WEBVTT 00:00:10.643 --> 00:00:11.477 Hello. 00:00:11.477 --> 00:00:15.981 Welcome to our friend The computer, A computer history podcast. 00:00:16.015 --> 00:00:23.390 I'm Camila, and I am here well, via the Internet with my lovely co-host, Ana. 00:00:23.422 --> 00:00:25.457 Hi Ana. 00:00:25.457 --> 00:00:26.960 Hi, Yes, via the Internet. 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:32.064 Not telecommunication lines. 00:00:32.131 --> 00:00:33.265 We're not recording. 00:00:33.265 --> 00:00:42.908 We're not recording vie telephony networks, but through ARPANET, Internet. 00:00:43.042 --> 00:00:46.045 It's kind of depressing. 00:00:46.179 --> 00:00:51.618 Yeah, well, you know, I'm having a kind of weird week, but I'm very excited. 00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:52.152 Yeah. 00:00:52.152 --> 00:01:01.661 I mean, I, like, I got back from my trip to London, visiting you, and then, yeah, I had, I guess, sort of like a commission that was due last week. 00:01:01.661 --> 00:01:03.662 So I'm sort of. 00:01:03.662 --> 00:01:10.637 Yeah, I was like, working hard on some, on some projects, and now I'm ready for some podcast time. 00:01:10.804 --> 00:01:22.182 Yeah, it sounds like you've been super busy, which was good for me because it meant that I could really dig in a search for this one and basically just like change the research multiple times. 00:01:22.248 --> 00:01:36.629 It's cool because we kind of worked on this together a little bit where you kind of like had a read through my notes and we were able to kind of suss out what, yeah, what this episode was going to be about fully. So. 00:01:36.695 --> 00:01:37.664 Yeah, but wait a second. 00:01:37.664 --> 00:01:39.399 You're in Switzerland. 00:01:39.399 --> 00:01:41.668 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm in Switzerland. 00:01:41.668 --> 00:01:42.668 I'm visiting my mom. 00:01:42.668 --> 00:01:44.037 She lives here. 00:01:44.037 --> 00:01:46.638 I'm actually working remotely. 00:01:46.638 --> 00:01:48.808 So, do the know you're working remotely? 00:01:48.808 --> 00:01:54.746 Yeah, they know that I'm working from Switzerland, but actually, only my line manager and my, like, managers know that I am. 00:01:54.847 --> 00:01:58.150 My colleagues don't actually know that I'm in Switzerland. 00:01:58.150 --> 00:02:16.269 They think that I'm in London and I actually have my boss messaging me at the moment being like, kind of checking in with me to make sure that I'm on the beach somewhere, which I definitely will be in about an hour and but yeah, it's been really hot. 00:02:16.269 --> 00:02:18.837 It's really, really hot. 00:02:16.269 --> 00:02:18.837 It's like 34 degrees. 00:02:18.837 --> 00:02:21.841 It's crazy. That sounds nice. 00:02:21.974 --> 00:02:28.681 We had like one hot day here in New York and then it got really windy and then it was kind of cold, so. 00:02:28.681 --> 00:02:30.449 Oh, really? 00:02:30.449 --> 00:02:32.185 Yeah, I don't know. It'll. 00:02:32.185 --> 00:02:36.556 It's summer solstice or something, I think, now. So. 00:02:36.656 --> 00:02:40.793 So actually, this is like kind of the last. 00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:42.262 Oh, yeah. Sort of. 00:02:42.262 --> 00:02:48.967 Our current our first little season arc isn't our first little season. 00:02:49.134 --> 00:02:51.204 Looking at these kind of pre-Internet networks. 00:02:51.204 --> 00:02:55.474 Specifically what we did we did telex. Mhm. 00:02:55.542 --> 00:02:58.677 Teletext and video texts. 00:02:58.745 --> 00:03:03.081 So yeah, this is a little bit of an epic one to finish us off. 00:03:03.081 --> 00:03:13.526 And then I mean we've got like probably going to have a couple more episodes that are looking at some adjacent looking of something adjacent, but I'm just working on it. 00:03:13.526 --> 00:03:25.437 We'll say, we'll see how it go and then we're going to do a new topic for a little bit after that, which is going to be interesting because like, yeah, I mean, it's computers, but yeah, right, exactly. 00:03:25.437 --> 00:03:49.127 It's all kind of linked, but I think it's yeah, it's nice to kind of have different topics, different chapters because yeah, like you said, the development of technology is so interlinked and you can go into the details of all of the bridges, you know, and you can do like a chronological like history of everything, but that would be incredibly boring. 