Amalgamatmosphere

A group named the Radical Software Group (RSG) created CarnivorePE (Personal Edition), a new version of Carnivore which a digital wiretapping software application used by the FBI in the 1990's to monitor the traffic flowing through the servers of internet service providers. This new version of Carnivore is similar to the original version in that itis able to see what is going on on the internet servers. The program does not spy on emails or chatrooms, as the original version did, but rather turns what it sees on the server into different forms of art. One abstract from CarnivorePE is Amalgamatmosphere. The information that is collected by CarnivorePE represents each active user on the network as a brightly colored circle. The color of the circle reflects a specific activity and the size of the circle is reflects increased activity.

This new version of Carnivore came as a response to the high-tech form of state surveillance used by the Government in the 1990's. Many of the clients of CarnivorePE emphasize the political implications of network surveillance. These pieces of art show how in depth Carnivore can get into other servers and ordinary civilian computers. In an artistic way, you can see the different applications that are seen by the program via the large number of different colors. I like how this program brings the secrets of the government out into the light where people can see what capabilities our government has. While it is somewhat comforting to know the abilities when they are being used against our enemies, these capabilities were and may be being used against everyday civilians.

I enjoyed this piece because it is taking a very complicated computer spying software and creates an art piece that is easy to understand. By making this so easy to understand, those of us that are not as computer savvy can understand how extensive the Carnivore software can look into the internet servers by simply analyzing the different colors and sizes of the circles. Great piece of art and very interesting!