SteveR: initial revision

2017-12-04T02:17:45Z

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= Saturday, March 25th =

== When we fight we win: Technology and liberation in Trump's America ==

''Kade Crockford''

The senate voted to allow ISPs to sell user data, by 50-48. Now, we
have to worry about ISPs selling personal data to private companies,
and to government agencies.

Technology is not an adequate response to bad policy. If you
understand policy implications, then you have an obligation to take
action on a technical level.

The last election made a lot of people think "I haven't paid attention
to politics, and now look what's happened". We've elected a
demagogue. ACLU membership quadrupled after the election.

We wish people would have paid this much attention when Obama
assaulted our freedoms. For example, killing American citizens in
drone strikes, expanding the "war on terror", expanding executive
powers, and the militarization of police departments. Lots of towns
use surveillance technologies that the federal government bought for
them. This surveillance is predicated on extremely rare acts of
violence, but it's used to harass black and brown people. Donald Trump
inherited the surveillance state that Obama built.

Politics is not something you can take up only in times of crisis. You
have to stay engaged every day. You have to hold your representatives
accountable, regardless of what party they belong to. Politics is a
lot harder than code. You should not give up if you encounter
adversity in political work. Reason and logic help, but they only get
you so far in politics.

Let's talk about Apple and the FBI. The FBI likes power; they don't
care about technology. You have to be engaged in politics to preserve
technology - preventing back-doored encryption, for example. The FBI
lost their standoff with Apple because of massive public push-back.

Technology also threatens politics. The city of Boston was prepared to
spend $1.5M on social media monitoring. Los Angeles has a similar
program, which costs $70k/year. The ACLU and other groups made a big
stink about this. The police commissioner agreed to drop the program,
because of our multi-coalition campaign.

A few year ago, the ACLU released a report on how BRIC (the Boston
Regional Intelligence Center, a fusion center) was used to surveil
anti-war groups and other activists. The post-9/11 policy that allows
the Boston police to collect this information is still in place. The
police can collect information about you and share that information
with the federal government, even if you're not involved in a crime.
Law enforcement fingerprints everyone who's arrested. These
fingerprints go to the FBI, and then to DHS and ICE. This means that
every arrest in an opportunity to deport someone. Think about the
relationship between criminalization, deportation, and
oppression. Nobody benefits from a drug possession arrest. People are
50 more times likely to die of an opioid overdose when they get out of
jail.

Say you're caught driving with an expired license. If you're white,
you'll probably be told to go down to the registry and straighten it
out. If you're not white, you're likely to be arrested. Driving with
an expired license is an arrestable offense. The ACLU will sue Donald
Trump. It helps that the Trump administration can't keep their mouth
shut about their intentions. We have an opportunity to make some
really good laws through the court system.

We have a lot of work to do locally. Mass incarceration is a big
problem in Massachusetts. We're better than Mississippi, but we're not
so good when compared to, say, Sweden. We've also got some of the
worst racial disparities in the country. Partner with local
organizations doing criminal justice work, or immigrants rights
work. Help them with technology and security. Push to separate local
law enforcement from federal agencies. Push to prevent federal
agencies from deputizing local law enforcement.

Take fair information practices seriously. Facial recognition is a
good example. The photo on your driver's license effectively enters
you into a facial recognition database. Information collected for one
purpose should not be used for another purpose. Toll data should not
be used for warrantless tracking. Write letters. Call your local reps.
Write to government offices.

Question: Can you say more about stingrays? Can someone just develop a
new surveillance technology and sell it?

These devices had to be approved by the FCC. The FBI has aggressively
tried to keep the existence of these devices secret; most local law
enforcement agencies have to sign an NDA in order to get a
Stingray. The FBI doesn't want a constitutional challenge to
warrantless Stingray use.

Question: What about providing expert testimony, and serving on
advisory boards?

That's great. Lobby your state officials. Lobby your employer to take
positions on the technology aspects of law.

Question: Are there any initiatives on "Smart City Surveillance",
where cities collect lots of information from different sources, and
aggregate them in command and control centers?

These are just another kind of fusion centers, and they don't have a
legitimate public safety purpose. Long term, it would be better to
turn them into climate emergency centers. Short term, pushing for more
transparency would help.

