I agree with Professor Drossos that the work of mathematicians on whole-population surveillance is dangerous. Not only does such widespread surveillance destroy the possibility of privacy and private communications, it also tends calls into question the amount oversight required to prevent misuse of garnered information by government agencies.

Not only mathematicians to do spooks... the worst unreliable is the service providers such as Internet and Telcom guys..Encryption what ever you do is not God sent random numbers it based on some wave form algorithms mostly based on certain shapes so that the pattern is available for RESETTING format whenever required and also facilitates trouble-shoot.

We are now living in an era where "we close our eyes and make ourselves revealed"

This is a very important question! As Tom Leinster says:

"Our work, then, can be used for both good and ill. Unfortunately for us, it is the latter that is in the public eye. Already unpopular for our role in the banking crash, we now have our largest employer running a system of whole-population surveillance that even a judge appointed by George W. Bush called "almost Orwellian".

We should notice, the two big involvements of mathematicians:

1. The Banking crash and the huge dept which vanish a lot of people and countries too.

2. The system of whole-population surveillance!

I might said that these two have been doing to humanity a worts service than the atonic bomb.

Ahh....... the ethical dilemma, "tis an interesting beast to debate", the winner is only ever the institution, never the individual.

Unfortunately the writings by Tom Leinster are in effect asking individuals to consciously limit their possible achievements or even possibly have a job. Whilst I can see the argument being presented, I know there are many who may suggest that its all well and good for someone, in a comfortable position to argue the high moral position, completely ignoring those struggling to progress in their career. Even asking Universities to refuse money/commissions from such organisations may well limit what those universities can achieve.

I think we would have to be very naive to think that our contributions to any organisation such as the NSA, GCHQ or ASIO are totally inconsequential. Why would these organisation employ if was not for the benefits that are gained?

It is the same problem with Physicists that are working in obvious or hidden modern weapon developement. Manhattan project was probably the first such project, but now the borders between applied research and weapon development are narrow: You are working in a laboratory on a new laser beam and after two years you realize that your work has been used in order to make a new satelite laser weapon beam... Of course for the current dilemma the situation is much more clear, since a Mathematician knows that he/she works for an intelligence agency, so the decision and the consequences from it are on his/her shoulders only and he/she cannot claim later that "I didn't know...".

Personally I don't agree with the concept of 'scientist employee' in such agencies, since our work can be used without the existence of such a formal work relation (Knowledge is open to everyone, so agencies have also access to it, so let's don't help them to use it against us!)

Do we really have a choice?

Dear Michael,

As intelligence services are for obscure and particular (not exclusively common) interests, Tom Leinster’s call is a honourable try. I think all of us should follow similar principles.

Dear Ahmad,

Yes, each of us does have it !

I fail to understand why mathematicians are singled out and/or targeted!

Period!

I agree with @András Bozsik that all of us should follow similar principles.

@Tobias, there are other groups that can be mentioned in this context but the NSA state that they are the biggest employer of mathematicians in the US. And Tom as a mathematician is referring to this fact. To ignore that would mean to accept these monstrous activities and to get used to personal surveillance without reasonable (not even sneaking) suspicion.

It is not only in intelligence serivices we mathematicians in particular and scientists in general that should not participate to suffocate society, but in any company that profits loftily from our works and treat members of society as disposable objects. The works of scientists should be to benefit the welbieng of the envirnoment, collective welfare of the human society and bring humans more closer in cooperation, communication and a culture of openess.

For instance the boycot of a publishing company by prominent mathematicians, because of its lofty profits from the works of others which recieve no penny for their works, is a point in case.

All of us are afraid of surveillance based Orwellian societies. All of us are worried that some of our democratically elected government are secretly putting in place a surveillance infrastructure and that most of the information coming to us comes from delators, conscience objector such as Snowden. We are told by our democratically governments that yes a minimal surveillance infrastructure is being put in place for our protection agains terrorist. For our own good! Hmm! I do not like the way it is being done presently and the total lack of transparency regarding the real objective, who have access , ect.

That being said we have to look at this topic from other perspectives. Orwell warned us against this possibility because of the rise of the Marxism authoritarian states and what they could do if equipped with surveillance technologies, not only human surveillance.

