critiquing “the cloud”

COM 327 March 20 2014

QUIZ!!!

1. According to Andrejevic, the “digital enclosure” is a more apt metaphor than _________ for describing current trends in digital data storage and access.

a) the golden archesb) the cloudc) the Caped Crusaderd) double rainbow

2. “In return for this convenience, ______ reserves the right to mine its rapidly expanding databases for commercial purposes.” (Andrejevic, p. 296)

a) Obamab) Big Brotherc) Googled) Biebertron 5000

3. Andrejevic describes an effort on the part of Google and EarthLink to provide the city of San Francisco with free _________, financed bythe collection of information provided by the users.

a) wifib) computersc) tracking devicesd) kittens

4. Google collects information about you (the user) in two ways: information provided by you directly and ...

a) information provided by surveying your friendsb) information found on your hard drivec) information from your use of Google servicesd) information collected by Googling your name

BONUSIf & when you delete your Google account, Google will….

a) send ‘customer service representatives’ to your house to ‘persuade’ you to rejoinb) keep your data on backup serversc) immediately delete all your data from their recordsd) remunerate you for all of the data you’ve provided that helped them get stupid rich

STUFF

1. Midterm grades back next week2. Do this survey!

http://ncsu.qualtrics.com//SE/?SID=SV_6xU1oQFIm8xKkzX

3. Final project • Use this spreadsheet: “COM 327 Spring 2014: Final

Project Topics & Groups”(https://docs.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmP_FQLV5u1kdE8tUW5RSnNNcU1sVFk4OTV0T0dXT2c&usp=drive_web#gid=0)• If you aren’t already, start collecting & taking notes on

articles, news stories, blog posts• Use Google Alerts!

http://www.google.com/alerts

Plan

1. “Enclosure”2. Internet of Things?

3. Close reading of articles

The story so farFoucault (Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison)

We are already primed for technological forms of surveillance because society teaches us to monitor the actions of ourselves & others to ensure ‘normalcy’

Fuchs, C. (2012). The political economy of privacy on Facebook. Television & New Media 13(2), pp. 139-159.

Facebook & other SNS capitalize on our ‘affective labor’ by selling our data to advertisers

Fuchs, C. (2011). New media, Web 2.0 and surveillance. Sociology Compass, 5(2), pp. 134–147.

SNS companies use ‘Web 2.0’ to profile us according to our needs / habits

The story so far

Fuchs, C. (2012). The political economy of privacy on Facebook. Television & New Media 13(2), pp. 139-159.

The story so far

Fuchs (The political economy of privacy on Facebook and New media, Web 2.0 and surveillance)

• Facebook & other SNS capitalize on our ‘immaterial labor’ by selling our data to advertisers

• SNS companies use ‘Web 2.0’ to profile us according to our needs / habits

Today: how does this all work?

What is the cloud?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U-z8fCYZ4U

Mainstream & corporate visions of the “cloud”

“digital sublime”

“untethered”

“the end of ownership”

Rupert Murdoch … upon purchasing MySpace for a half billion dollars observed that, “Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control . . .” (Andrejevic, 299)

Battle of the metaphors!

Cloud vs Enclosure

“Against these persistent reminders of the “digital sublime,” the model of digital enclosure seeks to explain why much still depends on who owns and controls the networks, who sets the terms of entry, and who gathers and sorts this information for what ends.” (300)

Enclosure: more than a metaphor

1. New forms of institutionalized surveillance

1. New forms of institutionalized surveillance

1. New forms of institutionalized surveillance

“If the creation of enclosures such as those of the prison, the factory, and the asylum facilitated the disciplinary monitoring of inmates and workers, that of the digital enclosure extends the monitoring gaze beyond such institutional walls to encompass spaces of leisure, consumption, domesticity, and perhaps all of these together.” (301)

Enclosure: more than a metaphor

2. The “Land Enclosure” movement

“Open field” system• People worked land

& were guaranteed rights over it

• Rent paid to local lord in exchange for administration

Middle ages up to 16/1800’s

EXPROPRIATION

Industrial revolution• Govt forces people off land• Land is sold to capitalists• Farming -> Factories

“Free” workers• Workers now ‘free’ to

sell their labor back to capitalists

• Often on hugely disadvantageous terms

Mechanism of redistributing wealth (from the workers to land owners)“Separating workers from the land they cultivated was a neces- sary precondition for restructuring the terms of their access to productive resources. Against the background of restructured property relations, workers had little choice but to enter “freely” into exploitative wage labor agreements.” (p 307)

Mid 1800’s on

Much the same might be said of the emerging information economy, in which privatization of

networks and databases and, therefore, of control over both the means of interaction and the

information it generates has become the norm, despite the publicly subsidized character of the

original Internet (304)

Early Internet & Personal computingConsumers buy machinery (routers, computers, software) from companiesInternet

1970’s to 2000’s

The CloudThe cloud & server/client computing• Goods are now

services (do you ‘own’ an XBOne game?)

