bbc horizon

BBC Horizon 2014-2015 Episode 4: Inside the Dark Web

Published on Sep 3, 2014

2 min ish – we have seen all the good of the web – but not the bad

really? i think we are missing the main good…

who we talk to and when is just as important as what we say – David Chaum

22 min – the more anonymous users – the harder to track

what if we just focus on something else for people to do, ie: perhaps we haven’t seen all the good. perhaps realizing more of the good – and letting everyone play – will help make the bad irrelevant

26 min – syverson – tor

27 min – the more anonymous the people, the tighter the security – so open (tor) net to everyone – navy

turned over to people like Jake Appelbaum – people they thought could give the internet free speach

29 min – gives every person a voice – Jake

32 min – tor vital in syria, china, iran, and….

33 min – tor allows people to reveal corruption – wikileaks – Julian Assange –  to be able to communicate one to one freely

36 min – on the one hand – people are defending tor – they’ve even told me they like what i’m doing in other places – but why am i doing it here – Jake

38 min – tor attracts a darker type of user – silk road – global drug markets place – bitcoin allowing transactions to be mark-less

42 min – the mathematics of bitcoin

oh my.. we are working too hard at the wrong things..

45 mi – dread pirate roberts – channeling bitcoin – ross albrecht – 28 mill when they took him in

starfish ness – not a stop

46 – yeah – site up again.. and joined by host of other sites… boom industry of dark web – financial crime

something else to do ness – we’ve got to change the game. we can.. so that all are free.

49 min – narratives of anonymity – Jake

50 min – opposite – online passport – because privacy has disappeared online anyway

52 min – information boundaries are important – we’ve got to have tech which can produce privacy – Tim Berners-Lee

53 min – it is to cryptograhpers that we must look for answers – Steve Crocker – chair of board of icann – one of godfathers of the internet

Jake Davis – not able to share his expertise till 2018

54 min – what Steve and his group are doing – biggest upgrade in 20 yrs… changing every 3 mos.. each one keys in

again – this looks like too much

55 min – when we encrypt our data we change the value that mass surveillance presents – Jake

encryption is our defense agains the dark – Ed Snowden

56 min – problem – encryption is not user friendly – so that is the next challenge

57 min – programmers need to help build the tools to make this easier – Tim

58 min – much easier to encrypt than decrypt – the universe favors privacy – Julian

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intro’d to horizon via tweet by : Francesco Carollo

– who also sent me this:

https://medium.com/@Innovandiamo/the-algorithmic-power-that-shape-our-lives-ad7ff2a7a353

I decided to write this post after reading this brilliant piece by Zeynep Tufekci and also a couple of tweets by Salvatore Iaconesi, especially this one.

Zeynep, Salvatore

check this out:

Eli Parisier in his famous TED talk dated 2011 — followed up by a book, argues that these personalised algorithms, designed to provide us with the most relevant information we seek, tend to produce a final negative outcome: we end up surrounded by content and people which/who tend to be aligned with our vision of the world. In this way we (un)consciously build up safe bubbles which lack conflict and diversity, narrowing down our outlook of the world.

Encouraging conflict means also empathy and respectfully argued dissent. Friction. There is no progress without it.

During my research, the Twitter algorithm gently brought to my attention this thought-provoking piece by Peter Olsthoorn — which by the way I have already mentioned a couple of lines above. Digging up further I have found out that he actually wrote a book about this very topic: you can download the free pdf edition here or you can buy the conveniently cheap one.

Peter argues that the filter bubbles as described by Pariser kill serendipity,

as deprives us more and more of encounters with unexpected sites, opinions and people. The online life becomes predictable indeed.

Marketing profiling through technology cannot represent the Sense we are looking for.