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This situation: CASD in crisis after racially-charged text messages surface http://www.dailylocal.com/social-affairs/20130923/casd-in-crisis-after-racially-charged-text-messages-surface leaves the most important part of the story out. "On Aug. 15, a member of the district’s IT department discovered the text messages on Donato’s phone while copying data to a newly-purchased device." Why were they reading the txt messages? Was it part of a normal "audit" of employee phone usage? Was it a manual copy process? Or perhaps a manual verification of an automated process? I think my last 2 employee agreements (1999 and 2001) included clauses claiming that anything I do with company property was owned by (and, hence, accessible to) the company. So, it would be reasonable to expect them to _have_ access to txt message and e-mails. But, to the best of my knowledge, they never actually read those, much less listened in or recorded my phone calls. (Of course, I could be wrong.) I'd think the IT person in this case must have had some reason to read those txt messages in the first place. If not, then this is _categorically_ the same as a (warrantless) abuse of the NSA's surveillance task. And if they did have a reason, then it's categorically the same as a (warranted) use of surveillance. Even if you disagree about the categories, it still serves as a useful case because the Evil Doers(TM) were outed by the surveillance. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Let's get together and cry ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Well, it wasn't just any normal employee audit. This was the Superintendent of the school district and the school district Director of Athletics and Activities trading racist text messages. Discussing how many african-american teachers were getting fired due to budget constraints. And the school board was prepared to overlook the matter until someone leaked the transcripts to the district attorney's office. It seems that if you hand your cell phone to someone to have them transfer everything on it onto a new phone, you really can't have any expectations about privacy. -- rec --
On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:03 PM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Roger Critchlow wrote at 09/23/2013 01:49 PM:
> Well, it wasn't just any normal employee audit. Yeah, but did the IT person [know of allegations of|suspect] racist txt messages (or something else) _before_ they read them? If not, why did they read them? ... for kicks? ... bored during the copy process? If I gave you my phone to copy the data to a new device, would you read the text messages on there? To some extent, I think it might be typical for sysadmin types (e.g. Snowden) to read things they shouldn't read. And it flows well with the stereotype of IT tech support being snarky or dismissive to their customers ... a kind of grandiosity, entitlement, or unjustified superiority. > And the school board was prepared to overlook the matter until someone > leaked the transcripts to the district attorney's office. There's another similarity to the NSA case, I suppose ... but we can say the same about, say, Anthony Wiener ... or prostitution patronizing televangelists ... don't "come clean" until you get caught. > It seems that if you hand your cell phone to someone to have them transfer > everything on it onto a new phone, you really can't have any expectations > about privacy. Right. But the point is, can you have expectations of privacy at all, any where, any time, with any task? If so, where, when, what tasks? It strikes me that the more coupled we are into a collective, the less private we are. Full stop. If you want privacy, you need to live off the grid, by yourself, in the wilderness. But if you want to be a productive member of society, you have to submit to open data, open source, open everything. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella The first ones to sizzle on the judgement day ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/23/13 3:32 PM, glen wrote:
> To some extent, I think it might be typical for sysadmin types (e.g. > Snowden) to read things they shouldn't read. IT people are a control mechanism for organizations. Their job, unofficially, is to stay on top of things and make sure that computers & information does not differentially amplify the productivity of anyone but who management _wants_ to be amplified. Some IT people extrapolate from that responsibility even further. It's not unheard of for them not to be discouraged from doing that. "Bad sysadmin: You must now have a slap on the wrists or, no, how about a raise?" Their insights are too useful to the higher-ups to really do anything about it. Anyway, who would audit the auditor? I think it is a scale free phenomena, i.e. your boss behind it or it could be the POTUS. > Right. But the point is, can you have expectations of privacy at all, > any where, any time, with any task? Among other things our computers at least give us clear and unapologetic guidance: "Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized site [..]" Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by glen ropella
They were government executives using government equipment to discuss government business, I don't think they have any expectations of privacy. Nor does an officer of a corporation using corporation equipment to discuss corporate business get any expectation of privacy. I think you need a different straw man for your privacy arguments, these idiots aren't in the game. -- rec -- On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 3:32 PM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote: Roger Critchlow wrote at 09/23/2013 01:49 PM: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 09/23/2013 03:30 PM:
