The Dominion - technology

Online Confidential

dawn — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:06:11 +0000

Free software project provides secure alternative to Skype

MONTREAL—Increasing awareness of state surveillance following the 2010 Olympics and the G20 summit last year has prompted greater scrutiny of the lack of privacy offered by most telephone and online communications.

Historically, there haven't been many easily accessible options to reliably provide secure voice communications. That situation changed dramatically in June of this year when a free software project called Jitsi was released, allowing the average computer user to reliably encrypt voice and video communications over the internet. In addition to the software, Jitsi has also released a service called jit.si that allows anyone to create free accounts using Jingle, an open internet communications protocol that is also used for Google Talk.

This combination of software and service provides a secure, accessible alternative to Skype—a corporation that has a history of collaborating with state surveillance. They have worked with the government of China to create a version of their software that tracks certain keywords that are sent in instant messages through the Skype network.

Skype advertises their calls as encrypted. But the security of their system can't be verified because it is proprietary, which means they won't publicly reveal how it works. This is not likely to change any time soon. In May of this year Skype was acquired by Microsoft, a company which is known for selling proprietary software with poor security, such as the Windows operating system.

As a free software project, the source code for Jitsi is available for anyone to examine and modify. This is especially important for programs that are providing security, because it allows for public review of the software to help find any flaws that may compromise the intended security features. Jitsi uses a standard real-time communication encryption system called ZRTP, which was first released in 2006 and has since been peer-reviewed by at least eight different cryptography research teams. This system is very easy to use. A call is made to someone else using the same system. Once the connection is established, a four-character code will appear on both ends of the conversation. If the people talking confirm that these two codes match, it indicates that there is no one listening in on the call.

Despite the strengths of ZRTP, there are always limitations to the security, whether for Jitsi or any other communications software. For example, there is a special kind of malware that can record a conversation directly from the audio input and output of a computer.

While Jitsi runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, it is much easier for malware to infect a Windows operating system than the other two. Of course, if there is a listening device planted inside or near the computer that is being used, or if the person on the other end is not trustworthy, the security of the conversation is compromised no matter what operating system is being used.

Encryption of the content of a conversation is also limited because it will still be clear that a conversation has occurred, and under most circumstance it wouldn't be difficult to figure out who was on either end of the call. This information can be useful from a surveillance perspective for mapping social networks.

Currently, the US government already does this kind of traffic analysis for all of the phone calls that are made in the United States. Fortunately, it is possible to evade this kind of tracking by using anonymity software such as Tor, which can send your network traffic to a global network of computers in order to make it much more difficult to track your location and identity. It is possible to route Jitsi traffic through Tor, allowing for communication that is both anonymous and secure.

Currently Jitsi is only designed to work on computers, but a version for Android phones is under development. However, there are already secure communications options available for Android phones. A company called Whisper Systems has developed two apps for Android. One, called RedPhone, makes calls through a smart phone's data plan and encrypts them using ZRTP. The other is called TextSecure, and it encrypts text messages.

If smart phone and data plans become more affordable, these Android apps will become important tools for secure mobile phone communication. In the meantime, many people have access to computers, and Jitsi now provides a good way of using them to communicate securely.

Boskote does research and workshop facilitation on secure communication with ATS (Anarchistes pour des technologies solidaires/Anarchist Tech Support).

Encrypted talk

Beating Bad Habits

Tim McSorley — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:00:27 +0000

How community organizers are working together for more secure online communications

Image by Shira Ronn

KITCHENER, ON—Over the past two years infiltration and disruption of activist and media organizations as well as anarchist communities by undercover cops have been on the rise across Canada. This has included high profile cases of police infiltrating groups organizing resistance to the 2010 Winter Olympics on Coast Salish Territories and the G20 summit in Toronto.

Throughout these experiences one thing is now clear: beyond our often naive approach to security culture many in the social and ecological justice movements are not practicing good computer security habits.

In response to this growing need the Montreal-based Anarchist Tech Security collective (Anarchistes pour des technologies solidaires—ATS) formed after the G20. Mobilizing to fill the tech security gap they provide workshops and information about online safety and anonymity. “I think in a general sense we are working on bringing the secure technologies and useful tools to anarchists,” said founding member Boskote (a pseudonym).

The ATS has been travelling throughout the Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario since summer 2010 holding workshops on tech security in front of all kinds of crowds: from small groups in living rooms to standing room only halls at anarchist book fairs.

“People were stressing due to all the surveillance and we responded to that,” said Boskote. “Email and instant messaging is insecure by default; it was normal, but as surveillance and infiltration was becoming more obvious, that normal became a problem.”

Beyond showing participants how to set up certified and encrypted email, anonymous and secure web browsing and verified and encrypted instant messenger programs, the two-and-a-half hour workshop also opened up discussions on hard drive and file encryption, security firewalls and the way internet communications work. Sometimes the workshops were followed by discussions on open source software (see box 1), steps for establishing difficult to break passwords (see box 2), or emerging ideas on the intriguingly named “zones of opacity.”

