The Curmudgeon Speaks

I look forward to the release of the Mueller report. Just to be clear what we will probably get tomorrow will be the original report with most of the content related to political wrongdoing removed. The is what the country gets when a representative of potential wrongdoers is allowed to remove portions from a document before the rest of us are allowed a look.

This reality aside, I am still interested. I am interested in the role of technology – how it was and is used – from a professional perspective. There should be a component related to the criminal hacking that was used to gain access to online services used by Democratic actors and the theft of their content. I have read extensively on this matter and there is little doubt that state-level Russian actors were responsible. Hacking is a threat we all face, but the vulnerability of content to those who seek to harm our country should be an entirely different level of concern than those who would seek to obtain our Facebook passwords in order to misrepresent us to our friends.

There is also the issue of persuasion through technological manipulation. Again, this should be a special concern because the process was seeded by foreign actors. If nothing else, the election of 2016 brought this issue to our attention. Related concerns have brought to light the manipulative power of the personal data collected through social media services and how these services manipulate users to heavier levels of use to collect more and more data and to how these data allow all of us  to be categorized into small groups more easily manipulated through targeted messaging. You are the target. I am a target. Who is allowed to purchase access to manipulate you? We all are fed content which could be inaccurate, but certainly is slanted, in order to play to our personal biases and manipulate our behavior.

Unbiased access to information about these processes should be important. If provided, thoughtful consideration of how individuals are manipulated on a massive scale should be the next step. There are solutions if the majority of individuals accept that there is a problem.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/04/17/politics/mueller-barr-stakes/index.html

We finally watched “On the basis of sex”, the movie about the early career of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. It was an enlightening film and generated a reaction I wonder if is common to others of my age. After watching, Cindy and I both recognized that we had lived through the era described in the movie. When you reach our age, you have experienced a lot. At the time we probably assumed we were well informed adults. Why were we so unaware of the events described? I am now aware of RBG because of the positive regard with which she is held. I have always had a vague awareness of the members of the Supreme Court, but I doubt I knew much about Ginsberg until the recent disputes over the politicization of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ends up being just another politicized body, but this one appoints the members for life.

I was also shocked by the facts of the court case that serves as the focal point of the movie. Ginsberg takes on the establishment (always a theme I like) to support the cause of a male denied tax relief for his role in caring for an ill parent. Stating the facts of the case is a law school thing and I hope I have this right. Ginsberg was very much interested in the discrimination against women, but found this case as a great way to highlight discrimination on the basis of sex because the case involved a rare situation in which males were being discriminated against. The opposition thought a great strategy was to create this lengthy list of situations in which the law differentiated on the basis of sex arguing this was proof of the natural order of things. Of course, this strategy ended up back firing providing a road map for attacking discrimination.

The list itself was shocking to us, We were there and yet oblivious to the common discrimination that was everywhere at the time. Describing flawed beliefs and behaviors as the natural order of things and thus invisible to most was a profound way of describing problems we still have today. I am not certain the writers intended to leave viewers with this message, but if you have seen the movie or make the effort on the basis of my recommendation consider this perspective.

Free is largely responsible for most of the issues many of us have with the online world. The revelations related to personal privacy have made clear that what users thought was free really isn’t. Everyone pays with their personal data and users are exposed to online experiences that manipulate them through behavioral techniques. Users are manipulated to devote more and more attention to online experiences to bleed them of more and more information. We have lost control of what we want to accomplish online.

The response of more and more folks to the collection of their information has been to try to block this collection. While largely unsuccessful as a way to protect personal information, ad blocking deprives those attempting to provide useful information and services of revenue. Content creators intending to influence are often supported in other ways. Content creators attempting to do the work necessary to objectively offer information are left uncompensated.

I am a supporter of the notion that content creation and service provision must be supported. Ads have always worked, but ads are now “improved” through the collection of user signals (personal information) that end up being used for more than offering desired information to consumers. In searching for alternatives, I have come across the Brave browser and what I would describe as the Brave ecosystem. The browser does have the capability of blocking ads, cookies, and scripts. The browser and ecosystem do offer or at least plan to offer opportunities to deal with the compensation problem. First, the system allows users to submit money to compensate content and service creators. I think of this as a form of micropayments. You have the opportunity to commit a certain amount of money each month and this amount is divided among cites that join the ecosystem in proportion to the time you spend on the sites. The Brave plan also intends to offer the opportunity to view ads without personal data collection and will use the money advertisers spend to purchase the ads to compensate the viewers of the ads and the content/service creators. Brave does take a cut for maintaining the infrastructure for the service.

While I see these ideas as having great value. Brave is an immature service at this point and I fear faces the dual challenge of ramping up its service and attracting users. What I mean by this is that an immature service will not attract the average user and without users, the revenue stream may not support ramping up the service.

Here are a couple of examples of the “issues” I have experienced.

Users wanting to subsidize the micropayment support for content/service providers need to put money into the system. For reasons I do not fully understand, Brave uses a cryptocurrency system for their compensation model. Users must figure out how to submit their funds to be converted to a cryptocurrency referred to as BAT and this requires they use several other services (e.g., PayPal). The multiple steps required just to contribute will easily befuddle potential users who will give up before trusting and learning these other systems. There may be a reason for this approach, but the failure to explain the approach points to another general problem. Documentation is largely lacking.

