I
am sure that you are right about this, although without describing what it is
that we do not realise, we will surely never realise it.  If it is something
that can be described, then please describe it.  If it is something vague and
ineffable, then how could we assign it credence?

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Tue, Nov 05, 2019 at 05:45:55AM -0500, v...@voyd.com wrote:
> 
>   
> 
> 
> I'm there, and for me, it is as much my location (Arabia) and how able I am 
> to access global networks from here - it isn't bad, but we do have some 
> firewalling to political, adult, etc. For me, I feel that if I were in the 
> Western World, I would be in a position to have a different stance. Here in 
> Asia, the sociopolitics are extremely different to the point that if you have 
> not spent significant time here, you would not realize, and I am not speaking 
> to the far more restrictive Saudi society.  I think it is easy to have a 
> Western politics and think that they just translate tot he rest of the world. 
> This is also not being in defence; it is merely pointing towards the 
> differend.
> 
> The politics of the infrastructure in the time of the Stacks is something I 
> struggle with.
> 
> 
> On Mon, 4 Nov 2019 19:29:17 -0500 (EST), Alan Sondheim 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> I'm in agreement here; I leave as little trace as I can. (Also trapped
> because I want my own work to remain.) This reminds me of the fight I had
> on YouTube with Viacom and YouTube (later) re: my banning which went on
> for a couple of years, a fight I finally won. YouTube has its own
> viciousness of course - even something as saying no to autoplay, which
> then returns on the next login.
> 
> I'd be curious about the server farms YouTube must use; they seem
> unimaginable to me.
> 
> Best, Alan
> 
> On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, Craig Fahner wrote:
> 
> > maybe it's not so much a question of whether facebook's policies are bad 
> (of
> > course they are) or whether facebook is part of our social infrastructure
> > (of course it is), but, rather, what capacity users have to undermine
> > facebook's more predatory policies and evade its data collection regimes 
> and
> > biased recommendation algorithms. given that a lot of people use facebook
> > not because they think it's an optimal platform, but because it is
> > absolutely necessary to use it in order to connect with certain 
> communities,
> > what possibilities exist for users to participate in those communities 
> while
> > circumventing the platform's more odious aspects? what do a tactics of
> > social media usership look like? i suspect they would engage in a 
> constant
> > give-and-take with the algorithmic governing forces that be, but, with a
> > growing sentiment of suspicion regarding facebook's policies, perhaps a
> > tactical approach along the lines of plugins that remove algorithmic
> > recommendation features, deliberate scrambling/obfuscation of users' data
> > and trackable behaviours, etc. might be more successful in empowering 
> users
> > than simply encouraging them to leave the platform entirely.
> > craig fahner - https://www.craigfahner.com/
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 9:25 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, mp wrote:
> >
> > > On 03/11/2019 20:36, Alan Sondheim wrote:
> > >>
> > >> The loss is more important to me
> > >
> > >> On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:
> > >>> 1/ FB enables to create a "community," that's good for
> > sure;?
> > >>> 2/ but in the same time, it destroys?the condition of the
> > possibility of
> > >>> community/togetherness/Gemeinwesen/?tre-ensemble, etc.
> > >
> > > Individual, particular and hence relatively short term
> > perspective and
> > > context (Alan's) vs. collective, abstract and hence relatively
> > long term
> > > perspective and context (Frederic's).
> > >
> > > A common disjuncture.
> > >
> >
> > What disturbs me here is the assumption of passivity "relatively
> > short
> > term perspective" for example. Unless you know my work, read my
> > posts,
> > etc., you have no idea how long my perspective is. I've run
> > talkers, a
> > MOO, conferencing in IRC years ago, CuSeeMe, and on and on. I've
> > taught
> > courses in internet culture from 1995 on. And one of the things
> > that keeps
> > me generally from posting on nettime, is its own toxicity, these
> > constant
> > presumptions about one another, about the world, etc. And re:
> > below, there
> > is no "on the one hand, on the other hand" - the issue is far
> > more complex
> > as is people's usage of Fb or other platforms (for example email
> > lists
> > themselves). So "email is also shit"?
> >
> > I know a hell of a lot of free jazz musicians who work through
> > Fb, fight
> > racism, and take advantage of the platform. I know people who
> > have found
> > community 

Re: Facebook

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Carsten -- well said, and thank you for the trenchant characterisation of the
problem and initial thoughts on how we might resolve it.  Your observation that
certain businesses have become infrastructure is spot-on.

I think you're also right to link the platform businesses [1] with privately
owned public spaces (POPS) in the urban planning context.  The problems are
similar.  A cash-strapped government cannot offer some essential service, and
the private-sector, channelling Andrew Carnegie, steps in to offer a 'solution'
that turns out to be essentially self-serving.  What would it take for some
government (in Europe or North America, say) to provide 'neutral'
infrastructure?  Would there be requests for proposals?  Would there be
standardisation committees?  Would this take decades?  The private sector,
fuelled by data harvesting revenues, can get it done faster.  And of course our
{city, province, nation, international alliance} needs to be competitive now,
lest we miss out when someone else wins the race, since Winners Take All [2]!

And the dangers don't stop here.  The following was overheard at an event on
financial crime hosted by the UK Financial Conduct Authority in August
concerning the Financial Action Task Force (FATF):

"Government does not create innovative solutions.  In a capitalist system, we
rely upon the private sector for that."

So does this mean that we will allow Facebook and Google to continue to operate
so long as they make sure that our financial cops have whatever they want?
Does this mean we pay those mercenary armies to do our dirty work for us,
collecting data revenues, paid by wealthy manipulators, as compensation since
our institutions are out of cash?

How can we unwire our institutions from this situation?  It seems politically
difficult, perhaps intractable.  We'll need to raise taxes.  We'll need to host
a conversation about infrastructure, power, and control.  We'll need to make
some decisions based on moral values, not just money or even data.  I'm not
sure we remember how to do that.

What do you think our first step should be?

Best wishes --

Geoff

[1] I do not like the term 'tech giants' because (a) many firms that deal in
technology are not systematically contributing to the practices we are
discussing, (b) it fatalistically suggests an inseparable link between the
advance of technology and such practices, and (c) it misleadingly suggests that
the main problem with these businesses is their size, when in reality even
small businesses contribute directly to this problem.

[2] Anand Giridharadas, _Winners Take All_.  I strongly recommend it, not only
for its characterisation of Silicon Valley elites but also for its discussion
of why nationalism is back in vogue as a response to a global elite that has
shunned legitimate political processes.