• Our data is stored & controlled by the ‘service providers’

Mid 1800’s on

The Internet:From publicly-subsidized ‘common good’ to privatized system

“Rather than a “cloud,” the spatial formations associated with digital enclosure are vast

data repositories—so-called “server farms”—sprouting up in locations where land and

electricity are relatively inexpensive” (309)

“enclosures not of people, but of information about people assembled for the purposes of both assisting them and managing them more effectively”

“Internet of Things”

“smart” devices either connected to your cellphone or connected to each other (or both)

“fridge that communicates with the grocery store when you get low on milk”

Andrejevic groups:1. Summarize in your own words2. Pick out representative quote3. Define any new / tough words

Google groups:Identify silences, loopholes & vague or unanswered parts of the privacy policy

Group 1Intro & “Recentralization” Pt. 1 (p. 295 to p. 298, “This type of control….”)

Caroline Brown, TJ Matthews, Christen McCoy, Emily Weaver

Recentralization refers to the shift from keeping information on a private laptop or desktop computer and uploading it to the cloud. This cyberspace holding cell would free up space on devices and is advertised as a positive and beneficial change. Once information is uploaded, however, the terms for accessing the information change. Whoever is controlling the cloud, Google or Apple for example, can then use your information to make a profit and direct advertisements toward you.

Quote: “In the world of ubiquitous computing, we will dip into these invisible currents of information at will, connected by an electromagnetic umbilicus to an overarching matrix of information and communication (Andrejevic, p.295).”

Group 2“Recentralization” Pt. 2 (p. 298, “This type of control…” to p. 301, end of section)

Summary- This section discusses moving away from physical storage space and migrating to the cloud.These virtual storage space creates enclosures that allow corporations to locate him in a specific space and time and maintain that information.This does not mean that the technology is a negative force or bad but that the corporations that privately own the space could be a negative thing. By owning the voice, opinions, and recorded activity of the public they are able to maintain the position of power. The possession of this digital matter is growing in importance over physical matter. Wireless networks are merely another way companies are able to develop enclosures that transmit and gather. The public is often unaware of the kinds of data being gathered as well as how and why. This technology is changing the world in beneficial ways while also creating an environment that easily allows for abuse of these systems.

Quote- "The fantasy of total interactivity, in other words, is also one of complete enclosure."

Definition- We didn't get this far...Peter, Andrew, Zach, and Logan

Group 3“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 1“Enclosure of the intangible commons of the mind”• privatizing, controlling and commodifying intellectual property• movement driven by attempts to profit from the commodification of information• property should be extended everywhere…more is better.• elite programs of political-economic reconstruction devoted to enclosing the immensity of global communication

and information provision.

“The theft of the common lands, the usurpation of feudal & clan property & its transformation into modern private property.”“So called freedom”Reconfiguration: Workers must be separated from land so that their time and labors can be regulated. This work space is now operated and controlled by owners.- primitive accumulation - attempts to privatize the national parks and transfer control over their resources to private control, the forcible expulsion of indigenous populations in Africa and Latin America from mineral or oil-rich homelands, and the eviction of farmers from communal lands in Nigeria.

Land plays an important rule in accounts of enclosurecontinuousContemporary*Primitive accumulation results in the separation between producers and means of production

“The construction of privatized infrastructures for ubiquitous computing has become one of the economic drivers of investment in the digital media industries. “The software could conceivably gather information on every file on a suer’s hard drive and send it to advertisers, and the application does little to assuage security and privacy concerns.”Users are separated from their data by software, allowing them to be monitored. The reach of a physical interactive enclosure is necessary to gather data just like the DVD example that Andrejevic gives.

Group 5“Implications”, part 1

Megan, Sam, Morgan, Steven, Nijah

1. Summary

Individual privacy is becoming a thing of the past. Privacy is no longer a personal pleasure and is now owned by others such as corporations. With all of our information being gathered in one specific area, others have access to all of our personal interests. This can either be a good thing in relation to sharing your information with family and friends, but also this is a scary thing because companies and other public groups have access to your information. This in turn eventually becomes a marketing gimmick and without realizing it, everything that you see on the internet is there because it is information that you have previously searched or viewed. In the future people may become very narrow minded. While this digital enclosure may be more efficient in the short term, it is also a very scary thought that you are not given different viewpoints other than your own when you use a search engine.

