Liveblog: Edward Sanders, From Prison to Paralegal
This is a liveblog taken at the University of Michigan School of Information on September 19, 2018. Any mistakes are my own.
Edward Sanders
with Kentaro Toyama
Information Alliance for Community Development
Sanders entered prison in 1975, at age 17. Convicted of first degree murder as an accessory to murder and sentenced to life.
Sanders had mentioned to his grandfather that he was going to try to make everything he could out of his time in prison. Had a third grade education going in. Had to give up the luxury of televison and radio, but saved to go to school. Started in remedial classes, then moved to GED programs. Immediately signed up for college through Macomb Community College and worked as a teacher's aide. He intentionally delayed graduation because he would have to stop taking classes after he graduated. Some prisons were more progressive than others, school was a way to get out of that environment for a while.
School wasn't intended for inmates sentenced to life. He would have to wait for someone with a lesser sentence to cancel in order to get into classes. Many inmates, including Sanders, wanted to learn more about how to defend themselves in courts.
Sanders joined the lifer law program or "lifers." It was run mostly by war veterans. Some used their GI payments to pay for attorneys to give lectures for inmates. Talked to peers who were writing their own legal documents. Many of them had been in prison multiple times due to addiction and had learned about the legal system.
Sanders looked forward to graduating with his Bachelor's degree, but had no hope of leaving to find a job. Instead he focused on helping his fellow inmates.
Kentaro asks how Sanders felt when he got out.
The first week was about getting back into society. UMich and WSU social work students worked with him. Three members of his "reentry" team brought his sisters to pick him up. The next couple days were spent getting ID, bridge card (SNAP), and registering to vote. Sanders stresses the importance of voting: "choose your own fate." The first day, his team took him out to lunch. Now he takes others out to lunch as a way to say thank you.
Sanders knew a former inmate who had gotten a law degree and passed the bar, but is not allowed to practice in Michigan. He looked at that situation to judge his own path forward.
Kentaro asks about digital technology.
In recent years, cell phones had started coming in. He says the best technology you could get in prison was a pen. They had typewriters and word processors, but they were taken away because they allowed the inmates to litigate too well. Inmates were given access to a law library after a difficult legal fight. Had computers, but no internet access. The law library was a safe haven for him.
In his first week out, his sister made him get an iPhone (now he uses an Android). He hasn't needed a dictionary since he got out of prison.
There were many challenges getting used to digital technology. Working with Kentaro Toyama and Finda Ogburu helped him overcome these challenges.
Sanders explains that the three worst institutions in society are slavery, war, and prison. They are traumatizing. There's an institutional bias built into prison. Guards don't like imates to be better educated than they are. Inmates had to "dummy down." Draws parallel to war. In war, some remain behind to get education. Education helps soldiers re-integrate into societiy. Sanders argues that it can do the same with prison. It's not easy for inmates to get jobs after being released. Now, you need to use the internet to apply to jobs. Inmates aren't allowed to get that experience.
When applying at McDonalds, he made a mistake and didn't submit the online application. He went in for the interview and they did it anyway. If he had applied online, his application would have been discarded without a human seeing it. By the time the interviewer got to asking about his felony, he'd made such an impression that he got the job.
There is a battle for computer literacy. Inamtes need it to be successful and reenter society. Anyone who has the ability to help can help reduce crime. He praises volunteers from universities who have helped him and other inmates. He explains that the real world experience also helps students gain a deeper understanding of information and improve their retention.
Audience Questions
Q: High school students are often preparing for a life among gangs. What would you tell them?
A: All of us can make decisions, but not all decisions are quality decisions. We need to learn to make quality decisions if we have the faculties to do so. He references the Koran: the worst thing is to have an ability and not use it.
Sanders ends by telling audience to make a difference, even if we've made mistakes.
Liveblog: FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel @UMich
This is a liveblog taken on 17 September 2018. Apologies for any inaccuracies
Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Commissioner
Jack Bernard, Associate General Counsel, University of Michigan
Bernard: What is the FCC?
Rosenworcel: FCC oversees 1/6 of US economy.
Bernard: How does the FCC interact with the internet?
Rosenworcel: FCC authority lies with transmission: where there's a wire in the ground or a transmission in the air.
Bernard: Talked to campus community about NN. There is a wide range of views on what NN is. What is it?
