Get Off Your Ass

For a post about 2016, I know I'm three weeks too late. Bear with me though, it took a LOT of effort to pull something positive out of that year. A huge number of beloved celebrities died (culminating with Carrie Fisher: sci-fi darling, outspoken feminist/mental health advocate, and raunchy badass). Innocent black citizens were shot again and again. Brexit. Aleppo. Pulse Nightclub. And perhaps most distressing of all, we had to endure not only the campaign but, gallingly, the election of He Who Shall Not Be Named.

I've heard several people say that 2016 was a pretty good year for them. Others have tut-tut-tutted the rest of us for our superstition, not understanding that #Fuck2016 is a coping mechanism for those of us who are near our emotional and psychological breaking point. Luckily for the Positivity Police, I can say something good about 2016.

2016 was the year I got off my ass.

For various reasons (which some of you may know better than others), I have never been a great at taking initiative. Worse, I had grown increasingly cynical. About me, a friend once wrote on her blog that, while others accused me of negativity, her perspective was that I had incredibly high expectations for humanity, and humanity consistently fell well below those expectations. She was right. I was mired in the perception that most humans are simply nearsighted, awful creatures.

My job was no longer enough to give me ample satisfaction. I felt powerless. I was blasting links into my social media sphere and snarling at trolls in comment threads: yelling into my own echo chambers and yelling at others. What else could I do? The system is rigged. Capitalism is a pyramid scheme. Etc, etc...

Then something happened. Some of my friends, two in particular, told me to get off my ass.

They did it gently at first, with advice like, "Maybe you should get more involved," Or, "What have you got to lose?" or even the oh so cloying, "We need people like you." I resisted at first. After all, I voted, and I engaged in progressive dialogue and debate on social media. What more could reasonably be expected of the average citizen? If the world is still a crappy place, it's solely because the progressive politicians we elected aren't doing their jobs, right?

WRONG.

I'll tell you what I did. It began in late 2015, but I don't count that because I didn't just start doing it, I kept doing it, and that's the key. I started writing again, doing tight think pieces about technology. But I didn't just blast those pieces into my social media echo chamber, I submitted them to people like OpenMedia and boingboing, organizations I knew were like-minded and had the ability to expose my works to larger audiences. Two of my very first new articles, on encryption and municipal archives, were reposted by the aforementioned sites and received wide readership.

In April, OpenMedia asked me to get more closely involved and write material just for their site. They have been enormously supportive of me and enthusiastic about my work. With them, I've had the opportunity to educate and influence lots of minds.

The same month, one of my aforementioned friends finally twisted my arm into joining my local constituency association for the BCNDP. Working with them, I hope to help sweep out our morally (and sometimes literally) corrupt government.

Since then, I've taken the time to speak to our lawmakers at public "town hall" events. I could tell that I changed minds, minds that went back to Ottawa with knowledge and opinions I had imparted. In my own small way, I am making a huge fucking difference. Yes, this post is slightly more self-congratulatory that I prefer to be. But you know what? In a shitty world, after a shitty year, the fact that I made a difference is the one glimmer of goodness I can truly clutch onto.

So I'm going to give you the best, most loving advice I can give you:

GET. OFF. YOUR. FUCKING. ASS.

Did you go to one of the Women's Marches yesterday? Good job getting off your ass.

Did you join a progressive political party or action group? Good job getting off your ass.

Are you volunteering your time for a worthy cause? Good job getting off your ass.

Are you going to keep doing it? Not just tomorrow, but the next day, and the next? Good job getting off your fucking ass.

Allow me, for just a moment, to me wipe away the good feelings you had watching the news and social media yesterday: He Who Shall Not Be Named won because progressives didn't get out and vote for Clinton. Some didn't like her. Some were angry about Bernie. So American progressives didn't do the one thing, do the absolute minimum thing that they could do. That's not good enough.

Didn't like how Hillary was elected candidate? Get involved in the party. Campaign for procedural change. Get off your ass.

Worried that He Who Shall Not Be Named is going to turn the US into a police state? Join the ACLU. Give them your money. Give them your time. Get off your ass.

Not satisfied how Justin Trudeau's administration has panned out? Join the party. Voice your concerns. Write letters. Join a political action group and badger the government into making it right. Get off your ass.

I got off my ass because I suspected (rightly) that my political impotence was harming me more than the challenges of getting involved would. I got off my ass as self-help; perhaps that will work for you too. But more importantly, the world changes for the worse every time that good people sit on their hands and do nothing. Our apathy and cynicism allow bad people to win. I'm tired of being polite about it. I hope you are too.

Get off your ass.