On Mon, Nov 04, 2019 at 02:15:28PM +0100, Carsten Agger wrote:
> 
> On 11/3/19 5:28 PM, Frederic Neyrat wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'd like to know if some people on this list - be they activists,
> > environmentalists, artists, thinkers, contributors - are (still) on
> > Facebook and if yes, why, being given the extreme noxiousness of this
> > "social" (?) network.
> >
> > This
> > article??https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/03/facebook-politics-republicans-right
> > is not the reason of my email, but its occasion.
> >
> 
> I use Facebook. I use it to keep up with some important networks, among
> others my local capoeira group is coordinating the training in a
> Facebook Group, so if I was not on it I wouldn't know if training is
> canceled etc.
> 
> That illustrates a very important point:
> 
> Your mileage may in vary according to your location and interests, but
> Facebook is no longer "just" a social network you can choose to use,
> it's the public communication infrastructure in a lot of contexts. To
> illustrate my point, two years ago I visited a revolutionary communist
> squat in Napoli, Italy, with graffitis and posters against the system
> and for a worker's revolution /everywhere/.
> 
> Their online presence? A Facebook page.
> 
> That means, that in general, the IT giants - Facebook, Google, to a
> lesser degree Twitter, Microsoft, definitely Amazon, Apple ... - are no
> longer just annoyances that people can avoid by their individual
> choices. I'm sorry to say that in some places even Uber, the
> ??ber-exploiters, has become basic infrastructure. :-( If we say to
> people they should not be on Facebook, never shop with Amazon, not use
> any Google services and not even think about touching any software
> provided by Microsoft (which I at least don't) or Apple, we should, at
> the same time, explain to them how they will get back a similar level of
> infrastructure.
> 
> This monopolization and privatization of public space can't be broken by
> individuals choosing to be "on" or "not on", and it's pointless to
> believe it could. It should be solved on a structural level.
> Specifically, I think, by leg

Re: Facebook

[Geoffrey Goodell]

P.S. I should have included a link to an article I co-authored about Facebook
Libra:

https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441707

Abstract:

The announcement by Facebook that Libra will "deliver on the promise of 'the
internet of money'" has drawn the attention of the financial world. Regulators,
institutions, and users of financial products have all been prompted to react
and, so far, no one managed to convince the association behind Libra to apply
the brakes or to convince regulators to stop the project altogether. In this
article, we propose that Libra might be best seen not as a financial newcomer,
but as a critical enabler for Facebook to acquire a new source of personal
data. By working with financial regulators seeking to address concerns with
money laundering and terrorism, Facebook can position itself for privileged
access to high-assurance digital identity information. For this reason, Libra
merits the attention of not only financial regulators, but also the state
actors that are concerned with reputational risks, the rule of law, public
safety, and national defence. 

On Sun, Nov 03, 2019 at 08:13:13PM +0000, Geoffrey Goodell wrote:
> This pithy exchange attributed to Mark Zuckerberg [1,2] might illuminate the
> issue:
> 
> Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
> 
> Zuck: Just ask.
> 
> Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
> 
> [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
> 
> Zuck: People just submitted it.
> 
> Zuck: I don't know why.
> 
> Zuck: They "trust me"
> 
> Zuck: Dumb fucks.
> 
> ---
> 
> Later, in an interview with David Kirkpatrick [3], Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed
> his view on privacy:
> 
> "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."
> 
> I'm inclined to agree with Michael Zimmer's assessment [4]:
> 
> "Zuckerberg and those who surround him tend to be relentlessly forward-looking
> on privacy: The issue for them is not how to protect users??? current sense of
> privacy but to shape their willingness to share in the future."
> 
> ---
> 
> If we imagine that there are some people who stand to benefit from this
> dystopia we are building, or others who think that they stand to benefit
> because they have not considered the implications of this new emerging 
> morality
> in which common people are transparent but powerful interests have many faces,
> then we can see how Facebook and its progeny might seem inevitable, or even a
> necessary antidote to the fatigue of the modern world.
> 
> Enjoy the links, they tell a more complete story than I ever could.
> 
> Best wishes --
> 
> Geoff
> 
> [1] http://www.bitsbook.com/2010/05/mark-z-grow-up/
> 
> [2] 
> https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5
> 
> [3] David Kirkpatrick, _The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company
> That Is Connecting the World_.  Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (June
> 8, 2010), ISBN-13: 978-1439102114.
> 
> [4] 
> http://www.michaelzimmer.org/2008/11/18/do-you-trust-this-face-gq-on-mark-zuckerberg/
> 
> On Sun, Nov 03, 2019 at 10:28:01AM -0600, Frederic Neyrat wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'd like to know if some people on this list - be they activists,
> > environmentalists, artists, thinkers, contributors - are (still) on
> > Facebook and if yes, why, being given the extreme noxiousness of this
> > "social" (?) network.
> > 
> > This article
> > https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/03/facebook-politics-republicans-right
> > is not the reason of my email, but its occasion.
> > 
> > Thanks in advance for your light on this matter,
> > 
> > Frederic Neyrat
> 
> > #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> > #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> > #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> > #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
> 
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Re: Facebook

[Geoffrey Goodell]

This pithy exchange attributed to Mark Zuckerberg [1,2] might illuminate the
issue:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

---

Later, in an interview with David Kirkpatrick [3], Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed
his view on privacy:

"Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."

I'm inclined to agree with Michael Zimmer's assessment [4]:

"Zuckerberg and those who surround him tend to be relentlessly forward-looking
on privacy: The issue for them is not how to protect users??? current sense of
privacy but to shape their willingness to share in the future."

---

If we imagine that there are some people who stand to benefit from this
dystopia we are building, or others who think that they stand to benefit
because they have not considered the implications of this new emerging morality
in which common people are transparent but powerful interests have many faces,
then we can see how Facebook and its progeny might seem inevitable, or even a
necessary antidote to the fatigue of the modern world.

Enjoy the links, they tell a more complete story than I ever could.

Best wishes --

Geoff

[1] http://www.bitsbook.com/2010/05/mark-z-grow-up/

[2] 
https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5

[3] David Kirkpatrick, _The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company
That Is Connecting the World_.  Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (June
8, 2010), ISBN-13: 978-1439102114.

[4] 
http://www.michaelzimmer.org/2008/11/18/do-you-trust-this-face-gq-on-mark-zuckerberg/

On Sun, Nov 03, 2019 at 10:28:01AM -0600, Frederic Neyrat wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'd like to know if some people on this list - be they activists,
> environmentalists, artists, thinkers, contributors - are (still) on
> Facebook and if yes, why, being given the extreme noxiousness of this
> "social" (?) network.
> 
> This article
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/03/facebook-politics-republicans-right
> is not the reason of my email, but its occasion.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your light on this matter,
> 
> Frederic Neyrat

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Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi lizvlx

Responding to your third paragraph ('less intellectualizing and more personal
action')

The sad truth is that most reasonable adults (with a few exceptions, such as
the comfortable, the contented, and the activists) would not opt to sacrifice
the privileges you describe.  This is for two reasons.  First, the Tragedy of
the Commons: Although the marginal cost to the individual who makes such a
decision is huge, the marginal benefit to society is small and usually cannot
be realised by the actor.  Second, these sacrifices are not borne evenly within
the population.  Quick trips and cheap foodstuffs are even more important for
the poor than they are for the rich.  Time and money beget more time and money,
and sacrificing it is not for the downtrodden, either as individuals or at
scale.