”The inspiration for the ‘zone of opacity’ comes from a community in Athens, Greece, where there is a really strong anarchist presence,” said Boskote. “The relationships...and all the aspects of what is going on in a space (physical, social, or technological), are opaque to the state or other form of dominating power,” he explained. “It is not possible for the state to see or know what is going on there.” The ATS emphasizes that if the state cannot determine your daily patterns and movements, your attitudes and relationships, or how you accomplish the objectives of your aspirations, it will be hesitant to invade your community’s spaces.

“We hope to help build zones of opacity in anarchist communities,” said Boskote. “If we can prevent the state from surveilling us we will be stronger.”

One of the challenges of sharing these kinds of skills, though, is the widely varying degree of experience among community members. While some—especially those with prior computer experience—have found the ATS's information relatively straightforward and easy to understand others find the learning curve a bit steeper.

“[The workshop] was a lot of info and I will likely have to go over a lot of it again,” said one participant after their first session with ATS. “But it was surprising how easy it was to set up and start using these tools. Plus, if practicing better computer security will help keep my friends and allies out of jail, then yeah, it is obviously worth it.”

It is not only participants who are still adapting to the new reality of online security.

“Far from being experts, we started out knowing nothing about this. We were figuring it out by ourselves and it took quite a while,” said Boskote. “It is through the process of these workshops that we are learning more and more about computer security as some people who come attend the workshops help to fill the gaps in our knowledge.”

It is important for us to recognize the values in the way these tools were created, Boskote said, relating as they do to the horizontal, anti-corporate organizing of the subculture of open source software and self-identified hackers who built these tech security systems.

Even with this recognition however, he explained “The technology that we use needs to change along with, and contribute to, the changes of the rest of society.”

With so many in need of creating a safer space online, and with a limited supply of knowledgeable facilitators, people may be overwhelmed at the prospect of setting up their own systems of computer security. Thankfully, those who are yet to organize a tech security workshop in their town can start practicing good computer security guided by great online resources.

Security In A Box is a collaborative project whose aim is to "meet the digital security and privacy needs of advocates and human rights defenders." The site includes how-to guides addressing various digital security issues and offers free instruction taking users through the processes of setting up and maintaining private internet communications and secure file storage systems.

With the spread of social media, computer security and web anonymity have become important issues. “The kind of information people are posting on the internet is the kind of stuff that the state usually infiltrates groups to get: social networks, personal relationships, day-to-day movements. That is what surveillance is and that is a major problem that needs to be criticized and thought about,” said Boskote.

Noting that facebook and other social media are “really useful tools,” Boskote argues that “we need to figure out how to separate out their usefulness as tools and the dangerous aspects of sharing information that the state can use to infiltrate, disrupt and repress our movements. We need to use the tools in a safer way.” (See box 3.)

As social and ecological justice movements grow in the face of increasing criminalization of dissent, there is a need to build a tech security culture beyond the use of secure communications and Trojan-free computers. (Trojans are malicious programs which create “back-door” access to your computer over the internet or use your computer to carry out attacks on other computers).

“We stress this in our workshops: tech and computer security technologies are necessary but not sufficient part of security culture,” said Boskote. Taking out your cell phone’s battery while planning demonstrations may eliminate audio surveillance but, as was highlighted at the ATS workshop, if tech security is being used and the other security measures are being ignored then there are obvious failure points. In other words: tech security does not identify an infiltrator or informant in your community.

In addition to understanding and implementing computer security, the need to build supportive and resilient communities that communicate across regions remains. “There is no way to make communication 100 per cent inaccessible to surveillance and it's obviously not possible to make ourselves socially secure,” said Boskote in his final remarks before departing to New York to hold another workshop at the city’s annual anarchist book fair. “In both cases, we just have to try our best. Security goes way beyond tech security.”

Box 1

Quick Reference Guide:

More Secure Email address: riseup.net, resist.ca
Secure Email Client: Thunderbird with gpg and enigmail addons
Browser: Firefox with ToR (software which works to anonymize web browsing), noscript, https anywhere addons
Online Chat (most services): Adium or pidgin with otr plugin
Encryption: True Crypt
Operating System: Linux
“Secure” social networking: we.riseup.net
Guides and Info: security.ngoinabox.org- security.angrynerds.com - help.riseup.net - we.riseup.net/ats-mtl

Box 2

Password creation:
Search Youtube for: How To Choose Strong Passwords

A sentence that only you will think of/a unique phrase that you will remember (8+words long).
Substitute numbers for words where possible or add numbers to end of phrase.
Take the first letter from each word.
Substitute special characters and numbers for letter (a=@, s=$, i or 1=!, etc.)
Use suffixes for different sites (facebook=fbk, twitter=twt, youtube=ytb, etc.)
Have a few of these passwords depending on how secure you need.
Change passwords every 3-6 months.

Box 3

ATS Facebook Tip
Setting up a single account on Facebook which is for a whole group who shares a password, where members can access the accounts anonymously through ToR (torproject.org), and folks can communicate with these entities and remain anonymous. It does not get away from all the problems of Facebook but it creates barriers between these online presences and peoples’ actual identities. Things like that try to make it so we can use these important tools when it is necessary without having all the negative consequences.

