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As noted by e-mails I've been getting, apparently I wasn't explicit about what I'm doing this summer,
etc. So here's the little summary. If you've chatted with me recently, feel free to ignore this entry
and go do something else.
So I'm back at the Citizen Lab this summer working on the ONI stuff. The theme of the summer seems to be "election
monitoring" (looking for internet attacks, censorship, etc., happening during an election period). So
we're building tools for that, developing a methodology, and all of that. I'm also getting a chance to
(finally!) upgrade the censorship detection tools that Nart and I wrote two summers ago. In terms of
internet research years, that's nine million years ago. Add to the mix some circumvention technology
development in the background and a constant flood of smaller research projects, and it's a pretty packed
summer. Staying in the city, I hadta turn down an internship with Guido (of Python fame) which was
really hard, but it's also super nice to be back with the citlabber ninjas.
Aside from work, I'm trying to actually get some relaxing done (GASP!) which is a very new activity for
me ;). With June starting, I'm hoping to get back onto the PyWebOff horse -- a few "are you dead?"
e-mails every week from people is a good motivator -- and finish up some side projects, maybe even
starting some new ones. Oh, and don't forget checking grad school sites every sixty seconds to see if I
want to go there.
So that's what I'll be doing over the next few months. And I'm sure you'll hear aaaaaall about it in
ridiculous detail as it happens. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. :)
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June 1st, 2005 - Summerathalon
June 2nd, 2005 - The cost of getting the message out
I was on the phone today with a reporter from The Hour who was
interested in documenting an election monitoring event that we're preparing for. We're used to talking
to reporters about our work, but they usually at least feign interest in the cause. This guy wasn't even
bothering with the act though, he was just fishing for a cool story.
Over the past few years, I've learned a lot about the game that you have to play with the media. We have things to offer each other but nothing is free.
The media jumps onto whatever we're doing at the time because it's easy to spin it to make it sound cool (from "Net Ninjas Take On Web Censorship" link to a "hacker grow-op" link). They can include exciting narrative like:
It's a simple exchange and both sides benefit. The media gets to filter an exciting drama out of what we're doing and in exchange we get an opportunity for our research to get global coverage.
There's a cost though, and I mean beyond having to act like monkeys for the afternoon. The more mainstream the audience, the simpler the message has to be. And by trying to distill a single simple fact out of a very complex situation, the truth often gets thrown out with the "boring bits". This is the true cost of trying to educate the masses by participating in a media circus.
A good case study of this can be seen by examining what the technocrats of today know about internet censorship in China. China's filtering has gotten a lot of media attention (why China is always picked on is a whole other rant) and now the majority of the technocrats believe they have a fairly good idea of what's going on there. But the stories that the media puts out are so saturated with rumours, over-generalizations and inaccuracies, that the facts are often nowhere to be seen. I've heard people speak with confidence about how China employs 50,000 internet police, or that the website of every US university is blocked in China, or that they Chinese government has found a way to read encrypted e-mail, or that every e-mail that passes through the "great firewall" is manually read before it is allowed through. Out of all the "facts" listed, every single one of them is either provably false, extraordinarily unlikely, or based entirely on rumour with no shred of evidence.
Beyond simply giving the public an incorrect impression of what's going on, these over simplifications are often destructive. Going back to our case study, China teams its inherently limited technical filtering with a climate of fear to create a sort of self-censorship that prevents a lot of content from being visited. By propagating rumours that the Chinese firewall is monitored in divine-like detail, it actually contributes to the climate of fear, and thus the censorship, rather than contribute to the solution. But the truth is a very complicated one and not nearly as glamourous. Explaining complicated situations is not the media's strong suit.
So that brings us back to today, on the phone with reporter dude who wants A Story. There's a story to tell, of course. It's one of corporate accountability for selling closed-source commercial filtering products to censoring regimes, or the unintended consequences of using computer categorization to determine website content for filtering, or the gradual increase of worldwide filtering software used for "acceptable" filtering but the dangers that having that pre-existing infrastructure can cause, or a thousand other interesting --- but complicated --- topics.
The story he'll tell, of course, is one of hackers in the basement controversially fighting for the freedom of speech online.
But...and this is why we bother at all...it's very likely that in telling this story he'll have to include some details about what we're discovering in our research. And --- if we're very, very lucky --- some of the details may even be true.