Rosenworcel: Broadband providers have to treat traffic on their networks equally, so they do not discriminate based on source, destination, or content. You can go where you want and do what you want online, and your internet provider does not decide for you.
Bernard: What does equal mean?
Rosenworcel: Analogy to basic telephone network: you can call whoever you want. The telephone company can't tell you who to call or edit your conversation. Really talking about nondiscrimination.
Bernard: Different broadband providers provide different services and options. What are you really talking about?
Rosenworcel: Totally OK under net neutrality to choose how fast of a connection you pay for.
Bernard: How could the absence of NN allow broadband providers to undermine experience?
Rosenworcel: Since rollback of NN, broadband providers can block websites, throttle services, or censor content. Can approach entrepreneurs and charge them to access customers. Do they have technical capability? Yes: network management. Business incentive? Yes. When rights, capabilities, and incentives are aligned, behavior will emerge in the market.
Bernard: Broadband argues that internet was working fine. What is the need to pass regulation?
Rosenworcel: Competitive marketplaces are the best moderators of oversight. Broadband is not a competitive marketplace. You can't take your business elsewhere: there's nowhere else to go.
Bernard: Felt constrained by choices even with NN.
Rosenworcel: NN helps manage in absence of competition.
Bernard: What changed after rollback of NN?
Rosenworcel: NN says can't block, throttle, or censor. Rolled back over Rosenworcel's dissent.
Bernard: What was your experience as a dissenter?
Rosenworcel: People don't remember what you said, they remember how you said it. Have to make arguments in a principled way and repeat them again and again.
Bernard: How do you build collegiality?
Rosenworcel: Whatever disagreement we have is like a book on a shelf and we move onto the next volume. Always find something in common.
Bernard: Can you steel-man instead of straw man anti-NN position?
Rosenworcel: Want to give customers most options. Want to make sure there are financial incentives to support providers.
Bernard: We hear that NN is a barrier to investment and providing service.
Rosenworcel: We do have broadband challenges in rural US. Instead of having theoretical arguments about NN, would rather identify where the gaps in coverage are and plan how to fill them.
Bernard: Is it possible to advocate for industry incentives and NN?
Rosenworcel: Can do both at the same time. False choice to say it's one or the other.
Bernard: Can less than equitable service be better overall? Example: carpool lanes?
Rosenworcel: That assumes you have multiple lanes. We don't.
Bernard: If there was greater competition?
Rosenworcel: We could revisit.
Bernard: NN advocates argue that without NN there will be cartels causing content to be only avialable to certain providers. Is there evidence?
Rosenworcel: Yes, there is discussion that it's happening already. Even if conetent is only slowed down, people switch. That's an obstacle for entrepreneurship.
Bernard: Those in the room have internet access through academic network. Difficult to understand other perspectives.
Rosenworcel:
Bernard: Americans now know the name of the FCC chair. What's that like?
Rosenworcel: Likes some anonymity, but it's good for the public. Collect pubic input. Have to figure out how to make issues accessible to allow a broader swath of Americans to participate.
Bernard: Did going against FCC cause a problem?
Rosenworcel: No one likes disagreement, but you have to stand up and do what's right.
Bernard: Pai said that California's proposal are flouting federal law.
Rosenworcel: The FCC is in a strange legal position regarding preemption. FCC argued they didn't have authority to regulate (Rosenworcel disagrees). But if FCC doesn't have authority to regulate, they don't have authority to preempt.
Bernard: What was Pai getting at? First amendment issue?
Rosenworcel: More about commerce clause.
Bernard: How would you summarize your stance?
Rosenworcel: You should be able to go where you want and do what you want without your provider choosing for you.
Bernard: Explain concerns over media consolidation?
Rosenworcel: Media has changed. There was a time when you got news from the morning newspaper and the evening news, and that was it. Modern news cycle is exhausting and stresses media company resources. Media companies have responded with consolidation. Rosenworcel understands, but favors competition. We have less local news now.
Bernard: Concern is that if too many outlets are owned by the same company there isn't enough diversity?
Rosenworcel: There used to be laws preventing, for example, one company from owning a radio station and a newspaper. Not any more. How do you maintain diverse viewpoints?
Bernard: What are the next steps? How should government step in?
Rosenworcel: National laws prevent companies from owning over a certain percentage of broadcast outlets. Most Americans still get their local news through TV and radio.
