Should every possibility that technology provides also be realized? This is the question I touched upon in a previous post about Barnaby Jack’s (RIP) pacemaker hack. Put like this, most would say not but in other circumstances the fact that tech makes something possible is a strong reason to also make it happen. Recently, the Irish state announced that it will release information to the public in the pace of papers, not connected computers. This inevitably led to jokes about “uninventing” the computer, but the idea should not be ruled out entirely. Instead of doing what technology allows, we should use technology to do what is best for us. This may sometimes lead to some quirky solutions, but the alternative is to let machines rule.

Nothing spells objectivity like numbers – if you can make your case in numbers it becomes something greater than your personal view, it becomes fact. The idea that facts are neutral is very strong in the internet sphere, search engines provide information without prejudice, content is measured in quantity rather than quality. Some say the internet age is the end of experts and the rise of the “wisdom of crowds”, others will tell you that this means the death of truth and a world where all information is equal, true or not. No bias. An example with epistemologic consequence is Wikipedia, which seeks a “neutral” description through consensus or balance of opinions – this can be regarded as part of a long philosophical argument on the definition of truth and knowledge dating back to thinkers such as Socrates and Zeno.

Today, I came across Worldometers, which presents numbers on a range of indicators – from the number of people in the world to money spent on video games in one day. Counters increase or decrease depending on how our world changes, obviously an abstraction based on a combination of ambitious research and educated guesses. It’s both fun and thought-provoking to consider things like barrels of oil pumped today, compared to the amount of solar energy the Earth has received in the same time. But of course this can never be an objective selection of facts and numbers. It has a clear leaning toward Left and Green ideologies, whereas a Conservative would likely find many numbers on economic development missing for example. Makes me think of how the far-right wing often excels in producing numbers indicating that immigration is harmful. Each number may be correct in itself, but taken out of context they can be misleading. Now, don’t get me wrong – I like Worldometers and it has nothing in common with the far right. It’s just a great example of how numbers make everything look so much better.

Facts can sometimes be neutral, but the selection is always biased.

Anita Sarkeesian is a US media critic and feminist, currently visiting Europe. She spoke this week at the Media Evolution Conference. Sarkeesian was the victim of an especially vicious example of online hate, following her criticism of how women are portrayed in some video games. Her videos on the topic discuss phenomena such as “the damsel in distress” and depictions of violence against women. This inspired some internet users to launch a virtual hate campaign, including edited photos of Sarkeesian’s face in pornographic pictures, hacks of her Wikipedia page, hate mail,, and many other intimidating examples. In her speech, Anita Sarkeesian explained how even the anti-abuse function on some internet services (like YouTube) was used for abuse. By reporting her videos as abusive, the cyber-mob could effectively take down Sarkeesian’s videos and force her to spend hours to get them back up. This is an important learning: implementing an abuse function is not enough for an internet platform to act responsibly—it must be a part of a strategy involving human functions and a transparent rule set to be effective.

Even more interestingly, Anita Sarkeesian says it is not necessarily the anonymity online that enabled the cyber-harassment. Many of her bullies acted in the open, on their own blogs or social media pages. Rather, it is a sort of group psychology where participants challenge each other to do even more atrocious deeds. Once somebody had hacked Sarkeesian’s Wikipedia page or written hateful comments, they would instantly post screen grabs on their pages to brag about it. It seems it is the echo chamber phenomenon that can occur in social networks and the perceived distance and dehumanisation of the object that fuels online hate, rather than anonymity—which is otherwise often suggested as the explanation (also by Netopia, I should add).

Cloud services ask us to trust them with plenty of personal information, but they often fail to respect that trust. The most recent example is that Google confirms what many have long suspected: that Google reads all e-mail, not its staff but its machines. Here’s an outtake from a Google motion in an on-going court process in the US (as reported by The Guardian):

“all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing”

Processing in this case of course means searched for key-words, profiled per user, fed into big data analysis, stored for potential future use and sold to advertisers. (I am speculating, but on the other hand there may be more applications that even I can’t guess.) Plus, as recent developments have shown, released to the US authorities, at least if the subject is not a US-citizen. I guess we should not be surprised, Google’s Eric Schmidt (then CEO, now Chair) put it straight in a CNBC interview already back in December 2009: “If you have something you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”.

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Netopia is shocked over developments in Egypt and concerned for the well-being of Netopia contributor Mariam Kirollos as well as other members of the movement for democracy and all the people of Egypt. This violence must come to an end. The Army must cease fire and seek a peaceful agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood in order to re-visit the democracy process. Human rights must be respected at all times by all.

Barnaby Jack was scheduled to talk about hacking pacemakers at the Black Hat convention in Vegas tomorrow, but was found dead last week in an apartment in San Francisco (police suspects no crime). Jack was controversial, famous for hacking ATMs and medical devices like insulin pumps – supposedly to expose security flaws. In his 2010 book You Are Not a Gadget – A Manifesto, Author and Silicon Valley visionary Jaron Lanier used Barnaby Jack’s work on pacemaker’s as a case against the idea that all knowledge is beneficial. Lanier argues that this sort of knowledge is dangerous in itself and that there is no reason to spend years of research on something like this. Netopia’s best guess is that Barnaby Jack would retort that it is even more important to show security weaknesses in life critical devices such as pacemakers and that he takes responsibility by not releasing all details of his findings. On the other hand, hackers will tell you that there is no such thing as a perfect system, only more difficult to hack into. Barnaby Jack’s premature passing is tragic and ironic, but his legacy is an important contribution to the discussion on technology and our power over it (or lack thereof).

Peruvian-Spanish author Mario Vargas Llosa has expressed his views on the Snowden-case in an El País op-ed that is syndicated today in many European newspapers. The Nobel Prize winner says that net whistle-blowers like Snowden and Wikileak’s Julian Assange have revealed nothing we did not already know and that they abuse the freedoms that Western democracies protect, therefore playing into the hands of the enemies of those freedoms: dictators and terrorists. While Netopia hesitates to argue with such a distinguished intellectual, Vargas Llosa misses the point. We all knew that the state spies on us in all sorts of different ways and we all knew that there is an ugly side to protecting democracy that we’d rather not think so much about. But what Edward Snowden revealed was the extent to which those private companies that have exclaimed themselves protectors of freedom of speech, freedom of information and an unregulated internet collaborates with security agencies. All the talk of how the “free and open internet” is a guarantee for democracy and freedom of speech turned out to be only … talk. Belarusian-American writer/researcher Evgeny Morozov explained this in The Net Delusion (Public Affairs, 2011): the internet services are not vehicles for democracy like Radio Free Europe and other liberal propaganda initiatives, if pushed their loyalty will always be to the profits of the share-holders rather than democratic ideals. This has been the case with Google in China, Nokia Siemens in Iran, Twitter in Turkey, Telia in Belarus (and Uzbekistan. And Azerbaijan.), Ericsson in Syria and many other examples. Edward Snowden revealed this practice was not limited to authoritarian states.

It is easy to mention Julian Assange and Edward Snowden as examples of the same phenomenon, Netopia is also guilty of this (read the story on Iceland). But there is a fundamental difference, Assange seems to want to reveal all secrets of the state and dreams of a world were all information is available to all. Edward Snowden is more of a traditional whistle-blower who wanted to draw attention to abuse of power. Snowden only risked his own well-being, while Bradley Manning ended up paying the price for Assange’s glory. Their stories look similar, but only in a shallow way.