To be plainer still: Just as some Brexiters would gladly sacrifice 20% of their
net worth if they could be promised that wealthy Londoners would lose 80% of
theirs, people would quite understandably not give up a competitive advantage.
Maybe people can be convinced to give up sugary beverages without government
nudging (it's debatable).  But this is a bridge too far.

Best wishes

Geoff

On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 05:52:59PM +0200, lizvlx wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I hardly ever post - but I need to say that I find it a bit weird to call 
> Greta Thurnberg a work of art - she is a regular human being and just doing 
> what she needs to do. Neither do I see any similarity between Assange and 
> her. Also I dont see why Greta is doing anything directly to the US (but 
> maybe I didn???t quite get what you were wanting to say there).
> 
> Btw, as a fellow Aspie - I can tell you that it is customary all over the 
> world to call autistic ppl mentally ill (which is not a derogatory term by 
> itself but in this context a terrible misnomer) - what you are hearing being 
> directed at her, I can hear all the time directed at me and my daughter. So I 
> am not surprised.
> 
> Also I do not find the whole movement interesting at all, what I would find 
> interesting, if somebody amongst the adults would mind to sell their car, 
> stop buying preprocessed foods, eat less meat and go organic, stop using air 
> travel when trains are available etc etc, whoa, that would be super 
> interesting.
> So maybe less intellectualizing and more personal action.
> 
> I say this from the perspective of somebody who used to be an autistic 
> teenager who was usually called a radical eco-communist - because I used to 
> really traumatize ppl because I would recycle our family???s trash, refuse to 
> ride in the car and pick up trash in the park. I understand that these my 
> actions were very hard on other ppl???s feelings - I just didn???t know at 
> the time that ppl are such fragile beings that break when confronted with a 
> liveable truth.
> 
> lizvlx
> 
> 
> > On 27. Sep 2019, at 05:41, Molly Hankwitz  wrote:
> > 
> > Dear Ted and Felix, 
> > 
> > Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of 
> > rapt interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some 
> > time. I have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites 
> > into which is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX 
> > and Breitbart and their White House cohort, Mr. T. 
> > 
> > What totally fascinates, and I???d agree with Felix here about some of the 
> > reasons and the ???threat??? itself as it???s perceived, is this absolutely 
> > stellar decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the 
> > likes of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg. 
> > 
> > How is it that from out of today???s heady mix of problems - perpetual war, 
> > lying government, climate change ignorance ???come these public figures who 
> > have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and justice? 
> > 
> > I find this so interesting ???this age of networked publics, and social 
> > media and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same 
> > mix of feedback loop ??? weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark???s 
> > phrase) that creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg 
> > and Assange both from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it 
> > correct to think of these persons as similar? They are almost like 
> > performance art. Spectacular but also sincere. No one wants or likes them. 
> > They may succumb to too harsh a light. 
> > 
> > Molly
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  > > wrote:
> > [a little collaborative text-filtering]
> > 
> > < 
> > https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
> >  
> > >
> > 

Re: radio nettime: 8 Sept 2019 12:00-13:00

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi Felix,

I am confused about the source and scope of the perceived threat that has led
to the perception of such urgency to shut down the list.  I must ask what it is
about the current dynamics that the erstwhile leaders find so threatening.

Perhaps it is because I have not been around Nettime back in the twentieth
century, but I see nothing wrong with it.  In fact, I like it as it is.

If the maintainer of the mailing list server would like to quit for whatever
reason, then I for one would be happy to take up the task.  I'm sure I'm not
alone.  In fact, I'd run a mailing list for the oldster-tribe just as readily
as I'd run a mailing list for the youngster-tribe.  I don't have a horse in
this race, just bewilderment about what people find so objectionable.

Yours in confusion --

Geoff

On Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 10:51:08AM +0200, Felix Stalder wrote:
> I would try to reverse the question. Not what are the costs (which are
> hard to calculate anyway), but what are the benefits. And if they
> approach zero, then it's time to stop in a decent way (and archive the
> list for good). There is no use to do useless stuff. There is enough of
> that on the world.
> 
> For me, the benefits have decreased, but are they close enough to zero?
> What could be done to increase them? What would constitute a benefit,
> and to whom?
> 
> Felix
> 
> 
> On 02.09.19 22:28, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> > If the cost of running the list was exactly zero (let's not delve into
> > details at this point), would you still kill it?
> > 
> > If yes, then we have an interesting case of potlatch, without bonfire.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > #?? distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> > #?? ?? is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> > #?? collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > #?? more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> > #?? archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> > #?? @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
> > 
> 
> -- 
>  | || http://felix.openflows.com |
>  | Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
> 




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Re: It goes beyond the Meat Loaf Problem

[Geoffrey Goodell]

And this quote from Mark Mobius:

???Up to now, the UK is riding on the coat-tails of the EU, in the sense that
[the UK] can have very low interest rates,??? Mr Mobius told the FT at an event
in New York this week hosted by the Emerging Markets Investors Alliance. ???As
soon as they break, people are going to start looking hard and fast. The rating
agencies will say ???wait a minute, no more EU association? We???ve got to
downgrade.??

https://www.ft.com/content/ede38978-505f-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626294

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:14:05PM +0100, Geoffrey Goodell wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:35:21PM +0200, Andr?? Rebentisch wrote:
> > If UK refuses to pay their financial obligations that is the equivalent
> > to state bankruptcy and would affect their bond ratings.
> 
> In any Brexit scenario, with a deal or without a deal, the UK will suffer from
> increased credit spreads and a concomitant cost increase in funding 
> everything.
> 
> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/09/14/uk-credit-rating-risk-fails-pay-brexit-bill-moodys-warns/
> 
> (Yes, the Telegraph!)
> 
> I am surprised this is not the focus of more discussion.
> 
> Geoff
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Re: It goes beyond the Meat Loaf Problem

[Geoffrey Goodell]

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:35:21PM +0200, Andr?? Rebentisch wrote:
> If UK refuses to pay their financial obligations that is the equivalent
> to state bankruptcy and would affect their bond ratings.

In any Brexit scenario, with a deal or without a deal, the UK will suffer from
increased credit spreads and a concomitant cost increase in funding everything.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/09/14/uk-credit-rating-risk-fails-pay-brexit-bill-moodys-warns/

(Yes, the Telegraph!)

