Since I wasn’t able to record last week’s class, I decided to post some notes from a virtual “office hours” meeting with one of my students. As a new professor, I have much to learn and working through my lectures again after that fact with students, along with posting and recording my material here, has become very helpful in my process. This chat archive should also be useful to anyone looking for more context and detail around what was posted for week 3. The chat ended with a fairly heavy question, which I did my best to answer within the context of the course and my work.

NATHAN FREITAS

2:16 PM
Have you reviewed the week 3 post here? http://openideals.com/2009/09/25/itp2800-week3/

STUDENT:
2:16 PM
i did i got a chance to look at some of the links

NATHAN FREITAS
2:16 PM
I can break down for you the overall points of the class
other than when I talked about myself

STUDENT:
2:17 PM
ok that would be great

NATHAN FREITAS
First, I brought up the Tor Project http://torproject.org
his was done to start talking about alternative networking opportunities other than just using the internet directly
especially with mobile devices

so thinking about peer-to-peer, bluetooth, wifi
as tools for either getting around censorship
or as different ways to allow people to network.

too often everything revolves around access a website
or connecting to the internet directly to transfer data or communicate
but in many countries, for activists, etc this isn’t an option or isn’t reliable

thinking about bluetooth
there are also many other possilbities for sharing data directly or in a personal way
we also talked about the use of semacode, visual barcodes, etc… have you used or seen thos before?

STUDENT: 2:19 PM no are they like QR codes?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:19 PM
yes, QR codes are another type
there are about ten different methods for producing scannable bar codes…
one app i talked about
allowed direct exchange of information between phones
where one phone displays the QR code on their screen
and the other scans it
so the devices sort of kiss and share data that way w/o any need for internet

did you look at this diagram? http://www.flickr.com/photos/natty/3951991209/sizes/l/

STUDENT:
2:24 PM
and these scannable barcodes fall under satellite media?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:24 PM
they are more Local Area
but of a physical sort
I actually need to update this diagram to include this concept
the diagram is meant to draw connections between the physical media (glass fiber, copper, radio waves)
and the type of data transfer, and then the various levels of controls/authority at each layer
a barcode is “off the grid” in a sense
because it is completely uncontrolled data, as comparsed to using SMS which is completely controlled and tracked

STUDENT:
2:26 PM
ah i see

NATHAN FREITAS
2:26 PM
and very expensive
SMS is the most expensive medium of communication if you consider price per message size

STUDENT:
2:26 PM
so it is netither connected to the lowest layer nor the top later
layer

NATHAN FREITAS
2:27 PM
right. i just want you to think about the medium of communication
when you are designing applications or use case scenarios
and also consider the state/authrotiy you and your users, cause, movement are operating within

STUDENT:
2:27 PM
that’s interesting. when people say mobile, one automatically thinks of sms
at least for me

NATHAN FREITAS
2:27 PM
Yes, and not to say SMS isn’t powerful and useful
What we’ve seen though with the iPhone or Android phone
is that once you get a good TCP/IP internet connection on a device
so much more becomes possible, because it is less controlled
and then when you have WIFI even more is possible, b/c its very cheap and nearly free
and even less controlled

Some of this thinking is more relevant to certain apps than others
but for instance, if you are making an application targeting inner city youths in NYC
SMS may be very expesneive for them
but on T-Mobile sidekicks, they have unlimited internet browsing
but no wifi, etc.
Okay, so moving up to the top layer
Satellite is very very expensive, but also insanely powerful
in that it breaks any state/gov’t control
it bypasses even “the great firewall” of china for instance

I shared a video of a protest I developed the technology for
we did a live broadcast from Mount Everest on the China/Tibet side
everyone involved was instantly arrested and held for 4 days. all the equipment was taken.
but we were able to live stream the protest and get the footage out before that
on to BBC, NBC, etc. …

so in that case, we routed around the state control of the physical ground based connections

STUDENT:
2:31 PM
what was the protest regarding?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:32 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfe57qES7F8
It was in the lead up to the Olympics
TIbetans upset that China was using Mt Everest as part of the torch relay propganda
political agendas aside… if we had tried to use any other medium, whether phsycial (tape, usb key)
or WAN (3g, GPRS, etc)
we wouldn’t have been successful

STUDENT:
2:34 PM
what is WAN stand for?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:34 PM
Wide Area Network
vs. Local Area Network (LAN)
sometimes the physical layer (bluetooth or barcode scanning)
is called Personal Area Network
PAN

okay, so then I did a talk about my life using the various technology devices I’ve owned/used
the overall point of that was to clearly show how things are getting smaller, more powerful, cheaper, etc
at some point we’ll do a brainstorm about where we think things will be 5,10,20 years form now
in terms of mobile devices

STUDENT:
2:36 PM
wait for the protest in tibet you streamed via satellite?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:36 PM
Yes

STUDENT:
2:37 PM
i see

NATHAN FREITAS
2:37 PM
It was a very small satellite modem, the size of a laptop. BGAN Inmarsat 9201

