Here's an idea-- technology does not invite
the invasion of your privacy.
If you spend even some time on the internet--
and given what I know about you, I'm
guessing you do-- you've probably already heard
of Heartbleed.
And if you haven't, I have some bad news.
You should open up another tab and start
changing all your passwords while I explain why you
need to change your passwords.
Basically, a bug in OpenSSL, a very widely used library
that provides cryptographic functionality
across the internet, makes it so that
any enterprising no-goodnik can read
the contents of a particular part of a server's memory.
That stuff might be server gobbledygook or uninteresting
log files or nothing or your password
or personal information or the certificates used by the server
to prove that a connection is securely encrypted.
Oops.
And hey, no big deal, but maybe the NSA--
you're going to love this-- maybe they knew about it
and were using it since, like 2012, just
to see what you were up to.
It's fine.
Anyway, from a technological standpoint,
Heartbleed is incredibly fascinating.
And if you want to know more, Shawn at Computer File
made this awesome video with Dr. Stephen Bagley
that you should watch.
What we are going to talk about is
how Heartbleed, as the latest in a long string of privacy
concerns, can make us feel a little vulnerable.
OK, sure-- many parts of the internet
behave as public spaces.
But we also have these other spaces on the internet
that we think of and treat as private, like your email
account, probably your bank website,
that YouTube channel where you only
upload private videos of you singing Queen
into a wooden spoon.
We are the champions.
And one common reaction by tech alarmists, internet skeptics,
and probably at least one of your uncles at Thanksgiving,
a reaction to the helplessness felt
when we find out that these things are not as secure as we
originally thought is to say, well, we all should have known.
We chose to use the technology for our sensitive data.
Joke's on us.
The nugget being that by choosing
to use certain services, you are choosing to have your privacy
violated.
It's an argument you might have also heard in relationship
to airline travel and the TSA.
This is a familiar attitude towards big corporate entities
like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
They're huge.
They have all your data.
They can profit from it, and so they will.
Oh, and also, maybe they'll canooodle
with a vague yet menacing government agency.
But Heartbleed is now causing some folks to ask,
as the web grows, will it necessarily become less secure?
In a piece for "The New York Times"
titled exactly that, Farhad Manjoo says,
"We have decided as a society to rush headlong
into a world ruled by digital devices,
continually weighing convenience versus safety.
We are constantly storing more of our important information
on new hardware run by complicated software.
And all of it is increasingly interconnected,
which makes the whole ecosystem more vulnerable."
Manjoo takes the hopeful approach
that as these factors become more visible and impactful,
the public and the industry will take them more seriously.
But for others, it raises a bigger question.
Technology-- is it good or is it whack?
Do we need to interrogate our fundamental choice
to even be using potentially vulnerable services?
By using the internet, are we choosing to have our privacy
invaded?
I think no, but first off, I don't have much of a soft spot
for, "you were asking for it" style admonishments.
By claiming this kind of thing is the user's fault,
we effectively absolve all the miscreants
using privacy exploits.
Sure, if no one were using technology,
then we wouldn't be having this conversation
and the problem would be solved.
But that's not so much a solution
as it is an alternate universe.
Because honestly, how much are you choosing to use technology?
You did have a choice when signing up
for an email account or a dating website,
and so maybe you tried to choose the most secure and respectable
one.
So yes, you did have a choice in that respect.
And I suppose you also chose to have an email address
in the first place.
You chose to have a computer, and a bank account.
And you choose to pay taxes every year
and wear shoes every day.
What I'm trying to say is that if we are choo- choo- choosing
to do these things, then we are doing so
within a framework of much larger and much, much more
complex choices, like choosing to be comfortable,
choosing a safe or convenient life,
choosing to align ourselves with the expectations
and preferences of our social group and society,
choosing to fit in.
I'm not saying that anyone is forced
to do any of these things.
And I'm also not saying that we're
isolated from the ramifications of using technology, having
a bank account, or wearing shoes.
Only insofar as this is a choice,
it's a very different kind of choice
from the one you make when standing in front of the Ben
and Jerry's freezer at the grocery store.
I'm a mint chocolate cookie man myself.
When a teacher asks you for an email address
to send you assignments, you can choose
to say that you don't have an email address.
You can choose to do zero of your banking or shopping
online.
But let's be honest, will you?
Of course, for many people, there is no choice.
Social or economic factors prevent them
from using widely adopted technology,
and so the choice is made for them.
In the way that much of the US, for instance, is put together
assuming that residents have a car, much of modern life
and even some modern ways of thinking
are built upon assumed access to the network.
And when someone doesn't have that access,
we consider it, rightfully so, I think,
a problem that needs solving.
So before we even ask if by using technology
we are somehow choosing to have our privacy invaded,
maybe we need to know to what degree we are even
choosing to use technology.
I think for a lot of us, we are not
or we are not simply choosing.
You could absolutely choose to get rid
of your phone, computer, or internet.
But by extension, for better or worse,
you would also be making the much larger choice
to uninvolve yourself from, well, a lot.
So maybe really, what the choice argument is saying
is that having your docs h4x0r3d is an inevitable consequence
of using the internet.