I am surprised this is not the focus of more discussion.

Geoff
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Re: Nettime is in bad shape. Let's see if we can change it.

[Geoffrey Goodell]

I do not disagree with this sentiment.  My argument is about technology versus 
services, not about whether technology is neutral (in general it is not).

Best wishes

Geoff


On 11 July 2019 12:57:25 BST, "xDxD.vs.xDxD"  wrote:
>hi!
>
>
>
>> Somewhere along the line we as a culture have forgotten the
>distinction
>> between
>> 'technology' and 'services'.  A 'technology' is really just a method
>or
>> system
>> for applying knowledge to a problem; any individual or business could
>> choose to
>> implement (or commission, or lease, or purchase outright) that
>technology
>> independently and control it completely.
>
>
>I don't know if I understood correctly, but this could be a very
>dangerous
>position indeed.
>
>Technology is far from neutral: we invent technology just as much as
>technology invents us.
>
>ciao!
>s
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Re: Nettime is in bad shape. Let's see if we can change it.

[Geoffrey Goodell]

On Sun, Jul 07, 2019 at 05:08:12AM -0700, John Preston wrote:
> To give an example, say someone was organising some direct action. There
> are some communications tools like maybe Signal, that should provide
> privacy and the basic utility of instant messaging. But consider if we
> want a tool like Doodle (group scheduling, https://doodle.com/ ). Unless
> someone has build a 'secure Doodle', there is no way that 99% of users
> could slot this in to their use case. Instead, if a computing platform
> is simple enough, you could say "oh I'll just wrap the Doodle component
> in our Signal channel" or something, there should be obvious ways to
> compose everything within the system, and that needs to be part of the
> user experience.

Hi John,

I would suggest that we need to be careful here.  Signal and Doodle are not
tools.  They are services provided by specific organisations.

Somewhere along the line we as a culture have forgotten the distinction between
'technology' and 'services'.  A 'technology' is really just a method or system
for applying knowledge to a problem; any individual or business could choose to
implement (or commission, or lease, or purchase outright) that technology
independently and control it completely.  A 'service', on the other hand, might
use technology, but individuals and businesses who use such services do not own
or control that technology directly.

Many cultures have chosen to protect innovators who develop technologies.
Patents are an example of such protection.  However, the justification for the
protection is that any individuals or businesses with sufficient resources
could choose to implement such technologies after their underlying science and
designs are made public.  That justification does not apply to services,
although for some reason a narrative has persisted that innovators who
develop services also deserve public protection.  They do not.

Yes, it certainly costs less to build systems from serviecs rather than from
technologies; this is because the businesses who collect rents (and other
benefits such as data brokerage fees) from operating services can subsidise the
costs.  But this does not serve the public interest.

Best wishes --

Geoff
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Re: Nettime is in bad shape. Let's see if we can change it.

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Platforms (Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, and so on) are not the answer; they are
operated by illegitimate gatekeepers who have no place in the conversation or
its management.  Some of us would never use such a method to communicate, nor
should we be expected to do so.

Suggest that in an ideal world there would be no gatekeepers at all other than
those who use or (if applicable) moderate the list.  Lists would generally be
invitation-only, even as the policy for some lists might be to furnish an
invitation to anyone who asks.  Mail might use SMTP but not DNS or IP addresses
to identify individual persons; all persons would be able to generate as many
unique IDs as they want and use nothing other than those IDs to send messages
and requests for invitations.

But we would need to decide that the benefit of such a system outweighs
the cost of excluding people who would find anything that avoids
platformisation to be too hard.  Importantly, such a system would actually be
more inclusive than platforms, since platforms assign the power to exclude to
those who don't deserve that power.

Geoff

On Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 12:31:29AM +0200, Andr?? Rebentisch wrote:
> Am 01.07.19 um 15:49 schrieb Max Herman:
> > 
> > Hi Andr?,
> > 
> > Which of the formerly valuable lists are dead?? I'm very far out of the
> > loop working mostly offline for the last decade.
> 
> Dear Max,
> 
> almost all lists I am subscribed to. Simply members are not posting
> anymore. I still read nettime. I still get lots of newsletters via list
> infrastructure channels.
> 
> Inter-Media Transition is normal. We have other means of online
> communications. telegram groups, facebook groups, twitter, yodel, slack,
> mattermost etc. Before usenet groups with their odd clients and rude
> channel rules became obsolete.
> 
> A simple method to kill a mailing list is spam. Or low quality
> communications. Or dumping all kinds of communication into the list. Or
> opening the mail archive to the general public without asking for prior
> consent (happened on Liberationtech). Open Archives in return could lead
> to legal risks in Germany, what do you do as a mailing list admin when
> you face court injunctions to remove copyrighted or defamatory content
> from list archives etc. You simply can't risk to let removed content pop
> up again after an archive regeneration etc.
> 
> Or other kinds of risks with ML public archives, I just recall an
> exchange with RMS who didn't bother to call out the president of
> Zimbabwe on a mailing list frequented by free software people of that
> country where archives were kindly indexed by google. RMS insisted on
> his right to free speech. Well, how nice to exercise your rights to
> converse with people when an incautious reply (which your rant incites)
> could get them killed or set behind bars and otherwise they cannot
> respond on equal footing plus all you do is put your associates at risk.
> 
> Mailman still has a horrible user interface. Often moderators don't
> moderate anymore because there was too much spam, default settings are
> suboptimal, spam filtering remains sub-standard. I have no idea why no
> org financed a Mailman replacement or Mailman NG project.
> 
> You could also observe the same phenomenon of declining list
> communications on open source developer lists. Occasionally dead
> communication channels come to new light.
> 
> Encrypted mailing lists exist. Almost no one uses them.
> 
> > One aspect of mailing lists is that they are a powerful example of a
> > free public sphere (and maybe its most essential expression regardless
> > of technological advancement).? You can put a bunch of content in an
> > email, and it can go to literally everyone on the planet. 
> 
> Yet who is keeping a record? And how to curate email exchanges?
> 
> > All that said, a listserv is only as good as its content.? If no one
> > creates any content that is relevant, nothing that cannot be gotten
> > better elsewhere, then why bother with the noisy clamor of a list?
> 
> Attention is limited. The time people spent to acknowledge and oppose
> the latest outrage, the daily trump tweet etc., is missing for serious
> debate and thought.
> 
> Online speech is Karl Kraus on steroids, always picking the
> insignificant targets, always declaration of persons as enemies, always
> hate mobs that try to engage us.
> 
> Dialogue becomes impossible as we don't talk with each other anymore but
> to (at times imaginary) third parties. As "Nick Nailor" (Aaron Eckhart)
> explained in Thank you for Smoking: "Because I'm not after you, I am
> after them". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLS-npemQYQ
> 
> 20 years ago there was a common sentiment that open low-censored online
> debates, even rude ones, contribute to a better and more open society...
> only if we would spread the technology to ignorant people from the past
> and institutions. Like in that previous Ito quote everyone had his or
> her pivotal moment.
> 
> Best,
> Andr?
> 
> 
> # 

Re: The Maker Movement is abandoned by its corporate sponsors; throws in the towel

[Geoffrey Goodell]

(Dear nettimers, this is my last message in this present batch, I promise!)