Bernard: Over the last year, the President has suggested revoking NBC's license. Purportedly this is a result of criticism of the administration. How realistic is that?
Rosenworcel: Trying to be diplomatic. A year ago, saw President's tweet, decided that so much is wrong with it, and tweeted a reply. The reply linked to the FCC manual on broadcast licensing. It's a story about what's to come: antagonism towards the news. Rosenworcel finds it troubling. Politicians criticising news is not new: Alien and Sedition act, Kennedy described the media as his enemy. What worries Rosenworcel is when the government uses its power to stop the media from reporting on abuses of that power.
Bernard: In the 2016 election, about 17% of people under 30 voted. People feel disenfranchised, not part of "we the people."
Rosenworcel: Doesn't have time for cynicism. Public servants have to be impatient optimists. It has in many ways never been easier to build a movement. Thinks as citizens, we need to use it. Nothing stopping everyone here from having a clear voice in Washington.
Audience Questions
Q: Last mile internet issue. 30 million Americans without reliable high-speed internet. What needs to be done to connect these people? Would gap exist if internet was treated more like a utility?
A: FCC estimates 24m without broadband, mostly rural. One thing we should do nationally, is map where broadband is and is not. We need to make it a citizen science project, crowdsource how many bars we have.
Q: How does NN relate to privacy?
A: FCC's ability to regulate privacy online was taken away. Hopes to align privacy policy across sectors of the economy (website, broadband, etc.)
Q: Do connected devices change discussion around connected vehicles? When will FCC decide between 5G and dedicated short range communication service (DSRC)?
A: Speed of change has been unimaginable and exciting. 5G was from 1999, which is now "old." NTSB expects it will take years to be able to deploy DSRC. Need to figure out what we can do in the meantime with what we have.
Bernard: Should we be narrowing the spectrum of any industry?
A: Spectrum is zoning in the sky. Certain frequencies were for different purposes. Now auctioned off for flexible use. Now, everyone wants some. Experimenting with milimeter band technology. Really need to get more creative with sharing. We can't expand the physics, but we can be more efficient with exisitng spectrum. Public safety uses have to be primary.
Bernard: Would that mean throttling?
A: Different services require different expectations.
Q: What's the future of municipal broadband?
A: In about half the states in the US, the state has prohibited it. Rosenworcel finds this rerettable. People are being left behind and need as many solutions as they can get.
Q: Based on the infrastructure analogy, what makes a toll to pay for cybersecurity different from a road toll? Shouldn't providers be able to take a cut of income from pornographic websites?
A: Control needs to be in the hands of the customers.
Bernard: We already don't have a lot of control. Will anything really change without NN?
A: Universities are deploying apps to try to detect altered internet traffic. Important to measure.
Bernard: Claims there's little evidence companies will tamper with traffic.
A: Some enforcement shifted to FTC. They address harm after it occurs in court. Not accessible to small entrepreneurs.
Q: Does FCC regulate fake news? Should internet service providers be able to?
A: FCC? No. Town square is largely digital. A lot of authority offered to online platforms. Granting similar authority to service providers would compound the problem.
Q (twitter): How does NN relate to corporate mergers?
A: Incentive for service providers to privilege content owned by the same company.
Q: Could net neutrality be offered for a fee?
A: Possible after rollback of NN regulations.
Q: What are some ways to encourage broadband competition?
A: We need to identify every possible way. Some are mundane but consequential. "Dig once" policies allow multiple companies to lay fiber when a road is torn up for only 1% additional cost to construction costs. Changes in policy and reducing bureaucracy to access utility poles. Biggest ways occur with technology change.
Q: How closely does the FCC work with network engineers?
A: Have an office. It's not big enough. Rosenworcel advocated for an engineering honors program to bring in young engineers from top universities. Need more onramps. Need more digital natives serving in government, who see opportunites in new technology.
Q: Is the internet a human right?
A: You do not have a fair shot at prosperity in the 21st century if you do not have access to the internet. Figuring out how to get more people connected at a high speed is crucial to civic future of the country.
Hackers are Whistleblowers Too (live blog from HOPE XI)
Naomi Colvin, Courage Foundation
Nathan Fuller, Courage Foundation
Carey Shenkman, Center for Constitutional Rights
Grace North, Jeremy Hammond Support Network
Yan Zhu, friend of Chelsea Manning
Lauri Love, computer scientist and activist
Naomi begins. Courage foundation started in July 2014 to take on legal defense for Edward Snowden. They believe there is no difference between hackers and whistleblowers when they’re bringing important information to light. Information exposure is one of the most important triggers for social action. The foundation has announced their support for Chelsea Manning, who is beginning her appeal.
