Big Data is watching you, and you, and you

Fact or fiction? Scene from the 1955 British movie of George Orwell's 1984 resonates today, though many sophisticated systems of government snooping are invisible to the ordinary citizen.


There’s an elephant in your room – and it never, never forgets.

It’s Big Data, and, says Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, co-author of a book by the same name, it is “A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think.”

From cradle to grave (and even before birth) we’re tracked, trailed, photographed, videoed, scrutinized, biometrized, analysed and….you can see where this is going.
 
Mayer-Shoenberger is a fan of Big D for its ability to put together information that connects patterns we could never understand from smaller bits and bytes. He also has some warnings about what can happen when staggering amounts of personal data are put together to map our lives in a virtual  human cybergenome.

Q: Is Big Data just Big Brother writ larger -- an era of total surveillance?
A: There are two important elements. One is the obvious fact that we’re collecting more information than ever before and most of it is in a digital format. That creates a much more comprehensive capability of surveillance.

Q: And the other?
A: It takes the quality of ephemerality out of our communications. We used to depend on things we said or did being plausibly deniable. They would go away. We could say they never happened. Now that’s much more difficult.

Q: What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas?
A: If you look at Facebook and Twitter, the younger generation uses them as an ephemeral way of communicating. They don’t realize it doesn’t disappear like water cooler gossip. What I say will stay with me and may be used against me in the future.

Q: And the effect on behavior?
A: What’s happening goes beyond surveillance per se. In the past, watching was done in the same time frame. Now it’s the panopticon. That was a prison in which inmates didn’t know if they were being watched, so they had to assume they were watched all the time. That created compliance without active watching.

Q:  No escape?
A: There’s a “data shadow” following us that transcends time, which is new. And this may freak you out, but in the Big Data age there’s an even bigger problem, our vastly increasing reliance on probability.

It means calculating propensities based on probabilities. We’re using all that data to predict a 90 per cent livelihood that the person standing in front of us is going to commit a crime next week. So punish him now – like Minority Report. Or take him into an interview and persuade him not to do it.

Q: This isn’t science fiction. Ordinary people in Britain have been arrested because surveillance data predicted they might cause trouble during the royal wedding.
A: Right, and in the U.S. there’s “predictive policing” in a number of cities. They use Big Data analysis to determine where and what time crime spikes. But this is deeply troubling because profiling becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Q: What effect will Big Data have on journalism, as government has more ways to track sources and interfere with investigations?
A: Governments can pass laws to collect huge amounts of data, but they aren’t very good at using it. Look at the Boston marathon bombing. They missed the spelling of (the Chechen suspect’s) name because of transliteration. Google has for 10 years told us how to change spelling.

On the other hand, Big Data can help reporters to find stories that might otherwise be missed, such as irregularities in payment patterns pointing to corruption. In the digital age it is much harder for governments to totally control information. The good news is they aren’t as powerful as we thought. The bad news? They aren’t as efficient either.

Olivia Ward has covered conflict, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to Europe, South Asia and the U.S., winning national and international awards.

The real life flappers who would have been at Jay Gatsby's parties

The Great Gatsby film adaptation debuts today at the Cannes Film Festival with hundreds of celebrities. In these bland times few of the blonde, tanned clones on the red carpet would be a match for the 1920s flappers who truly were originals and the forefront of great social, political and cultural change.

Sure they threw off their corsets – for the first time in centuries women could do so – cut their hair and danced the Charleston while drinking champagne. But they also lived through turbulent times including World War I, segregation and the Great Depression.

Here are a few real life flappers who would have been on the dance floor at Jay Gatsby’s wild parties:

Zelda Fitzgerald: F. Scott Fitzgerald called his wife Zelda the first American flapper.  Zelda was a writer and novelist, known for her book "Save Me The Waltz" but eclipsed by her more famous husband. They had a dysfunctional marriage – Zelda was an alcoholic and in last years of her life hospitalized in a mental institution. Her biographer Sally Cline told The Observer: "Her melodramatic life was in real terms the stuff of fiction.”

