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Music
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Herald: The man standing right from me is
Martin Reiche. Martin Reiche is a former
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computer scientist with Karlsruhe
Institute for Technology. He went to study
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media art and now is a self-employed media
artist covering space perception,
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digitalization, power relations, and
minimal aesthetics. That sounds a bit arty
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and it will be arty laughs in the best
way. His work was seen at exhibitions
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festivals worldwide like in Spain, in
Russia, and of course, in Germany. For
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example he used a border barbed wire fence
to accommodate Wi-Fi modems and connecting
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people by a fence that's not supposed to
connect people. We're living in times
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where there is architecture that's purpose
only seems to be to disconnect people or
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for surveillance purposes or both, and
Martin Reiche here shows how to connect
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this architecture with the arts and thus
reclaiming them against the actual
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purpose. Please welcome Martin Reiche!
applause
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Oh I'm sorry, it's been late yesterday!
The closing ceremony will be streamed
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into this hall so you can just stay sit
until 18:30. Now Martin Reiche! Try this
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with the applause again. applause
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Martin Reiche: Thank you and thanks
everybody for coming, especially against
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this other talk in the other room it's
quite a hard, yeah quite a hard thing to
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compete against that, yeah. My name is
Martin Reiche, I'm from Berlin, I'm a
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media artist. We just had that all
introduction thing, so I'm just going to
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talk about what this talk will be about,
this talk, "Surveilling the Surveillers",
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which is maybe more of a provocative call
for action than really an actual
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description of what I'm going to talk
about. But don't run away because you will
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understand in the end why I'm giving you
this disclaimer right now. Because I will
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talk about current important critical
topics that are important for my own
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practice and I'm gonna give some examples
not only from my own artistic practice but
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also from other people's work that deal
with the same topics and I think it's
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always important to really understand the
context where artistic work is situated in
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order to understand the work itself. I
will also talk a bit about modern form of
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activism and that I see computer science
and computer programming as this modern
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form of activism. I will talk about
regulation of technology and the policies
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concerning technology and the institutions
that make these policies. I will also talk
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about quantification of the world,
somehow, and I will finish with a
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something like a closed formula to
describe the whole world; which sounds a
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bit impossible and it actually is, but
well that's where it will be going and
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we'll see how that will evolve. So my
background, so we don't really need this
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again, but I want to tell you a little bit
about some works that I did because it's a
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variety of works that I'm dealing with, in
a variety of topics, for example topics
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like electronic waste, digital footprints,
complexity, visual or conceptual glitch,
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generative systems, generative
architecture, cybernetics, belief systems,
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so it's a lot of buzzwords somehow
that always come up when you talk about
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critical art.
But before starting with that I will tell
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you a little story or we gonna talk about
this concept of the Laplace's demon which
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will be important for the general scope of
this talk. Laplace's demon has been
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postulated by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814
and it's basically an articulation of
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scientific determinism and I'm starting to
quote this he Pierre-Simon Laplace says an
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intellect which at a certain moment would
know all forces that set nature in motion
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and all positions of all items of which
nature is composed if this intellect were
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also vast enough to submit these data to
analysis for such an intellect nothing
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would be uncertain and the future just
like the past would be present before its
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eyes. I would just leave this here and I
will come back to that at the end of the
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talk to have something like a closed loop
for this talk and I will start to talk
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about critical topics which is topics that
are right now interesting especially also
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for the arts which deal with
technology or with technological artifacts
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and I will just start with something that
always comes up it's surveillance of
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course surveillance and reconnaissance.
I'm putting this here together not because
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I think it's the they are identical things
but because both topics have been I would
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say far too widely discussed already in an
artistic context. So I'm just going to
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show you some examples of artistic works
that deal with surveillance and
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reconnaissance and especially works that
are important to me.
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So yeah I just said that I'm not gonna
talk that much about surveillance which
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sounds counterintuitive if I call this
talks surveilling the surveyors but it's
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not really the optical surveillance like
taking a nice panchromatic shot of the
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Earth's surface that I'm interested or
this is a work by me it's called scan
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lines of Aleppo that's also consisting of
panchromatic satellite imagery from a
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former classified now declassified US
reconnaissance satellite used by the
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military they now have a vast archive
where they publish these old well data
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from overflights and you can
basically take them from different times
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in different years you can stack them upon
each other which I did here and I was also
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producing this work it has a glass on top
of it and I was basically engraving the
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flight path of the satellite in order to
give somehow a physical idea of the
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trajectory of an actual satellite that is
flying over the Earth's surface. I'm also
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going to talk a bit about electronic
tracking especially electronic tracking
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through unique identifiers so well that's
SIM cards at least in Germany they are
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mapped to a person's identity by law so if
you buy SIM cards you have to give away
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parts of the data about your identity in
order to be allowed to have one. So these
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SIM cards are unique identifiers to your
person and make it very easy of course to
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track you and your behavior and so on.
