spying on ordinary folk

[miriam_e]

I was chatting to someone several days ago about the dangers of software that spies upon the user, as Microsoft's products do, and as the Australian government is doing with the filter it has now imposed upon our internet. The first response I usually get when I discuss this topic with people is that they don't do anything illegal, so they don't have anything to fear from snooping. Of course that's wrong; anybody can be convicted of something no matter how law-abiding they are, but my reply to them is usually to ask how many of the mass murders and large scale victimisations and oppressions in history were conducted in response to illegal activities of the victims. However the person I was chatting to this time gave a different answer -- they knew that naming an activity as illegal often has less to do with morality and more to do with who makes the laws. Instead, their response was that they were little fish; their activities were not immoral, and that any laws they broke were minor, like the vast majority of Australians. At the time I was unable to think of a suitable answer, to this, even though I knew they were using a common, but dangerous argument. I've now realised what it was that made me so uneasy.

Our age has been marked by automation. We can get computers to to execute mindlessly trivial calculations billions of times with great speed and precision. If law enforcers used computers to enforce silly or bad laws then they might be able to restrict or victimise the bulk of the population with a keypress. Historically we humans are very bad abusers of such power. The Australian internet filter gives law enforcers the beginning of that ability. It spies upon users, judges them, and can execute punishment.

Human communication is not a luxury, it is a need. Try going for a few days without talking to anyone or having anyone talk to you, then see what happens when you finally get to speak with someone. The words come gushing out, uncorked at last, gradually ebbing til your need is sated and you're able to speak normally again. If the internet filter, along with the Orwellian named "Trusted Computing" both come into common use then anybody can be cut off from the net easily. If we've been sufficiently brainwashed into thinking that these things are there to protect us then there will be no recourse to justice. It will be simply that we've violated some fineprint "Terms of Service". And as television, radio, and newspapers are in a race to self-destruction, we will come to depend in greater degrees upon the internet. Pulling the plug on anyone will be a very easy way to "send to Coventry" anybody who might open themselves to victimisation. Hiding in the bulk of society will no longer be safe. It will no longer matter whether what you did was judged by most of society as perfectly moral if spying and sentencing are so easy.

Would our society descend to such a thing?

Well, we already have a filter on our internet use here in Australia -- something that would have been inconceivable a short time ago, and I'll bet other governments are closely watching how little struggle we are making against our filter. Look out USA, UK, and other supposed democracies... you are next!

But if we are good, law-abiding citizens surely we have nothing to fear? How illegal or immoral is it to be black, or Jewish, or homosexual, or Ottoman Armenian, or Rwandan Tutsi, Bosnian Muslim, yet these people have been slaughtered by often quite enlightened and civilised oppressors, for reasons that generally amount to little more than that they could do so. I'm not saying that large scale murder is likely to occur here in Australia, it will be more insidious and subtle.

If I decided that I owned the air and that everyone had to pay me so they may breathe you'd think that was not only despicable, but utterly unenforceable. But through what is probably the biggest propaganda campaign in peacetime history the film and music industries are achieving something very similar. They have managed to convince people that sharing is the same as stealing. Stopping people from sharing is immoral and unenforceable, but not only have they been able to persuade lawmakers that the reverse is true, now they are almost in a position where they can enforce it.

It doesn't matter that they will almost certainly destroy their own businesses in the process. Remember how the music industry scrambled to ban compact audio cassettes, while at the same time the music blossomed and diversified as people were exposed to new kinds of music on mix-tapes shared by friends and family? The film industry attempted to ban videocassettes, but ended up making much more from them than theatre releases. If they'd succeeded in their push to outlaw videocassettes they would have cut their own throats. Can you imagine what would happen to the publishing industry if books couldn't be shared between friends, borrowed at libraries, and bought at second-hand shops? This is the future that publishers are trying to bring about through locked ebooks.

It doesn't matter that they will cause -- are causing -- large scale social damage. What in heaven's name will happen to a society that believes that sharing -- one of the most fundamentally good qualities in human nature -- is wrong? How can such a society possibly survive?

