Life in Code and Software/Introduction - Revision history

Davidberry at 16:17, 23 September 2012

2012-09-23T16:17:24Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:17, 23 September 2012
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	Dobias, J. (2010) 'Privacy Effects of Web Bugs Amplified by Web 2.0', in Fischer-Hübner, S., Duquenoy, P., Hansen, M., Leenes, R., and Zhang, G. (eds.) ''Privacy and Identity Management for Life'', London: Springer.		Dobias, J. (2010) 'Privacy Effects of Web Bugs Amplified by Web 2.0', in Fischer-Hübner, S., Duquenoy, P., Hansen, M., Leenes, R., and Zhang, G. (eds.) ''Privacy and Identity Management for Life'', London: Springer: 244-257.

Davidberry: minor corrections

2012-09-23T16:11:01Z

minor corrections

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:11, 23 September 2012
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	*<pre><group=register& time=1999.10.27.20.5 6.37"></pre>		*<pre><group=register& time=1999.10.27.20.5 6.37"></pre>
	</blockquote>		</blockquote>
	<br><br> Later web bugs (web 2.0) are not included here due to the complexity and length of the code (but see the 3rd-party elements, or ‘3pes’, at http://www.knowyourelements.com/ ).[5] It is noticeable that this code is extremely opaque and difficult to understand, even for experienced computer programmers. Indeed, one suspects an element of obfuscation, a programming technique to reduce the readability of the code in order to shield the company from observation. So far, in checking a number of web bugs on a variety of websites, I have been unable to find one that supplies any commentary on what exactly the code is doing, beyond a short privacy policy statement. Again Ghostery (2012b) usefully supplies us with some general information on the web bug, such as the fact that it has been found on over 100,000 websites across the Internet, and that the data collected is 'anonymous (browser type), pseudonymous (IP address)', the data is not shared with third parties but no information is given on their data retention policies. As of 2nd March, 2012, Ghostery reported that it was tracking 829 different web bugs across the Internet. This is a relatively unregulated market in user behavior, tracking and data collection, which currently has a number of self-regulatory bodies, such as the Network Advertising Initative (NAI). As Madrigal reports: 'In essence, [the NAI] argued that users do not have the right to not be tracked. "We've long recognized that consumers should be provided a choice about whether data about their likely interests can be used to make their ads more relevant," [they] wrote. "But the NAI code also recognizes that companies sometimes need to continue to collect data for operational reasons that are separate from ad targeting based on a user's online behavior."… Companies "need to continue to collect data," but that contrasts directly with users desire "not to be tracked"' (Madrigal, 2012).<br><br> These web bugs, beacons, pixels, and tags, as they are variously called, form part of the dark-net surveillance network that users rarely see, even though it is profoundly changing their experience of the internet in real-time by attempting to second guess, tempt, direct and nudge behavior in particular directions (see Parry, 2011). Ghostery ranked the web bugs in 2010 and identified the following as the most frequently encountered (above average): Revenue Science (250x), OpenX (254x), AddThis (523.6x), Facebook Connect (529.8x), Omniture (605.7x), Comscore Beacon (659.5x), DoubleClick (924.4x), QuantCast (1042x), Google Adsense (1452x), Google Analytics (3904.5x) (Ghostery, 2011). As can be seen in terms of relative size of encounter, Google is clearly the biggest player by a long distance in the area of user statistics collection. This data is important because, as JP Morgan's Imran Khan explained, a unique visitor to each website at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/amazon Amazon] (e-commerce) is generating $189 per user, at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google Google] (search) it is generating $24 per user, and although Facebook (social networking) is only generating $4 per user, this is a rapidly growing number (Yarrow, 2011).  Keeping and holding these visitors, through real-time analytics, customer history, behavioural targeting, etc. is increasingly becomong extremely profitable. Ghostery (2010) has performed a useful analysis of their web bug database that attempts to categorise the web bugs found into 16 different types, which I have re-categorised into ~~five~~ main types: (1) Advertiser/Marketing Services, (2) Analysis/Research Services, (3) Management Platforms, (4) Verification/Privacy Services:<br><br>		<br><br> Later web bugs (web 2.0) are not included here due to the complexity and length of the code (but see the 3rd-party elements, or ‘3pes’, at http://www.knowyourelements.com/ ).[5] It is noticeable that this code is extremely opaque and difficult to understand, even for experienced computer programmers. Indeed, one suspects an element of obfuscation, a programming technique to reduce the readability of the code in order to shield the company from observation. So far, in checking a number of web bugs on a variety of websites, I have been unable to find one that supplies any commentary on what exactly the code is doing, beyond a short privacy policy statement. Again Ghostery (2012b) usefully supplies us with some general information on the web bug, such as the fact that it has been found on over 100,000 websites across the Internet, and that the data collected is 'anonymous (browser type), pseudonymous (IP address)', the data is not shared with third parties but no information is given on their data retention policies. As of 2nd March, 2012, Ghostery reported that it was tracking 829 different web bugs across the Internet. This is a relatively unregulated market in user behavior, tracking and data collection, which currently has a number of self-regulatory bodies, such as the Network Advertising Initative (NAI). As Madrigal reports: 'In essence, [the NAI] argued that users do not have the right to not be tracked. "We've long recognized that consumers should be provided a choice about whether data about their likely interests can be used to make their ads more relevant," [they] wrote. "But the NAI code also recognizes that companies sometimes need to continue to collect data for operational reasons that are separate from ad targeting based on a user's online behavior."… Companies "need to continue to collect data," but that contrasts directly with users desire "not to be tracked"' (Madrigal, 2012).<br><br> These web bugs, beacons, pixels, and tags, as they are variously called, form part of the dark-net surveillance network that users rarely see, even though it is profoundly changing their experience of the internet in real-time by attempting to second guess, tempt, direct and nudge behavior in particular directions (see Parry, 2011). Ghostery ranked the web bugs in 2010 and identified the following as the most frequently encountered (above average): Revenue Science (250x), OpenX (254x), AddThis (523.6x), Facebook Connect (529.8x), Omniture (605.7x), Comscore Beacon (659.5x), DoubleClick (924.4x), QuantCast (1042x), Google Adsense (1452x), Google Analytics (3904.5x) (Ghostery, 2011). As can be seen in terms of relative size of encounter, Google is clearly the biggest player by a long distance in the area of user statistics collection. This data is important because, as JP Morgan's Imran Khan explained, a unique visitor to each website at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/amazon Amazon] (e-commerce) is generating $189 per user, at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google Google] (search) it is generating $24 per user, and although Facebook (social networking) is only generating $4 per user, this is a rapidly growing number (Yarrow, 2011).  Keeping and holding these visitors, through real-time analytics, customer history, behavioural targeting, etc. is increasingly becomong extremely profitable. Ghostery (2010) has performed a useful analysis of their web bug database that attempts to categorise the web bugs found into 16 different types, which I have re-categorised into four main types: (1) Advertiser/Marketing Services, (2) Analysis/Research Services, (3) Management Platforms, (4) Verification/Privacy Services:<br><br>

