Lessons from Hushmail
Posted by: Fats in: Dialogues, Fatima Lasay & Trevor Batten > Technology RantsSome of you may have participated in security training seminar where we were resource persons. We probably showed you how to use Hushmail from a Canadian company. Basically, you visit their website and you get to download their Java applet. The applet does the encryption and the e-mail gets sent to the Hushmail, encrypted.
Surprise! Hushmail turned over some of its records to the US Federal government! So, for those who are using Hushmail, “Caveat lector!”
- From a list correspondence
This is very unfortunate. The first and last time I used a nym server was back in 1998, and a few years earlier I’ve been using PGP. But I never really felt secure with the technology (esp the nym server because of the very thought that the server was at a remote location I had no control/access/knowledge of). Although one could be confident insofar as encryption strength is concerned, but there are other dimensions to human
use of technology, for example the social and the political. I think this was part of Trevor’s objections to the topic on promoting the use of encryption/security tools at the LinuxWorld conference last year (or was it 2005?).
It also isn’t fair of Hushmail to not include in their TOS (or am I wrong?) that they could be compelled by U.S. Federal Government to turn over records under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed with the US. But of course, that would completely undermine the secure email idea irregardless of encryption strength or whether or not passphrases are intercepted/stored in Java or non-Java versions.
Anyway, the socio-political dimension should always be considered in such advocacies on the use of software/technology. By simply focusing on the technical and beneficial, we end up proselytizing technology rather than encouraging a critical and informed position.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:00 am
The question is: Does anybody really want to have a “critical and informed position”?
The need for one is surely quite clear -in an aggressively commercial world -where people are increasingly feudalised by their inability to resist the power of giant global corporations…..
….but are “people” willing and able to develop such a defensive position -especially when any country showing signs of “resistance” is likely to become an international outcast (if lucky -and bombed, or invaded, if less lucky)?
The western “two culture” problem which separates art from science has never been seriously tackled by western intellectuals -most of whom clearly suffer from the problem and therefore show no inclination to deal with it. Hofstadter’s Pulitzer prize winning book “Goedel Escher Bach” (written in 1979) is perhaps the champion in this area -but it also had the dubious claim of being the most bought and least read book of its time.
Bach is of course well known and well promoted. In 2008, Leeuwarden will celebrate the 110th birth year of M.C. Escher in his birthplace with a Conference of Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture: A great chance for another great meeting of intellectuals. Although, in my personal experience conferences are increasingly becoming more commercial than intellectual activities -often with fees being charged, even for those contributing their own work to the conference. Perhaps the Escher conference will be one of the exceptions that proves the rule.
However, who knows much about Goedel? What have the all the art-science conferences and festivals done to promote understanding (and not simply commercial exploitation) of his work? How many people have even heard of Goedel? Is that because his work is too complex to commercially exploit -or perhaps because his ideas are too dangerous for general consumption….
If the Western intellectuals aren’t interested in or capable of bridging the gap in order to develop a “critical and informed position” then certainly the general public cannot be expected to do so (even if they have the time): Why should they when being continually offered soothing words by the globalised intellectuals (and the companies that increasingly back them) -who tell them that “new media” simply means a bunch of fun things to play with (including of course, for the intellectuals, fun loving games that “play” with the “dangers” of technology -while continuing to promote it).
The mainstream media certainly don’t seem very interested in promoting a “critical and informed position” either. Most “items” on technology seem to assume that it is (by definition) a positive thing -so most “technology” news actively promotes technologically based commercial “lifestyle” products as socially useful “news” and “info”. Again “mass communication” theory often seems to limit itself to exploring (and perhaps glorifying) the products of mass-media (explaining how they “represent” new modes of social thought and action) rather than critically analysing the effects that they might be having on society (as intellectuals once did in the pre-digital age).
Even most mailing lists (including this one?) seem rather less than full of intellectual debate and exploration -and rather full of “academic advertisements” promoting the latest paper or conference -the products of which seem to be increasingly of more commercial than intellectual (or social) value.
Who (except for a few fanatical, and presumably boring, lunatics) really wants to have a “critical and informed position”?
I’m told that one always gets the society that one deserves -so smile, wave at the camera and hope that Big Brother really does love you!