Carey wants to talk about public interest defenses. In the US, politicians call for whistleblowers to return to the US and present their motivations and “face the music” as part of their civil disobedience. In reality, the Espionage Act and the CFAA do not allow whistleblowers to use public interest motivations as a defense or use evidence to demonstrate a public interest. Whistleblowers like Ellsberg have called for public interest exceptions to the Espionage Act and CFAA. It’s important to protect civil
Grace: Jeremy Hammond hacked Stratfor with AntiSec/Anonymous and leaked the files on WikiLeaks. Tech has an incredible power to bring movements together. This requires some tech people to move outside of their comfort zone to interact with activism around other (non-technical) issues.
Yan: Chelsea really loves to get letters and reads every one she receives. While at MIT, Yan met Chelsea through the free software community. Chelsea’s arrest was the first time Yan saw the reality of whistleblowing and surveillance. Chelsea is very isolated and only gets 20 people on her phone list. To add someone, she has to remove someone else. Visitors have to prove they met her before her arrest in order to visit. She reads a statement from Chelsea Manning.
Lauri Love was arrested in 2013 in the UK without charges and later learned that he was charged in the US, which is very unusual, not having been alleged to have committed any crimes within the US. The problems with the CFAA are being used to contest his extradition to the US. Lauri greatly appreciates the support of the Courage Foundation
Lauri asks Carey: The UK allows you to present a defense of necessity, although it’s difficult. Can that happen in the US?
Carey: It’s difficult to say. The CFAA has always been controversial. The CFAA was passed in 1986, literally in response to the movie Wargames, which sparked the fear of a “cyber Pearl Harbor.”
Grace: Jeremy Hammond’s hacks were politically focused, but there were absolutely no provisions for acts of conscience in his defense. In fact, having strong political views leads to harsher treatment.
Lauri: Can we bypass the court system and national council of conscience?
Lyn: Mother of Ross Ulbricht, creator of silk road. Judges cited political views as reasons for the severity of Ross’s sentence. The court system also allows prosecutors to break the letter of the law when it is done in “good faith” while it doesn’t allow defendants to do so.
Lauri: It’s important to be vocal about these details. It
Audience question: CFAA prosecutions are really about politics, not about computers. It seems like some issues like gay marriage can change very quickly in American culture. What can be done to create these changes?
Grace: We couch issues in certain terms. What people find acceptable or unacceptable is often determined by perspective and simplified views of “legal” vs. “illegal.”
SecureDrop: Two Years On and Beyond
Live notes from HOPE XI
Garrett Robinson, CTO of Freedom of Press Foundation and Lead Developer of Secure Drop
Secure Drop debuted at HOPE X in 2014. FPF was founded in 2012, initially to crowd fund for WikiLeaks. They’ve been doing more crowdfunding for various open-source encryption tools for journalists, and for whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s legal defense. They’re also suing the federal government to respond to FOIA requests. But their main project is SecureDrop.
Over the past couple years, a lot of the plans for SecureDrop happened, and a lot changed. Last year, SecureDrop was installed at 12 independent organizations. They are a mixture of big and small media outlets, and activist nonprofits. All but one still uses the software, and several more have installed it, with a current total of 26 active installations. They’ve improved documentation to make installation easier. There’s a high demand. More organizations are waiting for help in installation and training.
FTF intentionally discourages media outlets from acknowledging which information was received via SecureDrop, which makes outreach complicated. SecureDrop was acknowledged as being used by hackers who exposed violations of attorney-client privilege by prison phone provider Securus.
As an internet service open to the public, SecureDrop attracts trolls. At The New Yorker, over half of their submissions were fiction or poetry.
Garrett gives an overview of how SecureDrop works. There are three main components: a network firewall, a monitor server, and an application server. When a source wants to submit to SecureDrop, they use Tor without JavaScript. They are assigned a secure pseudonym. They are then able to have a back-and-forth conversation with journalists. The journalist logs into the document interface Tor hidden service They are presented with a list of documents. All files are stored encrypted, transferred using USB or CDs to an air-gapped computer for decryption, reading, and editing.