	1.       '''Advertiser/Marketing Services''':		1.       '''Advertiser/Marketing Services''':
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	Hopkins, N. (2011) ''New Stuxnet' worm targets companies in Europe', ''The Guardian'', http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/19/stuxnet-worm-europe-duqu ''		Hopkins, N. (2011) ''New Stuxnet' worm targets companies in Europe', ''The Guardian'', http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/19/stuxnet-worm-europe-duqu ''



			Kitchin, R. (2011) The Programmable City, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, volume 38, pages 945-951.


Line 293:		Line 297:

	Langner, R. (2011) 'Ralph Langner: Cracking Stuxnet, a 21st-century cyberweapon', accessed 02/03/2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CS01Hmjv1pQ		Langner, R. (2011) 'Ralph Langner: Cracking Stuxnet, a 21st-century cyberweapon', accessed 02/03/2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CS01Hmjv1pQ



			Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Garyhall at 11:25, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T11:25:30Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:25, 21 June 2012
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	*<pre><group=register& time=1999.10.27.20.5 6.37"></pre>		*<pre><group=register& time=1999.10.27.20.5 6.37"></pre>
	</blockquote>		</blockquote>
	<br><br> Later web bugs (web 2.0) are not included here due to the complexity and length of the code (but see the 3rd-party elements, or ‘3pes’, at http://www.knowyourelements.com/ ).[5] It is noticeable that this code is extremely opaque and difficult to understand, even for experienced computer programmers. Indeed, one suspects an element of obfuscation, a programming technique to reduce the readability of the code in order to shield the company from observation. So far, in checking a number of web bugs on a variety of websites, I have been unable to find one that supplies any commentary on what exactly the code is doing, beyond a short privacy policy statement. Again Ghostery (2012b) usefully supplies us with some general information on the web bug, such as the fact that it has been found on over 100,000 websites across the Internet, and that the data collected is 'anonymous (browser type), pseudonymous (IP address)', the data is not shared with third parties but no information is given on their data retention policies. As of 2nd March, 2012, Ghostery reported that it was tracking 829 different web bugs across the Internet. This is a relatively unregulated market in user behavior, tracking and data collection, which currently has a number of self-regulatory bodies, such as the Network Advertising Initative (NAI). As Madrigal reports: 'In essence, [the NAI] argued that users do not have the right to not be tracked. "We've long recognized that consumers should be provided a choice about whether data about their likely interests can be used to make their ads more relevant," [they] wrote. "But the NAI code also recognizes that companies sometimes need to continue to collect data for operational reasons that are separate from ad targeting based on a user's online behavior."… Companies "need to continue to collect data," but that contrasts directly with users desire "not to be tracked."' (Madrigal, 2012).<br><br> These web bugs, beacons, pixels, and tags, as they are variously called, form part of the dark-net surveillance network that users rarely see, even though it is profoundly changing their experience of the internet in real-time by attempting to second guess, tempt, direct and nudge behavior in particular directions (see Parry, 2011). Ghostery ranked the web bugs in 2010 and identified the following as the most frequently encountered (above average): Revenue Science (250x), OpenX (254x), AddThis (523.6x), Facebook Connect (529.8x), Omniture (605.7x), Comscore Beacon (659.5x), DoubleClick (924.4x), QuantCast (1042x), Google Adsense (1452x), Google Analytics (3904.5x) (Ghostery, 2011). As can be seen in terms of relative size of encounter, Google is clearly the biggest player by a long distance in the area of user statistics collection. This data is important because, as JP Morgan's Imran Khan explained, a unique visitor to each website at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/amazon Amazon] (e-commerce) is generating $189 per user, at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google Google] (search) it is generating $24 per user, and although Facebook (social networking) is only generating $4 per user, this is a rapidly growing number (Yarrow, 2011).  Keeping and holding these visitors, through real-time analytics, customer history, behavioural targeting, etc. is increasingly becomong extremely profitable. Ghostery (2010) has performed a useful analysis of their web bug database that attempts to categorise the web bugs found into 16 different types, which I have re-categorised into five main types: (1) Advertiser/Marketing Services, (2) Analysis/Research Services, (3) Management Platforms, (4) Verification/Privacy Services:<br><br>		<br><br> Later web bugs (web 2.0) are not included here due to the complexity and length of the code (but see the 3rd-party elements, or ‘3pes’, at http://www.knowyourelements.com/ ).[5] It is noticeable that this code is extremely opaque and difficult to understand, even for experienced computer programmers. Indeed, one suspects an element of obfuscation, a programming technique to reduce the readability of the code in order to shield the company from observation. So far, in checking a number of web bugs on a variety of websites, I have been unable to find one that supplies any commentary on what exactly the code is doing, beyond a short privacy policy statement. Again Ghostery (2012b) usefully supplies us with some general information on the web bug, such as the fact that it has been found on over 100,000 websites across the Internet, and that the data collected is 'anonymous (browser type), pseudonymous (IP address)', the data is not shared with third parties but no information is given on their data retention policies. As of 2nd March, 2012, Ghostery reported that it was tracking 829 different web bugs across the Internet. This is a relatively unregulated market in user behavior, tracking and data collection, which currently has a number of self-regulatory bodies, such as the Network Advertising Initative (NAI). As Madrigal reports: 'In essence, [the NAI] argued that users do not have the right to not be tracked. "We've long recognized that consumers should be provided a choice about whether data about their likely interests can be used to make their ads more relevant," [they] wrote. "But the NAI code also recognizes that companies sometimes need to continue to collect data for operational reasons that are separate from ad targeting based on a user's online behavior."… Companies "need to continue to collect data," but that contrasts directly with users desire "not to be tracked"' (Madrigal, 2012).<br><br> These web bugs, beacons, pixels, and tags, as they are variously called, form part of the dark-net surveillance network that users rarely see, even though it is profoundly changing their experience of the internet in real-time by attempting to second guess, tempt, direct and nudge behavior in particular directions (see Parry, 2011). Ghostery ranked the web bugs in 2010 and identified the following as the most frequently encountered (above average): Revenue Science (250x), OpenX (254x), AddThis (523.6x), Facebook Connect (529.8x), Omniture (605.7x), Comscore Beacon (659.5x), DoubleClick (924.4x), QuantCast (1042x), Google Adsense (1452x), Google Analytics (3904.5x) (Ghostery, 2011). As can be seen in terms of relative size of encounter, Google is clearly the biggest player by a long distance in the area of user statistics collection. This data is important because, as JP Morgan's Imran Khan explained, a unique visitor to each website at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/amazon Amazon] (e-commerce) is generating $189 per user, at [http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google Google] (search) it is generating $24 per user, and although Facebook (social networking) is only generating $4 per user, this is a rapidly growing number (Yarrow, 2011).  Keeping and holding these visitors, through real-time analytics, customer history, behavioural targeting, etc. is increasingly becomong extremely profitable. Ghostery (2010) has performed a useful analysis of their web bug database that attempts to categorise the web bugs found into 16 different types, which I have re-categorised into five main types: (1) Advertiser/Marketing Services, (2) Analysis/Research Services, (3) Management Platforms, (4) Verification/Privacy Services:<br><br>

