Approaches for Digital Self Defence

Approaches
for Digital
Self-Defence
a speculative project
about cyber-paranoia
and contemporary
surveillance cultures
Erlend Prendergast

Discover
Deciding on a topic
Taking a step back
Reframing the brief
Surveillance in the digital age
Mapping out research
Governement surveillance
Sousveillance
Corporate spying
Define
User research
Christopher
Elsbeth
Generating insights
The perfect digital citizen
Cyber paranoia
4
3, 4
5, 6
7, 8
9, 10
11, 12,
13, 14
15, 16
17, 18,
19, 20
21, 22
23, 24
25, 26,
27, 28,
29, 30
30
Are we ever truly offline? 31
Digitally tailored everything 32
How ‘smart’ should a blender be? 33
Develop 34, 35
User persona and opportunity 36, 37
Government scenario 38, 39
Corporate scenario 40, 41
Lateral scenario 42, 43
Concept stage 44, 45
Concept one 46, 47
Concept two 48, 49
Concept three (chosen concept) 50, 51
Initial form research 52
External input day 53
Form collages 54, 55
Three legs 56, 57
Considering personas 58, 59
First prototypes 60, 61
Multiple attatchments 62, 63
Scramble 64, 65
Murmur 66, 57, 68, 69
Babbler 70, 71
Material research 72, 73, 74, 75
Reflections: materials and details 76, 77
Deliver 78, 79
Storyboard 80, 81, 82 , 83
Final outcome; reflections 84, 85
Final reflections and next steps 86, 87
3

4

This project took quite a few turns from the
brief I wrote at the beginning, but both my
approach and the central theme remained
the same.
The ‘discover’ section this journal will
discuss the initial ideas that I had for this
project, and reflect on how and why I
adapted the brief, as I embarked on my
research.
5

I have always been interested in technology,
and I had been sure for some time
that I wanted it to be the focus of my final
project.
However, when it came to submitting
the initial proforma and writing myself a
brief, I wasn’t quite sure where to place
my focus. Having just finished writing a
dissertation about the ethical implications
of ubiquitous computing - and felt that it
would make sense to continue researching
in this area.
Something which I didn’t have time to
discuss in my dissertation was the lack of
education surrounding computing ethics
in schools - and I thought this could be
a really interesting place to start. What I
didn’t take into account at the start was
how hard it would be to get access into a
school environment in order to conduct
research and carry out user testing later
on. I was made aware of this during an
ethics session in the first few weeks, and
decided to rethink my user group and alter
my topic.
6

Penny Webb - Seprate Togetherness
Thomas Thwaites - the Toaster Project
I was slightly stuck for a while on how to
adapt the project - so I decided to take
a step back from my previous idea and
carry out more research into some of
the issues and that surround technology
today. On reflection, moving away from
my inital direction was definitely beneficial
for the project,
A lot of my desk research insights were
connected to privacy, data collection and
surveillance. I was excited by a number
of speculative design projects that I had
seen exploring these topics, and felt that
it was an interesting path for me to research
and explore further.
7

Digital technology is being woven rapidly
into the fabric of society. We use it to
mediate a great number of everyday interactions,
across all aspects of our lives.
As computational devices advance, becoming
smaller and more complex - they
are embedded into objects in a manner
which is more or less invisible to the user.
In turn, our inability to understand the
technology that we use everyday opens
up space for user vulnerability - notably
surrounding issues of privacy and surveillance.
8

9

People often use the literary analogy of
Orwell’s “Big Brother” when discussing
surveillance, but in actual fact Orwell’s
model of omnipresent government surveillance
isn’t really an appropriate metaphor
for the kind of surveillance we see
today. I was interested to further analyse
what ‘surveillance’ really means in today’s
digital society.
Thanks in part to the Internet of Things,
surveillance today is multifaceted and
complex, taking place across all facets of
everyday life. All of the internet-enabled
devices we use - from smartphones and
fitness trackers to smart-fridges - collect
data about who we are as individuals.
This data might indeed be accessible to
governments, but a larger threat might
arise in the way in which it be leveraged
by corporations, or even other individuals.
The next stage of my research was to try
and seperate different forms of surveillance
and find a specific area to focus on
in more detail.
10

11

I found at this stage that I was slightly
lost in the research I had carried out, and
the next step for me was to synthesise
this research and map it out. There were
three main forms of surveiller that I had
come across in my research: governments,
corporations and finally peer-topeer
surveillance carried out by individuals.
Creating this map was really helpful for
my process, as it helped me to conclude
the first stage of desk research, and acted
as a tool that allowed me to explain
my research more coherently. I revisited
it a lot as I progressed through the project
- and the three areas that I defined
on it ended up forming the basis for my
final outcome.
Each of these areas were experienced
and enacted differently, and each had different
connotations and implications for
technology users. I created a map which
explained and analysed each area of my
research.
12

In the early stages of my project I found it quite difficult to articulate what it was about - I knew that I was interested
in data privacy and surveillance, but there were too many aspects of this topic that I found interesting,
and I kept getting a bit lost when trying to present the research. This research map really helped me to define
my key areas of research and speak about it more coherently.
13