> Anyway, who would audit the auditor? I think it is a scale free phenomena, i.e. your boss behind it or it could be the POTUS. Exactly the point this situation highlights, to me. It's not about privacy so much as the ability to cherry-pick data and bias it for the consumption of others. Open everything means that only those with plenty of $$$ will be capable of defining the narrative. Roger Critchlow wrote at 09/23/2013 03:35 PM: > I think you > need a different straw man for your privacy arguments, these idiots aren't > in the game. I'm not making a straw man. I'm talking about a particular, actual situation. I see 3[*] unethical behaviors: 1) the messages themselves, 2) the IT surveillance, and 3) the board's (silent) condoning of the messages. How one prioritizes the 3 sins changes the evaluation (winners/losers, long-/short-term, policy/culture, etc.). Remove any 1 of the 3 sins and the character of the situation changes dramatically. [*] As with Snowden, I haven't decided if the leak is a sin or not. I do know people who would include it and give it the heaviest weight. That type of person prefers to "handle things in house". And I can't say they're entirely wrong. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Well there is the answer on the tip of my tongue ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/23/13 6:47 PM, glen wrote:
> Open everything means that only those with plenty of $$$ will be > capable of defining the narrative. This wasn't an "open everything" situation. The `collective' here was not a flat organization and the information wasn't posted on a bulletin board. In this story the IT people had privileged access to the organization's communication devices. I don't see why you jump to this conclusion. (It may be the correct one, I just don't see that it has anything to do with the story you referenced.) Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 09/23/2013 07:26 PM:
> This wasn't an "open everything" situation. The `collective' here was not a flat organization and the > information wasn't posted on a bulletin board. In this story the IT people had privileged access to the organization's communication devices. I don't see why you jump to this conclusion. (It may be the correct one, I just don't see that it has anything to do with the story you referenced.) Sorry. I tried to draw lines between this data point and others. While it's true that this isn't an open everything situation, it sits on a spectrum between complete isolation (everything closed) and complete integration (everything open). My original assertion about categories was an attempt to preemptively fend off arguments that this story is of a different _kind_ than the NSA or Manning stories. I see it as a difference in _degree_. The phones were public property, being copied by employees (presumably) paid through tax money. There is (usually) an implication of greater openness to public employees than private (along the spectrum through publicly traded companies to purely private to individuals, etc.). Even more openness/transparency is implied by the willingness of the board to cover up the incident. I can't imagine treating everything as a special case. The story I referenced is related, at least by the 3 breaches I mentioned, to every other asymmetric snooping (privileged access) story. Understanding how these special cases fit into the general societal architecture was, I thought, right in line with the purpose of this e-mail list. Anyway, clearly I've failed to make my point. Sorry for the distraction. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Is what the prophets have to say ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/24/13 11:58 AM, glen wrote:
> Understanding how these special cases fit into the general societal > architecture was, I thought, right in line with the purpose of this > e-mail list. Not objecting to the topic, just not following the logic. I see open source it as qualitatively different than the subjective openness one experiences in a large organization where there may not be day-to-day impediments to getting the information that is needed to do a job, but there are weak or complicated relationships reaching outside the organization. For example, a sufficiently large and motivated organization can get Windows source code [1]. More interesting is how different individuals can be closed in some respects (private) and open in others. That ability to open and close channels is what makes people autonomous, and is the basis for a free society IMO. Communication interaction regimes that are "open everything" are not in conflict with this. However, non-flat organizations where people give up the option of opening (or, in the case you cited: closing) certain channels means they may be less free in exchange for other benefits. The morons you mentioned just failed to calibrate to their environment. Marcus [1] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-opens-source-code-to-russian-secret-service-3040089481/ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 09/24/2013 11:47 AM:
> I see open source it as qualitatively different than the subjective openness one experiences in a large organization where there may not be day-to-day impediments to getting the information that is needed to do a job, but there are weak or complicated relationships reaching outside the organization. [...] However, non-flat organizations where people give up the option of opening (or, in the case you cited: closing) certain channels means they may be less free in exchange for other benefits. The morons you mentioned just failed to calibrate to their environment. Were I to allow myself to think in terms of disjoint "open" versus "closed", I would agree. But I don't think they are disjoint, even in the case of open source (e.g. GPL to BSD). There are all sorts of gradations, some of which map well to legal structures (contracts, statutes) and some of which don't. In the case of the 3 event types: 1) improper individual actions, 2) [ab]use of privileged access, and 3) information hiding, channels aren't open or closed, transparent or opaque. They're translucent. A good case to consider is the "black" budget of the intelligence community. Even before Snowden's leak, that budget was really just a very dark gray, not completely black. On the other side, an open source OS like Ubuntu is really a very light gray (due to the inclusion of some non-free drivers as