[Air-l] back to 1984

Thu Oct 5 21:16:43 PDT 2006

There are two major points I want to make here and one minor personal  
point about myself to set out my biases first.

One I have paranoid schizophrenia. There are two rules of thumb with  
this illness and delusions, one the person believes they are Jesus,  
two the person feels the CIA, KGB, Mosad, RCMP or place your own  
state police name here, agency are spying on them. I am this second  
type and it is only usually by avoid this topic that I do well. That  
said I spend the last part of my second BA in legal studies studying  
political criminal law including learning to be critical of the state  
security agendas.

Now my points I wonder if the intelligence agents are reading open  
source computer code? This would seem to be a good idea given the  
back room nature of computer security programming in the Unix Linux  
secure computer paranoia mind set. Mind you that's my personal  
opinion of computer security geeks their over doing the security. Why  
is the inventor of PGP cool anyway? Therefore is open source code  
actually studied by open source intelligence analysts? Before you  
think I am just being cute or rigidly concrete in connecting the  
words open source in two contexts, consider that the effects of  
software can be harmful and socially significant. We all know  
Microsoft code(s) affect us and courts can open up this code. Will we  
keep a close eye on open source code? Many former computer students  
in the world and there are millions can read computer code.

My second point is this... from being a long time opponent of big  
organizations and say something like the welfare payment system being  
handled by computers and the significant errors funny, absurd, and  
fatal that occur. In this case of social support systems I know that  
good information can save lives. Guardians, social workers, self help  
and other information brokers can help a welfare recipient with the  
computer systems. Also there is much written in computer ethics about  
computer error and safety. Thus if we consider reading a benign  
activity as I believe many academics may naturally do, is it really  
that safe to have a computer reading for our armed professionals?   
Just because the tool works is it really error free? What if these  
data gathering tools make mistakes?

i/e did the swat team go to the wrong house because of some open  
source GIS that some CIA analyst read with the help of a computer  
that in error added two digits to the zip code?

Closing with one more opinion 1984 was written by an intelligence  
officer for the British and taught as a view of the Soviet union in  
Canadian high school English class as the novel Animal Farm. But why  
would this term 1984 be of aid to the British? I think stuff by  
Orwell is just that propaganda but for the British way of life.

Peter Timusk B.Math(2002) BA (2006)
Tel: 001-613-729-8328
Community Informatics Practitioner
Email: ptimusk at sympatico.ca
Yahoo ID: crystal_computing
Skype ID: peter.timusk

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nothing I write is intended to be representative of my employer, or  
our clients. Nor do I alone speak for my unions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Feel free to learn more about me at www.crystalcomputing.net
Computer ethics studies at www.webpagex.org
blogs http://logbook.crystalcomputing.net <- computers
http://notebook.webpagex.org <- school work

On 5-Oct-06, at 12:33 AM, Alex Halavais wrote:

> I seem to be missing something here. Of all of the things a government
> could do that would be objectionable, using tools to aggregate and
> help analyze open source intelligence surely cannot be that evil. I
> presume that you don't object to governments reading what others have
> to say about them--this isn't "mind reading," it's "reading." And
> while analysis of texts certainly requires interpretation by the
> researcher, I see no particular reason to believe that making use of
> computer tools to assist in that analysis would necessitate poorer
> interpretation. I seem to recall a discussion at some point that spoke
> in fairly positive terms about nVivo, another tool used in open source
> intelligence.
>
> If you are worried that poorly thought out actions may result from
> good intelligence, that is another issue. It seems that there is a
> significant breakdown in the process of communicating intelligence
> analysis. But I think that comparisons to the Total Information
> Awareness project are extraordinarily counterproductive. I think
> making use published, open material is an important line of defense
> for any nation or police force. It is only a "thought crime" if the
> writers are persecuted for stating it. Otherwise, it's called
> "listening." Indeed, I see no reason they should limit their analysis
> to foreign newspapers.
>
> Sure, I would love it if they would open up their analysis for public
> consumption. But besides the closed nature of the results, is there
> any reason that this should be different from text analysis systems
> being used to help people keep up on the web today. For example:
>
> Google News: http://news.google.com/news
> Google Zeitgeist: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
> Technorati: http://www.technorati.com/pop/news/
> Blogpulse: http://www.blogpulse.com/
> Global Attention Profiles: http://h2odev.law.harvard.edu/ezuckerman
> We Feel Fine: http://wefeelfine.org/
>
> Not to mention the dozens of products designed to map texts (e.g,
> http://www.leximancer.com/gallery.html).
>
> I'm not convinced that providing tools for a government to better
> understand public discourse is automatically a bad thing.
>
> Alex
>
>
> --
> //
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> // Alexander C. Halavais
> // Social Architect
> // http://alex.halavais.net
> //
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