Edge Case
Image generated with DeepAI using the prompt “truthspeak entity, somewhat human looking”.
There’s the term “living on the edge” which normally people might say applies to me, but that’s not exactly correct. I’d say I’m an edge case, in that I have no problem wandering out to the edges of society and back. It is interesting to see the “normal” world from the perspective of someone with an extreme view of reality. Of course I don’t 100% mean the traditional terms of extreme where we are talking political left and right, I’m talking about the edge case which often involves technology, and in some instances a lack thereof. This is going to get a bit weird.
Extreme Perspective
Before we get too far into this, I want to give you an idea of the depth I’m talking about to take on another’s perspective. Here is a completely non-techie example to illustrate this.
I attended a security conference in San Francisco a number of years ago, staying at a very nice hotel. My wife and my youngest son had gone with me on this trip as we were also going to do some touristy things together while there. We were traveling light and had planned on doing laundry at the hotel, but as this hotel was charging something like $5-10 per clothing item this seemed outrageous. We decided to instead get trash bags and laundry detergent from a local convenience store and carry our laundry to the local laundromat, and since my wife and I would have a trash bag on our backs we’d blend in and not be hassled by the homeless to and from the laundromat (we had been repeatedly hassled and yelled at every other outing).
So we blended in. Instead of being hassled, everyone was friendly, lots of pleasantries such as "How was your night?" and "Hope you have a good day today!" With those trash bags, we were one of them. The general conversations were about various shelters, specific friends, speculations on the weather, and other more survivalist-type topics. Sure there were weird conversations too, but by and large just typical. Very eye opening. And humbling.
Every interaction with “normals” (non-homeless) was also interesting. We were ignored, and glanced at disgustingly. A few eyebrows were raised in the hotel lobby as well, but we did manage the entire round trip just fine. Obviously just understanding their concerns and well, really, the lifestyle of the homeless has had a deep impact.
One other note on that edge case of society - there was little to no use for most technology. Cellphones were the one exception, although the few I’ve seen during my limited interactions involved finding a place to charge them and attaching to free wireless. If someone was living out of their car, one might see them parking in a parking lot at night for sleeping in an isolated area, and the building they were next to had an exterior electrical outlet they could plug the phone into. The “car people” (for lack of a better term) usually had a job but simply didn’t have a place to stay. The few I’ve met have been optimistic they would eventually find housing.
This next thing I don’t recommend one to do unless you feel comfortable doing it, as there is risk, but this is something I’ve done a couple of times. I’ve approached a sign-holding panhandler that is sitting down next to a can or box for collecting cash, and just sat down next to them and had a conversation. Granted if they are having a conversation with themselves or someone that isn’t there or they are yelling random things at random people I don’t do this, but I have done it twice. Both times it was fascinating, I’d learn about ways they’d go camping in a park or abandoned lot, homeless camping areas to avoid because of “crazies”, best times and places to pan handle, various “street codes” such as territorial respect amongst panhandlers and so on.
Van Life
On the surface those that participate in what is known as “van life” seem to have it easy (and there’s technology involved). Easy in that they have a often have a job, which is often remote work via a computer. They simply choose to live an otherwise nomadic lifestyle while having all of the resources available as anyone else, just scaled down. My son lived van life for a couple of years - his van had a refrigerator/freezer, kitchen, running water with a toilet, solar panels, batteries, and he could stream video in on a television screen. A full bed and plenty of storage. But he faced enormous challenges such as finding regular showers, safe and legal disposal of human waste as well as regular trash, a decent place to park overnight (especially in urban settings), danger of break-ins, and just general personal safety.
He pointed out that those that might target van life vehicles for theft had a whole series of things they could look for to spot potential targets - these were the same things van lifers look for to spot fellow road warriors. This involved a few obvious ones like solar panels on the roof and of course vanity stickers that referenced multiple nation parks or actually said “van life” on them, but there were a few other not-so-obvious ones. Exhaust vents or A/C units on the roof, water and electric hookups on the side, parking locations such as the outskirts of places known to be van lifer friendly such as a Walmart parking lot and so on.
While parking at rest stops along the highway was considered fairly normal, there was a whole art to parking within an urban setting. The van would have to look like it belonged but at the same time look unoccupied, particularly for nighttime urban camping. This meant being very quiet and making sure there was no light pollution leaking out to the point of looking absolutely dark outside of the vehicle. Blackout window coverings, a method of completely blocking the rear of the van from the front seat area, and decent insulation that not only kept heat in during the winter and heat out during the summer, but had noise-dampening properties as well.
