ThinkingShift

Let’s forget the surveillance society stuff for a moment and take a look at how odd and curious this fascinating world of ours can sometimes be. For your enjoyment - a collection of stories that strike me as very curious.

Take that, you nasty snake! Should you be enjoying a leisurely stroll with your beloved canine and unexpectedly come across a giant Burmese python, don’t worry. Follow these simple instructions. Simply fling yourself at the snake whilst your pet dog is being twisted and crushed by the python. Pull your dog’s legs out of the python’s grip. Have another dog nearby yapping away - this will distract the python whilst you’re tussling with it and give you encouragement. Since a python can weigh up to 100kg, you should probably not be a stick insect. Grapple with the snake until it’s had enough and slithers away.

Believe it or not, this close up and personal with a snake happened recently in Hong Kong. Catherine Leonard and her dog, Poppy, were minding their own business when a slithery Burmese python spoilt their day. Poppy was rescued by her fearless owner. Source: Mail & Guardian Online.

Or…find a squirrel. If you can’t stomach the notion of flinging yourself at a giant python, then quickly look around for a squirrel to do your dirty work for you. Squirrels have a very curious capability - they can heat up their tails to fend off snakes, rattlesnakes to be precise. Not sure if this works with all snakes. The thermal-signalling of the squirrel causes angst for the rattlesnake as they are heat-sensitive. The squirrel vigorously waves its tail, which signals the snake “watch out, I’m ready to rock and roll”. Source: National Geographic.

Have goat, will travel. Qantas may want to follow Nepal Airline’s practice of sacrificing a goat or two should there be technical problems. A Boeing 757 was apparently experiencing an electrical fault, so a couple of goats were sacrificed in front of the plane before it took off for Hong Kong from Kathmandu airport. It arrived safely in Hong Kong. The goats were sacrificed to appease a Hindu god. Next time I board an aircraft, I’ll take a moment to check out the tarmac. Source: BBC News.

Throw away your tinfoil hat. You’ve probably heard that some conspiracy theorists think that tinfoil hats may prevent the Government from reading your thoughts. Hey, I don’t think the Government is that smart anyway. But in February 2005, a group of scientists from MIT conducted rigorous tests on the mind-ray blocking powers of the tinfoil hat and found…..while tinfoil hats mostly had a modest attenuating effect, they in fact amplified signals on certain frequencies, namely 1.2 – 1.4 Ghz – the range allocated to the US government. Yikes! Just when I was going to order a tinfoil hat in hot pink! Source: Fortean Times.

Should you encounter a burglar in your house. Offer a glass of wine and a group hug. A group of friends were dining on the back patio of their house in Washington, when a masked robber suddenly appeared, brandishing a gun and demanding money. After some stunned silence, one guest asked “Why don’t you have a glass of wine with us?“. The intruder (clearly no idiot) had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupery and said, “Damn, that’s good wine” and also nibbled on some Camembert. Obviously delighted by the hospitality, the intruder announced that he had clearly come to the wrong house and asked for a group hug. The five adults complied and the group hug was followed by the would-be burglar dashing off into the night. Source: CBS News.

Lock up your cat. Just in case “fur with attitude” (aka domestic cat) is mistaken for a feral cat, you’d better lock up the moggy if you live in Australia. We have a problem with feral cats that roam the Outback. No issue really: we Australians are a pretty innovative bunch and we love our culinary delights. The solution? Cook up some wild cat stew. Recently, a contest in Alice Springs featured a wild cat casserole recipe. Not having snacked on a wild cat, I can’t give you first hand experience of the taste, but it is apparently a cross between rabbit and chicken. I’m intrigued by the recipe. I can’t find step by step instructions, but somehow you’ve gotta go out and track your cat, wrestle it to the ground and then….well, let’s just say the meat is added to a pot with lemon grass and quandong (sweet desert fruit).Simmer for 5 hours then serve up garnished with bush plums and mistletoe berries. Very timely recipe: now I know what to serve up at my next dinner party. Source: BBC News.