== Move Fast and Break Democracy ==

''Shauna Gordon-McKeon''

I went to school for neuroscience, and I've had to take ethics courses
everywhere I've worked. There was a 40-year study of syphilis in
Tuskogee, where the subjects were never told that a syphilis treatment
existed. This study is considered a stain on scientific ethics. Lise
Meitner was an Austrian physicist whose work led the US to start the
Manhattan project. She wanted nothing to do with the bomb, saying
"people can do ghastly things with beautiful science".

The economy is changing, particularly in our increasing use of
automation. The US has a limited safety net, which make us very
dependent on the economy. When people lose jobs, we have a
responsibility to understand what's happening. Economic discontent
often spills over into political discontent.

Carrier - the company that received a tax break to keep a
manufacturing plant in the united states - plans to use that money to
invest in automation. The rust belt has lot a lot of manufacturing
jobs, but our manufacturing output has increased. Manufacturing jobs
are disappearing all over the world due to automation. The affected
jobs tend to involve lower degrees of education, typically less than a
college degree.

Automation was rarely mentioned during the last presidential election,
but immigration was mentioned a lot. Of course, automation has led to
more job losses than immigration. In a sense, the people who build
automation equipment are modern day strike breakers.

Tech workers are laborers; their labor extracts an an enormous amount
of capital, which goes to a very small number of people. We have a
responsibility to act collectively.

When you write free software, you're effectively giving away the value
of your project. And free software projects are chronically
underfunded. Why do tech workers give away their labor? Because it
feels like a good thing to do? Or, because it's easier than becoming a
capitalist?

Facebook is the leading source of news for people under 50, and lots
of stories have click-bait titles. The concept of fake news isn't
new. "Remember the Maine" was a sensationalist (and fake) news story
from the Spanish-American war. Some papers of the time tried to push
back on sensationalism, by introducing ethics and integrity. But how
to you apply ethical norms to a flood of information?

Tech companies like Google and Facebook have been very hesitant to
address algorithmic bias. There's also a lack of transparency around
the way they work. Google may show you a result, but they won't say
why they showed it to you. Propaganda is hard to counteract.

It's hard to find a good financial model for online news. There's
media consolidation, and behavioral ad targeting. You may need a
second job in order to make a living as a reporter. Information may
want to be free, but the people who create that information want to be
fed.

Work collectively. It's better to work out your differences, than to
splinter off.

There are potential solutions. Support alternative business
models. Many startups have a goal of being acquired by a larger
company. That's not the only option. We can demand that companies
which use free software donate to (or otherwise support) the projects
whose software they use.

We could adopt a professional code of ethics. We could lobby for
government programs to counter the effects of job loss from
automation. We have to grapple with things that people do with our
work.

== Civilian Code Conservation Corps: Free software for governments of all sizes ==

''Cecilia Donnelly''

Why do we care of government agencies use free software? Stallman
talks about the need to maintain control and sovereignty over our
computing environment. Is free software public infrastructure?
Software has definitely become organizational infrastructure. When the
government builds a new piece of software, they're actually building a
new resource.

The US forest service has a multiple use mandate. They require land to
be allocated to several uses, and that land must be put the best
public use (as opposed to the most profitable use). Software doesn't
neatly map to public land. For example, you can copy software with
zero marginal cost.

Free software is both infrastructure and a resource. You can develop
it like infrastructure, and use it as a public resource. The
government has a duty to make their software available to us.

Open tools are more effective; they give users better control, less
lock-in, better transparency, and more efficiency. Free software tends
to have more open APIs. We have to trust proprietary software a
lot. For example, the software in electronic voting machines.

Georgia HMIS is a homeless management information service. This system
has made it much easier to satisfy statutory reporting and data
requirements.

A lot of federal money is spend by the states; Medicaid section 8 for
example. Each state needs to buy a piece of software to manage a
program, which means that each state will have a Medicaid management
system. A state will contract with a vendor, and the federal
government will reimburse them for 90% of that cost. Yes, there are
differences between states but there are also a lot of
similarities. It would be nice if the federal government funded a free
software medicaid management system, and gave it to the states to
customize.

Why aren't all government software projects free software? Governments
are really risk averse, and people in government often believe in
security through obscurity. They think "open source" means "someone
can come in and change our data". At the federal level, DoD has the
most mature use of free software.