And I just want to start with one work of
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friends of mine that, at least Dania was
here at this conference he's now not here
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anymore. This work is called prism
the beacon frame and it's a work that
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takes this idea of I have a SIM card and
it identifies me somehow and it takes also
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the idea of the authority that actually is
allowed to put cell phone towers it takes
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this they just create their own cell phone
tower and they send you messages when you
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come close to these cell phone towers like
this welcome to a new NSA partner Network
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so this is basically produced IMSI catcher
that just tells you very decently that
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well you're just being surveilled in a
sense. It's a work that's been also
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legally problematic of course because
usually in Germany you are not allowed to
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do these things in an artistic context you
have a bit more freedom to deal with these
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kind of things. So that's maybe an example
for surveillance in a sense that you
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already know it's the no longer in
effect actually directive 2006 24 EC which
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is a well European Union directive that we
just tend to call the
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"Vorratsdatenspeicherung".
In Germany we now have unfortunately since
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December 2015 the "Gesetz zur Einfuehrung
einer Speicherpflicht und einer
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Hoechstspeicherpflicht fuer
Verkehrsdaten". We just heard a very
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interesting talk in the first hall also
about how this now developed in the last
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couple of months on also the last couple
of days unfortunately and you can see
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this as the National predecessor of this
directive so here I put this in the same
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corner as also the
artworks about surveillance because I
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think one thing is very important is these
things about policies because policies are
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basically the rules that
define how we live together but they're
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also the rules that are mostly well
problematic for us as people working in
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technology because they somehow have to
adhere to them even if you do not
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ethically agree to them.
That's another maybe nice example for that
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biometric surveillance is something very
prevalent right now especially taking
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fingerprints for example at airports
International airports or getting DNA or
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having a DNA screening of your person
and these things are usually right now
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unfortunately mostly taken from immigrants
and especially we have this
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problem in Germany with the influx of
immigrants where at what the first thing
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of course that came up was well how do we
identify them and how do we make this
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basically as smooth as possible which of
course the easiest way to do it is just to
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take as much data from the people as
possible which is of course ethically a
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bit problematic, a lot.
So another topic that falls in this
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category of surveillance and
reconnaissance is predictive analysis and
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that's not the computer scientist in me
speaking because that's where I'm coming
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from. I was dealing with machine learning
and distributed algorithms so predictive
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analysis is something that I think is
extremely important and like three
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examples of predictive analysis is for
example prediction of the user behavior
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which goes directly hand-in-hand with user
tracking but also market prediction
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through for example if you have a high-
frequency trading algorithm you want to
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predict the the future development of the
market to make very fast decisions on
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these predictions and these brought
us a lot of problems lately. This is an
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example for such a problem they're usually
called flash crashes which is very short
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time frames in which some stocks lose a
lot of value this is a thing the stock of
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natural gas around 2011 in June and what
you can see here in this stock market
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development over time and this is just a
couple of minutes, this is 1940 until
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1955, so that's 15 minutes of market
movement data. And you see these nice
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oscillations that get worse and worse so
there's something that doesn't look very
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natural and at some point it just ends in
a crash which
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is, I think, a loss of 20% of equity for
the company, which is quite a lot and it's
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actually in 15 seconds, happening around
15 seconds, so your predictive analysis is
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a problem. You can go even further and
say, "Well predictive analysis also right
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now is used for crime prediction." So
there's companies selling software to
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cities in order to predict where the next
crime is supposed... or is probably
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happening and take some pre-cautionary
measures to make sure that the crime is
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actually not happening or just go and
catch somebody and just see what happens.
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So yeah, that again, of course, is
ethically problematic. So, coming to the
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next topic would be regulations and
policies... and especially enforcing
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policies on citizens. What does that mean?
Well, the easiest way how to understand it
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is laws. The laws of a country are
basically the easiest and the easiest-to-
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comprehend way to enforce a policy upon
your citizens, but it's not only these
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kind of laws, but then you have some
policy, some regulations, which are a bit
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harder to grasp or harder to get
access to. So you really have to do a lot
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of research to understand what is actually
going on here, but it still has an effect
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on you. This, for example, is a NATO
document, which shows the basic military
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allocation for the radio frequency
spectrum and I'm showing you this, because
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it will get a little bit more important
for a work that I did on some research on
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these military regulations for the radio
frequency spectrum. And I'm staying in
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this realm of radio frequency, I'm
actually going to show you... If that
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works... No, I don't have the other
screen; that's very nice... Show you some
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example.
[Music]
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So, this is a recording at 13.3 megahertz.
The recording is somewhere in Germany and
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it's the so called "Chinese firedrake
AM jammer" It's a jammer that is used
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by... or has been used by the government
of the People's Republic of China and they
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use it against other states' radio
stations. So, they basically use it to jam
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the stations of other countries. For
example, this was the sound of Hope Taiwan
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Radio, which you cannot really hear
anymore, because the only thing you hear
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is this strange Chinese folk song. And
that's somehow also a way to enforce a
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policy on your people by just blocking
access to something that the people could
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have access to if you wouldn't enforce
your policy on there... That doesn't work
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now... Another example here is an artwork:
It's an artwork called "All about you".