The current project goals are: 1. keep SecureDrop safe, 2. Make SecureDrop easier for journalists to use, and 3. make SecureDrop easier to deploy and maintain.
Keeping SecureDrop safe. Tor hidden services enable end-to-end encryption with perfect forward secrecy without using certificate authorities. The NSA has had difficulty e-anonymizing Tor (as of 2012). Since then, the FBI has been able to install malware on users’ computers allowing the de-anonymization of Tor hidden services. In 2014, Tor identified a possible attack, which turned out to be a large-scale operation coordinated by multiple states, called Operation Onymous. This attack was made possible by researchers at CMU working with the FBI. Tor was able to blacklist the attackers and block them out eventually. Directories of hidden services have been shown to enable correlation attacks. A 2015 USENIX paper by Kwon et al. has shown that it’s possible to use machine learning and a single malicious Tor node to de-anonymize SecureDrop users, without leaving a trace.
Making SecureDrop easier to use. Doing experiments with using software isolation like Qubes to make air-gaps unnecessary. If the system isn’t usable, journalists either don’t use it or work around the security in harmful ways.
Making SecureDrop easier to deploy. There is a support process in place, but it’s inefficient. The documentation, when printed out, is 138 places. As an aside, Garrett wants a Guy Fawkes toaster.
Garrett wants to live in a world where SecureDrop is obsolete. He wants to live in a world where standard technology enables privacy at the level of SecureDrop. There’s been some progress. Open Whisper Systems has developed Signal and enabled end-to-end encryption for WhatsApp (even though there are security concerns with metadata collection).
The Onion Report (HOPE XI live blog)
Notes taken at HOPE XI.
Presenters:
asn
Nima Fatemi
David Goblet
Nima gives some basic stats. New board, 6 members. 8 employees, 12 contractors. 40 volunteers. 7000 relay operators. 3000 bridge operators. Dip in relay operators around April 2016 with corresponding spike in bridge operators.
Five teams work on TOR. The Network team is working on better crytography (Ed25519 and SHA3). TOR depends on 8 trusted computers around the world that maintain consensus, which are sometimes attacked with DDoS. There is now a backup list that can be used when no consensus is reached.
Application team doing ongoing development on the TOR browser. Porting the browser to mobile platforms. Doing research and development on sandboxing and usability. Also working on TorBirdy (email) and Tor Messenger (XMPP, OTR).
The UX team collaborating with security usability researchers. Can’t collect usage data because of privacy. Running user studies. Now have a security “slider.” Now display routing chain.
Community team drafting social contracts, membership guidelines, etc. Doing outreach, including the Library Freedom Project.
Measurement team received $152,500 grant from Mozilla. Revamping entire metrics interface.
Ahmia is a search engine for onion services. TOR now gives badges to relays.
How Anonymous narrowly evaded being vilified as terrorists (HOPE XI live blog)
Notes taken at HOPE XI.
Gabriella Coleman, Anthropologist, Professor, McGill University
Biella spent several years studying Anonymous. Found them “confusing, enchanting, controversial, irreverent, interesting, unpredictable, frustrating, stupid, and really stupid.” She expected to have to convince people they weren’t terrorists, but that didn’t happen.
The media usually refers to Anonymous as activists, hacktivists, or vigilantes, rather than terrorists. Pop culture has taken up Anonymous, which has helped inoculate them from the terrorism level.
The label can be used in the media to political ends, example: Nelson Mandela being labeled a terrorist. In France, the Tarnac 9 were arrested as terrorists for stopping trains, but the change was changed. In Spain, puppeteers were arrested for “inciting terrorism” and placed in jail for five days, but the case was thrown out. Common privacy tools like TOR and riseup can lead to suspicions of terrorism. Police and others in the US have tried to get Black Lives Matter designated as a terrorist organization.
Biella cites “Green is the New Red.” Since September 11, terrorism has been redefined to suit political whims, often impacting radical activists such as animal rights activists. What was once “monkey wrenching” or “sabotage” is now considered “terrorism.” A group called the SHAC7 were convicted under the Animal Enterprise Act for running a website that advocated for animal liberation. Many received multi-year jail sentences.