well as the sheer size of and variety within the distribution). To some extent, what makes the obfuscator competitions (and cryptography) so interesting is the navigation between closed and open. And I think the same can be said of both subjective and objective measures of organizations. And what makes human systems so interesting is their very dynamic ability to navigate between closed and open. You can see very subtle opening/closing of channels in almost any human interaction, pairwise or one-to-many. It's certainly what drives humor, that balance between banality and wisdom, literal vs. metaphoric, transparent vs. opaque. The primary qualitative difference I see is (merely) that humans are distinct from their artifacts. But that difference is a lot like "life" or "porn". You know it when you see the difference between, say, a piece of code and the programmer who wrote it. But to sit back and _define_ the difference so that it applies generically can be problematic. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella You ain't digging on my questions ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/24/13 2:43 PM, glen wrote:
> Were I to allow myself to think in terms of disjoint "open" versus > "closed", I would agree. Ok, there's a matter of what switches really mean, or how the connectivity of a semantic network is connected. If you're talking about having potentiometers instead of switches, I'd say A/D and D/A converters are an adequate metaphor, and so open vs. closed still works. If a person can't make do with binary, well, gosh, what _are_ they good for? Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by glen ropella
Glen and Marcus -
Once again, I think you have outdone yourself on this topic... I wrote one of my long-winded missives and was about to send it when this response came in and decided not to corrupt the dialogue with (too many of) my own odd twists: Let me just say that I think human agency (which is probably just a specific if interesting example of agency in general, of life itself) lives entirely in a high dimensional manifold of information with the implied gradients. OF COURSE we try to manipulate the channels through which information flows in our artifacts (governments, organizations, communication systems, etc.). OF COURSE we don't want other agents (especially powerful, somewhat mindless, aggregate agents, such as the NSA, Mossaud, even Google or Amazon) to have too much transparency into our own information milieu (our actions, our preferences, our desires, our intentions) nor to maintain too much opacity into theirs (especially when it references *ours*). I very much agree with Glen's point here that it isn't open v closed, it is more/less open/closed relative to some ideal or some existing system. I don't fully appreciate Marcus response invoking A/D and D/A converters... I think the question of discrete v continuous is always an interesting one but I don't think that was Glen's point? - Steve > Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 09/24/2013 11:47 AM: >> I see open source it as qualitatively different than the subjective >> openness one experiences in a large organization where there may not >> be day-to-day impediments to getting the information that is needed >> to do a job, but there are weak or complicated relationships reaching >> outside the organization. [...] However, non-flat organizations >> where people give up the option of opening (or, in the case you >> cited: closing) certain channels means they may be less free in >> exchange for other benefits. The morons you mentioned just failed to >> calibrate to their environment. > > Were I to allow myself to think in terms of disjoint "open" versus > "closed", I would agree. But I don't think they are disjoint, even in > the case of open source (e.g. GPL to BSD). There are all sorts of > gradations, some of which map well to legal structures (contracts, > statutes) and some of which don't. > > In the case of the 3 event types: 1) improper individual actions, 2) > [ab]use of privileged access, and 3) information hiding, channels > aren't open or closed, transparent or opaque. They're translucent. A > good case to consider is the "black" budget of the intelligence > community. Even before Snowden's leak, that budget was really just a > very dark gray, not completely black. On the other side, an open > source OS like Ubuntu is really a very light gray (due to the > inclusion of some non-free drivers as well as the sheer size of and > variety within the distribution). To some extent, what makes the > obfuscator competitions (and cryptography) so interesting is the > navigation between closed and open. > > And I think the same can be said of both subjective and objective > measures of organizations. And what makes human systems so > interesting is their very dynamic ability to navigate between closed > and open. You can see very subtle opening/closing of channels in > almost any human interaction, pairwise or one-to-many. It's > certainly what drives humor, that balance between banality and wisdom, > literal vs. metaphoric, transparent vs. opaque. > > The primary qualitative difference I see is (merely) that humans are > distinct from their artifacts. But that difference is a lot like > "life" or "porn". You know it when you see the difference between, > say, a piece of code and the programmer who wrote it. But to sit back > and _define_ the difference so that it applies generically can be > problematic. > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/24/13 3:44 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> I very much agree with Glen's point here that it isn't open v closed, > it is more/less open/closed relative to some ideal or some existing > system. I don't fully appreciate Marcus response invoking A/D and > D/A converters... I think the question of discrete v continuous is > always an interesting one but I don't think that was Glen's point? I claim that the degree of openness of a composite channel is set that way for a reason. Examples: Half open, to hide corporate IP, while still disclosing that the product is cool. The closed bits being the details of the technology, and the concept/idea bits being open. All closed, to keep a secret. Almost open, e.g. anonymizing names to protect the parties involved, but disclosing their case files. Open, to have all available eyes on a problem, i.e. open source. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Marcus -
