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sidewalk family tree
Shortlink for this page: https://is.gd/bl0ckS
Google, through its sister company Side Walk Labs, is experimenting with so-called "smart cities", where urban equipment participates in mass-surveillance of the populations.
== Privacy expert Ann Cavoukian resigns as adviser to Sidewalk Labs - The Logic - 2018 ==
sadly paywalled; free part is this:
Ann Cavoukian, a world-leading privacy expert, has resigned as an adviser to Sidewalk Labs on its proposed Toronto smart city development. Cavoukian sent a letter advising the company of her resignation Friday. In the letter, she expressed concerns regarding Sidewalk Labs recent digital governance proposals, specifically, the possibility that not all personal data would be de-identified at the source—a concern she said she raised with Sidewalk Labs early last month. Sidewalk Labs told The Logic it is committed to de-identifying data, but that it can’t control what third-parties do. “With all due respect,” she wrote about data not being de-identified at source, “that is not acceptable.” “If personally identifiable data are not de-identified at source, we will be creating another central database of personal information (controlled by whom?), that may be used without data subjects’ consent, that will be exposed to the risks of hacking and unauthorized access,” she said in her statement. “As we all know, existing methods of encryption are not infallible and may be broken, potentially exposing the personal data of Waterfront Toronto residents! Why take such risks?”
https://thelogic.co/news/privacy-expert-ann-cavoukian-resigns-as-adviser-to-sidewalk-labs/
== Google’s Guinea-Pig City - The Atlantic - 2018 ==
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/21/google-urban-cities-planning-data
Sidewalk family tree
https://twitter.com/adrianshort/status/1118420578271137792
==some choice quotes from Morozov and Bria's RLS paper==
from p.6
<blockquote>"Combined with ever-improving drones and a new generation of policing robots, smart tech- nologies foster a context of heavily militarized urbanism previously restricted to hotspots like Fallujah." </blockquote>
- see also Graham, Stephen. Cities Under Siege: The New Military Ur- banism. Verso Books, 2011.
fuck off IBM! IBM is focussing on security related services - security for the reliable extraction of profits from dweebs.
from p.7
<blockquote>" IBM solutions generally focus on law enforcement, predictive policing, and crime prevention, leading to the establishment of “Intelligent Law Enforcement Centers” and “Real Time Crime Centers.” In Atlanta and Chicago, for instance, IBM uses facial recognition, advanced video monitoring, and other pervasive surveillance technologies to provide police with accurate information allowing them to detect crime patterns based on Big Data analytics.." </blockquote>
most of the "smart city" solutions just use existing data feeds and turn them into extractive agents (usually through government contracts) that data could in principle be used to make life better but the finance markets are winning out by promising "innovation" and, especially security.
from p.8
<blockquote>"Much of the value added of these technologies resides in system integration: Specifically, they take existing data feeds emanating from municipal departments and private suppliers and integrate them into an easily manageable and highly visible interface promising swift and immediate problem-solving at the turn of a knob, or—more likely—the click of a mouse.." </blockquote>
fuck off Goldman Sachs!
from p.12
<blockquote>" t requires the ability to monitor and extract the maximum amount of value from resources under management, which entails perpetual surveillance coupled with nudging and other forms of producing de- sired behavior. Moreover, should monitoring capacity prove insufficient, it would be advantageous to have the means to produce statistics so obscure and impenetrable that the operating entity—in this case, Goldman Sachs— can claim that it has in fact met its target and should be paid the amount due (as regularly happens in actual projects financed through social investment bonds). Surrendering control over such statistical and computation capabilities—an inevitable consequence of the privatized smart city—is a sure way to be swindled by private service providers on a regular basis..
...The model’s obvious downside is chronic underinvestment into long-term facilities and planning of the infrastructure in question, as investors adopting a short-term perspective are not motivated to undertake expensive infrastructural upgrades. This is only part of the problem, however, as investors also seek to extract as much value from the asset under management in the short period of time they own it as possible, often degrading it much faster than a longer-term operator or owner would.
...Such models typically incentivize the operator to cut costs (e.g., by eliminating maintenance) and extract maximum rents (e.g., by charging users different rates depending on how much of the resource they consume or, say, their ability to pay). The ubiquity of “smart” and always-on sensory infrastructures allows investors to pursue both of these strategies at once: costs can be minimized and completely pushed onto users, while the ability to recognize the user and link any act of consumption with their entire life history facilitates a price that the user is unlikely to turn down. Thus, the proliferation of sensors, connectivity, and data analytics into the built environment is likely to entrench today’s highly financialized model of infrastructure provision.." </blockquote>
the Smart City is bait and switch
p. 15
<blockquote>"In practical terms, the appeal of quick technological fixes to city bureaucrats cannot be explained by their ideological confusion or technocratic faith alone, for there are actual structural factors which make the enlistment of technology firms in the business of running the city as well as generating income for some of its inhabitants such an attractive choice. Understanding these structural factors should, at the very least, make us aware that articulating and executing a vision for a truly non-neoliberal smart city is much more difficult than it first appears, for it is not merely a matter of building different technologies or alternative property regimes around data generated in the city. These are necessary, but not sufficient conditions....
