Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4217-1010289551-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Sat, 05 Jan 2002 20:06:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 17306 invoked by uid 510); 6 Jan 2002 04:05:14 -0000 Received: from n28.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.78) by all.net with SMTP; 6 Jan 2002 04:05:14 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4217-1010289551-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [216.115.97.188] by n28.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 06 Jan 2002 03:59:12 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 6 Jan 2002 03:59:11 -0000 Received: (qmail 92579 invoked from network); 6 Jan 2002 03:59:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 Jan 2002 03:59:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.125.69) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 Jan 2002 03:59:11 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g063xWg30622 for iwar@onelist.com; Sat, 5 Jan 2002 19:59:32 -0800 Message-Id: <200201060359.g063xWg30622@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 19:59:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [iwar] [fc:Turning.Snooping.Into.Art] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Turning Snooping Into Art By Noah Shachtman 2:00 a.m. Jan. 5, 2002 PST Itıs a privacy-busting boogeyman to civil libertarians, an anti-terror panacea to lawmakers. And now Carnivore, the FBIıs infamous Internet surveillance program, has become an inspiration to a group of the Web's leading artists. In a collaborative art project called, creatively enough, "Carnivore," Flash guru Joshua Davis and digital artist Mark Napier, along with other artists, have crafted programs that create audiovisual representations of data traffic thatıs observed and hijacked from a local area network. In the last six weeks, a few of the artistsı programs have been making their way to the Web. More will be shown when "Carnivore" makes its public premiere at an exhibition of surveillance art opening later this month at Princeton University. "I wanted to make art that really deals with technology at a core level, art that uses data in its most raw form -- instead of using technology as just a tool to do the same old things," said Alex Galloway, a director at the new media arts group Rhizome that's spearheading the Carnivore project. In other words, if "Carnivore" was a painting, the data would be the canvas and the oils, not just some new-fangled brush. The Carnivore project is built on the backs of two widely distributed open source applications. The server uses the TCPdump application to sniff packets traveling over the local area network on which itıs installed -- currently itıs being used at the Rhizome offices. The packet-sniffer reveals everyone who is sending or receiving information on the network. It also reveals the type of data being sent and the content of the data itself. Once the packets are analyzed, theyıre sent through an IRC serving-program to an IRC chat room. The artistsı client programs then translate this ongoing data diatribe into colors, shapes and sounds. "Amalgamatmosphere," the program designed by Davis (who was called "the best Web designer in the world" by Shift magazine) creates a circular "node" for each person active on the network. The circles change color depending on what the person is doing. For example, using AOL turns the circle forest green; receiving e-mail, teal; browsing the Web, indigo. The more active the user, the bigger the nodes get and the more gravity they take on, drawing the other circles closer to them. The result is a swirling kaleidoscope that is weirdly hypnotic. "Thereıs a rhythm and tone to every activity. You can almost monitor the network base just on what it looks and sounds like. Itıs almost like the life force of what is happening on the network," Davis said. "Amalgamatmosphere" is part of a larger movement by Davis and other Internet artists to create works that are "generative" -- where the artist sets certain parameters and rules to the piece, and then the piece grows on its own, on based on those guidelines. "Ordinary (art) is like engineering, where everythingıs built according to a plan, and itıs the same every time," said Brian Eno, the electronic music pioneer. "Generative music is more like gardening -- you plant a seed, and it grows different every time you plant." "I like the idea of letting go of control. Of creating a toy, throwing it in a room, and letting the kids play with it," said Davis. "Before I was interested more in interactive stuff, in user input. This is kind of a next step for me. Here the data is playing within the boundaries, rather than the people." "Carnivore" is doing more than pushing art theory bounds. Like its federal namesake, the Carnivore art project has generated controversy. Princeton authorities were, at first, reluctant to connect it to their computers. "One could hardly imagine a university welcoming a sniffer onto its network," said Tom Levin, the Princeton professor curating the surveillance exhibition. "It wouldıve opened a window through which every hacker student wouldıve jumped." In order to make "Carnivore" palatable, university geeks created a subnet for the project, in which only packets from computers in the exhibition would be sniffed. "It provides a kind of data apartheid so that no one on the network will feel compromised," Levin said. The Princeton show is the outgrowth of a larger surveillance exhibition that Levin curated at the ZKM, the German new media arts center. Several of the works displayed at the ZKM will also come to Princeton, including the New York Surveillance Camera Project. German audiences will get to see "Carnivore" in February, when it shows at the Transmediale in Berlin. From there, it moves to Illinois State Universityıs Bloomington campus, and then to New York Cityıs New Museum in May. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Tiny Wireless Camera under $80! Order Now! FREE VCR Commander! 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