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It's by Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez
Janša, which is an artist group from
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Slovenia, that... It's an artist
collective, that at some point decided, as
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an artwork, to all change their names to
"Janez Janša", who is a former Slovenian
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prime minister, so they now all have the
same name and it's the same name as the
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prime minister, which is in itself a...
quite an interesting work of art. And this
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is one of their newer works, where they
basically had this contract with one
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Slovenian bank, where they could, whenever
they lose a credit card, they can just
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replace it with a new one and they can, at
the same time, also just specify the
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photograph that they want to have on their
credit card, so they decided to make...
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How many are there? I think about 120,
150... to reproduce the Slovenian passport
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of one of the members of Janez Janša. And
there actually exist 3 of these collages
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for all the 3 members of the artist
collective and I think they're not yet
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complete or some got lost, I'm not sure
what's the reason that some are missing,
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but it's a nice way to subvert this idea
that there is this policy that also says
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that every...
there's one identity mapped to one person,
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especially if you think about what a name
means. Now you have 4 people having the
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same name, also kind of having a very
similar, at least these three people, kind
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of similar biography by working together,
so if you see a work of art, you don't
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even know who it was, that was the
first... maybe the first person that came
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up with the idea. And even if they tell
you, you don't really know what that
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means, because everybody has the same
name; it doesn't really make sense.
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Thinking more about policies: Another
interesting important work here is
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"Loophole4All" by Paolo Cirio. He got, I
think, the Golden Nica 2014 for this work,
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where he basically sold for very cheap, I
think for 99 cents, these certificates of
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incorporation from some companies in the
Cayman Islands. I think, basically all
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companies in the Cayman Islands, they are,
of course, not valid, but they also, which
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is interesting in these certificates, they
don't really need official stamps or
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anything. You can basically also
incorporate a company there extremely
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easily and, of course, it's a loophole for
tax evasion that's used by companies
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worldwide, and he wanted to make it more
accessible to people, so he just thought
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about "Why not sell that for a dollar to
people?" or "a dollar, then you can
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download it and $2 or $3 and then you get
a real certificate out of it". So that's
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also quite an artistic way to deal with
policy.
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And probably another quite prominent
picture is this of the Liberator gun I
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think you've probably all heard of this
one it's been around for a couple of years
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now and popped up on on the Pirate Bay and
it's basically a completely 3D-printed
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working one-shot gun and, yeah, it
actually has a predecessor which is
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interesting which a lot of people don't
know which was also called liberator. It's
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called FP 45 liberator and it's from World
War II and it had, it also was a one-shot
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gun, and the idea there was a little bit
different though. It was
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produced for around 2 US dollars, so it
was a very, very cheap cheap gun, just
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created out of scrap metal parts and it
had one shot and it was given out to
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resistance forces in the occupied
territories and the idea was that one shot
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is enough to kill an enemy and take his
weapon so we can basically rearm yourself.
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Hence the name Liberator. So I was talking
about enforcing policies on citizens but
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there's not only citizens but there's also
the others not saying the others the
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non-citizens of your country, so enforcing
policies on others is also obviously an
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important thing to talk about and I'm just
going to show you one picture which sums
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up enforcing policies on non-citizens
which is the US drone program bringing
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democracy to a country near you. So
another topic is the obsolescence of
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political borders and that's also now
we're where my work comes up and I was
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very happy to be able to take part in a
project that was initiated by two artists
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that gave a talk last year here. It's an
artist collective, KairUs, they gave a
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talk because they went to Ghana to a
site called Agbogbloshie, which is an
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electronic waste dump, it's actually, I
think right now the biggest electronic
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waste dump in the world and they were
collecting hard drives. They were buying
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hard drives, basically, from this e-waste
dump. And it's quite cheap you can get a
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hard drive for a dollar and they sell them
usually in bulk, like you get a big box
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and supposedly take a big box with you and
they also tell you this story that usually
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people come and buy, well a lot of them,
not one box but 20 boxes. Of course not to
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have in the end these old hard drives
because they're like, from a technical
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perspective quite useless, but because of
the data that's on the hard drive that's
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potentially useful because you can use it
for abuse schemes against the previous
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owners. So, they brought 22 hard drives
back to Europe, to Austria and then did a
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forensic analysis and were able to recover
a couple of, I don't know,
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it was something about
200 gigabytes of data. And it was a bit
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too much for them, so they decided to give
it out to other artists and to somehow
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deal with it, to dig through it, and we
somehow did and it ended up in having, we
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had a nice exhibition about electronic
waste and the remainders of data that you
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will find in this electronic waste. And
just saying that what I've seen cannot be
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unseen you don't really want to deal or to
dig through the private data of a lot of
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people that you don't know, especially
because I was interested especially in
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video and images. Um, yeah, I made a work
out of it I will tell you about it in a
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second. What we also did in this project
was to try to get a understanding for what
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are the problems of this whole electronic
lifecycle. So, before you have your phone
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in your hand of course, well, it was
assembled somewhere and before it was
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assembled, you needed to have the
resources in very physical terms, the
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rare earths that you need to produce the
components and you have to
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mine them somewhere and usually it happens
in countries which are rather poor and it
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happens under extreme conditions. People
that work there are dying very fast, so we
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created a project that tries to map this,