 American author F Scott Fitzgerald dances with his wife Zelda Fitzgerald and daughter Frances.  (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Josephine Baker: She was the exotic, American-born dancer who found fame and fortune on the Paris stage. Baker cleaned houses for rich white families in St. Louis, Missouri before becoming a chorus girl and dancer, according to her estate’s website. She went to Paris to dance in La Revue Negre which made her an overnight sensation, all long glossy limbs, uninhibited movements and exotic skirts made from feathers or banana skins.

She was of course trading on the European public’s racist perceptions of Africans – she once dryly said “since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life."

A poster for a Josephine Baker movie. (Star files)

Tamara de Lempicka: Her Art Deco paintings captured the Jazz Age with all its style and refinement.  The Polish born artist lived at the centre of bohemian Paris life, painting the rich and famous. Her friends included Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. Author Judith Mackrell has written that de Lempicka would snort cocaine from a silver teaspoon to help her stay up all night partying or painting.

But these women were no airheads, either. De Lempicka spoke six languages and at the age of 17 helped her lawyer husband escape the Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg, Russia, according to her official website.  During WWII, Baker worked for the underground French Resistance against the Nazis, then went on to adopt 12 children she called her “rainbow tribe” because they were from all over the world.

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at The Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

Waiting on a verdict in the Jodi Arias trial

Jodi Arias trial watchers in downtown Phoenix. (AP photo)

Fear. Love. Sex. Lies. And dirty little secrets: that's what the case of Jodi Arias boils down to, according to her defense lawyer.

The prosecution agrees on one thing in that list: Lies. They have repeatedly painted the 32-year-old woman as someone who has a fleeting familiarity with the truth.

Now, the jury has to decide which version they buy.

They've been hearing testimony - and what testimony it has been; graphic, sexual, shocking - since January. On Friday, the lawyers finished their closing arguments, and Judge Sherry Stephens finally handed the case over to the eight men and four women who will decide if Arias is guilty of first-degree murder.

She is charged with first-degree murder in the 2008 death of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander. He was stabbed repeatedly, his throat was cut, and he was shot.

(I wrote about the trial on Saturday, if you need to catch up on the whos and whats.)

Arias now admits she killed Alexander, but says he was abusive and it was self-defence. The state says Arias planned the attack on Alexander -- who the prosecution has repeatedly described as a "good man" -- and is seeking the death penalty. 

If they decide against premediation, the jury could find Arias guilty of the lesser charges of second-degree murder, or even manslaughter, and her lawyers pleaded with the jurors to set aside any negative feelings they might have for the defendant.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez reminded the court during his closing arguments that Alexander felt he was being stalked by Arias - and that Alexander himself described his ex-girlfriend as the "worst thing" that had ever happened to him in a text message.

The trial has become must-see TV and a gift for cable channels like HLN, which has dedicated hours of programming to it. Details are discussed endlessly online -- follow the hashtag #jodiarias on Twitter and you'll see what I mean.

But for some people, this is not at all entertaining. When I spent a few days in the courtroom in Phoenix, I was struck by the presence of Arias' mother, but was especially aware of Alexander's family. His brother and two extraordinarily striking sisters sat two rows ahead of me in court, listening attentively, as they have through the trial - their reactions to upsetting testimony captured by the courtroom cameras.

There's plenty of debate as to how long the jury will take in their deliberations. But I would wager that for the families, on both sides of the courtroom, the waiting is far from the hardest part.

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

Nigeria a newcomer in list of deadliest countries for journalists

Index of most dangerous countries for journalists. (Committee to Protect Journalists)

Nigeria is a new addition to the list of the most dangerous countries in which to be a journalist, joining mainstays such as Pakistan, Somalia and Mexico.

Five journalists in Nigeria have been murdered since 2009. None of the cases have been solved.

“Investigations into these killings are usually carried out with sloppiness, and no real culprits are caught," said Ayode Longe, a senior officer with the Media Rights Agenda, a press freedom group in Nigeria. “That has emboldened others to assault journalists, believing nothing would be done to them."

The global index is released each year by the Committee to Protect Journalists and calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country's population.

The index also found soaring impunity rates in Somalia, Pakistan, and Brazil.

