A little taste of the future

Lauren Weinstein called out a proposal last Friday by the White House called National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. I haven't read through it yet, but it's certain to be interesting. I'll post some impressions when I have gone through it. I'm eagerly awaiting commentary by Bruce Schneier and Ed Felten.

This could turn out to be a defining moment for the internet.

What's at issue here is how you are defined as an individual on the internet. How does anybody know you are you? Do they know you're a dog? Sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes it does. If you're trying to purchase something online, it seems reasonable for the other party to want to be certain that you are not a mugger who stole your credit card (and for you to want to be certain that you are communicating with a legitimate merchant and not a fake web site). If you're a whistleblower, it seems reasonable for you to wish to hide your identity. If you are a stalker, it seems reasonable for law enforcement to have the capacity to identify you despite pains you may have taken to hide your identity. The ability of the merchant and law enforcement to identify you unambiguously may be in direct opposition to the whistleblower's need for anonymity.

At this point, as I understand it, the proposal claims to be voluntary for "the public". Of course, once the infrastructure is in place, the foot is in the door and it becomes easier to turn it into a legal matter to mandate it for all internet access.

Which is why we should pay attention now.

Good Omens

Just got done listening to a fantastic audiobook, Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. And because the narration is so awesome, I'll mention it was narrated by Martin Jarvis.

I was first introduced to Terry Pratchett's work reading The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents to Annapurna a few years ago. It is one of my favorite kid books.

Pratchett's sense of humor and lovely, light voice are a pleasure to read. It has a distinctly Wodehouse/Douglas Adams feel. But he has more to say, a deeper philosophical message than either Wodehouse or Adams. (I say "Pratchett" though it is co-authored with Gaiman...I haven't read Gaiman, but there is a strong Pratchett feel, and I've read that he did most of the actual writing.)

Good Omens is, if you can believe it, a farcical rendering of the days leading up to Armageddon. There are two things you need to know about this story. First, Pratchett is a fairly vocal humanist. Second, the story was published in 1990, which is around the time that the Soviet Union was breaking up, and no one knew which way it was going to go. Though the story does not directly refer to the unfolding world drama, the parallels are obvious in the interaction between the two main earth-based agents of Armageddon: angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley. Through their scheming conversations, Gaiman and Pratchett manage to pose many deep philosophical questions about entrenched mindless animosities, good vs. evil, theodicy (God's goodness in the face of evil), the intentions of creation, innateness vs. acquisition of evil, determinism vs. free will, etc.

In this story, it seems that the "Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness" is mistakenly placed at birth in a stuffy middle class British family (think of a dad somewhat like Hyacinth Bucket), instead of with a US ambassador, where he could have gotten up to a lot of good mischief. Neither side realizes the mistake until it becomes apparent that none of the expected harbingers of the apocalypse are appearing in the vicinity of the putative Spawn. It then becomes a race between Aziraphale and Crowley on one side, trying to save the Earth they have come to enjoy, versus the assembled hosts of heaven and hell who are determined to have it out.

And meandering through the text we have the "nice and accurate predictions of Agnes Nutter", a book full of correct but cryptic (and ultimately pointless) predictions from the seventeenth century, including the actual location of the actual Spawn.

The book mainly pokes fun at the concept of "our side vs. their side" and the myriad ways in which people have found to misunderstand and abuse it. There is a theme of tolerance that seems to pervade Pratchett's work, at least as much as I've read. Which is another reason I like it so much.

And finally, I will say this is one of the best audio renditions I've listened to lately. Jarvis is brilliant at creating distinct (and funny) voices and accents for each of the characters. The only one that I found a little off was that of the young Spawn, but I suspect there was a deliberate decision to make him sound like his stuffy adoptive father, rather than the 11 year old boy leader he is supposed to be. And interestingly, he puts on an American accent for the characters War and Pollution (two horsemen of the apocalypse), though as far as I could tell there is nothing in the text that calls for this.

Listen to the book.

Lovers' Vows

Warning: it's not as interesting as the title might suggest. And that's true on several levels.

In the only Jane Austen novel that I actually dislike (and I'm not the only one who feels this way about it), Mansfield Park, one of the plot drivers is a performance to be staged by some of the characters. The characters go through contorted farcical relationships that mirror or ironically contrast with the contorted farcical relationships in the play they choose to stage. That play?

Lovers' Vows by one Elizabeth Inchbald, published 1798.

I've thought, for some time that I ought to read it. The characters make such a fuss about the play and so much is made about how risque it is to stage it for the neighbors that I thought it surely must be juicy.

Wrong!

It wants to be Gilbert and Sullivan and Pope John Paul, but has all of the Gilbert and Sullivan implausibility with none of the Gilbert and Sullivan wit and all of the good morals of John Paul but none of his charisma. You get the idea: preachy, implausible and failing to be funny with great effort.

