- From: adasal <adam.saltiel@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2019 19:07:55 +0200
- To: Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net>
- Cc: Paola Di Maio <paoladimaio10@gmail.com>, semantic-web <semantic-web@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <CANJ1O4r-85yt0ONTbYiuM8X2pSSD_Y8xbOijB_woO3SdAq0=Jw@mail.gmail.com>
Yes. So two angles. The “what is truth” angle and the UN of the internet. I’m beginning to think the former may be easier. Any luck with the latter? Adam On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 at 09:06, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote: > > > On 5 Jul 2019, at 05:37, Paola Di Maio <paoladimaio10@gmail.com> wrote: > > What I want to say Henry > > is that misrepresentation of truth is already widespread, and takes many > forms > (as in advertising and propagandas of all sorts) > > > There are rules in the UK against false advertising, and in many other > countries. > > If you analyze what adverts say, you will notice they rarely say something > false, > but they trie to build projections of how their product can help. > > Propaganda is also a form of projection into an idealized future. > > I’d need to study those. > > this technology makes it easier and can spread misrepresentation faster at > mass > information level, the underlying need for fact checking, understanding > data bias, > > interpretation and context, and scratching beyond the surface of > information are > > historical issues that exists well before this new capability. > > > Each new technology requires new structures to be put in place to regulate > their > healthy use. These regulatory structures must come after the appearance of > a technology, as it is difficult to legislate in anticipation of something > that is new > and so not quite known (and usually not even taken seriously, as only few > are > good at futurology). > > The problem with internet regulation is that it goes beyond the national > and so > lacks strong enforcement rules. After all the danger of nations imposing > their > regulations outside of their borders is that if everyone does this there > will > be conflicting laws, and so conflicting judgements, and so more and more > reason for conflict. > > Instead of trying to go for one World Order, I suggest it would be better > to > make it possible for actors to make visible their ties to legal spaces > under which > they fall in order to allow good actors to distinguish themselves from > those that > do not want to make themselves responsible, and for these legal spaces to > be > diplomatically tied together in a web of nations, which could change as > alliances > change. > > PDM > > On Fri, Jul 5, 2019 at 11:20 AM Paola Di Maio <paoladimaio10@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Thanks Henry >> >> for the extensive reply >> >> >>>The mayhem appears when things >> >>>are published as true by sites that look like official ones. >> >> But this happens already, quite a lot, everywhere >> From political websites, to institutional, even scientific sources (a lot >> of gibberish >> that nobody understand and nobody can reproduce/verify, and noboy has the >> time >> to investigate further is published as science and taken as fact. Its >> only when somone, often by chance stumbles across some issue that certain >> things come to light) >> >> Official websites are full of lies or partial truths >> Even omission of facts is a misrepresentation of truth >> Telling the truth is actually perceived as a silly and stigmatized >> (people are ridiculed when they things as they are, so there is great >> fear in telling the truth) So I would say first and foremost is a >> cultural thing >> that we trust implicitly what information comes from institutions >> But institutions have hidden agendas and use information not for >> information sake and to make people more knowledgeable, but to influence >> and stir >> opinions and behaviours >> >> p >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jul 4, 2019 at 10:09 PM Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> >> wrote: >> >>> On 4 Jul 2019, at 10:33, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> > Reality is so manipulated (at all levels) that humans have lost (maybe >>> > never had) the ability to understand of what is real beyond doubt, >>> >>> That is actually the subject of Epistemology. This comes in two parts. >>> 1) >>> The problm of definition: What is knowledge? 2) The sceptical problem: >>> how can we know anything given that we can always find reason to doubt? >>> >>> Knowledge was defined by Socrates according to the reports by Plato as >>> Justified True Belief. More than 2 thousand years later, after the >>> development >>> of modern quantified logic with Frege and Russell/Whitehead, the >>> questions >>> came to be to find logical necessary and sufficient definition of >>> knowledge. >>> These lead to well known problems defined by American Philosopher Edmund >>> Gettier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem >>> >>> Around the same time Modal Logic came to have a mathematical >>> formalisation >>> and Hintikka used this to defined >>> S knows that P iff >>> in all the worlds compatible with the information S has, P is true. >>> >>> Robert Nozick in the award Winning book "Philosophical Explanations" >>> showed >>> that there was a problem with this definitiion. By updating Descartes' >>> Meditations to the Science Fiction realm, and arguing that we could >>> always >>> imagine that aliens from Alpha Centauri had come at night, kidnapped S, >>> attached his brain to a super-alien-computer and induce in him fake by >>> realistic >>> sense impressions. Since this doubt can always be brought up in that >>> form or >>> the more ancient one of dreaming, the question becomes how we can know >>> at >>> all, since that possibility cannot be excluded. >>> >>> The answer come by way of using the David Lewis' later logic of >>> counterfactuals >>> that organises possible worlds by a distance relation. Redefining >>> knowledge >>> using counterfactuals as Nozick does, it turns out that one does not >>> need >>> to consider more distant and outrageous possible worlds to know some >>> everyday >>> fact about how much money one has in one’s