Through the article, ‘The World Wide Web of Surveillance: The internet and off-world power-flows’, David Lyon uses explanatory frameworks to better understand the development of surveillance that has occurred with the development of the internet and information technologies. In the examination of this cyberspace surveillance, with regards to existing surveillance systems he examines three aspects: employment monitoring, policing and security, and marketing.
To understand this new surveillance one must first be able to understand the surveillance systems that currently exist. “Watching others' activities, as a means of monitoring and supervising them, is hardly a new practice” (Lyon). Throughout history, surveillance has expanded and intensified as society thus resulting in change. Its purpose of surveillance in ancient times was that, of taxation and military, to that of modern times in which the recording of births, deaths, and marriages began (Lyon). In the twentieth century, it intensified to more detailed record keeping, which was required with the development of society, and by mid-twentieth century, was constitutive of modern organization (Lyon). Now with the advancement of technology and the computerization of society there was a need for a new kind of surveillance. The term that best describes this type of surveillance is ‘cyberspace surveillance’.
To understand this type of surveillance, Lyon examines three main categories, the first of which is employment situations. With the development of the internet and information technologies it is not surprising that employers need to monitor and supervise the use of this medium by employees. Lyon mentions various real world examples to demonstrate that there are people abusing the internet and information technologies in the work environment. Software is used to record and report the activities of the employees to ensure proper use of the network. In the area of policing, the information acquired through surveillance is private and part is public (Lyon). As for security, users of the internet can be assured that there is a certain level privacy but government agencies would still be able to monitor and listen in to an extent. The largest of ‘cyberspace surveillance’ is the commercial surveillance of marketers. The use of the internet provides a vast range of data and information collected to help profile internet users. Various techniques, Internet Profiles (I/PRO), Cookies, mapping techniques (spiders) and data mining, are describe by Lyon to help shed light on the vast array of information that can be obtained (Lyon).
Lyon theorizes the surveillance of the web by viewing risk management, panoptism, and Foucault’s notion of biopower. The categories described by Lyon to assess surveillance “all engage in data gathering procedures to try to pinpoint risks (or opportunities) and to predict outcomes”. The two main concerns of surveillance outcomes are social participation and personhood. Through his analysis he determines that “personhood is therefore realized in participation” (Lyon). When we think of surveillance, we can see that it is providing a way to maintain social inequality and division. With surveillance, however, comes a loss of communication control. With technological development and legality, control is somewhat given back to the individual. When he looks a panoptism, there is a ‘new slant’ on surveillance that emerges, with the idea that this new form of surveillance is focused on risk prevention (Lyon). Individual’s importance is overtaken by statistical correlation. The more information gathered, allows for a more accurate evaluation of strategies to acquire the desired outcomes. When we look at risk management in relation to biopower, the idea of controlling and monitoring societies by using the profiles of human populations to predict outcomes develops. The simulation of surveillance is adding to the ‘hypercontrol’ of societies that are within communication and information technology networks (Lyon). The ability to see everything is desired in order to be able to control and anticipate outcomes. With the advance of the internet the ability to acquire desired information is being more realizable.
Through this Lyon has provided insight to the ever expand surveillance of societies. With the development of the internet, the abilities of surveillance have grown and will continue to grow with the expansion of the internet and development of information technologies. The biggest debate related to cyber surveillance is in regards of privacy issues, of what information is to be protected and which is to be available. I think Lyon has given an understanding of the way surveillance is crucial in all aspects of society as a means of control. The internet has provided a vast array of information and abilities that is now available to anyone and everyone who are ‘connected’. The development of the internet has required a means of control and the ability to monitor its use to prevent any risk or threat.
Where to draw the line of what information is available for surveillance is a question that cannot be easily answered. Lyon has provided insight to the capacity of surveillance on society. We see now with examples like Egypt, the power of the communication technology and its user’s (Elgan). But will restricting access provide the desired outcomes, maybe so, but the internet is a tool that is to be utilized and allow the communication of information with certain restrictions. To restrict the access due to the concern that it is adding the intensification of protests is not an appropriate solution as the internet has provided a means for individuals to report their social and cultural views, as can be perceived through the work of Cote and Pybus. They describe the advance of biopower in relation to the advance of social networking; to communicate ones social and cultural views with the development of information technology and communication devices (Cote and Pybus). The protests themselves would still occur within the country; the internet has provided a means of communicating social and cultural issues on larger scale. Even in the US, there are talks about a new security system called Einstein 2.0 which is to be used to monitor and interpret the data of malicious activity of government networks, as there has been an issue with government information being observed and government agencies being cyber attacked (Marsan). Sure surveillance is essential with the development of the internet and it will continue to grow with the advancement of both the internet and information and communication technology. But like Lyon mentioned, the’ happy medium’ is difficult to acquire as the social participation and personhood cannot always be viewed codependently making surveillance difficult to understand and control (Lyon). People want to access whatever information they desire but do not always want information about them to be accessed, whether this be personal or related to the information that they are viewing. But in order to maintain order of the internet and its use there is a need for surveillance but at what level is that factor that is hard to distinguish. “Events in Egypt have demonstrated that the human race has evolved some Internet protocols of our own” (Elgan). And through this we can learn that people will find a way in the event that control and surveillance are implemented to limit their informational and technological capacity.
