(1)
This article is about the residual data of individuals gathered from facial recognition softwares planted on social media sites such as Facebook, and exploited to third party beneficiaries, discussing the potentials of cyber-warfare, militaristic regime control, and targeted political ads that could influence potential voters. Isn’t it too late to resist surveillance capitalism if the government already has enough data to annex these data’s and use them against us? These technologies have already come out and have been dissembled by many individuals who know how to un-mask and re-program data to replicate or alter its software. You cannot take back an invention once it has come out, making it harder to take off the market and regulate, and easier to get into the hands of positions of power and wealth.
(2)
I am not going to lie, this conference was a big run on sentence for me. Helen talked a lot about how data obfuscation is planted via privacy statements and agreements that are harder to discern and analyze for the average user. Data obfuscation hides behind contracts such as privacy agreements we sign before enlisting an app, sharing a location, buy a purchase on iTunes, etc etc. These incredibly long and dull contracts are hard to read for someone who is trying to download an app for a very temporary use, for example. I have began seeing these privacy agreements when I was young, but quickly became desensitized to them after trying to read one. I believe this type of data obfuscation is ethically okay in surveys, where you are agreeing to be deceived and the terms are easy to understand.
(3)
This article is about Chris Wiley, a gifted entrepreneur who had created an algorithm that determines a user of social medias’ preferences, and uses that information to target information at them that the algorithm finds relatable based on the information the user gives them(?). Wiley had no idea where it was going to go, and he has been trying to bring it out of the shadows for years. It is strange to think about, but a computer only holds as much information as it is given at the beginning by its creator, or so we believe given our technology today. While certain AI’s develop connections to their previous databases of knowledge, I think it is crazy but amazing to think about how some computers can analyze a persons personality better than a human can, perhaps. But this is a different usage of computer intelligence, and it plays on unknowing victims of the web. These “researchers” are using computer programming as proxies to gather personal data about people using methods such as data obfuscation within privacy agreements in order to prompt users into handing over their data. There is nothing academic in the way this data is being sold to third parties, some of which are military regimes, government programs, and unknown international companies. The potential for these vast amounts of personal data being spread to the wrong parties is almost inevitable if you own a phone or even any “smart” appliances or applications, even car GPS.
(4)
This article is about data of the personal locations of millions of people that is being integrated into new technological companies or apps, or collected from existing, and being easily accessible to even those closest to you trying to track your location routes and whereabouts. I think about how technology surveillance is getting more advanced every single day, and how apart from your employers or school being able to track you, this is also very concerning for victims of domestic abuse, or those with unstable home situations. Right now, having a phone on you is an extra security measure. It could save your life on the off chance, but it could also tip you off and make you a potential victim to those that might be wishing you harm. Technological surveillance could affect the individual and their relationship dynamics just as much as it could affect the relationship between them and their employer.
(5)
This article is about how colleges use technologies such as tracker “social credit” apps to monitor students whereabouts, attendance, and habits. Feeling like you’re being watched or monitored at all times, psychological effects could suggest that students are being “infantilized where they’re expected to grow into adults”. This reminds me of that one episode of Black Mirror, where everyone’s lives was based on a “social credit” system, and you were kicked out of society once you reached a certain rating below average to the standard. Apart from that, labeling a student as doing below average and monitoring them more than “average” students does more to lower their self-esteem than to boost it. If you are already in a vulnerable position, and someone comes to your dorm to say that they have been watching you in the state that you’ve been in for the last however many weeks or months, thats a terrifying thought for someone who might be going through something traumatic or depressive. They are already flagged as being “below average”, while they themselves may not already be thinking too highly of their own selves. This categorization and monitoring would only go to reaffirm their worst thoughts, never dispel them. Why not give them more accessible resources around campus and change the very culture instead of trying to micromanage and turn everyone into a “mono crop” (if you’re in the midwest aha).
(6)
This article talks about how the tracking of students and teachers on “social credit apps” is inherently flawed, because the data being extracted is based on society, which is inherently unequal. This makes a lot of sense, and is even harder to think about when I think about data being valued more over a persons own recollection or opinion. In the other article, a student lamented over the fact that faculty did not believe him when he said his app wasn’t working, and that he had in fact been present and early in class, when the monitoring app for his institution had claimed he had not been. I do not want to live in a society where the physical presence of data is deemed as the more tangible truth over a person beliefs and truths.