I'll concede (welcome it!) your point about a composite channel... I think the more apt description is a (not necessarily orthogonal) basis set? In your example, the "product feature description" component would *ideally* be maxed while the "technical details required to reverse-engineer/compete" would be minimized. These happen to seem to have discrete values (1 and 0) but in fact, due to implementation (and maybe strategic?) issues, they may take on a continuum of values. I still maintain that within one component (to whatever degree one can actually identify a single component that isn't subdivided into yet more refined components) the quality is somewhat continuous and often relative rather than absolute? In the Snowden/NSA example, there are questions such as "does the NSA charter include monitoring digital communications" and "is it appropriate/legal for the NSA to collect *all* electronic/digital communications" and "what are the implications of an individual obfuscating the nature of their communications through encryption, steganography, proxy servers, anonymous relays, etc." I think it is pretty much accepted that the NSA *exists* to monitor communications which in this era implies quite heavily, digital/electronic communications, but they are specifically excluded from applying this to US Citizens on domestic soil. I'm not up on how it applies to US Citizens on foreign soil (without a warrant), but the grey starts when someone on US soil (ISP on US soil?) communicates with someone *not* on US Soil (ISP outside US soil?). I think there are clear imperatives in the Fourth Amendment, expanded or illuminated in the 1967 Katz V US ruling which establish that any Gov't agency collecting *all* communications is totally out of line. There is, however, a grey continuum it seems in practice. Since the nationality of any given user of Google or Yahoo is quite vague (associated primarily with an IP address and maybe secondarily with a registered user identity) it can (and apparently has been) argued that *any* communication possibly includes a non-US-Citizen and possibly someone residing outside the borders of the US and it's territories. Most/All states have rules about how dark-tinted one's windows in one's vehicle can be. In the real, physical world, a LEO may, for example, see something appearing illegal (a clear plastic bag containing a white, powdery substance!!!!) through a vehicle window during a routine traffic stop which gives him the "probable cause" to go further, search the vehicle, seize the contents, etc... but it is much more grey as to whether the application of high-opacity film to one's windows of one's vehicle, making it very difficult for such casual observations to be made is legal or not... obviously panel-vans obscure vision more effectively than vans with dark windows... however... the same arguments banning darkened windows in a vehicle might apply to encrypting one's e-mail. but perhaps the same argument of a panel-van vs a darkened-window van may apply in turn? The basis of window-tint legislation implies that drivers need to be able to see clearly out the front and sides (plus rear via window and/or mirrors). This does NOT explain why most laws include "one-way" glass... where the driver can see *out* fine, but someone outside (to wit, LEO) can't see inside. There is no similar basis for encrypted data... the only reason to insist on the ability to read the data is the presumed *right* to do so. - Steve On 9/24/13 3:44 PM, Steve Smith wrote: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/24/13 5:08 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
In which case I roll out IEEE 754. Bits will do the job! Replace the `reasons' in my hypothetical composite channel with `legal arguments' and we can go anywhere. http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/memoforeignsurveillanceact09252001.pdf I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time (that last page). No, I don't buy that it's a feature that it is grey. It's just scary. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Marcus -
I don't doubt that bits *can* do the job (given that you HAVE enough and know *how much is enough*), but there still remains the question (in my mind anyway) of whether *thinking about* a system as discrete vs continuous is useful. I would claim that IEEE754 (formal specification of floating point numbers in digital systems) exists for precisely this reason. While many (all?) things *can* be modeled using discretized continuua, we still maintain the Real numbers as an abstraction for a reason... and not because they work better in digital computers.In which case I roll out IEEE 754. Bits will do the job! That is one of the things I don't trust about the implementation (and possibly conception) of our legal system... it does discretize and make reductionistic something which *I* claim is not (should not be?), human experience and interaction.Replace the `reasons' in my hypothetical composite channel with `legal arguments' and we can go anywhere. It is definitely scary! And yes, like many things, I too am sure "it seemed like a good idea at the time". If my logic tracks yours here, offering up "a purpose of a FISA search is to collect foreign intelligence" vs "the purpose..." gives the searcher pretty much carte blanche... when the NSA opens up your "thank you note" to your "Aunt Tilde in Des Moines" and reads it and runs it through some LSA algorithms and decides that the cadence of your text suggests a "high likelihood that one or both of the correspondents suffer from paranoid, delusional, schizophrenia", that the original argument of "it might have been a coded message between foreign spies! you never know!" is sufficient cause for the opening and the LSA, etc.". We may be arguing different points, however: I thought we were talking about the value and appropriateness of "transparency" in society, the relative value (to whom?) of asymmetric transparency (like my one-way glass in automobiles on public roadways?). The question of what can and should be (and what inevitably will be?) private or public in any (especially an Open) society. - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/24/13 6:05 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
