Rainblog

In today’s despatch from the You Could Not Make This Up department, Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have jointly proposed an Internet code of conduct. The proposed code demands that countries show respect for “human rights and fundamental freedoms”, and work to combat “criminal and terrorist activities that use information and communications technologies”. It also enjoins states not to use the Internet to “carry out hostile activities or acts of aggression”.

It would perhaps be impolite to point out that none of the four backers are really known for their enlightened position on human rights, and when it comes to “criminal … activities that use … communications technologies”, Russia might want to deal with some of its own thriving population of hackers, spammers, carders and DDoS specialists before telling the rest of the world how to behave. As for “hostile activities or acts of aggression”, there’s reason to think that neither China nor Russia are innocent of this particular charge. Of course both nations claim to be more sinned against than sinning, with the Russian government in particular denying any involvement in, say, attacks against LiveJournal or regional rivals. (These attacks are usually blamed on a few overenthusiastic patriots; naturally, the Russian state deplores such anti-social behavior).

Which raises the question: whose idea was this, and were they able to keep a straight face when they presented it?

Try explaining this one to someone from the nineteenth century: according to the Guardian, prisoners in China are being forced to ‘farm’ gold for World of Warcraft. The prisoners, who have been sentenced to hard labor, work on physical tasks by day. By night, they are forced to play World of Warcraft to generate virtual gold, which their guards then resell to players in the West.

It’s a concept that properly belongs in a cyberpunk novel, but the abuse is real. And maybe I’m wrong in suggesting that you couldn’t explain it to someone from the nineteenth century. People in positions of power have been exploiting others to get rich for most of recorded history, and people in comfortable situations have always enjoyed the results without asking too many questions about where it all came from. Everything I eat or use was probably created in part or in whole by someone whose working conditions and standard of living are very much less comfortable than mine.

I’d always hoped that information technology might be a great equalizer, allowing poor countries with smart people to compete head-to-head with the rich world. To some extent, that’s proved true: look at the growth of the outsourcing industry in India and elsewhere. But the flip side of the IT revolution is that mindless rote tasks can also be exported, to be performed by people who are reduced to pairs of eyes and hands, their economic value determined by work that brings in fractions of a penny for every operation. As the Chinese example shows, it’s a sector that is ripe for coercion and abuse.

In the film “The Matrix”, the sinister world of the intelligent machines is powered by immense farms of human beings, locked up in individual capsules to generate energy for their mechanical masters. As a concept, this always struck me as poetic but impractical: the human being is hardly an efficient source of the kind of energy that machines would need. Still, in a metaphorical sense, that might be where we’re headed. Maybe we’re already living in a Mechanical Turk future, with vast populations of information workers in cramped cells churning away at repetitive tasks, making intangible assets in imaginary spaces for someone else’s benefit - and amusement.