[liberationtech] Strength of Political Action, In The Era of COVID-19... More Theatrics & Side-Shows.

[Marc Sunet]

Robert,

Thanks for your very detailed and down-to-earth summary of the
situation. Your summary is very enlightening and renders the news on
mainstream media a children's show in comparison. Based on your
statements and what I have read on the news so far, I do appear to be
misinformed and worried about the wrong problems. Your summary gives me
a glimmer of hope in that it makes it seem like one can still make sense
of the situation by asking basic, fundamental questions and not worrying
too much about, or being misguided by, details and technicalities (I
don't know if this was your intention).

One question I would like to ask you: given that hospitals are not BSL-3
facilities and given your stance on protecting health workers with the
right equipment, what is your opinion on how we are treating the other
"essential" workers: teachers, grocery store workers, delivery people,
etc? A worker on NBC news once said "we are not essential, we are
exhausted and expendable", which seems to resonate well with your
statements./
/

/> At the moment though, to say that we are NOT properly devoted,
constructed or orchestrated to attend to crucial problems related to
Privacy or Security of information, particularly for the "Information
Age", would simply be a gross understatement!/

/> NO "APP of the Month" is going to solve the increasingly gargantuan
problem.   After decades of big budget expenditures toward ensuring the
'Security of information', 'SECURITY" has remained elusive./

That has been my observation and worry too. I just don't see a
well-thought, end-to-end well-constructed solution in this area. All I
see is the advertising company and the rotten apple trying to exert even
greater control over society, in tandem with governments trying to slip
through surveillance systems in the name of public safety. I am of
course no expert in these matters, but the relevant parties just appear
to be moving in the direction of their own agenda without addressing
basic questions and without giving people the time to reason about and
question the consequences of their actions. I suppose the constant
references to this situation as "war" or "war-like" are just a
propagandist attempt to raise the sense of urgency so that they can move
along without people asking too many questions. It seems to be a remake
of past events, or maybe I am just completely paranoid...

Thank you for summary, once again. I also wonder -- what is the best way
to follow your work and your recent developments in these matters?

