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Let's first get things done: modes of efficiency/operation for sneaky moments

Recap what happened (first attempt):
    especially after the snowden revelations, a lot of initiatives stepped up to the moment of crisis around surveillance
    they took this moment to translate the surveillance problem into one of privacy, and that to one of technical self-defense as well as regulation by design.
    in this sneaky moment, these initiatives invoked a universal user or a universal activist
    in a world where governments and services could not be trusted, they proposed technologies that allowed for communication in the absence of trust
    however, what is hidden is the need for trust in the encryption technologies
    
    while many of the tools were primarily community based tools that functioned as a result, these initiatives attempted to play an important role in making these tools at a universal scale: universal availabilit and access
    this required these organizations to be the hubs of delivering trust: the initiatives serve to vet encryption technologies and vouch for their trustworthiness
    in a sense, they propped themselves to the role of organizations that mediate the delegation of individual and activist protection to technology, and hence play an important role in the division of labor
    we find through our analysis that this position was not negotiated, but rather determined

• the universal user is under surveillance and needs tools that are effective against the logic of surveillance independent of the context in which the user is situated. a classic case of techno-determinism. [@femke question: would it make sense here to bring in soderberg ""I have advocated an approach where hackers’ faith in technological determinism is provisionally accepted"]

    the lack of clarity as to why the tools were selected, when the tools were selected, in which situations they may be right poses a problem
    further, the expertise required to build these tools trumps the possibility to think of situated needs, or the ability for activists to articulate both their desired modes of communication as well the appropriate modes of protection. the various boxes are not an invitation for creating a new culture of activism, but about redefining it along the lines of the way in which surveillance is technically organized, and counter-surveillance is designed, as if the analysis of design and the proposed counter-surveillance designs represent universal truths that have been discovered by technical experts.
    rather than asking whether the tools are appropriate to situations, or ways of discussion how tools may be appropriated, the authors of these tools located the lack of uptake with the lack of user expertise and the usability of these tools 
     what would have been more reasonable is a collective mediation in design....
    

collective mediation-designing, to go from communication to collective action framing = mediation

How to imagine a form of technological development beyond 'solving needs' of users? 
What does it mean to develop an imagination of  what someone else might need, is capable of? 
How to create more interesting forms of dialogue between user needs and tech developers?




But until then, we meet in the dark tunnels. Inside the fiberoptic maze, or on the subterranean dancefloors. http://telecomix.org/dalet.html