well, what is behind this smart world,
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like all this life cycles of
electronic components and
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exhibited at US Electronica this year. So,
that was actually quite a nice project,
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also to just get an overview that this is
really a global problem and a global
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phenomenon. Yeah, what I wanted to tell
you, is this, about this project called
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Shell Performance. That's one of the
projects that I did based on the data, so
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you already see someone in the middle of
the, of the the middle screen to the the
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lower part is something that well you
could probably identify as a female
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person, and I was interested in the
private data and especially the private
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videos and images that were still
available on these hard drives. And the
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more I was interested in it, the more
I was disgusted by it, a disgust that is
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specifically
because it's one of these things that
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sounds interesting when you think about it
and sounds like you really learn something
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from it. But you learn too much, too fast,
you kind of start to feel into the
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identity of, not only one identity, but
sometimes more identities of the people
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that were the former owners of the hard
drives and so I decided to just work with
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the material that I found on the hard
drives that I could definitely make out to
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be commercial productions. Which was still
a lot. So I'm going to show you a video, I
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hope it works. Internet. Yeah, there's no
sound. So the work is, it's basically a
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shell script, so it's a program that runs
through the contents of the hard drives
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which are attached to, to the, to the
computer and spits away, basically puts
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out images or stills of videos and renders
them as, in ASCII fashion, just on that
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screen and it looks a bit like matrix
tiles, so we have a little, well that's
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quite hard, quite easy to understand
what's happening there and it puts out all
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these files which at some point are
pornographic, mainstream pornographic
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images. The other side are sometimes just
party photos of the former owners, so it's
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a very diverse and a bit strange collage
of a person's life, of a person's digital
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life that you get and it's quite
unsettling in what it evokes in you I
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think when you look at it. So and in this,
I hope, and in this exhibition there were
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also a couple of other projects that
happened, for example of that group
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KairUs, that actually got us the hard
drives, they were able with actually a lot
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of effort to identify or personally
identify one of the former owners of one
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of the hard drives and decided to create a
project in which they hypothetically sent
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back this hard drive to the former owner.
They knew that the hard drive has been
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discarded about ten years ago, they still
were able to figure out the new address
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because they were able to figure out the
new employer of that specific person and
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they named this project Not
A Blackmail because, well, they actually
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don't want to send it to the person, but
in a gallery you see it as, like the work
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already basically having the stamps and
and address of the person on it. But
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they're not sending it, unfortunately. So,
if I'm talking about the obsolescence of
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national borders, one thing that
immediately comes to mind is satellites.
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Yeah, satellites. But then if you think
about a much, much older concept than
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satellites, there's short wave propagation
so that's it's our nice radio frequency
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phenomenon that or shortwave radio, you
know it's AM radio for example, so the old
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school radio that some people still have
in their cars for example. This technology
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is interesting because its, first it's
meant to be for a, let's say a closer
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space, like for example a little, little
country or a state so you can have a
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statewide radio program. But it also has
this property that it gets reflected from
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the ionosphere if you just have an angle
which is high enough and you just sent the
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signal basically to the sky. It gets
reflected there and it comes back to earth
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and it also gets reflected there again and
then you can, you can basically hop quite
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far up to a couple of thousand kilometres
across earth. So it's one of the reasons
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why you sometimes, especially at night
where propagation of radio frequency is,
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it's much better than at day, you're able
to listen to Chinese radio here for
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example, like the Fire, FireDragon, Fire
Drake Jammer. So, and then based on this
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technology, you have some other
technology. It's called Over-the-Horizon
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Radar, for example. Which is interesting,
somehow obsolete now after having
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satellites for reconnaissance, but it's
still widely used. And Over-the-Horizon
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Radar is interesting because it uses this
short wave propagation characteristics in
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order to locate enemy troops on the
ground. And one way how you can use it
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basically, is you create these stations in
your own territory, you just point them to
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your enemy territory or just
other territory and you get quite a good
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and close look of
what's happening there. It's not only the
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US that's doing this, it's also I think,
Russia, Japan and Australia have active
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systems. And right now it's actually quite
active, one of these systems is quite
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active here in in Germany but it's coming
over the horizon from the Russian
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Federation. So, yeah, this is a also VLF
transmitter, it's called Cutler, it's also
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a US Navy transmitter.
By the way all these images are also taken
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from the US Navy. So, one of the reasons
why I can use them here, because
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everything that's produced by a
governmental agency in the United States
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is in directly public domain, which is
very nice also to to work with the
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interesting thing with these very low
frequency transmitters which are usually
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used to communicate to submarines at the
other side of the world and it works quite
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well is that they have a very nice
geometric structure like this one, for
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example. So, this geometric structure is
usually important for the correct
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functioning of this transmitter and I was
quite happy to see this nice geometry
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especially coming from computer science
being kind of mathematically educated and
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I somehow wanted to work with that. That's
what was coming out of it. It's not that
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geometrically sound I would say, but it's
a project that's now been going on since
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2015. It's called “Kilohertz” and it's
quite an international project I would say
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and this site is right now in Brazil. It's
somewhere between São Paulo and Rio de
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Janeiro. There's not that much going on
there, so it's quite a rural place to be.