Prompted by disclosures and leaks such
as Snowden and Cambridge Analytica -
the majority of the media discourse surrounding
surveillance is centred around
the notion of a a ‘Big Brother’ state. In
many ways state surveillance is considered
to be most intimidating - as we
consider it to be top-down and covert,
something which is done to us without
our knowledge or approval.
Snowden’s was the largest leak of data
to date, and marked the beginning of a series
of disclosures, particularly relating to
the surveillance practices of the US government.
It began with the publishing of
classified documents containing detailed
reports of a wide-scale electronic data
mining program by the National Security
Agency (NSA), codenamed ‘PRISM’.
One of the most significant findings
from these disclosures was the revelation
of the covert relationship between
technology companies and government.
Snowden’s documents revealed that
the NSA has partnerships with nine
major technology corporations: Microsoft,
Google, Yahoo!, AOL and Skype to
name a few
14

Snowden plays a huge role in our understanding of state surveillance - which is largely dependent on the
cooperation of big corporations.
15

Not only does today’s surveillance depend
on the participation of those surveilled,
but those surveilled are often
the intiaters of surveillance themselves.
James Cascio describes this using the
term ‘participatory panopticon’:
“this won’t simply be a world of a single,
governmental Big Brother watching over
your shoulder, nor will it be a world of
a handful of corporate siblings training
their ever-vigilant security cameras and
tags on you. Such monitoring may well
exist, probably will, in fact, but it will be
overwhelmed by the millions of cameras
and recorders in the hands of millions of
Little Brothers and Little Sisters. We will
carry with us the tools of our own transparency,
and many, perhaps most, will do
so willingly, even happily.”
Moreover, most of us use social media
platforms such as instagram and Facebook
to snoop on one and other - and
in turn, the reality which we project
through social media can often be highly
constructed.
16

A family watching a couple on tv watching their tv. With the rise of celebrity and reality tv; sousveillance
has become something of a way of life.
17

We engage frequently with corporations
across many different contexts - in ways
which are increasingly individualised and
targeted. Primarily these corporations
are trying to sell services and products
to us and, by doing so, are shaping our
decisions and behaviours.
we utter close enough for Siri to hear.
And once more, marketing itself is no
longer limited by the confines of advertising
- it permeates into many of our
digital interactions, in ways often unnoticed.
Advertising, once confined to billboards,
television and radio - has infiltrated all
facets of our digital environments. The
adverts we see are optimised depending
on our interests - according to the websites
we visit, the phrases we search and
the words
18

The massive amounts of personal data collected on Facebook make it the perfect tool for mass
surveillance - the Cambridge Analytica Scandal being a good example of this.
19

20

The research I had carried out in the discover
stage was rich and full of insights, However,
it was still quite macro and abstract. It
didn’t touch on the human experiences that
surround surveillance, and I didn’t yet have
a good understanding of the way in which
surveillance impacts our everyday lives.
In the ‘define’ stage I began to connect my
desk research to real users, and tried to
understand how surveillance trickles down
into our interactions with digital products
and services.
21

What I set out to achieve when I began
my user research was to understand
how fears surrounding surveillance
might impact the way we interact with
technology. The first task in doing this
was to redefine my user group now that
I had a more detailed understanding of
the topic.
Though having conversations about my
project with a number of different people;
peers, family and tutors, I came to
realise that one of the main factors that
influenced poeple’s ideas about surveillance
was their age; whether they were
a ‘Digital Native’ or a ‘Digital Immigrant’.
The understanding that I had formed
was that Digital Immigrants are more
likely to second guess technology and try
to work around it, whereas Digital Natives
tend to be more accustomed to it.
Considering this, I felt that i could gain
more interesting insights by focussing on
older generations of technology users,
and after visiting my parents for a weekend
and observing the way that they
interacted with and behaved around
technology, I decided to focus the user
research on people in their age group.
I visited the homes of three retired couples,
had a look at the technology they
used and asked them some interview
questions. This was really beneficial as
the insights I gained here played a large
role in informing the development of my
final outcome.
22

I prepared some questions but I didn’t have to use them that much in the end - surveillance is an easy
topic to discuss with people, as everyone seems to have their own paranoias
23

Christopher, 58
Quotes from interview:
“I use Safari for my online banking and
Chrome for everything else. I’m not quite
sure why - it just feels unsafe to do
everything on the same one”
“I heard Zuckerberg on the radio saying
how he covers his webcam. Apparently it’s
really easy to hack them. ”
“I’m pretty funny about passwords.
I change them all the time, I have a folder
upstairs with hundreds of them in it.”
“I mean I’ve not got much to hide
really, I understand why doctors or bankers
don’t want Alexa listening, but I’m an
artist. What could they want from me?”
“It made me jump the other day - it lit up
and I definitely say its name”
“It’s funny because I wouldn’t consider myself
to be someone who’s paranoid using
technology at all. I don’t notice myself doing
all of these things”
24

I think one of the most interesting things
that i drew from this interview was that
people have a number of paranoias that
they aren’t necessarily aware of.
Moreover, we sometimes pick up behaviours
and ways of doing things - such as
using stickers to cover webcams - that
are actually a little bit irrational and don’t
make a whole lot of sense. Someone
who is capable of hacking into a webcam
would probably be more likely to hack
into Zuckerberg’s than ours (I write this
with a sticker over my webcam)
What was also interesting is the ‘I don’t
have much to hide” attitude. This seems
to be linked to the idea of panopticism -
the idea that our personal might in some
way be used to discipline us.
25