The Backdoor in WhatsApp is Us

In my latest for OpenMedia, I weigh into the tech-journalism spitstorm that has recently embroiled The Guardian and WhatsApp. From the article:

Specifically, on January 13, The Guardian reported that WhatsApp and Secret Conversations had a back door, which would allow government spying on user’s conversations. Many in the IT community have since derided the allegations as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). So, how do users caught in the middle sort this mess out?

Read the full article at OpenMedia.org...

After the Fire: The Collateral Damage of Vancouver's Housing Crisis

It was August 26th, I was browsing the internet during slack time at work. "WTF is on fire downtown??" asked someone in the /r/Vancouver subreddit, posting a picture of black smoke billowing from somewhere near the edge of Strathcona. It soon became clear that a home was on fire in that neighbourhood. As I glanced at my Facebook feed through the rest of the day, something else became clear: that I knew a person who lived in that home.

More accurately, it was my partner's friend Erin. I'd never met Erin in person, but she was one of those people who, as happens in our modern lives, I knew obliquely. My girlfriend hung out with her now and then, and I'd interact with her in the comment threads of other people's Facebook posts. After hearing that she was okay, my next thought was a blend of panic and concern: Where is she going to live now?

In the summer of 2016, Vancouver's rental vacancy rate dropped to 0.6%. With such a highly competitive market, landlords can charge premium rent for lackluster suites. What's more, landlords often require their applicants submit extremely personal information and undergo credit and background checks. No smoking? No pets? Try no cooking, no guests... perhaps they'll even expect the occasional massage or booty call. The Vancouver landlord demands an obedient, bespoke tenant. Furthermore, landlords know that although some of the aforementioned demands aren't legal, no applicant will complain, because the applicants desperately need housing. So, finding a house, even under ideal circumstances, is a daunting, near-impossible task.

Obviously, Erin's circumstances were not going to be ideal.

Erin grew up in Kelowna, and moved to Vancouver as a young adult, in 2008. She works two part time jobs, and was planning on attending UBC this past fall for philosophy, since she has a keen interest in the field of bioethics. I talked to Erin about her experience the day of the fire:

"I was at home alone, it was around noon, and I was just getting ready to go out. Suddenly, one of my neighbours around came banging on the door, yelling, 'Fire! Fire! We have to get out!'"

When Erin looked outside, she could see that flames were pouring out of the window of the neighbouring suite. In a panic, she tried to herd her three cats into their carriers, but it became clear that there wasn't time, and she was in danger. Discouraged, she was forced to flee her suite.

"The fire department arrived quickly, but it was an hour and a half before firefighters were able to go in and get my cats out."

The building was an older, renovated, six-unit apartment building. "We found out later that the neighbours in the unit where the fire started had left their stove on – a gas range."

After the fire was out, Erin and her roommate were allowed to go into their suite to get a change of clothes and toiletries, but only because their suite was relatively removed from the fire damage. Vancouver Social Services arrived and gave everyone a food voucher. They also put everyone up in a hotel for the next few days, but every one of the tenants had pets, for which the tenants needed to find additional accommodations. After another few days, some of the tenants were allowed to go in again for a quick move-out. With some effort, Erin managed to rent a van and a storage locker on very short notice.

"I was able to stay at a friend’s at Knight and 59th, which is pretty far away. I don't have access to a vehicle, so I'd have to leave significantly earlier just to get to work on time."

Not knowing what her circumstances would be, Erin made the difficult choice to withdraw from her coming school semester. "I had no idea how long it would take me to find something. I was seeing ads asking $1,450/month for a bachelor suite. I sent like 20 to 30 e-mails per day sometimes, most of them didn’t even get responses. And each place I went to see, there were at least ten other people looking at the suite. In some cases, all the applicants were there at the same time, filling out applications."

"I only was invited to look at eight places. I made offers on all of them. I saw people begging to the landlords – twice I saw people crying. People had their references on speed-dial. It was very competitive, very strained."

If such circumstances weren't constraining enough, Erin had to grapple with being a pet owner in a city of landlords notorious for not wanting pets. But she wasn't prepared to give up her cats: "I had to watch my building burn knowing my cats were inside. I wasn't going to give them up after that because a landlord wouldn’t let them stay."

Luckily, Erin's story has a happy ending. After furiously hitting the rental listings, she was able to find something for the middle of September. However, her outlook remains pensive.

"All things considered, I was very lucky."

"I have a steady income, I have savings. I got my deposits back and all I lost was a clock that I didn’t like that much anyway. But what if I had a serious disability? What if I was elderly? What if I had no savings? Circumstances in addition being very suddenly displaced from one's home, in this rental market? That could be insurmountable."

