[silk] Virtual prisons: how e-maps are curtailing our freedom

[Sarad AV]

all technologies have pros and cons. it is a matter of how we evolve with it.

Sarad.

--- On Tue, 7/6/10, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
> Subject: [silk] Virtual prisons: how e-maps are curtailing our freedom
> To: tt at postbiota.org, cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
> Date: Tuesday, July 6, 2010, 10:52 PM
> ----- Forwarded message from Udhay
> Shankar N <udhay at pobox.com>
> -----
>
> From: Udhay Shankar N <udhay at pobox.com>
> Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:50:53 +0530
> To: silklist at lists.hserus.net
> Subject: [silk] Virtual prisons: how e-maps are curtailing
> our freedom
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> I must admit I'm curious about what Eugen and Cory (among
> various others
> on this list) will say in response.
>
> Udhay
>
>
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727670.900-virtual-prisons-how-emaps-
are-curtailing-our-freedom.html?full=true
>
>  Virtual prisons: how e-maps are curtailing our freedom
>
>     * 06 July 2010 by Mark Monmonier
>
> ELECTRONIC maps are arguably the quintessential innovation
> of
> 20th-century cartography. Although a few academic
> cartographers accord
> the map mystical powers, it is merely a tool, useful for
> good, evil or
> both, which citizens can resist or constrain - up to a
> point. The
> question is not whether e-maps will restrict where we go
> and what we do,
> but to what extent.
>
> What I call "restrictive cartography" is not in itself new.
> Property
> maps are at least as old as Roman times, and boundary maps
> no younger
> than kingdoms and nation states. What is new, however, is
> the
> substantial increase in both the number and diversity of
> restrictive
> maps. A comparison of mapping in 1900 and 2000 underscores
> my point.
>
> Since 1900, we have used maps to exclude industry from
> residential
> neighbourhoods, ban new construction on floodplains, help
> delineate
> "historic" districts that constrain a homeowner's choice of
> paint colour
> or replacement windows, put limits on where and with what
> weapons we can
> hunt game, restrict travel by foreign diplomats and
> journalists, prevent
> sex offenders from living near schools and playgrounds, and
> keep
> aircraft a nautical mile away from a vice-president's
> weekend retreat.
>
> The public tolerates these cartographic restrictions
> because many, if
> not most, are not only benign but essential. Environmental
> protection,
> for instance, relies on mapping as a regulatory instrument
> to safeguard
> water resources and wildlife habitat. Maps delineating
> rights of way for
> gas lines and other underground facilities guard against
> accidental
> breaches by a digger arm, at least by conscientious
> contractors. "Call
> before you dig" is a mantra of restrictive cartography.
> Property maps
> show rights of way that might thwart a buyer's plan to
> enlarge a home or
> re-configure an access road, and maps of quarantine areas
> aimed at
> farmers stem the spread of fruit-fly infestations.
> Government officials
> publish restrictive maps because they assume the boundaries
> will be heeded.
>
> In 2010, however, restrictive cartography is on the verge
> of more
> invasive applications as electronic technology replaces
> graphic lines
> requiring conscious interpretation with invisible fences,
> erected by
> proactive, self-enforcing geographical restrictions.
>
> The most impressive examples, and the most frightening,
> reflect the
> integration of geographical information systems (GIS), the
> Global
> Positioning System (GPS), and wireless telecommunications.
> A tracking
> device can instantly report its location to a GIS that
> determines
> whether the person, car or ship under surveillance has
> entered a
> prohibited area. Depending on circumstances and severity, a
> future
> system might be able to debit an offender's bank account,
> transmit a
> vocal warning or electronic pinch, notify the police or
> military,
> disable an engine, or even release a soporific drug into
> the violator's
> bloodstream.
>
> Electronic tagging and tracking on an unprecedented level
> is virtually
> certain - and could happen very soon. Motorists who
> appreciate the
> convenience of paying road tolls and parking fees
> automatically are
> unlikely to resist mandatory RFID tags - what's the use if
> electronic
> scanners can collect the same information from licence
> plates or
> bar-coded registration stickers? Electronic tracking makes
> it easy to
> limit access to congested areas and keep heavy trucks off
> residential
> streets, while adding a transponder that reports location
> enables
