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Walter's Blog

"But how can you live and have no story to tell?" Fyodor Dostoevsky

Reflections on recent events, plus the occasional fact free rant unfiltered by rational argument.

"If you want to read a blog to get a sense of what is going on in Hong Kong these days or a blog that would tell you what life was like living in colonial Hong Kong, this blog, WALTER'S BLOG, fits the bill." Hong Kong Blog Review

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30/8/2017 0 Comments

'1984' - not an instruction manual.

George Orwell’s seminal work ‘1984’ was half right. The all-seeing system is here. It’s functional, monitoring our every move, detailing likes and dislikes, noting opinions. But Orwell got one thing wrong. Government’s didn't foster it. It wasn’t imposed on us, rather we’ve embraced and welcomed it to pry into all aspects of our life. The impact it's had is profound, evolving and somewhat disturbing. Facebook is watching you.

Interesting fact. Each year Facebook spends US$10 million lobbying to quash biometric privacy legislation. That’s serious money that is buying a lot of clout. Why would it be doing this? Simple. It wants to gather more data on each of us because that helps Facebook sell targeted advertising. It’s all about profit.

You may think Facebook is a social network tool. Wrong, it’s a huge data mining operation. And the real clever thing is that we are helping to populate the database. Further, every day we are teaching it to get smarter. Each time you tag someone in a photograph that feeds a massive facial recognition dataset. What's more, it's learning to recognise us from different angles and ages. Currently, about two billion of us are working as unpaid drones feeding the machine. That includes me.

‘People You May Know’ or PYMY is a subsystem within Facebook. That’s the bit that generates those friend suggestions. Algorithms do the data crunching using 100 plus parameters to make the links. Location, workplace, interests, group membership are but a few. Facebook is reluctant to talk details. What is certain, these algorithms are somewhat scary in the links they make. In several instances, unknown brothers and sisters have been brought together. That’s nice. Infidelity in marriages exposed; perhaps not so good. In one instance, the system started linking the patients of a psychiatrist. This inadvertently revealed people seeking mental health support. Not good.

In the wrong hands, these systems has the potential for great harm. In Australia evidence emerged in 2011 of outlaw motorcycle gangs building up a database of police officers. They attended passing out parades to take photographs of new recruits. These then matched in Facebook or elsewhere gave gangs a tool against infiltration. The gangs could screen their inductees, associates or contacts. Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty stated: “Face-recognition technology and the near-universal adoption of social networking tools by teenagers could have already made future covert police and intelligence operations difficult, if not impossible”. Witness protection programmes are also vulnerable.

But it cuts both ways. The same systems provide a gold mine of data to the authorities. People matching, movement monitoring, hangouts and habits are all treasure to investigators. The Yorkshire Ripper case exposed the weakness of paper based systems. The culprit, Peter Sutcliffe, interviewed nine times escaped undetected for years. He went unlinked in the mountain of paper the police investigators gathered. Facebook could do the job, with obliging criminals providing the source data.

Today, it’s terrorism that is driving the adoption of facial recognition. As a tool to track and interdict attackers its unparalleled. Again, such systems have a downside. They could pick up undercover cops and others who need to remain covert. Firewalls and tight protocols on usage are needed to protect those people. Moreover, the whole matter of data privacy when mass scanning a population needs addressing. It wouldn't take much for a rogue operator to deploy the system to check if his wife is having an affair. Or who is his daughter meeting? That’s at the less sinister end of the scale. Higher up the scale would be tracking by paedophiles of their victims.

And yes, the use of such systems for mass surveillance would herald ‘Big Brother’. In fact, the horse has already bolted and there is no point closing the stable door. Facebook and other systems are out there with our tacit blessing. On the other hand, some are beginning to seek a way out. Getting off the system might be an option except your pictures are already up there with a match made.

In response to these concerns, the right to disconnect and disappear is gaining momentum. Currently, there are no international standards. Meanwhile, the European Union has moved to a position that data privacy is a fundamental human right. This asserts that the individual must have control on how data is used. This has brought the EU into conflict with the Big Four - Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook. EU regulations in this regard enjoy application even if the server is outside Europe. Moreover, the burden of proof has shifted. It is the company - not the individual - who must prove that the data cannot be deleted. They must show it's still needed and relevant.

Yet real concerns remain if regulations lag. Michal Kosinski- an Assistant Professor at Stanford - discussed these issues in a recent lecture. He believes that within 10 years privacy will be gone. “For a motivated individual, for a motivated government, or an institution, there is very little to stop them from learning about you". Kosinski’s experiments have had astonishing results. He has shown that existing systems can predict a person’s sex, colour, and gender. Straightforward with a photograph. The worrying findings include determinations on people's politics, self-beliefs and attitudes on discrimination. Our inner-most thoughts are being caught by these systems. That's an ominous tool in the wrong hands.