STUDENT:
2:37 PM
are they very expensive?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:37 PM
http://www.inmarsat.com/Services/Land/BGAN/Terminals/HNS_9201.aspx?language=EN&textonly=False
they have dropped in price greatly
so $2000 ish
thanks to the Iraq and Aghan war
many soldiers are using them for their own personal connections back home
(higher ranking soldiers, etc)
the bandwidth is still very expensive $7/megabyte
but it is much more affordable than it used to be
Many mountaineers use them as well
there are some new smaller ones as well: http://www.outfittersatellite.com/bgan_wideyeSabre.htm

STUDENT:
2:40 PM
how much did it cost for the protest in tibet?
including bandwidth

NATHAN FREITAS
2:40 PM
10mb / minute of video is a good benchmark for good quality 320×240
we got that down to about 3mb with compression
so $20 per minute of footage
we sent b-roll footage ahead of time
and with testing before the protest and all it was about $1000 for bandwidth
$2000 for the sat modem
$1000 for macbook
DV video cameras, etc
all in all, the gear was about $7500
you can also rent satellite modems

Last point on the sat stuff… .embedded journalists are in Iraq, etc are using this version of it: http://www.outfittersatellite.com/bgan_videophone.htm
it works well, but not easy to hide, transport

STUDENT:
2:44 PM
and this piece of technology combines all the aforementioned gear you used in tibet?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:44 PM
yes, into one push button package

STUDENT:
2:45 PM
i see. could you tell me a little more about the TOR project

NATHAN FREITAS
Sure.
Have you heard abot people using proxy servers in places like Iran and China to get arond web censorship?

STUDENT:
2:48 PM
no. is it a bit like Xnet from little brother?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:49 PM
Yes
exactly that, but in reality
in the HTTP/web world
it is very easy to have a single proxy server that your web browser can be linked up to
and instead of your computer going directly to a website, the proxy servers get it for you
this is a very simple way to access web sites blocked by your school, job, country, etc

however, it is also very easy to shutdown
and worse, whoever is running that proxy
knows every single page you have requested, every site
you have to trust them w/o knowing who they are

Tor (which is short for “The Onion Router”)
is designed so that your request is wrapped up in a skin of layers
like an Onion!

STUDENT:
2:51 PM
i see. so it is one proxy?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:51 PM
Tor is a network of many many proxies
more like Napster or Limewire

STUDENT:
2:52 PM
ok. so it’s a web of trust ?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:52 PM
peer to peer
yes it is
using cryptography, key exchange, etc
it provides a mathemtical safe way for you to get proxied web access
without revealing who you are
it also stops there from being a single point of failure
or monitoring… so that means
so for instance, a government can’t just sit and monitor all the people accessing one proxy
and then arrest them or question them

The reason I have brought it up in ITP2800
is that two Fridays ago
i worked with the Tor Project developers
to get the code running on Google Android
so we have Tor ona mobile phone now
which is a big step forward for privacy on our mobiles, as opposed to just laptops, etc
and also important for places like Iran or China where people have mobiles more than computers

it is also very important here in the US
because AT&T and the FBI were found to be monitoring users w/o a warrant
last year
as part of “homeland security” work, even tho it was agains the consitution, etc.
Mobile phones are many times more succeptable to privacy violations and monitoring than laptops, pc’s

STUDENT:
2:56 PM
so they were following specific people ? (AT&T?) how did they sift through all that data?

NATHAN FREITAS
2:57 PM
well, that is another question, but once they have the ability to tap into a specific set of SMS messages from one user
it isn’t hard for them to get another user, or to start checking for anyone mentioning “George Bush”
for instance

This is exactly what happens in other countries.

STUDENT:
2:57 PM
i see

NATHAN FREITAS
2:58 PM
Voice data is much more difficult obviously
THe overall point, is that you don’t give up your rights just because you are using a mobile phone

The guest speaker we have tomorrow night from the Philippines
will be talking about this somewhat in context of his government and the work of http://www.txtpower.org/

actually he will probably talk about the flooding/storms there and what role mobile is playing
if he can connect at all (eek!)

STUDENT:
3:00 PM
i have one last question
it’s a broad question
but bothering me . do you think that society is getting better?

NATHAN FREITAS
3:01 PM
Wow
I am not sure if society as a whole is getting better
However, from my perspective as a technologist
and a mobile computing advocate
I believe it is a promising development
that the distance of communication between places has grown shorter
miniscule
and that the expense of communication has dropped
such that even the poorest people can use mobile phones
so that when tragedy or crisis occur

we can find out about it instantly and people can try to take action
or that in our own local communities,
even someone who is homeless or poor, can still connect and communicate

the flip side is that the state and corporations have more power than ever our us
in terms of monitoring, censorsing, controlling,
on a very very personal level

(and if you look through the slides on my life or watch the video)
I have been very fortunate to create a path for myself that has been unconventional
but that is hopefully less so as things evolve…
as a technologist/activist, etc who can make a good living, build products, etc
that improve the state of society