[Plura-list] Technology of Uyghur oppression; Transparency without recourse; How covid spreads; Why SCOTUS upheld LGBTQ rights
Cory Doctorow
doctorow at craphound.com
Tue Jun 16 12:29:33 EDT 2020
Today's links
* The technology of Uyghur oppression: COIN and CVE with Chinese
characteristics.
* Transparency without recourse: Keynote for tomorrow's Transparency By
Design conference.
* How covid spreads: A tale in four charts.
* Why SCOTUS upheld LGBTQ rights: Time for some game theory.
* Hackers on Planet Earth: HOPE 2020 is happening, and I'm keynoting.
* Talking Radicalized with Podside Picnic: Science fiction, economics,
politics, writing craft and beyond.
* Giant worry-stone: Machinist Chris Bathgate upscales his worry stone.
* This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing
projects, current reading
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🧘🏿 The technology of Uyghur oppression
The Center for Global Policy is an "independent, non-partisan American
think tank working exclusively on issues at the intersection of U.S.
foreign policy and Muslim geopolitics."
It's just published a major report by Darren Byler on the tech of the
war on Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China's Xinjiang province; a devastating
high-tech panopticon whose most visible element are concentration camps
where 1M+ people were imprisoned.
https://cgpolicy.org/articles/the-global-implications-of-re-education-technologies-in-northwest-china/
But the whole story isn't the walled prisons: it's the entire region,
which has been turned into an open air prison where technology tracks
and controls predominantly Muslim Turkic people while allowing Han
people to go about their business largely unhindered.
This has been so effective that "within a single generation Muslim
embodied practice and Turkic languages in Northwest China will cease to
provide essential ways for Uighurs and Kazakhs to sustain their
knowledge systems."
The people who are "free" - that is, not interred in a concentration
camp - were nevertheless forced to provide blood, DNA, fingerprint, iris
and facial biometrics to the security apparatus. The penalty for
noncompliance was imprisonment.
Authorities set up a dense network of biometric scanning points
throughout the region, points that Han people were typically waved
through, while Turkic people had to stop and be scanned - more than 10
times/day.
And while Xinjiang is its own unique horror, it has its roots in the US
post-911 counterinsurgency theory (COIN), pioneered by US Army General
Petraeus, and in the EU's "Countering Violent Extremism" (CVE) programs.
These were the theoretical bases used as starting points by the Chinese
architects of the Xinjiang project: it's "COIN and CVE with Chinese
characteristic." Its motto: "teach like a school, be managed like the
military, and be defended like a prison."
China's technologists and private contractors laud their advantages over
US counterparts, though, because "they have a space to experiment with
these technologies without fear of legal or civil resistance, or without
shareholders holding them responsible for failed systems."
Technically, the companies supplying tools of oppression banned in
America, but it's not enforced. Not only are their consumer products for
sale in the US, but universities like MIT take funding from them, and
commercial and academic scientists collaborate with them.
Megvii created the vision systems used in the concentration camps: "The
director of research at Megvii USA has published articles with current
researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Stanford, Duke, Georgia
Tech, Brown, and Rutgers."
"He has also co-published with researchers at Facebook, Google, and
Adobe, among others. In nearly all cases, the leaders of these
sanctioned companies are deeply embedded in the U.S. research community
and tech industry."
Though the Chinese state denies human rights abuses in and out of the
camps in Xinjiang, we have leaked primary sources that tell the tale.
Here's leaks detailing the plan for mass arrests and internments.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm/
Another round of leaks details the "No Mercy" plan for brutalizing
Turkic minorities:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html
And here's a reverse engineering teardown of the app that Uyghurs and
other Turkic people are forced to install on their phones:
https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2019/05/02/china-how-mass-surveillance-works-xinjiang
Byler ends his report with a set of US policy recommendations for ending
complicity with the program and putting pressure on the Chinese state
and Chinese companies to end the human rights abuses in the region.
1. Enforce existing sanctions and end the sales and operations by
companies that collaborate with the Chinese state in Xinjiang.
2. Apply "Magnitsky" sanctions against the leaders of the forced-labor
program and conduct a full investigation into the use of unfree labor in
products ranging from electronics to textiles.
3. Pass a bill "to identify and extend sanctions on all companies and
state entities involved in the forced labor system."
4. Extend sanctions beyond the 17 companies currently listed to the
1,400+ tech firms "involved in the re-education system and hundreds of
manufacturing companies."
5. US and other western countries should "ban the collection and use of
'passive' or involuntary biometric information and data surveillance,"
establishing a global norm of biometric privacy.
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🧘🏿 Transparency without recourse
This week, Both/And is hosting an online Transparency and Design Summit:
https://events.bizzabo.com/Transparencybydesign/home
I'm giving a keynote tomorrow at 9AM Pacific/6PM Berlin, called
"Adversarial Interoperability: An Elegant Weapon From a More Civilized Age."
https://events.bizzabo.com/Transparencybydesign/agenda/session/263630
Here's the precis:
--
It's fine to demand that firms make their products legible to the people
who use them, but that's just table-stakes. Transparency without
recourse is a recipe for nihilism: 'Yeah, this is what we're doing, and
if you don't like it, you can go to hell.'