Over the past few years, I've learned a lot about the game that you have to play with the media. We have things to offer each other but nothing is free.
The media jumps onto whatever we're doing at the time because it's easy to spin it to make it sound cool (from "Net Ninjas Take On Web Censorship" link to a "hacker grow-op" link). They can include exciting narrative like:
A typical day at the Citizen Lab includes remotely interrogating foreign government computers, researching global internet censorship, and fighting for freedom on the internet.You can tell that this was written by a reporter. If it was written by me it might say:
A typical day at the Citizen Lab includes trying to figure out why your custom socket module breaks if you make a non-SSL connection right after an SSL connection. After spending all day trying to track down the bug in the socket module, you finally find out that it's not in your code at all but rather in a version conflict between the http connection code that you wrote several years ago and the http library which has been upgraded since then, which then causes another previously unseen bug to emerge which fails under a certain race condition between your twenty threads --- it had nothing to do with SSL at all. Once that bug is found, the rest of the day is spent playing around with Apache config files to get mod_rewrite to work the way that you want it to.But you have to make an unspoken deal with the media and the deal is this: you can write up a cool story about us (who agree to act like media whores for a short amount of time), and in exchange your article will discuss our cause and help us to get the message out.
It's a simple exchange and both sides benefit. The media gets to filter an exciting drama out of what we're doing and in exchange we get an opportunity for our research to get global coverage.
There's a cost though, and I mean beyond having to act like monkeys for the afternoon. The more mainstream the audience, the simpler the message has to be. And by trying to distill a single simple fact out of a very complex situation, the truth often gets thrown out with the "boring bits". This is the true cost of trying to educate the masses by participating in a media circus.
A good case study of this can be seen by examining what the technocrats of today know about internet censorship in China. China's filtering has gotten a lot of media attention (why China is always picked on is a whole other rant) and now the majority of the technocrats believe they have a fairly good idea of what's going on there. But the stories that the media puts out are so saturated with rumours, over-generalizations and inaccuracies, that the facts are often nowhere to be seen. I've heard people speak with confidence about how China employs 50,000 internet police, or that the website of every US university is blocked in China, or that they Chinese government has found a way to read encrypted e-mail, or that every e-mail that passes through the "great firewall" is manually read before it is allowed through. Out of all the "facts" listed, every single one of them is either provably false, extraordinarily unlikely, or based entirely on rumour with no shred of evidence.
Beyond simply giving the public an incorrect impression of what's going on, these over simplifications are often destructive. Going back to our case study, China teams its inherently limited technical filtering with a climate of fear to create a sort of self-censorship that prevents a lot of content from being visited. By propagating rumours that the Chinese firewall is monitored in divine-like detail, it actually contributes to the climate of fear, and thus the censorship, rather than contribute to the solution. But the truth is a very complicated one and not nearly as glamourous. Explaining complicated situations is not the media's strong suit.
So that brings us back to today, on the phone with reporter dude who wants A Story. There's a story to tell, of course. It's one of corporate accountability for selling closed-source commercial filtering products to censoring regimes, or the unintended consequences of using computer categorization to determine website content for filtering, or the gradual increase of worldwide filtering software used for "acceptable" filtering but the dangers that having that pre-existing infrastructure can cause, or a thousand other interesting --- but complicated --- topics.
The story he'll tell, of course, is one of hackers in the basement controversially fighting for the freedom of speech online.
But...and this is why we bother at all...it's very likely that in telling this story he'll have to include some details about what we're discovering in our research. And --- if we're very, very lucky --- some of the details may even be true.
June 5th, 2005 - Believing that vampires are real
I was playing tech support for Dr J. yesterday at a conference by the Transylvanian Society on Dracula.
My duties included moving large objects, plugging things in, hitting "play" at appropriate times, eating
their food, and mentally sorting between the "interesting, unique" people (of which there were a few) and
"really damn crazy" people.
As fate would have it, at the reception afterwards my table of four comprised of the best possible arrangement I could have hoped for. Myself, BuffyChick (a grad student from York who was studying Buffy and was one of the few people in the room with whom I could actually have a normal conversation), InsaneDude (the craziest guy of the room) and InsaneLady (by far the craziest speaker). We sat, we talked, and I sat back and enjoyed the entertainment that can be derived from trying to find glimpses of rationality in the minds of those who seem to have none.
