Monthly Archives: June 2013

PRISM – Why I care, and you should too

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There’s been a firestorm of controversy on the internet following the leak of the NSA’s data gathering program codenamed PRISM. Frankly, I’m not surprised and had suspected this was happening. In fact, Wired magazine produced an article in May of 2012 revealing that the NSA was building the country’s biggest spy center in Utah (view article here). No one seemed to care much at that time.

Today, it’s hard for me to get that excited about PRISM. As far as I know, I’m not involved in any illegal or illicit activities, so even if all of my digital fingerprints were made public, I wouldn’t have anything to hide. But it’s not today that bothers me. Tomorrow is why I care about PRISM, and why you should too.

While my digital fingerprint may be clean today, there’s no guarantee that people who come to power in the future will see my activities that way. What if they determine that anyone who has liked a specific Facebook page is considered an enemy of the state? What if certain digital “friends” get into trouble and because you are associated with them through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or some other network that you are deemed guilty by association, even if you don’t know the person? What if the data falls into foreign or nefarious hands, and they use it to target specific types of individuals? If you think these are paranoid far-fetched ideas, here are three events that occurred during the last major world war that should have you thinking otherwise.

  1. The German census – 1933
    The Germans began conducting a census in 1870, and held one approximately every 5 years thereafter through World War 2. For the most part, these census were simply a matter of counting the population, a seemingly innocuous task. However, with the Nazi rise to power in the 1930’s, the government used the census of 1933 not only to count the population but also to identify nationalities, most specifically Jews. The data was poured over to determine things such as family lineage in an effort to identify people who may have lied or avoided detection. The census was such a powerful tool for the Nazis that it was administered in most of the territories Germany seized during the second world war.
    Data sourced from Wikipedia article concerning the German Census
  2. Japanese internment camps
    If you think that persecution of nationalities could not happen in the US, Japanese internment camps are a stark reminder. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans along the West Coast were rounded up and imprisoned in internment camps. It’s estimated that over 150,000 people were interned, with over 60% of them American citizens (see Wikipedia article here for more detail). The internment began in 1942 and lasted until the Supreme Court overturned the legality of the internment in 1945. It was believed and eventually proven in 2007 that the US Census Bureau provided confidential neighborhood information on Japanese Americans to assist with the internment.
  3. McCarthyism
    The 1950’s coincided with the spread of communism, and in an effort to suppress communist efforts in the United States, people who had been affiliated with communism, were viewed to be soft on communism, or even were associated with alcoholism or sexual deviancy were considered threats to America. Even things such as Anti-American books were viewed suspiciously. The investigation was led publicly by Senator Joseph McCarthy, but much of the data and information he utilized was supplied through FBI investigations led by J. Edgar Hoover. Activities I’m sure many people thought were innocent or protected by their First Amendment rights during the 1930’s and 1940’s may have branded people as enemies of the state during the 1950’s.
    For more details on McCarthyism, see this article

I’m also concerned with what the NSA will do with the data they’ve collected. In other words, how will they process it to determine threats to the US? I’m sure many of these analysis tools will be pattern-based software algorithms. As an engineer, I know that these methods will not be 100% accurate, so how will we justify the small percentage of people who are inaccurately targeted or accused? Will they be considered part of the cost of keeping America safe?

The fallout from PRISM is just beginning and has the potential to be very costly. International companies who have invested in cloud-based services offered by US-based companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple are certainly rethinking their decisions to place their data in the hands of seemingly secure American companies. Our government’s stance on the international stage as a protector of human rights will be questioned as well, particularly when we condemn the Internet censorship practices of countries such as China, Iran or Syria. How can we criticize the way these companies manage their citizens’ internet access when our own government is spying on us?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it’s further erosion of our Constitutional rights, specifically our Fourth Amendment rights, which state:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I’m fully aware that there have been many cases at the Supreme Court level that have attempted to clarify the text of the Fourth Amendment, but the spirit of the amendment stands – people should not be subject to search or seizure of their private property without probable cause. I’m not a lawyer, but it would seem that taking my personal files and communication and storing them without my permission or probable cause is a violation of my Fourth Amendment rights.

No matter the outcome of PRISM, this entire episode underscores why we as citizens need to remain engaged and cognizant of the actions of our government. Alone our voice is small, but collectively, we have the ability to change the make-up and trajectory of our government by engaging in the conversation and exercising our right to vote, which is why I’ve chosen to add my voice to this discussion.

UCSB ECE 189 Capstone Senior Project Day

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Earlier today, I had the privilege of judging the Capstone Senior Projects for the ECE 189 A/B class at UCSB. A few months ago, my good friend and professor for the class, Dr. John Johnson, asked me if I would like to participate as a judge, and I immediately said yes. It was an amazing opportunity to get an in depth look at what his students had been working on for the past year.

