While I am not attending TIFF, I do like good movies.
Anna Kendrick. Black comedy. Chris Morris’ sensibility. ‘The Day Shall Come,’ is my recommendation for day one of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
Narrative is the word I’m using as touchstone here. Also, ‘Mangoes.’
(I was going to include the trailer link but it gives away so many hilarious moments I decided not to.)
Trigger Warning: Images of actual violence and death are included in this video.
(You can download the video rather than streaming it.)
This video took a lot of effort to complete. The primary themes are on perspective and its origins, influence, struggle, and dimensionality.
My intent in layering images one over the other against a background featuring its own layers was to highlight the ways our perceived reality is shaped over time by nuance and factors we quickly grow accustomed to. A lot is happening throughout this piece, and by changing what elements they focus on, the viewer can shift their understanding of what the imagery means.
One thing I would change about this video, if I could, would be to increase the prominence and frequency of imagery around the parasitic wasp sequences as metaphor for intrusive alien ideation.
The modern world demands a high level of vigilance from anyone hoping to track or trace the source of their beliefs and ideas; a parasitic wasp functions much like actors in the information ecosystem we all live amidst, quietly dominating an entity for its own ends.
I may write more about this at a later date, or I might not. Hope you like it.
You’ll notice every wi-fi hotspot you use asks you to agree to terms of service. These always include the caveat that the network may allow others to see the traffic you’re sending across it. No one hesitates to accept.
My lifestyle has me using public wi-fi to access the internet, always. I’ve long had an interest in computers, networks, and how they function. Network access is something I’ve done troubleshooting on with regularity. Not so much recently. I mention it by way of establishing a little credibility. At any rate that brings me to the point of this post.
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are a reliable, well-established way to keep your web browsing secure from outside observers. Back in 2010 or so VPNs were becoming increasingly prevalent as free and subscription services. Wanting to preserve my personal information while using wide-open public networks, I began making use of these services. They were great, initially. It wasn’t long before they became unusable. This followed a pattern.
At first, arriving at my regular wi-fi hotspots, I’d log in, join my VPN service, and it’d work. Everything went smoothly. It’d function perfectly, for a day or so. Soon enough, they’d fail to connect, making the network unusable. Without the VPN, access worked perfectly. Free or paid VPN, it made no difference.
This pattern spread to every public wi-fi spot. From Starbuck’s to Wendy’s, McDonald’s to A&W, before long every ‘free’ wi-fi offered to the public was unusable as soon as a VPN was engaged.
Every company offering publicly available internet was blocking access to the basic tools available to mitigate the very threat they were warning their users of.
The implications are clear enough. While there has yet to be a scandal (fingers crossed!), the business model offering free services to the public in exchange for rights to profit from their data is widespread, commonplace. Companies offering public wi-fi are collecting all network traffic, for profit. Without getting into the far flung regions of this subject, I’d point out what that entails. Your email address. Your banking details. All of your passwords. Your secret, flirty messages to your online fantasy affair. It’s all being collected and sorted, stored and used as data to model your behaviour.
Frighteningly, everything you’re using in the cloud, including any truly private, legally protected information you might access while working from your local coffee shop is also potentially being stored. All information you send and receive across one of these networks is being collected, recorded, collated and sold. Your personality, interests, economic status, sexuality, and private life are becoming the intellectual property of strangers, organizations who will use that information to extract maximum value from you, for the duration of your life.
Modern-day standards have been implemented to protect internet users from the threat of unauthorized traffic monitoring. Providers are side-stepping those standards, illegally accessing, collecting and profiting from your activity while denying you the power of self-protection. In a nearly Kafkaesque turn, any counter argument can be slapped down with reference to the terms of the agreement you entered into. In a world which increasingly demands access to networks as precondition to everyday living, this is a dangerous foundation to build upon.
Many aspects of this are troubling, though it is when looking at projected social futures the current state of affairs seem most ominous. Imagine your value being estimated at birth, the statistically probable limits of your economic value being projected based on generations of data and models — tried, tested, and deployed for profit and harmony in our technological future. ‘Dystopian’ hasn’t enough room in it to carry all of the hell that world would be.
The impetus for my posting this was the recent experience I had at my local library branch. My computer was hacked.