Elsbeth, 61
“My sister gave it (Amazon smart speaker)
to me for my birthday last year. I was
terrified of the thing at first, but we’re good
friends now”
“We often joke about her being the ‘kitchen
spy’ - actually that’s what we call her if
she’s in the room so she doesn’t wake up.”
“Well we thought she only recorded us if
we woke her up, but I read in the Guardian
that she’s always recording everything.
How else would she know when we say
her name?”
“I said that the drain was blocked the other
day and an suddenly I was seeing advert
s for drain unblocker - I’m sure it was her”
“I do get a bit freaked out sometimes when
the blue light comes on but I haven’t said
said anything to it. That’s when it feels as
though it’s been listening all the time”
“If it really is recording all the time, they
must know a lot about us”
26

I got a lot of insights from my interview
with Elsbeth, that helped me to form my
final design opportunity and outcome.
27
I found the interaction that she has with
her Alexa speaker really interesting. Firstly
the fact that she personifies Alexa, using
‘she/her’ pronouns when discussing
it. I think there is an interesting dynamic
between the human characteristics of
Alexa and its techy, paired back aesthetic.
It’s not too human that it’s scary, but
human enough that it has a personality.

What I set out to achieve when I began
my user research was to understand
how fears surrounding surveillance
might impact the way we interact with
technology. The first task in doing this
was to redefine my user group now that
I had a more detailed understanding of
the topic.
Considering this, I felt that i could gain
more interesting insights by focussing on
older generations of technology users,
and after visiting my parents for a weekend
and observing the way that they
interacted with and behaved around
technology, I decided to focus the user
research on people in their age group.
28

Not only can our personal data be used
to tailor the adverts we see and influence
the decisions we make, but it might
also be used by employers, or banks in
order to assess us.
In turn, the opportunities we receive
might be defined by our digital representations;
the things we’ve purchased,
what we’ve Google searched or even
the topics we’ve discussed in front of
Alexa. This is information capitalism, and
will only become more prevalent as the
amount of data we generate continues
to increase.
Could it be possible to alter our digital
representations in order to optimise our
chances and increase the number of opportunities
we are presented with? What
does a ‘perfect’ digital citizen look like?
29

A photo of Mark Zuckerberg was posted
last year, in which his laptop was seen
to have a sticker over its webcam. The
photo went viral, and the effects of it
trickled their way down into society,
prompting lots of laptop users to cover
their webcams.
The sticker over the webcam has become
just one of a number of different
habits technology users have formed to
ensure their privacy: using VPN’s, private
browsing modes, ad blockers and pseudonyms
to name but a few.
As we continue to find out more about
surveillance - through disclosures, leaks,
or even just a photo like this one - we
become more wary of our technology.
30

We use computers across all aspects of
our everyday life, in work and leisure; to
email colleagues, to pay for coffee, to find
our way around Our smartphones are
always operating autonomously in the
background, connecting us into a web of
communication and digital interaction.
We don’t just use computers at home
or in our offices anymore - nowadays a
phone is a computer. Computers have
made their way into many a whole array
of products that we encounter frequently
across many different contexts.
As a result of this, the boundary between
the online and the offline has begun to
merge.
31

Each Google Maps app is individually tailored
to its user, according to an algorithmic
prediction of their interests.
In turn, each smartphone user will see
a different list of shops whilst standing
on the same street. An algorithm skims
through our previous locations, email
conversations and internet searches to
give us a personalised list of places that it
thinks we’d like to see.
In the same way that personalised advertising
changes how we experience
our virtual environment - two people
navigating the same street using Google
Maps will experience their physical environment
differently.
32

‘Smart’ technology has made its way into
many of the products that were once
pretty simple things - from fridges and
blenders to watches and headphones.
The defining feature of these products is
their ability to collect user data, allowing
for a more personalised user experience.
Perhaps these data collecting devices are
simply acting as an apparatus through
which corporations can exploit their customer
and maximise profits?
Jacob Silverman writes “What is presented
as an upgrade is actually a stealthy
euphemism for surveillance (used to)
provide a company with a permanent
foothold in a person’s home from which
they can be monitored”
How ësmartí should
a Blender be?
33

34

I began the develop stage by creating a
detailed persona based on my insights
and user research. I focussed on one
specific opportunity relating to Alexa,
and developed a series of speculative
scenarios of how this user’s personal data,
gathered by Alexa, might be used. I was
really happy with these scenarios, as I
felt they really brought the project to life.
I then went on to generate concepts - before
focussing specifically on one. Through
form research, sketching, physical/digital
prototyping and material development,
I developed this concept into my final
proposition
35