	1.       '''Advertiser/Marketing Services''':		1.       '''Advertiser/Marketing Services''':

Garyhall at 11:16, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T11:16:33Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:16, 21 June 2012
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	<br><br>		<br><br>

	I want to understand the ecology in computational ecology here as a broad concept related to the environmental habitus of both human and non-human actors. My aim in doing so is to explore changes that are made possible by the installation of code/software via computational devices, streams, clouds, or networks. This is what Mitcham calls a ‘new ecology of artifice’ (1998: 43). The proliferation of contrivances that are computationally based is truly breathtaking - each year we are provided with fresh statistics that demonstrate just how profound the new computational world is. For example, 427 million Europeans (or 65 percent) use the Internet and more than 9 in 10 European Internet users reading news online (Wauters, 2012). These computationally based devices, of course, are not static, nor are they mute, and their interconnections, communications, operation, effects and usage remain to be properly studied. It is a task that is made all the more difficult: both by the staggering rate of change, thanks to the underlying hardware technologies, which are becoming ever smaller, more compact, more powerful and less power-hungry; and by the increasing complexity, power, range and intelligence of the software that powers it.<br><br> These computational devices, particularly mobile forms, also enable the assemblage of the new social ontologies and the corresponding social epistemologies that we have increasingly come to take for granted in computational society, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. The extent to which computational devices, and the computational principles on which they are based and from which they draw their power, have permeated the way we use and develop knowledges in everyday life continues to expand driven by the network effects of digital media. The ability to call up information instantly from a mobile device, combine it with others, subject it to debate and critique through real-time social networks, and then edit, post and distribute it worldwide would be incredible if it hadn’t become so mundane (see, for example, Hall, 2011).<br><br> Today it should hardly come as a surprise that code/software lies as a mediator between ourselves and our corporeal experiences. Code/software are the materialisation of computationality, in that they are the medium through which structural features of computation are realised and mediated. For example, code/software disconnects the physical world from a direct coupling with our physicality, whilst managing a looser softwarized transmission system (see also Parikka, 2012). Called ‘fly-by-wire’ in aircraft design, in reality fly-by-wire is the condition of the computational environment we increasingly experience, and I elsewhere term ''computationality'' (Berry, 2011). This is a highly mediated existence and has been a growing feature of the (post) modern world. Whilst many objects remain firmly material and within our grasp, it is easy to see how a more softwarized simulacra lies just beyond the horizon. Not that software isn’t material, of course. Certainly, it is embedded in physical objects and the physical environment and requires a material carrier to function at all. Nonetheless, the materiality of software is without a doubt ''differently'' material, more ''tenuously'' material, almost less ''materially material''. That is, the material form of code/software is difficult to theorise and understand due to its perceived invisibility or ethereality, ~~yet nonetheless~~ having concrete effects. This is partly, it has to be said, due to software’s increasing tendency to hide its depths behind glass rectangular squares which yield only to certain prescribed forms of touch-based interfaces. Here I am thinking both of physical keyboards and trackpads, as much as haptic touch interfaces, like those found in the iPad and other tablet computers. Another way of putting this, as N. Katherine Hayles (2004) has accurately observed, is that print is flat and code is deep~~. Although~~ it is useful to note that theorists, such as Frabetti (2010), ~~problematise~~ Hayles' understanding of code, print, and materiality.<br>		I want to understand the ecology in computational ecology here as a broad concept related to the environmental habitus of both human and non-human actors. My aim in doing so is to explore changes that are made possible by the installation of code/software via computational devices, streams, clouds, or networks. This is what Mitcham calls a ‘new ecology of artifice’ (1998: 43). The proliferation of contrivances that are computationally based is truly breathtaking - each year we are provided with fresh statistics that demonstrate just how profound the new computational world is. For example, 427 million Europeans (or 65 percent) use the Internet and more than 9 in 10 European Internet users reading news online (Wauters, 2012). These computationally based devices, of course, are not static, nor are they mute, and their interconnections, communications, operation, effects and usage remain to be properly studied. It is a task that is made all the more difficult: both by the staggering rate of change, thanks to the underlying hardware technologies, which are becoming ever smaller, more compact, more powerful and less power-hungry; and by the increasing complexity, power, range and intelligence of the software that powers it.<br><br> These computational devices, particularly mobile forms, also enable the assemblage of the new social ontologies and the corresponding social epistemologies that we have increasingly come to take for granted in computational society, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. The extent to which computational devices, and the computational principles on which they are based and from which they draw their power, have permeated the way we use and develop knowledges in everyday life continues to expand driven by the network effects of digital media. The ability to call up information instantly from a mobile device, combine it with others, subject it to debate and critique through real-time social networks, and then edit, post and distribute it worldwide would be incredible if it hadn’t become so mundane (see, for example, Hall, 2011).<br><br> Today it should hardly come as a surprise that code/software lies as a mediator between ourselves and our corporeal experiences. Code/software are the materialisation of computationality, in that they are the medium through which structural features of computation are realised and mediated. For example, code/software disconnects the physical world from a direct coupling with our physicality, whilst managing a looser softwarized transmission system (see also Parikka, 2012). Called ‘fly-by-wire’ in aircraft design, in reality fly-by-wire is the condition of the computational environment we increasingly experience, and I elsewhere term ''computationality'' (Berry, 2011). This is a highly mediated existence and has been a growing feature of the (post) modern world. Whilst many objects remain firmly material and within our grasp, it is easy to see how a more softwarized simulacra lies just beyond the horizon. Not that software isn’t material, of course. Certainly, it is embedded in physical objects and the physical environment and requires a material carrier to function at all. Nonetheless, the materiality of software is without a doubt ''differently'' material, more ''tenuously'' material, almost less ''materially material''. That is, the material form of code/software is difficult to theorise and understand due to its perceived invisibility or ethereality, while having concrete effects nonetheless. This is partly, it has to be said, due to software’s increasing tendency to hide its depths behind glass rectangular squares which yield only to certain prescribed forms of touch-based interfaces. Here I am thinking both of physical keyboards and trackpads, as much as haptic touch interfaces, like those found in the iPad and other tablet computers. Another way of putting this, as N. Katherine Hayles (2004) has accurately observed, is that print is flat and code is deep - although it is useful to note that some theorists, such as Frabetti (2010), have problematised Hayles' understanding of code, print, and materiality.<br>

	== '''Web Bugs, Beacons, and Trackers''' ==		== '''Web Bugs, Beacons, and Trackers''' ==

Garyhall at 11:13, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T11:13:46Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:13, 21 June 2012
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	<br>		<br>

