Post by somethingimpromptu on Jun 2, 2016 22:49:53 GMT
I just wanted to post regarding something I'd been thinking about recently.
As technology improves ever more rapidly, the consequences of unequal access to technology become increasingly dramatic. There are plenty of obvious examples. As technology improves productivity while wages stay relatively stagnant, economic inequality rises (with the productive gains going to the owners and the machines competing with human labor for jobs). As we develop human genetic engineering, and the ability to literally print functioning human organs for transplant, the plutocracy could begin to take on an almost superhuman character, with the ability to enhance their children before birth, to live far longer than the average person, to use biotechnological implants to alter their capacities (strength, intelligence, sensory processing, etc.).
But this concept is at least as frightening when applied to the security/surveillance state. Especially taking into consideration the apparent reality that the main limitation on their actions is not ethical, legislative, or financial, but technical. For instance, the NSA's surveillance was not limited by the law (they simply lied and acted beyond the law) or funding (they were easily able to acquire all the funding they needed). The limitation preventing them from spying on everyone all the time was a very simple question: how much storage space do we have, and how much data processing capacity do we have? As soon as they had the terabytes and the processors to create a system that captured ALL communications (a system befitting of the name used for a lesser program in 2003, Total Information Awareness), they did it. There was no question of consequences, of democratic process, or of efficiency. We should expect this in the future, and that raises many questions about the threats to freedom/privacy still to come.
To take a few examples of potential upcoming threats:
- Drones (even those available to consumers) are already a bit of an Orwellian nightmare. But as the capacity to make drones smaller and smaller increases, this nightmare grows by orders of magnitude. An unmanned aircraft a couple of feet across with cameras is one thing. A drone the size of a mosquito, or smaller, with a camera, is a whole different issue. What is to stop them from infiltrating the home of anyone if their drones become too small to even notice? I imagine we can expect such developments in the next few years, if indeed they are not already being researched or tested-- this is not a fantastical technology. Going a step further, as this technology proliferates, and you get tiny consumer drones (as well as those of other governments), any notion of privacy becomes quite hypothetical.
- Assassination technologies. This is another area where the limitation of state power is mostly technical. Programs like COINTELPRO and our covert actions against world leaders since the 50s demonstrate that, when institutions like the CIA ask themselves "should we assassinate person x, y, or z (some dissident, opposition leader, or other inconvenience)" the main issue seems to be "can we get away with it without being exposed and, more importantly, without creating a massive public reaction (even if exposed)?" Well, in the 60s (around the time of COINTELPRO) this was no small feat, especially domestically. It takes some intensive situational engineering to create scenarios where a political (or other public) figure can be killed by shooting, bombing, etc., without raising a lot of questions and a potential investigation-- therefore many cases would've been politically infeasible.
But what if these same covert state institutions had methods of killing that left no trace, that appeared as natural causes (a heart-attack, for instance), which could be administered without a huge ordeal? What would limit their use then? Well, some CIA whistleblowers have proposed that they already do have poisons which do not show up in autopsy, which kill by cardiac arrest. As the means to utilize these weapons more and more discreetly (for instance, using the aforementioned microscopic drones) are developed, I think we should be extremely suspicious and analytical with regard to any apparently-natural deaths which serve the motives and goals of these institutions. Again, this is not a far-future dystopian technology-- this is something that should not surprise us today, let alone three, five, ten years from now.
- Defense technologies. This may seem like less of a consideration than whether our every move can be tracked, or whether we can be murdered with impunity. But it's also very serious, and it's a key example of this inequality of access to technology. Today, the rich and powerful can buy bulletproof clothing, which is lightweight and undetectable (one example of a bulletproof clothing boutique: Miguel Caballero Fashion), which is unsurprisingly popular among elites (both political and economic). But the vast majority can't afford such luxuries. In the (let's say hypothetical) case of a shift towards increasingly extreme authoritarianism and oppression, where the only recourse for the masses is armed conflict, this is a serious logistical factor. Note that the powerful already have the dramatic advantage in terms of offensive weaponry-- so we can call it "defensive," but the relative inability of the many to defend themselves against the powerful few is no laughing matter.
On the military side, there are similar high-tech developments. I just discovered today that Boeing has patented a microwave forcefield system to protect against explosions. Yes. Your read that correctly. Is it guaranteed to work? Not yet. But this is where the heads of the military-industrial complex are, and they are clearly making enough R&D progress to patent this technology. Of course all technology is a double-edged sword-- the same defense systems could save thousands of lives and make the world a safer place. My point is the consequences of who has access and how they will use it. In the hands of an authoritarian, imperialist state, this is one more potential weapon against forces of democracy, progress, and equality.