I don't doubt that bits *can* do the job (given that you HAVE enough and know *how much is enough*), but there still remains the question (in my mind anyway) of whether *thinking about* a system as discrete vs continuous is useful.It seems unacceptable that a statement could stand like "X is 52% classified" where X is not an aggregate disconnected set of things, but some single fact in context. It would be just muddy guidance. The fact in context can be disclosed to a specific audience, or it cannot. It can't be disclosed 52% of the time. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Often, though, there is confusion about what the parameter to be discretized is. For example, you might use 'facts' as the parameter, and say something like "52% of the facts about Project X are disclosed in the press release." Ignoring the point that you have not disclosed what defines a fact, if you do not specifically say what parameter (I am sure there is a better word, not coming to mind right now) you are basing a measure on, there is room for confusion. If you say "Project X is 52% disclosed" a person could possibly thing that 52% of the times people asked about Project X, you told them all about it, and the other 48% of the instances you told them nothing. I posit that any such measure can be made about anything (which probably boils down to claiming that all discrete values can be made continuous, which at once feels wrong and is unsurprising) given enough formal surrounding structure defining the communication, but that such a qualification renders such a claim almost meaningless. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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On 9/25/13 12:00 AM, Arlo Barnes wrote:
Right. That's why I qualified it with "aggregate disconnect set of things". I mean that the hypothetical fact or relation was a primitive not a composite, e.g. "bin Laden believed to be in Abbottabad" (prior to his death). Another 99 facts, of which, say, 51 of them were, say, about locations of Galeb-4 fighter aircraft in the former Yugoslavia in 1999 prior to NATO bombings (info now available at www.foia.cia.gov, but then secret), and another 48 which were about the popular flavors of ice cream in Oklahoma City. In the case of one person probing sensitive personal information of another person, the latter might say "I'm not comfortable talking about that" or modify/truncate the details of story on the fly to not reveal their discomfort nor their information. In a triple store database, a query for relations would return different rows depending on who was asking, and no triples could be added for a lower security level if they were derived from queries made at a more restrictive level. Probably simply limiting records isn't sufficient -- a triple store front end might also sometimes need to invent proxy information (cover stories) to maintain self-consistency. Quantitative information is tricky, since anything that is revealed is a stake in the ground for future queries, e.g. Glen's example of the black budget could be deduced within wide error bars by starting with the country's GDP as an upper bound. Bit it is absurd to make the GDP a secret. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 09/25/2013 05:26 AM:
> In the case of one person probing sensitive personal information of another person, the latter might say "I'm not comfortable talking about that" or modify/truncate the details of story on the fly to not reveal their discomfort nor their information. > > In a triple store database, a query for relations would return different rows depending on who was asking, and no triples could be added for a lower security level if they were derived from queries made at a more restrictive level. Probably simply limiting records isn't sufficient -- a triple store front end might also sometimes need to invent proxy information (cover stories) to maintain self-consistency. Arlo's point brings up the difference between a measure and a generator. While it makes perfect sense to use a digital classification scheme (confidential, secret, top secret, nuclear, etc.) as a guide for an individual (artifact or human) making a decision, it is unreasonable to expect that classification scheme to arise naturally. The thing about measures is that they can't really be planned, at least not completely. E.g. whether George W. Bush will be considered anything other than an idiot 100 years from now is not something we can specify. Hence, measures tend to produce continua, even if forcibly discretized. So, again, it seems the qualitative difference we've identified is not, say, between source code and companies, it's between artifacts and organisms. But this makes me wonder if it even makes _any_ sense to talk of open, muxed, or closed artifacts at all? The end behind the means of all this is the living beast constructing the artifacts. And, as Steve points out, only to the extent we can create artificial beasts (like your semi-intelligent database), to install higher functions like agency into our artifacts, can we can begin to call those beasts open, muxed, or closed. I suppose this is just another form of Stallman's argument for viral openness in the face of the weaker forms. The real target is the behavior of the humans. The fossilized imprints of their behavior is only a side effect. But that takes me back to the main issue, which is the privileged access of the morlocks. Can the eloi _ever_ expect privacy? -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Who cares to care when they're really scared ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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