	This book explores the relationship between living, code and software. Technologies of code and software increasingly make up an important part of our urban environment. Indeed, their reach stretches to even quite remote areas of the world. ''Life in Code and Software'' introduces and explores the way in which code and software are becoming the conditions of possibility for human living, crucially forming a computational ecology, made up of disparate software ecologies, that we inhabit. As such we need to take account of this new computational environment and think about how today we live in a highly mediated, code-based world. That is, we live in a world where computational concepts and ideas are foundational, or ontological~~, what I call ''computationality''~~. Here, code and software become the paradigmatic forms of knowing and doing - to the extent that other candidates for this role, such as air, the economy, evolution, the environment, satellites, and so forth, are understood and explained through computational concepts and categories.<br> <br> Certainly, computer code and software are not merely mechanisms; they represent an extremely rich form of media. They differ from previous instantiations of media in that they are highly processual. They can also have agency delegated to them, which they can then prescribe back onto other actors, but which also remains within the purview of humans to seek to understand. As Kitchin argues:<br><br>		This book explores the relationship between living, code and software. Technologies of code and software increasingly make up an important part of our urban environment. Indeed, their reach stretches to even quite remote areas of the world. ''Life in Code and Software'' introduces and explores the way in which code and software are becoming the conditions of possibility for human living, crucially forming a computational ecology, made up of disparate software ecologies, that we inhabit. As such we need to take account of this new computational environment and think about how today we live in a highly mediated, code-based world. That is, we live in a world where computational concepts and ideas are foundational, or ontological. Here, code and software become the paradigmatic forms of knowing and doing - to the extent that other candidates for this role, such as air, the economy, evolution, the environment, satellites, and so forth, are understood and explained through computational concepts and categories.<br> <br> Certainly, computer code and software are not merely mechanisms; they represent an extremely rich form of media. They differ from previous instantiations of media in that they are highly processual. They can also have agency delegated to them, which they can then prescribe back onto other actors, but which also remains within the purview of humans to seek to understand. As Kitchin argues:<br><br>
	<blockquote>across a diverse set of everyday tasks, domestic chores, work, shopping, travelling, communicating, governing, and policing, software makes a difference to how social, spatial, and economic life takes place. Such is software's capacities and growing pervasiveness that some analysts predict that we are entering a new phase of ‘everyware’ (Greenfield, 2006); that is, computational power will be distributed and available at any point on the planet. (Kitchin, 2011: 945)<br> </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>		<blockquote>across a diverse set of everyday tasks, domestic chores, work, shopping, travelling, communicating, governing, and policing, software makes a difference to how social, spatial, and economic life takes place. Such is software's capacities and growing pervasiveness that some analysts predict that we are entering a new phase of ‘everyware’ (Greenfield, 2006); that is, computational power will be distributed and available at any point on the planet. (Kitchin, 2011: 945)<br> </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
	<br><br>		<br><br>

Garyhall at 11:12, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T11:12:01Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:12, 21 June 2012
Line 11:		Line 11:
	<br><br>		<br><br>

	I want to understand the ecology in computational ecology here as a broad concept related to the environmental habitus of both human and non-human actors. My aim in doing so is to explore changes that are made possible by the installation of code/software via computational devices, streams, clouds, or networks. This is what Mitcham calls a ‘new ecology of artifice’ (1998: 43). The proliferation of contrivances that are computationally based is truly breathtaking - each year we are provided with fresh statistics that demonstrate just how profound the new computational world is. For example, 427 million Europeans (or 65 percent) use the Internet and more than 9 in 10 European Internet users reading news online (Wauters, 2012). These computationally based devices, of course, are not static, nor are they mute, and their interconnections, communications, operation, effects and usage remain to be properly studied. It is a task that is made all the more difficult: both by the staggering rate of change, thanks to the underlying hardware technologies, which are becoming ever smaller, more compact, more powerful and less power-hungry; and by the increasing complexity, power, range and intelligence of the software that powers it.<br><br> These computational devices, particularly mobile forms, also enable the assemblage of the new social ontologies and the corresponding social epistemologies that we have increasingly come to take for granted in computational society, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. The extent to which computational devices, and the computational principles on which they are based and from which they draw their power, have permeated the way we use and develop knowledges in everyday life continues to expand driven by the network effects of digital media~~, if we had not already discounted and backgrounded its importance~~. The ability to call up information instantly from a mobile device, combine it with others, subject it to debate and critique through real-time social networks, and then edit, post and distribute it worldwide would be incredible if it hadn’t become so mundane (see, for example, Hall, 2011).