I, Clawdius? Forget the cats inhabiting the Forum in Rome. There’s a whole bunch of fearless crabs lurking in the ruins. The Roman crabs—of the species Potamon fluviatile—were discovered in in 1997. They must like life amongst the ruins because they grow to around 8 cm long, whereas crabs in the wild grow to around 5 cm. Gigantism is an animal response to isolation. Apparently, they’ve been there for at least a thousand years before the complex was completed in AD 112. Source: National Geographic.

You know, if I could just write about UFOs, I think the ThinkingShift blog would be number one in the blogosphere. Over 4,000 people visited my post on whether the internet has snuffed out aliens. As much as I’d like to keep attracting tons of readers, I’m afraid that I haven’t much to say on a daily basis about aliens (mmm…perhaps I could think about the nexus between KM and aliens?!).

But I can find things to talk about daily when it comes to the surveillance society (skip this post if you’re disinterested in your life being increasingly controlled). It’s been a great week for me with internet censorship issues, nuns being frisked at airports, and humans being microchipped. And the news keeps coming into my RSS feeds.

This one nearly bowled me over. How about sending your son or daughter to a High School that specialises in studying cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, responding to mock terror attacks and where your kid can receive a limited security clearance to a nearby Army chemical warfare lab?

If this sounds like a great curriculum, then enrol your would-be Jack Bauer at Maryland’s (US) Joppatowne High School. This is America’s first High School churning out kids who understand the “new reality”. Students will choose one of three specialised tracks: information and communication technology, criminal justice and law enforcement, or “homeland security science.” What the? What on earth is “homeland security science”? An educational official, showing a profound grasp of the Arabic language, quipped that the school will also offer: “Arabic or some other nontraditional, Third World-type language.”

Seems that the school’s main focus will be to churn out graduates who can join the intelligence community or work in the homeland security sector. What happened to churning out science grads? or history grads? grads that are intellectually curious and not just equipped in how to assemble a weapon fast whilst blindfolded. Isn’t this just an educational programme masquerading as brainwashing the up and coming generation about the War on Terror? Are we now co-opting kids into believing the War on Terror drivel?

An academic said that he’d be concerned about the curriculum: “my fear is that they will instead teach a series of predigested truths about keeping our country safe.” No kidding! I’m sure the Pentagon and other security agencies will be rubbing their hands with glee thinking about all the new recruits they’ll have from this High School.

Following my post the other day on the Department of Homeland Security’s airport screening programme, here’s what it’s come to - an elderly Catholic nun being frisked by airport security in the US.

Dean Shaddock, who snapped the shot and plonked it on Flickr says:

“This was captured as I collected my things from airport security (Detroit Metro Concourse A). I think of it as something like a Rorschach test. Is an elderly Catholic nun being frisked by a Muslim security agent the celebration of blind justice? Or is it simply an admission of absurdity?“

There’s a lot going on in this image if you look closely - a Muslim woman frisking a Catholic nun against the backdrop of the American flag. A bored onlooker - reminds me of how complacent we’ve become in a society that is increasingly controlled, monitored and suspicious. I presume the photo was snapped on a camera phone - an example of sousveillance.

I guess you can react to this image in many ways. For example, why shouldn’t a nun be frisked? You can conceal a lot under the religious garb. And cunning terrorists might just adopt a religious habit to get through security. Then again, you might be offended that someone from a religious order, and an older person, is being frisked.

You might also ask why a Muslim woman (she is wearing a hijab) is a US security official, but then again why on earth not? Not all Muslims are terrorists of course. Anyone has a right to a job. So maybe this image is entirely normal and reflects the reality of the age we live in.

I guess the power of the image and its story lies within the reaction it stirs in different people. What’s your reaction?

A few posts back I was moaning about how I don’t get Second Life, despite the fact that people are saying it’s the next big thing, that the Internet is heading into SL because you can visit other people, exchange stuff blah blah. I tried it; I got bored fast.

But then I came across news about an academic who is teaching architecture by creating a virtual classroom in SL complete with four islands where he and his students can create structures and interiors. Terry Beaubois is the architect and academic who has the avatar of Tab Scott. Beaubois’ SL avatar visits and reviews student design work in a 3D environment.

