Freedom, not Fear

Civil liberty campaigners have been demonstrating across Europe under the motto "Freedom, not fear" against what they see as a Big Brother approach to surveillance. The largest protest was in the German capital Berlin.

The participants of mass rallies in Berlin and throughout Europe are from all over the political spectrum, but their demands are the same – give people back their privacy. Protestors claim they cannot trust the governments which monitor their lives, complaining of a lack of transparency in the way information is used.

They are also protesting against the collection of data with CCTV cameras and other monitoring devices, as well as creating national databases on the private lives of citizens.

Today, sensitive data collection happens not only nationally, but also on behalf of the European Union. Protestors say that the Stockholm Program action plan includes plans to join European databases, and that is alarming.

”Our position is to say that security and freedom walk hand in hand,” said Leena Simon, organizer of the rally in Berlin. “They do not oppose to each other.”

Those rallying express the common opinion that someone could take private information and incorrectly use it.

Under the EU´s Stockholm programme, implemented last year, European countries will have to input almost all key data about their citizens into a giant central database.
The information will include finger prints, financial records, and even personal online data.

Interpol will also be able to use the latest satellite surveillance technology to trace any citizen anywhere in the European Union.

“We gradually lose control of our lives and it is handed over to algorithms and databases,” claims one of the rally’s organizers, Rena Tangens. “And you will not be asked in the future what you want to do. You can’t decide yourself, but other people will decide who will have access to these databases.”

Andrej Holm is an urban sociologist. But the German government suspected he was a terrorist.

He was followed, his phones were tapped, and his family´s emails read.

He was even arrested, before being released without charge.

“You call somebody, and you can hear the policeman’s voice – “she probably means this and that”. That drives you completely crazy,” said Andrej Holm’s partner, Anne Roth. “If you don’t know if there is tapping going on in the bedroom or the bathroom, and you have this feeling there is always somebody there. It is really terrible.”

But the government insists these measures are necessary to fight increasingly tech-savvy terrorists and criminals.

It claims it has no desire to snoop on those who have not broken the law and some have accused the protestors of politics.

“The parties that are demonstrating now are the ones who implemented these laws when in power. This is something they do just to show that they are the opposition,” states Uwe Meenen from the National Democratic Party of Germany.

The demonstrators are waiting for a response from the authorities to a petition calling for an end to all existing central employment, education and travel databases.
They also want a freeze on any new ones.

It looks like demonstrators in Germany are not likely to get what they want from the government today, but as technology advances these protests are likely to become more widespread.

That would make it much harder for governments to impose these measures on its citizens without consultation from the top down.

IPRED Arrives Tomorrow......Innovation Withers

From the youth wing of the Swedish Green Party: Ipred Unintelligence 400mg Stops technological development and cultural exchange. Reduces integrity. For politicians out of touch with reality

I mentioned to some non-Swedes today at work that the IPRED Law (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) will come into effect tomorrow. They were all surprised that such a law had been passed in Sweden. It was also discussed in worried tones around the table at our regular Tuesday lunch for doctoral students in my home department. The IPRED law is

"a file sharing law, which is based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), will allow courts to order internet operators to hand over details that identify suspected illegal file-sharers.

Copyright holders would then be free to contact the file sharer in question and demand that they suspend their activities or risk prosecution."

As the English language Swedish news site The Local goes on to report, "Almost half of Swedes, 48 percent of the 1,000 interviewed, consider the law to be wrong while only 32 percent are in favour, a new poll from Sifo shows."

I am convinced that the IPRED law will have little effect on those who share files and have a reasonable degree of knowledge about the technology.

In Finland, where IPRED 1 has already been implemented a recent study has shown that it has not effected P2P file sharing practices:

The National Research Institute of Legal Policy of Finland (Optula) has just come out with the results of its large survey charting various illegal or forbidden activities among the Finnish 9th grade (15 year old) schoolchildren. This is already the sixth survey of its kind but interestingly the researchers included this year also unauthorized downloading among the 'forbidden' activities charted. The results show that net piracy is highly popular in this age group, topping the chart of illegal or forbidden activities. 29% of the study target group practiced unauthorized downloading daily, 69% had done it at least once during the previous year, and 74% had done it at least once in their lifetime. Two out of three persons reported having at least 100 illegally downloaded files on their computers. Two thirds of the downloaded content was music while movies was the next most popular content type.

These objectively credible results contrast sharply the propaganda material previously distributed by the Finnish copyright lobby organization Lyhty. Citing cherry picked details from its annual Tekijänoikeusbarometri (Copyright Barometer) study - the details and result data of which have never been published for scientific scrutiny - Lyhty has claimed that the new Finnish copyright law - which is an implementation of the IPRED1 sanction dircetive - has been effective in reducing net piracy in Finland. This claim has been further distributed internationally by IFPI lobbyists. However, Optula's fresh study shows that this claim is not true at all, at least among the younger generation. Net piracy is highly popular among the young Finns, and there are no signs of the new stricter copyright law managing to reduce it.

