Alternative Perspective
 Big Brother is Watching You
Issue 40, September 27, 2003
Compiled by Madhukar Shukla

 Alternative Perspective is an attempt to widen our awareness about issues related to business, environment, role and influence of media, geo-politics, culture, etc. It aims to share, on a regular basis, some of those pieces of news and information, which do not find place in the highly monopolised mainstream media. Please feel free to share/ forward/ distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested.

On 23rd September, 2003, Alternative Perspective became one year old!
This issue is devoted to the underlying values of this newsletter: freedom of expression and freedom to information. It is ironic that in a supposedly "free" world, it is these two very values, which are increasingly getting eroded - in a variety of ways, and across the globe... technology has made information a commodity - easily available, free and accessible. Consequently, we also see the emergence of the "information barons" - nation-state and corporates - who see an opportunity (money and power) in manipulating the access to information. This manipuation works both ways: creating barrier to access public information by individual users(i.e., people like you and me), and using intrusive technologies to access to personal information by the "watchers"...



Note: The URLs of sources used in the text are numbered and given at the end of the Newsletter.

In This Issue:
  • Is Your Privacy Safe on the Net?
    The famous 1993 cartoon in New Yorker showed two dogs in front of a computer happy about the fact that "on the internet, no one knows you are a dog." Unfortunately, as technology developed - and the nerds took over the net space - this idyllic world of personal anonymity and privacy has got replaced with intrusive technologies and options. www.privacy.net is a rudimentary and public site which gives a flavour of these technologies. Not only it will give the IP address of your system, you can also get a full report of what all is on your computer - and how this information was traced!!!.... do try it!!!
    http://www.privacy.net/

    Intrusive Technologies:
    Ironically, these are often termed as "non-intrusive technologies" because the person would not be even aware that an intrusion has occured in his/her personal life!!! - here are some sample examples:
  • Urban Surveillance System:[1] Dubbed as "Combat Zones that See" (since it can track activities even in foreign cities), the description of the system reads: "is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face... scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide... creating a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches.
  • LifeLog Program:[2] A very useful software program for those interested in writing their autobiography. Here is a system, which "would dump everything an individual does into a giant database: every e-mail sent or received, every picture taken, every Web page surfed, every phone call made, every TV show watched, every magazine read", including "a GPS transmitter to keep tabs on where that person went, audio-visual sensors to capture what he or she sees or says, and biomedical monitors to keep track of the individual's health."
  • Biometrics ID[3] This "automated methods of identifying or authenticating the identity of a living person based on a physical or behavioral characteristic" exponentially collects and updated information on the "live sample" with every transaction s/he makes in his/her life. In a true Orwellian fashion, this technology is being officially described as "the ultimate privacy enhancing technology"!!!

  • Patriotic Paranoia: The Trickle-Down Effect-I
    Lest one thinks that the Intrusive Technologies (such as the ones listed above) will be used only for tracking "terrorists" and criminals, one must also appreciate their "trickle-down" nature. Simply expressed - "suspicious" activities of "terrorists" (e.g., - as this article gives as example - reading a newspaper article!!!) can be identified, only when it becomes legitimate for the governments to intercept citizens' emails, to sift through customers' records, to have access to all bank transaction data, to keep track of physical movements and meetings of ordinary people, etc...
    http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Sep-21-Sun-2003/opinion/22167264.html

  • Trickle Down Effect-II: All Are Criminals/ Terrorists... Unless Proven Otherwise
    For technologies to proliferate (one may even say, "to be enforced"), they need laws and legislations. Here is a good example: The IP Enforcement Directive being proposed by European Union. It is technologically possible now to find out, for instance, whether or not you are using genuine XYZ cells on your XYZ MP-3 player. When the new law comes into place, not only you become a criminal if you use a different cells, but it will also be possible for the XYZ company to trace you and take you to court!!! Needless to say, when it comes in force, it will help the incumbents and big businesses, at the cost of competition and liberty.[4]
    http://new.zdnet.co.uk/print/?TYPE=story&AT=39115479-39020505t-21000010c

  • Trickle Down Effect-III: India Blocks Yahoo!Group Site
    Not to be outdone by the more "developed" countries in its war on terrorism, earlier this month, India - a developing nation, and world's largest democracy - decided to invoke Section 69 of IT Act2000[5] to block a Yahoo!Group site "http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhun" "in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of India" - as the Act reads. This threat to the country's sovereignty came from a year old group site, with 35 members[6], and 33 postings till Sept 18, 2003[7]. The anti-national activities on this site consist of postings which were critical of the Meghalaya Government on issues such as uranium mining in an ecologically sensitive area[8], and publication of an online newsletter The Voice[9] which challenges the State Government on issues of corruption, negligence and ineptitude.
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32983.html

  • Trickle Down Effect-IV: Employee Suveillance
    If democratic states can legitimise their right to intrude in the private lives of citizens, for the corporate organisations it is even easier (they are after all, by nature, non-democratic institutions). Workplace is emerging as a popular domain where person becomes data, to be tracked and compiled in a data-base. The Naked Employee of the information age is a transparent being working for a non-transparent organisation. The triumph of technology - or rather its use - is that now, the Big Brother can easily identify who the (under)dog is!!
    http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,57774,00.html


    Other Sources Quoted in the Newsletter:
    [1]: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/6211959.htm
    [2]: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58909,00.html
    [3]: http://itmatters.com.ph/column/yam_05312001.html
    [4]: http://www.fipr.org/copyright/draft-ipr-enforce.html
    [5]: http://www.naavi.org/pati/sec69.html
    [6]: http://www.geocities.com/madhukar_shukla/alt/kynhun2.html
    [7]: http://www.geocities.com/madhukar_shukla/alt/kynhun2.html
    [8]: http://www.geocities.com/madhukar_shukla/alt/kynhun3.html
    [9]: http://www.geocities.com/madhukar_shukla/alt/kynhunvoice.html


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