The interesting thing about architects (hubby is one) is traditional training doesn’t involve them in collaborative work. When they hit the ground as an architect, they are then faced with managing projects that include builders, clients, contractors and so on. They have to be very good project managers.

So training architects in SL makes a whole lot of sense. This is something I can get my head around as it gives students a rich, sensory immersive experience. Here are some examples of student work - image credit Catalyst. Click on thumbnail below for fuller detail.

Students would be able to model complex scenarios and co-create structures with fellow students. This I totally get. You can check out the process of architectural design by Beaubois’ students here on YouTube.

And unlike an old dog, I can learn new tricks :)- I’ve become quite interested in a new free virtual world - Metaplace (alpha). It seems Metaplace will be easier to deal with than SL for me anyway. You can create your own virtual, multi-user world pretty quickly. If you have no programming bone in your body like me, you can use one of their templates. Pretty cool.

The International Herald Tribune had an interesting piece recently on vanishing languages. I often joke with my two step-kids, who are French, that their language will be kaput by the end of the 21st Century (well, maybe the Breton language is vulnerable). But it does seem that some of the many rich, colourful and historically important languages that humans speak around the world are teetering on the verge of extinction. This might be more catastrophic than species disappearing.

It seems that between 50 and 90% of the world’s 6,992 languages will cease to exist by 2100. French used to be the lingua franca of diplomats but not anymore. English dominates - it’s the language of commerce and technology and is spread by globalisation - and is only rivalled by Chinese and maybe Spanish.

When a language vanishes, so does the vast body of knowledge associated with that language and the many words and nuances that a people use to describe relationships or concepts. The Inuit word for “know”, for example, shows the many subtleties of a language. Utsimavaa means he or she knows from experience, whilst nalunaiqpaa means he or she is no longer unaware of something.

It seems that 5 regions are vulnerable to language extinction: Northern Australia, central South America, North America’s upper Pacific coastal zone, eastern Siberia and Oklahoma and the southwestern United States. The National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages have travelled far and wide to revitalise or maintain languages at risk. They found Charlie, an Australian Aboriginal, who appears to be the last speaker of Amurdag, a language in the Northern Territory that had already been declared extinct. You can watch a video of Charlie speaking Amurdag here on the National Geographic site.

The project is called Enduring Voices. Many languages are not in written form and when the elderly die off, so does the language. So linguists are busy recording a 100-200 word list of basic words and then move onto grammatical structure. It seems Australia harbours some of the most vulnerable languages with 153 different dialects spoken amongst indigenous people.

There is of course the famous story of 18th Century German explorer, Alexander von Humboldt, who was travelling along the Orinoco River in what is now Venezuela and stumbled on a Carib Indian tribe. The tribe’s pet parrots were speaking a totally different dialect to their owners and von Humboldt learned that the parrots had belonged to another tribe - the Maypure - who the Carib had snuffed out and so the parrots ironically were the sole surviving speakers of the Maypure language.

Languages are complex adaptive systems, so yes, languages come and go, but they are now disappearing at the rate of one language every two weeks. Can you imagine a world in which we only speak English? My step-kids would be appalled, they’re not great fans of a language of Anglo-Saxon/Germanic origin.

Languages are very resilient though. Apparently, there is a secret language spoken by the Kallawaya of the Andes region. They speak Spanish or Quechua in daily life, but they have a secret tongue mainly for preserving knowledge of medicinal plants, some previously unknown to science. How this secret language, spoken only by a few people, has survived for over 400 years is a bit of a mystery to linguists.

Maybe we need to train up lots of brainy parrots like Alex, the African grey parrot, who snuffed it last week. Because they might be the last speakers of dying languages if we don’t make efforts to preserve vanishing dialects.

Mark Abley has written a great book you should read: Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. And from a BBC item, here are some words from threatened languages:

• Coghal - big lump of dead flesh after a wound is opened (Manx)
• Tkhetsikhe’tenhawihtennihs - I am bringing sugar to somebody (Mohawk)
• Puijilittatuq - he does not know which way to turn because of the many seals he has seen come to the ice surface (Inuktitut - Canadian Arctic)
• Nartutaka - small plum-like fruit for which there is no English word (Wangkajunga, Central Australia).