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I created this installation in order to
listen to specific frequency ranges. So
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kilohertz is an antenna and that's
something that is quite hard to see even
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quite harder to see even if you're
standing in front of it, because the the
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antenna is – looks a bit like this. The
antenna is comprised of very fine copper
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wire which has a diameter of about 0.3
millimeter, so it's almost not – you can
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almost not see it if you're not standing
in front of it and actually know where it
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is and you can focus with your eye on it.
But it apparently is quite good in order
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to receive military radio communications
and transmissions and that is what I'm
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interested in this project is to receive
these military radio communications I was
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just talking about that shortwave radio,
because of the propagation characteristics
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is an interesting thing to use for the
military, not only for this radar, but
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also, for example, to have a uni-
directive call – a channel – to, for
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example, submerged submarines and it's
also quite actively still used for
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communications between military bases. So
this happened to be just about 60
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kilometers away from a federal police /
military. That's kind of the same thing in
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there in Brazil. Complex that most people
don't really know what's going on there,
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but when I was there I was interested to
see if I can actually somehow get
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something out of there – if I can actually
prove at least that there's some military
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communication towards the space going on.
And it turns out to be, of course, quite
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hard to do so, but what I was really
interested in is not only to see how this
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happens in Brazil, but how is that
everywhere else in the world – because
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listening or trying to listen to military
communications is legally always a kind of
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complicated thing in Brazil. Usually, when
I give these kind of talks that say in
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Brazil they have other problems they don't
need to think about somebody receiving
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military transmissions. They should work
on other problems, but in other countries
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that might be seen in a different way. So
I executed this project also in Estonia
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just 20 kilometers to the Russian border.
I also executed this project in Norway and
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in Berlin. Actually, there is one active
instance running right now in Berlin
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always listening to the same basically
frequency ranges which are military
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classified, well, classified military
frequency ranges that you could see or you
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were able to see just longer ago on one of
these slides.
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So, the way how these things, these
antennas work is very, very simple. So, I
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take the, basically, simplest way how to
build an antenna and build it. This is a
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very, very easy setup. So, it looks like
an inverted “V”. It works quite well for
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very potent signals and the rest of the
hardware that you need is very cheap and
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the antenna itself is very cheap, because
the only thing you need for the antenna is
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basically copper wire and for the rest of
the station a Raspberry Pi – with a little
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bit of software and a RTL SDR dongle is
enough to do it. So it costs less than 50
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bucks to create a surveillance or counter-
surveillance station against these
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military facilities. There's a couple of
other ways how you can actually build
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these antennas. Some this again, these
images are now taken from, I think, it's a
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navy field manual. So, it's a manual
that's given to people in the field for
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the scenario that their antenna is broken,
so they need to build a new one and I'm
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kind of using this knowledge against them,
which is just a interesting sidenote, I
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think. So, there's different ways how to
build these antennas. They even have that
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military radio transmitter. That's another
way how you could potentially build that
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and in the end you get very interesting
nice power sweeps, nice images out of it.
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They are power sweeps – what that means is
I'm just defining a frequency range that
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I'm interested in and then I basically
have a computer program that just goes
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just step by step and measures the
intensity of signal that's there and in
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the end, over time, which is the y-axis if
you want. It creates these images which
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don't tell you what exactly is going on
there, but it gives you proof that
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something is going on there and that some
communication is taking place.
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The only thing you have to do then is to
verify that it's actually a military or
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civilian usage and you can do that by
looking into the policies, that have to be
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somehow made available to the public
usually through the regulatory
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institutions in the specific countries,
for example, the FCC in the US or – what
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was it in Europe – the Bundesnetzagentur
in Germany which have to publish it, in
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order to make sure that nobody interferes
with official signals military or
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governmental or signals as part of a
frequency bands which have been sold for a
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lot of money to institutions in the
country. So, publishing – I think, for the
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first time now – an official call for
participation and I'm doing this because
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the “Kilohertz” project, I've talked about
this project a couple of times already in
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different countries and everybody at
these places was interested somehow to
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offer two square meters of space to build
a little antenna somewhere and to push all
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the information that this antenna spits
out into a public GitHub repository and
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just give out information to the rest of
the world. And the reason is why should
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you actually do that – like what is the
real gain in doing that. And one gain is
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to understand that some parts of the
frequency spectrum that are reserved to
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the military – and the military has most
of the frequency spectrum reserved for it
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– is actually never used and that could
also be made available to the public. It
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could also be made available for resale to
commercial companies. I'm not in favor of
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that, but I would like to be “Kilohertz” a
project that's able to provide evidence
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for non-usage of radio frequency bands in
order to support groups that are active in
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trying to reclaim parts of the RF-
frequency spectrum for civilian usage.
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That would be very nice to have and
there's a couple of initiatives in other
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countries that already start to deal
with that, but what they always lack is
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00:40:30,249 --> 00:40:37,200
actual information about the usage of the
frequency spectrum that they want to
401
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:42,099
reclaim for the public.