Or if it's not, we should think of it as one.
And I don't know-- maybe it is an inevitable consequence.
But at least as far as popular culture is concerned,
portrayals of the network have always gone hand in hand
with those of a clever infiltrator.
The insecurity of the internet is probably
one of its biggest and most popular features.
If a bank gets robbed and your safety deposit box is stolen,
you probably wouldn't think to yourself,
ugh, should have known.
But on the internet, if someone hacks the Gibson
or compromises the mainframe and steals all of your data,
well, that-- that's just what happens.
Run antivirus.
Give me a systems display.
What do you guys think?
By using certain services, are you choosing
to have your privacy invaded?
Is the internet necessarily insecure?
Let us know in the comments.
And after you're done changing all of your passwords,
please subscribe.
The passwords are far more important.
Comments, you take me apart.
Let's see what you guys had to say about nanar.
OK, so first and foremost, a million movie suggestions.
So for people who need more things to watch,
get a pen and a paper ready.
I'm only going to say the ones that I've never heard of.
So, here we go.
Chris Menning, who is an old friend of mine,
suggests Garth Merenghi's "Dark Place,"
and a lot of other people suggested that too.
Aedel Bussinger suggests "Manos-- The Hands Fate"
and also links to an "L.A. Times"
article about why we love bad movies.
That was really interesting.
Bethetroubleyouwant recommends "Poolboy-- Drowning
Out the Fury" and johnoghue recommends "The Lost Skeleton
of Cadavra," which a bunch of other people also recommended,
and it looks just ridiculous.
Tara Klementisz and a bunch of other people
were aghast that last week's episode contained
no mention of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show,"
and I will tell you why.
It's because I think "Rocky Horror Picture Show" is
a legitimately good movie.
It's not a good-bad movie.
It's not accidentally a bad movie.
It is just a good movie.
It is campy, but it is a tribute or an homage to camp.
And it's for that reason that I didn't
mention other films like "Black Dynamite" and "Snakes
on a Plane."
I think that these movies are-- actually, they are good.
They are just paying tribute to another kind of movie.
But that makes them, in my mind at least,
it takes them out of the running for consideration
of being good-bad or nanar or accidentally good
or other such things.
But my name isn't Mark.
I'm fed up with this world.
OkamiG15 raises a really interesting point
about an nanar, and says that even if you could make one
on purpose, that doesn't necessarily automatically mean
it will become as popular something like "Troll 2"
in that it requires such a bizarre collusion of events
to make those kinds of movies the cultural touchstones
that they are.
And yeah, this sort of gets at the question
of making any celebrated thing on purpose.
This idea works just as much for good movies
as it does for "so bad they're good" movies.
You can make the best thing and it could just languish
in obscurity for eternity.
God, that's depressing.
FlawlessLogic brings up "The Tim and Eric Show,"
which we talked about actually a little bit on the IRC
last week.
And yeah, "Tim and Eric" might be the most complicating
example of this kind of media, because it really
is so earnestly what it is.
And I don't know-- something about the satire and the parody
that they engage in almost takes it completely out
of consideration for me.
But then, I just-- I would love to know how their brains work,
I think is what I'm trying to say.
I don't know.
What you guys think?
Where does "The Tim and Eric" show fit in this whole thing?
I have no idea.
Relatedly, Cyan Sonata brings up "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff"
as another kind of complicating piece of media.
And yeah, maybe if someone does have an almost superhuman sense
of irony, they might be able to achieve the distance needed
to do this on purpose.
And yeah, maybe Andrew Hussey is that person.
[INAUDIBLE] writes a really insightful comment
about the nature of goodness as it
relates to creative endeavors in that if something accomplishes
what it sets out to do. it is therefore,
almost by definition, good.
And so for a movie like "Sharknado" that accomplished
exactly what it wanted to, badness
doesn't even factor into it, which
I think is a good insight.
And relatedly, the conversation between Rudy Thehorrorrat
and TheSorrel that takes place in response to her comment
is also really great.
So you should check it out.
We put links to this one and all the other comments
in the doobly doo.
I'm about to really embarrass Morgan
by asking him this question, and he
has to use this take, Morgan.
Whatever happened to the capslock poetry?
He's smiling uncomfortably.
So I think that that means we'll make it happen.
MALE VOICE: We will.
OK, there we go.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these bleeding hearts.
We have a Facebook and IRC and a Subreddit links
in the doobly doo.
The tweet of the becomes from Wesley the Futile
who drew an awesome caricature of my big, silly face.
And hey, guess what?
We won a Webby for first person.
Flabbergasted.
And for this week's record swap, we
will be replacing the "Clockwork Orange" soundtrack
with the soundtrack to "Fasntastic Planet," or "La
Planete Sauvage."
And actually, a little story about this record.
I have this record longer than most other records that I have.
I bought it at a flea market when I was maybe 13 or 14.
And up here in the top left hand corner, it says Kathy Lund.
And I have always wondered who Kathy Lund is.
Where is Kathy Lund?
What is she up to these days?
I have no idea.
Kathy Lund, if you're out there, I have your record.
Anyways, so adios, "A Clockwork Orange." and welcome,
"Fantastic Planet."