> On 16 Mar 2020, at 06:38, Robert Mathews (OSIA) <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> So long as Privacy remains deeply misunderstood among all that value it,
> societies in all, will remain ‘hog-tied’, and unable to scale such capricious
> assaults upon it. New explorers must awaken and venture forth to fruitful
> lands. That is to say, with respect to desired Privacy and Security
> manifestations, journeys to new terra firma must be undertaken; and
> buttressing those journeys must be, revolutionary brainwork & praxis.
> Entirely new bridges too, are needed; for in their collective absence, the
> negative eventualities imposed upon all - will soon be too costly a burden
> for each of us to shoulder; individually or collectively.
The Snowden releases and the blatantly unlawful attacks upon Assange and others
who try to inform the public of the crimes committed in their name have made it
clear that elites worldwide are in a precarious position. From my upcoming
paper ("Subverting Surveillance" or "Surveillance and goal formulation in mass
direct actions”):
——————
— Abstract —
Public confidence in political leadership is very low. Dissatisfaction has been
expressed through massive demonstrations. Online channels support highly
flexible tactics that undermine attempts to suppress demonstrations. Protesters
have employed both online and offline measures in order to undermine
surveillance.
However, the avoidance of identification has also limited the effectiveness and
continuity of the movements. Anonymity also opens opportunities for swamping of
communication channels. Secure pseudonyms offer a way to maintain the
protection of anonymity, while stopping the arbitrary creation of identities.
Pseudonyms support reputation development, which permits the formulation of
more complex goals and more organized direct actions.
Smartphones offer capabilities needed for both the physical and informational
infrastructures necessary to coordinate independently of states. Large physical
assemblies can take advantage of the local area networking capabilities of
their phones. These physical meetings also make unique identification of
participants straight forward. We have described some simple software
developments that would facilitate coordination in these settings.
— Introduction —
The acceptability of surveillance depends upon the degree of legitimacy of the
organization collecting the data. When people feel that collection is improper,
or lack confidence that data will be protected and used for their benefit, they
may take countermeasures. For example, people may wear masks when attending a
demonstration to protect their identity from being registered. People's
confidence in authorities has apparently reached an all-time low. Lack of
confidence in authorities is one important factor in the stall in immunization
rates in recent years (Y. Mahboubi, 2019). Harrington (2017) notes “We also
discovered a staggering lack of confidence in leadership: 71% of survey
respondents said government officials are not at all or somewhat credible….”
Evens, Stoker, and Halupka (2018) found “compelling evidence of an increasing
trust divide between government and citizens” and that “fewer than 41% of
Australian citizens are satisfied with the way democracy works in Australia.”
Further, they found that the “Appetite for democratic reform is extremely
strong.”
Dissatisfaction is also being expressed through direct action. “Global Protest
Wave of 2019,” is a term used to describe the abnormally large number of high
profile protests that happened during 2019 and have continued to happen in
2020; protests classified in the "wave" include those in the Arab world, Hong
Kong, France, Catalonia, and Latin America” (Wikipedia, 2020). Lambert (2019)
states “A burst of uprisings has engulfed the planet over the past several
months. The common driver to these uprisings is the rejection of economic and
social inequalities, and the loss of democratic control.” John Chalcraft (in
McKenzie, 2019) of the London School of Economics and Political Science argued
that while there were specific and varying triggers for the protests around the
world, the existence of "a much wider lack of trust in the political elite, a
feeling of crisis of authority, and a wide variety of grievances and feelings
of discontent" in Chile, Lebanon, and Hong Kong amplified the initial protests
into "sustained protest movements, continuing even after their initial
grievance has been met." Le Monde (2019) described the changes as a "planetary
demand [to] reconquer democracy.”
—————— comments needed, please request draft ——————
“Journeys to new terra firma” have been undertaken, but explorers have
typically found that the ground is incapable of supporting them. Snowden knew
the system from the inside, so he knew that the best he could hope for was a
few days before his identity would become known and physical-space realities
would terminate his freedom of movement. Assange was also in the know, but he
also underestimated how blatantly the rule of law would be subverted. The
message is that opponents of the elite will be subject to character
assassination, legal attacks, and physical abuse when their identities become
known. There have been public calls for the assassination of Assange by US
politicians. In the poor countries, assassination of activists has become a
routine part of business operations. The big mining companies in these
countries fund counterinsurgency warfare. First, they “help” their opponents by
providing their communities with some benefits. Next, they hire their leaders
in order to co-op them into jobs that may be lost, if the company is forced to
comply with activist demands. Assassination is the solution, when all else
fails. Previously this was reserved for political leaders of poor countries:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2159.Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man
Today, the counterinsurgency warfare, pioneered in the poor countries, is
coming back to the imperial powers' homelands, with the help of surveillance
capitalism and artificial intelligence. If you can be identified, you can be
trolled, bankrupted, jailed, or killed. As Occupy Wall Street, and today the
Yellow Vests, have shown, physical-space remains dominated by a feudal elite.