pocket. >>> >>> I give an overview of that in "Epistemology in the Cloud - on Fake News >>> and Digital Sovereignty" (And if you don't want to read the paper you >>> will >>> find two presentations with slides, one of which I gave at the Chaos >>> Computer Club Vienna's Privacy Week) >>> https://medium.com/@bblfish/epistemology-in-the-cloud-472fad4c8282 There >>> I add a Cloud computing related twist to it, leading us to take seriously >>> the locality of information. >>> >>> > The vastness of widespread deceit (about news, history, and even >>> science!) >>> > and limited resources to verify everything that we hear, we need to >>> limit >>> > our fact checking to the strictly necessary facts that support our >>> > decision making/ So when I read or hear some fact, I do my best to >>> verify >>> > its true. >>> >>> Yes, so if you are going to verify the truth of a statement quickly you >>> may need to use the internet to do so. >>> >>> In the pre-internet world, you would do so by finding someone >>> knowledgeable >>> on the subject, which in many case would be someone educated in the area, >>> or working for a company that is known to be able to make knowledgeable >>> statements on a topic. So you may go to a dentist to get a prescription >>> for your tooth pain, or to get a tooth pulled, not to someone you just >>> met >>> in the bar, even if they can speak very convincingly on the subject. Or >>> you could read a book published by an expert in the area, and that >>> expertise >>> would be verifiable by knowing which institution they were speaking from. >>> Of course if you are a mathematician reading a mathematical proof you >>> would >>> just need to verify the proof for yourself, but you may yet want to >>> filter >>> the things you read by knowing where the person writing things came from. >>> >>> This thinking gets one to understand the role of institutions and legal >>> systems in our claims to knowledge. To make statements in a factual >>> context >>> is to be make oneself responsible for what one says, and requires one to >>> not follow up by saying something contradictory to that. To make a >>> promise >>> requires one to be able to follow up on it, and then to try to follow up, >>> and so limits one's future possible lives to those compatible with one's >>> promises. Entering an institution is to make a certain promise to uphold >>> its values. >>> >>> But the web currently has not useful information about what institutions >>> is behind a web site. A little typo, or clicking on a phishing link can >>> make you end up on a web site that looks very much like what you are >>> expecting but be a fake site. This was very unlikely to happen when >>> buildings >>> in a town gave you a way to recognise the institution you were talking >>> to. >>> That building would in any case mean the presence of people on legally >>> delimted soil. >>> >>> So before the large public can even get around to fact checking we need >>> to build an institutional Web of Trust (WoT), which can play the role of >>> buildings in local life, by letting people know the legal framework a web >>> site is tied to. I describe how to do that in the blog post "Stopping >>> (https) Phishing" >>> https://medium.com/cybersoton/stopping-https-phishing-42226ca9e7d9 >>> >>> This can be done with Linked Data because we do not require global >>> consensus, >>> and so we can allow different nations to have differnet points of views >>> on each other and even how to map ontologies, when disagreements arise. >>> >>> > Deepfakes adds another layer to that manipulation and falsification of >>> > reality, by leveraging new technology. >>> > I see two areas of concern >>> > a) technology ethics - a fun technology developed >>> > to animate fictional output is used to falsify reality (making people >>> say >>> > what they have not) with potentially devastanting consequences is not >>> > entirely new-manipulation has always occurred by twisting, falsifying >>> > or taking out of context what people may say. Misinformation and >>> > misrepresentation are a less technologically sophisticated, but with >>> > similar consequences (to manipulate public opinion and behaviours) >>> This >>> > already happened with emails. Deepfakes is a progression of spoofing >>> > tech where someone fakes another person email address. >>> >>> Deep fakes are not a problem if they are annotated as fictional. >>> Terminator >>> 1, 2 and 3 did not cause global mayhem, because they appeared in cinemas >>> and were clearly labled as science-fiction. The mayhem appears when >>> things >>> are published as true by sites that look like official ones. >>> >>> > b) the increased value of authenticity, and authentication tech >>> >>> That will be important especially for allowing private citizens to also >>> make clear which legal space they are speaking from, when say they >>> publish >>> a photo or film about something happening. >>> >>> > From a systems view point, another layer of risk, can be addressed >>> > with another layer of architecture (strenghten authentication layer?) >>> >>> Yes, we need a new layer, but not the authentication one. We have that >>> already. The domain name to DNS authentiation layer technology does >>> its job well enough if one uses X509 certificates and DANE on DNS-SEC. >>> >>> What is missing is the institutional web of trust that can then be used >>> by the >>> browser to display rich information on a secured screen such as the Apple >>> Touch Bar, in a seamless but helpful way. The information contained >>> in X509 Certificates is much much too poor to be of interest and hence >>> of use. >>> >>> For an example of how this institutional web of trust could be tied to >>> hardware see the blog post "Phishing in Context - Epistemology of the >>> Screen" https://medium.com/cybersoton/phishing-in-context-9c84ca451314 >>> >>> As for authentication of citizens using Verifiable Claims so that they >>> too can >>> make claims (such as location claims if they were a witness to something) >>> needs the institutional web of trust to work for networks that go beyond >>> a few degrees of seperation, since if you go a few more jumps you have >>> the >>> whole world in your network. >>> >>> Henry Story >>> >>> >>> >>> >
Received on Friday, 5 July 2019 17:08:31 UTC