InsaneDude explained to us that he had the highest IQ score in Canadian history, had been kicked out of Canadian Intelligence over a communist conspiracy, was the #1 most sought-after screenplay writer in the world without having ever written a screenplay, had represented Real And True Evil in a law firm, was ridiculously wealthy from his business as a consultant and was an avid gambler and always won. The stories of his life continued with a Forest Gump-like saga of doing several dozen lifetimes worth of events. He always succeeded in whatever he tried. And if you named anyone famous, he knew them personally.
InsaneLady was of a different breed of insanity. InsaneLady had an explanation for everything that went right or wrong in her life: supernatural forces. This was usually one of faeries, witches, ghosts, angels, demons, vampires, etc. but she didn't rule out aliens, either. Specifically because she had proof that aliens were here and were slowly sucking our souls to try to control human overpopulation: the aliens had good intentions but they were using evil magic to do it. Also, she was pissed off when people confused vampires for evil faeries. How could they make such an obvious error??
It was certainly an entertaining day, but it also proved to be an exercise in patience, tolerance, and restraint. My accomplishment of the day was that I didn't call even a single one of the crazies a "nutbar" or "whackjob" to their face. And what an accomplishment it was!
As fate would have it, at the reception afterwards my table of four comprised of the best possible arrangement I could have hoped for. Myself, BuffyChick (a grad student from York who was studying Buffy and was one of the few people in the room with whom I could actually have a normal conversation), InsaneDude (the craziest guy of the room) and InsaneLady (by far the craziest speaker). We sat, we talked, and I sat back and enjoyed the entertainment that can be derived from trying to find glimpses of rationality in the minds of those who seem to have none.
InsaneDude explained to us that he had the highest IQ score in Canadian history, had been kicked out of Canadian Intelligence over a communist conspiracy, was the #1 most sought-after screenplay writer in the world without having ever written a screenplay, had represented Real And True Evil in a law firm, was ridiculously wealthy from his business as a consultant and was an avid gambler and always won. The stories of his life continued with a Forest Gump-like saga of doing several dozen lifetimes worth of events. He always succeeded in whatever he tried. And if you named anyone famous, he knew them personally.
InsaneLady was of a different breed of insanity. InsaneLady had an explanation for everything that went right or wrong in her life: supernatural forces. This was usually one of faeries, witches, ghosts, angels, demons, vampires, etc. but she didn't rule out aliens, either. Specifically because she had proof that aliens were here and were slowly sucking our souls to try to control human overpopulation: the aliens had good intentions but they were using evil magic to do it. Also, she was pissed off when people confused vampires for evil faeries. How could they make such an obvious error??
It was certainly an entertaining day, but it also proved to be an exercise in patience, tolerance, and restraint. My accomplishment of the day was that I didn't call even a single one of the crazies a "nutbar" or "whackjob" to their face. And what an accomplishment it was!
Jun 08th, 2005 - Catspaw's Guide to the Intarweb
After talking to a few reporters over the past couple of days, I've heard several different
interpretations about what the Intarweb is and how it works. I've discovered that someone really needs
to write a brief Guide to the Intarweb. I've taken this responsibility into my own hands and produced
the following set of slides:
Jun 09th, 2005 - On the road again...
Mud and I are off to Montreal for the weekend to visit Ender and Daedalus. I haven't been to Montreal in
a few years now and I have yet to see Ender and Daedalus' "new" (it's new to me!) place there.
The weather prediction is hot and hot with a chance of more hot. And thunderstorms. Sounds remarkably like the weather prediction that we've had here for the past week. They keep promising thunderstorms but have yet to deliver so it's just hot and humid. If it's still sunny when we're in Montreal on Saturday we may visit La Ronde. We're also going to see Cirque de Soleil while we're there --- though the c'm'ere-finger dude on that website link freaks me out.
On a completely different note, I think that decorating Toronto with Mario question blocks should become my new hobby. Because, let's face it, that's damn cool.
So fare thee well Toronto, and I'll be there soon Montreal!
