Adam Harvey

Mass surveillance is a vast yet largely invisible infrastructure that enmeshes our cities, workplaces, homes, borders, and even our social interactions. From the databases that store our most personal media to the satellites that peer down from space, this class explores the stratosphere of surveillance technologies that are reshaping the world order.

This class begins by inverting Bentham’s architecture of the Panopticon and placing the individual at the center. From here we will look outward at the myriad ways of being seen, analyzed, and tracked through real world examples and demonstrations of both lo-fi and advanced surveillance techniques. Technologies covered include biometrics (face, iris, fingerprint, and gait); online tracking (cookies, browser fingerprinting, network analysis, and
packet sniffing); advanced imaging (thermal, IR, aerial, computer vision, and capturing “media in the wild”); and hacking (using examples from Kali/PwnPi). Selected texts will accompany each set of technologies and we will discuss their implications in class.

After developing an understanding of the diversity of surveillance technologies, students will work collaboratively to develop a well researched response to subvert, critique, improve or adapt to the type of surveillance they find most relevant.

Through topics covered in this class students will gain a technical understanding of surveillance, security, and privacy enhancing technologies; be able to communicate securely using encryption; and learn how to better navigate the emerging landscape of mass surveillance. A working proficiency with the command line and basic programming techniques is recommended.