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.
Oh dear. I think that is a lesson for all of us. We need to look to our own nation's actions and even our own personal actions to guard against this kind of thing.
No, hate speech was against the girls - I agree, they were wrong, but Church authorities spoke almost about death penalty for them, it didn't look like Christian mercy. Here, you can hear hate speech against gays, jews, muslims, chineese, americans- not in the streets but on TV.
Mashka, the example you give doesn't strike me as hate speech. Are you saying that the young girls' actions drew hate speech in response, against Orthodox Christians?
I think, that some cultures are more inclined to hate speech than the others. May be (I am not sure) it's somehow connected with the religious origins. Orthodox could be more fanatic than pagans, or people who belong to cultures with plenty of gods-like Buddism or Taoism.
I don't want to be politically incorrect:)- but I see and hear a lot of hate speech among Orthodox Christians in Russia- for example, recently, three young girls bursted into the main cathedral in Moscow and started to sing some punk rock -" Mother Mary, save us from Putin". So, they were arrested , so there was so much hate speech from Christians of Russia...Now, they face up to 7 years in prison under a charge of "aggravated hooliganism".
Not sure what correspondences exist between hate speech and various factors like socio-economic status, geographic region, etc.
One thing, though: We've seen it proved over and over that just as families can be dysfunctional, so can groups. I believe that can extend to large groups. And hate speech is dysfunctional in the very classic sense of the term.
Mary, it's a very complicated problem- unless hate speech is approved by the society, it will be inside of the people, and then it will be in the Internet. On the other hand, we know, that society starts with the family.
In my country, it is ok to humiliate gays, for example, and it is not considered as hate speech,it's also ok to humiliate women- to hear from a man that women are generally more stupid is an absolutely normal. I don't have any idea how to fight this, but I know, a hate speech in the Internet comes from the hate speech in the families.
May be (just may be) it's somehow connected with the economical level of the country- the poor the country, the more hate speech is in it. On the other hand, I was in poor Asian countries and I didn't notice much hate toward differences...
Mary, I think the worst thing is an inner censor that lives inside. I am an educated person, I am very open minded and liberal but...
Every time when I am critisizing my government here, writing something "wrong" subconciously , I catch a thought- IE should be monitored. right? They can't find out who am I,right?
I remember I was talking my students something about the governor of the region where I lived and then though hm..." what I am telling is really wrong, will I have problems, if someone hears this or someone learns about that?".
I am scared, when my sister, while visiting Russia(she lives in Austria) , says that she is Jewish. I feel this inner censor who says:" think different, speak careful". That is really sad. Or smart:)
Mashka, thank you for weighing in from a perspective that some of us have not had the occasion to experience. So many of us here in North America have never had to watch what we say in public or in print, so having to do so is probably a lot newer for us than for others who have lived with censorship of the kind you describe.
Thank you for reminding us how bad it can be, and how thankful we should be to have the freedoms that we do.
Of course, I understand as well that the fear of censorship can be exaggerated; still, on the level of principle I object heartily to government monitoring, etc.
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The call (or, should I say, the Twitter DM) finally arrived. My Google Glass is ready. All I need to do is travel to Manhattan and fork over $1,500, and this piece of cutting-edge technology will be all mine.
When a new technology comes along, the standard reaction seems to focus on the most negative aspect of the device at the cost of all positive possibilities.
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.
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.
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
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 IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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