- Encryption/Decryption technologies. A leaked NSA training Powerpoint entitled "Tor Stinks" (PDF download here) demonstrated that, at the time (now several years ago), NSA was unable to consistently track down deep web users who used Tor Browser (an anonymous deep web browser) correctly. This made it (and seemingly still does) a very useful tool for whistleblowers, leakers, dissident activists, etc.-- anyone who might want to maintain anonymity on the internet. Unfortunately, the flip-side is that it is exploited by all kinds of horrible criminals (pedophiles, drug traffickers, you name it), but that's neither here nor there. My point is, at the moment there still exists some realm in which anonymity and privacy is possible. And what is the reaction of NSA to that possibility (despite its use by only a tiny fraction of the population)? It stinks. This illustrates the mindset of the state. The Powerpoint details their efforts to break Tor network security and to create methods for identifying users (which, in some cases, they were able to-- just not consistently, and not among those who used it properly). But with the rise of quantum computing, with massive funding for the intelligence agencies, with no counter-force in politics to defend privacy rights, we may see a day when this anonymous frontier is destroyed; where the powers that be are capable of out-maneuvering even the most tech-savvy activists, whistleblowers, and leakers. There is no doubt that they are very conscious participants in the battle for cyberspace (as well as actual space), but only time will tell how successful they are, and how successful privacy advocates are in outpacing them with newer and more secure technologies.
Clearly we can come up with many more examples (feel free to contribute them in comments), but I just wanted to assemble a few key ones. The point should be self-evident. I am very interested to hear your reactions, thoughts on how to counteract this trend, its potential implications, predictions for how future technologies will be handled (both on the side of the state and the reaction of the population), etc.. I just wanted to get this out, because it's something I've been considering quite a lot lately. These technologies force us to "trust" in authoritarian institutions to self-regulate and not to abuse their extending power, despite all the evidence that they have continuously pushed the envelope to the limit of their technological capacities. Are there any recent technologies along these lines which are not yet recognized by official public policy, but which you think are already in practice? I'm curious just how small the smallest government drones are, whether reports of a CIA "heart-attack gun" are valid, and just what else is being developed in the "black projects" that we spend many billions of dollars on annually (and yet, which the public is not entitled to know about). Technology is one of the most inherently revolutionary and unpredictable aspects of the modern world, and I think this is certainly worth our consideration.
Just something to think about.
As technology improves ever more rapidly, the consequences of unequal access to technology become increasingly dramatic. There are plenty of obvious examples. As technology improves productivity while wages stay relatively stagnant, economic inequality rises (with the productive gains going to the owners and the machines competing with human labor for jobs). As we develop human genetic engineering, and the ability to literally print functioning human organs for transplant, the plutocracy could begin to take on an almost superhuman character, with the ability to enhance their children before birth, to live far longer than the average person, to use biotechnological implants to alter their capacities (strength, intelligence, sensory processing, etc.).
But this concept is at least as frightening when applied to the security/surveillance state. Especially taking into consideration the apparent reality that the main limitation on their actions is not ethical, legislative, or financial, but technical. For instance, the NSA's surveillance was not limited by the law (they simply lied and acted beyond the law) or funding (they were easily able to acquire all the funding they needed). The limitation preventing them from spying on everyone all the time was a very simple question: how much storage space do we have, and how much data processing capacity do we have? As soon as they had the terabytes and the processors to create a system that captured ALL communications (a system befitting of the name used for a lesser program in 2003, Total Information Awareness), they did it. There was no question of consequences, of democratic process, or of efficiency. We should expect this in the future, and that raises many questions about the threats to freedom/privacy still to come.
To take a few examples of potential upcoming threats:
- Drones (even those available to consumers) are already a bit of an Orwellian nightmare. But as the capacity to make drones smaller and smaller increases, this nightmare grows by orders of magnitude. An unmanned aircraft a couple of feet across with cameras is one thing. A drone the size of a mosquito, or smaller, with a camera, is a whole different issue. What is to stop them from infiltrating the home of anyone if their drones become too small to even notice? I imagine we can expect such developments in the next few years, if indeed they are not already being researched or tested-- this is not a fantastical technology. Going a step further, as this technology proliferates, and you get tiny consumer drones (as well as those of other governments), any notion of privacy becomes quite hypothetical.