00:03:49.127 --> 00:03:53.165 So I'm kind of excited to like, look into something completely different. 00:03:53.233 --> 00:04:00.272 Yeah, but I think, you know, I love this topic, so we might still bring bring some episodes. 00:04:00.272 --> 00:04:01.241 Yeah, yeah. 00:04:01.241 --> 00:04:10.049 Dip our toes back in to the pre-Internet networks. But today, what's our, what's our topic? 00:04:10.116 --> 00:04:26.266 So it's Bell Ballito, which was a South African video text network by the late eighties and early nineties, there were kind of a few online communication standards that have been sort of set. 00:04:26.365 --> 00:04:33.939 You had the c p, t one which was built from text, which was used in Germany, had CP two which was Minotaur. 00:04:33.939 --> 00:04:47.519 In France you have GPT three, which was used for press down in the UK and there was even acp4, which was for press Dell plus, but I think presto plus was Sweden. 00:04:47.754 --> 00:04:49.221 Oh okay. 00:04:49.221 --> 00:04:52.492 I think I could, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:04:52.492 --> 00:05:03.136 And by this point most telecommunication companies around the world started to adopt these systems for their services. 00:05:03.235 --> 00:05:34.100 And in 1986 the South African video text network which also ran in c T, but I think it was more linked to the minute till one was known as Balto and it was introduced by the South African Post Office, who then also operated the country's kind of phone system to let you know what telephony do you know what Bell stands for in Balto? 00:05:34.266 --> 00:05:35.100 That's a good question. 00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:37.903 Who is the person that invented telephone? 00:05:37.903 --> 00:05:40.872 Alexander Graham Bell Is that the person? 00:05:40.872 --> 00:05:43.543 I mean, I don't think oh, I don't know. 00:05:43.543 --> 00:05:44.644 Can we Google that? 00:05:44.644 --> 00:05:45.711 I'm Googling it. 00:05:45.711 --> 00:05:55.855 Yeah, he, he, he patented the first practical telephone, but I'm not sure if that is named after him, but I'm going to use. 00:05:55.954 --> 00:05:56.555 Yeah. 00:05:56.555 --> 00:06:00.158 Or like Bell as in like you know, you're ringing something illegally. 00:06:00.259 --> 00:06:02.627 Yeah. Mhm. 00:06:02.627 --> 00:06:04.863 But yeah. I mean in technical terms. 00:06:04.863 --> 00:06:16.541 Bell tell is a video text service that allows access to computer services and databases through the existing phone network. 00:06:16.608 --> 00:06:21.713 And to use this system, you would need a personal computer equipped with PC Bell. 00:06:21.713 --> 00:06:24.916 PC Bell That's really cute. 00:06:25.016 --> 00:06:30.456 Yeah, that reminds me of like Taco Bell. 00:06:30.523 --> 00:06:42.067 And PC Bell was a specialized software from Telecom, which was the the name of the National Telecommunications Company. 00:06:42.134 --> 00:06:49.408 And then PC Bell would be hooked up on to a modem or a dedicated terminal such as Minato and. 00:06:49.475 --> 00:06:52.812 Yeah, and then that could also be rented from telecom. 00:06:52.879 --> 00:07:08.461 So so this is a little later, I guess, than other video techs, especially if they if they were like starting I guess because like Minute Hall had already been successful and they were like, yeah, it was like the late eighties, right? 00:07:08.461 --> 00:07:13.665 Because I guess like when press element Italian things started, they were like only on terminals. 00:07:13.766 --> 00:07:14.934 But I think at that point. 00:07:14.934 --> 00:07:20.639 PC Like a computer, home computer or microcomputer, whatever wasn't available. 00:07:20.706 --> 00:07:29.982 And then later there was like adapters and things that people could use so they could access video tech services on their PC. 00:07:30.016 --> 00:07:30.483 Yeah, yeah. 00:07:30.483 --> 00:07:37.622 You know, this is interesting that like when it started, it was both PC and terminal options. 00:07:37.622 --> 00:07:39.925 Yes, exactly. Time Yeah. 00:07:39.925 --> 00:07:44.564 So it was basically like a little bit more advanced, I would say, with the hardware. 