The story revolves around Frederick, the illegitimate son of Agatha Friburg, who was seduced in her youth by Baron Wildenhaim, who abandoned her and went off and married an unnamed Baroness, and produced a lovely daughter, who fell in love with her poor but virtuous tutor. Through an implausible series of events, Frederick meets the Baron, attempts to kill him, reveals himself to the Baron, is instantly accepted as his son, and refuses to be accepted as said son unless the Baron also agrees to marry Agatha. Which the Baron does, on the advice of the virtuous tutor. And as a bonus, throws in permission for said tutor to marry his daughter. Because she loves him.

Lots of internal conflict, yes?

Other literature that I've read because it was referenced by Jane Austen I've enjoyed a lot: Cecilia, The Mysteries of Udolpho. You safely can skip this one. At this point I'm no longer sure what she was trying to convey when she chose it to base her plot on, except possibly forcing the device. She had some characters express moral concern over the content of the play, but it was so preachy I can't see what there was to object to, unless it was considered too titillating to mention illegitimacy at all.

As I warned you, neither the play nor this post is as exciting as its title.

Watching New York

Here's some real news: New York City is planning to waste a whole bunch of money. Building a large surveillance network in midtown Manhattan. To stop terrorism.

Let's get one thing clear. Surveillance cannot prevent terrorism. At best it can (maybe) help track down whodunit. Which is rarely a question in true terrorism. The whole point of terrorism is publicity. The only thing that mass surveillance achieves is a chilling effect on the populace. Surveillance is best left to very well-defined, limited applications (say, the Mona Lisa).

An Enemy of the People

Last week I read An Enemy of the People (Ibsen, 1882). I must say, I'm taking a liking to Ibsen. (I read A Doll's House last year, and loved it, though it went right by me in high school.)

This one concerns a politically naive, but conscientious doctor who discovers that the Baths he was instrumental in having brought to his small town are actually so polluted as to endanger human life. The town, it seems, has invested significant resources into building the baths, but is poised, at the moment of his discovery, to reap significant economic benefits from them. I think you can guess the rest. I'll just say that it involves an orchestrated villification of the good doctor.

The players are Dr. Stockmann, innocent but honest; his brother the mayor, the quintessential politician; Hovstad, the editor of a supposedly progressive periodical, in reality more interested in the economic stability of his paper, whether it be from muckraking or preserving the status quo; Aslaksen, the printer, representing small business interests; and Morton Kiil, the wealthy father-in-law of Stockmann, whose property is responsible for the pollution. Room for conflict? I think so. Sound like the kind of interests at play today? You bet. Though it was written in 1882, it felt like you could replace "poisoned water" with any one of half a dozen modern issues (health care crisis, financial crisis, for starters), and it would be perfectly relevant today.

I was completely with Dr. Stockmann until the middle of the 4th act. At that point, he veered off into what seemed like an elitist blast against the common man. Basically, he is very pissed off with the masses who had elected such a bonehead as his brother and allowed themselves to be swayed by such rabble rousers as Hovstad. He concludes

"The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent men must wage war. Who is it that constitute the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk, or the stupid? I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over. But, good Lord!--you can never pretend that it is right that the stupid folk should govern the clever ones I (Uproar and cries.) Oh, yes--you can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has might on its side--unfortunately; but right it has not. I am in the right--I and a few other scattered individuals. The minority is always in the right."

This seems to me the wrong conclusion, and blaming the victim. But I suppose I can't totally blame him, either. Look at our tea parties. And I was slightly relieved, by the end, where he decides to set up a school for poor children. He says,

"I am going to experiment with curs, just for once; there may be some exceptional heads among them."

I've read that Ibsen was very bitter at the time he wrote this one, at the reception of an earlier work which may have contributed to the cynical feel.

The play is very powerful in its conciseness. The personalities and interests of the characters are made clear within just a few lines. It is extremely painful to watch Stockmann's wonderful ideals stripped from him by the cynical self-interests who have no qualms at twisting or ignoring truth.

Ethan Frome

Just got finished reading Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton, 1911). Enjoyed it a lot.

As in the other stories I've read by Edith Wharton, we see a character with lots of conflict. The inevitable prospect of a loveless life, as contrasted with the fantasy of an unattainable love object. And that love object blocked by not one, but many, many barriers -- moral, economic, social, etc. What I really like about Wharton's stories is how clearly she lays out the utter impossibility of the protagonist's situation on many levels.

The particularly interesting thing about this read is that I don't think I had the experience that Wharton meant me to have. The book is structured as a story within a story. The framing story is a first person narrative by a visitor to Ethan Frome's town, some 25 years after the main action takes place. The rest of the story is a 3rd person limited omniscient narrator from the point of view of Ethan, himself. Now, unfortunately (or not), unbeknownst to me, the framing story is laid out in the introduction. I am ashamed to admit it, but I rarely read introductions, and never at all before reading the story. An introduction usually has too much information about the story, so that if I were to read it first, it would spoil the suspense for me. However, in this case, the introduction is not an introduction in the usual sense, and actually forms a part of the narrative. As a result, I blithely read the entire rest of the story, and enjoyed the whole thing until I got to the last half of the last chapter, where all of the sudden we're back in the framing story in the first person with some unknown "I". I was terribly confused. I wondered whether the free online version I had just read was poorly edited, and missing some text. I did a little research, and that's when I figured out that I should have read the intro, and promptly went back and read it. Ooooohhhhh...now I get it.