2. Notable Quotes

“in China Microsoft does not allow the word democracy to be used in a subject heading”

3. Tough Words

· Telephony

Group 6“Implications”, part 2

This section is all about digital enclosure and the problems that it presents. Because every interaction is becoming traceable and recordable, we are stuck in this digital enclosure, which is structured by private control over the means of interaction. Because of digital enclosure and conglomerates owning all means of productions and consumption, we have no choice but to fall under the trap of sacrificing our privacy.

Because we are trapped inside of this digital enclosure, it shapes everything that we do. Because of what we do online and due to the vast amount of information that we share with storage devices, we have no privacy in our personal lives. Advertisements are always bombarding us online, and we have no choice but to be subjected to them. This means that we have no choice of who we want to be due to the information stored from Google.

Quote: Finally, enclosure raises the issue of asymmetrical control over personal information, and the ways in which this can be exercised as a strategy for managing or manipulating customers.

Words we don’t know: unbounded social terrain

Google’s Privacy Policy

1. Summarize in your own words: Google obtains information from their users in two way: information that users give them directly and information that Google gets from the use of their services.

Even though Google’s privacy policy is quite vague, it is still easy to read and understand for the reader.

Key words in the privacy policy:

“May” was used 37 times

"We” was used 87 times

2. Pick out representative quote:

“We may collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you visit a website that uses advertising services or you view and interact with our ads and content.”

“We regularly review our compliance with our Privacy Policy.” (Self policing)

“We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to: …”

3. Define any new / tough words:

As we said above, the privacy policy is clear and easy read. Google seems to try to appeal to the “average reader.” Google has extracted the more complicated and technical language and defined it under the “Key Terms” section of Privacy Policy. These words include: anonymous identifier, cookie, IP address, pixel tag, server logs, and sensitive personal information.

Google’s Privacy Policy

Aaron Thomas, Arielle Chambers, Eboné Mitchell, Tiffany Johnson

GOOGLE PRIVACY POLICY

Loopholes, vagueness, and unanswered questions we discovered

• “Being managed by a domain administrator”-Employers and other huge organizations such as NC State University serve as domain administrators that manage email accounts for employees, students, faculty/staff, etc. As a result, users may feel as if though there is no sense of privacy because their information can be searched anytime.

• “We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy”-Google fails to outline what these purposes are for the user.

• “You may also set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with our services, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us. However, it’s important to remember that many of our services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled”-Some users may want to block cookies to prevent tracking, but there is no point in blocking them if a user can take advantage of all services.

• “We aim to maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction. Because of this, after you delete information from our services, we may not immediately delete residual copies from our active servers and may not remove information from our backup systems”-Google comes off as working in the best interest of the user, ensuring their data is safe even if they delete it. Since information may not be removed from information from backup systems immediately, the question that comes to mind is will the data ever be removed?

Group 1Intro & “Recentralization” Pt. 1 (p. 295 to p. 298, “This type of control….”)

Caroline Brown, TJ Matthews, Christen McCoy, Emily Weaver

Recentralization refers to the shift from keeping information on a private laptop or desktop computer and uploading it to the cloud. This cyberspace holding cell would free up space on devices and is advertised as a positive and beneficial change. Once information is uploaded, however, the terms for accessing the information change. Whoever is controlling the cloud, Google or Apple for example, can then use your information to make a profit and direct advertisements toward you.

Quote: “In the world of ubiquitous computing, we will dip into these invisible currents of information at will, connected by an electromagnetic umbilicus to an overarching matrix of information and communication (Andrejevic, p.295).”

Group 2“Recentralization” Pt. 2 (p. 298, “This type of control…” to p. 301, end of section)

Group 3“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 1(p. 301 to bottom of p. 305, “…has to be networked”)

Group 4“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 2(bottom p. 305, “The process of…” to end of section)

Group 5“Implications”, part 1(p. 310 to middle p. 313, “…the ‘war’ on terror”)

Group 6“Implications”, part 2(p. 313, “In somewhat more abstract terms…” to end)

Group 1Intro & “Recentralization” Pt. 1 (p. 295 to p. 298, “This type of control….”)

