Week Four: Surveillance, Algorithms, Data Mining, and Profiling

Class

 I. Introduction: The World of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four 

"If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality."
 --Emmanuel Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, "Chapter 1: Ignorance is Strength." 

II. Privacy and Surveillance

• Luke Harding. “Mass surveillance is fundamental threat to human rights, says European report.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/mass-surveillance-threat-human-rights-council-europe 
• Class: ACLU. “Surveillance under the Patriot Act.” https://www.aclu.org/infographic/surveillance-under-patriot-act 
• Walter Kirn. “Little Brother Is Watching.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17FOB-WWLN-t.html 
• Honan, Mat. “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.” Wired Magazine. November 15, 2012. https://www.wired.com/2012/11/ff-mat-honan-password-hacker/

III. Algorithms, Data Mining, and Profiling

• Tactical Technology Collective. “Living with Algorithms; Why should you care about algorithms?”https://vimeo.com/195498978 
• Tactical Technology Collective. “Serious profiling. Have you been profiled yet?” https://vimeo.com/195500780 
• Tactical Technology Collective. “Data Anonymization.” https://vimeo.com/195500135 
• Carole Cadwalladr. “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook   

A taste of what's to come: Killswitch (documentary trailer): https://vimeo.com/104911615

For next class

1. a) Get a Wikipedia account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.
    b) Submit your information to THIS FORM.

2. Watch: “Jimmy Wales: The Birth of Wikipedia.” http://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia

3. Read the three texts, but do different work for each:

• Read and do 6Ws: Aaron Swartz. “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto.” https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt 
• Just read: William Cronon. “Scholarly Authority in a Wikified World.” February 2012 https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2012/scholarly-authority-in-a-wikified-world
• Read and answer the questions: “Theories: Wikipedia and the production of knowledge.” https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Theories_Wikipedia_and_the_production_of_knowledge.pdf