damn, g. when you write you right.
You're completely on point - but of course, I actually do care a lot about
this issue. All I was inferring is once in a while the time comes to just
shift productive energies into a new paradigm and maybe stop playing
whack-a-mole with unsecurable modalities like email, and instead work on
using something better to replace it. Same with the declining fair use and
vanishing anonymity of the internet in general - the wonderful work the
mesh folk are doing are to me a really big part of this solution. I almost
mentioned something about appropriation (or feeding biting hands styrofoam
peanuts) as a tactic being a noble way to cannabilize and take back our
infrastructure that our tax dollars largely built, so I am 100% with you
there. I have also said many times myself how we need to start a movement
to have a right to data about ourselves, so I am thrilled to hear you say
the same thing. Absolutely.
When it comes to the event, we need to fight back with technological tools,
but also with ideas. Not sure which is more important (or if thats even
worth asking), they might be equal, but for me it comes down on the side of
ideas, as all the tech in the world won't help if people don't give a hoot
because they're too exhausted by the Spectacle-induced trance of capital
etc to care, or dont see why its necessary or in their self-interest. I
fully support the cryptoparties - what we also need are the crypto-semantic
frames i guess, to help us put this fucking insane world where companies
pirate and monitize our digital lives into a moral logic everyone, even our
grandmas, can all intuitively grasp and therefore resist. Drive the demand
as it were, for 'privacy'. I see events like this being part of that
conversation on the side of ideas, but the cryptoparties, and making them
less technically abstruse, are the other half for sure. Theory + practice =
praxis, we need both.
You know the only thing I'm not totally sure I agree with is that money is
information..if we're talking about money and not capital I might agree, if
we're talking about capital (which of course is not just 'money') I'm too
tired to know if I agree or not.
On the one hand, I am wary of what I see everywhere as a massive
informationalization of our lives and in our language, of experience and of
concepts... a scientism really thats always trying to quantify the
qualitative - or at least, valorize the former and dismiss the later, if it
cannot transmute it. Its a naturalizing, essentializing cultural phenomenon
wherein we are led to simply accept without question that the essential
aspect of anything in the world is ultimately 'information': Music is
'information', plants are 'information', we - online and in our
'genes' and
'dna' - the universe - are fundamentally reduceable to codes, chemical
properties, etc. I suspect this aspect of our culture is tied to capital
ideology (marx: 'they don't know it, but they are doing it') and biopower
(think Patrick McCuehen saying 'I am not a number! I am a FREE MAN!'),
although I can't think of how right now, because as I said I'm pretty
tired, but anyway its a real mythology that needs unpacking, or totalizing
kool-aid that needs a bit of unslurping. Nothing against 'information' or
using 'information' as but one metaphor with which analyze the workings of
the world, but we should never mistake our tools of analysis - i.e., our
abstracted representation of reality, like calling the smell of a rose
'information' - for reality itself, and it seems like that's whats actually
happening at some level. We must be epistemologically reflexive and catch
ourselves before we fall into that trap. So, I have to think a lot before I
decide that money is 'at its root' essentializable as 'information', too.
Along the same lines another argument against money as essentially,
fundamentally 'information' thing is this notion that its ultimately
governed by 'math', or that the cycle of capital exploiting our surplus
labor value is ultimately governed by math, or that financial markets are
ultimately governed by math. I'm not sure I agree, because markets are also
ultimately governed by human beings, who are not just information, and
human beings, as Plato well knew, but maybe Adam Smith and Descartes did
not, are simply not rational. At all. This is in large part why game theory
is a total fail, why people vote against their economic self-interest, and
also why people are not outraged at the deprivation of their digital
liberty, etc. Scientific rationalism is in a way a beautiful dream, like a
wonderful, utopian idea, and a nice way to organize a representation of the
world, but it is not *the* world, and we don't operate, for even one
millisecond, as rational creatures. Just as we do not build up the world
out of a series of concepts - we just ARE in the world, all at once, and
from that, we think of concepts to organize it with, for ourselves. We are
subject to cognitive and emotional centers in our brain that were
indirectly induced to connect in accordance with certain decidedly
a-rational cultural ways and mores through processes of socialization of
which we had no control...
