[Corpora-List] Call for Papers: Mining User-GeneratedContent for Security - MINUCS 2009

Sat Aug 15 13:43:53 UTC 2009

Dear All,

I guess we should take this discussion off line at some point as it could go on for some time. However, I feel I should make a few points to explain why I found the call for papers startling. I have little doubt that most, indeed perhaps all, of the people doing this work are well intentioned and have no desire to engage in any wrong doing. Indeed I know a couple of people on the organizing committee and know that they are good researchers who would never dream of harming a fly. However, as the point made by Linas responded to under point one below shows, other agencies when they have the technology may put it to much more malign uses. While Aalborg University may be benign, are the end users of technologies such as this equally benign? The answer is 'almost certainly not' - indeed it is also quite possibly the case that the qualms that researchers feel in applying the techniques to material that is not freely available may also not be shared by those end users. I am sure you can put together a timeline analysis of mobile phone tracking technologies that shows a host of projects funded for innocent ends or with well meaning security applications in mind. However, to pick up on Linas' point, this is exactly the technology which was then sold by Nokia-Siemens to the Iranian government which allowed it to so successfully track and suppress protesters using mobile phones. This is only an isolated - though in my opinion tragic - example of how research which has an intended benign purpose can be misused (and at a handsome profit for the telecoms industry too). See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5719599/Big-brother-is-watching-The-technologies-that-keep-track-of-you.html for an interesting article on such technologies.

The point has been made a few times that because the conference is looking at data from openly accessible sources only, then it follows that it is unproblematic. This is an error - just because data is freely and legally accessible it does not follow for a responsible researcher that there are no ethical issues involved with engaging with that data. I am aware of no *law* in the UK which would prevent me from building a corpus of everyday speech, collected covertly, and making it freely accessible for public use. Yet it is generally accepted that it would be unethical for me to do so. Even if someone could mount a legal challenge to the data collection in this example, it is but one example - the general point holds. Ethics and the law are separable. What is ethical may not necessarily be legal (think of issues of confidentiality in journalism, for example) and what is legal may not necessarily be ethical (I am driven to recall cases of bankers getting big bonuses to reward them for the chaos they have caused to the world financial system). 

I should say I have no problem with the conference per se. I am sure that all involved in it are thoroughly good sorts. However, I know that if in the UK anyone applied for a grant for research of this sort from a major funder they would almost certainly have to include a statement about the ethical and legal implications of their work. And quite right too in my view. I imagine that much of the work to be presented at this conference will probably have been through such a vetting process to ensure that it is both legal and ethical when it was funded - that for me strikes me as probably the best defence for the conference announcement as it stands. However, it might be an idea when such conferences are touching upon matter that most members of the public, if not the researchers themselves, view as being ethically sensitive, i.e. surveillance, that the conference makes reference to a set of ethical guidelines that it expects research presented at the conference to follow. Other organizations have ethical guidelines they encourage researchers to follow, for example BAAL in the UK has a superb best practice guide for researchers to help them negotiate such issues (see http://www.baal.org.uk/about_goodpractice.htm). It may be that a reference to similar guidelines relevant to the topic of the workshop might be useful in sensitive cases such as this.

Best,

Tony

P.S. And best wishes for the workshop - I am sure it will be a great success.

From: Jordi Carrera
Sent: Sat 8/15/2009 02:51
To: linasvepstas at gmail.com
Cc: corpora at uib.no
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Call for Papers: Mining User-GeneratedContent for Security - MINUCS 2009

Dear fellows,

I agree with those who question that there is any strong basis for concern here. There are at least seven compelling arguments against the End of the World hypothesis as postulated in this thread:

1) Linas argues: "In case you haven't been reading the newspapers, there
was a recent election in Iran, wherein an earlier version of this
kind of technology was used to suppress news and to find and
jail dissidents, some of whom were apparently beaten to death."

Using Adam's irony to respond, if I may: <irony> I wish to say that I have been reading the newspapers, but that I also took some time to read the MINUCS call for papers, and that I was unable to find the name of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among the members of the organizing committee. I admit, though, that I did find the names of some other very very evil and equally suspicious people, including researchers from the European Comission (organization known for its worldwide conspiracies) and the scary Aalborg University. Having seen these names, I do understand Linas' and Adam's concerns.</irony>

2) I think not enough emphasis has been placed on the entirety of the original text, which calls for "information from openly accessible sources only". Under such a premise, legal questions are not even an issue. No wonder there is no place for them in the conference program. Also, this realization would normally settle the issue.

3) Linas further argues: "It is a matter of fact that the technologies being reviewed here are being used for "snooping, spying, privacy infringement or violation, etc."

Given this reasoning, and since anyone can use Google Translate to "spy" on evil non-English speakers, Google will have to include from now on a "Google Translate Legal Issues" track in all its conferences about MT, together with a couple of paragraphs and disclaimers along the very same lines in all its related publications, translations and services.

4) The case of Google is all the more interesting, because some people in the Linguistics community have benefited directly (e.g. scholarships, funding) or indirectly (data, publications, use of Google apps) from Google itself, an organization that has not what one would call an exemplary track of ethical discussion on privacy issues (even according to USA Homeland Security standards).

5) "These technologies can be, and are being used in anti-democratic, anti-persona-freedom kinds of ways. Researchers such as you, who seem to be unaware of this, should become aware."

I wonder whether Linas is truly advocating for having e.g. physicists discuss the legal implications of their findings and having an "ethics track" in all nuclear physics conferences because, you know, some people use nuclear physics to build bombs. If researchers are not the ones building the bombs, should researchers talk about the problems of building the bombs?

6) It is usually the case for those who are about to get involved in "snooping, spying, privacy infringement or violation, etc." practices, not to post their intentions to CorporaList.

7) Linas says: "there is a small but growing group of people who believe  that this kind of technology could lead to an explosively dangerous situation which would threaten the survival of humankind."

In my opinion, these are all very (very) strong claims. Linas, if you have any substantial evidence of any of this, you should not be merely posting vague accusations to CorporaList, but rather getting involved with your government. On the other hand, if you are not doing so, then I assume you lack the relevant evidence, which then makes me wonder why, if you lack the extraordinary evidence that such extraordinary claims would require, you make those claims in the first place.

J C

2009/8/14 Linas Vepstas <linasvepstas at gmail.com>

2009/8/13 Bryar Family <bryar at vermontel.net>:

>
> I'm all for being outraged by outrages but I'm having some difficulty seeing
> a basis for anyone's distress here.

I think you missed the point. To quote:

" Submissions that focus on legal questions stemming from
snooping, spying, privacy infringement or violation, etc., will not
be considered relevant to the Theme of the Workshop, and the
Committee will not be able to review them."

That is the outrageous statement that lead to the distress.  It is
a matter of fact that the technologies being reviewed here are
being used for "snooping, spying, privacy infringement or violation,
etc." In case you haven't been reading the newspapers, there
was a recent election in Iran, wherein an earlier version of this
kind of technology was used to suppress news and to find and
jail dissidents, some of whom were apparently beaten to death.

These technologies can be, and are being used in anti-democratic,
anti-persona-freedom kinds of ways. Researchers such as you,
who seem to be unaware of this, should become aware.

There's more: there is a small but growing group of people who
believe  that this kind of technology could lead to an explosively
dangerous situation which would threaten the survival of
humankind.  The  fact that you personally seem to be unaware of
all of this just tells me that, perhaps conferences like this have
been suppressing papers on ethics for far too long -- they
should be promoting awareness on the part of the researchers
in the field so that they at least know what the fruits of their
labor are used for.

-- Linas Vepstas

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