And finally, here’s a map showing language hotspots.

Image credit: National Geographic

It’s taken me a couple of days to get over the staggering news that quite possibly Australia is facing a future of internet censorship at the hands of the Federal Police. I wanted to wait and see if the news wasn’t as bad as it first seemed.

Of course, I’m referring to the news in The Australian that a Bill was (it seems) hurriedly and quietly ushered into Parliament at 9.58am September 22. The proposed legislation would give the Australian Federal Police (AFP) the power to block, ban or filter websites believed to be crime or terrorism related. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) already maintains a “blacklist” of websites containing pornographic or offensive content and they have the power to act against these websites. The web ban bill will extend this blacklist by allowing the AFP to inform the ACMA of websites to be blocked. The ACMA must then notify ISPs who will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent users accessing the websites.

I find this staggering for a few reasons:

• a democratic country (well, last time I looked anyway) like Australia is censoring the internet? China dabbles in internet censorship and has erected the Great Firewall of China - is Australia erecting its own wall now?
• is the Government delegating censorship and regulation to the communications industry? The burden of policing and regulating would no doubt be passed onto the consumer.

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said the Bill would give the Police Commissioner “enormous power over what political content Australians can look at” on the web and points out that environmental organisations like Greenpeace, who have been accused of terror-related actions in the past, could potentially have their website blocked or shut down.

It seems the Bill was hussled through Senate without warning on the eve of a Federal Election - which for me raises the question of just how far the Government will go in their attempts to control internet content.

Perhaps next up, we’ll follow the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts in recording what people read on a plane. Wired carried an article on the airport screening programme of the DHS. Their Airport Targetting System scrutinises every airline passenger entering or leaving the US and records information such as ethnic background and the answers given to US border officials regarding the reason for travel. Because the ATS is also linked up to airlines’ Passenger Name Records (which are required to be submitted to the US Government), a vast array of information is stored - destinations, phone and email details, meal requests, special health requests, payment details, frequent-flier numbers, contact numbers for overseas family members. The system also records previous customs inspection notes. So this caught John Gilmore, Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder, who took onto a plane a book entitled Drugs and Your Rights. Inspection notes on Gilmore said:
“PAX (passenger) has many small flashlights with pot leaves on them. He had a book entitled ‘Drugs and Your Rights.‘” Gilmore is apparently an advocate for marijuana legalisation.

And another inspection note said: “attended computer conference in Berlin and then traveled around Europe and Asia to visit friends. 100% baggage exam negative…. PAX is self employed ‘Entrepreneur’ in computer software business.”

DHS has now released a denial saying they are not interested in what we’re reading.

A privacy advocate said: “There is so much sensitive information in the documents that it is clear that Homeland Security is not playing straight with the American people“. No kidding! I don’t think the Australian Government is playing straight with Australians either when it hussles a Bill through Senate that is basically internet censorship.

Just to make me even more perturbed, Patrick Lambe over at Green Chameleon, alerted me to an essay written by Cory Doctorow in Radar Online called Scroogled. It’s a fictitious piece asking the question: what if Google controlled your life?

I’m not going to summarise it because I really want you to read it - scary as hell. And should such a future materialise (and I think it will) then I’ll be getting a knock on the door at 2.00am no doubt given the stuff I’ve written about Google on this blog and elsewhere. Thank goodness I recently read The File by Timothy Garton Ash. Ash’s experience with the Stasi might give me some clues on how to handle a world controlled by Google!

I have shamelessly ganked the photos below from the article - powerful and scary if you ask me.

Look closely at this last image - Border Crossing Immigration - brought to you by Google. In light of the airport security screening programme I mentioned above, perhaps not such a far fetched scenario. Well, actually that future is here already. You might remember that Canadian psychotherapist, Andrew Feldmar, was denied entry into the US recently because? A Google-happy border security officer Googled Feldmar’s name and found an article he’d written that described his experiences with hallucinogenic drugs during the 1960s. Hello? the 60s were 40 years ago - doesn’t mean the dude is smuggling magic mushrooms into the US now just because he dabbled in them when he was tripping out with the hippies.