> automatic enforcement of traffic regulations. Smart
> algorithms are
> likely to be built into the software controlling the
> transponders, which
> could detect erratic driving characteristic of drunkenness
> or
> aggression, perhaps. Minimal resistance to cameras mounted
> above traffic
> lights attests to creeping acquiescence.
> An unprecedented level of electronic tagging and tracking
> is virtually
> certain
>
> Because the public is willing to trade control over their
> lives for
> convenience, the cellphone already doubles as a tracking
> device, and
> raises the possibility of "spatial micromanagement": of
> employees by
> employers, of children by parents, of elderly parents by
> grown children,
> and of suspected subversives by the authorities. Meanwhile,
> strategies
> for encouraging cooperation include GPS wristwatches,
> security badges,
> ankle bracelets and even subdermal chips.
>
> Threats to privacy and personal freedom are well known and
> obvious. In
> the spring 2003 issue of the IEEE Technology and Society
> Magazine,
> geographers Jerome Dobson and Peter Fisher warned of
> "geoslavery" by
> obsessive husbands or boyfriends, poised to punish
> perceived transgressions.
>
> The fact that geospatial tracking might be equally
> efficient for
> enforcing restraining orders on those who abuse their
> partners
> underscores an inherent ambiguity that impels acceptance,
> especially in
> the name of public safety or national defence. If the
> tracking of sex
> offenders, stalkers and people with Alzheimer's is
> acceptable, why not
> the tracking of thieves and drunk drivers?
>
> Once in place, a national geospatial surveillance
> administration can
> accommodate an ever-wider variety of electronic boundary
> lines, and
> offer disgruntled taxpayers an alternative to costly
> incarceration. For
> many crimes, an electronic map makes more sense than a
> prison, which may
> well only reinforce antisocial behaviour and allow
> criminals to exchange
> tricks of the trade.
>
> Efficient, but hardly fail-safe. Electronic cartography is
> vulnerable to
> incompetent technicians, malevolent hackers,
> cyber-terrorists and
> lobbyists for "special interests". Like traditional maps,
> e-cartography
> invites manipulation by government or corporations, often
> in the guise
> of national defence or free-market capitalism.
>
> While maps on the internet can advertise prohibitions and
> justify new
> delineations, this apparent openness is easily compromised.
> Particularly
> portentous is the way online mapping blurs details presumed
> useful to
> saboteurs but which are in fact easily viewable, after a
> little
> research, elsewhere on the internet.
>
> Boundaries developed for one purpose are too easily adopted
> for another,
> as when postal codes (designed merely to speed up mail
> delivery) are
> used to set rates for car insurance.
>
> More troubling are the incongruities that might arise from
> mixing maps
> compiled from different sources. For example, it's risky to
> transfer
> boundaries from a detailed property survey onto a
> generalised highway
> map on which curves have been smoothed out or symbols
> shifted to avoid
> clutter.
>
> And consider the electronic maritime navigation system that
> combines
> satellite positioning with a visual display derived from
> conventional,
> less geographically precise maps: quite likely the maps
> scanned into the
> system were made by hydrographers who had a less accurate
> sense of where
> they were than the 21st-century mariner's GPS. Although a
> skipper might
> snicker when a screen shows the ship on the beach when it's
> clearly
> offshore, only a fool would surrender all control to an
> electronic
> navigator.
>
> But it would be a mistake to portray this new brand of
> restrictive
> mapping as Orwellian: it is a natural part of social,
> political and
> cartographic evolution. In the end, then, we must hope that
> fear of
> litigation or other pragmatic issues may prove more
> influential than
> concerns over privacy in limiting the growth of restrictive
> cartography
> in an electronic age. We shall see.
>
> Profile
>
> Mark Monmonier is distinguished professor of geography at
> the Maxwell
> School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse
> University, New York.
> This essay is based on his new book No Dig, No Fly, No Go:
> How maps
> restrict and control, which builds on his How to Lie with
> Maps, both
> published by University of Chicago Press
>
> --
> ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com))
> ((www.digeratus.com))
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> --
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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