<br><br> Today it should hardly come as a surprise that code/software lies as a mediator between ourselves and our corporeal experiences. Code/software are the materialisation of computationality, in that they are the medium through which structural features of computation are realised and mediated. For example, code/software disconnects the physical world from a direct coupling with our physicality, whilst managing a looser softwarized transmission system (see also Parikka, 2012). Called ‘fly-by-wire’ in aircraft design, in reality fly-by-wire is the condition of the computational environment we increasingly experience, and I elsewhere term ''computationality'' (Berry, 2011). This is a highly mediated existence and has been a growing feature of the (post) modern world. Whilst many objects remain firmly material and within our grasp, it is easy to see how a more softwarized simulacra lies just beyond the horizon. Not that software isn’t material, of course. Certainly, it is embedded in physical objects and the physical environment and requires a material carrier to function at all. Nonetheless, the materiality of software is without a doubt ''differently'' material, more ''tenuously'' material, almost less ''materially material''. That is, the material form of code/software is difficult to theorise and understand due to its perceived invisibility or ethereality, yet nonetheless having concrete effects. This is partly, it has to be said, due to software’s increasing tendency to hide its depths behind glass rectangular squares which yield only to certain prescribed forms of touch-based interfaces. Here I am thinking both of physical keyboards and trackpads, as much as haptic touch interfaces, like those found in the iPad and other tablet computers. Another way of putting this, as N. Katherine Hayles (2004) has accurately observed, is that print is flat and code is deep. Although it is useful to note that theorists, such as Frabetti (2010), problematise Hayles' understanding of code, print, and materiality.<br>		I want to understand the ecology in computational ecology here as a broad concept related to the environmental habitus of both human and non-human actors. My aim in doing so is to explore changes that are made possible by the installation of code/software via computational devices, streams, clouds, or networks. This is what Mitcham calls a ‘new ecology of artifice’ (1998: 43). The proliferation of contrivances that are computationally based is truly breathtaking - each year we are provided with fresh statistics that demonstrate just how profound the new computational world is. For example, 427 million Europeans (or 65 percent) use the Internet and more than 9 in 10 European Internet users reading news online (Wauters, 2012). These computationally based devices, of course, are not static, nor are they mute, and their interconnections, communications, operation, effects and usage remain to be properly studied. It is a task that is made all the more difficult: both by the staggering rate of change, thanks to the underlying hardware technologies, which are becoming ever smaller, more compact, more powerful and less power-hungry; and by the increasing complexity, power, range and intelligence of the software that powers it.<br><br> These computational devices, particularly mobile forms, also enable the assemblage of the new social ontologies and the corresponding social epistemologies that we have increasingly come to take for granted in computational society, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. The extent to which computational devices, and the computational principles on which they are based and from which they draw their power, have permeated the way we use and develop knowledges in everyday life continues to expand driven by the network effects of digital media. The ability to call up information instantly from a mobile device, combine it with others, subject it to debate and critique through real-time social networks, and then edit, post and distribute it worldwide would be incredible if it hadn’t become so mundane (see, for example, Hall, 2011).<br><br> Today it should hardly come as a surprise that code/software lies as a mediator between ourselves and our corporeal experiences. Code/software are the materialisation of computationality, in that they are the medium through which structural features of computation are realised and mediated. For example, code/software disconnects the physical world from a direct coupling with our physicality, whilst managing a looser softwarized transmission system (see also Parikka, 2012). Called ‘fly-by-wire’ in aircraft design, in reality fly-by-wire is the condition of the computational environment we increasingly experience, and I elsewhere term ''computationality'' (Berry, 2011). This is a highly mediated existence and has been a growing feature of the (post) modern world. Whilst many objects remain firmly material and within our grasp, it is easy to see how a more softwarized simulacra lies just beyond the horizon. Not that software isn’t material, of course. Certainly, it is embedded in physical objects and the physical environment and requires a material carrier to function at all. Nonetheless, the materiality of software is without a doubt ''differently'' material, more ''tenuously'' material, almost less ''materially material''. That is, the material form of code/software is difficult to theorise and understand due to its perceived invisibility or ethereality, yet nonetheless having concrete effects. This is partly, it has to be said, due to software’s increasing tendency to hide its depths behind glass rectangular squares which yield only to certain prescribed forms of touch-based interfaces. Here I am thinking both of physical keyboards and trackpads, as much as haptic touch interfaces, like those found in the iPad and other tablet computers. Another way of putting this, as N. Katherine Hayles (2004) has accurately observed, is that print is flat and code is deep. Although it is useful to note that theorists, such as Frabetti (2010), problematise Hayles' understanding of code, print, and materiality.<br>