I think that when I’m old and crusty (pretty soon really) I’ll be sitting down with Gen Whatever Letter and reminiscing about the good old days of privacy and no Google. They’ll look at me and wonder if I’m on magic mushrooms - because they will have been brought up in a world controlled by surveillance technologies which get you hauled over at some airport or woken up at 2.00am to answer questions about what you searched on Google last night. It will all seem very natural to them because they won’t have experienced anything different.

UPDATE: Internet industry experts warn that the proposed legislation mentioned in this post could inadvertently block access to popular sites like Facebook and slow internet speed to a snail’s pace. Read the article in The Australian.

Partly as a way to distract myself from all the surveillance society stuff I’ve been reading lately, I whipped out into my garden to snap some of the floral beauties as they woke up to greet the sun. So….today’s post brings you colours and textures from my garden - for the colour and nature lovers out there!

I’m not sure if the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is six minutes behind the times! The ACLU site has just launched the Surveillance Society clock, which is supposed to symbolise I guess how rapidly we are becoming a society that is watched and monitored. Frankly, I thought the surveillance society was already here.

The clock is set at six minutes to midnight - midnight is of course the darkest hour - and the ACLU says:

“The reality is we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the United States - a dark future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready to be examined and used against us by the authorities whenever they want. The ACLU has created this Surveillance Clock to symbolize just how close we are to a “midnight” of a genuine surveillance society. But it’s not too late - there is still time to save our privacy.“

Very apocalyptic but when you consider how our privacy is being constantly eroded, I have to agree with ACLU. They point the finger of blame at:

• Powerful new technologies
• Weakening privacy laws
• The “War on Terror”
• Courts that are letting privacy rights slip away
• A president who thinks he can ignore laws against warrantless spying on citizens
• Big corporations willing to become extensions of the surveillance state

ACLU also highlights surveillance milestones - a timeline from 1830 to now showing technologies or policies that have impinged on our privacy. Scary when you look at the 2000-2007 column - go here to see fuller detail.

I think though that there are aspects of surveillance that can be protective eg CCTV cameras that capture an assault. But then you read something like the news item I came across the other day in The Sydney Morning Herald on proposed new spy laws for security agencies. And you wonder whether the pendulum is constantly swinging towards abuse of our rights. It would seem that ASIO, plus the State and Federal police, without a warrant, could secretly track people via their mobile phones (unless you have it switched off) and monitor what you’re looking at on the Internet for up to three months. The rationale behind the proposed laws is the usual - counter-terrorism measures - and it’s not just going to affect someone suspected of an offence - the proposed laws can apply to anyone.

Greens senator Kerry Nettle sums it up well: “The bill “is more like something from East Germany than a party claiming to support liberal principles….There is no judicial oversight. Police and ASIO should have to get a warrant to track and tap people’s mobile phones or web browsing.”

At least in East Germany they had to run around secretly breaking into people’s homes to place listening devices on phones. It will be a far easier matter for ASIO and the police to simply demand that internet service providers and phone companies stream information to them after calls have been made or chat rooms visited. The proposed spy legislation is due before Senate this week and I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Meanwhile, I’ll be reading the latest ACLU report - Even Bigger, Even Weaker: The Emerging Surveillance Society: Where are we Now? - which you can download here.

Image credit: ACLU

Strike me down! In a post just a few days ago, I told you about poor Leon, the French bulldog, and the possible dangers inherent in RFID technology. VeriChip is the US company at the centre of criticism over its plans to microchip medical patients. VericChip won approval from the FDA to implant microchips into humans. And it has started doing so.

VeriChip has just announced plans to conduct a 2 year pilot study to test their RFID technology. It will implant 200 Alzheimer’s patients located in Palm Beach County, Florida with tiny electronic capsules that contain a 16 digit unique patient identifier. The patients will be scanned and their medical and personal information held in a database, which can be accessed by medical staff.