Folks are tempted to think about 'math' as something pure, a religion
practically, but how often do people get reflexive about math? Like the
fact that we can't conceive of 'math' without also simultaneously
conceiving of metaphors that have nothing whatsoever to actually do with
math, but without which we could not perform math: If I say one is a
'higher' number than two, that has no strictly mathematical meaning. One is
not 'higher' than two. An increase in quantity is not an increase in
height. It's simply an increase in quantity. And yet numbers go 'up'. Makes
no sense man...mathematically. But it does at the level of non-math, in
real life, because if I pour you a glass of water, the quantity increases
as the level rises. But what if we lived in a society where I we poured
water out on the floor and drank it from there. Would you say that numbers
go up or down? Hm. So math itself is actually utterly imbricated with
entirely qualitative dimensions that only make sense from the perspective
of human experience. And so is not so pure: the basis for 'money', perhaps,
after all.
Sleep now. Good nite.. and thanks for your awesome email..
-d
On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:15 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01(a)att.net>wrote;wrote:
David, it's not to your discredit, it's to the discredit of Kapital, and
it's been foisted on the whole Neo-Proletariat, which is anyone making less
than six figures a year (look up union wages in 1974 and then apply
increases at the rate of inflation every year with compound interest:
that's what we all _should_ be earning right now). We shouldn't blame
ourselves for getting screwed.
Here's another example of Kapital sinking its hooks into our brains (I'm
quoting you here not to criticize you, but to illustrate how common this
type of dynamic has become): "Personally, once I gave up on email qua
email as being meaningfully secure, I sort of stopped caring who my
provider was."
The emotional narrative in that sentence is: "...once I gave up... I sort
of stopped caring..."
That's what the Bigs want us to do: give up and stop caring, the better to
spend our efforts producing and consuming. And they are enormously clever
at how they go about it: too much work, just enough bread, and plenty of
circuses. About which more below under "Kapital."
Where you say "I really don't have an answer for this one," that makes the
vitally important point that we ALL need answers to this. The fact that we
don't have comprehensive answers and solutions shows exactly where our
efforts need to be.
Agreed, email is broken. IMHO the whole internet architecture is broken
(don't get me started;-) but in any case we need new infrastructure and a
solid collaborative effort to build it. Not just "good enough for coders &
geeks to use" but "good enough for your grandmother to use without you
providing tech support." You shouldn't have to _teach_ people to use
crypto: it should be built-in, with nothing more than a check in a box to
encrypt/decrypt email. The global community of hackers can build all of
that and much more if we choose.
Good point about "metadata" being a euphemism to obscure the fact that
it's OUR data. In the past I've used the term "CDR" for "call
detail
records," a telephony term that has lately been in the news since it's what
NSA gets from our phone calls (date, time, calling number, called number,
duration of call); it could also be used to refer to email to/from
addresses and subject headers. But "OUR data," emphasis on OUR, is better,
because it's so direct and assertive.
This translates to something specific we should be demanding: personal
ownership of all data about ourselves, without compromise. Treat it like
copyright with exceptions for fair use. Make the maximum demand, so that
when the usual attempts at legislative watering-down occur, we still get
something better than if we had tried to "be reasonable" and
"pre-compromise" our demands.
If it's necessary to use Facebook for publicity, the way to do it is by
using a fictitious name & email address for the FB account, and then
putting up a message on the Facebook page saying "find us _here_ (link),"
which goes to a website on a more trustworthy hosting service. Then, that
website does not have the accursed Facebook beacon-button on it that lets
Facebook follow people around like a stalker. (Anyone who can't bother
clicking a link that goes off Facebook, isn't worth the effort to reach.
Seriously.)
That's the answer to having to feed the hand that bites: Feed it
styrofoam peanuts with no food value. Use its own infrastructure sparingly
and temporarily, as a way to get people to leave it behind. For example,
one of the topics at the surveillance event ought to be a how-to for
getting the snoops & stalkers out of our lives: dumping Google, installing
security apps on your browser, installing an OFF switch in your mobile
device, etc., all with specifics: this email service, this app, here's
where to find it, how to do it, etc.