Dan Kellar is an organizer with AW@L in Kitchener, co-host of AW@L radio on rabble.ca and 100.3 SoundFM co-op radio Waterloo, and was a co-conspirator with the 2010 G20 and anti-Olympic media centres.

This article was produced with the support of Koumbit, as part of an ongoing series on technology, society and politics. Koumbit is a non-profit company which promotes the use of free & open source software by community groups in Quebec, Canada and abroad.

Tech Watch

C02 Pipes

hillarybain — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:28:17 +0000

Encana’s compound in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, home of the world’s largest carbon-sequestering operation. Oil companies see potential in carbon sequestration, but many environmentalists view it as a Band-Aid solution.

Risky Business

hillarybain — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:23:11 +0000

Climate change “quick-fixes” are good for business, but may prove disastrous for the environment

"With the impacts of climate change becoming more evident every day and the need for action more urgent, it's likely that rich, panicky governments will gamble on quick-fixes rather than risk inconveniencing their electorate and/or offending industry." This is the warning expressed in a recent report from the Ottawa-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group).

"Every crazy idea is being brought out and dusted off to try out on policy makers," says Pat Mooney, co-author of the report and executive director of the ETC Group.

The focus of the report, entitled Gambling with Gaia, is geoengineering. Geoengineering is the intentional, large-scale manipulation of the environment by humans to bring about environmental change, particularly to counteract the undesired side-effects of other human activities.

Among the scientists covered in the report is Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, whose controversial geoengineering essay proposes to blast particles of sulphur into the stratosphere – increasing particulate pollution – to shield the Earth from the sun's rays. Crutzen presented his findings at the UN conference on climate change in Nairobi in November 2006. An Associated Press report notes that Crutzen said he was "not enthusiastic" about the proposal, but made it to startle policymakers into realizing that "if they don't take action [on climate change] much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this."

Despite his intent, the Nobel Laureate noted that the reception to his idea was "more positive" than expected. The article notes that during the same week as the UN convention, NASA's Ames Research Center was hosting a closed-door, high-level workshop on Crutzen's proposal and other geoengineering ideas for fending off climate change.

Geoengineering isn't only being discussed behind closed doors. Experiments have also begun on the open ocean, reports the ETC Group. Since 1993, there have been at least 10 experiments to seed sections of the ocean's surface (from 50 to 150 square kilometres) with iron filings. The European Union and at least nine national governments – including Canada's – have supported these "iron fertilization" projects. The experiments are based on the argument that iron nurtures plankton growth -- and plankton absorbs carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.

It's not clear whether carbon dioxide absorbed by plankton will remain permanently sequestered, however. "You can't get two scientists to agree on the results," says Mooney. "Some say they see great potential in the field. Others say that the carbon dioxide may be captured temporarily, but might pop up again in a few weeks." The consensus that does exist, continues Mooney, is that this is "risky business."

After one expedition in 2002, in which three tonnes of iron particles were dumped into the ocean, the project's chief scientist, Dr. Kenneth Coale, told Popular Science: "What is still a mystery is the ripple effect on the rest of the ocean and the food chain." One fear, notes Popular Science, is that huge plankton blooms, in addition to gorging on CO2, will devour other nutrients. "A fertilization event to take care of atmospheric CO2 could have the unintended consequence of turning the oceans sterile," said Coale.

Despite the uncertainty within the science community regarding whether iron fertilization works, or if it has unintended consequences (like the sterilization of parts of the ocean), the business community is moving forward.

Planktos Inc. is a self-described "for-profit ecorestoration company" based in San Francisco with offices in Europe and British Columbia.

In 2007, Planktos will begin what its website terms: "plankton restoration, by replenishing forest-sized areas of ocean with natural iron-rich dust, just as Mother Nature does." This will provide the company with "saleable carbon credits for emerging environmental markets."

By purchasing carbon credits, companies or individuals can "buy the right to pollute" according to ETC's report, "by investing in projects that are deemed by 'experts' to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide." For example, Plaktos will "negate" your SUV's annual carbon footprint for the bargain basement price of fifty bucks.

The problem, says Mooney, is that there's no scientific proof that carbon dioxide absorbed by the plankton won't be re-released. "But companies serving the carbon market need only keep carbon dioxide out of sight for long enough to cash their cheques," says ETC's report. "If the carbon dioxide pops back up to the surface in a year or five, proving its source could be extremely difficult."

In Weyburn, Saskatchewan, home of the world's largest carbon-sequestering operation, another geoengineering experiment is already well underway – and is proving highly profitable. Oil giant Encana is compressing carbon dioxide and pumping it 1500 metres underground.

According to a February 10 article in the Globe and Mail, this system of sequestering carbon dioxide prevents the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and "wreaking havoc with the environment," and "is seen by some experts as the ultimate solution to global warming." Encana, however, has other reasons to pump carbon dioxide underground. Its ultimate function is to force more crude oil to the surface; the company's output has jumped from 10,000 to 30,000 barrels a day since beginning the practice.

For projects that won't profit from carbon capture and sequestration (those that won't see an increase in output), companies like Shell and Suncor are looking for Canadian government support to develop the technology. This is not where the government should be spending climate change funds, says Lindsay Telfer, director of the Sierra Club's Prairie Chapter. "We're talking about some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, there's no reason why government needs to be subsidizing this development."