Someone from MIT shared with me the following, which I quote verbatim.  It
specificallly identifies the poor leadership of Dale Dougherty as an
explanation for the trouble with Make.  I have no idea what the board of Make
thinks of this but suggest that they should be considering it carefully:

--xx--xx--

There has been a long history of people criticizing Make for a lack of
diversity along a variety of lines (gender, racial, etc), including loud
critic Dr. Leah Bueckley, former MIT Media Lab professor:
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2013-10-29-make-ing-more-diverse-makers

I had a better article somewhere, but I think this blog post summarizes the
Naomi Wu incident reasonably well.
http://mike-ibioloid.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-bizarre-case-of-naomi-wu-vs-dale.html

Dale has spent 15 years brushing off these critiques, and it was only after
this THIRD apology for the Naomi incident (because apparently it took him
that long to have a woman read the apology before he posted it!) that he
promised to increase diversity of Make.

Overall, I think that the kernel of the idea of Make was good, but it was
the classic startup problem - the correct person wasn't leading it.  Dale
wasn't able to increase his vision beyond a classical version of monetizing
making.  By not welcoming (and also actively discouraging) a bunch of his
audience, he limited some of the scope of the Maker movement.

--xx--xx--

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 04:02:26PM -0700, Garnet Hertz wrote:
> James: I think part of the problem w Make / Maker Faire is that it was at a
> crossroads of hacker culture, electronic art and commerce (and several
> other things) - but it conflated and misunderstood almost all of them.
> Maker Media only took all of this stuff and put it under the banner of
> leisure without really understanding industrial design, what motivates
> artists, how to sell stuff, etc. - it started and stopped as an exercise or
> demo - and it lacked the fuel to move beyond this. The stuff you're doing
> in Sheffield looks amazing - it's really encouraging to see that you've
> kept this running. It's a great idea to include a storefront.
>
> As an update to the idea about starting some form of a new organization,
> I'm talking with Karen Marcelo (Survival Research Labs), Johannes
> Grenzfurthner (monochrom) and Mitch Altman (TV-B-Gone, Noisebridge) on
> Tuesday - we're going to kick around a few ideas. I'm not thinking of a
> replacement for Maker Faire or Make magazine - Adrian: I think a messy
> cluster is best - but I see some value in putting a few ideas forward to
> try to bring people together. I found the dorkbot network very useful and
> interesting, for example.
>
> I'll report back with more ideas in about a week,
>
> Garnet
>
>
>
> On Fri, 14 Jun 2019, 8:33 am Minka Stoyanova, 
> wrote:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I've really been enjoying this discussion in the wake of Make's
> > dissolution. As noted, the corporatization, whitewashing, and
> > delocalization of potentially critical and creative diy approaches was
> > certainly a problem with the "maker movement" as defined by Make. I also
> > completely agree that the focus on 3D printing over CNC, laser cutting, or
> > (even) traditional building is a problem. I'm excited about Garnet's
> > proposals for a new direction/umbrella for critical approaches as well as
> > Adrian's proposals, that recall arts and crafts ideas for 21st century
> > problems.
> >
> > I wonder though, about the educational angle. My own local makerspace as
> > well as local non-profits that aim to bring tech education to young people
> > (often underserved) relied on the Make / "maker" phenomenon for tools,
> > educational resources, and funding. Perhaps making an LED blink isn't
> > really interesting for a critically-minded artist; as a critically-minded
> > artist, I certainly feel that way. But, it's certainly a stepping stone for
> > tech education. Make had a significant role in that sphere.
> >
> > However, I see an potentially interesting/exciting new direction that
> > could come of the dissolution of Make's stronghold in the realm of
> > education. Tech education could be more than "teaching electronics to kids"
> > -- which is *very* important, in my opinion. It could (and I think,
> > should) include teaching critical approaches to technology, teaching media
> > literacy, critical thinking, and environmental thinking. I think the
> > discussion here could point towards ways of bringing those perspectives
> > into what was, under Make, a largely naive approach.
> >
> > Is there a space in what Adrian and Garnet's proposals for youth
> > education? ...for educating the next generation? ...or, for aiding the
> > educators of the next generation?
> >
> > Minka
> > (trying to contribute and not just "lurk" so much)
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 6:56 AM James Wallbank  wrote:
> >
> >> Responses both to R

Re: Unlike Us links on social media and their alternatives

[Geoffrey Goodell]