Indeed, the price of housing in Vancouver has hidden, yet wide-reaching societal costs. As blogger/journalist Cory Doctorow recently wrote:

Housing ranks just below food on the hierarchy of human needs. Stability in your shelter is the key to stability in every other area of your life. Precarious housing undermines family life, education, and work performance. ... Treating housing as an asset class means that governments want to make it more expensive -- if a government presided over a doubling in the price of food, it would be viewed as monstrous. If it doubles the price of housing, it is lionized for "increasing property values."

Vancouver's housing crisis, fuelled in part by wealthy foreign speculators, means that child poverty is on the rise. It means strained romantic relationships. It means that women aren't able to escape from abusive relationships.

Personally, I know of a couple who have now been rennovicted twice in the space of two years. Another couple, who just had their first child, were evicted and weren't able to find anywhere to live. The new mother is my friend Yaara, who has lived in Vancouver for nine years. She and her newborn have now temporarily moved back to Israel, to live with her parents.

I have lived in Metro Vancouver since I was twelve – that's 25 years. My closest friends are here. My father, my girlfriend's parents', our jobs – all here. I have been told by some that living in Vancouver is no longer realistic for a household of our income range. Though not meant in malice, it's an extremely unhelpful suggestion.

I decided that I'd end my interview with Erin by asking her outright: is it unreasonable for us to expect to live here? Should we just go somewhere else? Pausing, she took a deep breath before answering:

"Well, I have health issues that are exacerbated by cold. I don’t drive, so I need to live somewhere that has accessible public transit. Here in Vancouver, I have two jobs which have good long term prospects. My support network of friends is here."

"But, more to the point, why should anyone be displaced from where they live? Whether you’ve lived here for a few years or your entire life, why should you have to leave in order to accommodate people just because they’re higher on the socio-economic ladder than you are?"


My partner and I are grateful to have a landlady who wants to exchange a reasonable rate of rent for friendly tenants. Many of my peers are not as lucky. I hold out hope that, within my lifetime, our society will internalize the idea that the basic essentials of living are not products, or investments to game against the market. Food is for eating. Water is for drinking. Homes are for living.


Cover image: "3 Cats, No Home" by Jesse Schooff
created using vector art by Leremy/Shutterstock

A Rogue One Rebuttal: the Imperial Archives on Scarif

NOTE: This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: Rogue One. You have been warned.

Scarif - Photo credit: Lucasfilm/ILM

©2016 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Whether you loved it, found it full of problems, or a bit of both (raises hand) Star Wars: Rogue One has made a big splash and inspired lots of punditry. One of the things that has spurred plenty of discussion is the depiction of the Imperial military archives on Scarif. The moment that scene played out on screen, I smiled inwardly: "Everyone on the internet is going to HATE this."

It's no secret that, with few exceptions, film, television, and fiction at large does an utterly loathsome job at depicting computer science and IT accurately. Beloved cyberpunk classics like The Matrix, Hackers, or Swordfish, are confusing and anachronistic at best. Star Wars as a franchise deserves plenty of ire for its depictions of technology, which can be especially odd (possibly because Star Wars is more "fantasy in space" than traditional sci-fi).

Indeed, in addition to the many other takes on the problems of Rogue One, writers from Vice: Motherboard and archival consulting firm Preservica, in particular have weighed in on the archives scenes. The criticisms are, admittedly, mostly for fun. However, I sensed that a lot of the problems people had with the Scarif scenes could be easily hand-waved away with plausible explanations. And while defending problems with Star Wars movies is pretty much the opposite of my usual MO, I must admit that, in this case, I'm too tempted to weigh in with my own IT perspectives.

Without further ado, let's dive in:

The Layers of Us

Taking a cab ride home from a friend's Christmas party, my friend Nadia and I took some time to chat about the nature of our selves. Nadia wondered to me that perhaps we have preconceived notions of ourselves that we cling to, many years after we've formed them. Are those notions of self still valid, or more delicately, useful, so many years after they were constructed?

I posited thus: every day, our experiences put a new coat of paint upon us. Layer, over layer, over layer. Each day, we look a little bit different than we did the day before, but the old layers of paint – going all the way back to the very first coat – are still there. It's just a matter of how deep underneath they are. When we look inward, and truly examine ourselves, it's like we can cut into those layers, and see all the different strata – both harm and beauty – that makes up us; our complete selves.

I'm not sure she was entirely convinced. Nadia put it to me that, in high school, people like us self-identified as "freaks", but that doesn't really represent how she thinks of herself currently. Surely, that identity isn't relevant anymore?

Perhaps it isn't, I shrugged. But part of that identity is still there, again thanks to layering. When you're in high school, that difference – being a freak or a nerd – is this microtrauma; a representation of your poor treatment at the hands of others. But as time rolls on, you polish that trauma. You paint over top of it and make it into something precious that you're proud of: it becomes cool to be one of the freaks or geeks. Eventually it's intrinsic to your identity, scarcely recognizable as a thing that could have harmed you. Just like an oyster coats over an irritating pebble until it become a pearl.