00:07:44.564 --> 00:07:51.103 And then also people started using bulletin board systems on that hardware, right. Yeah. 00:07:51.204 --> 00:07:52.071 So it's Yeah. Yeah. 00:07:52.071 --> 00:07:56.742 Which then essentially booted video techs out into. Mm. 00:07:56.843 --> 00:08:06.285 But was also funny is that PC bell came on a floppy which was later known in South Africa as a Steffi. 00:08:06.351 --> 00:08:10.822 Yeah it's like a specifically kind of South African tech slang. 00:08:10.822 --> 00:08:12.458 Why is it kind of sticky? 00:08:12.458 --> 00:08:21.867 Because it's funny, but it also distinguishes the 3.5 inch floppies with a that had like a rigid case. 00:08:21.867 --> 00:08:23.168 Uh huh. 00:08:23.168 --> 00:08:30.675 So they're are known as Steffi disks, and then they're distinguished from the floppy disks because the floppy disks are like, flexible. 00:08:30.675 --> 00:08:32.677 They come in this kind of bendable case. 00:08:32.677 --> 00:08:33.712 Yeah. 00:08:33.712 --> 00:08:38.650 So I mean, you have the floppy and you have it's sticky. Wow. 00:08:38.750 --> 00:08:42.955 I know jokes. 00:08:43.022 --> 00:08:50.428 And the the primary use of Alltel was online banking, which is boring. 00:08:50.495 --> 00:08:52.999 Boring with the stuff you have to do. 00:08:52.999 --> 00:08:56.269 But in banking, yeah. 00:08:56.269 --> 00:09:04.876 So online banking was kind of predominantly used in South Africa years before Internet banking was even invented. 00:09:04.976 --> 00:09:07.980 I mean, that's the same for all of these systems, right? 00:09:07.980 --> 00:09:14.186 Yeah, I think it's net banking was like a large part of video text, video, text. 00:09:14.186 --> 00:09:19.725 And also is, I think like often an early one of the early services available. 00:09:19.725 --> 00:09:42.748 And most of them, yeah, it would make sense because it was really handy to make kind of online payments to suppliers like this for tax purposes because you would immediately kind of get a receipt displayed on your machine and then it would be easy to track and file and you would save on paper in space. 00:09:42.748 --> 00:09:57.529 So it made sense why that would be like the first feature that would be introduced to these services and also payments would be very user friendly through the system because you could navigate with the keyboard. 00:09:57.562 --> 00:10:22.621 Like for example, you could press eye for index and E for end or exit like exit, as if you're exiting the interaction of this particular information supplier and banks did not charge for using the bell toll billing system, but they instead levied charges from the customer's account with them as payments for bell tolls hardware. 00:10:22.687 --> 00:10:25.591 So what does that mean? 00:10:25.591 --> 00:10:39.871 So basically, instead of charging for the service, they made money by billing people monthly for the hardware as if you're kind of paying off the car because they rented the hardware. 00:10:39.871 --> 00:10:42.107 Exactly. From telecom. Yeah. 00:10:42.107 --> 00:10:44.710 But the banks this is the banks. 00:10:44.710 --> 00:10:54.220 So like the banks aren't charging to use the billing system, but they're getting money from telecom. 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:55.788 Yeah, Yeah. 00:10:55.788 --> 00:11:18.344 But that's also how they eventually perish, along with other video tech systems as the Internet developed, because the banks would essentially force users to move to internet banking by increasing bell toll banking's monthly fees to extremely high costs that I thought that it wasn't. 00:11:18.344 --> 00:11:21.179 I thought it was free of charge. 00:11:21.179 --> 00:11:30.022 Yeah, but then they would pair up with bell tolls and bell toll would increase their charges because they're paying back monthly. 00:11:30.121 --> 00:11:34.826 But they I mean, this is, I guess why they perished. 00:11:34.826 --> 00:11:37.028 But that seems stupid. 00:11:37.028 --> 00:11:39.731 That's because they wanted people to go. 00:11:39.731 --> 00:11:44.602 They wanted people to use Internet banking instead because it was a state funded project. 00:11:44.703 --> 00:11:45.504 Right. 00:11:45.504 --> 00:11:48.274 It was it was by the telecommunications company. 