I really do have a problem with this. VeriChip says that the patients have volunteered for the pilot study. Last time I looked, Alzheimer’s was considered to be a progressive form of dementia with symptoms of impaired thought and degeneration of brain function. This means that these patients may not be truly capable of giving informed consent. I’m wondering if this is exploitation of a group of people in society who really can’t stick up for themselves. We also know from my previous post that there are questions being raised about the medical safety issues of microchips, with animal studies pointing to a possible causal link with cancer.

VeriChip is saying that microchipping Alzheimer’s patients will give families peace of mind as any patient who wanders or gets lost can have their arm scanned to identify them. But it’s no secret that RFID technology can be used for tracking purposes and it’s no secret that hackers can nab medical data as it is transferred from chip to reader to secure database.

It’s the notion of tagging people that gets me. Tagging for folksonomies, okay; tagging for Flickr okay. But tagging humans? Not okay - very Orwellian. I think once you get acceptance of tagging a small population of medical patients, it’s an easy jump to say the prison population, then parolees or sex offenders, then perhaps to get through immigration - then the whole population. Always the argument would be - it’s to protect the population from criminals; it’s to protect military bases or nuclear power plants; we need to identify wandering Alzheimer’s patients and so on. And then it’s a small jump from the chip carrying medical information to holding other information about you, for example, chip-based payment for groceries would require your credit card details be recorded on the chip. I see no reason why airline tickets couldn’t be disposed of in a future of microchipped humans - pay for your ticket and when you get to the airport a scanner verifies payment and processes you through immigration. And to keep kids safe, how about a future where a baby is microchipped at birth - the parents can track their movements or police could find a missing child. One microchip in the human arm can hold an infinite number of potential uses to track and control humans albeit some uses might be beneficial or innocent. But well-meaning and innocent can often turn into exploited and abused.

No doubt a whole new crop of evasive technologies would spring up to evade the signals being emitted by RFID chips (if they’re emitting a radio signal) and a black market in avoidance. Special clothing material to block the signal from being omitted might be invented for instance and dodgy back street “implant extractors” (people who will surgically remove the microchip should you wish to avoid being tracked and monitored) will offer their services. The microchip black market would be full of counterfeit chips that you could swap for your implanted one and take on a whole new identity.

If you want to read more on a potential future of humans chipped like cattle or if you wonder if VeriChip’s microchip can be duplicated easily, go here and read the interview with Liz McIntyre, author of Spychips: How Major Corporations Plan to Track your Every Purchase & Watch your Every Move. The creepiest part of this interview is when you read that VeriChip, like vultures circling, swooped down on corpses following Hurricane Katrina and had coroners implant chips. Scary stuff; scary interview. I even find the slogan on VeriChip’s website creepy: “RFID for people” - I guess they point this out just in case we confuse ourselves with cattle or domestic pets!

Photo credit: Spychips.com

From the 1960s to now, the peaceful, green English countryside has been disappearing due to relentless urbanisation - highways and population growth have eroded the tranquility. In the early 1960s, the motorways had barely started to encroach and 26% of the countryside was classed as disturbed. By the 1990s, 41% of the English countryside was suffering from urban blight. By 2007, 50% has disappeared due to urban intrusion. South-east England is the worst affected with a 70% loss of undisturbed countryside. So by the end of the 21st Century, countryside free from major disturbance could all be swallowed up in most regions of England.

This is all according to new maps just published by Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). Once tranquil areas are now subject to noise, street lights, spoiled views, power lines, airports and highways. More than 12,350 square miles of countryside have been affected since the 1960s. And since 1990, each year is witness to a further 320 square miles disappearing. As the CEO of CPRE says: “Countryside which is undisturbed by noise and development is vital for our quality of life and well-being. These maps show what the future may hold if we don’t sufficiently value our wonderful rural landscapes. As the shadow of intrusion stretches further and wider, the peace and quiet we need is harder to find.“

CPRE has just released the intrusion maps and they bring together data spanning the 1960s, 1990s and 2007. You can see the maps from the 1960s and 2007 below - click on them for fuller detail.

You can download the full report - Developing an Intrusion Map of England - here. What a sorry state of affairs.

Photo credit: CPRE