Marc

On 4/27/20 2:31 PM, Robert Mathews (OSIA) wrote:
> *David & Marc:*  Thank you, for your notes, and the pointers to
> resources.  I shall have to review the resources to which you have
> pointed, as time will permit.
>
> *LiberationTech:*  If I may, I would like to address a rudimentary
> concern WRT to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and to share a few informational
> considerations MORE broadly that are foundationally relevant to the
> SUBJECT AREA of concern to the members of this LIST.  I solicit your
> indulgence in advance.
>
> As a start, with good concern and respect for everyone's time, I shall
> aim to condense and concentrate my response appropriately. Before I
> move to share the aforementioned considerations, a quick note on the
> COVID-19 QR-Code app, now being used in China.
>
> On 4/24/20 1:43 PM, David Stodolsky wrote:
>> [ .... ]
>> A Chinese app allows users to display a Red,Yellow, or Green QR-code
>> on their phones, but this has no privacy protection. It does motivate
>> users, however, since the inability to display the QR-code makes life
>> inconvenient at best. 
>> [ .... ]
>>
>> dss
>
> 'Privacy Protection' is one of the many problems of this app. 
> Integrally, it is an application that is largely UNINTEROPERABLE.  To
> clarify, Chinese Citizen's COVID-19 related information were/are not
> accessible in cities outside the city of primary registry (Beijing..
> Wuhan, etc.).  And, naturally, from a technical point of view,
> Privacy/Security is 'at least' an INTEROPERABILITY and Information
> Systems' INTEGRATION problem too.   To design better apps, in this, or
> other cases, there MUST be better understanding of the inter-workings
> of systems.  It is that point precisely, that will be amplified next.
>
> In the span of a few short paragraphs, the aim is to appreciate the
> "root cause" relationships that tie the foundations of perennial and
> ubiquitous Privacy violations and Security breaches worldwide to those
> foundations of the now obvious - disastrous COVID-19 related global
> public health management outcomes.  Very often, many types of failures
> that are likely to rise from "the hoodoos" of defective and deficient
> policies and processes put into place, generally do not REVEAL
> themselves, until it is too late.  In the United States, State and
> Federal governments have been involved in preparations to confront a
> Pandemic for many, many years.  *So, why has the failure to confront
> and contain the enemy - been so devastating, prominent and shameful? *
> There is a GOOD DEAL to be learned by mapping and understanding the
> similarities between the large-scale failures in our ability to
> contain and manage the COVID-19 crisis globally, and how we fail to
> properly understand and manage Privacy and Security universes.   I
> shall begin by providing an analytically critical piece of information
> as it relates to COVID-19, to start. Ignoring the fundamentals -
> imperils us all.  Again, I beg your indulgence.
>
> *Very elementally, COVID-19 or SARS-CoV2 "is" a Bio-Safety Level (BSL)
> 3 organism (respiratory pathogen).*  This means, in the United States,
> if you are an accredited medical researcher with a professional need
> to handle SARS-CoV2 to fulfill lawful and accredited research
> requirements, you will be required and directed to do so in a
> laboratory, which is a certified BSL-3 Containment and Handling
> facility.   BSL-3 has within, very specific handling and containment
> protocols, procedures, tools, services, and command and control
> systems to protect the people working within, and more importantly, to
> withhold/contain and manage ANY and ALL BSL-3 organisms, from being
> released to the outside world.   Let us be firmly reminded at this
> point that any attempt to capriciously "re-label" and/or "anoint" a
> DEADLY PATHOGEN, as *a 'less deadly' pathogen**, does NOT MAKE it so! 
> Also, none can turn-back the clock on ineptitude and incompetence.*
>
> *So far, NOT one major media outlet* (among the hundreds we routinely
> monitor) in the world has reported, or discussed, these fine and
> crucial points.
>
> For weeks, in the middle of a pandemic, the public-debate in the U.S.
> revolved around the stocks and allocations of FLIMSY Personal
> Protective Equipment (PPE) "to guard" Frontline medical staff.  Allow
> me to be very precise about the technicality here.  Again, SARS-CoV2
> is a BSL-3 organism.   *Hospitals are NOT BSL-3 facilities (they are
> also not BSL-2 facilities),* nor are their STAFF sufficiently ATTUNED
> TO, TRAINED, and properly outfitted/instrumented to handle affects and
> consequences related to the presence of a pathogenic organisms in
> their midst;  in the air, or infecting their patients.   *The proper
> concentration/massing of resources and efforts should have continually
> and congruously (wholistically) been advanced toward protecting the
> public, and frontline medical workers everywhere, 'knowing the
> enemy';  a potent virus.   *Instead, and all throughout this time, at
> least in the United States, various policy and media elements have
> MATERIALLY been wasting time and energy, day-after-day, *mundanely and
> obtusely "gaggling"* on the IRRELEVANT and the INCONSEQUENTIAL;  a
> historical trend, and present experience, which has been *MOST
> exasperating for those of us who understand* the important CORPOREAL
> aspects of this crisis, and the gravity related to inactioned
> situations surrounding the crisis!
>
> To affirm this point another way, I draw your attention to the GRAND
