Very early on, Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro warned that with the arrival of revolutionary technologies, “A true colonization is unfolding. The United States is playing its role with great efficiency, seeking complementarities that will make us permanently dependent on them,” adding, “Seeing this new civilization and all its threats, I fear that once again we will be peoples that do not gel – peoples that despite all our potential remain in second place.”

This scenario is linked to a program for Latin America and the Caribbean to control contents and the citizenry’s environments of participation, which is being implemented with total impunity, without the left paying even the slightest attention. In 2011, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved what is known in academic circles as an operation of “effective connectivity” – a plan outlined in a public Congressional document to expand use of new social media on the continent to promote U.S. interest in the region.

The document explains the interest in the continent’s social networks, “With more than 50% of the world’s population under 30 years of age, the new social media and technology resources that are so popular within this demographic group will continue to revolutionize communications in the future… Social media and technological initiatives based on political, economic, and social realities in Latin America will be crucial to the success of associated U.S. government efforts in the future.”

The plan summarizes the visit of a group of experts from several Latin American countries to the U.S. capitol to learn about policies and funding available in this arena, and concludes with specific recommendations for each of our countries that imply “minimizing critical risks of increased connectivity” for the United States, the leading government investing in infrastructure. The report noted that the number of social media users is growing exponentially, and that opportunities to influence political discourse and future policies are there for the taking.

What is behind this model of “effective” connectivity for Latin America? The vision of a human being as susceptible to domination via digital technology, and the clarity that so called social platforms are in no way neutral or providing a generic service, but are rather institutionalized and automated systems that design and manipulate connections, based on technological and ideological foundations.

What the U.S. government is projecting with its “operation” is the possibility that these tools create a simulated base and overthrow political systems that are not “convenient.” What role has it played in social media in the situations being faced today in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and in those we have seen previously in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Argentina?

Only large corporations have the computing capacity to process the colossal volume of data we put onto social media, with every clic on a search engine, via our cell phones, debit cards, electronic chats, and emails. The accumulated tranches and data processed permit them to create value. More connections equal more social capital. But the fundamental interests behind open data and the invitations to “share,” “like,” or retweet, etc, are not those of users, but rather those of the corporations.

This power gives the proprietors an enormous advantage over users in the battle to control information. Cambridge Analytica, the London branch of a U.S. contractor devoted to active military operations online for more 25 years, has intervened in some 200 elections around the world. Psychological operations were its modus operandi. Its objective: change public opinion and influence not through persuasion, but via information control. The novelty is not the use of flyers, Radio Free Europe, or TV Martí, but rather Big Data and artificial intelligence to entrap every citizen who leaves traces of information on the web in a bubble that is observable, parametrically designed, and predictable.

Cambridge Analytica was involved in electoral processes in Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, working against left-wing leaders. In Argentina, for example, the company participated in Mauricio Macri’s 2015 campaign, creating detailed psychological profiles and identifying persons open to a change of opinion, with the goal of influencing them with fake news and partial selections of information. As soon as he took office, Macri approved a decree which allowed him to keep official bodies’ data bases for use in campaigns in his favor, one among many which allowed him to undermine the legal and institutional base of communications established by left governments in the country.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, politics have become techno-politics, their most cynical variant. Alexander Nix himself, Cambridge Analytica CEO, boasted to clients that things “don’t necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed,” and emphasized an unquestionable, empirical fact: the decreasing credibility of commercial advertising is directly proportionate to the increase of publicity on social media, highly personalized and brutally effective.

Anyone who visits the webpage of Facebook’s associates (Facebook Marketing Partners) can discover hundreds of companies devoted to buying and selling data, and interacting with the blue thumbs-up company. Some have even specialized in geographical areas and countries, like the Cisneros Group, that participated in the 2002 coup against President Chávez in Venezuela, a reseller of Facebook that controls the advertizing market in 17 countries of the region.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

These topics are still far removed from professional debates and the programs of progressive movements on the continent. Speeches demonizing or enamored of the new technology civilization abound, but missing are strategies and programs leading to action to construct a truly sovereign information and communications model, and make new technologies our own.

We have not been able to concretize a fiber optic channel of our own, a dream of Unasur. Neither a systematic strategy or a consistent, reliable legal framework exist to minimize U.S. control; assure that traffic on the web flows between neighboring countries; promote the use of technologies that guarantee confidentiality of communications; protect the region’s human resources; and overcome obstacles to the commercialization of tools, content, and digital services produced in our back yard.

Nor has much progress been made on a common, supranational communicational agenda or platforms where it might be implemented. We need networks of observatories, which – in addition to gathering basic statistics and issuing alerts on the colonization of our digital space – would allow for the recovery and promotion of best practices in the use of these technologies and of resistance efforts in the region, on the basis of the understanding that the success or failure of challenges to these new inequalities depends on political decisions.

No country of the South by itself – and much less an isolated organization – can find the resources to challenge the power of the right that is mobilized with one click.