Governments are very concerned about support for software systems
(including free software). It takes them a long time to procure
support relationships. But there are many companies that offer support
for free software.

Sometimes openness is counter to what vendors want - they want to lock
themselves in to a long-term government contract.

Where are we now? More people are advocating for the use of free
software in government than we've seen in the past. At the federal
level, we are starting to see efforts to prevent vendor lock-in. They
have a responsibility to do this.

For governments, free software can be treated as "free, as in a
puppy".

== The Monster on the Project ==

''Tiberius Hefflin''

13-14% of Americans work under an abusive boss, and 80% of these
workers do nothing about it. Workers stressed by bullying can perform
up to 50% worse than they would otherwise. The stress of bullying can
lead to active decision making -- stress rewires the brain so that
it's more difficult to make good contemplative decisions.

Speaking out against abuse can be hard. People are often fired for
speaking out. Turnover is a big problem in teams that have toxic
personalities. Each time someone leaves, you have to find a
replacement and bring that replacement up to speed. The people who
leave generally take valuable knowledge with them.

What is toxic behavior and how do you recognize it? Toxic behavior can
take many forms. For example, people falsely accused of mistakes they
didn't make; belittling comments; people taking credit for work they
didn't do; picking on co-workers. People who are more self-centered,
or focused on getting what they want are more likely to exhibit toxic
behavior.

If you're being bullied on a project, you're not alone. Be
professional and don't retaliate. Keep records and build a body of
evidence. Evidence is important, especially when trying to show a
pattern of behavior. Talk to friends and family. Use your support
network. In extreme cases, expulsion can be the best decision for a
manager. Expulsion should be a last resort, however.

How do you help someone (i.e., a workplace bully, or someone
exhibiting toxic behavior) reform? Don't label people - label their
behavior. Both carrot and stick approaches can work. The trick is to
find out what motivates people. Be very clear and specific about what
the problematic behavior is, and that it will not be tolerated. Some
people may not realize that their behavior is unacceptable.

Behavioral expectations should really be set at the outset, by a code
of conduct or similar policy. You also need a support network, to help
people who have been harassed or bullied. Call out bad behavior when
you see it. Teach conflict resolution skills.

Miscommunication is often a source of problems. Asking for clarity can
be very helpful.

When resolving problems, it's okay to take a break and come back the
next day.

In the FOSS community, we have to value soft skills. It's not all
about coding. Mental health issues are often the source of toxic
behavior.

Some resources:
* https://osmihelp.org
* http://www.workplacebullying.org/

Question: Can you explain more about documentation?

When something happens, write down the date, time, what happened, and
who witnessed it.

Question: What about organizations where there's not a hierarchy?

Step back to conflict resolution techniques. For example, "when you
say this, I feel this".

Comment: Bringing in outside people can be helpful in resolving a
dispute.

Comment: Understanding emotional abuse is a good place to start.

Comment: In human resources, we talk about misconduct and gross
misconduct, where the latter is result for immediate dismissal. Your
group should have ideas of what constitutes gross misconduct.

Question: How often do individuals exhibiting toxic behavior reform?

This is the idea, but it takes a lot of work, and it's probably the
rare case. Going through the resolution process can offer validation
to people who were abused. Comment: Once you've set expectations
about conduct, people often tend to follow those expectations.

== Lightning Talks ==

'''Tahoe LAFS'''. LAFS is the Least Authority File Store. Think
Google drive and drop box. There are command line, HTTP and API
interfaces. "Least authority" is the idea that you should give someone
the least amount of authority that still allows them to do their
work. For example, a file store generally doesn't need the ability to
read your files. Tahoe LAFS can't, but Google Drive can. Tahoe LAFS
uses client-side encryption and erasure encoding. It breaks files up
and distributes them.

= Sunday, March 26th =

== Keynote, Cory Doctorow ==

''Cory Doctorow''

It seems like FLOSS has won. People still use Mac and Windows
computers, but they're basically dumb terminals which talk to services
built on FLOSS.

Let's compare alchemy and science. Alchemists keep results to
themselves while scientists share them. In the end, the alchemists did
something novel; they took the step of moving from superstition to
science. FLOSS is like the transition from alchemy to science, where
work becomes subject to peer review.

