start	end	text
39780	48600	But anyway, I'm here to talk about the cartographic imaginations of cyberspace.
49220	52920	And I'm going to be bringing sort of my own disciplinary background as a geographer
53460	58220	to take us through some really sort of basic concepts about
59760	63680	critically looking at cartographic representations of real world space
63680	70260	and how some of those theoretical concerns might be brought to look at maps of cyberspace
70260	74920	which of course have started to emerge in great numbers.
79320	87120	So traditionally, geographers have defined themselves in large part as a group of people
87120	92240	whose job it is to go out and make cartographic representations of space.
92240	99820	And we have a long and sort of problematic history in my discipline
101120	111020	of participation in things like the colonial project, military cartography, land and sea trade
112240	118520	and basically supplying the navigational tools and surveys and graphical representations
118780	120940	to make these things possible.
120940	124860	And so when people say, oh, you know, I'm a geographer,
124860	128060	often times people say, oh, well, you guys make maps, right?
128420	133000	Well, I mean, that's sort of the traditional role of geographers,
133000	139760	but we've changed a lot, especially since about the mid-20th century.
139960	143600	And one of the more recent areas that we've started to explore
143600	148360	is to actually sort of critically examine the practice of map making.
155600	158800	So I'm going to follow from a guy named Jeremy Crampton,
158800	161720	who wrote a book called The Political Mapping of Cyberspace.
161720	162680	It's a good book.
163380	168620	He talks about sort of a divergence in geography between theory and practice,
169260	173100	meaning that there still persists a group of people in the discipline
173100	178480	who still practice the job of graphically representing the Earth
178480	180420	and are very good at it
180420	186500	and increasingly use computers and computer technology to make those maps.
186780	190240	But there's another group of us, of which I'm a part,
190240	193460	who are a little bit more concerned with the theoretical implications
193460	196440	of what those other people are doing.
198500	203860	And I would say that this sort of theoretical or critical approach to cartography
204620	209440	probably has its roots in the late 80s with the cultural turn in geography,
209440	214300	and particularly with a book by a guy named Montmarnier in 1991
214300	216740	called How to Lie with Maps.
217040	221340	Another interesting book with lots of interesting little factoids
221340	227460	about why it is that maps don't necessarily realistically represent space.
228560	234860	And the simple reason why we need to think about maps as representations
234860	243180	rather than as actual realistic bases for reality
243180	248340	is that basically maps are two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional space.
248340	253760	So you've got a globe, the Earth, it's a complicated spherical object.
253840	259620	There's an inherent challenge in taking that space and laying it out flat
259620	261660	and depicting it for people.
261660	264160	Computers might help solve some of those problems
264160	268760	by enabling us to use 3D visualization,
268760	271780	but we still face certain compromises and certain choices
271780	275140	that these people who are interested in the practice of mapmaking
275660	279160	consciously or unconsciously make when they're making maps.
279800	284420	And as Montmarnier pointed out, they distort reality in very specific ways
285040	290460	through their use of scale, their use of projection, and the use of symbols.
292460	296840	So this is sort of a very traditional map of the Earth.
296940	298840	It's the Mercator Projection.
299000	302420	How many of you recognize this image from your high school textbooks
302420	304740	or your elementary school geography textbooks?
304940	306200	Yeah, quite a few.
306200	309680	The Mercator Projection is a really commonly used map projection.
310880	314320	But its original purpose wasn't necessarily to provide
314320	317820	the most realistic view of the landmasses of the Earth.
317820	321160	It was actually better suited as a sea navigational tool
321680	325120	because it maintained accurate direction between two points
325120	327060	when you're traveling at sea.
327320	332120	But what happened was that it actually distorted the area of landmasses.
332500	335260	So the shape of the continents that we've come to recognize
335260	338140	from our high school textbooks in the Mercator Projection
338140	342480	don't necessarily reflect the actual physical size of those features.
343700	348140	So, keep an eye on South America and Africa,
348140	350360	and I'm going to go forward one slide.
351660	356280	This is an equal area world projection.
356460	358800	This is very different from the Mercator Projection.
358800	362580	Its goal is to preserve the area of the landmasses.
362620	365800	So here it's not very useful as a navigational tool,
365800	368760	but it gives a better idea of how much actual surface area is taken up
368760	370340	by each of the continents.