The debate over catastrophes and popular culture was transcended some time ago. The stable world described by Umberto Eco no longer exists.

There are several solutions on the horizon and one might be that of creating our own liberatory tools, but the search for and construction of such alternatives present more than technical-scientific problems. This route depends above all on collective action, in the medium and long run with both a tactical and strategic point of view, in favor of face-to-face and virtual communication that facilitates a change in social relations and technology to serve our peoples. Let’s do it, we don’t have much time.

( Por Rosa Miriam Elizalde)

A report issued on Monday in Cubadebate news website highlights that from next summer Cubans may buy online in Cuban pesos (CUP).

The report adds that acquiring a household item from the comfort of a cell phone or a personal computer does not seem so far in this nation.

In July 2016, a test was carried out in the country to implement the payment gateway that facilitates the deployment of Web platforms for electronic commerce.

In this sense, the Chain of Caribbean Stores will premiere this summer a new service of sales to the population through the electronic trade in CUP that will enable the purchase of some of its products through Internet.

In this first stage, it will only be available at the 5th and 42nd Mall in Havana although it is planned to extend it to at least one store in each province.

(Cubadebate)

“Among projections for this year, ETECSA intends to install 150 new hard-wired and wireless navigation areas; provide more than 52,000 home connections; increase by 5,000 data services to national entities; establish other agreements with enterprises to advance the development of contents on a national level; and initiate internet service for cellular telephones,” she explained.

Creating required technological infrastructure, and generating Internet content along with digital services in Cuba are the two principal axes of the national computerization policy – a reflection of the will of the Party, state, and government to develop information and telecommunications technologies in the country, through a program that includes 21 projects involving the collaboration of various agencies and ministries.

Noteworthy among these are, for example, the development of technological tools associated with government and electronic commerce; digital television; the assembly of computer equipment and devices with broad participation of industry and national software enterprises, and others, indicated Wilfredo González Vidal, deputy minister of Communications.

Other aspects of the process are the digitalization of public records; expansion of online payment and banking services; the installation of 936 automatic tellers in 69 municipalities; and the four million magnetic debit cards in use.

In the case of sectors as important as health and education, progress has been made in the comprehensive hospital management system and digital clinical histories, as well as public platforms created to promote online learning, such as Cubaeduca.

This information was shared during a panel discussion yesterday, prior to the inauguration of the 18th International Informatics Conference and Fair, which will run through the 23rd in Havana’s International Conference Center and the Pabexo exposition grounds. On hand for the occasion were Miriam Nicado, Political Bureau member and rector of the University of Computer Sciences, as well as Maimir Mesa Ramos, minister of Communications.

(Granma)

From then on, and with the creation of Mosaic, the first popular Web browser, and other simple graphic tools for the use of the network, the number of hosts or computer equipment connected to the internet would begin to grow rapidly. So much so that, today, the net is an unavoidable means to access information media, social networks, download files and videos, and even as a source of work.

However, the possibility of using this technology and its contents could start to change, with users having to pay internet service providers more, for the privilege of access.

In 2015, under the Barack Obama administration, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the policy known as “net neutrality” to regulate broadband internet providers as a public utility. The regulations prevented companies from blocking websites, or charging for a higher quality, faster service, or certain content. In July, 2017, a new law was proposed including the withdrawal of these measures, which was approved by the FCC last December 14, by three votes to two.

According to El País, the change – presented as “a victory for freedom” – has come from the big suppliers themselves, as telecommunications giants like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon have aligned with the Trump government to break the legal barrier that prevented them from imposing their will regarding internet traffic and content.

In this sense, the consequences of the change could be deeper than first expected, as the repeal of net neutrality means users are left unprotected and could be forced to pay additional charges, or have to purchase different service packages in order to navigate certain websites.

OPPOSITION

“The withdrawal of neutrality will mean restoring freedom, returning to a better and cheaper Internet. There will still be consumer protection and their access will not be limited. But it is not our job to decide who wins and who loses in the Internet economy. The government will stop regulating how providers should handle themselves, and they will have incentives to face the next generation of networks and services,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stated upon announcing the move.

Although the recent measure has its defenders, there are many who claim that the decision poses a threat to the internet, free markets, and online innovation.

An open letter from the “Pioneers for Net Neutrality,” signed by 21 high-profile people – among them Vinton Cerf, considered one of the “fathers” of the internet; Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web; and Mitchell Baker, executive chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation; calls on the FCC to cancel its vote repealing Net Neutrality protections.

“This proposed Order would repeal key network neutrality protections that prevent Internet access providers from blocking content, websites and applications, slowing or speeding up services or classes of service, and charging online services for access or fast lanes to Internet access providers’ customers. The proposed Order would also repeal oversight over other unreasonable discrimination and unreasonable practices,” the letter reads.