When you have something open, there's always a temptation to close
it. For example, someone can develop a free program, which another
takes and uses to develop a business. We haven't gone back (to
alchemy) because the GPL is irrevocable. That removes the temptation
to take a big step back for a short-term goal.

If FLOSS won because it's everywhere, then DRM has won too. This is
largely due to DMCA section 1201, which makes it illegal to circumvent
DRM, even for a lawful purpose. The US has exported section 1201 all
around the world via trade agreements.

There's little juris prudence around section 1201, because most
defendants fold before taking a case to court. Section 1201 allows
companies to convert their business preferences into legal rights. You
can't copy a DRM protected disc. John Deere is using DRM to force
farmers to have tractors serviced at John Deere dealers. John Deere is
also forcing farmers to pay for telemetry data collected by their
tractors, as they're driven around the fields.

When software is locked up with DRM, looking at it becomes a jailable
offense. Likewise for publicly talking about defects in DRM-based
systems. Because it's illegal to disclose defects in DRM software,
those defects have the risk of becoming weaponized.

The IoT (Internet of Things) business model isn't about selling
hardware. It's about collecting data, and locking consumers into a
manufacturer's product ecosystem. For example, Phillips has smart
light sockets that will only work with Phillips light bulbs.

HP delivered a printer firmware update that caused the printers to
reject non-HP ink cartridges. Even CVS used DRM in their smart rectal
thermometers. You no longer have a property right in these devices;
you have a tenancy right instead.

The W3C standardized DRM. The EFF suggested that the W3C amend its
term of memberships: if a member has a patent that affects a standard,
then that member won't invoke their patent to prevent someone else
from implementing the standard. Several large organizations said
they'd rather leave the W3C than accept these terms. They'd rather be
able to turn commercial preferences into commercial interests.
Devices should always give deference to their owners, and not to third
parties. It should always be legal to disclose security defects.

Last summer, the EFF filed a law suit with the hope of getting section
1201 invalidated. The benefits of free software are worthless if
devices and software treat their owners as adversaries.

Question: How do you feel about software copyrights?

I think there's a utility to limited-term monopolies, but I don't have
an idealistic view of copyright. Eldred Vs. Ashcroft was a court case
where the courts determined that copyright is only compatible with
free speech if there is a fair use exception.

Comment: You said that FLOSS has won, but FLOSS is not a real thing -
it conflates the ideas of free software and open source. Outsourcing
your computing to someone else is bad. Even if the third party uses
free software, you don't have access to it.

Free software hasn't eroded over time. Other open things, like the
open web, were compromised and have eroded over time.

Question: You said people don't litigate DRM cases. There there ways
for people to change this?

We kind of have that in the EFF's 1201 case. The plaintiff has a
devices that overlays static images over a DRM-protected HDMI
stream. He didn't break DRM. Instead, he used leaked HDMI keys to
overlay images into the stream.

Often, the government will drop DRM cases where the defendant has a
strong case. That prevents the courts from establishing precedents.

Question: Can we use licenses to fight DRM? For example "this software
cannot be used in a DRM encumbered product".

No. A program with that limitation would be non-free. It would damage
freedom zero too much.

== Algorithmic bias: Where it comes from and what to do about it ==

''Andrew Oram, Ifeoma Ajunwa, Geoff A. Cohen, Ben Green''

(Andrew) Latanya Sweeny is a researcher. She discovered that search
engines display very different ads for name searches, based on whether
the name sounds "white" or "black".

Cathy O'Neil's Book Weapons of Math Destruction is a good read. Often
the problem is data, not code. Civiscope publishes their code, but
most companies don't. Most companies fear that publishing their
algorithms will encourage people to game them. Or, companies consider
their algorithms trade secrets.

(Ben). Machine learning relies on past data to predict future
events. It's hard to get unbiased samples, and many data sets reflect
biases in society. For example, training data may not represent the
population as a whole. Amazon's Alexa is trained to understand English
with a midwestern accent. Alexa has a difficult time understanding
people with accents.

Given a data set, you have to select a set of features that will be
used to predict outcomes. Consequently, feature engineering tends to
reflect the bias of data scientists. Machine learning algorithms
optimize for a metric, but which metric? Is there more concern about
false positives or false negatives? Do inaccuracies go in different
directions for different populations?

When policy is implemented on a computer, people are less likely to
challenge the decisions. They just go along with what the computer
says.

