Historical Background
This is one page of a multi-part series on “ethical computing,” detailing why we are so concerned about the subject. Farther-reaching through the past than commonly realized, the misuse of (otherwise innocently gathered) data has run a thread though many of the darkest chapters in history.
Knowledge is Power
Yes, the famous proverb first recorded in antiquity and likely to be even older. The wise Sun Tzu and Sun Bin set the stage with a chapter on intelligence and espionage in their famous treatise The Art of War, dating from the fifth century BCE.
Fear not! We’ll start our tour a bit more recently, skipping ahead to the approach of the twentieth-century in the late 1880s. Not at the birth of electronic computing, but of mechanized record-keeping, or early databases in other words.
If you have you ever thought “I have nothing to hide,” well, the following pages should be illuminating.
The US Census of 1890 and Hollerith Tabulating Machine
In the late 1800s, the United States was growing quickly and struggling to finish each decennial census (an every ten year population count), before the next one was to begin.
As luck would have it, the inventive Herman Hollerith came to the rescue with his new tabulating machine, which was ready to tackle the upcoming census of 1890. Punched cards assisted in cataloging and summarizing personal information at a much higher rate than earlier manual processes, resulting in a census, “months ahead of schedule and far under budget.”
The invention was so useful it subsequently spread far and wide across the globe. So far, so good. Note that Hollerith’s company was later renamed to “International Business Machines,” (IBM for short) in the early 1900s.
1930s, European Censuses
The final census of the Weimar Republic (of Germany) proceeded as planned, as well as those of the next government when it dissolved. What did they catalog?
This data collection contains electoral and demographic data at several levels of aggregation … for Germany in the Weimar Republic period of 1919-1933.
Additional variables provide information on occupations in the country… Other census data cover the total number of wage earners in the labor force…
Also provided is the percentage of the total population living in towns with 5,000 inhabitants or more, and the number and percentage of the population who were Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.
Details:
- Census in Germany, Weimar Republic Data, 1919-1933
- Similar events in The Netherlands [1], and Hungary [2]
1940s, World War II, IBM and the Holocaust
The drive to improve information technology intensified greatly in the desperation to win World War II. Enigma, heroic code breakers, and ENIAC are the wartime tech we hear about most often, outside of weapons perhaps.
Yet there was a darker side, exposed in the now famous book by Edwin Black. Not released until 2001, the details were relatively unknown by the public until then. Titled IBM and the Holocaust [2]; the story tragic.
Why yes, that does look like the eye of Sauron, now that you mention it.†
“The Final Solution,” was genocide on an industrial scale. Millions were segregated, then worked to death and/or murdered. The sheer numbers of people involved are startling enough that a few still do not believe them. How might execution at such an incredible scale be realized?
The answer, surprisingly mundane—productivity enhancement tools administered by the IBM subsidiary Dehomag. Earlier European censuses had helpfully laid out the details necessary to systematically and efficiently round up undesirables on a scale yet unseen or imagined.
Let it be known that less than fifty years passed before database technology was used to automate a genocide. Of course, it is not the fault of an information storage system that it was used in such a manner. Simply that databases enable a scaling of operations like few other technologies, making them uniquely productive, and uniquely dangerous in the wrong hands.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Ok… the Nazi’s were one thing, but evil like that could never happen in my country / liberal democracy.”
Unfortunately not.
1940s, Japanese Internment
In 1940, the US Census was conducted again as planned.
Despite law prohibiting and heartfelt assurances that the Census Bureau never shares private details for unauthorized purposes (and continues to make such promises), it has indeed provided that data when push came to shove. This time provided for the express purpose of rounding up Japanese-Americans for placement into interment camps during WWII. Specifically names, locations, and neighborhoods of targeted residents were delivered:
- Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II
- Secret use of census info helped send Japanese Americans to internment camps in WWII
Many lost everything they owned, beyond a suitcase or two. Another dark chapter, this time in a place that prides itself (delusionally perhaps) that such a thing could never happen there.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Ok… well that was a long time ago, and during World War II ! It couldn’t happen today.”
Unfortunately not.
~1948-1994, Apartheid in South Africa
Apartheid (literally “apart-hood” in English), was a program of institutionalized racial segregation in South Africa during the latter half of the twentieth century.