We arrived at Nadia's place and said our goodnights. She got out and I rolled on with the cabbie for another few blocks. He spoke up, "I really liked your analogy about each day being a layer of paint. What do you do? You should be a writer."

Thanks random cabbie. Merry Christmas. 😄


Photo: paint fragment from Belmont Art Park by Cassidy Curtis - cc

The Future of Encryption Under Trump

No one's got a crystal ball, but given what we do know, the future of encryption (and all the technology which depends on it) looks grim, thanks to You-Know-Who. Read all about it in my latest article for OpenMedia (header art by yours truly): The Future of Encryption Under Trump. 

"It would be apt to say that the result of the recent U.S. presidential election has thrown many advocacy and civil rights groups into a kind of circumspect panic. President-elect Donald Trump has taken a myriad of misinformed and often shifting policy positions on a great many serious issues, including technology, surveillance, and Internet freedom..."

Read the full article at OpenMedia.org...
  

Traitorous Technology

Last month, on the same day, several HP printers suddenly stopped accepting 3rd-party ink cartridges.

The cause was more sinister than you might think, and raises the question: What happens when built-in firmware makes your devices work for their manufacturers first, and for you second?

Read the full article at OpenMedia.org...

Giving Public Comments to the SECU

Picture courtesy of OpenMedia

Today I was lucky to be able to attend a public consultation by The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, a multi-partisan parliamentary committee tasked with examining Canada's national security apparatuses, and related issues such as oversight. I prepared a short spiel on encryption which, I hoped, would pack as much rhetorical punch as possible into about four minutes. It was enthusiastically received by the public in attendance and by several members of the committee, who provided thoughtful feedback and asked follow-up questions. 

It feels utterly fantastic to have made what I know is a big, positive impact on our country today, and it's a feeling that I know is only going to make me thirst for more. Here's the pre-written version of what I had to say:


My name is Jesse Schooff. I’m a blogger, and I volunteer with OpenMedia. I’ve also worked the IT Manager of a small company for the last decade.

I’m here today because I’m troubled by many aspects of The Anti-terrorism Act of 2015, also colloquially called C51. I’m troubled by the extraordinary powers given to law enforcement. I’m troubled by the implications for Canadian privacy. I’m very troubled by the lack of oversight compared to some of our democratic neighbours. I am extremely troubled by the idea that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – one of the most sacred embodiments of Canadian values – could be sidestepped, even if it is for non-Canadians under the most extraordinary circumstances.

But the main reason I’m here speaking is because, as an IT Professional, I’m concerned, – nay – I am terrified at language of a question in the Online Canadian Security Consultation. I quote:

“How can law enforcement and national security agencies reduce the effectiveness of encryption for individuals and organizations involved in crime or threats to the security of Canada, yet not limit the beneficial uses of encryption by those not involved in illegal activities?”

The short answer is: you can’t.

DON'T Call Me "Ginger"

So today, after being called at on the street by a stranger, I've finally hit my breaking point on the word "ginger".

I have typically been quite hesitant to write about my experiences as a redhead. The biggest reason is because, as a normative-presenting white male, I've lived a life of extraordinary privilege. I feared that discussing a subject which, almost necessarily, might use some of the modern language we employ to discuss prejudice and even oppression, would not only be inappropriate and disrespectful to many groups (who suffer much worse and more frequent injustices) but also wouldn't be received well by my peers, many of whom keenly follow issues of social justice.

That said, one of the things I've been working on lately is finding my own voice, and not feeling like my aforementioned privilege is a reason I shouldn't stand up for myself when I feel I'm being wronged. What follows is my experience, from my shoes as someone with red hair. I don't presume to compare my experience to that of anyone from a different marginalized group, though I would argue that my experience does inform my sense of empathy on certain matters.

With that baggage stowed, let's begin.

Parenting Alongside Technology

My latest blog for OpenMedia.org is the culmination of lots of research, several interviews, and a week of furious writing. I interviewed the parents of four families to find out how they navigate the difficult and complicated matter of parenting alongside modern technologies like video games, snapchat, Facebook, and YouTube. From the article:

One of many topics that the OpenMedia community regularly requests information on is the intersection of parenting and technology. How do I keep my kids safe online? How do I talk to my kids about the Internet? What kinds of rules and boundaries should I set? It’s a doozy of a subject: broad, with lots of complexity, and many subtleties. Furthermore, when many of today’s parents were young, the Internet was young too, so parents often don’t even have a personal frame of reference to gauge if they’re doing an okay job.

Special thanks go to my friend Kurtis Findlay for providing the adorable portraits.

Read the full article at OpenMedia.org...