But there is another totally different perspective one can adopt towards this question of surveillance and it is not the perspective of Orwell , nor that of the prevention against terrorist. It is a perspective on what is about the nature of the homo sapiens sapiens, why it evolved and where its civilisation is evolving towards. To make a potential long story short, lets say that since the evolution of mammals the trend has been towards the formation of collective actions and the key to the coordination of action has been the outer expressing of internal state. Human language evolved for that, writing allowed the broadcasting and stabilisation and extended message. Internet has permitted instant communication between all of us. We are rapidly moving towards a collective coordination of our actions by electronic communication on a global scale. The next step is the creation of a monitoring core of all human actions so that automated tools of human coordination could be available to all of us for all inimaginable kind of action cooperation which would lead even closer not to a big brother but to a Gaia with a brain, the vision of multiple visionaries, a collective type of stellar being (The expression of Theilard).

Now how do we get there without this tremendous power of monitoring be highjack by all the potential big brothers lurking out there. Here is the task of the mathematicians. How to create a monitoring core whose access is fully controled for the common good and cannot be breached by malevolent big brother in the waiting.

I would put it in another way. Lets say that we as scientists oppose this method of surveillance. What then, about other controversial subjects, should we as scientists oppose (and directly or indirectly control) what the other segment of the population does with science?

This is not to say that we as individuals should voice concern about such matters (and as a matter of fact we should), what I'm just saying is that in choosing a concerted movement as an important part of society we should be careful of not falling on the same patterns as those that we choose to oppose.

Just a thought

I do support Tom Leinster's call not to help intelligence services...! As @Andras and many of you have said, we should follow follow the same principles. I do speak about whole research community!

If intelligent services have mission to protect nation safety against any predatory attack, sure that they do have their own employees and may be their scientists, mathematicians and others. If these services turn into obscure corporations for the benefit of lobbies (financial and political), they become problematical for any nation safety, and may be for worldwide safety. The work of scientists is for general purpose benefit and organized through known funding. Their knowledge is shared publicly through publications, meetings and conferences, however could it be stolen or transferred inadvertently by any part 'services or enterprise' and used differently or transformed for another purpose??? by what mean scientist could better protect their work from any form of predation??

If you want to see by a simple case how deep we are in the big brotherhood , read this:

Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University, had an idea: would it be possible to hide her pregnancy from big data? Thinking about technology—the way we use it and the way it uses us—is her professional life’s work. Pregnant women, she knew, are a marketing gold mine; a pregnant woman’s marketing data is worth 15 times as much as the average person’s. Could Vertesi, a self-declared “conscientious objector” of Google ever since 2012, when they announced to users that they’d be able to read every email and chat, navigate all the human and consumer interactions having a baby would require and keep big data from ever finding out?

Here’s what she found:

http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/04/29/3432050/can-you-hide-from-big-data/

Great link, Louis.

Science, whether Math or Physics or Chemistry should be used for the betterment of mankind. I think everybody is with using science for the benefit of mankind and against misusing science in wars and destructive activities.

I agree with Professor Drossos that the work of mathematicians on whole-population surveillance is dangerous. Not only does such widespread surveillance destroy the possibility of privacy and private communications, it also tends calls into question the amount oversight required to prevent misuse of garnered information by government agencies.

Tony,

If scientists would have to consider nationality, border, culture, or religion boundaries before communicating then we should close RG. We can speak human to human accross any type of border.

Tony,

We are here simply expressing opinions among US humans. No one should feel oblige to conform to someone else opnion. You and every one should not feel ashame of their opninions just because someone else has a different one.

Tony, I think it is because we don't understand each other.

You say, someone can do whatever they want because they can do it.

I say, don't do what you don't want to be done to you (something like Kant's categorical imperative, if you may). If you feel happy (or content at least) to be observed by Big Bro - your choice. Don't get fooled, we Europeans don't need BB watching us (or US).

It is clear to me that European and American culture is different. Why not? I think we have to go ahead and build better systems - for sure.

If we are worried about big brother or the like the answer to your question is that everyone in the world should jump on board and be in the loop of help.

Right now there are many people in the loop and the organizations that want to sift though the data start to do that. The real work is being done in the people that are not in the system. This is where they will find the problems.

Think of it as a math problem.

7 billion people

6 billion people are in or on the system.

So if I push everyone into the system it becomes impossible to find the needle in the hay stack. Right now they are looking at the people that are not in the system more than the ones that are in the system. So old style communications and last century technology is where many of the focuses are.

