Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Big Data, Mass Surveillance and Magic Detection


Sometimes a confluence of reading different books gets me thinking about strange ideas. Besides finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last week, I also worked my way through Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier, and this past weekend I started on Explorations in Giftedness by Robert Sternberg.

Schneier’s book is subtitled “The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World”. Readers are introduced to the world of clandestine and not-so-clandestine surveillance, made increasingly more powerful as we share more of our personal information through a vastly interconnected Internet. The significant price reduction in storage space means that it is now cheap for governments to collect data, and potentially sift through it later. Some of the things that corporations and governments do are problematic and antithetical to liberty and freedom. Schneier issues a clarion call to the public towards political pressure to change the way things are headed. The book is easy to read, contains many vignettes related to the NSA documents leaked by Snowden, and one is introduced to the world of hackers. Schneier argues that privacy and security are not mutually exclusive and in fact should go hand-in-hand, and that the public has easily given up privacy because of government fear-mongering.

Sternberg’s book goes through a history of studying “giftedness” starting with the well-known longitudinal study carried out by Terman. Since then there have been many formulations of what giftedness means, how it is measured, and how the gifted should be educated. I’m partway through the book so I haven’t gotten to the suggested educational approaches yet. The book is more academic in nature, and therefore is slower reading. Besides comparing and contrasting the models of giftedness provided by others in the field, Sternberg also elaborates on his model that goes by the acronym WICS – Wisdom, Intelligence, Creativity, Synthesized. While intelligence and creativity are often emphasized in many models, wisdom isn’t typically a word that comes up. Sternberg’s model of giftedness is dynamic as individuals change over time, and the environment also plays an important role in the development of giftedness, i.e., Sternberg (like many others) does not think that IQ tests tell the whole story. There is an interesting chapter on how intelligence is defined or emphasized differently in different cultures. I will soon be getting to the chapters on identifying the gifted and educating the gifted.

All this made me think about how youngsters are identified so that they can be invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. How does the school know who to invite? In the case of a magical family where everyone is capable of wielding magic, then it’s probably pretty straightforward in a small tight-knit Wizarding community. What about the cases where the parents are magic-users but the child is a Squib? Maybe word gets around in the Wizarding community so that the school knows who not to invite. But is this person truly a Squib or simply a very late bloomer? Is there a difference? The most interesting cases however have to do with Muggle-borns. How were Dean Thomas and Hermione Granger identified? One might ask how Tom Riddle Junior (a.k.a. Lord Voldemort) was identified given that the Gaunts lived like outcasts from the magical world and their affairs were not widely known. (Here's an earlier post speculating on how magic is related to genetics and environment.)

One possible way this could take place is if there was someone like Professor X of the X-Men, who when connected to Cerebro, can identify mutants through his telepathic powers. In this case there is some “signature” in the thought pattern of mutants that is distinguishable from non-mutants. No such person has been identified in the world of Harry Potter. Or perhaps there is a device in the Ministry of Magic that does something like this? How might it work? In analogy to the Big Data world of the internet we live in, one could piece together a lot of data (and the more we share the more there will be) to really get at the habits of a person. Tell-tale signs might identify someone’s habits, interests, activities, and more. In the same way, maybe by monitoring the “airwaves” (EM radiation rears its head again!), the magic community can read “magic” signatures.

These signatures aren’t completely accurate though. For example when Dobby casts a spell in Privet Drive in Book 2, Harry is blamed for performing under-aged magic.  So it seems there is a magic detection mechanism, but it cannot be pinpointed to a particular individual. In this particular case it could not distinguish human and elf magic. So is the Ministry of Magic listening around for signs of magic? They must do so to keep the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. They seem to operate somewhat like the Men In Black. When there is a big mess-up that reveals the existence of aliens on the planet, the Men In Black have to use memory wipes and plant a false memory or story to keep the alien world secret.

But if there are signatures of Magic that can be read through the “airwaves”, shouldn’t Muggles with their satellites start to be able to pick this up? There should be a tell-tale sign. As we collect more and more data about EVERYTHING, maybe a strange signature will come up. Maybe it already has but we haven’t recognized it yet – or perhaps we have come up with an alternative explanation that is “scientific”. Now I don’t think there really is a magic-using community (or aliens and men-in-black hiding in plain sight), nor do I think that we’re all hooked up to the Matrix, but I can’t conclusively prove otherwise simply based on sensory data. Should we analyze the data to check anyway? This reminds me of what SETI does – we’re listening to the outer space airwaves for signs of alien life? Maybe we should listen on our own planet. Or maybe it’s already there and there’s a big government cover-up – the plot for many a story!

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