	== '''Web Bugs, Beacons, and Trackers''' ==		== '''Web Bugs, Beacons, and Trackers''' ==

Garyhall at 11:05, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T11:05:42Z

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	I want to understand the ecology in computational ecology here as a broad concept related to the environmental habitus of both human and non-human actors. My aim in doing so is to explore changes that are made possible by the installation of code/software via computational devices, streams, clouds, or networks. This is what Mitcham calls a ‘new ecology of artifice’ (1998: 43). The proliferation of contrivances that are computationally based is truly breathtaking - each year we are provided with fresh statistics that demonstrate just how profound the new computational world is~~, for~~ example, 427 million Europeans (or 65 percent) use the Internet and more than 9 in 10 European Internet users reading news online (Wauters, 2012). These computationally based devices, of course, are not static, nor are they mute, and their interconnections, communications, operation, effects and usage remain to be properly studied. It is a task that is made all the more difficult: both by the staggering rate of change, thanks to the underlying hardware technologies, which are becoming ever smaller, more compact, more powerful and less power-hungry; and by the increasing complexity, power, range and intelligence of the software that powers it.<br><br> These computational devices, particularly mobile forms, also enable the assemblage of the new social ontologies and the corresponding social epistemologies that we have increasingly come to take for granted in computational society, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. The extent to which computational devices, and the computational principles on which they are based and from which they draw their power, have permeated the way we use and develop knowledges in everyday life continues to expand driven by the network effects of digital media, if we had not already discounted and backgrounded its importance. The ability to call up information instantly from a mobile device, combine it with others, subject it to debate and critique through real-time social networks, and then edit, post and distribute it worldwide would be incredible if it hadn’t become so mundane (see, for example, Hall, 2011).<br><br> Today it should hardly come as a surprise that code/software lies as a mediator between ourselves and our corporeal experiences. Code/software are the materialisation of computationality, in that they are the medium through which structural features of computation are realised and mediated. For example, code/software disconnects the physical world from a direct coupling with our physicality, whilst managing a looser softwarized transmission system (see also Parikka, 2012). Called ‘fly-by-wire’ in aircraft design, in reality fly-by-wire is the condition of the computational environment we increasingly experience, and I elsewhere term ''computationality'' (Berry, 2011). This is a highly mediated existence and has been a growing feature of the (post) modern world. Whilst many objects remain firmly material and within our grasp, it is easy to see how a more softwarized simulacra lies just beyond the horizon. Not that software isn’t material, of course. Certainly, it is embedded in physical objects and the physical environment and requires a material carrier to function at all. Nonetheless, the materiality of software is without a doubt ''differently'' material, more ''tenuously'' material, almost less ''materially material''. That is, the material form of code/software is difficult to theorise and understand due to its perceived invisibility or ethereality, yet nonetheless having concrete effects. This is partly, it has to be said, due to software’s increasing tendency to hide its depths behind glass rectangular squares which yield only to certain prescribed forms of touch-based interfaces. Here I am thinking both of physical keyboards and trackpads, as much as haptic touch interfaces, like those found in the iPad and other tablet computers. Another way of putting this, as N. Katherine Hayles (2004) has accurately observed, is that print is flat and code is deep. Although it is useful to note that theorists, such as Frabetti (2010), problematise Hayles' understanding of code, print, and materiality.<br>		I want to understand the ecology in computational ecology here as a broad concept related to the environmental habitus of both human and non-human actors. My aim in doing so is to explore changes that are made possible by the installation of code/software via computational devices, streams, clouds, or networks. This is what Mitcham calls a ‘new ecology of artifice’ (1998: 43). The proliferation of contrivances that are computationally based is truly breathtaking - each year we are provided with fresh statistics that demonstrate just how profound the new computational world is. For example, 427 million Europeans (or 65 percent) use the Internet and more than 9 in 10 European Internet users reading news online (Wauters, 2012). These computationally based devices, of course, are not static, nor are they mute, and their interconnections, communications, operation, effects and usage remain to be properly studied. It is a task that is made all the more difficult: both by the staggering rate of change, thanks to the underlying hardware technologies, which are becoming ever smaller, more compact, more powerful and less power-hungry; and by the increasing complexity, power, range and intelligence of the software that powers it.<br><br> These computational devices, particularly mobile forms, also enable the assemblage of the new social ontologies and the corresponding social epistemologies that we have increasingly come to take for granted in computational society, including Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. The extent to which computational devices, and the computational principles on which they are based and from which they draw their power, have permeated the way we use and develop knowledges in everyday life continues to expand driven by the network effects of digital media, if we had not already discounted and backgrounded its importance. The ability to call up information instantly from a mobile device, combine it with others, subject it to debate and critique through real-time social networks, and then edit, post and distribute it worldwide would be incredible if it hadn’t become so mundane (see, for example, Hall, 2011).<br><br> Today it should hardly come as a surprise that code/software lies as a mediator between ourselves and our corporeal experiences. Code/software are the materialisation of computationality, in that they are the medium through which structural features of computation are realised and mediated. For example, code/software disconnects the physical world from a direct coupling with our physicality, whilst managing a looser softwarized transmission system (see also Parikka, 2012). Called ‘fly-by-wire’ in aircraft design, in reality fly-by-wire is the condition of the computational environment we increasingly experience, and I elsewhere term ''computationality'' (Berry, 2011). This is a highly mediated existence and has been a growing feature of the (post) modern world. Whilst many objects remain firmly material and within our grasp, it is easy to see how a more softwarized simulacra lies just beyond the horizon. Not that software isn’t material, of course. Certainly, it is embedded in physical objects and the physical environment and requires a material carrier to function at all. Nonetheless, the materiality of software is without a doubt ''differently'' material, more ''tenuously'' material, almost less ''materially material''. That is, the material form of code/software is difficult to theorise and understand due to its perceived invisibility or ethereality, yet nonetheless having concrete effects. This is partly, it has to be said, due to software’s increasing tendency to hide its depths behind glass rectangular squares which yield only to certain prescribed forms of touch-based interfaces. Here I am thinking both of physical keyboards and trackpads, as much as haptic touch interfaces, like those found in the iPad and other tablet computers. Another way of putting this, as N. Katherine Hayles (2004) has accurately observed, is that print is flat and code is deep. Although it is useful to note that theorists, such as Frabetti (2010), problematise Hayles' understanding of code, print, and materiality.<br>