If everyone were in the system 7 billion peoples communications every day would be almost impossible to go though in a meaningful way.

This is a statistical problem. You can have machines look through the data but after that they pick out a small set of documents to look at. Then this is where it gets sticky. You have to have at some point people go through the documents that the machines have flagged. This means that the bottle neck is in the people side of things. If everyone has documents that make that list then it is impossible to in the next century go though the documents. This is the down fall of this type of system.

I advocate not working for the NSA or DOD (if at all--not for a very long time), but I come from the most over-militarized (read militarism land), the USA.

So, starting anywhere to stop the militarized mindset is good, but I can think of other ways to do it besides boycotting whole industries or all government agencies.

By the way, I know a person from my alma mater who does mathematics for CIA etc. while being a professor. So, the point is that working for the NSA or the government or government contractors is quite common. I tell the friend not to do it, but he never listened (or listens) and never will.

On the other hand, a government contractor, like Edward Snowden, shows another way to approach a national security state. In all countries, there have been individuals who have followed his path and idealism. Here is one tale of such a man in even Nazi-Occupied Germany (1930s and 1940s): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260455491_The_relationship_between_an_SS-WhistleBlower_in_Nazi_Germany_and_what_we_need_to_be_witnessing_MORE_OF?ev=prf_pub

Article The relationship between an SS-WhistleBlower in Nazi Germany...

Nash''s equilibrium is an example of how agencies can use ideas of mathematicians.

http://books.google.com.om/books?id=mWz-5-qq8rMC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=nash+equilibrium+CIA+central+intelligence+agency&source=bl&ots=iv9dn9tRL8&sig=7Y0A_qK3_NI7omyzszHTAvDo384&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_C5vU57cB4eu0QWBvIGICA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=nash%20equilibrium%20CIA%20central%20intelligence%20agency&f=false

Interestingly, Nash himself suffered from hallucinations, which has led me at times to believe that working with the CIA (even in fantasy) can lead to bad for the mathematician as well as the scientific field.

Could the CIA have dropped an LSD-like material in John Nash's food?

http://9-11themotherofallblackoperations.blogspot.com/2012/04/is-noble-laureate-john-nash-beautiful.html

What is privacy if you are dead? I know invading in people's privacy is really bad but maybe we should look at it from their perspective. if there are other solutions then it is worth fighting for. At the same time using mathematicians to build bombs is monstrous and that was the genesis of insecurity among nations.

Dear Michael,

The article from Tom Leinsters focuses on the USA situation of mathematicians. What is this discussion like in other lands, like Germany.

Kevin

Herrn Brueckner,

Koennen Sie mir bitte etwas auf deutch ueber diesen Themen zusenden? Insbesonderes wuerde ich gern wissen, wieviele Prozenten von den Mathematiker in Deutschland oder Europa sich verdraengt fuellen, und nur Arbeite mit den Sicherheitsgesellshaften und Regierungen finden koennen.

Kevin@ that's very interesting what you've written in German!

Janina and Michael,

I raise the issue because without mathematicians and actuarial scientists etc. none of the bombs or military and surveillance devices could properly be developed. When I lived in Germany many years ago, I lived in a city where the specialization of safety engineering was developed at university doctoral levels for the first time. I had been happy to see there were so many outlets stemming from such scientific and research/educational communities which did not have to do with things that went boom nor spied on me.

However, when I returned to Germany to live after an absence of two decades, I discovered my students being assigned as support staff for local NATO and USA military commands. The world had changed in other words. After these two different experiences living and working in Germany, I wonder what the status quo is like in the employment sectors these days in Germany and throughout Europe.

Kevin, I understand what you mean. That's what we all observe in our countries in the last two decades. Many Questions prpbably will need to be answered and a lot willl remain unexplained. That's what I really think of the changes.Regards.

Greenwald: Harper Government Exploiting Recent Attacks to Expand Powers

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/27/greenwald-harper-government-exploiting-recent-attacks-expand-powers

The abuse of power by the shadowy security agencies of the so-called "Five Eyes" governments—which include Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and the UK—is "stunning," Greenwald said. "[T]hese five governments... have instituted a system of mass surveillance as self-evidently consequential, with such profound, far-reaching implications, as a system of mass surveillance, without a whiff of disclosure or debate among the citizenry that are supposed to hold them democratically accountable."