370340	374060	You notice the diminutive size of the United States and Europe.
374320	375780	I'll flip back.
377160	381780	You can see how different the two are,
381780	386040	and what a different idea of the shape of the Earth each one provides.
388820	392340	Now, the purpose of these equal area projections
392340	395780	weren't just innocently trying to correct an error.
396240	399940	There's a bit of a political motivation behind making these maps,
399940	404420	and that is to kind of de-center the importance of Europe and North America.
404420	408740	In the Mercator Projection, they seem to be very important,
408740	411440	but in the Hobo Dyer, they're much smaller.
411460	414300	I've even seen a Hobo Dyer map that's been turned upside down
414300	419300	to further subvert the Euro-centrism of the Mercator Projection.
419300	422720	So there's a kind of a political project going on here as well.
431080	435600	But beyond altering the scale projection of maps,
435600	439260	they can often serve more explicit ideological purposes.
439600	442720	And in the series of the next few maps we're going to look at,
443400	450160	they basically thematically focus on the theme of proximity to the Soviet Union.
450160	454300	This was a theme that came up quite a bit in graphical representations of the Earth
454300	458480	during the Cold War period, was the real proximity of the Soviet threat
458480	460380	to Western interests.
460500	463180	So here they've manipulated the orientation of the map,
463180	468500	and this is a map that was originally published in Time Magazine in 1952.
468500	473840	They've oriented it north-south, or rather, west-east.
475600	478640	And it gives the idea that the Soviet Union is just sort of
478640	484960	right next to Western Europe and about to conquer these territories.
485740	490220	Obviously in the Cuban Missile Crisis, proximity was another important theme and issue.
490220	495160	And this is a CIA map that shows the relative ranges of nuclear missiles
495160	496960	from Cuba to the United States.
497120	502640	And here the scale, the color, really give a sense of imminent threat.
503740	506740	Here's a use of a planar polar projection.
507700	514840	And in the context of the air war and the possibility that wars might be fought
514840	517620	using missiles rather than actually land troops,
517620	520800	these kinds of projections were very persuasive because they showed that
520800	524880	actually Canada and the United States weren't so far from the Soviet Union at all
524880	526780	if one went over the North Pole.
526840	530840	So the planar projection was a subtle way to show politically
530840	536140	how important things like spending on air defense budgets really were
536140	537440	during the Cold War.
541460	544700	An author, Gillian Rose, has brought our attention in geography
544700	547820	to the possibility that race and gender relationships
547820	550540	might also find their way onto the map sheet.
551600	555580	And a good place to look for those kinds of power relations
555580	558020	is in colonial maps of the world.
558020	560820	Here's a map of Africa from 1771.
561700	564480	I'm not sure if you can read what it says in the upper right-hand corner,
564480	565760	so I'll read it out for you.
565760	569540	It says, an accurate map of Africa from the latest improvements
569540	572760	and regulated by astronomical observations.
572760	576420	So they're purporting to have provided us the most accurate depiction
576420	579140	of this continent possible.
580180	584180	But of course, we know that it's really just a two-dimensional representation
584180	586140	of a very complex space.
588180	592180	Here's an example of how gender and race find their way onto these maps.
592180	597400	Here's an artistic legend on another map of Africa in 1707.
598960	605740	And essentially, depicting a bunch of imagined natives lounging around,
605740	609800	burying their breasts and not doing a whole lot of work.
609800	617060	This was supporting the European idea of racial superiority.
617060	621560	So we can see how early colonial maps of Africa racialized, gendered,
621560	625620	and even eroticized place through their representations,
625620	628940	linking imaginary people to imagined places.
630520	634440	Here's an example of the extension of colonial power onto the landscape
634440	636040	in postage stamps.
636320	639060	It was quite common up until the mid-20th century
639060	646760	to put graphical depictions of figureheads on beautiful African landscapes,
646760	652880	sort of cementing the European supremacy of these places.
656070	660190	So what I'm proposing in my own work, and I'm really still in the preliminary phases
660190	662490	of thinking this through,
664170	669170	is to follow Crampton's challenge of really critically looking at
669170	671430	what we do when we map.
672430	678490	And really, to take apart this progressivist, objectivist treatment of maps
678490	680310	as mirror images of reality.
