Today's technology can be used for good to drive change, build economic opportunities, and improve communication. But that same technology has a down side when it's used by governments to repress their citizens.
I've often wondered what the old East German Stasi surveillance agency would be like with today's tools, had it survived beyond the late 1980s. As it turns out, today we are seeing examples of governments all around the world -- including those of China, Syria, and Iran -- using sophisticated technology, often bought from US, Canadian, or European companies, to keep watch over their citizens.
And it's not just countries we typically think of as totalitarian regimes. It's Western governments, too, from the US to the UK and other areas of the EU.
In fact, The Electronic Frontier Foundation released a whitepaper on Friday, April 20, called “Human Rights and Technology Sales,” which calls technology "repression's little helper" and outlines just how bad it can get.
The paper describes the situation in these terms:
The reach of these technologies is astonishingly broad: governments can listen in on cell phone calls, use voice recognition to scan mobile networks, use facial recognition to scan photographs online and offline, read emails and text messages, track a citizen’s every movement using GPS, and can even change email contents while en route to a recipient...
It goes on, but you get the idea.
Of course, it's not a simple matter, because as the report points out, technology that can be used to bully and repress legitimate political opponents can also be used to track actual criminals and terrorists.
Social networking technology might have been a driver behind the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, giving powerful voices to ordinary citizens using mobile phones. But what technology giveth, it can also take away -- and we're finding those same phones are easy to track and trace. And not just for governments and law enforcement.
Just the other day, the MIT Technology Review reported on a new technology from Navizon called Navizon Indoor Triangulation System that takes advantage of your WiFi connection to track your movements through a mall, airport, or just about any place. Ostensibly, this technology is designed to track users’ viewing habits at a museum or shopping habits at a mall in an anonymous fashion to see what attracts the most attention. As the Technology Review article points out, the Navizon system is just communicating with the phone's WiFi antenna, so theoretically at least, it can't determine who you are. But you have to wonder how long it will be before some enterprising government or law enforcement agency extends this technology to track the person using the phone.
It's not as though cellphone tracking isn't common practice, even in the United States. The New York Times reported last month that cellphone tracking does not arise merely in the realm of federal security agencies. Not by a long shot. In fact, the NYT reports that literally hundreds of departments large and small are tracking cellphones regularly -- usually without much court oversight.
The EFF suggests that companies look more carefully into the governments they sell to and try harder to "know their customers." This would suggest, however, that most of these companies have some kind of corporate conscience, which is probably not the case.
That's why legislation called the Global Online Freedom Act that just passed a US House of Representatives subcommittee could give some legal impetus for these companies to do the right thing. Particularly important is the measure that would, according to the EFF, "Limit the export of technologies that ‘serve the primary purpose of’ facilitating government surveillance or censorship to governments in countries designated as ‘Internet-restricting.’ ”
All of this sounds great, but the problem is that technology can be used for good or ill, depending on the circumstances, and it's not always a simple matter to determine which is which, especially when it's so easy to flip the purpose, depending on who's in charge.
Yes, but of course the hostage takers would soon catch on about the GPS tags and remove them immediately. So you have to wonder how effective this would be in the long run.
I know that at one point there was talk about making it mandatory for all military and civilan personnel that were working in the Middle East countries to be GPS tagged. I don't think it ever officially was implemented, but there was talk of it at one point.
Politicians also have a very bad habit of scrutinizing technology issues for political implications, then dividing along party lines. That's a horrible habit that doesn't work very well in the real world of tech.
Absolutely, we have to be careful about having government solve these problems because as you say, it has proven to have a poor understanding of the issues around technology. Even under the best of intentions, there are likely to be unintended consequences of any solution.
One more thing: Politicians have proven to be horrible judges of technology issues, so even though I think it's important to solve the legal issues, I hope they get some help doing so in this and other instances going forward.
I think putting security chips in cell phones is different from radar detectors, but you're right, it might be something that politicans from both sides of the issue would likely weigh in on.
Scrambling GPS and securing cellphones makes sense for users who don't like the idea of being tracked. But legislation will still need to deal with the basic issues.
Look what happened to the many "radar detectors" that were so popular years ago. They were outlawed in many areas. Unless governments acknowledge and deal with privacy issues, users will pay the price in the end.
I can tell you without hesitation that my friends and I do not hack each other's computers, but that said it's too easily done in today's world by governments and law enforcement.
I've been thinking that you're right that it's impossible to stop it. Certainly rules have to be put in place in countries that value freedom and human rights as one former spy chief proposed in England today (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/24/former-spy-chief-laws-snooping?CMP=twt_gu). [Linking tool wasn't working for me.]
The other thing we can do is find better ways to secure our mobile phones and scramble our GPS locations, and I think that's where we are going to see people begin to attack the problem.
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Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
These days, even some usually techno-friendly people have their hackles up about the potential of Google Glass to surreptitiously record video or take pictures. I've heard more than one tech savvy friend bring up "the creep factor," the ability of a weird guy to secretly record you.
Last year as you may recall, the Internet community rallied and prevented the passage of SOPA/PIPA legislation. CISPA, another piece of legislation that targeted Internet freedom, also died. However, one proposed law that failed in 2012 has been revived this year. And it appears forces are not now lining up against CISPA with the same enthusiasm as last time.
You might be surprised to learn that the FBI has generated hundreds of thousands of secret information requests since 2000, many of which go to Internet companies seeking information about individual users. You may be even more surprised to discover that in all those years, only one Internet company has challenged these secret requests.
Late Friday I learned I had been chosen to participate in the Google Glass Explorer's program, a group selected to take the first-generation of Google Glass out in the world and report back on how they're using the devices.
Law enforcement agencies are poised to use iPhones as facial recognition systems in the coming months. The technical advance promises efficiency but has created a backlash among civil liberties proponents.
RIM is giving in to demands by India to snoop on encrypted BlackBerry data. It's time to develop cheap or free encryption software for BlackBerrys and other cellular phones.
The FBI recently issued a warning to smartphone users, highlighting two mobile malware applications: Loozfan, which steals personal information, and FinFisher, which is spyware that takes over a smartphone's functions.
The Murdoch/News International scandal has all the elements of the digital age, from phone-hacking through embarrassing emails to agile digital reporting.
The plan for unmanned police drones to patrol traffic and other city conditions in Seattle has sparked a new set of legal concerns about privacy. Law traditionally lags technology, but we can expect now to see a new round of activity in the courts as legal definitions begin to emerge on what "next-gen privacy" will look like.
US counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke, who came to prominence with his prescient warnings before the 9/11 attacks, tells Smithsonian Magazine the US was responsible for the Stuxnet supersmart worm that attacked parts of nuclear reactors in Iran – and in the process, has given away one of the world's most sophisticated cyberweapons.
Malware designed to infect Google Android smartphones has increased dramatically, and now the government is stepping in. The National Security Agency has developed SE Android, a system that tries to close up its security holes.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Ushering in a new era of cognitive computing systems, IBM announced today the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, a technology breakthrough that allows brands to crunch big data in record time to transform the way they engage clients in key functions such as customer service, marketing, and sales.
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