Once you know a few of those items, and you actively look for them, you see a completely different world. It is a subculture within the normal bounds of society.
Technological Perspectives
When you’re out on those edges you have conversations with those that “live there”, you hear about what experiences brought them to reach their perspective. Getting back to the deeper technology world where I live and work, there are even edges in that world as well, although sometimes you have to mentally prod people to see those edges. I do this in infosec all the time, usually introducing something weird and radical as a topic of conversation, and I love to hear the reactions. The idea is not to get caught up in the experiences as to whether they are potentially factual or not - that actually doesn’t matter as much. It’s how it seems to influence behavior. So the fun part is throwing random oddball scenarios at these people and seeing how they respond.
Let’s take a weird example of this. I was at Black Hat and talking with a defense attorney, a federal prosecutor, and a cryptographer. I throw out the scenario that the NSA or some other oddball government agency have the capability to break all existing cryptographic algorithms. Each would pontificate quite interestingly - I’m usually met with some level of “you’re paranoid and full of shit” for a response, which is fine. But I say, what if it is true, how do you think this would influence the world that most people currently believe is normal? Now you end up with completely different answers. Taking bits and pieces of similar things, you reach some overall odd yet interesting perspectives. In this particular example the consensus was that it wouldn’t matter that much. If you had truly sensitive information stored behind encryption that only the NSA could break, it would not be used against you in a court of law because the prosecution could not illustrate the full chain of custody as the decryption part of the evidence chain would obviously be classified.
It was so interesting that I did have additional conversations on this very topic with multiple attorneys, federal prosecutors, federal law enforcement, former NSA employees, and cryptographers. I have also brought it up to security professionals, hackers (white hat and black hat), paranoids, preppers, privacy freaks, far left and far right idealists. It spoke a lot about how technology in general is perceived and how many approach technology in general.
Basically it was assumed by pretty much everyone that nothing would appear to change on the surface, or if there were changes they would be at least subtle. The underlying theme is that we as a society would carry on. Yes there were some extremes in the perceived levels of change, including increased state surveillance or more open advancements towards totalitarianism. Those closer to the "problem" as it were, such as the various feds and cryptographers, felt the change would be subtle, most likely based upon their previous interactions with somewhat similar scenarios. Further out were the preppers and far left/right people, who thought that it would be taken advantage of to make things worse for people in extreme ways. They did not agree on who actually would be exploitatively gaining advantage, as the far left said the far right would and the far right said the far left would, but the things they thought up as exactly what “taking advantage” actually meant tended to follow the more traditional political stereotypes associated with the extreme viewpoints.
Applying this to technological problem solving - the kind I encounter every day - sheds an odd light on things. On the surface this suggests we should rely more on those more familiar with the problem than with those that are further away from it when you’re dealing with a problem to solve, which is obvious. But obviously this means you have to get everyone to agree on “who is qualified” and now you’ve got a new problem because no one will agree on this as they all think that they are qualified. All of the discussions in the crypto scenario above typically thought that their “group” had the most realistic and objective perspective. So in a true everyday problem-solving scenario I would expect the same groupings of perspectives. They’d say things like “that other group simply doesn’t understand…” and proceed to explain why. Everyone thinks their perspective makes the most sense.
Here is an obvious summation - yes of course we should not rely upon for example a politician to solve a technological problem. We tech nerds have the proper tools and knowledge, they do not. So for perspective, does this mean we tech nerds shouldn’t fix political problems? To solve any problem you need an expert in that field that is fully qualified and capable of solving a problem in a way that is beneficial to most if not all, without exclusions. This should apply to technology, politics, plumbing, farming, and on and on. So we need the right person on the job that will get the best results for everyone, not just themselves and their close friends.
Summary
This is a really roundabout way of saying that one can benefit from seeing things from someone else’s perspective, be it work-related or not. Sure, you are going to encounter the work colleague that is the equivalent of that weird political extremist uncle that makes holiday dinners uncomfortable. The difference is while you can usually avoid most weird uncle encounters, with your work colleague it is your job to deal with this person and meet your work goals regardless, so attempting to at least see things from the other side helps.
Look for the signs of those other “worlds”. The subcultures. These exist everywhere, I see them within information security circles all the time, but they also exist amongst coders, upper management, end users, customers, and so on. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of these worlds, especially if you are trying to do something like introduce security elements that help protect that world. If you understand their world, you can tailor your solutions to be as helpful and less disruptive, and be more successful in both implementation and end result.