It should be mentioned that in mid-November, when the FCC’s proposed Restoring Internet Freedom Order was released, hundreds of U.S. technology companies made public their disagreement.

A statement from Facebook noted “We are disappointed that the proposal announced this week by the FCC fails to maintain the strong net neutrality protections that will ensure the internet remains open for everyone,” the BBC reported.

Meanwhile, the American Sustainable Business Council, representing almost one thousand U.S. firms, filed an open letter with the FCC, noting “We also depend on a strong competitive framework and legal foundation to ensure that Internet service providers (ISPs) cannot discriminate against websites, services, ​​and apps, or impose new fees that harm small​businesses.”

Even within the FCC itself, there were those who expressed their disagreement with the regulations approved December 14.

The Democrat FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel noted that the “rash decision” puts the FCC “on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the American public.”

WITHOUT NET NEUTRALITY REGULATIONS: EXPERIENCES IN OTHER COUNTRIES

An example of what happens when net neutrality regulations are inexistent is the case of Portugal. As a member of the European Union, this country is governed by laws that prohibit companies from reducing the connection speed or blocking access to certain services, however, what is not regulated are certain kinds of pricing schemes in which only certain applications or data are offered without cutting into users’ data plans.

This means that the user can browse the contents of an internet service provider with an open access package, but if he or she wants to access other services outside the range of this operator, they have to pay for additional packages.

In the case of Guatemala, meanwhile, companies offer prepaid packages offering access not only to a set of similar services, but to a single application, Renata Ávila, senior digital rights adviser for the World Wide Web Foundation, told BBC Mundo.

“Many people will have two SIM cards there, because on one SIM card they can access WhatsApp for free, and on another SIM card you access Facebook for free,” she explained.

According to Ávila, this hyper-fragmentation of internet access has the greatest negative impact on those with little money to connect, “which is precisely the user that must be empowered, to help broaden their horizons, to apply for jobs online.” She added that these users will be forced to access only the cheapest, indispensable content, and will lose the possibility of accessing the internet of creation and innovation.

While up to now the major internet providers in the United States have not talked about their future plans in the context of non-neutrality, the fact is that the new measure opens the way to condition users’ access to certain information.

One of the possible ramifications is that telephone companies gain even more power, on being able to limit access to certain contents. But the new scheme will also affect small or emerging startup companies on the web.

These already find it difficult to compete with renowned multinationalssuch as Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook. Having to pay operators special rates for preferential access to the internet will probably mean their contents are of lower quality and attract an even smaller number of users, as a large percentage can not assume the new costs.

Even though the recent regulation is limited to the territory of the United States, the concern is that most of the services that currently circulate on the web are developed by U.S. companies. Hence, many specialists and CEOs of telecommunications companies claim that the prospect of the so-called two-speed, or two-tiered internet, of “the rich” and “the poor” is closer than we imagine.

It seems many of them are ignorant of the fact that this measure only increases the already existent digital divide, since information and communication technologies have long been marked by unequal levels of access, dependent on the development of each country, individuals’ income, and the opportunities for computer literacy to make optimal use of these tools.

(Granma)

The U.S. State Department’s announcement this past January, of the creation of a Cuba Internet Task Force is, therefore, just another scheme in a long saga of Washington’s subversive plans to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.
From psychological warfare propagated by the mass media to unconventional warfare, which has been adapted to the internet age, Cuba has been a test site for U.S. schemes designed to overthrow governments which do not respond to its interests.
However, the competence of Cuban authorities and support of the entire population for the Revolution has meant that these plans were doomed to failure.
- March 17, 1960:

Then U.S. President, Dwigth D. Eisenhower, approved the so-called Program of Covert Action, designed to destroy the Cuban Revolution. Among other aspects, the CIA was tasked with setting up a radio station broadcasting political propaganda. On May 17, 1960, 1160 khz frequency Radio Cuba Libre (Radio Swan) was picked up for the first time on the island.

- September 22, 1981:

President Ronald Reagan singed executive order 12323, establishing the “Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba,” tasked with developing a recommended plan for radio broadcasting intended for transmission to Cuba, such as Radio Martí.

- May 20, 1985:

Radio Martí hits the airwaves for the first time, as part of a plan by the staunchly anti-Cuban Ronald Reagan administration, to launch an illegal radio station able to reach the island and incite a popular uprising against the Revolution.

- March 27, 1990:

Following the failure of subversive radio schemes, TV Martí was launched, costing the U.S. taxpayer millions of dollars and violating international norms. Dubbed “the TV no one watches,” the signal was effectively blocked by Cuban authorities across the entire island.

- 2004:
The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba or Plan Bush is created by the George W. Bush administration to identify additional ways to hasten an overthrow of the “Cuban regime.”
Regarding technology, the plan proposes, among other things to “Encourage willing third-country governments to create public access Internet facilities in their missions in Cuba.”
Other initiatives included expanding “the distribution of information and facilitate pro-democracy activities,” and “Greater access to these types of equipment” in order to do so.