The weather prediction is hot and hot with a chance of more hot. And thunderstorms. Sounds remarkably like the weather prediction that we've had here for the past week. They keep promising thunderstorms but have yet to deliver so it's just hot and humid. If it's still sunny when we're in Montreal on Saturday we may visit La Ronde. We're also going to see Cirque de Soleil while we're there --- though the c'm'ere-finger dude on that website link freaks me out.
On a completely different note, I think that decorating Toronto with Mario question blocks should become my new hobby. Because, let's face it, that's damn cool.
So fare thee well Toronto, and I'll be there soon Montreal!
Jun 13th, 2005 - 40 days and 40 nights
When I turned around in my chair, the water was only about an inch away from the wall.
"Guys?", I said, not very urgently, since it didn't seem like an urgent situation.
Neither Nart nor Graeme turned around.
I stood up to figure out what was going on. That's when I noticed that the water was now about two feet from the wall. And was very quickly moving across the room.
"Guys??", I said, more urgently. They turned around.
By the time that they looked (maybe three seconds later) the water was covering a third of the floor of the Citizen Lab.
We all leapt up and started pulling wires and plugs out from the water. Probably not the safest thing in the world, but the flood was spreading. Mud, who was visiting, helped hold a pile of wires above the water, as I went running towards some of the servers which sat on the ground and quickly tried to find chairs and desks for them to sit on before the water hit.
When water spreads, there is little that you can do to stop it. In a wires-infested room like the Citizen Lab, the best that you can do is try to put everything on chairs and hope that all the servers survive.
The daring rescue mission was successful: no one died of electric shock and no servers were fried. But my feet were sure damn wet.
The excitement never ends in the world of Catspaw.
(And, on a completely different note, why aren't I spending my time doing things like this?)
"Guys?", I said, not very urgently, since it didn't seem like an urgent situation.
Neither Nart nor Graeme turned around.
I stood up to figure out what was going on. That's when I noticed that the water was now about two feet from the wall. And was very quickly moving across the room.
"Guys??", I said, more urgently. They turned around.
By the time that they looked (maybe three seconds later) the water was covering a third of the floor of the Citizen Lab.
We all leapt up and started pulling wires and plugs out from the water. Probably not the safest thing in the world, but the flood was spreading. Mud, who was visiting, helped hold a pile of wires above the water, as I went running towards some of the servers which sat on the ground and quickly tried to find chairs and desks for them to sit on before the water hit.
When water spreads, there is little that you can do to stop it. In a wires-infested room like the Citizen Lab, the best that you can do is try to put everything on chairs and hope that all the servers survive.
The daring rescue mission was successful: no one died of electric shock and no servers were fried. But my feet were sure damn wet.
The excitement never ends in the world of Catspaw.
(And, on a completely different note, why aren't I spending my time doing things like this?)
Jun 17th, 2005 - The one thing that ninjas fear
"Here", I passed the phone to Graeme. "I'm gonna look up a phone number and then you can call ---"
"Oh no!", he interrupted. "I'm not phone guy!"
"Okay, then Nart, can you call the ---"
"Nooo!", Nart whined. "I hate the phone. Don't make me use the phone. You call."
"Yeah", Graeme agreed. "You call, [Catsy]. You're good at talking to people. I don't like the phone."
What is it about making phone calls that makes so many people squirm?
I know that I get pissed off when I order something online and then they call me on the phone to verify my order. Do you know why I ordered online? So I didn't have to talk to anyone on the phone! Get off my phone! If you need to communicate with me, send me an e-mail or something. Argh!
But I'm nowhere near as bad as the wusses who work next to me. They will do anything to avoid calling someone. I'm going to start charging them coffee and cookies and stuff.
Oh, and if you're bored, this unnecessary censorship video is worth a laugh.
"Oh no!", he interrupted. "I'm not phone guy!"
"Okay, then Nart, can you call the ---"
"Nooo!", Nart whined. "I hate the phone. Don't make me use the phone. You call."
"Yeah", Graeme agreed. "You call, [Catsy]. You're good at talking to people. I don't like the phone."
What is it about making phone calls that makes so many people squirm?
I know that I get pissed off when I order something online and then they call me on the phone to verify my order. Do you know why I ordered online? So I didn't have to talk to anyone on the phone! Get off my phone! If you need to communicate with me, send me an e-mail or something. Argh!
