Buongiorno, grazie infinite a J.C. De Martin che con la sua segnalazione [1] della /mitica/ quanto negletta persona di Philip E. Agre mi ha dato l'opportunità di leggere il suo *splendido* saggio
«Surveillance and capture: Two models of privacy», 1994 disponibile sia su Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/01972243.1994.9960162 che qui, ripubblicato in The New Media Reader nel 2003: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-506-spring2018/files/2015/12/51-agre-03.pdf Venti anni prima che Vincent Mosco descrivesse la vendita delle informazioni ai pubblicitari come "surveillance capitalism" e 25 anni prima di Shoshana Zuboff col suo famosissimo libro, Agre descrive le questione della privacy come dialettica tra metafore visuali (surveillance) metafore linguistiche (capture): --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Abstract: Two models of privacy issues are contrasted. The surveillance model employs visual metaphors (e.g., "Big Brother is watching") and derives from historical experiences of secret police surveillance. The less familiar capture model employs linguistic metaphors and has deep roots in the practices of applied computing through which human activities are systematically reorganized to allow computers to track them in real time. The capture model is discussed with reference to systems in numerous domains. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Ecco i due modelli "affiancati" (estratto da pag. 23): --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Let us review the definitions of these models, recalling once again that they are intended as metaphor systems and not as mutually exclusive categories: (1) The surveillance model employs visual metaphors, most famously Orwell's "Big Brother is watching you"; the capture model employs linguistic metaphors by means of various grammars of action. (2) The surveillance model emphasizes nondisruptive, surreptitious data collection; the capture model describes the readily apparent instrumentation that entails the reorganization of existing activities. (3) The surveillance model is concerned to mark off a "private" region by means of territorial metaphors of "invasion" and the like; the capture model portrays captured activities as being constructed in real time from a set of institutionally standardized parts specified by the captured ontology. (4) The surveillance model depicts the monitoring of activity as centrally organized and presumes that the resulting information is centrally stored; the capture model emphasizes the locally organized nature of contests over the capture process and their structuring within particular institutional contexts. (5) The surveillance model takes as its prototype the malevolent political activities of state organizations; the capture model takes as its prototype the quasi-philosophical project of ontological reconstruction undertaken by computer professionals in private organizations. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- É un saggio /molto/ denso, con numerosi richiami a ricerche e progetti informatici e anche a questioni filosofiche con riferimenti diretti ad Heidegger e - indirettamente - a Foucault, quindi un saggio praticamente *impossibile* da riassumere perché non-riassumibile. Tuttavia, tra le molte cose trattate, mi permetto di evidenziare il capitolo "Grammars of Action" (pag. 8) - che nel modello "capture" sono centrali - ed in particolare di quel capitolo: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] The capture model describes the situation that results when grammars of action are imposed upon human activities, and when the newly reorganized activities are represented by computers in real time. It is convenient to subdivide this process into a five-stage cycle. This division is, of course, a great oversimplification: The phases frequently operate concurrently, advances in one phase may force revision of the work done in an earlier phase, and work in each stage draws on a wide range of sociotechnical advances not necessarily related to the other stages. The five main stages are as follows: • Analysis. Somebody studies an existing form of activity and identifies its fundamental units in terms of some ontology (entities, relations, functions, primi tive actions, and so forth). This ontology might draw on the participants' terms for things, or it might not. Programming languages and systems analysis methodologies frequently supply basic ontologies (objects, variables, relations) upon which domain-specific ontologies can be built. The resulting ontologies are sometimes standardized across whole institutions, industries, or markets. • Articulation. Somebody articulates a grammar of the ways in which those units can be strung together to form actual sensible stretches of activity. This process can be complicated, and it often requires revision of the preceding ontological analysis. It is typically guided by an almost aesthetic criterion of obtaining a complete, closed, formally specified picture of the activity. • Imposition. The resulting grammar is then given a normative force. The people who engage in the articulated activity are somehow induced to organize their actions so that they are readily "parsable" in terms of the grammar. The "somehow" is typically both social (explicit procedures backed up by certain relations of authority) and technical (whether through machinery or simply through physical barriers); participants in the activity may or may not participate in the process and may or may not resist it. Institutions frequently impose grammars on activities for reasons other than real-time capture—for example, for security, efficiency, protection from liability, and simple control. • Instrumentation. Social and technical means are provided, whether through paperwork or machinery, and potentially with a complex division of labor, for maintaining a running parse of the ongoing activity. This phase may coincide with the imposition phase, or it may follow by years or decades. Afterward, the participants begin, of necessity, to orient their activities toward the capture machinery and its institutional consequences. • Elaboration. The captured activity records, which are in economic terms among the products of the reorganized activity, can now be stored, inspected, audited, merged with other records, subjected to statistical analysis, employed as the basis of Pareto optimization, and so forth. Likewise, concurrent computational processes can use captured records to "listen to" the ongoing activities for purposes of error detection, advice giving, performance measurement, quality control, and so forth. These additional processes might arise simultaneously with the instrumentation phase, or they may accumulate long afterward. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Ho la netta sensazione che questa analisi aiuti anche a comprendere /come/ l'informatica sarà uno strumento per ristrutturare i rapporti di potere tecnici, sociali, economici e politici così come li conosciamo oggi. OK smetto qui che è meglio :-D Saluti, 380° [1] https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2021-August/022080.html -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.
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