	== '''Web Bugs, Beacons, and Trackers''' ==		== '''Web Bugs, Beacons, and Trackers''' ==

Garyhall at 11:04, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T11:04:12Z

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	The deeply interactive characteristic of code and software makes computational media highly plastic for use in everyday life, and as such it has been highly successful at penetrating more and more into the lifeworld. Digital code/software has created, and continues to create, specific tensions in relation to old media forms, such as the disruption it has ~~caused~~ in print, music, film industries, as well as problems for managing and spectacularising the relations of the public to the entertainment industry and politics. This is something that relates to the interests of the previous century’s critical theorists, particularly their concern with the liquidation of individuality and the homogenization of culture. Nonetheless, there is also held to be a radical, if not revolutionary kernel within the softwarization project. ~~This~~ potential is understood as relating to the relative affordance code/software appears to provide for autonomous individuals within networks of association to share information and communicate, often theorised as a form of network politics. Indeed, as Deuze ''et al ''have argued:<br> <br>		The deeply interactive characteristic of code and software makes computational media highly plastic for use in everyday life, and as such it has been highly successful in penetrating more and more into the lifeworld. Digital code/software has created, and continues to create, specific tensions in relation to old media forms, such as the disruption it has produced in the print, music and film industries, as well as problems for managing and spectacularising the relations of the public to the entertainment industry and politics. This is something that relates to the interests of the previous century’s critical theorists, particularly their concern with the liquidation of individuality and the homogenization of culture. Nonetheless, there is also held to be a radical, if not revolutionary kernel within the softwarization project. It is a potential that is understood as relating to the relative affordance code/software appears to provide for autonomous individuals within networks of association to share information and communicate, often theorised as a form of network politics. Indeed, as Deuze ''et al ''have argued:<br> <br>
	<blockquote>Considering the current opportunity a media life gives people to create multiple versions of themselves and others, and to endlessly redact themselves (as someone does with his/her profile on an online dating site in order to produce better matches), we now have entered a time where… we can in fact see ourselves live, become cognizant about how our lifeworld is 'a world of artifice, of bending, adapting, of fiction, vanity, a world that has meaning and value only for the man who is its deviser' [Pirandello 1990, 39]. But this is not an atomized, fragmented, and depressing world, or it does not have to be such a world. (Deuze, Blank, and Speers, 2012)<br> </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>		<blockquote>Considering the current opportunity a media life gives people to create multiple versions of themselves and others, and to endlessly redact themselves (as someone does with his/her profile on an online dating site in order to produce better matches), we now have entered a time where… we can in fact see ourselves live, become cognizant about how our lifeworld is 'a world of artifice, of bending, adapting, of fiction, vanity, a world that has meaning and value only for the man who is its deviser' [Pirandello 1990, 39]. But this is not an atomized, fragmented, and depressing world, or it does not have to be such a world. (Deuze, Blank, and Speers, 2012)<br> </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
	<br><br>		<br><br>