So, yeah if you're interested in that you
402
00:40:42,099 --> 00:40:48,960
can find everything. Well, you have that.
So, I'm just moving on to the next section
403
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:55,779
which is a critical topic of protectionism
and this is a new project. I'm presenting
404
00:40:55,779 --> 00:41:00,269
to you, also, I think for the first time
now, in Germany, it's a project which
405
00:41:00,269 --> 00:41:04,569
stems from my idea that I actually wanted
to go to these fences that are everywhere
406
00:41:04,569 --> 00:41:09,920
right now in Europe. Fences that were
supposed to protect us from an influx of I
407
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:16,670
don't know what and they are, well,
especially prevalent in Slovenia and in
408
00:41:16,670 --> 00:41:26,480
places around Slovenia. So, I went there
for a residency and first went to the
409
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:32,480
fence between Slovenia and Austria. This
is from the Slovenian side, obviously. So,
410
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:36,589
it has this police marker on there and
it's quite a solid, if you want so,
411
00:41:36,589 --> 00:41:41,019
fences. It actually says if you want to go
through, please call us and we let you
412
00:41:41,019 --> 00:41:46,890
through. it obviously is not valid for
non-citizens, but it's interesting because
413
00:41:46,890 --> 00:41:52,710
they really cut through all the very
nice hiking trails and I'm an active hiker
414
00:41:52,710 --> 00:41:58,430
I'm kind of saddened to see these kind of
things. But at the same time you have a
415
00:41:58,430 --> 00:42:02,569
street just 200 metres of that, which goes
through the border and it doesn't have a
416
00:42:02,569 --> 00:42:06,559
fence, so I don't really understand what's
going on there, but they were very happy
417
00:42:06,559 --> 00:42:14,130
to build these fence and now they have it
there and don't know what to do with it.
418
00:42:14,130 --> 00:42:18,730
So I took this trip to the fence and did
some field research. What I'm doing there
419
00:42:18,730 --> 00:42:25,660
is I was measuring conductivity of the
fence, cause it's a metal construct,
420
00:42:25,660 --> 00:42:31,670
right, and I was also measuring the
potential towards ground to see if
421
00:42:31,670 --> 00:42:38,190
I have a short-circuit there or not, if I
can work with it somehow, just to give you
422
00:42:38,190 --> 00:42:42,240
an idea of where that is: It's actually
somewhere you see Ljubljana there in
423
00:42:42,240 --> 00:42:46,369
Zagreb, it's kind of half the way it's in
the middle of nowhere, it's a little
424
00:42:46,369 --> 00:42:55,109
village called Lastnič and where the
next, actually, the next video was taking
425
00:42:55,109 --> 00:43:00,430
place. I'm now just gonna show you a
little excerpt.
426
00:43:00,430 --> 00:43:07,109
Person 1 in Video: As the migration summit
kicks off in Malta, Slovenia has started
427
00:43:07,109 --> 00:43:11,990
erecting a wire fence along it's border
with Croatia, to help control the flow of
428
00:43:11,990 --> 00:43:15,140
people arriving daily.
Person 2 in Video: Last year authorities
429
00:43:15,140 --> 00:43:19,819
rolled out more than 150 kilometers of
barbed wire to stave off an influx of
430
00:43:19,819 --> 00:43:23,569
migrants, which never came.
Person 3 in Video: Stories abound in the
431
00:43:23,569 --> 00:43:31,030
villages here, of farmers having lands cut
into, of bears and deer cut to ribbons, of
432
00:43:31,030 --> 00:43:36,999
kids falling off their bikes into the wire
and nobody has ever seen a refugee.
433
00:43:36,999 --> 00:43:41,630
Martin Reiche: So that last sentence is
actually quite important, because they
434
00:43:41,630 --> 00:43:47,140
built this barbed wire, razor wire fence,
which is stacked razor wire, military
435
00:43:47,140 --> 00:43:56,249
grade, for this border between Slovenia
and Croatia, for zero refugees that
436
00:43:56,249 --> 00:44:02,339
ever even attempted to cross the border
there, so they now have this huge fence,
437
00:44:02,339 --> 00:44:09,240
which is absolutely useless, and you just
have animals that get somehow into the
438
00:44:09,240 --> 00:44:16,891
fence and then die being inside of this
fence or at least get hurt a lot, but
439
00:44:16,891 --> 00:44:20,140
you still have this fence and everybody's
kind of disgusted by this fence, so I
440
00:44:20,140 --> 00:44:25,249
thought that's quite lovely, I just should
just go there and see what I can do and if
441
00:44:25,249 --> 00:44:32,650
I can do something, so I went to this
fence, see that looks like this then, and
442
00:44:32,650 --> 00:44:37,249
I did the same thing again: I measured
conductivity, measured ground potential of
443
00:44:37,249 --> 00:44:43,119
the fence, to get somehow an overview of
how I could use the fence for an
444
00:44:43,119 --> 00:44:49,440
electronic intervention, to say it like
this and finally - this is almost a
445
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:55,150
religious position I like that somehow -
finally I built a little device that's
446
00:44:55,150 --> 00:44:59,529
something that's hanging around there,
it's very very rudimental, has been almost
447
00:44:59,529 --> 00:45:06,930
basically built on site, it's a little
transmitter and an amplifier
448
00:45:06,930 --> 00:45:11,450
hanging at the border fence and the
other one in the ground, that's just one
449
00:45:11,450 --> 00:45:18,839
meter there, doesn't really matter, was a
proof of concept to send a signal over
450
00:45:18,839 --> 00:45:25,420
this fence, so I was interested in
seeing how can you use this defensive
451
00:45:25,420 --> 00:45:32,720
architecture, which is really just there
to make sure people can not be together,
452
00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:37,530
basically how can you use that as a
network infrastructure, just to be honest,
453
00:45:37,530 --> 00:45:41,180
how can you just use that. Because it's
conductive material, already lying there
454
00:45:41,180 --> 00:45:47,109
for free, why not use it for something
actually useful or at least try to see if
455
00:45:47,109 --> 00:45:49,151
we could do something actually useful
with it.