- 2006:

The Cuba Fund for a Democratic Future was created, providing 24 million USD worth of funding for anti-Cuban propaganda, including online initiatives.

- February 2006:

The U.S. Department of State, headed by Condolezza Rice, creates the Global Internet Freedom Task Force, specifically aimed at “maximizing freedom of expression and free flow of information and ideas” in China, Iran and Cuba.

- July 2007:

President Bush announces the creation of a fourth ‘cyberspace’ army at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, designed to maintain the U.S. military’s competitive advantage in this new theater of operations.
- December 2009:

U.S. citizen Alan Phillip Gross arrested for bringing illegal communication devices into Cuba as part of a USAID program. In March 2011 Gross was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for “Acts Against the Independence or the Territorial Integrity of the State,” in the Courtroom for Crimes Against State Security of the People’s Provincial Court of Havana. Gross returned to the United States following the announcement of a process of rapprochement between the two countries on December 17, 2014.
- March 2011:

Operation Surf, unmasked by State Security agent Raúl – Dalexi González Madruga – consisted of smuggling equipment and software into the country to install illegal antennas to access the internet.

- 2011:

At the request of Senator Richard Lugar, the most prominent Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Carl Meacham, director of Latin America on the Senator’s political team, met with staff from the State Department, senior foreign diplomats and industry representatives over several months to investigate how social medial and technologies could be used to promote and strengthen what they consider to be democracy in Latin America. In his report Meacham shamelessly praises subversive actions and plan by the U.S. government against Cuba.

- March 21, 2012:

The ultra conservative Heritage Foundation attended an event sponsored by Google Ideas, and entitled “How the internet can unfreeze an island frozen in time.”

- April 2014:
The ZunZuneo initiative, financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launched. The platform was designed as a messaging network similar to Twitter through which thousands of Cubans would receive “non-controversial content” like news messages on soccer, music, weather reports and announcements. However, later subscribers would begin to receive political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize mass demonstrations akin to “smart mobs” to destabilize the country.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) which oversees Radio and TV Martí, launched a service similar to ZunZuneo called Piramideo, an SMS-based social network that would offer the possibility of sending a massive message to members of a “pyramid” at the cost of a single SMS. The objective was to prepare a platform for subversion.

Commotion: A tool developed by the Washington-based New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), which was originally intended for military use, to create independent wireless networks. Although there is little to no information on its functioning in Cuba, U.S. government sources speaking to the New York Times noted that millions of dollars had been dedicated to the project.

- September 12-13, 2016:

The U.S. government organized the “First Cuba Internet Freedom Conference” headed by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) which oversees illegal anti-Cuban radio and television broadcasts. The event brought together “independent” journalists from the island and digital innovators and activists who support the use of new technologies to bring about a regime change in Cuba.

- January 2018:

The Trump administration announces the creation of a new Internet Task Force designed to subvert Cuba’s internal order. Composed of government and independent officials tasked with promoting the free flow in information on the island, the initiative is Washington’s most recent attempt to disguise its plans to destabilize Cuba through the use of new technologies.

(Granma)

Interestingly, these same mass media reported a few months ago, about the licenses granted by the US President to American companies in the sector to reach investment agreements with Cuban state company ETECSA in order to improve Internet on the Island (2).

And more recently, we´d read data reflecting a tangible improvement of connectivity in the country: “Cuba exceeded three million internet users (…) in 2014 by adding 125,000 new ones” (3) and that from the 118 currently navigation rooms, the Cuban population will have 300 public rooms navigation at end of 2015 (4); that have been recently authorized the first 35 public wi-fi access points (5); or that the connection fee has been lowered by almost 50 % of the last value (6).

Despite it´s still very modest global reach, growth are significant and the number of people that are using Internet in Cuba is now close to 28 % (7). From these data two conclusions that contradict the media discourse can emerge. The first one is that far from limiting or censor the Internet, the Cuban Executive has a clear desire to promote the network in line with its plans for economic development (8); and –in the same way- that the number one cause of low connectivity, the high cost of the service and technological backwardness had been (and still is) a consequence of the US blockade (9).

Several websites have published information on plans and strategies of the Cuban government -even under discussion- focused on the development of broadband in the island in the coming years, and that would include, among other objectives (10): reach for 2018 100% of broadband connectivity in strategic sectors of the country; and –an important data- extend connection to 50% of households with a cost that not exceed the 5 % of the average wage in 2020 (11).

But far from highlighting this upward projection, what do continue to highlight the international media? These media highlight that although rates –which have been reduced to half- are still extremely expensive; and that -despite that 28% of the population is already connected to Internet- only 5% of cuban population use to connect from their homes (12).

It seems that these means, looking that time -and arguments- are exhausted, are still clinging to a static photograph. Meanwhile, rapid changes in Cuban society are dismantled each and every one of the media myths (13) (14).