makes data appear voice-like and/or
> > video-like, but unintelligible to third parties.
> > 
> > [This would not be the first time this strategy is deployed. The early
> > digital modems (30-40 years ago, up to 2400 baud) chirped the way they
> > did not because it was the most efficient way, but for entirely
> > different reason: telecoms were selling digital lines (all phone lines
> > are digital, 56 or 64 kbps) at huge markup (10-100X) over voice lines
> > (although their cost was the same.) The telecoms were not happy at all
> > with attempts to use voice lines for digital communications, so they
> > immediately started installing equipment to detect and block modems on
> > voice lines. The modem makers, on their side, started to modify the
> > carrier signal to make it hard to distinguish it from human voice with
> > technology then available (keep in mind we're talking 70s and 80s.) This
> > made telecoms have false positives, interrupting regular calls, which
> > caused backlash from customers, and modem makers eventually won.]
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On 6/15/19, 04:30, Geoffrey Goodell wrote:
> > > Following an earlier thread --
> > > 
> > > There are some infrastructures that directly address the points raised 
> > > below.
> > > In particular, technology infrastructures that put control in the hands of
> > > users will generally involve users running free-software code on
> > > free-software
> > > platforms that they control and trust.  This might seem like an
> > > insurmountable
> > > challenge, but it is not; it can be done with sufficent support from
> > > institutions.  Whether this (infrastructure) support takes the form
> > > of project
> > > funding, regulation, educational initiatives, or some combination thereof,
> > > remains to be seen.
> > > 
> > > Addressing the challenges of metadata privacy and traversal of barriers
> > > established either for censorship or for price discrimination is a
> > > bit harder.
> > > However, efforts are underway, in the form of projects to build software 
> > > and
> > > peer-to-peer overlay networks.  The most accessible examples involve onion
> > > routing.  (I believe strongly in Tor, as I have indicated earlier.  
> > > Objectors
> > > should note that there are alternative onion routing architectures
> > > such as I2P.
> > > As long as we are speaking theoretically, feel free to substitute the
> > > onion-routing architecture of your choice.)  My specific responses are 
> > > below:
> > > 
> > > On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 03:14:19PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> > > > This is a promising direction. It's impossible to guess/infer at the 
> > > > first
> > > > attempt what the platform should do, but it's almost obvious what it
> > > > shouldn't. What we need is a requirements document, the one not 
> > > > produced by
> > > > techies, as for one reason or another they tend to make bad choices. At 
> > > > this
> > > > point I wouldn't worry what's 'possible' or 'impossible'. Just imagine 
> > > > the
> > > > ideal system and then work back to MVP. It may take some time, so the
> > > > stamina is paramount.
> > > 
> > > > How can this be done? I would postpone this discussion at this point, 
> > > > as it
> > > > leads to multiple dead-ends due to diverse (in)competences of 
> > > > participants.
> > > > Instead, we should reach some kind of consensus how the ideal system 
> > > > should
> > > > behave. The rest is a technical problem.
> > > 
> > > Agreed.  Let's first specifically identify the key problems that
> > > need solving:
> > > 
> > > (1) We require a way for individuals to converse directly with each
> > > other, at a
> > > distance (which is to say electronically), in a manner that does not 
> > > expose
> > > information about their conversations to third parties.  Three forms of
> > > communication are perhaps most essential:
> > > 
> > > (1a) long-form correspondence (mail).
> > > 
> > > (1b) real-time text messages (both bilateral and group chat).
> > > 
> > > (1c) real-time voice conversations (phone calls).
> > > 
> > > (2) We 

Re: Unlike Us links on social media and their alternatives

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Morlock,

I think your threat model is wrong.  At issue here is the question of whether
infrastructures allow unscrupulous adversaries to manipulate the behaviour of
multitudes of persons, cheaply and at scale, which although related should
not be confused with the question of whether it might be possible for an
adversary to eavesdrop on some conversations.

On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 11:34:27PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> 1.1 Because any onion-like routing will raise red flags in many places.
> Providing end-to-end privacy alone is a huge step by itself, and easier to
> accomplish without irritating powers that be too much. Let them know who
> talks to whom, and construct social graphs. They were able to do that with
> paper letters as well, since ever. The amount of Tor use by "freedom
> fighters" is infinitesimal compared by semi-criminal and criminal use (as
> defined by legal domains.) This is a bar too high to start with.

That is a dangerous narrative that leads nowhere useful.

> 1.2 It's asymmetric. Lesser governments (all except one) cannot penetrate
> onion routing. Major government can, routinely, as it has complete coverage,
> making correlation attacks trivial (unless we go back to mixmaster with
> random delays up to many hours.) This would be discriminatory towards lesser
> governments, and further empowering the major one. Unfair.

There are two problems with this argument:

First, there is no evidence that global adversaries actually use timing and
correlation attacks to de-anonymise parties communicating via onion routing.
Operators of Silk Road and The Pirate Bay were identified as a result of their
operational security failures, and some perpetrators have been caught because
the anonymity set of plausible suspects was small enough that circumstantial
evidence of their use of onion routing was sufficient.  Timing and correlation
attacks are certainly possible, but they are not so important that onion
routing is ineffective.

Second, as above, the threat model is mass surveillance.  Carrying out timing
and correlation attacks is expensive, generally requiring a large amount of
statistical sampling, active engagement in real time, or both.  A powerful
adversary might be able to carry out such attacks on a handful of targets who
use onion routing.  However, the chance that even a global-scale adversary
would be able to de-anonymise everyone, every time, with this approach is
vanishingly small.  Suggest that the primary power of onion routing lies in its
protection of the masses from surveillance and monitoring, not in its
protection of individual suspects from targeted attacks.

> 2. Once end-to-end privacy is routinely available, anonymity can be the next
> step. But these should be two independently moving parts. Plus the solutions
> for the two are not the same.

By 'privacy' here I assume you refer only to the message contents, not the
metadata.  Frankly, the metadata (particularly location and social graph
information) are much more valuable, and threatening to autonomy via mass
surveillance, than the content of messages.  Manipulation via mass
surveillance, not the discovery of one's secrets via wiretapping, is the
primary threat.  For this reason, end-to-end encryption over intermediated
communication channels, such as that offered by WhatsApp, Signal, and Skype,
does not actually make us more private in a way that is actually useful.
Unencrypted conversations over a federated network are in some ways more
private than encrypted conversations over a centrally-controlled network.

> I think that this should be further clarified as:
> 
> Stage 1: "in a manner that does not expose content of their conversations to
> third parties" (ie. the conversations are private, but metadata (who talks
> to whom and when) isn't.
> 
> Stage 2: "in a manner that does not expose neither content nor metadata of
> their conversations to third parties".

So, borrowing your idea to divide our plan to roll out private communication
infrastructure into two stages, I would restate your first stage as follows:

Stage 1: 'in a manner that does not make use of third-party intermediaries to
broker conversations'

What I mean by this is that people should connect to each other directly and
not rely upon single-provider platforms.  This is the motivation for using
Nextcloud instead of Dropbox, Google Calendar, and Skype.  All of these can be
done (with end-to-end encryption, by the way) without onion routing.

However, onion routing offers a second benefit beyond anonymity: it allows a
means of network traversal that addresses the problem Morlock raised earlier
about most Internet users not being directly addressable.  I can run Nextcloud
or a chat server or an email server because I have a static IP address.
However, most people don't.  Onion routing allows anybody to run services, even
those stuck behind network filters, policies, or middleboxes.  Even laptops and
mobile phones can run services.  No longer d

Re: Unlike Us links on social media and their alternatives

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Following an earlier thread --

There are some infrastructures that directly address the points raised below.
In particular, technology infrastructures that put control in the hands of
users will generally involve users running free-software code on free-software
platforms that they control and trust.  This might seem like an insurmountable
challenge, but it is not; it can be done with sufficent support from
institutions.  Whether this (infrastructure) support takes the form of project
funding, regulation, educational initiatives, or some combination thereof,
remains to be seen.

Addressing the challenges of metadata privacy and traversal of barriers
established either for censorship or for price discrimination is a bit harder.
However, efforts are underway, in the form of projects to build software and
peer-to-peer overlay networks.  The most accessible examples involve onion
routing.  (I believe strongly in Tor, as I have indicated earlier.  Objectors
should note that there are alternative onion routing architectures such as I2P.
As long as we are speaking theoretically, feel free to substitute the
onion-routing architecture of your choice.)  My specific responses are below:

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 03:14:19PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> This is a promising direction. It's impossible to guess/infer at the first
> attempt what the platform should do, but it's almost obvious what it
> shouldn't. What we need is a requirements document, the one not produced by
> techies, as for one reason or another they tend to make bad choices. At this
> point I wouldn't worry what's 'possible' or 'impossible'. Just imagine the
> ideal system and then work back to MVP. It may take some time, so the
> stamina is paramount.

