Category: Rants

Posts where I spout off on one topic or another

Banning photography reduces our security

Yet another story has surfaced about the authorities being overly heavy handed in response to photography. This time, it a Japanese man threatened and detained because he was taking photos from the window of a moving train. There are two important responses to this trend. The first is to stress that it is useless for security purposes. If there is a situation in which taking a photo would help a terrorist to achieve their objectives, no enforceable anti-photo policy will deter them. Anyone willing to plan or undertake a terrorist attack will be able to tolerate any punishment that could conceivably be imposed for taking photos. They are also likely to be able to take photos in a way that will not be noticed: either with sneaky hidden cameras or with a simple camera phone or by developing an awareness of when the authorities are watching. Banning photography in places like vehicles and bridges punishes photography enthusiasts and serves no security purpose.

Secondly, the ability to take photographs is an important check against the abuse of authority. Without the infamous videotape, it is likely that the Rodney King beating would never have received public attention and that the officers involved would have been able to lie their way out of the situation. Similar abuses, such as the inappropriate use of tasers, have been appropriately documented because people present had the capability and initiative to make a recording. Photos, videos, and other recordings can provide a vital record of interactions with authority: both allowing people whose rights are abused to provide evidence and allowing frivolous claims to be dismissed. A security force that is serious about good conduct and oversight has nothing to fear and much to gain from a bit of public surveillance.

More generally, banning photography is symptomatic of the demise of open society. While there are legitimate security risks that exist and reasonable steps that should be taken to protect against them, reducing oversight and individual liberty both undermines the very things we are trying to protect and creates new risks of abuse at the hands of modern society’s burly new enforcers.

[Update: 15 November 2007] This post on Classical Bookworm, about a recent incident at the Vancouver airport, highlights how important it is for private citizens to be able to record the actions of police and other security officials.

Related posts:

Brief post on the Alberta oil sands

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.”

This quotation from James Katz comes from an article on the annoying use of cellular phones in public or at inappropriate times. It applies just as well to an issue currently being protested in Alberta as a new legislative session begins: the oil sands.

If oil companies had to bear all the direct and indirect costs associated with production in the oil sands, it seems doubtful that the industry would exist. Those costs include air and water pollution, the large-scale use of fresh water supplies, deforestation, soil contamination, the wholesale destruction and of large tracts of land, and heavy greenhouse gas emissions.. The Pembina Institute – probably Canada’s best environmental NGO – has a website devoted to oil sands issues.

With oil likely to hit $100 a barrel this week, it seems probable that ever more of Alberta’s northern boreal forest will be carved up for petroleum.

Voting is inadequate

A post over on Shifting Baselines got me thinking about voting. People often equate voting with being politically engaged and argue that falling voter turnouts demonstrate the failure of democracy. While that is a potentially valid interpretation, another possibility comes to mind. Namely, that the complexity of contemporary policy issues makes voting for a political party too blunt an instrument by which to express yourself meaningfully.

When voting in the Canadian system, the first question is whether or not to vote for a hopeless party. That is to say, anybody except the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, and perhaps the Bloc depending on where you are. Voting for a different party – or for one of these in a riding where that party has no chance of winning – does demonstrate a kind of clear political preference. Even so, the message is ambiguous. For example, it is unknowable to anybody else whether you voted Green because you like their policies the most, because you liked their local candidate most, or because you wanted to protest the behaviours or policies of alternative parties. The Green Party, other parties, the media, and others could interpret your action in any of those ways. As such, your vote hasn’t sent a clear message to anybody.

Voting for a party with a chance of winning is even more problematic, when it comes to determining what your vote implies. Voting Liberal in a riding that pitches a plausible Liberal candidate against a plausible Tory candidate suggests that, overall, you prefer either that particular candidate or the Liberal Party in general. You may actually support more Conservative Party policies than Liberal ones but have certain points of irreconcilable disagreement with the Tory platform. You might prefer NDP policy on every front, but have chosen to reduce the chances of a Conservative victory, rather than expressing that preference in a more obvious way.

In short, it is impossible for anybody other than a particular voter to derive much information from a vote. Voting isn’t useless in this situation: it allows the electorate to turf out particularly corrupt, scandal-laden, or incompetent legislators or parties. What it does not do is allow voters to meaningfully signal their policy preferences through the act of voting alone. In situations where no plausible candidate is overtly unacceptable and all available choices are flawed, choosing not to vote may not be a betrayal of democratic ideals. Indeed, the idea that 100% voter turnout would be the epitome of a politically engaged populace really misses the extent to which a choice that is so constrained is so devoid of politically actionable content.

Being politically engaged thus means being much more overt about supporting or opposing particular policies during the time between elections: writing letters or articles, attending protests, calling your Member of Parliament, etc, etc. By itself, voting gives you very little meaningful voice in a Parliamentary democracy. Contributing to the political life of your state simply requires a lot more effort.

Lunchtime update: slightly pavement-battered

Last night, a car heading east on Rideau Street decided that it was a good idea to make a right turn at speed without signaling or checking if there were any cyclists behind them and to the right. On the positive side, I learned that the brakes on my bike are very effective. On the negative side, the forward momentum of my bike, body, and panniers was more than enough to throw me over my handlebars: feet still set in the cages on my pedals. Naturally, the car didn’t even slow down.

I actually managed to land pretty well, taking the bulk of the force with my right arm. Still, I managed to bruise my arm and ribs, as well as give my elbow joint a painful knock. My wrist and jaw are also somewhat sore, as a result of their contributions to the nullification of my forward and downward momentum. A group of drunken men dressed as Smurfs gave me a round of applause when I stood up (it was 8pm on Halloween).