61 year old Elspeth received a virtual assistant
as a Christmas gift from her sister
last year. She was initially very wary of
the device after reading articles about
its privacy implications online. She didn’t
like the idea a that tech company was
eavesdropping on her conversations. The
recent revelations that a British political
data firm, Cambridge Analytica, had improperly
harvested the information of
50 million Facebook users only added to
her wariness. There was no way of her
knowing who was sitting at the other
end of the device, analysing her every
word.
Elspeth’s concerns didn’t change over
time - but the way in which she used
the device did. She began to realise how
useful it could be for tasks around the
house. She started to rely on it to mediate
a number of her everyday tasks.
After months of using the device, Elspeth
can’t imagine her life without it. She’s
even considering purchasing more smart
devices to create a ‘smart home’. The
only thing stopping her from doing is her
concern over privacy.
Things I wanted to address through my
scenario cards:
Where might Elspeth’s personal data end
up?
How might corporations, governments, or
other individuals be able to leverage this
data for their own gain?
My design opportunity:
How might Elspeth protect her privacy,
without having to sacrifice the device?
36

37

The Snowden Disclosures in 2014 shined
light on the surveillance practices of the
US government. Classified documents
were published containing detailed reports
of a wide-scale electronic data
mining program by the National Security
Agency (NSA), codenamed ‘PRISM’.
Snowden’s documents revealed that
the NSA has partnerships with nine
major technology corporations: Microsoft,
Google, Yahoo!, AOL and Skype to
name a few. These partnerships enable
the NSA to monitor real time data content
such internet search behavior and
browsing patterns. Further, the ‘Verizon
Scandal’ revealed that a secret court
order had required major telephone
networks to provide the NSA with a
sustained stream of metadata regarding
phone calls: locations, caller, callee and
call duration.
38
If the NSA had access to Elspeth’s voice
transcripts, how might they be used?
- Trigger words and phrases might be monitored
to assess whether Elspeth holds any
threat to national security.
- In the future, Elspeth’s conversations
could feed into the establishment of a social
credit system, such as the one currently
in place in china.
- A police investigation looks to harvest
data from Elspeth’s virtual assistant, after
she is affilated with a small crime.

39

As the user of an Amazon Echo speaker
begins to rely on its voice assistant, Alexa,
to mediate a variety of tasks around the
home - their use of the device becomes
habitual. Each time they add a new device
into their smart-home ecosystem,
Amazon learns in more detail about
their lifestyle and behaviours. This detail
constitutes invaluable information capital,
which Amazon can leverage to predict
and control the lifestyles and behaviours
of their customers.
For the person living in a smart-home
filled with Echo devices, Amazon becomes
more than just a retailer - it becomes
an operating system used to mediate
their physical life.
40
How might a technology company such
as Amazon use the data generated by
its virtual assistants?
- Key words and phrases are used to create
channels for personalised advertising.
- Amazon delves into the insurance market,
offering tailored quotes based on the user’s
behavioural data, such as purchasing decisions
and conversation transcripts.
- The personal data of millions of users is
supplied to a third-party app developer,
leading to a mass behavioural study and
the swaying of numerous global political
elections. (sound familiar?)

41

It only takes a Google search to find
countless cases in which hackers have
been able to to remotely access the microphones
of virtual assistants.
One group of Chinese hackers spent
months developing a new technique for
hijacking Amazon’s Echo smart speaker:
“After several months of research, we successfully
broke the Amazon Echo by using
multiple vulnerabilities in the Amazon Echo
system, achieving remote eavesdropping…
When the attack [succeeds], we can control
Amazon Echo for eavesdropping and
send the voice data through network to the
attacker”
What could a hacker do with
Elspeth’s virtual assistant?
- Elspeth discusses a her holiday plans in
front of her virtual assistant. Whilst she is
away, her house is robbed.
- An anonymous email is sent to Elspeth
from a blackmailer, who threatens to publish
her private converstations online.
- The data from thousands of Amazon
smart speakers in London homes is harvested
by a terrorist organisation and used
to plan an attack
42

43

Google the term ‘surveillance’ and a
plethora of articles from the last 24 hours
will come up. Many of these articles will
have bold, sensationalist titles, such as
“Facebook Just Gave Repressive Regimes
The Ultimate Surveillance Blueprint”, or
“China’s ‘horrifying’ new surveillance system
could have global consequences”
I became interested quite early on in the
role that the media plays in creating fear
around surveillance. Though surveillance
is certainly a real threat in today’s society,
I noticed that most of this media coverage
is centred around top down, government
surveillance and the notion of
‘state spying’.
Furthermore, there are a lot of divisive
whistleblower characters involved in
the media coverage surrounding surveillance,
such as Snowden, Christopher
Wylie and Julian Assange. These characters
allow us to engage with the debate
surrounding the topic, as there is a narrative
to follow.
The first concept I had was to design
my own narrative of an Alexa-themed
surveillance disclosure, with its own
whistleblower character.
44

I actually really liked this idea - but
I moved on from it pretty quickly. I
did however keep the idea of creating
a narrative to make the notion
of surveillance something tangible. I
feel that this is something my final
proposition did really well in a different
way.
45

One of my main interests in this project
was designing and making an object or
product that was subversive and critical.
This was the direction I started to take
when I came up with the idea for my
second concept - a series of switches
that the user could install in their house
to create false patterns of data.
This concept was centred around the
idea of smart homes - where the house’s
electrics are connected into a centralised
digital system. From the perspective of
digital surveillance, the issue with smart
homes is that a lot of ‘smart’ devices are
weakly secured and quite easy to hack.
As the user is constantly generating data,
patterns begin to emerge that show, for
example, what times they are usually in
the house. This in turn makes the person
living in a smart home more vulnerable
to criminals than someone in a regular,
not-so-smart home - I liked the irony in
this.
Article on the Independent that led me to think about this concept
46