> government supported video productions of the 1950's that attempted to
> shape the /"prophylactic actions"/ of U.S. citizens against harms
> caused by a nuclear blast, in the event that a nuclear weapon was
> dropped upon the United States by the Soviet Union.  In this select (1
> min) video segment
> [https://www.youtube.com/embed/IKqXu-5jw60?start=456&end=517&version=3],
> the narrator highlights that in the event of a proximal nuclear blast,
> it was crucial for Americans to /"duck and cover" /oneself;  that
> covering oneself, even with a thin sheet of paper, or a cloth sheet
> was very important, to not be a victim to severe burns.  All in all,
> such instructions defied the realities impressioned by Science, and
> was largely *intended to mollify the masses, while also imparting a
> broad-stroked general impression (varnish) to all that government
> entities were thoughtful, well-meaning, and well-configured to protect
> the masses.*  Consider that a 'flash-burn' from a nuclear blast the
> size and ferocity of a Hiroshima weapon is able to strip away and char
> all surfaces within a 10,000 feet blast radius.  So, if you were JUST
> outside this radius when an atomic weapon exploded, you may have been
> able to cheat "death-by-charring", but c/would have succumbed later to
> nuclear radiation/various cancers.  In any event, a veil of paper or
> cloth is no protection at all in such a case.  Those public service
> announcements were frightfully disingenuous, and DID sidestep the
> vastly obvious!
>
> Again, fact remains that *SARS-CoV2 is a potent contagion and
> pathogen, and that it requires 'BSL-3 handling'* cannot be diminished
> by any national leader's acts of pandering, or tidy 'vote-getting'
> words of placation.   The virus is an opportunist.  Fundamentally
> therefore, All MEDICAL staff, EVERYWHERE, NEED, and should be
> APPROPRIATED the "required grade and range" of tools and services to
> protect - when required to confront the likes of SARS-CoV2, so that
> our professional medical staff will stand empowered to protect those
> of us who become ILL, and the same staff will also be able to
> subsequently GO ON to treat others who would follow us in sickness.
>
> In the United States, the composition and emplacement of plans and
> instruments to confront Pandemics having been a running part of
> 'National Security' agenda, since at least the early 90's;  and in
> some cases, much earlier than that.  Despite this history of expending
> huge sums of monies on planning, organizing, exercising and reporting,
> what we have been able to witness recently is nothing short of a utter
> disintegration of those plans, services and orchestrations, failing to
> both protect, and to reconstitute functions of society.  What we have
> been witnessing is an entire failure of systems, and *of
> 'system-of-systems'.*  Lessons from societal confrontations with
> COVID-19 can be instructive on how we tackle 'Privacy and Security' as
> large-scale problems if we pay attention to details.    At the moment
> though, to say that we are NOT properly devoted, constructed or
> orchestrated to attend to crucial problems related to Privacy or
> Security of information, particularly for the "Information Age", would
> simply be a gross understatement!
>
> Lastly, there are at least two IMPORTANT, adjacent points to be noted
> here WRT COVID-19.  They are: *1)* large-scale COVID-19 failures have
> been blatantly visible across nations (large and small) from the East
> to the West, cultures, languages, ethnicity, socio-economic
> stratification, wide demographic ranges, etc.  And, *2),* COVID-19 is
> a *'SINGLE' enemy, a virus. * Now, in COVID-19 cases, WE KNOW (more
> than less), "what" manifests the "illness", and "how" the "illness"
> takes hold and advances.  And again, despite the billions we spent on
> constructing plans and the means to "effectively confront pandemics",
> and for decades, in the face of "clear and present danger", our modern
> systems, their capacities and their capabilities - have been over-run,
> and have even been out-stripped of utility in cases.  Moreover, beyond
> the failure of organizational components and systems, COVID-19 has
> also shown the frailties of our command and control enterprises.
>
> Allow me to stress that, *'Privacy' and 'Security' violations/breaches
> are multimodal* in their origins, in their types, locations, size,
> impact, value etc.   NO "APP of the Month" is going to solve the
> increasingly gargantuan problem.   After decades of big budget
> expenditures toward ensuring the 'Security of information', 'SECURITY"
> has remained elusive.
>
> Therefore, unless significantly greater and newer insight and
> comprehension of 'privacy' and 'security' elements are uncovered for
> the "digital life", we will surely not be able to confront the rising
> levels and the various types of threats that are foreseeable.   If
> conditions do not remarkably improve, and swiftly, our defenses will
> be akin to mounting a challenge against an artillery barrage with a
> pitch-fork!
>
> I present my apologies for the delay associated with my response.  The
> work-load has been prohibitive.
> --
> /Dr. Robert Mathews, D.Phil.
> Principal Technologist &
> //Distinguished Senior Research Scholar//
> //Office of Scientific Inquiry & Applications (OSIA)//
> //University of Hawai'i/
>
-- 
GPG: 9C2A AF1D CC91 0A53 AB0A  B6A1 C457 0E01 081F 8F91

https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/

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