[sudo-discuss] Sudo! Wanna co-host this surveillance event?

[David Keenan]

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 at att.net>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 at att.net>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 at 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-repression/
>>>> [9] http://www.nlgsf.org/national-lawyers-guild-mission-statement
>>>> [10] https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com/
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> https://twitter.com/jwentwistle
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>>
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