Much like carbon sequestration in the oceans, it's not yet clear if carbon sequestered underground would actually stay there. Even if carbon dioxide does stay underground, "carbon capture and sequestration is a Band-Aid solution," says Telfer. "We need to be transitioning away from fossil fuels towards more renewable energy sources."

Both Telfer and Mooney recognize the value of geoengineering research and the important role technology can play in addressing climate change – they have no illusions about the immediate need for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – their concern, however, is that government and industry will be seduced by quick-fix technological 'solutions' that don't address root problems – and that might not even combat climate change.

"We need to look at the root problem that's driving climate change. We know it's burning of fossil fuels, but what is the system that that's happening in?" asks Telfer. "Part of that root cause is that we have a toxic economy." Our economic system promotes the idea of "infinite growth," a concept, she says, that is fundamentally unsustainable.

Humanity (primarily in the West) consumed more resources after the Second World War than all of human history before that, says Mooney. And global energy demands are expected to jump 60 per cent between 2002 and 2030. Not only is this environmentally unsustainable, he says, but a fundamental injustice.

Benefits and impacts of 'development' and technology are not equally felt, says Mooney. Right now, between 300,000 and 500,000 people die in developing countries each year due to the impacts of climate change, he says. He's concerned that geoengineering 'solutions' will also hurt those with the least money and power on the planet. "Who gets to adjust the mirrors in the stratosphere?" asks Mooney, referring to another geoengineering scheme that would place trillions of sun deflectors in the stratosphere. "And if you stop crops from burning up in the US, do you burn up the crops in Africa instead?"

Geoengineering "doesn't at all address the inequities in impacts," says Telfer. She notes that if we do manage to fend off climate change without addressing root environmental and social problems, we'll simply face a new crisis. "Next, it will be water."

"Are there root issues here that we're going to have to deal with if we're going to address climate change in an effective way?" asks Telfer. "Are we willing and ready to go there?”

“I think we need to be talking about it."

C02 Pipes

Greening the Reality Distortion Field

dru — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:03:55 +0000

After 30 years, Steve Jobs still has the ability whip lot of people (well, journalists and geeks, anyway) into a frenzy of anticipation and speculation. The famed reality distortion field is stronger than ever. Why, I remember being a junior high kid compulsively reloading the MacWeek web site in a beta version of Mosaic on similar occasions. And "why?" is indeed the operative question. There's no rational reason to get riled up about this stuff, excepting perhaps that shiny things are neat. Oooh, shiny.

Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 20:03:49 +0000

As questions about the accuracy of the anyone-can-edit encyclopedia persist, academics are split on whether to ignore it, or start contributing

The journal Nature published a study comparing the accuracy of scientific articles in Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. photo: Wikipedia

Alexander M.C. Halavais, an assistant professor of communications at Quinnipiac University, has spent hours and hours wading through Wikipedia, which has become the Internet's hottest information source. Like thousands of his colleagues, he has turned to the open-source encyclopedia for timely information and trivia; unlike most of his peers, he has, from time to time, contributed his own expertise to the site.

But to Wikipedia's legions of ardent amateur editors, Mr. Halavais may be best remembered as a troll.

Two years ago, when he was teaching at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the professor hatched a plan designed to undermine the site's veracity — which, at that time, had gone largely unchallenged by scholars. Adopting the pseudonym "Dr. al-Halawi" and billing himself as a "visiting lecturer in law, Jesus College, Oxford University," Mr. Halavais snuck onto Wikipedia and slipped 13 errors into its various articles. He knew that no one would check his persona's credentials: Anyone can add material to the encyclopedia's entries without having to show any proof of expertise.

Some of the errata he inserted — like a claim that Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, had made Syracuse, N.Y., his home for four years — seemed entirely credible. Some — like an Oscar for film editing that Mr. Halavais awarded to The Rescuers Down Under, an animated Disney film — were more obviously false, and easier to fact-check. And others were downright odd: In an obscure article on a short-lived political party in New Brunswick, the professor wrote of a politician felled by "a very public scandal relating to an official Party event at which cocaine and prostitutes were made available."

Mr. Halavais expected some of his fabrications to languish online for some time. Like many academics, he was skeptical about a mob-edited publication that called itself an authoritative encyclopedia. But less than three hours after he posted them, all of his false facts had been deleted, thanks to the vigilance of Wikipedia editors who regularly check a page on the Web site that displays recently updated entries. On Dr. al-Halawi's "user talk" page, one Wikipedian pleaded with him to "refrain from writing nonsense articles and falsifying information."

Mr. Halavais realized that the jig was up.

Writing about the experiment on his blog (http://alex .halavais.net), Mr. Halavais argued that a more determined "troll" — in Web-forum parlance, a poster who contributes only inflammatory or disruptive content — could have done a better job of slipping mistakes into the encyclopedia. But he said he was "impressed" by Wikipedia participants' ability to root out his fabrications. Since then several other high-profile studies have confirmed that the site does a fairly good job at getting its facts straight — particularly in articles on science, an area where Wikipedia excels.