(1) http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2014/10/141013_tecnologia_cuba_internet_falta_wifi_lv

(2) http://www.laopinion.com/2015/07/19/al-normalizar-relaciones-diplomaticas-propuesta-bipartidista-ampliaria-acceso-a-internet-en-cuba/

(3) http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/cuba-es/article31704482.html

(4) http://www.efe.com/efe/america/sociedad/cuba-proyecta-tener-mas-300-salas-navegacion-para-finales-2015/20000013-2530583

(5) http://www.eldiario.es/turing/cubanos-cuentan-zonas-internet-wi-fi_0_404909532.html

(6) http://www.20minutos.com/noticia/21146/0/cuba-reduce-mitad/precio-tasas/internet/

(7) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Pa%C3%ADses_por_n%C3%BAmero_de_usuarios_de_Internet

(8) http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2014/12/12/editorial-de-granma-cuba-esta-decidida-a-conectarse-con-el-mundo/#.Ve1vin1GQ3g

(9) http://www.telesurtv.net/bloggers/Quien-bloquea-a-quien-Cuba-y-la-Internet-20150204-0002.html

(10) http://progresosemanal.us/20150608/estrategia-filtrada-el-camino-de-internet-en-cuba/

(11) http://www.chiringadecuba.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Estrategia-Nacional-de-la-Banda-Ancha-en-Cuba.pdf

(12) http://www.elmundo.es/blogs/elmundo/habaname/2015/08/21/wifi-callejero.html

(13) http://www.cubainformacion.tv/index.php/lecciones-de-manipulacion/52373-la-desbandada-que-no-se-produjo-en-cuba-tras-reforma-migratoria-descoloca-a-la-prensa-internacional

(14) http://www.cubainformacion.tv/index.php/lecciones-de-manipulacion/62806-cuba-itercer-pais-de-america-latina-en-plenitud-de-vida-para-homosexuales-o-regimen-homofobo-que-los-persigue

(José Manzaneda, Cubainformacion´s coordinator)

The questionnaire was answered by officials at the U.S. Interests Sections in Havana, and then sent to the White House on August 28, 2009 and it took about 4 months to return, according to the source.

The message was returned with a high degree of coincidence with the original version, including almost exactly the same introduction in which Obama congratulates Sanchez for the Maria Moors Cabo prize of the University of Columbia.

The changes, as in the rest of the interview, were minimal, said the TV news program when referring to the cable of the SINA chief, Jonathan Farrar.

Farrar’s document also included the questions that Sanchez would send to the Cuban president, Raul Castro, and that she herself acknowledged she never sent.

What was a questionnaire for the Cuban President Raul Castro doing in a cable of the US diplomatic representation in Havana, questioned the TV news program.

(Prensa Latina)

By Tana Ganeva

Earlier this summer Facebook rolled out facial recognition software that identifies users even when they appear in untagged photos. Like every other time the social networking site has introduced a creepy, invasive new feature, they made it the default setting without telling anyone.

Once people realized that Facebook was basically harvesting biometric data, the usual uproar over the site’s relentless corrosion of privacy ensued. Germany even threatened to sue Facebook for violating German and EU data protection laws and a few other countries are investigating. But facial recognition technology is hardly confined to Facebook — and unlike the social networking site, there’s no “opt-out” of leaving your house.

Post-9/11, many airports and a few cities rushed to install cameras hooked to facial recognition technology, a futuristic apparatus that promised to pick out terrorists and criminals from milling crowds by matching their faces to biometric data in large databases.

Many programs were abandoned a few years later, when it became clear they accomplished little beyond creeping people out. Boston’s Logan Airport scrapped face recognition surveillance after two separate tests showed only a 61.4 percent success rate. When the city of Tampa tried to keep tabs on revelers in the city’s night-club district, the sophisticated technology was bested by people wearing masks and flicking off the cameras.

Human ingenuity aside, most facial recognition software could also be foiled by eyewear, a bad angle or somebody making a weird face. But nothing drives innovation like the promise of government contracts! In the past few years, face recognition technology has advanced substantially, moving from 2-d to 3-d scanning that can capture identifying information about faces even in profile. Another great leap forward, courtesy of Identex (now L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc.), combines geometric face scanning and “skinprint” technology that maps pores, skin texture, scars and other identifying facial marks captured in high-resolution photos.

As face recognition and other biometrics advance, the technology has begun to proliferate in two predictable realms: law enforcement and commerce. Here are 5 places besides Facebook you might encounter face recognition and other biometric technology — not that, for the most part, you would know it if you did.

1. The streets of America

In the fall, police officers from 40 departments will hit the streets armed with the Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS) device. The gadget, which attaches to an iPhone, can take an iris scan from 6 inches away, a measure of a person’s face from 5 feet away, or electronic fingerprints, according to Computer vision central. This biometric information can be matched to any database of pictures, including, potentially, one of the largest collections of tagged photos in existence: Facebook. The process is almost instant, so no time for a suspect to opt out of supplying law enforcement with a record of their biometric data.

Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told AlterNet that while it’s unclear how individual departments will use the technology, there are two obvious ways it tempts abuse. Since officers don’t have to haul in an unidentified suspect to get their fingerprints, they have more incentive to pull people over, increasing the likelihood of racial profiling. The second danger lurks in the creation and growth of personal information databases. Biometric information is basically worthless to law enforcement unless, for example, the pattern of someone’s iris can be run against a big database full of many people’s irises.

In an extensive report on the MORIS device, Al-Jazeera’s D. Parvaz asked the president of a company that develops facial recognition software how he feels about equipping the government and law enforcement with the technology. He replied (chillingly) ”I’m counting on our government being honest, whether it’s law enforcement or the military, trying to find people who threaten our lives.”

But the article highlights an inherent legal problem in the MORIS device, regardless of the no doubt uniformally angelic intentions of law enforcement officials. The 4th Amendment guards against unreasonable searches, including fingerprints. Like a fingerprint, an iris scan reveals identifying information that can’t be gleaned from mere observation. Parvaz’ interview with a member of the Plymouth County Sheriff’s office seems to show that addressing the civil liberties hazards of MORIS are not at the top of law enforcement’s priorities:

John Birtwell, the director of public information and technology at the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department told Al Jazeera that the county will get “more than a handful … at least three” of the devices.

But that’s just about all the certainty Birtwell had to offer on the topic, as he seemed unclear as to whether officers would inform suspects of their Fourth Amendment rights to refuse to undergo impromptu fingerprinting and iris scanning.

He also seemed unsure as to what the protocol would be in the even that a suspect declined to be processed in such a manner.

“I’m dancing on the head of a pin here because I’m not a constitutional scholar,” said Birtwell.

Other law enforcement officials have more clearly articulated ambitions for the technology — like hunting down undocumented immigrants.

In a June “Fox and Friends” segment on the MORIS device, Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona explained his enthusiasm for the new technology. “In Arizona, the illegal immigration issue — we have people from foreign countries, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them that deliberately have very good documents that are fake, fraudulent, and we need to find out who they are, not only for the safety of my deputies but for the protection of our citizens all across America.”

(“We’ve all heard of racial profiling. Now get ready for what some are calling ‘facial profiling,’” deadpanned “Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocey at the start of the show, completely inadvertently making a very good point.)

It’s important to note that the military has used similar technology in Afghanistan and Iraq for years. One of 20 people in Afghanistan is registered in biometric databases (one of six men of fighting age), according to recent reporting by the New York Times. It’s one in 14 in Iraq (and one in four men of fighting age).

The technology is also being put to use in the aftermath of the London riots, both by law enforcement and an online group assembled to hunt down people involved in the riots by using social networking sites. (London is one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world.)

2. The DMV

Slightly fewer than half of the DMVs in the US have the capacity to run your picture through biometric databases. Ostensibly, these searches are intended to catch people trying to collect multiple IDs from different states. Fair enough. But as EFF’s Lee Tien told AlterNet, the DMV can also log into and run a person’s face against any government database, including ones that hold criminal records. Last August, former New York Gov. David Paterson and DMV commissioner David Swartz held a triumphant news conference where they announced that more than 100 felony arrests were made through the DMV’s facial recognition program.

In the past, the FBI has applied facial recognition technology to the DMV’s vast database of photo images in pursuit of suspects, according to the AP.

When the California DMV tried to acquire facial recognition technology in 2009, privacy and consumer advocates fought the agency on the grounds that such a massive shift in private data handling required public debate (the DMV had been trying to stealthily strike a deal with the vendor). As SecurityInfoWatch reported at the time, privacy advocates argued that there was no way to ensure the technology would not also be used to track and monitor anyone:

“…. the five-year contract, which is being fast-tracked and could be approved as early as next month, is drawing objections from privacy advocates who fear state and local authorities could use the biometric technology to monitor the movements of ‘innocent people’ — for instance, spectators at a sporting event or an anti-war rally.

‘We see this as sort of creeping Big Brother government, an invasion of people’s privacy,’ said Richard Holober, executive director of the San Mateo-based Consumer Federation of California.”

If facial recognition technology in the hands of the DMV sounds like the makings of someone’s mistaken-identity, Kaftaesque nightmare, it is. The unlucky John H. Gass of Massachusetts had to spend 10 days proving to the Massachusetts DMV that he had not committed ID fraud after facial recognition technology mistakenly flagged his photo because he resembled another man.

3. Las Vegas casinos, and Kraft and Adidas stores

For years Las Vegas casinos have used various forms of facial recognition to identify card-counters. Now, Vegas is at the forefront of efforts to adapt facial recognition to more efficiently suck money out of visitors.

The LA Times reported last week that the Venetian hotel and casino has installed basic facial recognition software in advertisements. A camera captures an image of a person passing by and an algorithm determines their gender and rough age. The advertisement can then present them with products most likely to appeal to their demographic.