680310	685970	And to say, well, what really goes into the creation of these maps?
686010	691810	What kinds of power relations are embedded in these representations?
692170	695210	And replace that kind of understanding of cartography
695210	698370	with one that's more historically contingent.
698370	703890	And cognizant of the possibility that social relations and power relations
703890	704850	are embedded in maps.
704850	708490	And these can be racial, gendered, capitalist, nationalistic.
708490	709990	The list goes on.
710890	715630	So let's look at some maps of cyberspace, since that's what we're here for.
718980	724720	So here's an early graphical representation of Usenet traffic in 1993.
724800	728620	The next three images, by the way, are taken from Dodge and Kitchen's
728620	731260	2002 Atlas of Cyberspace.
731260	736320	You can find it online, and it's also available by order for a hard copy.
736320	738860	It's a very interesting book, lots of cool pictures.
738860	741800	I picked out a few that I thought were really interesting and sort of iconic.
741800	745420	This one's a depiction of Usenet traffic in 1993.
746200	748020	And what I want to draw your attention to
748020	751560	is sort of the difficulty that this mapmaker has had
751560	757700	in trying to reconcile a real-world spatial geography
757700	760520	that's outlined with the continents
760520	763740	and this sort of new geography of cyberspace.
763940	767160	It seems like the two don't necessarily fit very well together.
767160	770000	On one hand, you have this sort of disembodied,
770000	774140	diffuse, instantaneous network of telecommunications,
774140	779020	and it's overlaid on top of a world of real spatial places
779020	782280	and real bodies located in that space.
782280	785840	But looking at this map, you get the impression that somebody in Santiago, Chile
785840	789840	could instantaneously interact with somebody from New York City,
790420	792660	even though there's thousands of miles
792660	795560	and social difference between those two individuals.
795560	801440	So the map sort of suggests this liberating possibility for this technology.
803240	805840	A lot of people have probably seen this map.
805840	808080	It's widely reproduced.
808080	811240	It's a map of early NFS NAT traffic.
811920	813460	As one observer noted,
813460	816900	the ArcMap is one of the best examples of a representation of the net
816900	820680	that goes beyond the practical and taps into a deeper aesthetic feel
820680	822980	for what cyberspace looks like.
823500	826480	So there's something iconic about this kind of depiction of the internet
826480	830280	as a series of trails leading through the sky.
830500	835660	This one, to its credit,
835660	837520	and unlike the Mercator projection,
837520	840460	seems to de-center Europe and the United States.
840460	843760	Also, because in the original, the user was able to manipulate it
843760	846980	and turn it around and zoom in on any portion of the map that they wanted.
846980	848940	There wasn't a static representation here.
848940	851440	It was user interactive.
852200	854440	But nevertheless, what emerges from this picture
854440	860240	is definitely a very clear example of the global digital divide.
860240	862820	There are places that are completely dark, that are unplugged,
862820	867980	that are not connected to the space of international money and culture flows.
867980	871940	And there are spaces that are, that are very brightly lit on this map.
880300	883620	Now, in a further development of mapping cyberspace,
883620	889300	some cartographers have preferred to just drop the real world cartography altogether.
890200	894940	And let it go in favor of focusing on the topological relationship between points.
894940	898860	And just map out the arcs and nodes of the information backbone.
899180	904100	So here's an example of a 3D visualization of skitter data from KEDA.
904100	910000	And it kind of looks like a globe, but there's absolutely no real world geographical reference.
912260	919680	So here what I would point out to you is the way that this is kind of almost aspatial.
919820	924080	The distances and the actual places matter less than the connections
924080	926880	and the network logic that links all these points together.
927260	931060	There's a very intense sort of disembodied feeling
931060	933340	that we get from looking at this kind of representation.
933340	942540	And I'll argue in a few moments that this kind of disembodied, diffuse networks cartography of cyberspace
942540	945740	has very specific political ramifications.
945860	947580	Some good and some bad.
950450	954570	Here's one that a lot of you have probably seen hanging out at conferences like this.
954570	960070	I was reminded of one of these when I went to a security conference up in Canada.
960830	964290	And it seems I've seen these around quite a few places.
964290	969590	It's sort of a network security schematic that, again, de-territorializes cyberspace
969590	972930	and represents it as a series of interconnected symbols.