Rather than actually switching appliances
on, the switch would connect
to the internet-enabled aspect of
the device and create a false indication
that it was being switched on at
random intervals.
I didn’t develop this concept very far
as it did not immediately respond to
my opportunity, which was about Alexa.
However, this idea and the bit of research
that I did alongside it definitely
informed the direction that I took
with my final concept.
I used this concept to teach myself the basics of CAD modelling, as I knew I wanted to
use it in this project.
47

Though my two prior concepts were interesting
- they did not directly address
the opportunity that I had defined when
I created my user persona as I had gotten
a little lost in my ideas. At this stage I
went back to my opportunity and decided
to address it more directly.
This opportunity was quite specific:
How might Elspeth (the user) protect her
privacy, without having to sacrifice the device
(Aexa speaker) ?
When I came up with the idea for my
third concept, it felt like it should have
been quite obvious to me earlier on. It
was actually quite simple; an accessory
that would work in conjunction with
the Alexa speaker in order to mess with
Amazon’s algorithms, and give the user
(Elspeth) a sense of security.
Of course, this concept is slightly absurd;
that someone would purchase an accessory
to defend themselves against a
device that they choose to use. And as I
mentioned previously (page __) there is
no way really knowing how Alexa’s algorithms
work - and therefore it would be
quite difficult to defend Elspeth against
them.
In many ways this is what made me so
drawn to this concept. Most of the fears
and paranoias that we have surrounding
Alexa, and the different rituals and interactions
that came up in my user research
- are somewhat nonsensical. In reality, the
only way to defend ourselves against Alexa,
is to not use it at all.
I think that this concept highlighted this
paradox quite well, and I was really excited
to start developing it.
48

Very initial sketches were a bit unamaginative
but I moved on quite quickly as I began to collate
together some visual references
I started off thinking about an accessory that the Alexa speaker would slot into, so that the object
would be surrounding Alexa. I made a first very simple digital prototype of how this could look.
Again at this point I was mainly trying to get my head around the software. .
49

intial form research
At this stage of the project I began
compile some visual materials together;
other projects that I had seen and
felt drawn to, and objects which I felt
reflected the ideas surrounding my
concept.
From the beginning I had a pretty clear
idea of the semantic qualities of the
product I wanted to make. I wanted it
to be playful, and characterful and satirical,
and I wanted the form of the
object to be suggestive of its function
and motives.
Also really important was the relationship
between the object I was designing
and the Alexa speaker that it would be
sitting next to. I tried to keep this in mind
throughout the development process,
integrating the speaker into my sketches
and placing a model of it next to my
prototypes.
I got some really helpful feedback when I
presented my initial sketch model at the
first development review - to start off
being very experimental with my own
prototypes and choose a selected few
to refine after.
Dan Adleš - Electricity is Just Like Woah
50

“sprinkling of disinformation”
“language of nonsense”
“David and Goliath”
“data watering can”
Schimmel & Schweikle - Return to Default
The first very basic model I made
We had two an external input days
over the course of this project, in
which we had the opportunity to
present our project designers, design
researchers and design academics.
The second of this in out days was
early on in the development stage,
and was really informative and beneficial.
I had a particularly helpful discussion
with James Johnson from getMade Design,
who gave me some brilliant comments
about the direction I could take
with the project. One of these comments
was about the user forming a relationship
with it with the device, almost
as if it were a pet. I really liked this idea,
and tried to keep it with me throughout
the development process.
51

I saw a lot of really interesting forms
whilst looking through a Bang and
Olufson book, and started to think about
how they might translate into the form
of my object. I photocopied some pages
that I liked from the book, cut up individual
elements and created come collages.
Each of the new forms that I made had
a different character and personality,
which I really liked. I tried to create little
scale that I think represented the trials
of these forms quite well. Humour, ‘techness’
(their resemblance to Alexa-like
tech products) and human-ness (looking
like they are alive in some way).
52

unconventional
characterful
disruptive
satirical
53

I was particularly drawn to one of the
collages that I had made, which had three
legs and looked almost insect-like. There
was something about the three legs that
I felt have the object a lot of character.
It reminded me of a little pot that I had
in my family home growing up. I always
used to imagine when I was younger that
this little, awkwardly innocent pot had a
life of its own.
the same diameter - almost as if Alexa
had grown grown three little legs. I really
liked the relationship between these two
objects when they were placed together,
and from this point I started to integrate
similar legs onto all of my form sketches.
This became one of the integral features
of the design, that I kept all the way
through as I developed the models and
prototypes.
When I was home visiting my parents,
I had another look at this pot and took
a photo of it besides the Alexa speaker.
Funnily enough, they were both about
The pot at my parents’ house
The collage with the legs I liked
54

Sabira Silcock
(same below)
Sometimes it can be difficult to know
what to draw next when the object
could really take any form. It was quite
nice to have a feature of the object
which was set and remained sort of
static. Although I changed aspects of the
legs - their size, thickness, material, and
texture - they remained quite similar up
until my final models.
Lampshade from
Kenya Hara’s book
‘Haptics’
A false furry
fabric on a
polystyrene ring
55