00:11:48.274 --> 00:12:10.763 So so they could kind of afford to use is that users but is the monthly fees like you're paying back the it's like a one because it's like a bit insane that they would then like make that more expensive but is it it's if it's more like a subscription fee or something I can see that yeah, maybe subscription is the better term for it. 00:12:10.863 --> 00:12:11.163 Yeah. 00:12:11.163 --> 00:12:26.511 I mean it was a really kind of unfair move by the state because they could afford to boot out users since the employees of that service would just be transferred to another department that would replace the old such as video text to internet. 00:12:26.611 --> 00:12:31.783 And there wouldn't be any cases of like bankruptcy. 00:12:31.850 --> 00:13:04.149 Oh, it's just interesting, like, because, you know, I'm just thinking back to Minotaur and the way that their their payment systems worked where, like, it didn't cost, it was money for time and then for specific services, but it was like they would split the cost, like some of that would go like it would all be charged to your phone bill. 00:13:04.216 --> 00:13:14.527 But then like some of and it would just be like minute out and then some of that would go to the government and then some of that would go to whatever services you were actually like accessing. 00:13:14.527 --> 00:13:23.201 So I guess if you were like using the, the banking thing, you'd be charged like per minute or whatever you were on there. 00:13:23.269 --> 00:13:29.475 And it wasn't so much like a, a monthly subscription or like service fee that was like flat. 00:13:29.475 --> 00:13:33.077 It was based on time. Yeah. Yeah. 00:13:33.178 --> 00:13:42.788 So it's like interesting that they chose a different but also like, I guess we're going to look at very different government systems. 00:13:42.855 --> 00:13:45.390 Yeah, I know what's going on. Yeah. 00:13:45.390 --> 00:14:12.083 Because I think the rents, the fact that the hardware was being rented from telecom, that was, that was just the way that the service was being maintained and then once the Internet was introduced, they just up the prices, booted out the users and made them move on to the internet as a service while still using some of the old hardware, which is quite interesting. 00:14:12.150 --> 00:14:15.587 Do you know why they wanted to move people over to the internet? 00:14:15.687 --> 00:14:18.691 I guess it was just more accessible. 00:14:18.691 --> 00:14:23.095 It was faster, it much more international. 00:14:23.095 --> 00:14:28.333 Yeah, I think there yeah, there must have been a kind of diplomatic solution to that. 00:14:28.433 --> 00:14:33.873 So like, the government and the banks were kind of working together, I guess a little bit. 00:14:33.873 --> 00:14:35.875 I mean don't they always. 00:14:35.875 --> 00:14:37.243 Yeah, Yeah. 00:14:37.243 --> 00:15:01.100 And also, I mean this hardware was already being used and instead of providing their users with hardware, software replacements that would correlate to this service transfer, they would instead just charge old service users more to coerce them into either using an obsolete service or buying the new device. 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:18.549 And I guess that's interesting because it was like you saying before terminals, which I'm guessing would you could only access that Balto video techs on but then as if people were using the PCs and they were like accessing Balto with the PC bill. 00:15:18.650 --> 00:15:30.629 Steffy Then it wouldn't be so difficult for them in terms of hardware to switch over to the Internet because that would have been they would just need like a modem. 00:15:30.629 --> 00:15:32.865 Exactly. Yeah. 00:15:32.865 --> 00:15:38.470 And it happened very quickly, but we'll get into that later. 00:15:38.604 --> 00:16:00.725 So just to give some kind of social context to when these systems were being introduced in South Africa at that time, you had the apartheid, which was a system that segregated people according to race and enforced the segregation with violence from the authority or regime. 00:16:00.793 --> 00:16:05.864 And there was also a period of public unrest because of it. 00:16:05.965 --> 00:16:19.410 And specifically in 1987, the whole of University of Cape Town was closed down as a result of that kind of disruption and student revolt against the regime. 