The CPJ said conditions for journalists are improving in Nepal and Russia, "although both nations remain dangerous for the press."

The analysis founds increasing anti-press violence in Somalia, Pakistan, and Brazil, where national leaders are unwilling or unable to address the issue. In Somalia, 23 journalist murders have gone unsolved over the past decade.

The CPJ report highlights the cased of Wali Khan Babar, a journalist with Geo TV in Pakistan who was murdered in 2011.

While several suspects connected to one of the country’s leading political parties, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, are facing trial, the prosecution has been hindered by the murders of five people connected to the investigation, including witnesses and police officers.

In November 2012, an eyewitness was gunned down two days before he was due to give testimony, the CPJ said.

Iraq is said to be the most dangerous country in which to be a journalist. Over the past 10 years, there have been 93 unsolved killings of journalists in the country of 33 million. Somalia was ranked No. 2, followed by the Philippines, where 55 journalists have been murdered without any convictions in the country of 94 million.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at the Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Reporting ranked as the worst job of 2013

Margo Kidder playing Lois Lane in the 1978 film Superman: would she still have a job? (Handout: TMS and DC Comics)

Send a memo to journalism schools everywhere.

Reporting has been ranked as the worst job of 2013 because of low pay, high stress and instability, according to a study of 200 jobs by CareerCast.com.

"Ever-shrinking newsrooms, dwindling budgets and competition from Internet businesses have created very difficult conditions for newspaper reporters," the study states.

The number of newspapers has been declining since 1985 when there were 1,730 in circulation in the U.S. every day compared with 1,382 papers still in print. The number of available reporting jobs is expected to fall by 6 per cent by 2020.

Online reporting has some better prospects -- if employees don't mind lower pay, higher stress and being on call at all times. Farmers, dishwashers and waiters are all ranked higher than reporters. Even lumberjacks, who face dangerous working conditions fare marginally better on the list.  

If all that is enough to turn budding journalists off the industry, they may consider becoming an actuary which CareerCast rated the best job based on working environment, stress levels and pay. The median salary of actuaries is $87,650 compared with the average salary of reporters at $36,000. If you're wondering what an actuary does, they interpret "statistics to determine probabilities of accidents, sickness, and death, and loss of property from theft and natural disasters," the report reads.  

Other top five jobs are biomedical engineer, financial planner and software engineer.

 

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at the Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

'When a man talks don't interrupt': Johnny Rotten tells female TV host

 

He may have broken the shackles of class-bound Britain 35 years ago with his punk hit "God Save the Queen" but Johnny Rotten's own attitudes towards women is still stuck in the 70s. 

The former Sex Pistols' star launched an offensive tirade against a female television host during an interview in Australia to promote his new band. 

When Carrie Bickmore asked him about the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Rotten -- real name John Lydon -- answered: "Hey, Mrs. Mrs. Shut up. When a man is talking do not interrupt." 

Bickmore to her credit gives a graceful response: "There was a break. I thought you had finished, please go on."

Rotten: "Stop it, you sound like one of them dreadful loud birds I don't like, OK?" Birds in British slang refers to women.

"OK, am I allowed to ask you a question now?" Bickmore asks, gamely trying to play along.

Rotten: "No, no, no, you need to be quiet. Your voice is too loud for me."

The interview fades after that as Rotten raises his arm in a Nazi-style salute and says: "You are talking to a proper master of the universe."

Bad boy statements, shocking lyrics and giving the proverbial middle finger to social conformity may have worked in his early 20s when Rotten was a sleek counter-culture revolutionary. Today he comes across as a rude, ageing diva, as out of touch and ridiculous as that blond fauxhawk. 

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at the Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

Toronto NGO debuts online early warning alert for genocides

Photos of killed people donated by survivors are displayed on a wall inside the Gisozi memorial in Kigali, depicting the horros of Rwanda's genocide. (Radu Sigheti/Reuters)

In the years leading up to World War II, long before the construction of gas chambers, Nazi party leaders hardly kept their feelings about Jews a secret.

Six years before the outbreak of war, on Apr. 1, 1933, the Nazis organized a countrywide anti-Jewish boycott, using radio and newspapers, the main media outlets of the day, to spread their message.