456
00:45:49,151 --> 00:45:58,500
It ended up in a project called razor wire
modem of this year. It's a still somehow
457
00:45:58,500 --> 00:46:04,220
work-in-progress, because the modem part
got a little omitted in the process of
458
00:46:04,220 --> 00:46:08,819
being there in Slovenia. In Slovenia was
really just a transmitter and one
459
00:46:08,819 --> 00:46:13,769
receiver; the transmitter was sending some
data on this fence and you had a receiver
460
00:46:13,769 --> 00:46:19,720
taking the data from the fence. They were
connected through a ground return in the
461
00:46:19,720 --> 00:46:24,240
actual soil, so that you have the two
connections that you need and I was
462
00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:30,329
sending data through this fence and I
actually sent the Universal Declaration of
463
00:46:30,329 --> 00:46:35,539
Human Rights through the fence.
Applause
464
00:46:35,539 --> 00:46:43,440
Martin Reiche: Especially article 14:
Everyone has the right to seek and to
465
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:52,220
enjoy in other countries Asylum from
persecution. So I want to talk to you very
466
00:46:52,220 --> 00:46:56,910
briefly about new modes of activism I
already said that: It's
467
00:46:56,910 --> 00:47:00,910
programming is the modern and the new form
of activism and has to be understood as
468
00:47:00,910 --> 00:47:06,059
that, programming is something that you
should learn right now from primary
469
00:47:06,059 --> 00:47:10,980
school as soon as possible, because it's
just the way how to express in our modern
470
00:47:10,980 --> 00:47:18,990
world and actually how to be a bit a step
ahead of the regulators. And coming to
471
00:47:18,990 --> 00:47:24,080
regulation that's going to get important.
You have something I would call techno
472
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:28,480
regulation which is the regulation of
technology, which plays a lot of roles
473
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,900
especially two: It's making sure
technology functions as intended, so
474
00:47:32,900 --> 00:47:37,460
planes should, for example, not fall from
the sky, radio frequency radio
475
00:47:37,460 --> 00:47:41,230
applications should not interfere with
each other, and that's quite important,
476
00:47:41,230 --> 00:47:45,369
also making sure technology will
function in the future in somehow
477
00:47:45,369 --> 00:47:50,589
predictive ways. So this is a problem for
me, especially that predictive ways,
478
00:47:50,589 --> 00:47:55,670
because it limits freedom of expression
and it's also a future-oriented policy
479
00:47:55,670 --> 00:47:59,550
that serves the goal, again, to predict
some future scenarios.
480
00:47:59,550 --> 00:48:05,759
So there's of course counter examples of
things that oppose this techno regulation,
481
00:48:05,759 --> 00:48:10,780
for example peer-to-peer protocols and
anonymity networks or decentralized
482
00:48:10,780 --> 00:48:20,940
cryptographic currencies as an example,
but it's not enough yet. So the next topic
483
00:48:20,940 --> 00:48:28,525
that directly speaks to me in that whole
realm is quantification, because it is
484
00:48:28,525 --> 00:48:33,950
directly related to the regulation of
technology, because it's basically the
485
00:48:33,950 --> 00:48:38,940
understanding or the trial to understand
every occurrence of something in the world
486
00:48:38,940 --> 00:48:43,499
and to understand that as a signal that
has to be processed, stored and later
487
00:48:43,499 --> 00:48:47,970
analyzed. And it happens on all levels,
this quantification, not only analog to
488
00:48:47,970 --> 00:48:52,460
digital conversion, but the creation of
symbols from electronic impulses and then
489
00:48:52,460 --> 00:48:59,069
to induce structure on the symbols, for
example over predefined protocols or just
490
00:48:59,069 --> 00:49:06,029
learned, like in predictive analysis; I
just talked about that. The question is
491
00:49:06,029 --> 00:49:12,319
here: Who is the enemy? I would say the
enemy is everybody who sees us as their
492
00:49:12,319 --> 00:49:19,239
enemy, which is not really a solid
definition, but I want to make sure that
493
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,380
the enemy is not the institutions that
create the policies, but it's the policy
494
00:49:23,380 --> 00:49:27,700
itself, so I'm not against the state if
I'm building a system that deals with the
495
00:49:27,700 --> 00:49:32,440
policies that have been created by the
people in this state, but I'm against that
496
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:39,509
policy in the first place and that's quite
important to me. So I talked to you about
497
00:49:39,509 --> 00:49:43,230
Laplace's daemon and I think if I stick
together these two concepts of techno
498
00:49:43,230 --> 00:49:47,970
regulation and quantification I get
Laplace's demon.