Targeted ads are the holy grail of marketing. If you’re an advertiser, you don’t want to waste the priceless real-estate of a teen boy’s brain with an ad for, say, tampons, so advertisers are constantly trying to figure out new ways to deliver the right ads to the right people. Thanks to tools that let companies track web surfing history and the detailed personal information featured on certain giant social networking sites, the digital world provides the best venue for targeted ads.

LA Times reporters Shan Li and David Sarno also got Kraft and Adidas to go on the record about their future plans to install the technology in ads and store kiosks:

“If a retailer can offer the right products quickly, people are more likely to buy something,” said Chris Aubrey, vice president of global retail marketing for Adidas.

Kraft said it’s in talks with a supermarket chain, which it would not identify, to test face-scanning kiosks.

“If it recognizes that there is a female between 25 to 29 standing there, it may surmise that you are more likely to have minor children at home and give suggestions on how to spice up Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for the kids,” said Donald King, the company’s vice president of retail experience.

While these tools divulge very basic personal information, their potential seems limitless. Really, how tough would it be for more sophisticated technology to match a photo to someone’s public Facebook profile, and determine in the process their marriage status, sexuality, hometown, politics, religious beliefs and any number of personality signifiers compiled online, thrusting their digital lives into physical space?

4. Bars

Inevitably, facial recognition software is also being deployed for the purpose of getting people laid. SceneTap, an app developed by a Chicago company uses information from facial recognition cameras planted in bars to determine the ratio of women to men and the average age of customers. As of June, 200 bars across the country had signed up to take part, according to Forbes.

SceneTap developers assured reporters that the cameras they’re installing in bars do not capture high-enough-quality images to match them up to databases or Facebook profiles.

Meanwhile, the East Bay Express reported that bars throughout the Bay Area were actually streaming video to an app called “BarSpace” that lets people check out the bar in real time – so presumably anyone with an iPhone could easily check where you are and who you’re drunkenly flirting with without you knowing it. The investigation found that most bar patrons are not aware they’re being filmed. Is an app wedding SceneTap’s face recognition technology to BarSpace coming down the pike?

This is not the first time biometric tools have invaded bars. In 2006, a program called BioBouncer let bouncers take pictures of incoming patrons and scan them against a database to pick out troublemakers. Bar owners shared a large database of information. According to the company behind the technology, information about law-abiding bar patrons would get dumped at the end of the night, reported Wired. Of course, there was no way to guarantee that indefinitely. Or guarantee that bar owners wouldn’t share the info with the police, or with private investigators, or with data collection companies, as security expert Bob Schneier pointed out at the time.

5. All of Japan

As far as commercial uses of facial recognition technology, Japan is way ahead of the curve. So here are some things we may be looking forward to:

a) Vending machines: Japanese vending machines suggest soft drinks based on stereotypes based on your gender and age (and the weather).

b) Billboards: Japanese billboards contain technology that figures out a person’s sex and age to within 10 years, and presents them with the appropriate advertising.

c) Truck stops: A truck stop uses facial recognition to gauge the alertness of drivers.

d) Hotels and restaurants: NTDtv reports Omron, a Japanese technology company, equips hotels and restaurants with the technology to let them flag VIP guests.

e) Service work: According to Reuters, Omron also uses a “smile-scan” allowing service companies to ensure their employees evince the appropriate levels of enthusiasm on the job.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with advances in biometrics, there are also no inherent limits for its use and abuse, as EFF’s Tien points out. So it’s important to always ask who’s controlling the cameras and the databases, and for what purpose.

Tana Ganeva is an AlterNet editor. Follow her on Twitter. You can email her at tanaalternet@gmail.com.

p>(The South Journal)

Panama will be the venue of an event to be held April 11-15, whose objective is the setting up of an “elite international task force” to enhance the cyberwar against Cuba. The sponsors of this meeting, under the intellectualized name of “Thinking Cuba”, use military terms like “task force”, while several of their alliances are quite too close to extremism and US military institutions, including the marines, according to the curriculum of Janessa Goldbeck, one of the event´s organizers.

South Journal–An article by Cuban writer Iroel Sanchez published on La Pupila Insomne website reads that Panama has been chosen to hold a meeting aimed at setting up an “elite international task force” to enhance cyberwar against Cuba. The meeting will count on the participation of “anti-Cuba Cyber-extremist” Ernesto Hernández Busto who along with George W. Bush, launched the US subversive strategy against Cuba on the Internet.

The sponsors of this meeting, under the intellectualized name of “Thinking Cuba”, use military terms like “task force”, while several of their alliances are quite too close to extremism and US military institutions, including the marines, according to the curriculum of Janessa Goldbeck, one of the event´s organizers.