The Pirate Bay (several organizers of which are awaiting a judgment on April 17th regarding "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws") have released IPREDator:

IPREDator is a network service that makes people online more anonymous using a VPN. It costs about 5 EUR a month and we store no traffic data. Our service is right now in a beta stage. we hope it will be released for the public before 1st of April. Sign up now to start using it as soon as we're stable. The network is under our control. not theirs. The pirate bay likes and knows real kopimism. and waffles. kopimi!

The Local (once again) explains the service further; "This type of service hinders outsiders from finding the identity of an individual behind an IP address, while helping Internet users effectively side-step laws which may prove inconvenient or unpalatable in their home country." Those users of P2P technology who do not deepen their involvement with the file sharing community, by adopting such cloaking technology as IPREDator will perhaps come to the attention to those enforcing the IPRED law.

The main issue with the effects of the IPRED law is the effect, as the Green Party image suggests (Ipren is a brand of aspirin in Sweden), it will have on the digital economy and culture of Sweden. In June 2008 the Swedish parliament passed the so-called FRA Law, "legislative package that authorizes the state to warrantlessly wiretap all telephone and Internet traffic that crosses Sweden's borders." The FRA Law combined with the IPRED Law does not contribute to the image of Sweden as a place were communication is private and secure. Any company or government doing business in Sweden will have the Swedish government as a third party in communication over digital (including mobile) networks. This seems like a nightmare scenario to me.

The effect of making the entire communication network of Sweden a surveilled network is of course large organizations taking their business elsewhere. The Russian telecommunication organization Rostelekom has said it will be now redirecting from Sweden.

Sharing all communication with government monitors is a strange outcome of anti-file sharing laws.

Wiretapping Sweden

Wiretapping Sweden (2008)
Documentary about the blogosphere reaction to surveillance laws passed earlier this year in Sweden. The documentary in English is a good introduction to the information economy of Sweden. A high quality copy of the video can be obtained by clicking here.

A (Small) Rally Against Swedish Surveillance Laws

“CULTURE IS WORTH A LITTLE RISK.” - NORMAN MAILER

Swedish lawmakers voted late on Wednesday 18th June 2008 in favour of a controversial bill allowing all emails and phone calls to be monitored in the name of national security.

The FRA law (FRA-lagen in Swedish) is the common name for legislation with the stated purposed of fighting terrorism in Sweden, including a new law put forward by the government as well as several modifications to existing laws, formally called proposition 2006/07:63 – En anpassad försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet (proposition 2006/07:63 – An intelligence agency accommodation). The law, taking effect in 2009, gives the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA, Swedish Försvarets radioanstalt) the right to intercept all Internet exchange points that exchange traffic that crosses Swedish borders, though experts argue that it is impossible to differentiate between international traffic, and traffic between Swedes.
The law was passed by the Swedish parliament on June 18, 2008, by a vote of 143 to 138, with one delegate abstaining and 67 delegates not present.

Since then there has been the beginning of opposition to what is soon (January 1st 2009) to become law. In Umeå today there was a small rally, mostly made up of young people opposing the so-called FRA-Law. The rally was addressed by representatives of the youth wings of three major parties and an independant 'cyber person' (see video below with bad audio - soon).










The rally ended with people breaking up into smaller groups for discussions on encryption and VPN-tunnel techniques. Another rally is planned for Saturday in Umeå (as well as Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö and Örebro).

Visibility Low, Mood Content

I returned to the office this morning with my mind and body still operating on Christmas time. I have been sleeping late and long over the break and did not sleep until 2am last night, only to wake at 7am for a return to 'the real world'. It is not something I have come to terms with yet and it may take a day or two to adjust to. But nonetheless it is great to be back at university. The next six months promise to be most exciting with a 'new' HUMlab opening, two thesis chapters to write (already well planned), teaching, online and offline creative projects and the distant promise of Spring.
This morning's RSS brought me a very interesting post on Floating Prisons, and Other Miniature Prefabricated Islands of Carceral Territoriality at Subtopia:

The deeper I get into it, the more I realize an entire book could probably be written about the subject of floating prisons -– and who knows, maybe in another dream one day I’ll write it –- (there is probably already some magnificent mini opus out there that I have -- for at least the time being -- overlooked) but for now, let’s just settle for a quick and dirty Googleized survey.

I recommend it as a way of putting work into perspective. I may be institutionalised but at least I can go for a walk when I want to.

Some Thoughts on a Law for IP Disclosure in Sweden

The present government of Sweden wants to introduce laws that will allow police to have the ability to identify and collect and store the IP numbers of Internet users. In an article in the political newspaper Riksdag & Departement the government:

vill underlätta för polisen att få del av de koder som kan identifiera internetanvändare. Även i spaningssyfte kan polisen komma att få del av uppgifterna.

(will make it easier for the police to obtain parts of the code that can identify Internet users. Within the proposal the police can obtain parts of that information.)

The purpose of the extra police power is reported a result of:

I takt med att brottslingar ökat sitt användande av internet och IP-telefoni har polisen ökat trycket på regeringen för att lättare kunna koppla en IPadress till en enskild användare.