00:16:19.477 --> 00:16:42.100 But the South African police, so the apartheid regime was basically waging a war of attrition against socialism and communism and acted on the university as a way to kind of gives activists a lesson and they blocked students into libraries and tear gassed them. 00:16:42.167 --> 00:16:44.436 It was really horrible. 00:16:44.436 --> 00:16:47.139 Like, I can't stress how brutal this was. 00:16:47.139 --> 00:16:58.984 There were like helicopters flying above police beating students and placing them under arrest and yeah, since the video tech system was government owned. 00:16:59.083 --> 00:17:14.432 So of the students who would demonstrate in protest to the regime and its accelerating police violence chose a different network to organize themselves through which was the bulletin board system or BBC. 00:17:14.500 --> 00:17:22.708 Most specifically, they organized themselves through a network on that system called Work Net. 00:17:22.775 --> 00:17:27.512 But again, we'll get into that in another episode potentially. 00:17:27.512 --> 00:17:30.249 We got to yeah, we got to do a whole thing on PBS. 00:17:30.249 --> 00:17:34.452 Yeah, I know a whole new world. 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:50.501 And what's interesting is that while Bell Tower was expanding, bulletin board systems were also being used by mostly hobbyists, but the students could use it as a way to link up to other activists around the world. 00:17:50.602 --> 00:17:58.242 You could kind of dial in to forums like peacenik Net or Echo Net, and you could read news through the A.P. 00:17:58.242 --> 00:18:01.246 system, which was the network news transfer protocol. 00:18:01.313 --> 00:18:08.019 And this was a little bit more open source because PBS allowed you to post and add comments. 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:18.564 So the whole news service was way more autonomous and managed by the people rather than the authorities, which is what Balto was. 00:18:18.630 --> 00:18:30.843 And yeah, the news on Bell tell in contrast was like I said, government owned government approved and condoned a lot of like law abiding messages. 00:18:30.909 --> 00:18:44.522 So people that were tapped into tech and also supported the anti-apartheid movement at the time were slowly but surely moving away from video text networks and instead to the .2. 00:18:44.522 --> 00:18:53.198 protocol next networks, which is what PBS was using because it's linked through IP addresses. 00:18:53.265 --> 00:19:16.922 So just to understand how strongly computers were being contested with the government versus the people, most of the computer equipment purchased by the state was for the military because it was the largest arm of the government, even though the military was the target of U.N. 00:19:16.922 --> 00:19:20.159 sanctions during the apartheid. 00:19:20.224 --> 00:19:26.731 So tech companies could not sell their equipment to the apartheid regime. 00:19:26.798 --> 00:19:31.336 Well, however, the state could still purchase equipment technically movement. 00:19:31.470 --> 00:19:43.214 And then the way that that was being distributed once it entered the borders was kind of up to that sounds so dodgy, but they could still so they could purchase it because they could feel like it's not for the military. 00:19:43.281 --> 00:19:44.282 Exactly. 00:19:44.282 --> 00:19:45.683 Wow. Yeah. 00:19:45.683 --> 00:19:48.053 You know, I just went to the U.N.. Oh, really? 00:19:48.053 --> 00:19:51.589 Yeah, I did a tour, and so I went to that. 00:19:51.589 --> 00:20:00.231 I went to the different they took us to the different chambers and I went to that this one, which would have been what the security. 00:20:00.332 --> 00:20:04.603 The security Council, who's great big recommends here. 00:20:04.670 --> 00:20:08.472 Anyway, back to UN sanctions during the apartheid. 00:20:08.574 --> 00:20:16.647 The UN Yeah, the UN had the it's, it's funny how the UN had a lot of kind of decision making power, but then none of that actually came into being. 00:20:16.647 --> 00:20:33.332 Well, what I did learn was that the Security Council is the only one that has legal ramifications for its decisions like all the other councils, like the General Council or whatever, like they, they can make suggestions that people should follow. 