Decades later, before any Tutsis had been killed with machetes, Hutu leaders in Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 used a local radio station, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, to spew venom attacks about Tutsis, comparing them to cockroaches.

Both examples are a reminder, Chris Tuckwood says, that genocides typically follow a host of early warning signals.

Tuckwood, 28, is one of the co-founders of a new Toronto-based non-profit called The Sentinel Project, which organizers say is dedicated to hate-speech detection and alerts.

Its 60 volunteers have begun monitoring hate speech in Kenya, Myanmar, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia and Iran.

“We’re watching Iran pretty closely,” Tuckwood said. “What we’re seeing with the Bahai religious minority is concerning. The discrimination they face is quite advanced. They’re excluded from public life, can’t get public-sector jobs, aren’t allowed education after high school, and their homes are frequent victims of vandalism.”

Some Iranians, who are followers of Shiite Islam believe Bahaism is tantamount to blasphemy because it promotes the belief in a 19th century prophet.

In Hungary and other parts of Europe, Roma claim to be victims of persecution, and hate speech is even visible in the U.S. So why isn't the upstart NGO monitoring those countries?

"It's a good point," Tuckwood said. "We would do more right away if we had the resources."

Among the tools offered by Sentinel is an Internet application called Hatebase, which combs social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook, and local language news sites and blogs in a search of words that may signal brewing ethnic conflict.

The interface, developer Timothy Quinn, allows users to refine hate speech terms by region and use mapping to document when and how hate speech is used.

For instance, the database includes a number of derogatory names and their definitions. Users can click “I have been called this” or “I have overheard someone else called this” and document where on a Google world map the slur occurred.

It’s a similar method to one being used by health researchers who map the outbreak of communicable diseases.

“People use Twitter to cite and follow Hollywood stars, so why not use the same tool to identify threats like this?” said Jack Chow, the U.S. ambassador on global HIV/AIDS from 2001-3 who is on Sentinel’s advisory board.

Tuckwood, a former Canadian soldier who has his masters degree in disaster management, said he's hoping Jewish and Armenian communities, both of which are sensitive to hate-speech issues, will offer funding to allow them to hire fulltime staff.

It’s not easy to set up a new NGO, Tuckwood concedes. But he says his group’s independence offers them a free voice.

“If you look at the UN adviser focused on genocide, there’s so much baggage that comes along with making a statement about the risk of genocide in a particular country,” Tuckwood said. “When they do say something, it’s always in the typical, bland, diplomatic language. But we can say what we see and don’t have to worry about conversations happening only behind closed doors.”

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at the Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

 

A father's plea for his missing son in Syria

James Foley on assignment in Aleppo in July 2012.  (Photo credit: Nicole Tung)

The agony of his dilemma as a father is plain when you read these words: "Are we going to make him too valuable? If we don't say anything is he not valuable enough?" 

They were spoken by John Foley the father of James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Syria on Nov. 22, 2012. The family has no idea who is holding him or why.

His parents told Associated Press that they have been quiet about Foley's disappearance for a month on the advice of federal officials but now, they believe publicity might secure his release. Then, again, it might not.

Foley and another journalist who has not been identified, went missing in Taftanaz, in northern Idlib province. He was making videos for Agence France-Presse.

This is the second time Foley, 39, has gone missing while doing his job. In 2011, he was captured by the Libyan government authorities when he was covering the uprising.  His colleague South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl  was shot dead.  

But Foley's parents said his second disappearance was even more worrying. At least in Libya they knew who they were dealing with and the American government helped, she said. Not in Syria.  

Diane Foley told AP: "We don't know who to direct our plea to."

The U.S. has no ties with Syria and every militia is his own law. 

This goes to the heart of the conflict. While the scale of the human suffering is immense -- millions of refugees -- we don't know exactly how the war is being fought.

The UN estimates 70,000 have been killed since the war began.  This is probably a conservative figure considering the scale of the fighting. There are suspicions that rape may be happening on an epic scale but again, no one knows for certain. 