Caroline Brown, TJ Matthews, Christen McCoy, Emily Weaver

Recentralization refers to the shift from keeping information on a private laptop or desktop computer and uploading it to the cloud. This cyberspace holding cell would free up space on devices and is advertised as a positive and beneficial change. Once information is uploaded, however, the terms for accessing the information change. Whoever is controlling the cloud, Google or Apple for example, can then use your information to make a profit and direct advertisements toward you.

Quote: “In the world of ubiquitous computing, we will dip into these invisible currents of information at will, connected by an electromagnetic umbilicus to an overarching matrix of information and communication (Andrejevic, p.295).”

Group 2“Recentralization” Pt. 2 (p. 298, “This type of control…” to p. 301, end of section)

Group 3“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 1(p. 301 to bottom of p. 305, “…has to be networked”)

Group 4“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 2(bottom p. 305, “The process of…” to end of section)

Group 5“Implications”, part 1(p. 310 to middle p. 313, “…the ‘war’ on terror”)

Group 6“Implications”, part 2(p. 313, “In somewhat more abstract terms…” to end)

Group 1Intro & “Recentralization” Pt. 1 (p. 295 to p. 298, “This type of control….”)

Caroline Brown, TJ Matthews, Christen McCoy, Emily Weaver

Recentralization refers to the shift from keeping information on a private laptop or desktop computer and uploading it to the cloud. This cyberspace holding cell would free up space on devices and is advertised as a positive and beneficial change. Once information is uploaded, however, the terms for accessing the information change. Whoever is controlling the cloud, Google or Apple for example, can then use your information to make a profit and direct advertisements toward you.

Quote: “In the world of ubiquitous computing, we will dip into these invisible currents of information at will, connected by an electromagnetic umbilicus to an overarching matrix of information and communication (Andrejevic, p.295).”

Group 2“Recentralization” Pt. 2 (p. 298, “This type of control…” to p. 301, end of section)

Group 3“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 1(p. 301 to bottom of p. 305, “…has to be networked”)

Group 4“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 2(bottom p. 305, “The process of…” to end of section)

Group 5“Implications”, part 1(p. 310 to middle p. 313, “…the ‘war’ on terror”)

Group 6“Implications”, part 2(p. 313, “In somewhat more abstract terms…” to end)

Group 1Intro & “Recentralization” Pt. 1 (p. 295 to p. 298, “This type of control….”)

Caroline Brown, TJ Matthews, Christen McCoy, Emily Weaver

Recentralization refers to the shift from keeping information on a private laptop or desktop computer and uploading it to the cloud. This cyberspace holding cell would free up space on devices and is advertised as a positive and beneficial change. Once information is uploaded, however, the terms for accessing the information change. Whoever is controlling the cloud, Google or Apple for example, can then use your information to make a profit and direct advertisements toward you.

Quote: “In the world of ubiquitous computing, we will dip into these invisible currents of information at will, connected by an electromagnetic umbilicus to an overarching matrix of information and communication (Andrejevic, p.295).”

Group 2“Recentralization” Pt. 2 (p. 298, “This type of control…” to p. 301, end of section)

Group 3“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 1(p. 301 to bottom of p. 305, “…has to be networked”)

Group 4“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 2(bottom p. 305, “The process of…” to end of section)

Group 5“Implications”, part 1(p. 310 to middle p. 313, “…the ‘war’ on terror”)

Group 6“Implications”, part 2(p. 313, “In somewhat more abstract terms…” to end)

Group 1Intro & “Recentralization” Pt. 1 (p. 295 to p. 298, “This type of control….”)

Caroline Brown, TJ Matthews, Christen McCoy, Emily Weaver

Recentralization refers to the shift from keeping information on a private laptop or desktop computer and uploading it to the cloud. This cyberspace holding cell would free up space on devices and is advertised as a positive and beneficial change. Once information is uploaded, however, the terms for accessing the information change. Whoever is controlling the cloud, Google or Apple for example, can then use your information to make a profit and direct advertisements toward you.

Quote: “In the world of ubiquitous computing, we will dip into these invisible currents of information at will, connected by an electromagnetic umbilicus to an overarching matrix of information and communication (Andrejevic, p.295).”

Group 2“Recentralization” Pt. 2 (p. 298, “This type of control…” to p. 301, end of section)

Group 3“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 1(p. 301 to bottom of p. 305, “…has to be networked”)

Group 4“A Digital Enclosure Movement”, part 2(bottom p. 305, “The process of…” to end of section)

Group 5“Implications”, part 1(p. 310 to middle p. 313, “…the ‘war’ on terror”)

Group 6“Implications”, part 2(p. 313, “In somewhat more abstract terms…” to end)