I had a visual language and a good sense
of how the product might look at this
stage, but I wasn’t sure exactly what kind
of personality it would have, as this was
dependent to some extent on its function.
I didn’t know what it was going to do
to confuse and disrupt Alexa; whether it
would say random things, or very considered
things - whether it would sing or
whether it would shout.
Part of me wanted to design the object
to have a sort of false innocence, and
sneakily feed Alexa with data - maybe in
the form of a whisper. However I was
also fond of the idea that it would be
more jumpy and alert, and shout over
the user when they said something private.
I was a little conflicted about having to
settle on one personality for the object.
56

Markus Wold + MarkusBader,
2002: Bootleg
Objects: series sound - Rebraun
I thought that the most natural way to
design more than one personality into
the device, was the give it a set of controls.
This worked well with one of the
insights I had defined earlier on (page
29), about the user being able to tailoring
their own digital representation.
The Alexa speaker, like a lot of other
technology today - has been designed
to look really simple and discreet. Its
form does not give any indication of the
complexity of the technology inside it. I
initially liked the idea of having different
switches and sliders and a retro interface
of my product in order to contrast with
this.
I moved on from this idea as I started
to make phsysical prototypes, and began
think about having a family different objects,
rather than one object with multiple
functions
initial plastacine model with control panel detail
57

First physical prototype
First digital prototype
When I started to make my first physical
prototypes in the workshop, I was
firstly interested in thinking about the
base of the object and its legs. I had
a pretty good idea if how I wanted
this part of the product to look, and
thought it experiment with this component
first.
I wanted the form to be a similar scale
to the Alexa speaker, so I found out its
diameter and started off by cutting out
foam circles of the same size. The first
prototype I made was pretty simple and
a bit of a blob. I took this form into a
CAD software, and sculpted it to give it
to be a bit more refined.
58

The first form was a bit too small
and nondescript, and there was no
plane on top to put a control panel
(which I was still interested in exploring
at this point)
I made a second model which had
a flat plane along the top where a
control panel could sit. I really liked
this prototype and the way that the
legs looked on it, but I felt that it was
a bit bulky.
At this stage -and after a productive
tutorial - started to doubt the idea
of the control panel, as it seemed
like it would quite limiting for the
form of the object. I was also worried
that having these controls might
make it appear to be just another
technology product, rather than one
which is different and disruptive.
59

As the result of making of first prototypes
and seeing them as physical forms,
I came to the idea that rather than using
buttons to alter its function, it might
be more interesting to alter the function
through a series of different attachments
- each with its own personality.
I was really happy with this idea, as I felt
that I could express the different forms
of surveillance paranoia more effectively
by creating a family of accessories,
than I could creating just one.
One of the things I had discussed during
my external input session with James
Johnson was the idea that this product
should have a DIY quality to it. That
the user could build it and bring it to
life themselves. I felt that this could be
achieved by having two parts to the
product. This way when the user puts
the attachment on, the object wakes up.
60

After deciding to create a family of
attachments, I went back to the workshop
to refine the form of the base. I
wanted to have this set in stone before
I started to design the attachments, as
it meant that I had a basis that I could
work from.
Looking back at my previous prototypes,
I decided to make the legs of
this final prototype a bit longer and the
body a little slimmer. I was really happy
with how the final form of the base
turned out.
Making the final prototye for the base
I began to think about the details of the
base and how the attachments would
fit on top. Created a CAD model of
the final prototype and created a little
space at the top where a magnet could
sit - measured o the size of magnet that
I purchased on online.
The slot where the magnet would fit
61

The first attachment that I set out to
design was based on the form that
I had been leading towards in most
of my sketches, with the speaker that
looms over Alexa. I felt that the forms in
these sketches almost looked as though
though they were almost waiting for
Alexa or the user to say something. I
thought that this would tie in really
nicely with the idea of the user saying
sensitive word around Alexa.
scenario cards; one for corporate surveillance,
and one for lateral sousveillance.
The idea for my first attachment it that
it would be programmed to respond
when it hears these trigger words being
spoken, and scramble the recording by
shouting over the user into the speaker.
After a list of trigger words monitored
by the the US’s National Security Agency
was leaked online, there were multiple
studies that showed how people’s
behaviours changed online. People
were more wary to search certain
words than they were before.
As this concept was tied to the idea of
state surveillance and governemnt spying,
I decided at this point that it would
make a lot of sense to design two other
attacthments that reflected my earlier
62

I wanted to amp up the characteristics
that I had observed in the form of my
first model. This attachment was to look
alert - like it was on its toes waiting for
a sound. I sketched down some ideas
before using CAD to bring them to life.
The first CAD model I made was quite over the
top, but effective
63

After creating a model on CAD that
I was really happy with, I wanted to
make sure that the scale of it looked
right. However, making prototypes of
this form proved a bit more challenging
as I was beginning to feel the time
constraints. I still had to come up with
the ideas for the other attachments,
and experiment create forms for them
also.
I measure dout the size of the digital
model and went went back to the
workshop to make a prototype. I didn’t
completely finish this prototype, but
making it in part allowed me to see
how the scale would be in real life.
Prototype of Scramble’s neck, measures to be
same size as the one on CAD model
64

final model:
After making the physical prototype I
realised that the neck was a little too
long and not quite balanced enough.
I rectified this by making the base of the
neck a bit shorter and more organic
looking.
I really liked the final form, as it has
loads of character, and defintely looks
like it’s waiting to intervene. I showed
it to a lot of people and felt that it
didn’t need to be refined any further.
65