Syria is the perhaps the most important foreign story in the world right now because of the suffering of its civilians and the worrying geopolitical implications for the Middle East.  But the vast majority of the country is off-limits to journalists. The Syrian authorities give little access to reporters and in other areas rebels fight each other, which makes navigating the territory dangerous.  As a result, there is not enough of an informed debate about how to bring the conflict to an end.

Syria is the most dangerous country for journalists to work in, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. People like James Foley and Syrians themselves, who are bravely documenting what is happening to their country are risking their lives to keep that debate going.   

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at the Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

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'An excuse to leave the most dangerous work to civilian journalists.' Paul Watson on reporting from war zones

Syria soldiers dance to Usher's song 'Yeah' in a YouTube clip. (Credit: Ugarit News)

The CBC documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat has won a renowned Peabody Award. Made by Toronto filmmaker Martyn Burke, the documentary looks at how reporting from war zones has become increasingly dangerous.  My colleague Paul Watson was interviewed in the film about the trauma he suffered after the Somalia conflict in 1993.

He was recently in Aleppo, Syria and told me about the other challenges faced by reporters covering Syria -- the onslaught of YouTube clips. 

"I'm elated that the film is getting the attention, and praise, that it so richly deserves," Watson said.

"The most troubling thing for me as a journalist from the Syria trip was a conversation with colleagues in southern Turkey the day after I returned from Aleppo.

I was lamenting how Syria, despite the great courage of the journalists who have been covering the conflict continuously for two years now, wasn't getting enough traction in the North American public to force action a break stalemate that is killing hundreds of people a day.

I thought more Western journalists should be in Syria, making sure the terrifying human cost, and the risk that moderates will lose out if the conflict drags on much longer, is front and centre in the public's mind.

"No one wants to get kidnapped or killed," a young German filmmaker, a veteran of 13 trips to Syria over the past two years, told me.

"It's not the first war where journalists have been killed or kidnapped," I said, having reported from several where the casualty toll among colleagues was high.

"Yah, but this one is all over YouTube," someone else at the table said.

And it struck me: the digital revolution, which has created so much hope that oppressed people can unite against tyrants over their cell phones, is also giving professional journalists an excuse to leave the most dangerous work to civilian journalists.  The result is a lot of diffuse coverage that Western politicians obviously find it easy to ignore.  

That scares me more than war itself."

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at the Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

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'I'm not afraid to go to jail': crusading Greek journalist

When Boris met Eddie

London Mayor Boris Johnson. (Reuters)

 

For certain parts of British society, journalism is a spectator sport. Who's winning, who's losing - and yesterday, the loser appeared to be London Mayor Boris Johnson.

 

For the record: He's not used to losing.

A BBC journalist called Eddie Mair was declared winner. I think it's pretty fair to say Mair is not a familiar face to many U.K. television viewers. (The reason: He's usually on the radio, where he presents a smart evening news program called PM.)

But on Sunday morning, Mair was sitting in for host Andrew Marr on one of the BBC's most important political shows. The program -- which everyone just calls "Marr" -- is where politicans go to make big announcements, defend unpopular policies, preview important speeches.

It's must-watch TV for anyone in politics, business, and the media. And I hope it goes without saying that it's not always very exciting. Yesterday was an exception.

Boris, who is one of those people who is known in the U.K. by only his first name -- like Madonna -- must have thought it'd be the usual. He's charming, and funny, and smart. And he usually charms and bumbles his way through.

Not yesterday. Mair asked him hard questions -- about his background, and personal life -- and demanded answers. And then this: "You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you?"

Twitter went absolutely mad. The news made news.

"After the 15 minutes of chilling inquisition by the soft-spoken Eddie Mair, Johnson's reputation had taken a severe pounding," wrote the political editor of the left-leaning Guardian, Patrick Wintour. "It was probably the worst interview the mayor has ever conducted."

Boris's father, Stanley Johnson, told London radio this morning that he thought Mair's interview was a "disgusting piece of journalism" and that his son had, essentially, been blindsided.

But the mayor on Mair? He was doing his job. And, according to the BBC, Boris thought it was "splendid."

 

And so, it seems, did the viewers at home. Just ask Twitter.

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a correspondent for the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter: @JQStar