As part of my tech routine I format and reinstall my OS multiple times a year. I recently did just this. More than 24 hours passed between the format and my next sign-on at the library. Completely fresh install.
I’m familiar with the moods of the TPL network, including how often it requires a new sign-on — multiple times per day, no matter what.
When I connected to the library hotspot, it hit the internet, right away. No sign-in page, no terms of service. This was unusual. Based on evidence, I believe my laptop was being compromised, hacked.
After verifying I was indeed on the internet, I went about looking at the volume of traffic to and from my computer. That effort proved unnecessary. Next thing that happened was a segmentation fault in a privileged part of my OS. A segmentation fault is a form of program crash. Hackers will often use a specific sort of attack which results in a segmentation fault. The attack causes the system to execute code the attacker has crafted to gain privileges, breaking security so they can install software allowing them reliable access in future. In terms of seriousness, it’s many levels above monitoring traffic and collecting information.
What I am alleging here is that the administrators managing that network not only collect and sell user data, but, as with my example, have no qualms about installing software to illegally monitor patrons computer-based activity.
If you need help putting this kind of attack into context, I refer you to the Pegasus revelations. Pegasus is a formalized system of mobile phone hacking which has been connected to assassinations and kidnappings enacted around the world targeting journalists, activists, and uncooperative royals. Kidnapped, harassed, killed — phones compromised using commercially available Pegasus technology figure prominently in facilitating surveillance leading to violence and disappearances. Traces of Pegasus have been found on mobile phones all over the planet, indicating the widespread use of monitoring as a norm.
The power to illegally access private communications devices is not limited to those perceived as a threat to authoritarian governments. Identifiable data linked to an individual is key to profits for a broad range of businesses operating today. What purpose the Toronto Public Library would have for infiltrating and monitoring a patron’s laptop is something I couldn’t speculate on. Nor would I point to the close cooperation in harassment, gaslighting, and psychological abuse between GARDA Security (employed here in the library) and the City of Toronto as a possible basis for this specific incident.
Remember, the library is a public service institution. It’s a not-for-profit operation. It’s not a cog in the machine of a multi-national corporation. It’s an institution dedicated to public service. What part of that, I ask you, is represented by hacking the computers and personal data of the public? Next they’ll be finding security cameras hidden in public bathrooms. Uhhmmmm… they wouldn’t, would they?
In my time homeless I’ve had a lot of dealings with security guards. Some of them are bastards. Some of them are fucking bastards. Some of them are sadistic fucking bastards. Some of them are decent, and some are simply passing through the job, not much invested in it as part of their identity.
Security guards, I’ve noticed, act within the boundaries of the culture of their particular company. Those cultures can vary quite widely. Consider the City of Toronto uniformed security guards. They’re the best and friendliest guards that I’ve ever encountered. In my experience, they go out of their way to accommodate people, applying their own discretion to situations rather than simply consulting a rule book.
Some corporate cultures take a mostly hands-off attitude, keeping out of the way unless action is necessary.
Other cultures, though, make the decision to actively enforce policy by aggressively pursuing outcomes. You can imagine which will be staffed by real people and which will be staffed by cowboys.
I’ve lived and slept a long time on Toronto’s Hospital Row. I’ve seen and experienced some of the ways different hospitals engage as publicly funded institutions.
At one hospital in Toronto, for instance, I have witnessed the security guards who work there take homeless and elderly men violently off the premises. At a hospital! I mention this not because it is an exception, but because it is the rule at that hospital. In at least three instances (over the course of one Winter) I witnessed this sort of behaviour, including a lot of laughter as the group of guards watched an elderly or otherwise infirm homeless person stagger and limp away from the hospital after being ejected.
My own experiences at that hospital have been centred around having an urgent need to use the toilet at early hours. Even in that circumstance I was aggressively approached and told to leave. The rationale on one occassion, according to the three security guards who pounded on the bathroom door, was that I wasn’t registered at Emergency. That doesn’t merit a response, to my thinking.
I’ve got a lot more on this subject and I look forward to casting some light on it.
I just wanted to bring some attention to how near to normal the actions of the security guards who killed that man in Brazil Thursday night are.
And of course open the question of exactly how much authority we are comfortable handing over to people whose only legitimacy stems from a lease agreement and business license.