The people who have been most brainwashed by this anti-sharing propaganda is the propagandists themselves. They truly believe their position. They honestly think they have right on their side and that theirs is a moral fight. But to give any people almost limitless ability to enforce some kind of power over other people is a very dangerous thing to do. We humans are terrible at handling such power. To give these industries such power over information in an age when information has become our lifeblood... it is like telling people that they must pay to breathe... and being able to casually enforce it.

Comments

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

If law enforcers used computers to enforce silly or bad laws then they might be able to restrict or victimise the bulk of the population with a keypress.

I don't think this is an important issue. The majority would rise up, as we did against the national ID card. The real danger is that this can be used to target an individual. If someone in power decides they don't like you, they can prosecute you for all manner of things that they choose not to prosecute others for. Most of the public is lazy and selfish and won't care, so long as it isn't them.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

The majority would rise up...

That's what I've always thought, so that's why I'm so alarmed at the lack of response to the internet filter and the sharing=stealing propaganda campaign. I don't understand our lack of action on such dangerous things.

The real danger is that this can be used to target an individual.

This has been the case so far, but this is precisely why the internet filter, particularly if coupled with "trusted computing" is so disturbing. It no longer means just unusual individuals can be targeted for nonconformity. Those nasty innovations mean everybody can be routinely hit using a single command. And backing it up with "sharing=stealing" propaganda the wider population will simply take it without rebelling. Each person will be isolated by social opinion.

If you think that can't happen, consider this: Most people share music files, even though they've been duped into believing that sharing is wrong. If someone is sued by the recording industry we don't rally around the attacked person the way we protect people in floods or fires or help victims of bashings. The pervasive feeling is that they brought it on themselves. This what the Nazis did to the population when they wanted to victimise many millions of Jews, blacks, and gays. A very tolerant community was made into one that would turn a blind eye to massive abuse of power. Just use propaganda to make people think that the victims brought it on themselves and use fear to prevent people speaking up against it. People stood by and watched their neighbors dragged off lest they be next. Each person felt they were in the minority in disliking what was happening. They were socially isolated by the propaganda.

Few people dare speak aloud about filesharing being a good thing because we've been brainwashed into thinking it is stealing, and because we're scared we will be targeted next. We've unwittingly handed the unscrupulous abusers of power a very powerful tool. Don't think for one minute it has gone unnoticed.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

How can you say there's been a lack of response? Whirlpool's forum is up to 72 threads of ~70 pages each so far! The response has been huge and sustained, but the politicians are ignoring it.

Of course, one reason the response is weaker that it might be is that it's only money. Circumventing the filter is easy, so the technically skilled will simply ignore it.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

There is next to no response in the mainstream media, and most people are surprised (and somewhat disappointed that our government could be that dictatorial) when I tell them of the filter. There is a small segment of people who know about it and are intensely annoyed by it, but the bulk of the population don't even know it exists.

Given how important this topic is, I am alarmed and surprised at the lack of response.

It is easy for our politicians to ignore whirlpool forum -- most don't know anything about the internet, and those who do probably just get their secretaries to interact with it for them. Their contact with whirlpool forums would be zero. Sadly, the whirpool users might as well be in another country speaking another language for all the effect they have. They need to talk outside their forum and tell ordinary people if they want to change things.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Huh. I don't go onto Whirlpool forums often. Thanks for the pointer. I looked just now after your comment. It looks like at least some of them are trying to have some wider effect. There is a march planned for 20th of this month in Brisbane, and hopefully other capital cities. Someone has apparently made a poster on the topic -- I have read mention of it but haven't found it yet.

Thanks for pointing me to the discussion.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

The mainstream media covers things and then moves on to something else. They covered this when it was news, which was back in 2008, including articles on how the government tries to silence critics and giving readers a say. People who still don't know about the filter after all this time might try paying a little more attention.

Oh, and one of Internode's staff also commented back in 2008 about how Conroy lies to the Senate Estimates committee.