(Ifeoma) I research algorithmic bias in the hiring process. There is a
disconnect between what is accurate and what is fair. Socio-economic
status is highly correlated with race, and can be used for
discriminatory bias. For example, SAT scores are highly correlated
with gender and socio-economic status. Sometimes, they're used as a
proxy for legally protected categories. You can only know if your
hiring algorithm is biased if you audit the results - both yes and
no. That kind of auditing almost never happens.

(Jeff) I work for an investigation and forensics company. When we get
a black box (e.g., from the NTSB) we have to use the information to
figure out what happened.

Algorithms are only one piece of the computational puzzle. Training
data is very important. How was the algorithm trained? What random
number generator was used? Algorithms take humans out of the
loop. Many times, we really need to have humans in the loop,
especially in the legal system. There's a huge body of literature
about how to build secure systems. We're just starting to figure out
how to use this body of knowledge to scrutinize algorithmic fairness.

== A role for free software in movements, communities and platform cooperativism ==

''Micky Metts''

I'd like to talk about two movements: Free Software and Platform
Cooperativism. Platform cooperativism is people coming together to
build something, as a platform, that benefits the community. For
example, an Uber that's owned by drivers and riders. Another example
is the Internet of Ownership; it's a directory of platforms that are
currently being built. See https://ioo.coop/

Stocksy is a cooperative of photographers that sells stock photos. See
https://www. stocksy.com/.

The Boston collaboratory school is a school where students build
platforms for their communities. The goal is to have a bridge between
school and community.

Loomio is a platform for group decision making.

Drutopia is a cooperative for shared web hosting. See
https://drutopia.org/.

Platform cooperativism started at the New School in New York. They
examined digital labor, and where work and benefits were going.

Platform cooperativism should be based on free software.

Books to read:
* Uberworked and Underpaid
* Thank you Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse

Small companies tend to be more interested in what people
want. Sometimes you can make changes just by asking them questions.

Voucher networks are a real-world web of trust. People vouch for
someone who wants to come in to a group.

Concrete things you can do.
* https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ateams/ is an organization that helps activists by providing funding.
* Look for resources in your area. What kind of events are coming up. What kind of people can you meet? Awareness is really important.
* Invite some friends over, talk about an issue, and plan what to do. We are the plan makers.
* Talk to your library about using free software. Put them in touch with the Library Freedom Project.
* In Massachusetts, a platform to record wage theft (or to record work done) could be really useful.
* Find ways to help and support new activist groups that are starting up.
* Look at business models that might work for cooperatives. What would the governance models look like.

Comment: Most people who own smartphones don't have root on the device. Intel
laptops and computers have a systems management chip that's not under the user's
control. It's very important to ask for computers that we really own.

== The GNU philosophy: Ethics beyond ethics ==

''Marianne Corvellec''

Philosophy is at the heart of our lives, and at the heart of the human
experience. The free software foundation rejects the idea of a
"priesthood" of technology, where only experts understand how things
work.

Ethics and morality are related terms, but they are not
interchangeable.

Aristotle investigated the question of how to live best. Ethics are
the answer to good living for the individual. They're practical and
not theoretical. Ethics are a way of life. Ethics is not about finding
the boundaries of human conduct.

Marcus Aurellius tried to be on his best behavior when with
friends. He did this to preserve his own standing. This is ethics, and
it's very pragmatic. The ethics of free software go way beyond
operational ethics.

Ethics is often treated as a cost/benefit equation.

The following century made a philosophical jump. Philosophers started
to thing about how other people feel. This is where morality enters
the picture. Morality is not about being smart; it's about acting
according to your obligations.

Humanism is about putting the human being front and center. It's the
idea that we are all equal, meant to form communities, and meant to
share. The GNU manifesto has many traits of humanism.

Our intangible cultural heritage is another form of commons, which
deals with cultural expression.

Pragmatic idealism is part of the FSF philosophy. That's very much in
the spirit of classical ethics.

How do you form a social community? You need to start with a social
contract, and that takes empathy. There are no technical aspects
involved.

Existentialism posits that we're always responsible.

Anarchism is a school of thought about freedom. It's about challenging
the power of oppression.

== Other Notes ''

gLabels, http://glabels.org/, is a GNU project for creating labels and
business cards.

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