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Fichtner, Laura

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Fichtner, Laura Credits for cover images: The Opte project: http://www.opte.org/ Free under creative commons license for non-commercial use Picture of NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland Under creative commons license: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Security_Agency_headquarters,_Fort_Meade,_M aryland.jpg For her support for the cover: many thanks to Eva Müller! Scientia est Potentia: Techno-Politics as Network(ed) Struggles Laura Fichtner Master thesis: Laura Fichtner, s1346946 Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society (MSc) University of Twente Dr. Michael Nagenborg (1st supervisor), Prof. Peter-Paul Verbeek (2nd supervisor) Date: 09.10.2014 TECHNO - POLITICS AS NETWORK(ED) STRUGGLES | 1 Abstract Following 2013’ summer of surveillance I investigate the technological operation of the NSA’s internet surveillance programs Upstream, PRISM and Quantumtheory, which intercept strategically from within the United States. Moreover, I analyze corresponding counter-surveillance technologies. The research results show how internet techno-politics shape the contemporary political landscape. In the techno-politics of surveillance we see how particular technological structures become intrinsic to political forms, because they come with certain social structures. Acting through technological structures, political groups can govern and structure interactions in the way legislation traditionally would. I develop my framework out of the philosophy of pragmatist John Dewey, for whom technological networks and infrastructures played a significant role in politics. However, he still saw technological structures as extrinsic to political forms. I suggest expanding his framework and explore, based on the work of Susan Leigh Star and Geoffrey C. Bowker, how technological infrastructures can become intrinsic to politics. Because they give rise to flows which (re)organize spatial relations in what Manuel Castells has titled the new ‘space of flows’, different networks embed different socio-political structures. As Alexander Galloway has demonstrated, such structures can be characterized by (different) network diagrams. My empirical research on the operation of surveillance and counter-surveillance technologies shows how the two organize flows on the network differently. The NSA aspires a centralized structure whose hierarchy allows it to control the network; counter-surveillance movements aim at a distributed network with flat hierarchies. The two antagonists are hence opposed in a network struggle. This struggle is possible because the internet consists of different layers with different structures. The NSA operates through the physical layer, where it has a privileged position in a decentralized geography of data flows, while counter- surveillance operates through the distributed protocological layer. It is directed at strengthening protocols which protect from surveillance. Both network types are not inherently democratic, but would need democratic governance from outside. But since they operate through technological activity instead of public discourse, techno-politics happen outside the public’s experience and pose a challenge to (Dewian) democracy. The NSA surveillance programs analyzed in this master thesis are particularly problematic, because they govern a global public in the interest of a nation state. They can do so because they have a privileged position in the internet’s global geography. TECHNO - POLITICS AS NETWORK(ED) STRUGGLES | 2 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2: Pragmatism .......................................................................................................................... 13 The Pragmatist Framework ............................................................................................................... 14 The human condition. ................................................................................................................... 15 Technology. ................................................................................................................................... 16 Concepts & experiences. ............................................................................................................... 18 Values. ........................................................................................................................................... 19 ICTs. ............................................................................................................................................... 20 Dewey’s The Public and its Problems ................................................................................................ 21 The public. ..................................................................................................................................... 21 Infrastructures. .............................................................................................................................. 23 The state. ....................................................................................................................................... 26 Democracy. .................................................................................................................................... 27 Eclipse of the public. ...................................................................................................................... 30 Power Structures ............................................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 3: Infrastructures ..................................................................................................................... 36 Infrastructure .................................................................................................................................... 37 The underneath. ............................................................................................................................ 37 Contingency. .................................................................................................................................. 39 Standardization. ............................................................................................................................ 40 Network Diagrams ............................................................................................................................. 41 Diagrams & flows. .......................................................................................................................... 41 Centralized & distributed networks. ............................................................................................. 43 Internet layers. .............................................................................................................................. 44 Security. ......................................................................................................................................... 47 Space of Flows ................................................................................................................................... 49 The notion of space. ...................................................................................................................... 49 Network diagrams as abstract spaces. .......................................................................................... 51 Space & place. ............................................................................................................................... 51 The space of flows. ........................................................................................................................ 53 Surveillant Assemblage ..................................................................................................................... 55 Chapter 4: Internet Surveillance ........................................................................................................... 58 TECHNO - POLITICS AS NETWORK(ED) STRUGGLES | 3 The Internet’s Physical Layer ............................................................................................................. 59 Internet geography. ....................................................................................................................... 61 Internet exchange points. ............................................................................................................. 64 NSA’s Surveillance Technologies ....................................................................................................... 66 Room 641A. ................................................................................................................................... 66 Narus STA 6400. ............................................................................................................................ 68 Splitter function. ............................................................................................................................ 69 The Surveillance Network ................................................................................................................. 70 Centralized surveillance. ............................................................................................................... 70 NSA’s surveillant assemblage. ......................................................................................................
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