Garyhall at 10:58, 21 June 2012

2012-06-21T10:58:06Z

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	This book explores the relationship between living, code and software. Technologies of code and software increasingly make up an important part of our urban environment. Indeed, their reach stretches to even quite remote areas of the world. ''Life in Code and Software'' introduces and explores the way in which code and software are becoming the conditions of possibility for human living, crucially forming a computational ecology, made up of disparate software ecologies, that we inhabit. As such we need to take account of this new computational environment and think about how today we live in a highly mediated, code-based world. That is, we live in a world where computational concepts and ideas are foundational, or ontological, ~~which~~ I call ''computationality''~~, and within which~~, code and software become the paradigmatic forms of knowing and doing~~. Such~~ that other candidates for this role, such as: air, the economy, evolution, the environment, satellites, ~~etc.~~, are understood and explained through computational concepts and categories.<br> <br> Certainly, computer code and software are not merely mechanisms; they represent an extremely rich form of media. They differ from previous instantiations of media in that they are highly processual. They can also have agency delegated to them, which they can then prescribe back onto other actors, but which also remains within the purview of humans to seek to understand. As Kitchin argues:<br><br>		This book explores the relationship between living, code and software. Technologies of code and software increasingly make up an important part of our urban environment. Indeed, their reach stretches to even quite remote areas of the world. ''Life in Code and Software'' introduces and explores the way in which code and software are becoming the conditions of possibility for human living, crucially forming a computational ecology, made up of disparate software ecologies, that we inhabit. As such we need to take account of this new computational environment and think about how today we live in a highly mediated, code-based world. That is, we live in a world where computational concepts and ideas are foundational, or ontological, what I call ''computationality''. Here, code and software become the paradigmatic forms of knowing and doing - to the extent that other candidates for this role, such as air, the economy, evolution, the environment, satellites, and so forth, are understood and explained through computational concepts and categories.<br> <br> Certainly, computer code and software are not merely mechanisms; they represent an extremely rich form of media. They differ from previous instantiations of media in that they are highly processual. They can also have agency delegated to them, which they can then prescribe back onto other actors, but which also remains within the purview of humans to seek to understand. As Kitchin argues:<br><br>
	<blockquote>across a diverse set of everyday tasks, domestic chores, work, shopping, travelling, communicating, governing, and policing, software makes a difference to how social, spatial, and economic life takes place. Such is software's capacities and growing pervasiveness that some analysts predict that we are entering a new phase of ‘everyware’ (Greenfield, 2006); that is, computational power will be distributed and available at any point on the planet. (Kitchin, 2011: 945)<br> </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>		<blockquote>across a diverse set of everyday tasks, domestic chores, work, shopping, travelling, communicating, governing, and policing, software makes a difference to how social, spatial, and economic life takes place. Such is software's capacities and growing pervasiveness that some analysts predict that we are entering a new phase of ‘everyware’ (Greenfield, 2006); that is, computational power will be distributed and available at any point on the planet. (Kitchin, 2011: 945)<br> </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
	<br><br>		<br><br>

Csb at 10:43, 19 June 2012

2012-06-19T10:43:23Z

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	The origin of the name Stuxnet is hypothesized from an analysis of the approximately 15,000 lines of programming code. The analysis performed by Langner (2011) and others, was a close reading and reconstruction of the programming logic by taking the machine code, disassembling it and then attempting to convert it into the C programming language. The code could then be analysed for system function calls, timers, and data structures, in order to try to understand what the code was doing (Langner, 2011). Indeed, as part of this process a reference to 'Myrtus' was discovered, and the link made to 'Myrtus as an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively' (Markoff and Sanger, 2010).[9] Whilst no actor has claimed responsibility for Stuxnet, there is a strong suspicion that either the United States or Israel had to be involved in the creation of such a sophisticated attack virus (see Sanger, 2012). Its attack appears to have been concentrated on a number of selected areas, with Iran at the centre (see table 1).<br><br>   ~~<br>~~ [[Image:BerryStuxnet.jpg\|left\|500x450px\|Percentage Distribution of Stuxnet Infections by Region (adapted from Matrosov et al n.d.)]]		The origin of the name Stuxnet is hypothesized from an analysis of the approximately 15,000 lines of programming code. The analysis performed by Langner (2011) and others, was a close reading and reconstruction of the programming logic by taking the machine code, disassembling it and then attempting to convert it into the C programming language. The code could then be analysed for system function calls, timers, and data structures, in order to try to understand what the code was doing (Langner, 2011). Indeed, as part of this process a reference to 'Myrtus' was discovered, and the link made to 'Myrtus as an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively' (Markoff and Sanger, 2010).[9] Whilst no actor has claimed responsibility for Stuxnet, there is a strong suspicion that either the United States or Israel had to be involved in the creation of such a sophisticated attack virus (see Sanger, 2012). Its attack appears to have been concentrated on a number of selected areas, with Iran at the centre (see table 1).<br><br>


			[[Image:BerryStuxnet.jpg\|left\|500x450px\|Percentage Distribution of Stuxnet Infections by Region (adapted from Matrosov et al n.d.)]]

	**Iran - 52.2%		**Iran - 52.2%