> How can this be done? I would postpone this discussion at this point, as it
> leads to multiple dead-ends due to diverse (in)competences of participants.
> Instead, we should reach some kind of consensus how the ideal system should
> behave. The rest is a technical problem.

Agreed.  Let's first specifically identify the key problems that need solving:

(1) We require a way for individuals to converse directly with each other, at a
distance (which is to say electronically), in a manner that does not expose
information about their conversations to third parties.  Three forms of
communication are perhaps most essential:

(1a) long-form correspondence (mail).

(1b) real-time text messages (both bilateral and group chat).

(1c) real-time voice conversations (phone calls).

(2) We require a way for individuals to exchange digital content such as
files and calendars, with the same requirements as (1) above.

(3) We require a way for individuals to coordinate their activities (projects,
logistics, meetings, with the same requirements as (1) above.

> Nextcloud is promising, but there is an infrastructural anomaly that has to
> be fixed first - direct addressability of every human (smartphone, home
> computer, etc.) without intermediaries, directories, assistants. Without it,
> only users with real IP numbers can freely participate (DynDNS is a
> centralized service prone to corruption). It's explained in the paper I
> peddled earlier ( https://cryptome.org/2019/02/elbar.pdf )

For exactly the reasons Morlock offered in a separate thread [1], network
carriers will always have an interest to control the flow of information across
a network.  Potential interests include censorship and extraction of surplus,
for example via price discrimination or tax.  The problem of direct
addressability of devices is just one manifestation of such control.

Strategically, users of a network that wish to avoid such control will need to
shield knowledge about their use of the network from the intermediaries, hence
the need for onion routing.  Tor onion services [2] can be used to create
directly accessible services on any device that supports Tor.  So it is
possible to run web servers, or indeed any other TCP-based Internet services,
via a Tor onion service, not only on workstations in homes and businesses that
have not paid for a static IP address, but indeed on laptops and smartphones as
well.  Web servers available as Tor onion services can run Nextcloud too.

Suggest that because it is folly to assume that we will be able to trust
Internet carriers not to block, monitor, or otherwise interfere with our
traffic, we can expect to use onion routing for this in the first instance.
This is not to say that those of us with static IP addresses should not feel
free to run Nextcloud services directly on the Internet, at least as long as we
are allowed to do so cheaply, which may come to an end before long.

I would like to suggest that using Nextcloud to solve challenges (1), (2), and
(3) above will require essentially everyone to run a Nextcloud instance.  This
is certainly possible, but there are no doubt more practical ways to achieve
(1a) and (1b).

> Exactly. Let's do the effort and come up with white paper describing what
> 

Re: Unlike Us links on social media and their alternatives

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Dear Geert and Morlock,

First of all I agree with the majority of what Morlock said, especially the
assertion that most of the example systems Geert mentioned are 'center-full'
and therefore problematic.  Morlock is right about that.  That said, I think
there are a few issues that warrant attention, which I shall describe here.

On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 12:46:47PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> The center-full alternatives that do survive with limited popularity tend to
> become isolated islands, and usually end up with invitation-only memberships
> (because some dick 'knows' who to invite.) Great if you are into incest but
> suck otherwise (the islands.) There is something magic about 'public', the
> possibility of random connection and unintended consequences.

I think we need to pause a moment to understand the 'magic' to which Morlock
refers.  It would be lazy to cast the reliance upon large-scale social networks
as a simple example of people being lazy, so allow me to describe my
understanding of this phenomenon here, starting with three propositions.

Proposition 1.  People aspire.  What do I mean?  I'll leave it to these two
authors to explain:

"The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this complex view,
strike the imagination as something grand, and beautiful, and noble, of which
the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to
bestow upon it.  And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It
is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of
mankind." -- Adam Smith, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"

"Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility
of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor." -??? Sherman Edwards,
"1776: A Musical Play"

People seek to serve institutions and systems that facilitate their
aspirations, even when such aspirations are unrealistic.

Proposition 2.  People broadcast.  Suffice it to say that for many people, the
act of developing and maintaining social connections one individual at a time,
whether through their existing friendships, work, or other activities, is
rather difficult.  It is not impossible, mind you, but it is of sufficiently
high intrinsic cost that people find value in leveraging pre-existing social
contexts managed and maintained by others as a way to broadcast their
existence, advertise whatever it is they have to offer, and find that
prospective counterparty that they would otherwise never find without the
expenditure of great time and treasure, to say nothing of psychological stress
(not everyone is well-suited to be a telemarketer, after all).  Whether it is
dissatisfaction of the inadequacy of their own limited networks or simple
wanderlust that drives them to search farther, the interest to engage at an
ever-broader scale, driven by hope and the aforementioned aspiration, seems
natural.

Proposition 3.  People blacklist.  A recurrent, intoxicating idea is that of a
free Utopia in which everyone behaves well and whose individuals contribute
only positive externalities.  Although individuals might understand that this
dream is impossible, its message nonetheless shapes the design of many human
systems and institutions.  In particular, people seek to design systems that
are 'free by default' with the assumption that misbehaviour can be deterred via
a system of punishments that are fair, unobtrusive, and most of all low-cost to
the 'good' actors.  Ostensibly because of the optimistic belief that
misbehaviour is an 'exception' that we might hope to overcome some day, such
punishments generally involve a 'blacklisting' system that systematically
singles out those who have misbehaved, in contrast to a 'whitelisting' system
that systematically approves those who have contributed.  It is plain to see
how an eagerness to bring well-behaved people aboard might lead to the adoption
of such an approach.  It might seem that the difference between the choice
between 'blacklisting' versus 'whitelisting' is mostly about the frequency of
'good' versus 'bad' behaviour, but it is not.  Whereas in a 'whitelisting'
system, the onus is on the individual to present evidence of his or her 'good'
deeds, in a 'blacklisting' system, the onus is on some institution to assert
that an individual has not done anything sufficiently 'bad'.  Such
'blacklisting' systems are manifest in the Western world, ranging from credit
bureaus and entity resolution firms, who seek to bind together every engagement
a natural person makes in the world, to ostensibly 'open' online forums (e.g.
Wikipedia), which do not allow people to contribute without providing a
credible means for the 'honchos' (to use Morlock's term) to punish them.
People know that blacklisting systems have problems, as evidenced by draconian
policies, surveillance, and even credit crises, but they keep building them
nonetheless.

