[liberationtech] Israeli AG Approves Tracking of Suspected Coronavirus Infections...

[David Stodolsky]

> On 16 Mar 2020, at 06:38, Robert Mathews (OSIA) <mathews at hawaii.edu> wrote:
> 
> So long as Privacy remains deeply misunderstood among all that value it, societies in all, will remain ‘hog-tied’, and unable to scale such capricious assaults upon it.  New explorers must awaken and venture forth to fruitful lands.  That is to say, with respect to desired Privacy and Security manifestations, journeys to new terra firma must be undertaken;  and buttressing those journeys must be, revolutionary brainwork & praxis.  Entirely new bridges too, are needed;  for in their collective absence, the negative eventualities imposed upon all - will soon be too costly a burden for each of us to shoulder; individually or collectively.  

The Snowden releases and the blatantly unlawful attacks upon Assange and others who try to inform the public of the crimes committed in their name have made it clear that elites worldwide are in a precarious position. From my upcoming paper ("Subverting Surveillance" or "Surveillance and goal formulation in mass direct actions”):

——————

— Abstract —

Public confidence in political leadership is very low. Dissatisfaction has been expressed through massive demonstrations. Online channels support highly flexible tactics that undermine attempts to suppress demonstrations. Protesters have employed both online and offline measures in order to undermine surveillance.

However, the avoidance of identification has also limited the effectiveness and continuity of the movements. Anonymity also opens opportunities for swamping of communication channels. Secure pseudonyms offer a way to maintain the protection of anonymity, while stopping the arbitrary creation of identities. Pseudonyms support reputation development, which permits the formulation of more complex goals and more organized direct actions.

Smartphones offer capabilities needed for both the physical and informational infrastructures necessary to coordinate independently of states. Large physical assemblies can take advantage of the local area networking capabilities of their phones. These physical meetings also make unique identification of participants straight forward. We have described some simple software developments that would facilitate coordination in these settings. 

— Introduction —

The acceptability of surveillance depends upon the degree of legitimacy of the organization collecting the data. When people feel that collection is improper, or lack confidence that data will be protected and used for their benefit, they may take countermeasures. For example, people may wear masks when attending a demonstration to protect their identity from being registered. People's confidence in authorities has apparently reached an all-time low. Lack of confidence in authorities is one important factor in the stall in immunization rates in recent years (Y. Mahboubi, 2019). Harrington (2017) notes “We also discovered a staggering lack of confidence in leadership: 71% of survey respondents said government officials are not at all or somewhat credible….” Evens, Stoker, and Halupka (2018) found “compelling evidence of an increasing trust divide between government and citizens” and that “fewer than 41% of Australian citizens are satisfied with the way democracy works in Australia.” Further, they found that the “Appetite for democratic reform is extremely strong.”

Dissatisfaction is also being expressed through direct action. “Global Protest Wave of 2019,” is a term used to describe the abnormally large number of high profile protests that happened during 2019 and have continued to happen in 2020; protests classified in the "wave" include those in the Arab world, Hong Kong, France, Catalonia, and Latin America” (Wikipedia, 2020). Lambert (2019) states “A burst of uprisings has engulfed the planet over the past several months. The common driver to these uprisings is the rejection of economic and social inequalities, and the loss of democratic control.” John Chalcraft (in McKenzie, 2019) of the London School of Economics and Political Science argued that while there were specific and varying triggers for the protests around the world, the existence of "a much wider lack of trust in the political elite, a feeling of crisis of authority, and a wide variety of grievances and feelings of discontent" in Chile, Lebanon, and Hong Kong amplified the initial protests into "sustained protest movements, continuing even after their initial grievance has been met." Le Monde (2019) described the changes as a "planetary demand [to] reconquer democracy.”