499
00:49:47,970 --> 00:49:53,769
It's an internal justification mechanism
for complete surveillance, if you want, so
500
00:49:53,769 --> 00:49:57,710
it's the old concept of the world formula
and I was I was telling you I'm telling
501
00:49:57,710 --> 00:50:02,510
you about the world formula and it's
dangerous, because it creates a loop. I
502
00:50:02,510 --> 00:50:05,800
will give you one example: If you have
a predictive system, which is built on
503
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:11,410
some models of the world, it will predict
somehow within this model and the more
504
00:50:11,410 --> 00:50:17,059
correct the predictions get, the more you
will understand that if we change the
505
00:50:17,059 --> 00:50:22,840
world according to the prediction of this
model then we will be better at
506
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:31,390
understanding our world, so why not just
change the world to our model, at least in
507
00:50:31,390 --> 00:50:35,519
some sense? Not very actively in saying:
"Okay we should make our world a lot
508
00:50:35,519 --> 00:50:41,390
easier or a lot more more formal" but I
think that's something that happens
509
00:50:41,390 --> 00:50:46,599
already and I said I'm coming from
computer science, a bit mathematics and in
510
00:50:46,599 --> 00:50:51,369
statistics we have a term for the outcome
of this process and we call it
511
00:50:51,369 --> 00:50:55,730
overfitting, so techno regulation and
quantification somehow lead to an
512
00:50:55,730 --> 00:51:02,480
overfitting of the world formula. I just
want to show you two outcomes, what it
513
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:07,269
means to apply this world formula, which
basically creates a justification for
514
00:51:07,269 --> 00:51:15,630
everything, is something that we heard in
the news for a long time: Iraq's weapons
515
00:51:15,630 --> 00:51:20,980
of mass destruction.
That's some of the or one outcome of the
516
00:51:20,980 --> 00:51:31,319
application of the world formula that you
trust a Secret Service, because it's the
517
00:51:31,319 --> 00:51:38,980
Secret Service, it should know these
kind of things. And the other thing that
518
00:51:38,980 --> 00:51:43,130
can happen, if you apply this world
formula, is of course also extremism in
519
00:51:43,130 --> 00:51:48,411
the other way and in this sense I wanted
to quote - not really quote but show you
520
00:51:48,411 --> 00:51:51,510
this because I was interested when I
read about that.
521
00:51:51,510 --> 00:51:56,039
It's it's a kind of a security bulletin,
published on the Internet Archive in
522
00:51:56,039 --> 00:52:00,809
November 2016: The general scope I will
tell you about it is: How can you use
523
00:52:00,809 --> 00:52:06,769
information technology to conceal
extremist activity and of course they are
524
00:52:06,769 --> 00:52:14,339
using the same some of the same visual
metaphors that also the Bundeswehr in
525
00:52:14,339 --> 00:52:18,810
German is using. So but I don't want to
end this talk on this very depressing
526
00:52:18,810 --> 00:52:22,419
topic, because kind of the application of
the world formula is actually a depressing
527
00:52:22,419 --> 00:52:27,339
thing and I would urge you to understand
that we have to do something against that.
528
00:52:27,339 --> 00:52:32,190
I want to quote something against that:
"We have grown, but there's still much to
529
00:52:32,190 --> 00:52:36,230
be done. Many that live in darkness that
must be shown the way, for it is the
530
00:52:36,230 --> 00:52:41,089
dawning of a new day." Thanks.
Applause
531
00:52:41,089 --> 00:52:48,289
Herald: Martin Reiche. Martin Reiche.
Jetzt geht's.
532
00:52:48,289 --> 00:52:56,499
Martin Reiche: Jetzt geht's
Herald: Jetzt geht's. Martin Reiche,
533
00:52:56,499 --> 00:52:59,761
vielen Dank. Any questions?
Martin Reiche: In German or English.
534
00:52:59,761 --> 00:53:06,698
Herald: In German or in English, feel free
to attend one of our microphone stands.
535
00:53:06,698 --> 00:53:09,190
No questions?
Martin Reiche: No questions
536
00:53:09,190 --> 00:53:12,193
Herald: Well then, let's go home.
both laugh
537
00:53:12,193 --> 00:53:14,620
Martin Reiche: Thank you.
Herald: Thank you.
538
00:53:14,620 --> 00:53:18,377
Thank you for listening. Martin Reiche.
Applause
539
00:53:18,608 --> 00:53:36,726
music
540
00:53:36,726 --> 00:53:43,000
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