973030	977990	And here we get a sense of the blue, cool region of the corporate land
977990	985490	being protected from the unknown exterior potential hacker.
986390	992530	And this is a type of cartography as well, I would argue, even though it's abstracted.
993110	998950	So what does it mean that we've progressed from trying to overlay cyberspatial cartography
998950	1001090	on top of real-world geography?
1002330	1007990	Well, I would say that geographic imaginations of cyberspace have political and foreign policy implications.
1007990	1010350	And we're starting to see some of those currently.
1010350	1013810	And they've evolved, I think, since about the 1990s.
1013810	1021270	One of them has been a focus on connection to the global network as both a source of security and threat.
1021270	1023230	So what do I mean by that?
1024150	1031550	Well, by security, I am thinking of the sense that connection to the global marketplace
1033250	1037990	renders countries more amenable to, say, American foreign policy interests.
1038310	1043570	I've heard the oft-quoted phrase that no two countries with McDonald's have ever gone to war with one another,
1043570	1045570	and I'm sort of reminded of that here.
1046490	1050750	Some researchers, Robert Secor and Spark,
1050750	1055250	have argued that what's going on now in foreign policy circles in the United States
1055810	1061110	is that certain parts of the world are being characterized as non-integrating.
1061110	1066390	These are rogue regimes that have no interest at all in connecting up to the global flows of capital,
1066390	1068950	and as such, they represent a threat.
1069570	1074330	So in this new logic, it's disconnection from the network that is the real threat,
1074330	1075970	not connection to it.
1077690	1082730	But on the other hand, as we saw with the security schematic here,
1082730	1086530	there's a sense that if we do connect ourselves up to this global network,
1086530	1088570	this aspatial global network,
1088570	1092330	that we open ourselves up to a whole bunch of unsavory possibilities.
1093170	1097910	And definitely the global war on terror has assumed many of the same metaphors and symbols
1097910	1101110	that are employed in the Internet security field.
1101830	1106750	For example, the White House administration has repeatedly cited the diffused
1106750	1109510	and networked architecture of terrorist organizations
1109990	1113390	as support for the continued military aggression and restriction of movement
1113390	1115990	by citizens into and outside of the country.
1116530	1120270	Here's a map of the 9-11 hijackers,
1120270	1123750	and it's laid out like an arc node map similar to ones that we've seen,
1124330	1126430	the earlier cyberspatial maps that we've seen.
1126430	1129510	So there's definitely a sort of rhetorical linkages, I think,
1129510	1132970	between terrorist networks and electronic networks,
1132970	1134750	which I think is very interesting.
1138390	1144190	Actually, I've got an interesting quote.
1144190	1147890	This is from a congressional testimony in 2003.
1147890	1151210	This is a network security expert testifying before Congress
1151210	1160670	about the threat that our nation's computers face when exposed to foreign hackers.
1160670	1161950	He says,
1161950	1166070	Many more malicious and widespread viruses are seen in the wild on the Internet
1166070	1167590	on a daily basis.
1167610	1171670	Many are written with Russian, Chinese, and other language comments in the code.
1171810	1175330	Some have direct ties to organized crime, especially outside the U.S.
1175330	1178510	Many are propagated from commonly known havens for virus writers
1178510	1180710	where there's no fear of legal prosecution,
1180710	1182970	or where the technical skills of the government to prosecute
1182970	1184810	are minimal or non-existent.
1186230	1192130	So, again, this is sort of reiterating the sense of cyberspace as a space of threat.
1196110	1200030	What do I mean when I say that network architectures
1200030	1203570	enable both territorialization and deterritorialization?
1204630	1208150	Well, definitely, in the big Kaida jellyfish model of the Internet,
1208150	1210450	there's an intense deterritorialization.
1210650	1213710	There's a sense that the Internet frees us from our bodies,
1213710	1218970	makes the cultural, social, and actual physical distances between us irrelevant,
1218970	1222790	and renders physical space less important than this new virtual space.
1223410	1226730	I think of that as a kind of deterritorialization.
1227050	1228610	But I think that the Internet also enables
1229410	1232330	various particular kinds of territorializations.
1232670	1236850	One example is here in IP geocoding.
1236850	1238610	I understand there's going to be somebody talking about that.