About Kapital:
Karl Marx got it almost-right, but "surplus value" is an abstraction: the
real deal is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Kapital depends on "energy
conversion." What humans are to Kapital, are highly efficient
energy-converters that turn calories into money. The abstraction layer is
between the work output of the human organism, and the translation of that
into money. At root, money is energy converted to information. And
information is ultimately Platonic, governed by math and orthogonal to
thermodynamics.
The goal of Kapital is to extract every calorie that's not needed to keep
the energy-converters producing and consuming. Latest example: Amazon's
patent for "predictive shipping," where they send you things that you
haven't ordered, but Amazon predicts you'll want, on the premise that
you'll probably keep them. Translation: people will pay for the "stuff"
because they're too tired to deal with the hassle of returning it.
Amazon predicts, humans acquiesce.
The reason that so many people "give up and stop caring" is that they are
being sucked dry. Think of all the "too tired" moments and what they have
in common.
In the end, the scam is self-limiting. Kapital thrives on the exponential
function: the unlimited growth of money and the economy despite the limits
of a finite planet. Kapital will break as it runs into resource limits,
including the limits of humans to relentlessly produce and relentlessly
consume.
-G.
=====
On 14-02-03-Mon 2:33 AM, David Keenan wrote:
Matt, I will bring up your point at the next organizing meeting for
sure. Thank you for being willing to sponsor.
Yardena - your point is exceedingly well taken, as I sit here from my
gmail account, writing about how if want to do the event, we should post it
on facebook...sigh.
To my discredit, I really don't have an answer for this one except that
in my opinion, email as a medium is itself an inherently broken means of
secure communication, a lotta people on sudo have google accounts, and yeah
sudo posts regularly to facebook, which is why I asked.. Sometimes you have
to reach out to people in an archaic medium they already grok - like on a
listserv, or fb - in order to tell them that is maybe not The Best Way.
Personally, once I gave up on email qua email as being meaningfully
secure, I sort of stopped caring who my provider was. Or teaching people
how to encrypt their message content, only to have them never get that
doesn't secure their attachments or the "metadata" or render messages
readable from the web from any device anymore or or or (I kind of hate the
term metadata btw, as in mass culture 'metadata' has seemingly come to
infer something other than 'our' data, and as if metadata is not also our
data, just like our non-meta data).
But yes for sure, if we care about 'privacy', we DO need to be off fb
(and onto building up diaspora or something similar), and, we need to be
off email. And use some darkmail, or otr or a private forum or something
else.
I feel like for us to all get off fb, we need a real alternative to go
to, and a campaign. Same with email. But before we build that up.. using
fb/email or not using it, it seems like being caught between a rock and a
hard place when trying to promote an event but not feed the biting hand,
you know?
As this is precisely the position I feel like the system of capital as a
whole places us in, far beyond mark zuckerberg and google and 'big data':
We can't help but feed the hand that bites us. We 'need' to be bitten, so
our traumatized, bitten selves can feed somebody or something else..often
while simultaneously handing a bite to somebody else less powerful, as in
in the case of gentrification. If that partially re-inverted idiom still
makes any sense..which um, no, looks like it doesn't. Well. Sorry, tired.
But I totally get you.
Yeah. Tired.
David
On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 1:12 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01(a)att.net>wrote;wrote:
Re. "what does the rest of sudo think?"
Microphones & cameras on shot-spotters? What about the
software-controlled mics & cameras on smartphones, that people carry into
indoor places where the DAC cameras and mics can't go? If it doesn't have
a physical OFF switch or a removable battery, it's always ON.
NSA snooping your metadata? What about Google Mail and Google Voice
scraping the full content of both sides of every email & conversation for
everything down to the level of "sentiment analysis" which is a euphemism
for spying on your emotions? "Targeted advertising" is a distraction; Big
Data is the real product.
DAC data center creepy? What about Facebook creepy, and Sudo having a
Facebook page, even as Mark Zuckerberg spends $16 million to buy up every
house on his block, so his neighbors can't do unto him that which he does
unto others...?