Focusing on technology, the language of terrorism has often been used to describe hacking. Biella was concerned she’d be targeted by the FBI for studying Anonymous. Targets of Anonymous described them as terrorists in the media. The hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was found to be on the FBI terrorism watch list, but because he was an environmental activist, not because he was a hacktivist. GCHQ described Anonymous and LulzSec as bad actors comparable to pedophiles and state-sponsored hackers. In the US, Anonymous was used as a primary example during Congressional hearings on cyberterrorism. The Wall Street Journal published a claim by the NSA that Anonymous could develop the ability to disable part of the US electricity grid.
Timing influenced how the public received these claims. The government compared Wiki-Leaks to Al-Quaeda, and compelled Visa and PayPal to freeze their accounts. These actions were seen as extreme by the public, and Anonymous launched Operation Payback, a DDoS of the PayPal blog, to protest. The media framed the event as a political act of civil disobedience. A month later, Anonymous contributed to social revolutions in the Middle-East and Span, and in Occupy. Anonymous has been described as incoherent for being involved in many different things, but this flexibility has helped inoculate them against the terrorist label. Anonymous is a “Multiple Use Name,” as described by Marco Deseriis.
The Guy Fawkes mask has played an important role. While the use of the mask was largely an accident, but carries connotations of resistance. These connotations were historically negative, but became positive with Alan Moore’s “V for Vendetta” and its film adaptation. There’s a feedback cycle between reality and fiction about resistance to totalitarian states. There’s an astounding amount of media about hackers. Biella’s favorite is called “Who Am I.” There’s even a ballet based on the story of Anonymous. RuPaul discussed with John Waters as a type of youthful rebellion. In contrast, animal rights activists are often portrayed as dangerous and unlikable.
ISIS uses social tactics similar to Anonymous. The difference between the two groups has created a contrast, amplified by Anonymous declaring war on ISIS.
In 2012, the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement was under debate. The Polish population protested ACTA. Anonymous got involved with Operation ANTI-ACTA in support of Polish citizens. A number of Polish members of parliament wore Guy Fawkes masks to show disapproval for ACTA. The gesture helped to legitimate Anonymous and its tactics.
Tides can change very quickly. An infrastructure attack tied to hacktivists could turn the public against Anonymous. Art and culture really matter. Sometimes the world of law and policy sees art and culture as “soft power,” but Biella argues this is a false dichotomy. She appeals to people who work in the arts to continue, perhaps writing children’s books about hackers.
Phineas Fisher created a brilliant media hack on Vice News. Vice arranged an interview with Fisher, who requested to be represented by a puppet.
What the hack?! Perceptions of Hackers and Cybercriminals in Popular Culture (HOPE XI live blog)
These notes taken at HOPE XI
What the hack?!
Aunshul Rege, Assistant Prof in Criminal Justice at Temple University
Quinn Heath, Criminal Justice student at Temple University
Aunshul begins. Work based on David Wall’s seven myths about the hacker community. How does the media portrayal of hacking differ from reality? Three objectives: 1. get hacker community’s perspective, 2. how does the hacker community feel about Wall’s myths, 3. general thoughts on how the media interacts with the hacker community. Work conducted by interviews of self-identified hackers at HOPE X.
Quinn starts on the first objective. What makes someone a hacker? Plays some interviews from HOPE X. Every hacker had a unique story, but there were common threads. Many hackers felt they had been hackers from a young age. There was also a common thread of hacking bringing empowerment.
First myth: cyberspace is inherently unsafe. Mixed response from interviewees. Some felt that the internet was “just a pipe,” while others believed that as a human system, it empowered misuse.
Second myth: the super hacker. Interviewees believed that no one person knows everything. Highly unrealistic. Real people just aren’t as interesting.
Third myth: cybercrime is dramatic, despotic, and futuristic.
Fourth myth: hackers are becoming part of organized crime. Many felt there was some truth to this.
Fifth myth: criminals are anonymous and cannot be tracked. Everybody uses handles, but you have to go through a single IP. Everyone leaves a trace. The only way not to get caught is to not do anything worth getting caught over.
Sixth myth: cybercriminals go unpunished and get away with crime: Law enforcement is making examples out of people in the hacker community. You have to be careful about what you type into a terminal, assume it will be used against you in the worst possible light. Media portrayal translates into harsher prosecution for hackers than for violent criminals. The CFAA is abused by law enforcement, for example in the Aaron Swartz case.