I was impressed to see how durable my MEC Aegis jacket really is: despite my entire weight and that of the bike and despite scraping along for a few feet, it is not visibly worn. Irksomely, my bike no longer shifts properly into higher gear. Making it do so requires much more force than before, and sometimes requires shifting twice, waiting for the first shift to actually happen, and then preventing the second shift.

I will take it to the bike store over the weekend to see if they can return it to normal functionality. The uber-smooth gear shifting was one of my favourite aspects of the new bike.

[Update: 3 November 2007] I had my ribs checked out and the obvious was confirmed: they are not broken but may be fractured. If they still hurt in a month, the latter possibility will be confirmed. They could hurt for as long as six months.

The shifting on my bike seems to have largely been fixed simply on the basis of riding around. It isn’t perfectly smooth, but it is adequately reliable. Nonetheless, I will take the bike in for a tune-up soon.

The foolishness of the International Space Station

Montreal courthouse

On Tuesday, the space shuttle launched once again on a mission to add another piece to the International Space Station (ISS). As I have said before, it is a needlessly dangerous, unjustifiably expensive, and rather pointless venture. The science could be equally well done by robots, without risking human lives, and without spending about $1.3 billion per launch (plus emitting all the greenhouse gasses from the solid rocket boosters and related activities).

More and more, the ISS looks like a hopeless boondoggle. The lifetime cost is being estimated at $130 billion, all to serve a self-fulfilling mandate: we need to put people into space to scientifically assess what happens when we put people into space. Furthermore, the window between the completion of the ISS in about 2012 and the potential abandonment of the station as soon as 2016 is quite narrow. Robert Park may have summed up the whole enterprise best when he remarked that:

“NASA must complete the ISS so it can be dropped into the ocean on schedule in finished form.”

Normally, I am a big supporter of science. I think funding the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and Large Hadron Collider is wise; these machines will perform valuable scientific research. Likewise, I support the robotic work NASA does – especially when it comes to scientists looking down on Earth from orbit and providing valuable research and services. I support the James Webb telescope. I also support the idea that NASA should have some decent plans for dealing with an anticipated asteroid or comet impact. The ISS, by contrast, is a combination between technical fascination lacking strategic purpose and pointless subsidies to aerospace contractors.

Of course, the Bush plan to send people to Mars is an even worse idea with higher costs, more risk, and even less value.

Securing against the wrong risk

This week’s Economist includes an unusually poor article on security. It explains that the upcoming Swiss election will be using quantum cryptography to transmit the results from polling stations to central tabulation centres. It alleges that this makes the whole electoral process more secure. This is wrong.

What this is essentially saying is that there would otherwise be a risk of manipulation of this data in transit. The chief polling officer at one station might send a set of figures that get altered by a malicious agent en route to the tabulation centre. Having an encrypted link prevents this man-in-the-middle attack. It does not prevent the polling officer from lying, or the person at the tabulation centre from manipulating the results they input into the counting machines. It doesn’t prevent ballot-stuffing, vote buying, or the compromise of computer systems used to collect or tally votes. In short, it provides no security for the parts of the electoral process that are actually vulnerable to attack. In the absence of good security at the more vulnerable points in the electoral process, using quantum cryptography is like putting a padlock on a paper bag.

Hopefully, they will print my brief letter taking them to task for allowing themselves to be seduced by technology, rather than think sensibly about security.

[Update: 29 October 2007] Bruce Schneier has written about this. Unsurprisingly, he agrees that using quantum cryptography does not increase the security of the Swiss election.

Vroom vroom

Gatineau Park foliage

The never-ceasing movement of cars along Booth Street, right outside my bedroom window, is far and away the biggest problem with my present dwelling. Whenever I am not wearing earplugs or headphones, it is a constant annoyance. Almost every morning, I wake up around 6:00am with one earplug fallen out (see previous). I catch myself idly wondering about ways to sabotage the road or direct the vehicles to another route.

All told, the flat is quite a good one. The location is good (near work, though a bit far from most interesting parts of town), the apartment itself is nice and of a good size, the inclusion of a private washer and dryer is very convenient, and the landlord is a nice guy. Even so, I suspect that car noise is going to set me apartment hunting as the end of my lease approaches next summer.

Dear Apple: please quit it with the sabotage

One of the worst things about Apple is how they sabotage their own products with software updates. The update for wrecking unlocked iPhones is a recent example, but there are plenty of others. I remember when they restricted iTunes so that only five people could access your library every time you booted up. That made sharing music on big local area networks (like university residences) a lot less effective. Also, I remember when they forced a volume limitation on my iPod Shuffle by means of an update. I don’t think there has been a useful feature added to iTunes for years, except maybe the automatic downloading of album art for songs in your existing libraries.

Now, I only install security updates on my Mac. Anything promising new features is just too risky.

Bike helmet debate

I had no idea there was such an active debate about the utility of bicycle helmets. My assumption had always been that they provided unambiguous protection from direct contact between hard materials and the skull and had a limited secondary value in diminishing momentum at the time of collision by crushing.

Some of the arguments against helmets linked above do seem to have some merit. If it can be demonstrated that they significantly reduce bicycle usage, the general health benefits lost may well be more significant than the avoided injuries associated with unhelmeted crashes. It would also be interesting to see a properly controlled experiment on whether helmet wearing decreases the caution employed by both riders and cyclists.

Walking to and from work every day, I spend twenty minutes beside a noisy six-lane road. That road has certainly increased my aesthetic opposition to private automobiles. Along with the carbon emissions, cost of roads, need to stay cozy with oil producing governments, and other standard externalities associated with the automobile, all the space they take up and noise they produce should be considered as well. There is no uglier element in most cities than the various bits of infrastructure that cater to cars (some bridges excepted).