The concept for the second attachment
came to me whilst designing Scramble. I
wanted this attachment to be the complete
opposite of Scramble - rather than
hanging over Alexa and waiting to shout
over the user, this attachment would
hang back discretely and whisper to
Alexa. This interaction came first, along
with the name Murmur, meaning “a softly
spoken or almost inaudible utterance”.
The function of this attachment also fell
into place really nicely. I wanted to address
fears around tailored advertising,
something which we all feel the effects
of. I came up an idea that every time the
user says something that might indicate
a personal taste, hobby or preference,
Murmur would counteract it by uttering
something completely opposing.
The mechanisms for tailored advertising
are really very sneaky - we rarely know
what data has been used to tailor the
adverts we see. This is something which
came up in my interview with Elspeth,
and I really liked the way this attachment
addressed this opportunity.
66

How sneaky could the pipe/cable be? In this
model it disappears behind a wall and resurfaces
above Alexa’s head
Eriko Matsumura - Air Puff
I liked way this object interacts
with the computer
67

For this attachment I spent a lot of time
working between sketches and creating
digital prototypes using CAD, which I’m
happy about as I learned a lot about
how to use the software. I had a lot of
fun concepts about how Murmur could
sneak up and infiltrate Alexa’s algorithms.
In the end, I think the answer was not
to not complicate the form too much,
and keep it quite fitting quite low, baring
in mind that Scramble is tall and towers
over Alexa. This way the different attachments
would play off of one and other.
68

I started to think about
how I could express the
chracteristics of the attatchment
through its
material
final model
I imagined this attatchment
all to feel quite soft
and rubberised.
I really liked hiw it turned
out, even though it did
take me ages to make
69

One of the insights I got from my user
research was that people are sometimes
a bit embarrassed to think that a Alexa
really could be listening all the time. Recently
there have been articles in the
news claiming that there really are human
workers at Amazon whose job it is
to listen to recording made by Alexa -
this is what I wanted to play on with the
third attachment I made.
How could the user fool the person
sitting on the other end of Alexa, into
thinking that they were a wholesome,
good person?
The idea I developed for this attachment
was that it could be turned on when the
user leaves the house, and it would chat
to Alexa all dat about socially desirable
things. In turn, the user would build a
perfect persona for themselves - a digital
alter ego.
The semantics of this object had to communicate
that the attachment is a false
friend - using a chatty friendly facade to
fool Alexa into believing the lies that it
tells.
70

I felt like I didn’t need to make quite as
many different form iterations for this
one, as the idea for it had been forming
whilst I was designing the previous
attachments.
Ideally I would’ve liked to have gone to
the workshop and some physical prototypes,
or even 3D printed some prototypes
using the facilities at the school, but
at this point I wanted to order print the
final models in order to ensure that they
would be with me in time. 71

I wanted the product to feel like a manufactured
and commercially available
product. The best option for this was to
3D printed, but I had to send the file
away as soon as possible to ensure that
I would receive it in time to develop
the proposition further. This meant that
I did not have a lot of time to carry out
material exploration during the prototyping
stage. Instead, experimented with
materials whilst I was waiting for the final
models to print. This meant that I
could come to a conclusion on how I
wanted to treat the models when I had
them.
I created a colour palette that I thought
that I felt would compliment the project
well. I ended up varying a bit from this
palette, but it was helpful to limit myself
a bit at the beginning.
The difficult part was that I could only
afford to order one base - so I would
have to figure out whether I wanted the
base and attachments to be different
colours, or all the same colour.
72

Scramble is alert, and snappy - the first
though I had was to make it bright - a
red or yellow. I tried this and felt that it
detracted from the form a lot, a warm
terracotta red worked quite nicely
though.
I only liked the look of the colour when
both the base and the attachment were
the same - I tried various different
options and this was something I felt
across all of the attachments.
73

74
Murmer is under-the-radar and sneaky. I
wanted this to reflect on the materials
so that it wasn’t too bright. I really liked
the mirrored chrome material, as it almost
acts as a disguise. However this
was not going to be possible. I actually
felt that the white worked best here.

Babbler’s form implies that it is friendly
and welcoming - I tried to reflect this
through the colours and materials by
choosing ones that were brighter and
more playful.
75

After receiving my final models and
getting a lot of thought feedback from
others, I felt that it would be a mistake
to apply a new finish to the models. The
quality of the plastic feels really nice, as
the finish of models was already processed.
The forms of the objects themselves
have an inherent materiality, and
applying a new finish to them might
have ended up detracting from their
forms in some way.
I was also quite aware that I wanted the
objects to be nuanced and not over-designed
If they were to become too familiar
looking - like something that could
be found in a kitchen - they would not
be so curious as objects.
I put small ridges into this face of Scramble, so the user
knows that it is this side they attach to the base. I will
laser cut a small acrylic panel with a magnet on the
other side, so that it will attatch onto the base
76

laser cut acrylic
magnet
silicone
I filled the hollow parts of the other two
attachments with silicone, and was going
to sit a magnet on this before covering it
with laser cut acrylic disk, so that it would
look neat. Unfortunately I didn’t manage
to get all of this done before assessment,
but will refine it for degree show
I designed a hole into the top of the base
sonthat I could fill it with plaster before
sealing it with the magnet. This makes the
base heavier as if were filled with technology.
77