"The implications for democracy are incredibly profound and our ability as citizen to understand what our government is doing," he added.

The most compelling reason to confront Western governments’ fear-mongering and emotional manipulation, Greenwald said, is that the U.S. and its allies are embarking on "a path of endless war" in the wake of the attacks on September 11:

The pattern is clear. We do something (militarily) in that part of the world that generates all sorts of rage and fury, rightly or wrongly. That rage and fury causes a tiny percentage of the people in that world to want to bring violence back to us.

When the violence is brought back to us, we immediately demand that our government further erode civil liberties and we need even more militarism, which in turn inflames that part of the world more and causes more violence to be brought back to us in a never-ending spiral.

So, the actions of the governments mentioned follow a hidden agenda? Some would say this is another conspiracy theory but I must agree on the consequences for our societies following military actions that are not clearly defensive of nature. On the other hand, China is collecting Big (personal) Data without real or imaginary threat from the outside.

How can we in the 'free world' react? Do we really still live in a free world?

Michael,

You pose another very good question here.  Are we really free?  For this we must ask if the governments of the world are controlling us or if we are controlling them?  By control I mean influence.  We can never really control what someone other than our self does but we can made it hard for them to do the wrong thing.

Society needs to stop thinking that others are out to get them.  This paranoid behavior can only lead to bad decisions.  We as a people are much more level headed than that and need to make sure that we are safe but not crazy.  

There is enough insanity in the world without leaders being put in charge that think the rest of the world is out to get them.  Most of the world just wants to be able to be safe and able to pursue truth.   

In response to the Greenwald article on Canada noted by LB (above),...other sources point to the fact that racism and so-called media or propaganda, known as "racialization" of a news topic.  

See: http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/racialization-continues-to-dominate-in-canadian-narrations-and-responses-to-shootings-in-canada-last-week/

Now, much new scholarly or at least academic level work is going into ethno-mathematics or the ethno-biases in mathematics education and experience of peoples around the globe.

A few articles on this are: 

Ethnomathematics and the challenges of racism

in mathematics education

http://mes3.learning.aau.dk/Plenaries/Powell.pdf

Researching Race in Mathematics Education

http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=15226

Mathematics Learning and Participation as Racialized Forms of Experience: African American Parents Speak on the Struggle for Mathematics Literacy

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327833mtl0803_2#.VFDErTSUde8

Eracing Race....

http://books.google.com.om/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QJTkBBHbIuQC&oi=fnd&pg=PT190&dq=racism+and+mathematics&ots=tUY5afbcKp&sig=T2kGDOUYr9QDUfxjrPNCVH3NL28&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=racism%20and%20mathematics&f=false

I share this because I think this positing and discussion on race, mathematics and for example the CIA triangulates back to a general image or stereotype. of the CIA as being a White Anglo Saxon creation stemming from Ivy League campuses--especially to Yale and Texas A&M.

In our discussion, we have discussed our horror and the lack of trust created by a field of study financed so heavily by the NSA and other groups intent on controlling others and investigating our fellow beings.  However, we haven't talked about the principles variables in societies (and mathematics communities and education) that have led to scientific and mathematical dependencies on CIA and other KGB-like or STASI-like  phenomena.

NOTE: Biases in statistical sampling among minority groups has created other biases in fields of mathematics and a variety of areas of publication of findings.  http://www.gesis.org/fileadmin/upload/forschung/publikationen/zeitschriften/mda/Vol.8_Heft_1/MDA_Vol8_2014-1_Salentin.pdf

Also, stereotypes effect science adversely in general.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/february25/stereotype-threat-harms-latent-ability-022509.html

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs

I think that those services have their inner schools and professionals, may be mathematicians, doctors, physicists, physicians, etc.. However, these services should be right means for countries' safety from criminality; corruption, terrorism, fascism, cheating, attacks from any enemy etc....they should be independent from any political, financial and authoritative organization and shouldn't turn to an authoritative power themselves. i think that their mission is primordial for any country's safety and independence.

@Fairouz, I am wondering how 'those services' (we talk about tens of thousands of employees) can be thoroughly monitored if there is not political or authoritative power steering them in the right direction. Regarding the US, those services were harshly criticized for their 'limited power to collect useful information'. In the aftermath of 9/11 the government pushed them ahead to control the communication networks more effectively. Now they observe us at our computer desks and spy on our mobile communication - in soccer we say, they massively overhitted the ball.