Among academics, however, Wikipedia continues to receive mixed — and often failing — grades. Wikipedia's supporters often portray the site as a brave new world in which scholars can rub elbows with the general public. But doubters of the approach — and in academe, there are many — say Wikipedia devalues the notion of expertise itself.

Perhaps because of the site's refusal to give professors or other experts priority — and because of an editing process that can resemble a free-for-all — a clear preponderance of Wikipedia's contents has been written by people outside academe. In fact, the dearth of scholarly contributions to the site has prompted one prominent former Wikipedian — Larry Sanger, one of the site's co-founders — to start an alternative online encyclopedia, vetted by experts.

Perhaps the biggest and most well-known attempt to grade the quality of Wikipedia was done last year by the journal Nature, which published a study comparing the accuracy of scientific articles in Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Staff members at the journal chose articles from each reference work and sent them to a panel of experts in the respective fields, who reviewed the texts for factual accuracy, misleading statements, and key omissions. The reviewers found, somewhat surprisingly, that Wikipedia was playing in Britannica's ballpark: An average Britannica article had about three errors, while a typical Wikipedia post on the same subject had about four.

But as the encyclopedia's popularity continues to grow, some professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the site's vast and growing collection. Those scholars' take is simple: If you can't beat the Wikipedians, join 'em.

Proponents of that strategy showed up in force at Wikimania, the annual meeting for Wikipedia contributors, a three-day event held in August at Harvard University. Leaders of Wikipedia said there that they had turned their attention to increasing the accuracy of information on the Web site, announcing several policies intended to prevent editorial vandalism and to improve or erase Wikipedia's least-trusted entries. "We can no longer feel satisfied and happy when we see these numbers going up," said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's other co-founder, referring to the site's ever-expanding base of articles. "We should continue to turn our attention away from growth and towards quality."

Still, not all of Wikipedia's most-active contributors want academics in their club. They argue that an army of hobbyists, teenagers, and even the occasional troll can create a more comprehensive, more useful, and possibly even more accurate resource than can be found in the ivied halls.

Read the original article in full at The Chronicle of Higher Education

As questions about the accuracy of the anyone-can-edit encyclopedia persist, academics are split on whether to ignore it, or start contributing.

Listening To The New Museum

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:09:36 +0000

Podcasts are changing the way we see and hear museums

New technology is bringing fresh voices into traditionally stodgy places. photo: Jimmy James

With the May 26 opening of its Heteropia exhibit, the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) has joined the prestigious ranks of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia in a movement that could change the way visitors experience museums. Each of these museums now offerS audio tours of their hallowed halls downloadable in advance to any MP3 player.

New podcasting and audio recording/playback technology is breaking new paths in what is often seen as the decidedly stodgy and last-century culture of museums and art galleries.

The OAG's version comes with a twist. While the MoMA and Pez offer officious tours laden with classical music and musings of curators and experts, the OAG's tour is directed by the artists themselves. "Compared to larger museums, it will be more relaxed. Each of the artists [on the MP3 recording] has a different style," said Veronique Couillard, public programming director at the OAG. "It lets visitors see a different side of the artist." The program will also allow a smaller independent gallery like the OAG--which cannot afford to bring in large numbers of speakers or to constantly have expert guides available--to offer a new, inexpensive dimension to its exhibits. Beyond helping smaller, cash-strapped museums, this technology has the potential to radically change the way we perceive and interact with museums and art galleries.

Although modern museums are primarily independent, not-for-profit institutions, for a long time they were the halls of official information. According to Kyla Tichkowsky, who holds an MA in Museum Studies from McGill University, it was no coincidence that museums proliferated at the same time western states began turning to democracy. She says the ruling classes established museums as a way to present the information they felt the common people needed before they went out to vote.

"It was a way for the power of the dominant class to maintain the status quo. The people who had control kept control," explained Tichkowsky.

In more contemporary times, museums have become the refuge of tourists, students and others wishing to get a snapshot of a place or time in history or art. And while their purpose has shifted emphasis from official mouthpiece to academic endeavor, the language, lay-out and overall atmosphere of a museum remains decidedly that of a central authority handing down the "official" truth.

Just as more affordable digital video cameras have affected the film industry, low-cost, user-friendly MP3 recorder/player technology can help foster a decentralized "Do It Yourself" (DIY) ethic, presenting alternative information created outside the sphere of institutions, big business or specialists.

While podcasts and online audio-tours had already begun popping up in the far reaches of the Internet, Art Mob brought the trend into the spotlight when it was launched last year. This class project from Marrymount Manhattan College took an irreverent twist on the MoMA. Professor David Gilbert had his class record their discussions regarding various artworks from the MoMA permanent collection and upload the audio for others to download. While the content itself is not overtly political, the idea behind it had the DIY motivation that has inspired many to take the art and academic world out of the hands of experts and place it into the hands of the general public.

"I want [Marrymount students] to learn that they do not have to be passive consumers of content from any medium, whether it be television, radio, the Web, or even an art museum like MoMA," Gilbert told the Marrymount Manhattan Monitor last spring. "From an organizational perspective, we see something important happening today. Thanks to personal computers and decentralized technologies of communication like the Internet, it has become harder for organizations to maintain proprietary control over their goods and services."