—————— comments needed, please request draft ——————


“Journeys to new terra firma” have been undertaken, but explorers have typically found that the ground is incapable of supporting them. Snowden knew the system from the inside, so he knew that the best he could hope for was a few days before his identity would become known and physical-space realities would terminate his freedom of movement. Assange was also in the know, but he also underestimated how blatantly the rule of law would be subverted. The message is that opponents of the elite will be subject to character assassination, legal attacks, and physical abuse when their identities become known. There have been public calls for the assassination of Assange by US politicians. In the poor countries, assassination of activists has become a routine part of business operations. The big mining companies in these countries fund counterinsurgency warfare. First, they “help” their opponents by providing their communities with some benefits. Next, they hire their leaders in order to co-op them into jobs that may be lost, if the company is forced to comply with activist demands. Assassination is the solution, when all else fails. Previously this was reserved for political leaders of poor countries:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2159.Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

Today, the counterinsurgency warfare, pioneered in the poor countries, is coming back to the imperial powers' homelands, with the help of surveillance capitalism and artificial intelligence. If you can be identified, you can be trolled, bankrupted, jailed, or killed. As Occupy Wall Street, and today the Yellow Vests, have shown, physical-space remains dominated by a feudal elite. However, Covid-19 could be what pushes a profoundly corrupt feudal system over the edge. We may see a long predicted economic collapse that makes “2008 look like a tea party.” We may see a political destabilization, if Trump is defeated, but claims he “won” in 2020. We may see the collapse of the dollar, when the $50 trillion being used outside of the US suddenly is cashed in. So, this new terra firma may not only be the promised land for the opponents of the elite, but also for the elite themselves who are seeking some safe place for their financial assets. However, the privacy of TOR, Bitcoin, etc. is not good enough. Both data and meta-data must be absolutely protected. One effort:

https://praxxis.io/xx-network-faq

Widespread application of these technologies is a precondition for an understanding of Privacy. However, a proper understanding requires that the new technology supports a new media that is free of elite domination. This can provide the basis for a recapture of physical-space, which we should be prepared for: 

https://groups.io/g/democracy


Coming back to Covid-19 control strategies, we must understand that the politicians are solving a problem that they have created themselves. The solution is always more power to the elite. In Denmark, the boarder is now closed, data privacy no longer exists, police can walk into any home without a warrant, and you can be forcibly vaccinated. Here is a summary sent out in response to a request by a family member:


Outbreaks like this are politically driven. This has been most obvious in China, which jailed the now deceased doctor that issued the initial alert, and Iran, which failed to cancel a large political event. These give some insight:

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/2/iran_coronavirus

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/2/iranian_infectious_disease_specialist_on_how

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/chain-reaction-eric-feigl-ding-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-inevitable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4FLqWw0CbQ


During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, one comment called it an indictment of capitalism and the associated immiseration of the African continent. Areas like this, that are often the source of viral epidemics, like AIDS, should have the world’s best hospitals, so that diseases can be immediately stopped. We know that AIDS was accelerated by the Reagan Administration that cut off all funding to deal with what was called, at that time, the “gay plague.” This kind of despicable behavior was duplicated in France and other countries. In some cases religious leaders called for the execution of infected people, thus ensuring a lack of HIV testing. 

In Uganda, the voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) program was delayed for a couple of years, after a US Evangelical missionary convinced the wife of the President that  male circumcision caused promiscuity - there is no support for this view whatsoever and studies show no relationship at all. About 30 additional children die each year from AIDS as a result of this delay, and hundreds of additional adults die. Denmark is engaged in cultural imperialism in Uganda, which is continuing this impediment to prevention. While the World Health Organization is coordinating the circumcision of an additional 27 million men in the most impacted African states, Denmark continues to protect and promote scientifically dishonest research undermining this effort:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-U3JTBCcFGKEeAyhwI2tJhBSXaozMQUd/view


The fact that apparently healthy individuals can transmit the virus is making control very difficult. I published a paper showing how to deal with inapparent infection over twenty years ago:

Stodolsky, D. S. (1997). Automation of Contagion Vigilance. Methods of Information in Medicine, 36(3), 220-232.  

https://sites.google.com/a/secureid.net/dss/automation-of-contagion-vigilance


A small study showed acceptability of the approach:

Stodolsky, D. S. & Zaharia, C. N. (2009). Acceptance of Virus Radar. The European Journal of ePractice, 8, 77-93. URL  

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_zxYlTkSnKQZXFsXzNwSDd3ZGs 


After a half a dozen attempts to get funding, I gave up on the idea of a contagion management test. After the #MeToo media explosion, I decided that I might pursue a test by focussing on the frontend of the design. A successful workshop led nowhere. I continue to seek an alternative strategy for funding this research. 



dss


PS: The History of the 1918 Spanish Flu

https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-march-9-2020/



David Stodolsky, PhD                   Institute for Social Informatics
Tornskadestien 2, st. th., DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
dss at socialinformatics.org          Tel./Signal: +45 3095 4070