I am afraid, George's analysis posted yesterday is very true. The problem is not the behavior services as such but the agenda of the steering committees populated by politicians and lobbyists. The agenda has to change.

Thanks, @Kevin, for introducing me (and others) to this important field of study. A satirist would probably talk about the De-Ku-Klux-Clanization of mathematics education.

Now our Harper's government is doing the next expected move for the murdering of the soldier that defenced our freedom.  Now our dear government is going to protect our freedom against these terrorists.  How will it do that? By preventing the terrorist act.  How will do that? By spying everybody.  By crimilizing any expression of support of a terrorist act.  etc. etc.  in summary by erading our freedom in the name of protecting it.  the concilor (futur emperor) in Goerge Lucas's star war proceeded in the same way.

I agree with you @Michael that these ten of thousands of employees should be controlled and monitored in the right way as mentioned by @George to do fairly their job outside paranoia behavior . So their monitoring should be independent from political, financial, industrial (including militarily industry),  ...lobbying influences, unless they couldn't be objective and could turn them selves into lobbies with hidden or black agendas, in that case their mission for countries' safety and independence could be weaken. A control from governments is more reliable to their independence as people in democracy governments do change implying change of people controlling institutions which could reduce on them some lobbies influences.

However the hole process of the power or the search of it is under military power control as well into democracies and none democracies; when the military industrial machine needs markets , they invent wars or terrorism or ....

Dear friends, this article, The Mathematical Community and the National Security Agency, as well as other discussions attached may contribute this rich discussion!

http://www.ams.org/notices/201406/rnoti-p623.pdf

Surveillance and Capture: Two models of surveillance,

By Philip Agre, 1994

http://asounder.org/resources/agre_surveillance.pdf

The “surveillance model,” currently dominant in the

public discourse of at least the English-speaking

world, is built upon visual metaphors and derives

from historical experiences of secret police

surveillance.

A less familiar alternative, the “capture model,” has

manifested itself principally in the practices of

information technologists; it is built upon linguistic

metaphors and takes as its prototype the deliberate

reorganization of industrial work activities to allow

computers to track them in real time.

Why should we be preocupy by surveillance? Because :

''Totalitarianism is always a project of absolute control of every single aspect of a person’s existence, from cradle to grave and beyond. It is antithetical to privacy, because even a person’s most intimate actions, thoughts and desires must become totally transparent to those in control. If one does not voluntarily submit to these intrusions, then one is shamed and, if necessary, coerced. If one does not voluntarily confess one’s crimes, then one is threatened and sometimes isolated or tortured. Totalitarian systems assume that everyone has something to hide and therefore to confess, and yet these systems are themselves highly secretive. While requiring total transparency from those they control, they demand total opacity for their own conduct.''

The Eye of Sauron Is the Modern Surveillance State

Tolkien, not Orwell, understood today’s spying best.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/07/tolkien_v_orwell_who_understood_modern_surveillance_best.html

Louis Brassard brings up a wider issue.  This is namely the embedding of our lives and workplace in what can either be objectively or subjectively perceived as a totalitarian regime--at work place, within the bands of our life choices, and how we think about things.

Mathematicians and psychologists in my homeland (USA) are embedded greatly in a regime of permanent war at this date.  Universities must offer alternative world views, training, research and other options related to work and living. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261474902_How_to_Think_and_Survive_in_a_Militarized_US_Society

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265416237_Spiral_of_silence_ensues_when_we_begin_one-by-one_silencing_ourselves_in_social_media_so_as_not_to_be_embarrassingly

Article How to Think and Survive in a Militarized US Society

Article "Spiral of silence" ensues when we begin one-by-one silencin...

@Louis, thanks so much for your last post with the link to the Tolkien/Orwell debate, of whom I know only the latter in terms of reading. I've regarded Tolkien as trivial (elves?, but the post you've linked to shows some deeper thoughts that may be associated with Tolkien's Ring (we both know the other one, the Nibelungen one, having a very different background). 

With the recently published details on US security agencies' mismanagement, to say the least, it seems to be more and more embarrassing to support them, e.g. the CIA. Where can the experts move from there? Follow Edward?

I recommend the 2014 documentary film (can be freely seen on the internet) : Citizenfour ; it shows the behind the scene of the Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal.  It was shot during the events. It  won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Oscars.