3 August 2009
Open Source Sensing
Posted by Connor under: Technology; Transparency .
Another post that starts with a book plug. The Transparent Society by David Brin. Brin is a SF writer by trade and an prolific libertarian-leaning writer of nonfiction. The premise of The Transparent Society is that basically privacy as we know it is nonexistent. “The Man” has access to every aspect of our lives through our data trails and the increasing omnipresence of video surveillance means that our every movement is also open to the authorities.
The question then becomes twofold. One, how are we going to learn to live with this new reality? Two, will the tools of transparency remain exclusively in the hands of authorities beyond the reach of normal people? Brin posits that a fully transparent society where the means of transparency are open to all can be a good thing. We will all have to live a bit more circumspectly and we will all have to get used to the fact that everyone has peccadilloes, and that’s okay. But it will transform our economy and politics by opening up the workings of everything to everyone.
In the matter of the second question we can see the impacts in our politics easily. It is now a pretty unassailable truth that it is impossible to keep a secret any more. This truth has yet to be internalized by those in power, of course. A fact demonstrated almost daily from the exposure of the warrantless wiretapping program by an alert technician, to Governor Sanford’s, “Appalachian Trail” dodge. Embracing transparency is happening too. OpenSecrets.org is a terrific example of non-profit, community production of transparency. OpenSecrets data is used by both parties as well as by activist groups to show how money influences the political process.
You’ve heard of open source software. It’s the free software built by volunteers and non-profit corporations that ends up in things like Linux and Mozilla Firefox. Christine Petersen, of the Foresight Institute, coined the term, “open source” in the late 1990’s. Now she has a similar and similarly radical proposal: open source sensing. Her vision is to take the principles of collective production and free, sharable and extensible technology advances in software, and to extend them to the area of sensing and observation. In short, letting everyone own the means of making the Transparent Society a two-way street.
We The People Are Watchers. The link also includes a video of Ms. Petersen’s presentation at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention in 2008.
“The intent of the project is to take advantage of advances in sensing to improve both security and the environment, while preserving — even strengthening — privacy, freedom, and civil liberties,” says Peterson in a recent press release.
“There is a basic question of whether citizens have a ‘right to sense,’ or can we only own and use sensors that the government permits. It’s not a simple question, but I believe we need to clarify this right.”
“Cheap, ubiquitous sensing has the potential to turn the worlds of privacy and civil rights upside-down,” says Brad Templeton, a futurist and civil rights activist who chairs the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Speaking to this “top-down” government-driven approach, Templeton said, “It often results in keeping rules and procedures secret. A classic example is Transportation (TSA) agents at the airport. We can’t see all their rules and procedures because it would help the bad guys to get through.”
In contrast, a “bottom-up,” decentralized, open source approach to sensing and defense is one in which –- when it does not jeopardize the public –- “everyone can see the rules to the sensing approach. You know what the enemy knows and have a chance to fix it.”
Peterson clarifies, “Both environmental and security uses of sensors are intrinsically bottom-up in terms of the data-gathering process. By doing that gathering thoughtfully, we can get the data we need without infringing on individual rights.”
Sousveillance (or inverse surveillance) is a term coined by Steve Mann to describe the bottom-up recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity. This is a way of taking “surveillance” to the people using portable or wearable recording devices that can stream continuous live video to the Internet. People, rather than governments, become the watchers. “It’s not enough for governments to watch people; people have to watch governments,”says Templeton. “We’re not getting access to what’s going on. Technology can allow the public to watch what’s going on.” In other words, sousveillance is surveillance from underneath (this is the meaning of the French word ’sous’).
Templeton continues: “No easy solution stands out, but the quest for an answer to these problems — by learning from the bottom-up approaches of the open source community — may provide some water in the desert.”
Peterson adds, “In the long term, open source defensive technologies will likely be the only ones capable of keeping up with rapidly-advancing offensive technologies, just as open source software is faster at addressing computer viruses today.”