- Assassination technologies. This is another area where the limitation of state power is mostly technical. Programs like COINTELPRO and our covert actions against world leaders since the 50s demonstrate that, when institutions like the CIA ask themselves "should we assassinate person x, y, or z (some dissident, opposition leader, or other inconvenience)" the main issue seems to be "can we get away with it without being exposed and, more importantly, without creating a massive public reaction (even if exposed)?" Well, in the 60s (around the time of COINTELPRO) this was no small feat, especially domestically. It takes some intensive situational engineering to create scenarios where a political (or other public) figure can be killed by shooting, bombing, etc., without raising a lot of questions and a potential investigation-- therefore many cases would've been politically infeasible.
But what if these same covert state institutions had methods of killing that left no trace, that appeared as natural causes (a heart-attack, for instance), which could be administered without a huge ordeal? What would limit their use then? Well, some CIA whistleblowers have proposed that they already do have poisons which do not show up in autopsy, which kill by cardiac arrest. As the means to utilize these weapons more and more discreetly (for instance, using the aforementioned microscopic drones) are developed, I think we should be extremely suspicious and analytical with regard to any apparently-natural deaths which serve the motives and goals of these institutions. Again, this is not a far-future dystopian technology-- this is something that should not surprise us today, let alone three, five, ten years from now.
- Defense technologies. This may seem like less of a consideration than whether our every move can be tracked, or whether we can be murdered with impunity. But it's also very serious, and it's a key example of this inequality of access to technology. Today, the rich and powerful can buy bulletproof clothing, which is lightweight and undetectable (one example of a bulletproof clothing boutique: Miguel Caballero Fashion), which is unsurprisingly popular among elites (both political and economic). But the vast majority can't afford such luxuries. In the (let's say hypothetical) case of a shift towards increasingly extreme authoritarianism and oppression, where the only recourse for the masses is armed conflict, this is a serious logistical factor. Note that the powerful already have the dramatic advantage in terms of offensive weaponry-- so we can call it "defensive," but the relative inability of the many to defend themselves against the powerful few is no laughing matter.
On the military side, there are similar high-tech developments. I just discovered today that Boeing has patented a microwave forcefield system to protect against explosions. Yes. Your read that correctly. Is it guaranteed to work? Not yet. But this is where the heads of the military-industrial complex are, and they are clearly making enough R&D progress to patent this technology. Of course all technology is a double-edged sword-- the same defense systems could save thousands of lives and make the world a safer place. My point is the consequences of who has access and how they will use it. In the hands of an authoritarian, imperialist state, this is one more potential weapon against forces of democracy, progress, and equality.
- Encryption/Decryption technologies. A leaked NSA training Powerpoint entitled "Tor Stinks" (PDF download here) demonstrated that, at the time (now several years ago), NSA was unable to consistently track down deep web users who used Tor Browser (an anonymous deep web browser) correctly. This made it (and seemingly still does) a very useful tool for whistleblowers, leakers, dissident activists, etc.-- anyone who might want to maintain anonymity on the internet. Unfortunately, the flip-side is that it is exploited by all kinds of horrible criminals (pedophiles, drug traffickers, you name it), but that's neither here nor there. My point is, at the moment there still exists some realm in which anonymity and privacy is possible. And what is the reaction of NSA to that possibility (despite its use by only a tiny fraction of the population)? It stinks. This illustrates the mindset of the state. The Powerpoint details their efforts to break Tor network security and to create methods for identifying users (which, in some cases, they were able to-- just not consistently, and not among those who used it properly). But with the rise of quantum computing, with massive funding for the intelligence agencies, with no counter-force in politics to defend privacy rights, we may see a day when this anonymous frontier is destroyed; where the powers that be are capable of out-maneuvering even the most tech-savvy activists, whistleblowers, and leakers. There is no doubt that they are very conscious participants in the battle for cyberspace (as well as actual space), but only time will tell how successful they are, and how successful privacy advocates are in outpacing them with newer and more secure technologies.
Clearly we can come up with many more examples (feel free to contribute them in comments), but I just wanted to assemble a few key ones. The point should be self-evident. I am very interested to hear your reactions, thoughts on how to counteract this trend, its potential implications, predictions for how future technologies will be handled (both on the side of the state and the reaction of the population), etc.. I just wanted to get this out, because it's something I've been considering quite a lot lately. These technologies force us to "trust" in authoritarian institutions to self-regulate and not to abuse their extending power, despite all the evidence that they have continuously pushed the envelope to the limit of their technological capacities. Are there any recent technologies along these lines which are not yet recognized by official public policy, but which you think are already in practice? I'm curious just how small the smallest government drones are, whether reports of a CIA "heart-attack gun" are valid, and just what else is being developed in the "black projects" that we spend many billions of dollars on annually (and yet, which the public is not entitled to know about). Technology is one of the most inherently revolutionary and unpredictable aspects of the modern world, and I think this is certainly worth our consideration.
Just something to think about.