But I'm nowhere near as bad as the wusses who work next to me. They will do anything to avoid calling someone. I'm going to start charging them coffee and cookies and stuff.
Oh, and if you're bored, this unnecessary censorship video is worth a laugh.
Jun 24th, 2005 - Fairy tales of present day
On my walk home this evening I passed by an elderly woman whose hands were full of grocery bags. As she
shifted one bag from her left hand to her right, she accidentally dropped her wallet. She kept walking,
unaware of her loss.
Before I could say anything, a young boy (7? 8?) from across the street yelled, "Excuse me! You dropped your wallet!" She glanced over at him, then behind her shoulder at the wallet on the ground. She shouted sincere thanks, grabbed the wallet, and kept walking.
Long after the woman was gone, I was still walking behind the boy who had said something and his two friends.
Friend1: You didn't have to say anything.
Friend2: Yeah, I bet that she had a lot of money in her wallet.
Friend1: Yeah, we could be rich.
Boy: No way. That's something a Slytherin would do.
Friend1: Heh, yeah. Good point.
For some reason it makes me smile a lot to know that popular children's novels of today are actually teaching kids valuable lessons. I got home, logged in to amazon, and pre-ordered my copy of the next Harry Potter book.
Before I could say anything, a young boy (7? 8?) from across the street yelled, "Excuse me! You dropped your wallet!" She glanced over at him, then behind her shoulder at the wallet on the ground. She shouted sincere thanks, grabbed the wallet, and kept walking.
Long after the woman was gone, I was still walking behind the boy who had said something and his two friends.
Friend1: You didn't have to say anything.
Friend2: Yeah, I bet that she had a lot of money in her wallet.
Friend1: Yeah, we could be rich.
Boy: No way. That's something a Slytherin would do.
Friend1: Heh, yeah. Good point.
For some reason it makes me smile a lot to know that popular children's novels of today are actually teaching kids valuable lessons. I got home, logged in to amazon, and pre-ordered my copy of the next Harry Potter book.
Jun 30th, 2005 - Locked out: why I may seem a little tired
When Mud and I parted at Bloor subway station, it was late and I was tired. She was heading off to hang
with friends and I was heading home to sleep. When I got home, however, after several minutes of
desperately searching every pocket several times, I soon discovered what was going to be the seed of my
night of misfortune:
I didn't have my house keys on me.
Here's what my night entailed, in order of the Plans that occurred.
Plan A: Inconvenience roommate to gain entry
I walked the few blocks necessary to find an open store that was willing to break my toonie into quarters so that I could call Mud. After trying her cell phone five times, I decided that she wasn't going to answer. Hrm.
Plan B: Inconvenience nearby friends to sleep at their place
I walked over to fLufFy/CPwr's place and rang the buzzer for their apartment. Silence. No answer. They were probably asleep or out or something. Maybe I'd try Plan A again.
Plan A #2: Dial many times and hope that it magically fixes everything
I called Mud about five more times and on the fifth time, it gave me the busy signal instead of no answer. Maybe she was using her phone? I tried again and instantly got the answering machine. Left a message explaining my situation and saying that I'd call back in a few minutes.
Plan C: Get downstairs neighbours involved for easier phone access
This payphone thing was becoming inconvenient so I decided to knock on the window of my downstairs neighbours. No answer. Tried another window. No answer. All the lights were off so they probably weren't home.
Plan A #3: Call Mud yet another time
No answer. Dammit. I was going to need to start coming up with a more sophisticated plan.
Plan D: Enlist the aid of online friends
I walked back to my place and stood near enough to the house that I could access my own wireless network. I could also hear Mota behind the two locked doors, meowing. It was nearly amusing how close-yet-far I was to being inside. Everyone online suggested that I find a way to break in.
Plan E: Figure out a way to climb onto roof
So I live on the second/third floor of a house, which makes breaking in a little more difficult than the traditional breaking and entering at which I am so adept. The first major complication was going to be to figure out how to climb onto the roof so that then I could cut the screen and then get inside. Then it occurred to me how much it would probably cost to replace the screen. Too much. Breaking the locks on the doors wasn't going to be any cheaper.