My first observation is that teaching methods have changed a lot in the 25 years since I graduated from RPI with my electrical engineering degree. The most I had ever built during my undergraduate experience were a few bread board circuits in the lab, and I had the chance to write some assembly code for a 68030 Motorola microprocessor.

The 7 groups in Dr. Johnson’s class were tasked with selecting a project, specifying the components, laying out a printed circuit board (PCB), sending it out for manufacturing, powering up and debugging the board, and integrating the hardware with software to create a functional product.

A detailed description of all seven projects can be found on the class page for ECE 189 by clicking here, but here is a brief description of each of the projects:

  • Track Mate – a GPS tracking and MP3 players for athletes
  • Smart Cart – an interactive display for shopping carts
  • Smart Guitar – a device that picks up analog signals from a guitar and displays the data as music notes
  • AFRObot – an autonomous robot that follows and traces existing lines with high precision
  • Swell Alert – a Wi-fi connected alarm clock that uses data from public sources to monitor surf conditions
  • M.A.D. Dog – a robot that maps office spaces before going on security patrol
  • Mu.S.E. – a music player that automatically selects music based on the environment

Each of the groups had chosen very complex projects, and it was amazing to see the progress they were able to make in such a short amount of time. Each group had two 10-week sessions to build the hardware and software, with a 10-week break between sessions during which their printed circuit boards were manufactured and assembled. Each group was able to demonstrate a piece of working hardware, with some groups making more progress than others. In fact, a couple of the groups had projects that were close to being finished products.

The groups were also well prepared, had clear and polished project presentations, and handled questions from the audience effortlessly. The presentations were not only a reflection of the effort the students put into their projects but also of the effort Dr. Johnson, his Teaching Assistant, and the rest of the support staff in UCSB’s ECE department put into helping the students. To say I walked away impressed is an understatement.

Amongst all of this, myself and two others had to judge these projects and select a winner, which was not an easy task. In the end, it came down to two projects that separated themselves from the pack – the AFRObot and Swell Alert. In the end, there could only be one winner, and after quite a bit of debate, we selected Swell Alert.

I’d like to congratulate the Swell Alert team, as well as the AFRObot and other Capstone project teams for a job well done. And I’d like to personally thank my friend John for asking me to be a judge and hope that I’ll have an opportunity to do it again.

Book Review: Amusing Ourselves To Death

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Book - Amusing Ourselves to DeathA few months ago, I picked up the Neil Postman book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. The book was recommended on a couple of blogs I follow and by a friend, so I figured it was a safe read.

The first thing to note about the book is that it is a nonfiction work discussing how technology is changing the way society functions, and not necessarily in a positive way. The second, and more amazing, thing to note is that the book was written in 1985, nearly 30 years ago. Why is this amazing? The book is just as relevant now as it was in 1985, if not more so.

In his book, Postman explores the effect of technology on society. In a very powerful foreword, he contrasts the predictions of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. As he puts it:

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Postman continues by expounding on Huxley’s fears, that he feared “those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism” and “the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” He wraps up with this powerful statement:

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

In essence, the point of Postman’s book is to show that Huxley’s dystopian view of the future has won out over Orwell’s. And while the book starts out a bit dry as he reviews a history of technology evolution and its impact on public discourse, it is a necessary build up to show how the technology of 1985 was enabling Huxley’s view of the future. What is more amazing, he portends how technology will continue to erode society and culture, and when one looks at our infatuation with the internet, social media, smartphones, and other technology diversions, it’s hard to argue Postman’s point that we’re getting closer to living in a Brave New World rather than 1984.

I must admit that at times, I found the book disconcerting as it left me longing for the past. A time where technology wasn’t prevalent. Where news in one’s community mattered more than news on the opposite side of the world. Where politicians were elected on the basis of their views and knowledge, not on their ability to produce 3 second television sound bytes. Where people engaged in deep, meaningful, rich conversations with one another, not in 140 character messages.

However, once I realized that technology is so integrated and woven into the fabric of our society that there is no going back, the power of Postman’s work became apparent. He does a magnificent job describing how the prevalence of technology affects human psychology and interaction. With that knowledge, I began to consider how people are using technology to influence others (including me), how to recognize it, and how to use it. In other words, we shouldn’t fear technology, but rather embrace it, understand its effects, and learn how to use it as a tool rather than letting it use us.

My recommendation, Amusing Ourselves to Death is a must read book. It will open your eyes to how technology has changed society and how it continues to do so, in ways that aren’t necessarily positive. It will make you think, particularly how you interact with all of these amazing inventions, gadgets, and diversions that we’re provided today. It also encouraged me to pick up a copy of Brave New World (which I’ll review later), and it has me interested in picking up Postman’s follow-up book to Amusing Ourselves to Death entitled, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.