It’s only a matter of time before, for example, people get refused insurance because of their online stuff. Facebook activity could reveal an unhealthy lifestyle with heavy alcohol consumption. Next data from your fitness tracker shows you are ‘sedentary’. Bingo, the insurance company has you as a high risk.

We need to sit back to reflect on these issues, although it's likely too late. Posting all those racy party photos may not have been so wise.

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27/8/2017 0 Comments

Friday Cartoon.

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26/8/2017 1 Comment

Bonkers Britain

A Traffic Warden in Leeds giving a wheelbarrow a parking ticket.

Every visit I take to the UK raises serious questions - who the hell is running this place? A cartel of petty-minded bureaucrats and jobsworths by my estimation. The two nuttiest subgroups in this milieu are the health and safety lot, followed by the crown prosecution service. Let's deal with health and safety first.

The official fervour for safety knows no bounds. The Royal British Legion no longer supplies pins with your poppy, because you may prick yourself and then sue them. Some bars are refusing to let customers carry trays of drinks. You need to be ‘professionally trained’ for that role. Business opportunity there. The rules covering schools are legion. No football - unless a sponge ball is provided. No conkers, no snowballs, no games of tag … no wonder the little ones are obese.

Even the well meaning get caught in the web of health and safety. Mrs Beryl Smith, a retired lady, tended the local communal flower bed. She spent her own money on tools and plants. The local council then intervened. Her efforts breached safety rules. The adjacent road was assessed as a risk. Thus she must wear a hi-vis jacket, deploy signs and appoint a lookout. The cretins from the local Health and Safety Executive must be so proud of their work.

My favourite from this litany of stupidity is the postman from a Berkshire village. He has refused to deliver mail to a single cottage located on the opposite side of a village street. He asserted its dangerous to cross the road. Moreover, the Post Office supported his judgement. Thus, he delivers mail on one side of the street. Then he moves to the next village, turns around to drive back on the opposite side. He can then complete his fraught mission. I wonder how this poor man survives day-to-day when he encounters a road to cross. One assumed that the ability to cross a road was in the postman test. It appears not.

If health and safety is perplexing, then don’t get me started on the whole ‘right to not be offended’ nonsense. Here we go. A Shropshire hospital refused funds from a charity because men dressed as nurses to raise money. A bunch of blokes pushing a bed raised £2500 for an electrocardiograph. But, to the guardians of our morals this ‘sexualized’ the image of nurses. This in turn makes life harder for them in the workplace. How guys in drag contribute to the inappropriate treatment of nurses escapes me. Jan Ditheridge, Chief Executive of the Shropshire Hospital Trust, managed to join the dots to make that mental leap. She refused the donation. At least some nurses saw sense. Posting comments on Facebook, they asserted their support for the ‘hairy legs in nurses uniforms’.

Next up we enter ‘Alice in Wonderland’ territory. We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. Wolf whistling is now classified as a ‘hate crime’. But it goes further. The Crown Prosecution Service has taken upon itself to priorities 'hate crime' to include hostility. This covers 'resentment and dislike'. Thus police officers and courts will spend time addressing a perceived dislike of a victim. The stupidity of this is evident. With knife crime rampant, frightful acid attacks by gangs on the rise, the police are busy investigating our thoughts.

And yet of more concern, and chilling, is the impact on debate and free speech. More on that later. Much of the momentum for these changes arise from stuff on the Internet. Someone once said ‘The best thing about the Internet is anyone can write anything. The worst thing about the Internet is anyone can write anything’. In reality, most comments are tiny, inconsequential bubbles of spite. Spitting forth in the ill-tempered Internet swamp. Most are written by people who are inadequate or just odd. It's also true that people say stuff on the Internet to others that would never be said face-to-face. Social norms evaporate, customs are dropped whilst simple civility vanishes. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of the beast.

Granted steps are needed to protect the vulnerable; children are an obvious example. The question is where do you draw the line and who gets to decide what's offensive?

In answer to that question, on university campuses, it appears that agenda-driven student bodies are calling the shots. Safe spaces abound. Speakers with opinions that differ from arbitrary agreed group-think get banned. This is so as not to offend delicate student sentiments. After all, these aspiring leaders can’t be bruised by having their world-view challenged. University deans and academics have capitulated to this absurd conduct.

Universities were once places that saw the young confront other worlds. By this they understood alternative insights, whilst in the process shaping their world view. Not anymore. Now I know I’m going to get into trouble, but it has to be said. The lefty-liberal types are driving this process. Why? Because I surmise they realise that only by shutting down debate, can they survive. Safe spaces gives them a fertile ground for fostering indoctrination of their agenda. The fascists did the same thing - so the old game plan is being applied.

Of course, it all rather falls apart when the 'strawberries' graduate to enter the real world of work. Unless they operate in a silo, their delicate skins will be battered by hostile opinions. Then, of course, they can play the ‘victim card’ by running to the Crown Prosecution Service. It's about to become a crime to cause offence. You think I’m jesting. Wait and see. Bonkers Britain just got more bonkers.

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21/8/2017 0 Comments