IBM, apparently having not yet learned from WWII, sought further revenue in the growing industry of identification and discrimination:
The national ID documents and their underlying computer systems were products that IBM specifically bid on contracts to produce and customize for the South African government. IBM software and hardware underpinned the racial classification system and population tracking that facilitated apartheid.
…after sanctions prohibited sales of the restricted goods to identified South African authorities, Defendants intentionally and repeatedly provided the means to carry out the violations…
In fact, IBM spent decades deceiving the U.S. authorities, actively opposing, and ultimately circumventing sanctions against the apartheid government.
- EFF… Seeks to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid in South Africa.
- Re: South African Apartheid Litigation
- Bantustan, forced relocation of native Africans to these “homelands.”
1950-1990, The Stasi Set Expectations
The Stasi (Ministry for State Security, pronounced “shtah-zee”) of the former state of East Germany made quite a name for themselves throughout the Cold War, during the second half of the twentieth century. Pioneers in paranoia and surveillance they were, seemingly without bound:
It was one of the most repressive police organizations in the world, infiltrating almost every aspect of life in East Germany, using torture, intimidation, and a vast network of informants to crush dissent.
—Wikipedia/Stasi
We’ll cut the computing industry some slack here, as the Stasi worked primarily in the analog domain. Still, we continue to be indebted to this tragic chapter of history. Why?
They demonstrated clearly how far a government will go to acquire, analyze, and yes use information against its citizens—and that is, completely. During a time when it was an incredibly expensive endeavor compared to now.
In other words, the Stasi didn’t push abstract, theoretical boundaries about what a government might do with surveillance, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work. In the real world, they toiled without rest, for forty years. No longer must we wonder.
- Related: The important film, The Lives of Others is discussed later on.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Ok, but South Africa and East Germany had particularly evil governments! Today, it’s only companies watching us.”
Unfortunately not. All it takes is a little fear.
2001-09-11, War on Terrorism and The Program
Though many years in the making, the day modern Uncle Sam (US govt.) truly lost the plot. Panic bulldozed principles quickly; in reaction to an enemy it barely understood.
A Frontline documentary (free to watch on Kanopy), named The United States of Secrets chronicles the breakdown of democracy and aggressive rise of surveillance during this time period, that the US government euphemistically called “The Program.” (Best said in the voice of the Frontline narrator.) Highly recommended to understand the motivations of governments and their outsized role in steering us toward dystopia.
This was also the era that computer storage became so cheap that data is rarely deleted any longer. Driven partly by massive government spending perhaps.
After some time to reflect, a main takeaway from this event for this author is that, whatever safeguards or limits one might think exist in a government, are merely conventions. Constitutions, laws, policies… were simply abandoned for years after this event. “Checks and balances” are powerless in an environment where everyone is afraid simultaneously. As someone who fondly studied milestones of democracy from the Magna Carta, to Locke, Jefferson, French Revolution, and the US Constitution, it’s a sobering realization.
“Well, things must have calmed down after that.” …negatory.
2000s, Cisco Helps Build the Great Firewall of China
“An internal document reveals that Cisco staff regarded the Chinese government’s rigid internet censorship program as an opportunity to do more business with the repressive regime.”
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2008, Cisco Leak: ‘Great Firewall’ of China Was a Chance to Sell More Routers
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2023, Ninth Circuit Allows Human Rights Case to Move Forward Against Cisco Systems
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2025, How Silicon Valley tech enabled the surveillance and detention of hundreds of thousands in China, describes the surveillance, detention, and torture of minorities and religious groups.
And we’ve come back to the Art of War—full circle, twenty-five centuries later.
2010s+, Snowden and the Five Eyes
(Dibs on the band name.) The Klein, Binney, Drake, Snowden (and other) whistleblower disclosures allowed us a peek into how deep the government surveillance rabbit hole goes:
Innovations include unprecedented global surveillance and query capabilities, the swapping of data between countries to work around privacy laws and constitutions (Five Eyes), sabotage of encryption standards, and secret courts and security letters.
By these metrics, our so-called benign modern governments have far surpassed the most evil of those in the twentieth century, all thanks to the march of technology.
You might have thought to yourself a decade or so ago, “Ok, now that everyone now knows about these potentially dangerous programs, surely they’ll be reformed.”
Unfortunately not, and we’re just getting started.