Big Power is inherently corrupt wherever it resides. Big Data is Big
Power. Even if it has good marketing, cute logos, total convenience, free
apps, free games, and endless entertainment.
Corporate power says "don't bite the hand that feeds you."
Resistance says "don't feed the hand that bites you."
-G.
=====
On 14-02-02-Sun 11:12 AM, David Keenan wrote:
Jeremy - Of course! And we should.
what does the rest of sudo think?
On Sunday, February 2, 2014, Jeremy Entwistle <jwentwistle(a)cryptolab.net>
wrote:
I think that's an amazing idea. How to do you
feel about the mesh and
our cryptoparty (2/23) being mentioned? As both are very practical methods
of promoting secure and decentralized communications.
On 2014-02-01 21:58, David Keenan wrote:
Hey all,
The Bay Area Public School has scheduled a surveillance awareness
event on Friday 2/21 7-9pm in the common room entitled Spied Upon:
Surveillance & Resistance. I was hoping we (sudo) could co-host this
event with BAPS, because I think it'd be really cool if we start doing
more events together. BAPS can do most all of the setup, but it'd be
great if Sudo can do outreach too, since I think it'd be in the
interest of both communities.
What do you think?
There's a twofold focus on informants and technological surveillance.
Here's the Sudo Room calendar EVENT LINK [1]. Details are below -
SPIED UPON: SURVEILLANCE AND RESISTANCE
Join us Friday February 21st 7-9 pm at the Bay Area Public School [2]
& Sudo Room
2141 Broadway (enter on 22nd), Oakland - three blocks from 19th St.
Bart!
Between the ever-present fear of informants to the profusion of
metadata collection and the construction of the Domain Awareness
Center [3] (DAC) in Oakland, the growing problem of surveillance has
made it into the mainstream dialog, but the people and communities
most affected are sometimes being left out of the conversation.
Join us for an evening of ideas, discussion and questions about
solidarity in the face of this intimidation. How do we support one
another and our movements when being targeted by police, surveillance
and informants? What are the legal, community and political responses
that can best keep the larger "us" safe and allow our movements to
flourish?
- SPEAKERS -
JASON KIRKPATRICK, filmmaker and activist, will show clips of and
discuss his upcoming film, _SPIED UPON_ [4]. Interviewing activists
across the world and telling his own personal story, Jason will take
us on a journey into one of Europe's biggest political surveillance
scandals, documenting growing movements of resistance to surveillance
along the way.
ZAHRA BILLOO, Civil rights attorney and Executive Director at the Bay
Area COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS [5] (CAIR), speaks on the
use of informants in a post-9/11 context, their impact, the
community's resistance and lessons learned.
RICHARD BROWN, Black Panther and member of the SF8 [6], will share his
history with undercover police and surveillance, imparting the 'long
view' of solidarity learned from a lifetime of activism.
- PANEL DISCUSSION -
Q & A with the speakers will follow in conversation with
representatives from:
BAY AREA ANTI-REPRESSION COMMITTEE [7]
BAY AREA COALITION TO STOP POLITICAL REPRESSION [8] (at AROC)
LEGAL WORKERS OF THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD [9] (NLG)
OAKLAND PRIVACY WORKING GROUP [10] (OPWG / anti-DAC)
All donations gratefully received will go to the Bay Area
Anti-Repression Committee and the Legal Workers at the Bay Area
chapter of the NLG - two groups long supporting the Bay Area radical
community with legal and educational assistance. Thank you!
Links:
------
[1]
https://sudoroom.org/ai1ec_event/spied-upon-bay-area-premiere-baps/
[2]
http://thepublicschool.org/node/36455
[3]
http://oaklandwiki.org/Domain_Awareness_Center
[4]
http://spiedupon.com/
[5]
http://www.cair.com/
[6]
http://www.freethesf8.org/who.html
[7]
https://oaklandantirepression.wordpress.com/
[8]
http://araborganizing.org/campaigns-our-work/coalition-to-stop-political-re…
[9]
http://www.nlgsf.org/national-lawyers-guild-mission-statement
[10]
https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com/
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