Activists and artists now build counter-surveillance tools to achieve invisibility

Evidence

I have suggested that too many of the best and brightest of a new generation devote their genius to the intensification of the click-stream. Equally more poignant is the way in which a new generation of activists, artists, and inventors feels itself called to create the art and science of hiding. The intolerable conditions of glass life compel these young artists to dedicate their genius to the prospects of human invisibility, even as their creations demand that we aggressively seek and find our bearings. Their provocations already take many forms: signal-blocking phone cases, false fingerprint prosthetics that prevent your fingertips from being “used as a key to your life,” LED privacy visors to impede facial-recognition cameras, a quilted coat that blocks radio waves and tracking devices, a scent diffuser that releases a metallic fragrance when an unprotected website or network is detected on any of your devices, a “serendipitor app” to disrupt any surveillance “that relies on subjects maintaining predictable routines,” a clothing line called “Glamouflage” featuring shirts covered with representations of celebrity faces to confuse facial-recognition software, anti-neuroimaging surveillance headgear to obstruct digital invasion of brain waves, and an anti-surveillance coat that creates a shield to block invasive signals. Chicago artist Leo Selvaggio produces 3-D–printed resin prosthetic masks to confound facial recognition. He calls his effort “an organized artistic intervention.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1561

Categorization

• CANDY: The ‘Glamouflage’ shirts covered in celebrity faces to fool facial recognition is a vivid, tweetable tidbit about counter-surveillance creativity.
• SEED: Angles on the hidden arms race of anti-surveillance gadgets — false-fingerprint prosthetics, LED privacy visors, scent-diffuser cybersecurity — as civilian defense against data extraction.
• XREF: connects to: Protesters are designing anticounter-surveillance tools against surveillance capitalism — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1562; Artists weaponize surveillance tools’ own metrics to resist extraction — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1564; Artists reverse-engineer surveillance algorithms to exploit their blind spots — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1563 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Protesters are designing anticounter-surveillance tools against surveillance capitalism #corroborates (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1562
• Yellow vests functioned as a counter-surveillance protest technology #exemplifies (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 335
• Artists weaponize surveillance tools’ own metrics to resist extraction #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1564
• Artists reverse-engineer surveillance algorithms to exploit their blind spots #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1563
• Even imperfect invisibility can sustain the illusion of constant surveillance #qualifies (0.75) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 303
• Surveillance capitalism aims to author people rather than destroy them #exemplifies (0.70) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1062