1238610	1240310	I hope that I didn't miss their talk.
1240470	1242550	I hope that's going to be in the coming days.
1243710	1249050	But essentially, using people's IPs to grant them access
1249050	1251810	or not grant them access based on the country in which they live.
1251810	1254450	So now there's a re-linking of real-world geography
1256030	1257830	to the cyberspatial geography
1257830	1260390	that actually has real material physical outcomes.
1260390	1265910	Here, this is a map of which countries were allowed to access www.georgebush.com
1265910	1267970	prior to the 2004 election.
1268070	1270910	And you can see that only Canada and the United States were granted access
1270910	1273970	and successfully blocked everybody else.
1274410	1279970	Actually citing terrorist and disruptive threats from foreign hackers.
1283410	1288030	And definitely the Army, the United States Army, is interested in cyberspace.
1288910	1293990	Here's a quote from a report by the Project for the New American Century
1293990	1296630	writing on rebuilding America's defenses.
1296630	1299790	And they consider cyberspace to be one of the key places
1299790	1302510	where they want to extend their control.
1303150	1304910	They say, much as control of the high seas
1304910	1307190	and the protection of international commerce
1307650	1309890	define global powers in the past,
1309890	1312330	so will control of the new international commons
1312330	1315010	be a key to world power in the future.
1315330	1317570	An America incapable of protecting its interests
1317570	1320090	or that of its allies in space or the infosphere
1320090	1323690	will find it difficult to exert global political leadership.
1324630	1327730	So there's a sense of militarizing
1327730	1331370	and potentially territorializing cyberspace.
1331750	1336730	And definitely .mil is becoming an increasing and growing presence online.
1339620	1344320	So I don't have any really groundbreaking conclusions yet.
1344320	1346760	I'm still in the process of writing all this up.
1347000	1350240	But I think the issues that I've talked about
1350240	1354340	raise a few concerns that might be relevant to us as an audience.
1355300	1358360	And one is, again, to reiterate the question that we should think about.
1358360	1361740	How are power relations that are implicated in real world maps
1361740	1366640	also possibly implicated in the production of cyberspacial maps?
1367280	1369500	How are hackers and other online groups
1369500	1372500	impacted by this emerging war on cyber terror?
1372500	1376040	And specifically, how do the graphical representations
1376040	1378880	of the online space that accompany this war
1378880	1382820	impact our freedom and our civil rights?
1384000	1387240	What might alternative efforts to map cyberspace look like?
1387240	1388560	Again, this is an important question.
1388680	1392040	I'm going to leave open to everybody to either comment on now
1392040	1395300	or hopefully come and talk to me later if you have any ideas.
1396320	1402000	How can we potentially subvert these dominant maps of cyberspace
1402000	1404280	and produce our own? Thank you.
1411190	1412790	One second before I answer any questions.
1412790	1416730	Is there a moderator around who can tell me if I've got enough time to do so?
1416730	1419390	I've got eight minutes?
1419930	1422050	Well, I'll answer some questions then.
1459850	1466970	You're kind of imagining a real-world, old-style cartographic representation
1466970	1470410	of relative internet freedom by country.
1487390	1489670	Right, and you raise a very important point,
1489670	1491730	one that I forgot to really underline in my talk,
1491730	1494910	which is that on this jellyfish map,
1494910	1498930	you don't see any potential barriers to connection.
1498930	1501470	You only see the connections. You don't see the blockages.
1506400	1510460	Yeah, that's a cool idea.
1510940	1512020	Any other questions?
1555220	1557240	Yeah, that's a really cool idea. I'd love to talk to you after
1557240	1559280	and find out where I can access that to have a look at it.
1559280	1561300	It sounds like a really interesting sort of political project.
1561460	1564380	Similar to that hobo diary, you know, turning the world upside down.
1564420	1566800	They're saying, well, you know, let's point out the fact
1566800	1569160	that English is the dominantly spoken language online
1569160	1574840	and that the United States gets most of the news coverage.
1575200	1576220	Bad English, yeah.
1578100	1580040	Any more questions? Yeah, in the back.
1622970	1624430	All right, well, if there's no other questions,
1624430	1627810	I look forward to talking to you guys one-on-one after the presentation.
1627970	1628830	Thanks very much.