(To keep pace with the rise in criminality that uses Internet and IP-telephone the police have increased pressure on the government to be able to more easily connect IP-addresses to an particular user.)

I have been thinking about this idea for a few days and I had a thought regarding the relativity of the proposal. What if it was public library loans that was the system that was needing increased security? Of course, it is the communication possibilities of the Internet that make it a source of concern for police, but to have the information consumption of an individual monitored is the result in both scenarios. Of course even in the United States, a nation at war on several fronts, even the idea of security/police forces monitoring library loans causes uproar (see the Mao Little Red Book Hoax). However, surveillance is a growth industry throughout the world:

The global production value of IP surveillance is expected to rocket from US$ 1.4 billion in 2006 to US$ 5.5 billion in 2010, exceeding that of analog CCTV surveillance. Moreover, the market demand for such IP surveillance products as network cameras, video surveillance software, video servers and NVRs (Network Video Recorders) will show good growth in the very near future. CompuTrade

The implications for the collection of IP traffic sourced to users are broad and numerous. How will diplomatic missions react to the idea that their embassies are being surveilled? And what of the future? The political boundaries between individual states and the European Union are becoming more and more transparent as each new resolution is passed. Who will be able to access police IP databases in the future? The worst case scenario is of course, totalitarianism. In the USA the security apparatus has long ago been identified as a potential tool for a dictator:

"That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people," he said in 1975, "and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide." New York Times

The proposal for a Swedish IP register with police access has been referred for consideration.

SVEN: Surveillance Video Entertainment Network

SVEN CV - the computer vision software used for SVEN (Surveillance Video
Entertainment Network) - is now available to the public. The features and interface were designed specifically for the SVEN project, so the interface isn't what you might expect from user-friendly, general purpose software. However, we hope it can be useful for other public space projects, as it is specifically designed to track people in uncontrolled settings, as opposed to a gallery or stage where lighting, background, clothing, etc., can be controlled.

SVEN is a piece of tactical software art. Tactical software art comes out of traditions of tactical media and software art. It’s a logical mix: tactical media is a response to the way mainstream media influences culture; software art is a response to the ways mainstream software influences culture.

Tactical media often involves a combination of digital actions and “meatspace” – or street - actions. In SVEN, these are one and the same - digital actions that take place on the street (just off the curb in this case).

Surveillance is already scary.

Sure, surveillance is scary - but you’ve probably heard that before. We’re being watched all the time, and we don’t know by whom, or what they’re doing with the images and other data they’re gathering. Scared? You bet - there’s a bogeyman under the bed, so we’d better not look. But remember, we’re supposed to be scared – people are trying to scare us. Foucault pointed out that not knowing when the bogeyman is watching you can scare you into changing your behavior. But not knowing how the bogeyman is watching you can scare you too. SVEN’s purpose is not to point out that surveillance is scary. People are scared enough as it is.

Software shouldn’t be scary.

From the SVEN CV website.

Matt Magazine #2 Mobility and Surveillance

Matt Magazine #2 Mobility and Surveillance:

2 Duncan Campbell
"Inside Echelon"
Photos: Found Footage

20 Tim Cresswell
In Place/Out of Place
Photos: Guersoy Dogtas

36 Carl von Clausewitz
Vom Kriege
Photos: Guersoy Dogtas

72 Ariel Merari
Attacks on Civil Aviation
Videostills: Natalie Jeremijenko
Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT)

92 Carl Schmitt
The Theory of the Partisan
Videostills: Surveillance Camera Players

92 Imprint

Google. the Power and the Glory

A few nights ago I watched a Dutch documentary on Google; "Behind the Screen". It was an interesting 47 minutes. Not a lot of surprises but the issues raised by the film were poignant. Google's approach to work reminds me a lot of the IDEO Lab's so called Deep Dive technique from the late 1990's. This is not surprising considering they both share a close relationship with Stanford University, which is made apparent in "Behind the Screen" (online at GUBA) The main concern I came away with from "Behind the Screen" was a result of the interview with the very wise Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive among other things. I paraphrase it something like this; if Google Books succeeds in scanning in a billion books using its secret patented technology it comes to own these books in their translated form. It now controls a significant manifestation of human knowledge. At the moment Google seems to be being very generous with its assets. But how do we know this will continue?
The other issue raised in the film is about privacy. This is not a unique situation regrading Google, it is a shadow falling across the knowledge/information based economy worldwide. Surveillance Theory should be taught at High School, but it won't be because then it wouldn't be as easy to monitor people as it is. Critical thinking is the solution to many of the 'problems' discussed in "Behind the Screen". In digitally literate cultures people are aware of the pitfalls before they happen.
There are many online search engines available (here are 54) but Google gives a large return with a high relevance. Here is a search on Google Images for 'Fake Google':



Here are the first results for a search on Microsoft's Live Search for 'Fake Google':



The Google return is much greater (six times) and, in the early returns at least, more relevant (maybe this drops off dramatically). Nine of the top ten are about fake google sites compared to six of ten on the Microsoft search. I suppose that's why Google has 70% of the north American search engine market in its extensive archives.