Adversarial Interoperability is that recourse: the right of the public -
and tinkerers, co-ops, startups and other rivals - to modify a product
to suit their own needs. Not only does this allow users to make a
counteroffer to push back on a company's design choices, it also allows
us to independently verify that the claims made about how the product works.
And by raising the likelihood that promise-breaking will be publicized,
Adversarial Interoperability changes the boardroom discussion within the
companies that make these products.
It's a lot harder to sell your colleagues on cheating if they know
they'll get caught.
--
The livestream will be here:
https://youtu.be/C_s4f3g6JhY
I hope you can make it!
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🧘🏿 How covid spreads
The Financial Times has an outstanding article by Michael Peel and John
Burn-Murdoch summarizing the best scientific evidence on how coronavirus
spreads, aimed at educating the public on how to avoid risk as cities
and countries re-open:
https://www.ft.com/content/2418ff87-1d41-41b5-b638-38f5164a2e94
I found the conclusions fascinating and surprising, so much so that I
was actually a little dubious until I saw that "physician-scientist"
Eric Topol from Scripps had tweeted the charts summarizing them.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1272610951800315904
First, a chart suggesting that you are MUCH safer in outdoor situations
than indoors.
Next, a chart highlighting the clear relationship between duration and
intensity of contact with the likelihood of spreading.
There were early fears that centralized HVAC could spread coronavirus.
In at least one apartment building, experts believe covid spread via a
kitchen extractor fan.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3087709/coronavirus-kitchen-fans-could-be-behind-latest
Nevertheless, this chart shows that good air circulation is a powerful
preventative.
Finally, a chart on the role of "superspreaders" suggesting that most
(!) positive cases won't spread the disease, while a small minority will
spread it widely.
This last one is the most fascinating and challenging, and since it's
based on observation rather than experiment, and since there's no
agreed-upon causal basis for this, it's hard to know what's going on here.
Is a superspreader someone who's unlucky enough to be shedding
especially potent virus particles? Or are they unlucky enough to come
into contact with especially vulnerable people (or people who just had
very bad luck themselves?).
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🧘🏿 Why SCOTUS upheld LGBTQ rights
Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that the Civil Rights Act prohibits
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity
was both welcome and surprising news. Welcome for obvious reasons, but
surprising because two conservative judges sided with the majority.
But as John Quiggin writes on Crooked Timber, there was good reason to
predict that the judges would not blindly follow their ideology and
instead would look to issues of fundamental justice in their deliberations.
https://crookedtimber.org/2020/06/16/mr-dooley-right-again/
Quiggin describes the Supremes' power as "a veto point, able to block
legislation that can be represented as violating constitutional
protection" - while "the progressive agenda is clearly within the power
of the legislature and executive."
If the judges had neutered the Civil Rights Act yesterday, it would have
exacted a "huge political cost on the Republican majority," teeing up
future legislation (after Dems win the Presidency and Congress) that
massively expanded the Civil Rights Act.
Such a decision would also trigger state legislation that expanded
protections against discrimination.
Meanwhile, the discrediting of SCOTUS from such a decision would hasten
the day in which Citizens United, the ruling that allows the GOP to buy
elections, was obliterated.
Siding with the majority allowed Gorsuch to counter the idea that
"'textualism' means "rightwing interpretations of the text'" and defend
Gorsuch from claims of being an illegitimate partisan hack in a stolen seat.
Quiggin predicts that "hard neoliberals to welcome the fact that this
unwinnable fight is over" while "culture warriors who back Trump will be
furious."
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🧘🏿 Hackers on Planet Earth
For decades, 2600 Magazine has hosted its biennial hacker con, Hackers
on Planet Earth (HOPE) in NYC, with keynotes from the likes of Jello
Biafra, Edward Snowden, Steve Wozniak, Chelsea Manning and (w00t!) me,
back in 2016.
This was almost the year without a HOPE. First, the Hotel Pennsylvania
kicked them out of their venue. Then, coronavirus meant that all the
bookstores that had the latest ish of the magazine closed and 2600's
distributor wasn't going to pay them.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/15/invigilation/#hope
But they've rallied: the con will happen this year, as a nine-day,
online event with workshops, lectures, late-night DJ sets -- all the
stuff you'd expect from a HOPE con.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/20/oil-in-the-cloud/#HopeOnTheStreet
They've just announced this year's keynoters and I'm delighted to reveal
that I will be among them! I'm in good company, with EFF executive
director Cindy Cohn, tech commentator Richard Thieme, and VR
pioneer/musician Jaron Lanier.
https://hope.net/keynotes.html
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🧘🏿 Talking Radicalized with Podside Picnic
I was delighted to sit for a long interview with the excellent sf/f
podcast Podside Picnic, in which we ranged over the pandemic, politics
in sf, my early days in Toronto's sf scene, the craft of writing,
economics, and more!
https://soundcloud.com/user-733327042/episode-69-cory-doctorow-masque-of-the-red-death-ft-cory-doctorow
It was indeed a wide-ranging discussion, and really managed to
illuminate my interests in politics, art, and technology in a way that I
rarely get to do. Here's the MP3:
https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/841155751-user-733327042-episode-69-cory-doctorow-masque-of-the-red-death-ft-cory-doctorow.mp3
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🧘🏿 Giant worry-stone
For years, the sculptor/machinist Chris Bathgate has turned his
prodigious talent to small worry-stones, fidget-toys, starting with "The
Slider" (I own one of these!).