Plan F: Sleep at campus
Although I couldn't sleep at the Citizen Lab (since I didn't have my keys to the building), the Bahen building at campus only needed keycard access and I had my student card on me. I'd slept there once before and it was uncomfortable-but-tolerable, so maybe I could do that again. Because I was exhausted by this point, I took a taxi to campus. When I arrived at the building, there was huge yellow warning tape against all the bolted doors and signs read: "Do not enter. X-Ray in progress. Building power shut off." Dammit!
Plan G: Inconvenience parents
What's the point of having parents who live in the same city as you if not for moments like these? I hesitantly (it was late!) found a pay phone and called my parents, waking them up and causing them to fear that perhaps I was calling because I'd been mugged or something. I told a summary of my evening and was told that yep, sure, if I could make my way up there, a bed would be waiting for me.
Plan H: Get to parents' place
I walked to the nearest subway stop only to find that the subways were closed for the night. Argh! A 24 hour bus was offered in the right direction on Yonge street, so I walked there and waited about half an hour for the bus to arrive. Got on and it took me almost all of the way (with only a few crazies coming to sit next to and talk to me) but apparently these buses don't go as far north as they used to. Another taxi ride finished the journey.
And so I arrived, at an ungodly hour, at my parents' place. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Turns out that finding a place to sleep is hard work!
I didn't have my house keys on me.
Here's what my night entailed, in order of the Plans that occurred.
Plan A: Inconvenience roommate to gain entry
I walked the few blocks necessary to find an open store that was willing to break my toonie into quarters so that I could call Mud. After trying her cell phone five times, I decided that she wasn't going to answer. Hrm.
Plan B: Inconvenience nearby friends to sleep at their place
I walked over to fLufFy/CPwr's place and rang the buzzer for their apartment. Silence. No answer. They were probably asleep or out or something. Maybe I'd try Plan A again.
Plan A #2: Dial many times and hope that it magically fixes everything
I called Mud about five more times and on the fifth time, it gave me the busy signal instead of no answer. Maybe she was using her phone? I tried again and instantly got the answering machine. Left a message explaining my situation and saying that I'd call back in a few minutes.
Plan C: Get downstairs neighbours involved for easier phone access
This payphone thing was becoming inconvenient so I decided to knock on the window of my downstairs neighbours. No answer. Tried another window. No answer. All the lights were off so they probably weren't home.
Plan A #3: Call Mud yet another time
No answer. Dammit. I was going to need to start coming up with a more sophisticated plan.
Plan D: Enlist the aid of online friends
I walked back to my place and stood near enough to the house that I could access my own wireless network. I could also hear Mota behind the two locked doors, meowing. It was nearly amusing how close-yet-far I was to being inside. Everyone online suggested that I find a way to break in.
Plan E: Figure out a way to climb onto roof
So I live on the second/third floor of a house, which makes breaking in a little more difficult than the traditional breaking and entering at which I am so adept. The first major complication was going to be to figure out how to climb onto the roof so that then I could cut the screen and then get inside. Then it occurred to me how much it would probably cost to replace the screen. Too much. Breaking the locks on the doors wasn't going to be any cheaper.
Plan F: Sleep at campus
Although I couldn't sleep at the Citizen Lab (since I didn't have my keys to the building), the Bahen building at campus only needed keycard access and I had my student card on me. I'd slept there once before and it was uncomfortable-but-tolerable, so maybe I could do that again. Because I was exhausted by this point, I took a taxi to campus. When I arrived at the building, there was huge yellow warning tape against all the bolted doors and signs read: "Do not enter. X-Ray in progress. Building power shut off." Dammit!
Plan G: Inconvenience parents
What's the point of having parents who live in the same city as you if not for moments like these? I hesitantly (it was late!) found a pay phone and called my parents, waking them up and causing them to fear that perhaps I was calling because I'd been mugged or something. I told a summary of my evening and was told that yep, sure, if I could make my way up there, a bed would be waiting for me.
Plan H: Get to parents' place
I walked to the nearest subway stop only to find that the subways were closed for the night. Argh! A 24 hour bus was offered in the right direction on Yonge street, so I walked there and waited about half an hour for the bus to arrive. Got on and it took me almost all of the way (with only a few crazies coming to sit next to and talk to me) but apparently these buses don't go as far north as they used to. Another taxi ride finished the journey.
And so I arrived, at an ungodly hour, at my parents' place. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Turns out that finding a place to sleep is hard work!
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