Combining these three factors, we see that there is a natural tendency toward
gl

Re: EU == USSR v2.0 ?

[Geoffrey Goodell]

How is the EU seizing control of the means of production?  How is the EU
delegitimising the ownership of private property by private citizens?  When
last I checked, it was still possible to establish for-profit businesses in the
EU, and it was still possible for individual EU citizens to purchase goods from
Ka De We.  To say that the EU model incorporates elements of socialism is one
thing, to say that it is 'communism' is a bridge too far.

Historical analogies are useful, and there may be nothing new under the sun.
However, we also need to understand what is different this time.  For example,
it may be that the automation and centralised control made possible by modern
technology, whose effects include but are not limited to altering the balance
between fixed and variable costs, have substantively changed the nature of
manufacturing and services.  And now we see that regulators in many countries
in Europe and America seem powerless to stop private interests from setting the
rules and collecting their own kind of unaccountable taxes.

It may be useful to consider the various emerging models for regulation pursued
by the EU as a response to such effects rather than a repudiation of
capitalism.  In particular, much of information and communication technology
has become a form of infrastructure, and governments have so far failed to
fully determine and implement appropriate forms of regulation for this
infrastructure [1].  Many people have offered reasons for this, and I shall not
recount those arguments here.  For various reasons the EU regulators are
well-positioned to give it a go, and they deserve our support.

Best wishes --

Geoff

[1] Bob Frankston.  "Demystifying Networking."  http://rmf.vc/demystify

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 02:05:16PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> The arguments and narratives on EU don't really make much sense. Not that
> deeply entrenched sides do not have self-coherent dogmas, they do. But it
> all just doesn't make sense. There is a total disconnect between them and
> between them and reality, it seems. Immigration, sovereignty, neoliberalism,
> nationalism, etc. etc. ad nauseam, barren and fruitless drivel goes on and
> on. Especially in GB (why anyone cares so much what happens to the
> irrelevant inbred island is a separate topic) - intelligent people have to
> admit that they don't have a clue what Brexit-no-Brexit discourse is about.
> Not that it will prevent anyone to contributing.
> 
> Maybe, then, the real issue is completely different, and present discourses
> and narratives are simply psychotic avoidance of confronting it.
> 
> EU is really another attempt at communism.
> 
> Communism appears to be genetically attractive to large swaths of
> population, so it does come up and will continue to be coming up, one way or
> another. It's like when you are constipated - it *will* come out sooner or
> later, and you know it. The question is how much are you going to pretend
> and suffer in the meantime.
> 
> The first attempt, USSR, failed for known reasons. It did work in the
> beginning though. The same happened to EU. The really existing communism
> appears to be perishable matter.
> 
> The neurotic need to brand it as something else in the case of EU didn't
> change much, if anything. The pattern is unmistakeable: wide initial support
> from working class masses and honest intelligentsia, belief in transnational
> unity and rosy future, followed by corruption of officials and apparatchik
> system of government. In the post-mortem phase, flourishing of 'analysis'
> and bickering about the exact way the decay should proceed.
> 
> So don't be sorry about EU. Hopefully we learned something, and the next
> time it will be better. It *will* come out, again.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: the resurrection of the edge

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Thanks Morlock

For those of us who cannot reach the site because of filters put in place by
cryptome.org itself or its overzealous carrier Defense.Net, Inc, you can also
reach elbar.pdf here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190205195243/https://cryptome.org/2019/02/elbar.pdf

Best wishes --

Geoff

On Fri, Mar 01, 2019 at 12:23:25AM -0800, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> Some 10-15 years ago the edge devices gave up, and became robotic extensions
> of the center. As Interwebs deteriorated* into 'web' and 'apps', the agency
> of the edge devices all but disappeared. The organization behind the last
> non-corporate browser took money from corporations, and that was the end of
> it. The "Open source" become a lipstick on the pig, as pretty much all
> involved succumbed to the ideology of centralization (more on that at
> https://cryptome.org/2019/02/elbar.pdf .)
> 
> [* to illustrate to non-tech outsiders the sad state of computing machinery:
> take one page from your favorite book on philosophy; now imagine that all
> philosophy books can only be written by using only words from that page.
> Except that it's worse than that.]
> 
> But there are signs of life! Gab.ai created a piece of software that runs on
> *your* computer and overlays 3rd party web pages with Gab user comments. 3rd
> party sites can't do shit about it. The decades old concept that content can
> be locally modified prior viewing is back (I still remember an extension I
> used for years, that replaced each occurrence of select words on any site I
> visited with some other words. It sounds simplistic, but it did make a huge
> difference and made me realize how words hit you at levels below perception
> ... s/government//mafia/ etc.)
> 
> Why this didn't happen earlier? One part was fear of lawsuits. But the main
> reason was widespread collusion that the sanctity of the centralized model
> is not to be challenged. Now the first step was made, and it will be
> interesting to watch how it develops. It threatens the whole industry -
> after all that money spent on web and apps, some jerk can deface it with
> impunity. But more importantly, it reveals the elephant in the room - end
> user devices are actually computers!
> 
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Re: John Naughton on Shoshana Zuboff: 'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi Morlock

Say what you will about 'capitalism' but I'd like to suggest that the use of 
the term 'capitalism' in this context refers to the unfortunate truth that in 
recent years capitalism has come to be dominated by surveillance.  
Specifically, the success of much of the Western (and perhaps Eastern, too) 
economy has come to depend upon the success of surveillance platforms.  If you 
aren't selling a way to manipulate millions of people cheaply, then you aren't 
selling much.  In the zero-sum world of human power and control, the wealthy 
want for nothing but the ability to manipulate and subdue the masses, 
preferably without creating civil unrest.  So it stands to reason that their 
money, and therefore capitalism itself, will build that mechanism to the 
fullest extent permitted by law, and until something changes, it is all legal.

Geoff


On 25 January 2019 18:39:17 GMT, Morlock Elloi  wrote:
>Right. Involving 'capitalism' into this is total bs., even an 
>intentional sabotage - to make it look inevitable (as no one can
>imagine 
>alternative for capitalism, surveillance must also be inevitable.)
>
>Motherf*ckers. So many vacuous words just to avoid mentioning 
>possibility of simple legislation within existing legal frameworks.
>
>
>
>On 1/25/19, 10:09, carlo von lynX wrote:
>> Stop using leftist terminology (which makes Christian Democrats
>> and other peeps stop paying attention). What we are facing is a
>> facet of totalitarianism. Surveillance totalitarianism. We just
>> don't know who's going to be the big dictator at the end
>> (presuming that ten years into this game it isn't all sorted
>> out yet), and maybe we will never be told.
>
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