However, Covid-19 could be what pushes a profoundly corrupt feudal system over
the edge. We may see a long predicted economic collapse that makes “2008 look
like a tea party.” We may see a political destabilization, if Trump is
defeated, but claims he “won” in 2020. We may see the collapse of the dollar,
when the $50 trillion being used outside of the US suddenly is cashed in. So,
this new terra firma may not only be the promised land for the opponents of the
elite, but also for the elite themselves who are seeking some safe place for
their financial assets. However, the privacy of TOR, Bitcoin, etc. is not good
enough. Both data and meta-data must be absolutely protected. One effort:
https://praxxis.io/xx-network-faq
Widespread application of these technologies is a precondition for an
understanding of Privacy. However, a proper understanding requires that the new
technology supports a new media that is free of elite domination. This can
provide the basis for a recapture of physical-space, which we should be
prepared for:
https://groups.io/g/democracy
Coming back to Covid-19 control strategies, we must understand that the
politicians are solving a problem that they have created themselves. The
solution is always more power to the elite. In Denmark, the boarder is now
closed, data privacy no longer exists, police can walk into any home without a
warrant, and you can be forcibly vaccinated. Here is a summary sent out in
response to a request by a family member:
Outbreaks like this are politically driven. This has been most obvious in
China, which jailed the now deceased doctor that issued the initial alert, and
Iran, which failed to cancel a large political event. These give some insight:
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/2/iran_coronavirus
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/2/iranian_infectious_disease_specialist_on_how
https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/chain-reaction-eric-feigl-ding-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-inevitable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4FLqWw0CbQ
During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, one comment called it an indictment
of capitalism and the associated immiseration of the African continent. Areas
like this, that are often the source of viral epidemics, like AIDS, should have
the world’s best hospitals, so that diseases can be immediately stopped. We
know that AIDS was accelerated by the Reagan Administration that cut off all
funding to deal with what was called, at that time, the “gay plague.” This kind
of despicable behavior was duplicated in France and other countries. In some
cases religious leaders called for the execution of infected people, thus
ensuring a lack of HIV testing.
In Uganda, the voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) program was delayed
for a couple of years, after a US Evangelical missionary convinced the wife of
the President that male circumcision caused promiscuity - there is no support
for this view whatsoever and studies show no relationship at all. About 30
additional children die each year from AIDS as a result of this delay, and
hundreds of additional adults die. Denmark is engaged in cultural imperialism
in Uganda, which is continuing this impediment to prevention. While the World
Health Organization is coordinating the circumcision of an additional 27
million men in the most impacted African states, Denmark continues to protect
and promote scientifically dishonest research undermining this effort:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-U3JTBCcFGKEeAyhwI2tJhBSXaozMQUd/view
The fact that apparently healthy individuals can transmit the virus is making
control very difficult. I published a paper showing how to deal with inapparent
infection over twenty years ago:
Stodolsky, D. S. (1997). Automation of Contagion Vigilance. Methods of
Information in Medicine, 36(3), 220-232.
https://sites.google.com/a/secureid.net/dss/automation-of-contagion-vigilance
A small study showed acceptability of the approach:
Stodolsky, D. S. & Zaharia, C. N. (2009). Acceptance of Virus Radar. The
European Journal of ePractice, 8, 77-93. URL
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_zxYlTkSnKQZXFsXzNwSDd3ZGs
After a half a dozen attempts to get funding, I gave up on the idea of a
contagion management test. After the #MeToo media explosion, I decided that I
might pursue a test by focussing on the frontend of the design. A successful
workshop led nowhere. I continue to seek an alternative strategy for funding
this research.
dss
PS: The History of the 1918 Spanish Flu
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-march-9-2020/
David Stodolsky, PhD Institute for Social Informatics
Tornskadestien 2, st. th., DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
[email protected] Tel./Signal: +45 3095 4070
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