Seventh myth: users are weak and not able to protect themselves. Media focuses too much on companies and not enough on the users whose data is released. People are becoming less scared of technology.
Quinn moves on to common themes. One was a common objection to the way the word “hacker” is used in the media. The word is ambiguous, but has been used by the media in a much narrower and disagreeable way.
Women are underrepresented in the hacker community, even though the community tends to be more liberal. Women in technology sometimes aren’t presented as hackers because they don’t fit existing media stereotypes.
Hackers are portrayed as geeky, nerdy, boring, caucasian males. But there are hackers of all races. Sometimes hackers of color are presented as a vague formless threat.
Hackers are presented in a polarized way: either losers or dangerous and powerful. Women in the media are always attractive and sexualized and/or goth.
The media sometimes focuses on the hack, and sometimes on the hacker. It’s easier to get information on a hack, and easier to twist the facts to suit the story the media or company want to convey. The media likes to have a face and a personality, but that’s rare.
How does the news interact with the hacker community? There needs to be better journalism. The media takes snippets that don’t give the full story, but shape public opinion.
What about movies? Most of what happens is inaccurate. “They’re not going to make a movie about people staring at computer screens,” it would be “boring as hell.” The movies and media don’t pay tribute to the social engineering aspect. It makes sense that Hollywood would do this, but less so that the news does.
What about the 1995 movie “Hackers”? It’s almost a parody. It’s old and outdated, even for when the movie was set. It’s fun, but not good or accurate. It stereotypes what hackers are. Almost everyone mentioned this movie, and loved it in a “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of way.
Over time, the hacker stereotype has gone from the teenage prankster in the 80s, to dangerous cyber-warriors or weird, young, and soon-to-be-rich.
Hackers are careful about using the word because they’re sensitive to how people will perceive it. They described a strong personal impact due to the media portrayal. But the community remains strong.
What kind of movie would hackers make about hackers? It would be fun to flip all the stereotypes. Most hacking is boring from the outside, so it would need to be dramatized, but it could be more realistic.
Anshul: interested in more information on race, gender and age. Also wants to know how the hacking community is influenced by media stereotypes. Will be publishing this work soon.
Liveblog: Creating Radical, Accessible Spaces
These notes were taken live at the University of Michigan School of Information on October 23, 2015.
Panelists:
Jane Berliss-Vincent: Assistive Technology Manager at the University of Michigan, author of Making the Library Accessible for All.
Terry Soave: Manager of Outreach & Neighborhood Services at the Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled and Ann Arbor District Library.
Carolyn Grawi: Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living.
Paul Barrow: Public Services Librarian at MLibrary.
Joyce Simowski: Information Services/Outreach Librarian at Canton Public Library.
Melanie Yergeau (Moderator): Assistant Professor at University of Michigan Department of English Language and Literature, with a focus on Disability Studies.
Melanie begins by introducing the panelists. Paul works on facilities and front desk issues. His first job was working for a man with Cerebral Palsy and the lessons he learned have stayed with him. Joyce works with older adults. Jane, a UMSI alum, wears many hats, including makeing sure the University of Michigan public computers have accessible technology, and collaborating on web accessibility. Terry builds partnerships with community organizations in order to reach populations that aren't typically engaging with library services. Carolyn works with individuals having many types of disabilities at the Center for Independent Living, and has more than one disability herself.
Paul has increasingly observed that individuals with disabilities are not identifying publicly and asks how to help them. Carolyn suggests making it clear on materials that it's ok to ask for accommodations. Some accommodations can be expensive, but if you know ahead of time which ones are needed, you can avoid unnecessary expenses. Terry stresses that you have to know your community because it's impossible to accommodate everyone all of the time. You can put up a sign, but if someone can't read it, what do you do next? Terry adds that it's very challenging to understand the things that you take for granted when working with someone who has a disability. Terry tries to make it easier to do that.
Jane tells a story about going to AADL with Jack Bernard, Associate General Counsel at UMich. They went around to different desks and asked whether the library had accommodations for disabilities. Everyone was respectful and knew how to access resources. Carolyn adds that when those resources are easily available to the disabled community, they are beneficial to everyone.
Jane describes how universities are accommodating a wider range of disabilities: learning disabilities, etc., when a couple decades ago, the university worked mostly with sight disabilities.
Audience question: Is anyone providing healthcare accessibility?