There are two sides to this regime of privatized welfare: One draws on advanced technology to deliver significant savings to consumers, thus concealing their rapidly falling real incomes, while another draws on the same set of technologies to produce either short-term, extremely flexible (even if highly precarious) employment opportunities in the gig economy, or quick speculative gains in the sharing economy, most- ly by turning one’s house—should one be lucky enough to own one—into a permanent hotel that also doubles as an ATM. </blockquote>
http://www.rosalux-nyc.org/wp-content/files_mf/morozovandbria_eng_final55.pdf
==assembly of related resources, please expand!==
cities for citizens
sustainable and dynamic urbanism, materialist political economy for cities under adverse circumstances of rapid privatisation, speculation , gentrification and segregation.
pushing back on the smart city solutionist narrative
'''hashtags'''
##fuckoffgoogle
##blocksidewalk Toronto initiative to stop Sidewalk Labs
German language anti-gentrification-related
##Mietenwahnsinn Berlin / Germany anti-gentrification initiative
##Verdrängung People forced out of their apartments
##Enteignen Expropriate! the large property owners
'''case studies'''
'''Berlin'''
<blockquote> --> related initiative "Google is not a good neighbour"
https://www.google-ist-kein-guter-nachbar.de/english-1/actions/
before FOG it was FuckOffGuggenheim... and they really gave up
https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-protests-prove-tolerance-is-a-two-way-street/a-15894900
and FuckOffDercon - gentrifying the Volksbühne (a legendary theater in the center of Berlin
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/theater/chris-dercon-quits-volksbuehne.html
</blockquote>
'''Barcelona''' (Morozow & Bria's "Green" Smart City approach
<blockquote>http://www.rosalux-nyc.org/wp-content/files_mf/morozovandbria_eng_final55.pdf
</blockquote>
'''NY''':
<blockquote>Hudson Yards is a billionaire’s fantasy city and you never have to leave — provided you can pay for it.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/hudson-yard-billionaires-fantasy-city.html
</blockquote>
'''LA''':
<blockquote>movement against fortress city districts and trickle-down housing
https://medium.com/@LATenantsUnion/dropping-the-hammer-on-yimbyism-97724dfdb6a9
https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/zoning-reform-house-costs-urban-development-gentrification/581677/
</blockquote>
'''SF''' (the original FOG!)
<blockquote>techsploitation -
https://qz.com/1293874/protestors-in-san-francisco-are-using-electric-scooters-to-blockade-google-buses/
</blockquote>
'''privatisation of esential services and infrastructure tales of woe
'''
<blockquote>generally, it is stubbornly unprofitable to deliver essential services at scale
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/17/the-high-price-we-all-pay-for-the-failures-of-privatisation
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, former economics professor and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development
http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/10/privatization-the-problem-rarely-the-solution/
https://www.networkideas.org/news-analysis/2019/03/promoting-privatization/
"race to the bottom" How Outsourcing Public Services Rewards Corporations and Punishes the Middle Class
http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/Race-to-the-bottom.pdf
</blockquote>
'''Public transportation
'''
<blockquote>https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/privatisation-of-dublin-bus-routes-the-beginning-of-race-to-the-bottom-tds-warn-867983.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/the-expensive-disaster-that-is-bus-privatisation
</blockquote>
'''Rail
'''
<blockquote>rail privatisation can only be successful where there is population density, eventually all but the most important stations will be shut down
https://www.tokyoreview.net/2018/10/japan-railway-privatization/
An illusion of success: The consequences of British rail privatisation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0155998214000416
The rail billionaires The privatisation of British Rail has proved a disastrous failure. Without big changes, things are going to get worse
https://www.economist.com/business/1999/07/01/the-rail-billionaires
</blockquote>
'''Water'''
<blockquote>UN University
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/water-privatisation-a-worldwide-failure
Paris remunicipalizes water and saves millions
http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-water-utilities-are-returning-to-public-management-in-france
</blockquote>
'''Smart Cities
'''
<blockquote>"competitive urbanism"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098015597162
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/17/truth-smart-city-destroy-democracy-urban-thinkers-buzzphrase
https://planning.org/planning/2019/mar/smartcities/
Adam Greenfield : Against the Smart City
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/227-tasting-data-smart-cities-craft-and-design-facts-on-fax-1.2847907/against-the-smart-city-1.2847908
https://speedbird.wordpress.com/
The trouble with Smart Cities
https://www.axios.com/smart-cities-toronto-sidewalk-labs-las-vegas-cb0451e5-0b98-46c4-9ba3-4a7a04eb4ca7.html
Trading privacy for survival is another tax on the poor
https://www.fastcompany.com/90317495/another-tax-on-the-poor-surrendering-privacy-for-survival
</blockquote>
'''Songdo'''
<blockquote>https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2137838/south-koreas-smart-city-songdo-not-quite-smart-enough
http://gjss.org/sites/default/files/issues/chapters/papers/GJSS%20Vol%2012-2%201%20Benedikt_0.pdf
</blockquote>
'''precrime'''
<blockquote>https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530123-600-pre-crime-software-recruited-to-track-gang-of-thieves/
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/25/predicting-crime-lapd-los-angeles-police-data-analysis-algorithm-minority-report
</blockquote>
'''politicians raising concerns
'''
<blockquote>https://twitter.com/lydia_kou
http://www.creativespacesandcities.com/
</blockquote>
'''comic relief
'''
<blockquote>https://internetofshit.net/soon
</blockquote>