Do you think that is right to do what Egypt did and just pull the plug? Or do you think that we can just limit the access and restrict certain aspects while still maintaining this new global network at has come to be part of our contemporary society?
REFERENCES
Coté, Mark and Jennifer Pybus. 'Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks.' Ephemera. 7.1 (2007). 88-106. (online; E-Journal).
Elgan, Micheal. ‘Why there's no such thing as an 'Internet kill switch' Egypt showed that you can't stop the Internet. Why? Because it's made out of people.’ 2011. Computer World. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/920828/Why_there_s_no_such_thing_as_an_Internet_kill_switch_?taxonomyName=Internet&taxonomyId=167
Elgan, Micheal. ‘Why there's no such thing as an 'Internet kill switch' Egypt showed that you can't stop the Internet. Why? Because it's made out of people.’ 2011. Computer World. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/920828/Why_there_s_no_such_thing_as_an_Internet_kill_switch_?taxonomyName=Internet&taxonomyId=167
Lyon, David. ‘The World Wide Web of Surveillance: The Internet and off-world power- flows.’ Information, Communication & Society. 1.1 (Spring 1998). 91-105. (online; E- Journal).
Marsan, Carolyn Duffy. ‘Einstein 2: U.S. government's 'enlightening' new cybersecurity weapon.’ 2011. Network World Inc. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/021110-cybersecurity-einstein-2.html
Marsan, Carolyn Duffy. ‘Einstein 2: U.S. government's 'enlightening' new cybersecurity weapon.’ 2011. Network World Inc. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/021110-cybersecurity-einstein-2.html
Very nice summary of Lyon's article! I had trouble trying to condense everything down into concise points.
ReplyDeleteI guess whether I think shutting down the Internet in Egypt was right would depend on if I'm dictator not. ;) Personally, I oppose censorship absolutely and categorically. Shutting down the Internet is an unacceptable suppression of the freedom of expression of the Egyptian people. It was only the latest in a long series of moves to quell political dissent, which is not really a good thing to be doing if one professes to have a functioning democracy.
I am interested in the way you have connected access to the Internet with surveillance. There is nothing about surveillance that inherently restricts access to the network. I suppose one could argue that a network under heavy surveillance is less attractive than one that has less surveillance, and therefore fewer people might use it. Nevertheless, there is a difference between having one's activities online watched and having one's activities curtailed or blocked entirely.
Thanks for your comment Ben. It very much was a challenge as there were a lot of points that helped understand the point of view of the article. I thought that the current example with Egypt shows how surveillance was used in the decision to restrict access by the government. But shutting down the internet and than cell phone service in order to stop the intensity of the protests is ludicrous and I agree a bad decision. But like I mention, individuals found a way to continue there protest online and it was done through landline phones and a Twitter feed. A UCLA student created a Twitter feed, and then contacted friends in Egypt and start gathering landline numbers and started calling Egyptians to voice there opinions on the Twitter Feed he created. So in a sense, did the government actually shut down the internet for five days? Will not entirely as people still found a way around the problem and continued to create awareness of their cause over the internet. So I guess where I was trying to go with it was showing that even if we restrict access, there is still ways in which people can maintain their online presence.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. It's very difficult to shut down the Internet. And it's not economically viable in the long term. That's why a country like China, which monitors and filters its citizens' access to the Internet, can't shut down the Internet entirely; it depends upon the Internet too much. China's surveillance model is a lot scarier than Egypt's. It's very effective, and despite the "strict words" other countries have aimed in China's direction over the years, there are no signs it is thinking of reconsidering the policy. And so far no revolution. So it seems like it is possible to have a heavy amount of surveillance on the network without compromising a country's political and economic stability.
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