Like any trend, DIY audio-guides have already begun to "go corporate." Both MoMA's are obviously attempting to lure in more visitors with their downloadable tours. There are also open-air, city tours available for download across the Internet, but even they have not been able to escape a level of corporate assimilation. Soundwalk.com is perhaps the clearest example of making a buck off of the new technology. However, with non-corporate sites such as www.podguides.net coming online, the use of audio-guides for political and cultural subversion continues at the margins.

Museum podcasts have yet to hit Montreal, and according to Marie-France Lapointe, communications director at Pointe-à-Callière museum, it could be a while before that happens--at least officially.

"At Pointe-à-Callière, we focus a lot on the interpersonal expert. Instead of simply hiring guides, we employ experts in archaeology and historians who provide valuable information to our visitors," she explained, adding that human guides allow for greater interaction and allow for questions and answers.

The concern of a decreased human interaction isn't the only potential obstacle to this new museum experience. Even with the increased affordability of MP3 players and audio recorders, as well as growing access to the Internet, the question of who has access to this technology remains.

For the OAG, the benefits of the technology outweigh the costs. The gallery is making at least two MP3 players available on loan, a measure that will hopefully provide a more interesting experience on a lower budget. While there is potential for change, though, it could be a long time before it seriously challenges mainstream museum tours, particularly in the face of resistance from more traditional curators.

"There is a fear in the museum community that the curator loses their authority," said Tichkowsky. "But the idea is to acknowledge other voices and different kinds of authority. It takes away from the curator the role of being the only authority. That ideology has a lot of potential to change things."

Originally published by Siafu Magazine

Podcasts are changing the way we see and hear museums. Tim McSorley listens in.

Nanotechnology and the Rebirth of Alchemy

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 03:59:53 +0000

Are converging technologies laying a golden egg?

This February, the smallest test tube in the world was manufactured by scientists at Nanotech.org, a joint venture between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and Hitachi Europe Ltd. The test tube is so small that around 300 billion of them would fit into one of the periods (.) on this page.

In January of this year, researchers at the University of Toronto reported that they had combined quantum dots with a polyment to create a new type of solar panel five times more efficient than current technology.

A computer generated illustration of the 'pea pod' system, a nanotube is filled with fullerenes. Photo: Nanotech.org

In Thailand, scientists at Chiang Mai University's nuclear physics laboratory have rearranged the DNA of rice by drilling a nano-sized hole through the rice cell's wall and membrane and inserting a nitrogen atom, changing the colour of the grain from purple to green.

Kraft, Nestle, Unilever and others are employing nanotech to change the structure of food. Kraft is creating "interactive" drinks, for example, that can change colour and flavour.

Even in an era of radical technological change, it sounds like science fiction. But this type of research is typical in a field that is working at a scale so small that the laws of physics and chemistry governing everyday life no longer apply.

IN BOX:
Nanotechnologies either on the market or soon to be on the market:

stain-resistant fabrics for clothing and bedding
cosmetics and sunscreens
tennis balls and racquets
bowling balls
odor-eating socks
time-release perfumed fabrics
paints
capsules carrying hemoglobin (under development)
sensors to test water impurities
spray-able vitamins
nanoparticle water purifiers
ski wax
Humvee turrets
longlasting paper
nanotubes for flat panel display screens
artificial silicon retinas
several drug delivery systems
flash memory devices
diagnostic agents for use in MRI scans

Two years ago, the ETC Group, an Ottawa-based think tank that monitors technological developments, called for a moratorium on nanotechnology research. Their justification: research and commercialisation of nanotechnology is happening below the radar screen of regulatory agencies, limiting society's ability to assess risks and regulate dangerous uses.

Two years later, the call for a moratorium still stands. In a telephone interview, ETC Executive Director Pat Mooney said "Today, there are more reasons to be concerned, as there are now [nanotech] food products and pesticides on the market".

A number of recent studies point to possible health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology. Guenter Oberdoerster, an environmental toxicologist from the University of Rochester, reported in Inhalation Toxicology (2004) that inhaled nanoparticles accumulate in the nasal passages, lungs, and brains of rats. In Toxicological Sciences (2004), NASA scientist Chiu-Wing Lam reported that a suspension of carbon nanotubes (one of the most widely used nanoparticles) placed directly into mouse lungs caused unusual lesions that can interfere with oxygen absorption.

The first study of the impacts of nanoparticles on a species in their natural habitat was conducted by Eva Oberdorster in 2004 and the results were published in the Environmental Health Review. Largemouth bass suffered oxidative damage to their brains and water clarity increased, possibly indicating that bacteria were being killed.

The UK government commissioned the Royal Society to investigate the ecological and health risks associated with this new technology and the resulting report, released in the middle of 2004, was strikingly cautious. "Until more is known about environmental impacts of nanoparticles and nanotubes, we recommend that the release of manufactured nanoparticles and nanotubes into the environment be avoided as far as possible."