I hate to second guess an Edith Wharton, but frankly, I think I liked it better as a novel the way I read it. I don't believe that the tension I experienced at the end of the story would have been there, had I known from the introduction a few critical facts about the outcome. Perhaps it is my ignorance, but I don't really see that the framing story is buying very much except that it makes it possible to confirm Ethan's tragedy from an independent point of view. It's not just Ethan whining -- it's true: his life was rotten; even the neighbors think so. Personally, I don't think that's necessary, but maybe I'm missing the point.

This is the third book I've read by Edith Wharton, after The House of Mirth and Age of Innocence. I think I still like The House of Mirth best.

A wonderful read!

Just finished reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, winner of the 2008 Man Booker prize.

The writing is amazing.

One would like to call it funny except for the fact that it is so incredibly dark and tragic.

It is written as a first-person, sort of epistolary novel, a collection of "letters" from self-styled entrepreneur Balram (Munna) Halwai to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. In these letters, Balram offers advice to the Premier, based on his experience in his own rise from son of a rickshaw puller in a small town in India ("The Darkness") to successful businessman in Bangalore. Let's just say this is no Horatio Alger rags to riches story...there are bodies on the road.

Adiga describes in vivid detail some of the forces at work in modern India, that shape the lives of millions of marginalized people: family, class, corruption, modernization, caste. He has few kind words for any of them.

This is probably the best book I've read in a long time. But don't read it if you are not prepared to squirm a little.

Some thoughts on writing

Just saw two wonderful quotes from Erica Jong today:

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

and

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

I suspect these two are not unrelated.

Bad Mouth Your Boss or Co-worker? How about your employees?

This seems like such a Bad Idea that I'm surprised that Time even bothered to report on it, and that, too, in as neutral a tone as it did.

Essentially, there is a new website, Unvarnished (which I am NOT going to link to) that encourages you to post "anonymous" reviews of your boss or co-workers. Which boils down to anyone reviewing...well...anyone, since there's no possible way for Unvarnished to verify that the person you claim is your boss actually is. (Or, for that matter, that you are who you claim to be, though you are required to identify yourself with a Facebook account.)

The site claims to be an epinions-like way of submitting information about people you work with:

Unvarnished reviews are community-contributed, business-focused assessments of professional performance.

To help reviewers be honest and candid in their reviews, Unvarnished obscures the identity of review authors. This lets reviewers share their true, nuanced opinions without fear of repercussions.

At the same time, to ensure that reviews are of the highest quality, and maintain a helpful, business-focused approach, Unvarnished provides a suite of tools to allow the community to rate and moderate reviews.

How do I hate this? Let me count the ways.

1. Risks to the reviewer:
   How anonymous is this really? To make a review useful, one would have to add enough detail that it would be pretty easy to identify the reviewer. Not to mention clues offered by writing style. Most people "give themselves away every time they open their mouths" (to quote Henry Higgins), even if they think they are posting anonymously. And what's all this business about linking to Facebook? (Actually, to tell you the truth, my guess is the Facebook bit is mostly so that the Unvarnished people don't need to deal with all the adminstrative hassle of managing accounts, but I digress.)
2. Risks to the reviewee:
   What prevents anyone with a grudge about your work from writing any nonsense about your work? Having an argument with your boss/employee/annoying person in another group about whether it is legal to perform some action? Wouldn't go out with someone at work? Wouldn't work an 80 hour week? Do you wear perfume they don't like (and they never had the guts to tell you in person)?
   While we're at it, what prevents anyone in the world from writing any nonsense about your work? Disgruntled neighbors? Annoying ex-boyfriends? Here's one that I bet you wouldn't think of: extortionists. Apparently there's a bit of a cottage industry in Second Life of virtual mobsters gaming the ratings system of unsuspecting users. And that's just Linden Dollars. Think of the USD value you could extract for professional reputation or psychological despair.
3. Risks to the review reader:
   Given the above: can I believe anything I read on this site?
4. Risks to the organization employing the reviewee:
   a) What confidential information may be divulged in a review?
   b) Do you really want your organization's dirty linen aired in front of customers or other parts of the organization?
   c) What does this do to morale within the organization?

Many comments on the article have noted that this is a law suit waiting to happen.

I am half tempted to sign up for access, just to see how much damage you could really do, if you had it in for someone. But I am also paranoid about these sorts of things, especially the bit about hooking it up to a Facebook account. So maybe not.

Interesting summary of security issues

Yes, I know...I'm behind.

I have a long post about my CISSP in production (actually...see below...since I started it earlier, but finished it later, it's the next one down), but in the meantime, I wanted to post an interesting article I saw today. It's about some of the more serious IT threats we are likely to face in the near future. It's chock full of really interesting statistics and anecdotes. It may sound a little technical, but don't worry about the details. I find the bits on insider fraud and social networking particularly interesting.

Enjoy! And sleep tight!

And, as Annapurna might say...MUUUUHAAAHAAAA!!!!!