Covert Agency
In today's edition: a Stingray yarn, working around algorithms, computing master metaphors, evaluating moonshots, and the airport restroom of the future.
Next Tuesday, Jan 19, we're having a happy hour and discussion in our Oakland office with artist and social media breakup coordinator Caroline Sinders. We'll talk about how technology makes messy situations worse, as we examine the modern complications of breaking up. You can register here to attend (it's free & there'll be cocktails), or schedule an appointment with Caroline. (Read more about her work.)
1. Killer story by The Verge's Russel Brandom on the prisoner who exposed surveillance by Stingray.
"To track Rigmaiden down, the investigators had used a secret device, one that allowed them to pinpoint their target with far more accuracy than Verizon could. They called it a cell-site simulator, or by its trade name, Stingray. Neither term was found in the court order that authorized its use. The device had to be kept secret, even from the courts. The Stingray had worked perfectly. Agents traced the suspect’s AirCard back to his apartment and now had more than enough evidence for a conviction. But in the years that followed, that open-and-shut case would turn into something far more complex. Working from prison, Rigmaiden would unravel decades of secrecy, becoming the world’s foremost authority on the device that sent him to jail."
2. Covert agency and working around algorithms.
"Covert agency addresses some of the questions arising from discussions of "workarounds" such as those by Woods and Hollnagel (2006) and Woods et al. (1994). In many cases employing covert agency to engineer a workaround is a 'critical' element in the successful achievement of an outcome. Disguising these 'deviant' choices is also critical, as these choices nominally subvert workplace management, scripts and processes and/or accepted use of automated equipment in the work process, however inadequate these might be."
3. Changing the metaphor for how computing works could be more important than you think.
"And this, ultimately, is the future of user interface. We’re coming out of a 30-year period in which personal computers obeyed the rules of a particular metaphor, the office desk, and into one in which they’re going to obey another, the personal assistant. That includes 'digital' assistants like M, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google. Advanced voice recognition and intelligent text parsing don’t just get a user relevant information or perform an action faster than using a GUI might — they can also become a new layer of services from which money can be extracted."
4. "Moonshots" are not really a good idea.
"History has shown us that giving science a large slug of cash in a very short amount of time has horrible—some might say disastrous—consequences. This was plain to see after the NIH budget got doubled between 1998 and 2003 (something I and my colleagues wrote about extensivelyhere at Ars). It was even more obvious once the two-year bolus of money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009-2011) was spent. Think about the way a sudden influx of nutrients causes algae to bloom and then die off in rivers and oceans, leaving dead zones behind."
5. Researching the airport restroom of the future.
"The TSB report ends with an appendix on the 'Airport Restroom of the Future.' After a surprisingly detailed history of public toilets, the TSB concludes that gender-neutral restrooms would offer travelers the most relief. Not only would they better address evolving gender identity norms, but they would also reduce congestion, maintenance, and accessibility by foregoing the barriers that help create the constriction of today’s restrooms. The TSB’s mockup puts individual sink basins in stalls to avoid flow to a common sink area, and adds a spacious waiting area flanked by two 'art vitrines.'"
1. theverge.com | @csoghoian 2. posr.org | @anthropunk 3. nymag.com | @zeigor 4. arstechnica.com 5. theatlantic.com
Covert Agency