According to Mooney, "The report shocked the Americans that the British were expressing so much concern. They were taken off guard. Industry was caught with its pants down. They are embarrassed that there are more than 400 products in the market place that are not regulated.".

Sean Murdock, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, a nanotechnology trade association, is quoted in the Environmental Health Review, "The risks are there, they're real, but they're manageable," he says. "And on balance, with the right processes in place, we're going to be able to deal with all of those risks, we're going to mitigate those risks, and we're going to realize the upside of the potential."

There is now a flurry of discussion in industrialised countries about regulation. In Canada, the issue is being considered by an interdepartmental committee. Canada has also placed it on the agenda for the upcoming Edinburgh G8 meeting to initiate international discussions.

Nanotechnology is unusual in its scope; its interdisciplinary nature spans the physical, biological and engineering sciences and leaves no major research area untouched. On agriculture alone, its potential impact is overwhelming, according to a report published by the ETC Group last fall. Hope Shand, ETC Group's Research Director said, "Over the next two decades, technologies converging at the nano-scale will have a greater impact on farmers and food than farm mechanisation or the Green Revolution."

In Canada there are active nanotechnology clusters of approximately fifty firms in Edmonton, Montreal and Vancouver. In 2001, the Canadian and Albertan governments and the University of Alberta jointly announced the creation of the National Institute for Nanotechnology, a $120 million investment over five years.

Global Investment in nanotechnology research and development has increased approximately seven-fold in the last six years from $432 million in 1997 to $3 billion in 2003 with at least thirty countries initiating publicly funded activities. If private investment was included, this total would reach $8.6 billion by 2004, according to US analysts at Lux Research.

The issue goes beyond nanotechnology to the convergence of a range of technologies. ETC writes "the US government refers to convergence as the integration of Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science (NBIC) and envisions that the mastery of the nano-scale domain will ultimately amount to the mastery of all of nature. At the molecular level, in the NBIC worldview, there exists a "material unity" so that all matter--life and non-life--is indistinguishable and can be seamlessly integrated. The goal of NBIC is to 'improve human performance,' both physically and cognitively (e.g., on the battlefield, on the wheat field, on the job)"

Nanotechnology challenges society with fundamental ethical issues, according to Pat Mooney, "What is life and who is human? ...bio-nanotechnology raises questions around biodiversity and what constitutes living material that have to be addressed right now".

Is nanotechnology moving too fast for us to assess the risks that might be involved? Yuill Herbert reports.

Canada to See Internet Levy?

Tue, 23 Nov 2004 18:53:44 +0000

In early November 2004, the standing committee on Canadian Heritage resubmitted its recommendations for updating the Copyright Act of 1998 and ratifying the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaty. Among the recommendations is the institution of an Internet "levy." The levy, paid by all Internet users, would go to a collecting society similar to CanCopy. The idea, says the committee, is that everything on the Internet is created — and thus copyrighted — by someone. The collecting society would gather money for copyright owners in exchange for the use of their material.

In comments that appeared in the Globe and Mail on November 11, 2004, copyright lawyers stated that if these changes are made into law, "You will not even be able to own your own wedding pictures or save a Web page without paying for it." Copyright laws currently regulate technologies used to make and distribute copies.

Some say that while an Internet levy is well-intentioned, it ignores the basic fact that the Internet functions as a medium for the inexpensive transfer of large amounts of information.

A technology news commentator for BoingBoing.net wrote, "The approach that WIPO took in regulating the net was to create a set of rules that tried to make the Internet act more like radio, or TV, or photocopiers — like all the things that it had already made rules for. The WIPO approach treated the ease of copying on the net as a bug and set out to fix it."

Chris Brand, a Vancouver software developer, launched a petition for users' rights in April 2004, calling for Parliament to respect public rights in the Copyright Act.

» Globe and Mail: Ottawa's copyright plans wrongheaded, experts say

» Boing Boing: Canada wants an internet lvy – fight back!

» Petition for Users' Rights

New Brain Machine Improves Musical Creativity

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 14:09:36 +0000

Image: Ftrain.com

Yes, you read the headline correctly, and no, I can't believe it either, but apparently scientists have invented a brain machine that dramatically enhances musical performance, thus paving the way for a new race of highly skilled super-musicians. According to the BBC, "the system - called neurofeedback - trains musicians to clear their minds and produce more creative brain waves. Research, to be published in the journal Neuroreport, indicates the technique helps musicians to improve by an average of 17% - the equivalent of one grade or class of honours. Some improved by as much as 50%."

The brain machine was tested on 97 students at the Royal College of Music in London, UK, and the percentage scores refer to examinations conducted by professional adjudicators. Anyone who has ever taken piano lessons as a child and gone through the trials of Royal Conservatory exams will understand that a 17% grade boost represents an incredible increase in musical proficiency (enough to send even the crankiest of teachers into fits of joy). But the student wouldn't be able to take the credit - thank the brain machine instead.

Most musicians feel that their best performances are the ones where the music just pours out naturally, and such moments of effortless vitality are usually rooted in a clear state of mind. Teachers will try to describe this state of awareness to students, but it's very difficult to put such a thing into words. As it turns out, its not so difficult to put it on a video screen.

