Category: Internet matters

Posts about the internet

Googling the Cyborg

In his engaging essay “Googling the Cyborg”, William Gibson effectively argues that the expectation that ‘the cyborg’ will be a human being with an electronic eye and a robot arm is mistaken. The cyborg – he argues – exists in the physical interactions between human beings and machines: “The electrons streaming into a child’s eye from the screen of the wooden television are as physical as anything else. As physical as the neurons subsequently moving along that child’s optic nerve”. (The terminology there is strangely incorrect. Cathode ray tube televisions emit photons, which are produced when the electrons fired from the back of the vacuum tube hit a phosphor screen – and the optic nerve is made of neurons, it isn’t a channel that conveys them. No matter.)

Gibson argues that the cyborg is the “extended communal nervous system” that humanity has grown for itself, with all these sensors and processors and network connections.

He also argues that there is a short-changing that occurs, when we deny that the humans who are behind machines are using them as true extensions of their own being. In the context of remote-controlled rovers on Mars, he says:

Martian jet lag. That’s what you get when you operate one of those little Radio Shack wagon/probes from a comfortable seat back at an airbase in California. Literally. Those operators were the first humans to experience Martian jet lag. In my sense of things, we should know their names: first humans on the Red Planet. Robbed of recognition by that same old school of human literalism.

Gibson, William. Distrust that Particular Flavor. p.251 (hardcover)

I am not sure what should be counted as the first cyborg on Mars. Specifically, did it need to be able to move on human command? Or is moving camera shutters enough to count? In any case, hardly anyone knows the name of the person who was controlling it when it first activated on the Martian surface.

Twitter grabbing address books from phones

Here’s an example of what I mean about the internet creating all sorts of new security vulnerabilities. Twitter has recently confessed to grabbing entire address books from the smartphones of people using the service.

As well as being a violation of privacy, this is a practice that could seriously endanger people. Consider all those brave protestors in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, using Twitter to help organize a pro-democracy movement. If Twitter is grabbing their address books, it is assembling a perfect tool for the intelligence services of governments to round up everyone involved in protests. The same is true for people pressing for democracy in China, or doing anything else that is laudable but unpopular with the people in charge.

Technology companies need to recognize that there will be people who want to use their records and capabilities for nefarious purposes, and they need to design their technology and procedures to protect against such attacks and reduce how serious they are when they take place.

The companies that make operating systems for smartphones should also assume that applications can be ineptly designed or malicious, and should work to protect the data on the phone from potential eavesdroppers.

Internet surveillance in Canada

The Conservative government is proposing a new law that would require internet service providers to monitor and record what Canadians do online, and to provide that information to the authorities without a warrant.

As well as being an obvious violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (§8 “Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”), I think this is an example of thinking badly about security. Obviously, having the government monitor everything that happens online could prevent some bad things from happening. At the same time, it is virtually certain that the capability would be abused or that security breaches will allow it to be hijacked by those with nefarious purposes. The abuse could happen at the governmental level – say, with discreet inquiries being made into the private correspondence of members of competing political parties. It could be done within the police and intelligence services – say, a jilted ex tracking the emails of their former partner. It could be done within internet service providers – say, some low-paid tech at Bell or Telus deciding to earn a bit of extra cash by blackmailing customers.

The archives of internet use would be an irresistible target for malefactors of every type, from nosy bosses and spouses to spammers and rogue political operatives. Maintaining and trying to secure these archives would also be a major burden for internet service providers. Instead of being in the business of helping their clients communicate, they will be forced into the business of keeping tabs on their clients on behalf of the government.

The security risks created by internet surveillance are greater than the risks that it might help reduce. Furthermore, allowing the creation of internet surveillance systems violates the Charter-protected rights of Canadians. What Canadians do online is their private business. It is not something that governments have the right to monitor, just because doing so will occasionally allow them to catch people committing crimes. Hopefully, this proposal will never become law.

The TOR browser bundle

The TOR browser bundle seems like a reasonably effective and very easy-to-use means of circumventing web censorship and surveillance.

The speed of web browsing falls significantly when data is routed through the TOR network, but tools like this are increasingly essential as governments undertake more and more inappropriate meddling with the free flow of ideas online.

There are versions for various operating systems. I have tried both the Windows and Mac OS installs and they are both easy to use and at least a bit effective in avoiding tracking and censorship. Remember, however, that TOR is useless if someone is tracking all your web traffic at your point of connection to the internet, for instance by reading all the traffic through your broadband connection or cell phone. If you are worried about that, use public networks along with TOR, or set up an encrypted connection to a proxy or virtual private network and then run TOR from there.

Remember, all security bets are of if an attacker gets malware on your machine or gains physical access to it.

The second rule of the internet

Back in 2010, I described what I called the ‘first rule of the internet‘:

Against a sophisticated attacker, nothing connected to the internet is secure.

To this, I feel like I should add a second item:

Everything is internet now.

While there were once large numbers of electronic systems entirely disconnected from the internet, nowadays virtually everything is either connected to the internet constantly or occasionally connected to a device that is online. Your cell phone is probably always accessible to a sophisticated attacker using the internet, and the same is probably true for landlines using VoIP. Many of your computers are probably constantly connected to wireless networks (themselves targets for attack) and exposed to the wider internet through your broadband connection at all times.

Web integration with computers has reached the point that Google’s Chrome browser now treats ‘search’ and ‘GMail’ as apps within the Chrome environment.

The implication of combining the first and second rules is pretty plain. If you manage to attract the attention of a sophisticated attacker, they can probably get into the contents of your cell phone and your GMail account, as well as the hard drive of your PC and laptop, the ubiquitous webcams now built into computers, and so on. There is also a good chance they can take over your email, websites, Twitter accounts, and the like and use them for their own purposes.

Demonstrating British Columbia’s beauty

One of the big reasons for opposing the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is because of how 200 oil tankers a year would threaten the coast of British Columbia.

I think everyone who has seen that coastline understands its beauty and ecological importance. At the same time, I suspect the idea can be made more salient for people by showing them photos and video of the areas that could be affected if the pipeline goes through.

It’s not clear what the most effective approach would be for reminding people about what is at stake. Really there is a spectrum of possibility, ranging from fantastic shots taken by talented photographers on top-notch gear and shown in magazines and galleries to amateur shots taken by visitors and ordinary British Columbians and uploaded to Facebook or Flickr.

In all likelihood, many approaches will be tried simultaneously. For my own part, I have been thinking about a potential photo show that would incorporate photos of the B.C. coast as well as photos from the successful protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, which took place in Washington D.C.. Toronto may not be the most appropriate venue for that, since people here don’t have much of a personal emotional stake in the integrity of west coast ecosystems.

Perhaps I should try and find the time to set up yet another website, where people could contribute photos from B.C. and explain why they oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline…

Repeated ad infinitum

XKCD is right, this is worth a look today:

List of common misconceptions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note:

  • Nero didn’t fiddle while Rome burned.
  • The ancient Greeks knew that the Earth was spherical, and how large it was.
  • Napoleon was not short. He was slightly taller than the average Frenchman.
  • The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free slaves in the northern states.
  • The Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space using the naked eye.
  • People did not evolve from chimpanzees.

Etc, etc, etc.