Claws to the Weak: internet and rights
Mathias Klang @klang67
George Orwell: You and the Atomic Bomb (1945)
Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak.
Killer app 1415
Killer app 1455
Chokehold on printers
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Killer app 1710
Universal declaration of human rights (1948)
Killer app 1948
Law
democracy
Killer app 1960
Is teleportation legal?
Law
Contextual & programmed social
rules
Architecture
Only technology(spot the ethical dilemma?)
Telecoms revolution
Swedish telephone c:a 1896
Graham Bell was awarded a patent for the electric telephone in March 1876
Ludicrously brief history of computers
hollerith
Generation 3 (1964-72)
The digital is the original & everything is copy
Killer apps 1995: Browser wars
Everything is miscellaneous
91 % Access to the Internet at home83 % Access to broadband at home7 % Never used a computer
Source: Sweden Statistics 2011 (*Individuals aged 16-74)
Voltaire’s dream? The theoretically possible
becomes the inevitable
DigitalizationConnectivityDevicesStorage
Blog
ger 1
999
Goog
le 1
999
End of communications monopoly
Normalizing the abnormal
Control
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
John Gilmor (TIME magazine December 1993)
The other control
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Technology makes society
personalization
A Squirrel Dying In Your Front Yard May Be More Relevant To
Your Interests Right Now Than People
Dying In AfricaMark Zuckerberg
It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them. Eric Schmidt, Google
The internet is shows us what it thinks that we want to see – not what we need to see Eli Pariser
Identity & Information junk food.
Freedom of Speech
iTunes censor fail
The Facebook Elbowbreast
privacy
The Right to Privacy
The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world…solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress…
Warren and Brandeis The Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard Law Review 193 (1890)
"You have zero privacy anyway.
Get over it."
Scott McNealy (Wired 1999)
“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”
Mark Zuckerberg (2010)
We leak information
Surveillance: gaze from above
Protection from the outer gaze
Autoveillance: performance lifestyle
Compartmentalization
Peerview: social control
“friends”
End of privacy?
The Hive-mind
If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear
The memory hole
"We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled. Please understand that the closure of an account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well. Thank you for your understanding with our decision."
Closing thoughts
Orwell or Huxley?
The illusion of simplicity
The keepers of algorithms know
We have (theoretical) control over Big Brother
Regulation of technology is the regulation of democracy
The social construction of claws
THANKS!
Mathias Klang [email protected] or @klang67
www.digital-rights.net
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