The first of the Websites under “ Thinking Cuba” is “Babalu Blog, linked to blogger Yoani Sanchez promoting violent actions against Cuba and support for terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. “Thinking Cuba” is sponsored by “The Albert Einstein Institution, the same entity that was behind the so-called “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe and that sponsored the training of young Yugoslavians with the Otpor organization by a US colonel in the eve of the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia.

Over the past few weeks, numerous materials have exposed the US strategy to provide its agents on the island with modern I.T. technology to keep covert communication avenues with them, thus violating their own regulations established by the US blockade of Cuba.

On 7 April 2010, the main organizer of the Panama event, Stephanie Rudat wrote on her blog about the use of these technologies to promote “change” in Cuba and she explained about their implementation in countries, such as Iran, something acknowledged by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a work of the Department of State.

In her 2007 writings, Rudat tells about the role played as part of this strategy by organizations such as “Raices de Esperanza,” which maintains links to the so-called Ladies in White, in Cuba.

A point in the Panama agenda may be the updating of the strategy, after the repeated defeats undergone by the United States in trying to boost the use of such technologies in Cuba, in an effort to find inexistent similarities with the ongoing events in the Middle East, with media and entrepreneurial support.

The CubaMoneyProject has collected significant information on the antecedents, relations and financial sources related to Rudat. This information suggests that the Panama event counts on the highest-level support of the US government, including the CIA and the State Department. All this has led journalist Tracey Eaton to say: “Let´s see if Rudat, who has said that technology is a synonym of transparency, gets to voluntarily reveal the source of money.”

The US taxpayers´ money has been largely used with these aims over the past years. CubaMoneyProject recently published a list of recipients of these funds, after explaining that it is not a complete picture of the “Cuba Program” financed by the United States. Out of that list, we bring you some of those directly linked to the supply of technological support to the counterrevolution in Cuba:

2007

“Plantados hasta la Libertad y la Democracia en Cuba” (organization made up of individuals with terrorist backgrounds)
13 September – Contract signed for 200,000 dollars. Description: technical support for a peaceful transition to Democracy, of the Cuba Program.

2008

Creative Associates International. 29 September – 6.5 million-dollar contract signed with USAID´s Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI).

2009

DAI / Nathan Group (The company that sent Alan Gross to Cuba)
29 September –853.976-dollar contract. Description: “Provide extra funds amounting to 853.976 dollars.”

2010

Creative Associates International
03 September – A two-million-dollar contract. Contract expiring date is 30 September 2011.

Freedom House
28 September – One-million-dollar contract. Description: This cooperation agreement supports the Freedom House´s New Media Initiatives for Cuba project (NewMIC).

These sums are joined by projects with entities such as the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the CIA direct operations, which also include the supply of technology for subversion as it has been exposed by the TV series Cuba´s Reasons.

[English version of Iroel Sanchez’ article in Spanish posted on the Pupila Insomne]

(Traducido por Granma Internacional)

The Department of State and its destabilizing agency USAID project interventionist operations attempting to use the Internet as an instrument of infiltration and intelligence within Cuban national territory

This has been confirmed on the Cuba Money Project website by U.S. journalist and investigator Tracey Eaton, who published a document identified with these U.S. special service agencies, dated January 11, 2011, which reveals how “ideas” are being solicited from non-governmental organizations and specialized businesses interested in carrying out projects related to the use of the Internet “in Cuba and in other nations.”

The document was published shortly before the trial in Havana of U.S. citizen Alan Philip Gross, working under contract for USAID, for his illegal activities.

Proposals could be submitted through February 7. “The Department of State has not specified – and surely, it won’t – what organizations will implement these projects,” writes Eaton, a former correspondent in Havana for the Dallas Morning News.

Budgets that range from $500,000 to eight million are available for these projects, for a total which could reach $30 million, according to her study.

Moreover, the money comes from the 2010 federal budget and not the next year’s.

The Department of State, in a clarification which appears to refer directly to the Alan Gross case or previous intelligence operations, details that the eligible organizations must “have experience of working in hostile environments.”

The focus of these operations, called web-based circumvention technology, is precisely to avoid and disrupt the usual systems of detection (firewalls and filters) used to protect computers from multiple forms of illicit activity on the web, established by legislation in all countries.

The strategy includes a “training program” to develop a “network of instructors” who would undertake operations with “threatened organizations.” Read: organizations operating illegally.

The organizations and businesses invited to submit proposals must be able to “train bloggers, citizen-journalists and civic organizations” and promote the use of new communication person-to-person technologies and “social networks.”

The program even suggests a “defense fund” for activists with legal problems related to hacking and “cyber-intrusion.”

In addition to Cuba, the request for proposals refers to China, Mayanmar, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, all countries which have refused to submit to U.S. domination, utilizing the usual rhetoric about “helping digital activists” – a well-known strategy for recruiting agents and informants practiced by U.S. intelligence services.

“This document contains exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said in a specialized magazine,” according to the U.S. journalist and professor in her revealing investigation.