(This really should be two or three separate posts. I have the opportunity to work here and now, so I’m going ahead and posting what I’ve written, as is.)
Updates have been slow in coming, I’m aware. A post regarding my budget and how I’ve arrived at the figures I am trying to raise is an important step towards the future. It’s coming. Feels like a boundary I need to cross.
Been a hard couple of days. Not entirely sure why. Loneliness. A deepening sense of futility. If it’s not the rain interfering with my writing and work on the fundraiser, it’s eye strain. If it’s not eye strain, it’s interference from security guards.
The municipality, private security, and Police work in coordination to corral and move the homeless around the city. Why? Any number of reasons. Mainly in service of the public perception of homelessness. More about this subject in a later post.
The security company, Garda, and the city have decided to move me on from the place I’ve been prepping my meals and using the internet. They’ve cut power to the socket I’ve been using. Based on events I’ll not go into here, I have reason to believe it was a cooperative effort. It’s frustrating mainly because it’s meant to frustrate. Ah well. I’ve eaten elsewhere.
It’s important to remember security guards have only the authority provided by property rights. In Canada, that amounts to very little. Not to say they cannot take steps, including unprompted violence. They usually prefer not to.
They will, however, go to lengths to orchestrate events which exploit the vulnerable, manifest anger, and create problems where there were none.
I’ve not yet gone into specifics about my experiences at this location, but it includes a security guard trying to destroy my belongings. If it wasn’t so offensive, it’d be funny. That kind of thing, happening in the dark, unseen, is a commonplace interaction for homeless people.
I’m working, slowly, on a piece about the way private security use low-level, quiet harassment against marginalized people, and the broad application of such tactics in urban environments. We’re persistently targeted.
Orchestrated aggression and harassment events are routinely used as a pretext for violence and the criminalization of a target. Furthermore, you may not be aware that even you, a regular, normal, law-abiding member of the public are on file with the security companies operating the commercial spaces you pass through. Who controls that data? What do they do with it? Yes.
The homeless and marginalized are subjected to a high level of profiling, are frequently interfered with, and routinely provoked. Why? Because we are easy targets.
When — or more honestly, if — we stand up for ourselves, witnesses assume we are mentally ill, or we are in the wrong.
This is a broad and important subject I take a serious interest in. Undecided as to whether I should gamble my credibility on writing more deeply about it though.
Returning to the main point… People have offered advice, unsolicited, about what I ought to post, what kind of stories they’d like to see. The problem there is not that they have input, feedback, or advice to offer. I welcome input. I’ve sought it at every step this past year. I need help. Communicating with people means common ground, shared context and experience. I’ve been homeless so long I have no idea what a normal person’s life is like.
No, it’s not that some people have offered feedback. It’s that some have taken the attitude my homelessness is an entertainment, a reality TV show for them to enjoy. Updates about my life on the street is something they want not as a way to understand, or to help them offer the sort of help I’ve spent thirteen years fighting for. Instead, it’s ‘Survivor: Homeless Edition.’
Is it because I’m not a raving lunatic, writhing around, wearing my own filth? Is it because I’ve demonstrated a base level of rationality? I’m not actually dying in front of your eyes, far as you can tell? Must it always come down to perception and timescale? Either way, I am not shifting blame or pointing fingers.
It’s not an uncommon turn of events, people putting their deep-felt pain out into the public. Mourning, challenges, problems, struggles — human suffering often involves a performance today, and it’s an imperfect and nuanced thing. It’s interactive, to a degree, and, importantly, consensual. Not so with my homelessness, my appeal for your help. Sharing is the deal. I have no way to opt out.
Crowd-sourcing a fundraiser means I’m always thinking about my homelessness in relation to others’ experiences and how they filter my life and identity. It’s uncomfortable. It’s necessary. That doesn’t mean my suffering is entertainment. It feels like people have passed that over.
It’s disheartening. I know no other word for it.
(Lol, maybe I should’ve titled this one, ‘Insecurity and Finger Wagging.’ Nah. I like the title I gave it. Never mind it’s from a romantic ballad. It fits. If you want to hear some great versions of the song, try each from Trini Lopez, Ibrahim Ferrer, or Trío Los Panchos.)