My second frustration is with the flakiness of the system itself. I keep having problems in which things just stop working. The browser and the ad/cookie/script blocking works just fine. However, if this is what users get from the system, the browser will end up creating more problems than it solves. The company must get the compensation pieces working to avoid making the problems of the online world worse rather than better. Two examples. First, I have put money in the system, but recently at the beginning of the month when the money I have allocated for the month is to be distributed, the system claims I have failed to provide funds. Second, the system is supposed to keep track of the sites I have visited during the month and I should be able to see this list and the proportion of time I have spent on each site. This feature has stopped working (see image).

All developing services face such problems but must find effective ways of improving. I assume the developers struggle with how to respond to these bugs and continue to develop the features promised. However, both challenges must be met. Brave has outsourced problem reporting to the community of users. This is a standard geek kind of solution, but not one likely to encourage users who do not fit with this mindset. This is not really an open source kind of project. Too many reported problems fail to receive attention within a reasonable amount of time and fixes often do not materialize.

I sympathize with Brave and the decisions they must make, but as a user I also hope for more.

I spend a lot of my time reading and writing about the applications of technology. My primary focus is on education, but it is impossible to separate what tools such as online social media can do in the classroom from the more general impact these tools can have in society. Many of the tools or at least the humans developing these tools have motives that result in some negative consequences for users. I have been reading a lot recently about serveiliance capitalism. This is the collection of personal data that is the by product of the use of social media services and the use of these data for financial gain. The topics we write about. The things we “like”, comment on, or share and so forth provide information useful to others. These signals allow others to understand our interests and values and to use this information to manipulate us. To do this effectively, the collection of more data is always better. Social platforms are built to encourage more and more use to make this collection possible. We are easily encouraged by the same signals that offer information to companies. We like to get “likes”. We like to have online friends. We adapt our own online behavior accordingly. There is a cycle of interaction here between online profits and our increasing commitment to online activity.

One consequence of efforts to increase attention to our presence is the perception others might get that we are more interesting, exciting, or successful than they are. This encourages others to up their online game perpetuating this cycle, but also establishes impossible standards for personal accomplishments. This type of social comparison is inevitable, but can be damaging. Online presence tends to exaggerate real life. We seldom write about the mundane things that actually comprise most of our daily realities. Maybe we should. You may remember when the invitation for a Tweet was “what are you doing” and people who respond with what they were having for breakfast. We got away for such descriptions, but at least they were realistic.

I started to think about this while writing my travel blog. I enjoy sharing my life because I am fascinated by what I inexperience and I enjoy writing. I am at a time in life when I can do these things. Being this old is not a reflection of superiority, but a matter of good luck and good genes. I believe we all have interesting life experiences and should appreciate these personal experiences and I also wish others an appreciation for what they experience. If I am different than you, it is likely that I write about some of the things that happen to me as a hobby and you probably don’t. We process of our lives in different ways.

I had two slices of toast with Hawaiian honey for breakfast. What about you?

Use use the photos I take in several ways. I upload and organize some into sets in Flickr. These would be the best photos saved from individual trips or events. I pay $50 a year for this service.  I back up most of the photos I take to Google Photos. The free Google account does not save camera photos in full resolution but is unlimited and free. There is a paid service if you want to save full resolution images, but I don’t really need two such accounts. I constantly move photos and videos off my phone to keep space available. Both Flickr and Google Photos offer ways to share photos with friends and family or the public.

I store some images on my computers. My desktop computer has a large screen and this screen is perfect for showing off some of my best pictures. I will often leave my computer on when we have guests so they can view these images as they are randomly displayed. The technique I used was designed as a screen saver, but offers a great way to display your photos. The newest Macintosh operating system some very interesting options for screen savers. The photos they offer are spectacular, but I prefer to use my own. I like to use the option displayed below. This option displays a random set of photos from a set you designate and then brings one of these to full size.

This images is displayed for a length of time you set and then moves to another photo.

Some of the photos I select for my computer background images are probably not the type of photos many people take. I am looking for images that are interesting and what I consider artistic. These are not typically pictures of people. These photos either have a lot of blank space or a pattern that I think is interesting. This is what I want as a background while I work.

Here is a sample of images from this trip I think make good background material.

You can set a Mac to use different collections of photos for screen savers and backgrounds so this opportunity is great for the two purposes I address.

I have been reading Soshana Zuboff’s Surveillance Capitalism. This is a deep and challenging look at the collection of personal information by online and offline services and how it is being used. I recommend it or for those unwilling to invest the time to look for interviews with Zuboff.

Zuboff explains that radical behaviorism (e.g., Skinner) is a core component of the means by which surveillance capitalists, perhaps even without their understanding, seek to influence users and develop a business model. In thinking about how this works, I see a mix of what I recognize as learning models. Behaviorists manipulate behavior through consequences. The rewards that users experience are due to content which feeds their cognitive disposition to confirmation bias. Receiving content that fits your existing way of thinking is rewarding.

The Europeans have been much more aggressive objecting to online privacy violations and targeted “fake news”. This report was just released from Great Britain who has a specific interest in online meddling related to Brexit, but also interested in such topics as the political activities of Cambridge Analytica. The report provides details on the activities of Facebook and offers specific examples of how Facebook users were purposefully misled as to how data collected from their activities would be used.

I find the practice of “data reciprocity” as most concerning. Users should not assume that the information derived from their use of Facebook is used solely to target “more useful” ads within Facebook.

The analyses is this report is very current even covering the Apple/Facebook spat over the “research app” Facebook has released through Apple in January of 2019.