Jane: receiving healthcare often involves filling out inaccessible forms with small print, which may not be available in languages other than English. Carolyn just met with a group of medical students learning about compassionate care. There's definitely involvement, but she wishes there was more. A lot of what already exists would benefit from being more standardized. Medical students have to meet with community services, but not every student can meet with every service. It's key for those students to share their that information with each other. She adds that it's important to include the person with the disability: "Nothing about us without us."
Melanie asks whether anyone is collaborating with disability organizations. She gives the example of autism. In autism awareness month, groups like libraries can create well-meaning but ill-advised displays and programs, like advertising organizations that promote misinformation, offering programs that exclude the autistic individuals. Jane talks about the importance of a back and forth dialog. You can't know what people want unless you et them involved and ask them. Carolyn: the Ann Arbor CIL works closely with many organizations. One example was working with the AADL to make the front entrance more accessible. Collaboration isn't always simple, but it's beneficial. Carolyn gives another example, of working with fourth graders in public schools. Why fourth graders? They are at an age where they are open to learning, like to share what they learn with each other, and speak up about the things that they need themselves. A student who had taken one of the workshops once ran into the workshop leader at a theme park and told them what they thought the park was doing right and wrong.
Audience question: How to you ensure that the population you're serving is aware of your services? Terry has outreach staff, works with doctors offices to put information in waiting rooms, and also provides institutional accounts to other institutions that may be working with elligible individuals. By far most people learn about services by word of mouth. Places a sticker for a large-print service inside all of the library's large print books. People like to help, and making connections is an easy way to help. Carolyn: now you can access a lot of materials digitally, so you don't need to come in physically. That can be good for individuals with disabilities but can make it difficult to provide them with information.
Joyce tries to determine and respond to the needs of the community. Carolyn: we all try to follow the ADA and provide "reasonable accomodations." Jane brings up small, light-up magnifiers. They're useful and inexpensive and can be used to provide information to people who need them.
Audience question: how do you deal with the challenge of helping disabled individuals be courteous to those with other disabilities. Jane: sometimes you have "dueling disabilities" like someone who turns a monitor off because the light is a problem, but someone else might not be able to figure out how to turn it back on. It's a challenge. Paul thinks libraries are special because they are a center for conversation. Paul gives the example of moving power outlets from the wall to the table to prevent creating tripping hazards with power cords. Just having a conversation is very powerful. Humans are reactive by nature, so let's react by having a productive conversation. Carolyn agrees that libraries are one of the best places for different types of people to get together.
Audience question: Has background in rural libraries. If you have limited resources, what are the core principles you encourage a library or other public organization to pursue. Jane: listen to your patrons. Finding out what people need may be easier in a small group. Carolyn: maximize your open space. It's useful to more people. Joyce: partnerships can help, like having meals on wheels deliver books. It can be hard to do these collaborations unless they're mutually beneficial, so the collaborations have to be found on a case-by-case basis. Terry: different organizations have different types of funding, which affects which types of collaborations are easier. Paul: libraries used to brag about collections, but they're all the same now. Instead, focus on services. Jane: libraries are not just book collections anymore. In rural areas, they may be points of access for the Internet or job searching.
Audience question: The term "universal design" gets thrown around a lot. What are small changes that make things better for everyone? What is a radical accessible space, and where have you seen one? Jane: Interested by the convergence between "bring your own device" and accessibility. Now universities are moving towards "bring your own everything." Many of the features being used on mobile devices are taken from assistive technology: autocomplete, zoom. The first typewriter-like device was developed by Pellegrino Turri to write letters to his blind friend, Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano. Carolyn: we try to describe attachments. Having inclusive seating helps: making different types of seating (front, back, etc.) accessible. It's important to be open to feedback and take it as constructive even if it seems critical. Paul wishes that physical spaces were more configurable.
Audience question: The state is putting accessibility as a low priority. What can we do to make it a higher priority? The CIL has ongoing discussions with the state legislature, but sometimes difficult to make progress because of a lack of bipartisan interest.
Closing comments. Jane: think holistically. A towel dispenser may be ADA-compliant, but it doesn't help if you place it where someone in a wheelchair can't reach it. Joyce sees advancements in technology as making a big difference. Be observant of what people need. Carolyn: be patient and tolerant if someone asks for something you don't know or isn't understanding something. Paul: be radical, do what's right, not what people did before.
Copyright © Edward L. Platt 2011–2024