The brain activity of a healthy human being can be understood as a collection of brain waves which scientists have learned to identify and isolate. With no musical instruments in sight, the technique consists of attaching sensors to your scalp so the machine can identify three main patterns - dubbed the alpha, beta, and theta waves - and display your own brain waves on a video screen in front of you. From there, as if playing a video game controlled by her mind, a musician can learn to concentrate and hone in on certain brain waves while the machine happily chimes a bell as she successfully learns to isolate one from the other. By teaching patients to increase their theta wave activity, scientists at Imperial College London and Charing Cross Hospital have effectively used the machine to help patients with epilepsy, alcoholism, attention deficit and post-traumatic stress disorders. The new development is that scientists have discovered that increased theta wave activity also enhances performance skills including musical understanding, imagination, and communication with the audience.

And so it is that machines have become far more effective than traditional human teachers in helping us to clear our minds and enhance our creative side. If such technology manages to spread beyond the limits of the experiment and grow in availability it will surely provoke no end of debate between the technophiles and luddites of the arts community. Since it so dramatically boosts performance skills, should musicians who use the machine be banned from competition with those who never had a chance to get hooked up? And from a philosophical standpoint, will this discovery come to be seen as the moment when all of our creative impulses were reduced to waves on a screen, shattering the mystery of the muse and sucking the wonder out of grace and inspiration?

I hope not. I can envision professional musicians who might chastise students for using such a machine, but what I cannot see is a good reason for their scorn. In its time, the invention of the metronome was no doubt met with similar resistance based on similar, unfounded reasons. The machine is not a performance-enhancing drug; it is a teaching tool. Its availability is prohibitive, of course, but so are the costs of tuition and of owning a professional musical instrument. Nor does the machine eliminate the need for practice; instead, if the technology becomes more widely available, it will simply raise expected performance standards for the next generation of musicians.

The philosophical implications may be another source for apprehension, but those who dismiss the discovery are probably the same people who want to cling to the notion of creative talent as being reserved for a chosen few, something you have to be anointed with at birth. But such views are as ignorant as they are selfish - musical talent is something that can be developed, and in a few cases, revealed dramatically by a special teacher. Perhaps this technology will be able to open up creative potential in those who were discouraged from pursuing music but have always secretly wished to be able to strum a chord. Which has to be a good thing.

Matt Brennan is studying media and culture at Stirling University.

-by Matt Brennan -

Headlines

Thu, 26 Jun 2003 09:36:40 +0000

Flooding in India Leaves 400,000 Homeless

A major flood on the Brahmaputra river caused by heavy rainfall displaced over 400,000 people in the Indian state of Assam this week. In 2002, a similar flood forced 10% of the area's population of 26 million to relocate. The floods are a regular occurrence in the region during the monsoon season. (Environmental News Service)

Protesters in Sacramento: highlighting alternatives to genetic engineering. photo: Biotech Indymedia

Almost Half of US Senators are Millionaires

Financial disclosure forms released last week revealed that at least 40 out of 100 US Senators possess a net worth of over $1 million. Of the millionaires, 22 were Republicans and 18 were Democrats. All but six were men. A similar, earlier report revealed that all of George W. Bush's Cabinet are worth six figures or more, with several multi-millionaires, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld among them. (CNN, Washington Post)

13,000 Muslim Men to Be Deported from US; New Canadian Laws Put Into Practice

US immigration authorities called for 82,000 Muslim men living in the US to take part in a special registration between December 2002 and April of this year. Now, 13,000 of them are facing deportation. According to a report by the World Socialist Web Site, the Justice Department issued numerous statements stating that there was "nothing to fear". 11 of the 13,000 are alleged to have terrorist ties, though these are unspecified.

Fayiz Rahman of the American Muslim Council was quoted as saying that the program was "targeted only towards Muslims.... They are planning to reduce the number of Muslims on American soil... discourage Muslim immigration, make our lives difficult." A Justice Department report issued on June 2 documented numerous violations of civil liberties against Muslims directly following September 11th, including "verbal and physical abuse, withholding of counsel, and denial of bond."

A year-old Canadian law enables CSIS, with the authorization of the immigration minister, to detain immigrants indefinitely, without charge or trial (See Canadian News, page 2). (World Socialist Web Site, New York Times, Agence France-Presse, Montreal Muslim News)

Biotech Conference in Sacramento Draws Protests

The US Department of Agriculture staged a conference in Sacramento, California designed to promote the virtues of biotechnology to various foreign ministers before the upcoming WTO summit in Cancun. The US and Canada have been continually at odds with Europe over the issue of Genetically Modified (GM) foods; many African countries have declined imports of GM foods for fear of contaminating their own crops and cutting off essential European markets.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman touted GM crops and free trade as solutions for starvation in developing countries. Outside, protesters sought to draw attention to alternatives in organic farming and other sustainable practices, while decrying the unforeseeable consequences of biotechnology. Critics have argued that famine is almost always a consequence of faulty distribution mechanisms, not insufficient supply. Others have accused the US Government of subsidizing unsold GM crops by foisting them on developing countries through USAID. (Indymedia BioTech, Mercury News)