78

The deliver stage was probably the most
stressful point in the project - as time was
beginning to get tight. I had to decide on
certain things that I would leave until after
completing this journal, and certain things
that I would have to fix after assessment, in
time for degree show.
I decided that the way I could organise
my time most productively was to make
a storyboard and take some shots of the
product before going to take the final
photographs, whilst shooting the film.
I wanted to make a storyboard showing how
the user might hear about and purchase
Counterbug. This storyboard had to be
visually engaging so that it brought the
proposition to life - and I think I achieved
this quite well.
79

Whilst reading her morning newspaper, Elaine
comes across an article that leaves her feeling
deeply conflicted.
According to the article, there are staff employed
at Amazon whose role it is to listen
through Alexa users’ voice transcripts.
Elaine suddenly feels very aware that someone
might be on the other end of the speaker. she
decides to switch Alexa off whilst she thinks
about what she has just read.
Elaine has been using an Alexa speaker ever
since she received it as a birthday gift from her
sister last year. Though she has always been
dubious about how much the device is recording
- she has grown to really like having it.
80

Elaine
Lilian
Order
CounterBug
Here
Looking for some comfort and reassurance,
Elaine messages her friend Lillian, who also
owns an Alexa speaker:
“Hello Lillian,
I have just read a shocking article, and I thought
that as a fellow Alexa user you might want to
know about it.
Here’s a link:
www.guardian.co.uk/txksieo2ueodspy4834”
Much Elaine’s surprise, Lillian replies with a link
to a product that she hasn’t heard of before:
“Hi Elaine!
I’m all too aware of this after reading a similar
article last week! My brother suggested I buy a
Counterbug - and I haven’t looked back ever since
- safety at last!
www.counterbug.com
81

Elaine reads CounterBug’s manifesto, imagining
all of the scenarios of how her data might be
used.
She clicks through the three different accessories
available to her, and comes to the conclusion
that she definitely has to have one.
Though all of the attachments seem revelant
to her, there is one which seems especially
pertinent.
Since the Snowden disclosures, Elaine always
feels a bit on edge. She accidentally shoplifted a
tub of house paint from B&Q about a year ago,
and she worries that one day she will say the
wrong thing in front of Alexa, and the police
will come knocking on her door.
She orders Scramble with next day delivery.
82

Elaine recieves her CounterBug in the post the
next day and assembles it straight away, She is
delighted to hear Scramble jump into action.
It took a little bit of getting used to - as Scramble
can sometimes be a little loud, but she feels
a lot more at ease now that she doesn’t have
to worry about saying the wrong thing in front
of Alexa.
83

84

I think my final outcome was really well
resolved. The fact that it has quite a high
quality finish really helps engage people
to ask what it is. This is exactly what it
intended - as the objects act as a vehicle
to provoke thought and discussion
about the way that we use technology,
and the lengths are willing to go to protect
our privacy.
If people are already willing to do things
such as use VPN’s, cover up their webcams
and turn off Alexa when it’s not in
use - the idea that someone would buy
a product like CounterBug is not so so
much of a stretch.
85
I didn’t get the chance to film a video
before I finished this journal, but I
think it will play a really important part
in bringing to life the experiences and
interactions that surround the product
What I would really like to capture in this
video is the relationship between Counterbug,
Alexa and the user - and the idea
that these two robots, sat in the corner,
are playing off one and other.
As AI moves its way rapidly into our
homes - these are the sorts of relationships
that will begin to form. Not only
will we have robots that service us, but
we may even have robots that exist to
service other robots.

86

I’m really happy with the way that this project developed, and
I feel very confident in what I have produced. I think that
there is a really strong narrative from start to finish. I started
off with a challenging topic, and the outcome that I ended up
is actually really simple, but in a good way. I like that the final
proposition correlates directly with the insights from my user
research, and I can imagine the product being placed back
into the domestic scenes that I photographed (p.24,25).
The studio environment was really beneficial for me during
this project, as I had lots of discussions about my work; not
only with tutors but with peers and friends. This meant that I
didn’t ever feel too stuck, as there were always lots of ideas
flowing back and fore.
One of the things that I wanted to get from this project was to
learn how to use CAD as a quick tool to visualise my ideas. I
feel that I achieved this really well and I now feel comfortable
using the software in this way, which is huge bonus for me.
However, this also meant than I could’t spend as much time in
the workshop making prototypes as I would have liked to - as
I was sitting behind the computer for quite a lot of the project.
I would’ve liked to have illustrated in more detail the system
that surrounds Counterbug; how a potential user would come
across it, and where/how the product would be sold. These
were aspects of the project that I discussed in my tutorials
and I touched upon in my storyboard, but I didn’t manage to
expand on that much before assessment.
I am also a little bit disappointed that I didn’t manage to
refine some of the details I had planned for the attachments
- particularly the magnet system, but this is something I will
definitely fix for degree show.
87

88

89

90