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2016/09/pocket-sculpture-update.html
Then he collaborated on a gorgeous spinning top, the lyrically named,
"TP533351444623."
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-collaboration-with-fellow.html
Then the S2 slider toy:
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-second-act-for-those-of-you-who-have.html
He collaborated on a fidget-spinner in the heyday of the spinner craze:
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-bathgate-artifact-spinner.html
Clearly, his machined take on a netsuke is not intended to be carried in
your pocket, but it IS definitely something you want to hold and play with.
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-reluctant-designer-netsuke-hybrid.html
Shortly after the netsuke, we got a piece that is even more playful, the
Ratchet.
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2017/10/introducing-bathgate-ratchet.html
His final slider toy shows how ideas evolve through iteration.
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2018/05/s3-bringing-thought-experiment-to-close.html
And while it's not part of the slider series, I think there's a clear
line from the sliders to the switchblade-inspired Out the Front sculpture.
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2019/01/incorporated-knife-tech-into-world-of.html
Back in April, Bathgate unveiled his first wood/metal mixed-media
sculpture, his worry beads.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#trying-times
But life has only gotten more worrying since April, and so he's shipped
a new, jumbo worry bead, at least an order of magnitude larger than the
first (you're not carrying this in your pocket!).
https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-bwd-machined-metal-and-wood.html
Bathgate writes, "The current plan is to make eight or nine of these
larger format sculptures. Each one will be unique with a carefully
chosen color pallet and species of wood."
"It always felt a shame to be cutting these large beautiful blocks down
into smaller pieces; their figure and details were just so much more
complex and striking in a larger format. I just had to make a bigger one
to use more of each block."
Bathgate wrote an excellent, lavishly illustrated book about his process
in 2012. I highly recommend it.
https://boingboing.net/2012/05/05/chris-bathgates-machined-met.html
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🧘🏿 This day in history
#15yrsago Mark Cuban: Why Macrovision's customers are fools
https://web.archive.org/web/20050618020653/https://blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000957046914/
#15yrsago Stolen Trotsky-slaying icepick for sale to Trotsky's
descendants https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/16/past.russia
#15yrsago What UK's copyright industries are up to
https://web.archive.org/web/20050725082244/https://test.org.uk/archives/002491.html
#10yrsago Teacher cuts student's picture out of every copy of the
yearbook
https://web.archive.org/web/20100620235825/http://www.ottawacitizen.com/student+school+yearbooks/3161858/story.html
#10yrsago HP to spam your web-connected printer
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-with-yahoo-for-targeted-ads.html
#10yrsago Sweet Tooth: gripping, post-apocalyptic graphic novel off to a
killer start https://boingboing.net/2010/06/16/sweet-tooth-gripping.html
#10yrsago US record labels starts fake "citizen's group" to support
Canada's DMCA
https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/06/astroturf-campaign-for-c-32/
#10yrsago Jon Stewart on Obama's broken civil liberties promises
https://web.archive.org/web/20100617155949/https://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/16/stewart/index.html
#5yrsago Library at Mount Char: urban fantasy that has the magic
https://boingboing.net/2015/06/16/library-at-mount-char-urban-f.html
#1yrago After Hong Kong's leaders delay plan to render dissidents to
mainland China, 2,000,000 Hong Kongers march and demand resignations
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-hongkong-extradition/tens-of-thousands-dressed-in-black-rally-to-demand-hong-kong-leader-steps-down-idUKKCN1TH00R
#1yrago The UK government gave away cheap money for property purchase
deposits, which the wealthy abused, driving up property prices and
leaving UK taxpayers exposed
https://wolfstreet.com/2019/06/13/uk-government-blew-billions-on-help-to-buy-scheme-that-enriched-home-builders-and-drove-up-home-prices-taxpayers-on-the-hook-when-prices-sink-new-report-warns/
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🧘🏿 Colophon
Today's top sources:
Currently writing:
* My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and
reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 578 words (27560 total).
* A short story, "Making Hay," for MIT Tech Review. Yesterday's
progress: 307 words (964 total)
Currently reading: Adventures of a Dwergish Girl, Daniel Pinkwater
Latest podcast: Part 6 of "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town"
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/06/14/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-06/
Upcoming appearances:
* Keynote, Transparency By Design, Jun 17,
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/transparency-by-design-tickets-103925443800#
* In Conversation with Hank Green, Jul 10,
https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?isbn_id=26578312&products;_id=163359157
Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book
about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531
"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
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*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla* -Joey "Accordion Guy"
DeVilla
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