00:20:33.397 --> 00:20:55.586 But I think that the security one, which is like I think they have four or five like constant members that are there all the time and then there's like ten that get reelected every year, get elected every two, every two years of like the rest of the other 150 something nations. 00:20:55.586 --> 00:20:57.955 But I guess that's why they make all the decisions. 00:20:57.955 --> 00:21:05.696 And even like I learned about recently, there was a they were trying to make a decision about Russia and Ukraine. 00:21:05.763 --> 00:21:12.738 And so the so the core members, they have veto power and Russia is one of those members. 00:21:12.837 --> 00:21:19.611 So they put up this thing to vote on about like should we condemn Russia's actions? 00:21:19.711 --> 00:21:25.951 And Russia was like, nah, nah, like I'm going to veto this. 00:21:26.183 --> 00:21:30.255 So they couldn't do any legal sanctions. 00:21:30.355 --> 00:21:33.924 So I think then it went to like the General Council or something. 00:21:33.991 --> 00:21:44.001 I do think it was funny that in the Gift star of the UN, they sold slap bracelets, obviously went into the get some UN merch. 00:21:44.102 --> 00:21:51.442 I mean, I bought one of the slap, you know, a slap on the wrist from the UN one of visit. 00:21:51.442 --> 00:21:52.844 I would do it again. I do it again. 00:21:52.844 --> 00:21:56.981 It sounds like a place where everything's just really complicated and log. 00:21:57.082 --> 00:22:00.618 I had to arrive in our early to go through security. 00:22:00.719 --> 00:22:04.122 Yeah, I can imagine. 00:22:04.189 --> 00:22:12.431 Anyway, the Defense force had six major computing centers. Wow. 00:22:12.497 --> 00:22:13.164 Yeah. 00:22:13.164 --> 00:22:16.167 Where? North Africa is not even that big. 00:22:16.201 --> 00:22:18.269 No, exactly. 00:22:18.269 --> 00:22:36.755 And the computers there were used to analyze, like, battlefield data, guide weapons, transport equipment, send notices to draftees, and just generally monitor what kind of naval movements around the coast of South Africa. 00:22:36.755 --> 00:22:45.830 I mean, I guess I you know, I know I know about apartheid, but I'm not really like privy to what other like wars and things they were fighting during that time. 00:22:45.830 --> 00:22:50.201 But was this do you think this was more just like protecting the apartheid? 00:22:50.301 --> 00:22:55.140 You know, like if everybody was other countries were like not wanting it to continue? 00:22:55.140 --> 00:22:55.507 Yeah. 00:22:55.507 --> 00:23:01.380 And I mean, also to just like inflict war, I mean, on to the people. 00:23:01.380 --> 00:23:08.153 I mean, I guess my question is, is this war against the people or is this some other this some other wars that they're fighting? 00:23:08.153 --> 00:23:08.487 Yeah. 00:23:08.487 --> 00:23:27.905 I mean, I think it was a kind of case of being prepared and being as organized as possible, because also and another thing to know is like the military had a severe personnel shortage, so everything had to be highly organized because only white people were drafted. 00:23:27.972 --> 00:23:41.752 And so these computers enabled support of the front lines and were generally able to kind of keep bureaucratic track as the speed of modern warfare. 00:23:41.819 --> 00:23:51.863 And the main contribution of databases to the apartheid was the computerized population register. 00:23:51.930 --> 00:24:00.838 And I'm reading this out from the Stanford report that's called the use of computers to support oppression. 00:24:00.905 --> 00:24:10.714 They write that the plural Affairs department maintained the passbook system on the more than 25 million Africans defined as black. 00:24:10.781 --> 00:24:15.686 These records were all kept electronically on British made ICL hardware. 00:24:15.753 --> 00:24:28.933 The Department of the Interior maintains the Book of Life watch files on the other 7 million citizens classified as non-black using an IBM hardware system. 00:24:29.034 --> 00:24:46.484 The passport records included data on racial classification, name, sex, date of birth, residence, photo, marital status, driver's license, dates of departure from and returned to the country, place of work or study and fingerprints. 00:24:46.484 --> 00:25:02.267 When South African describe the population register at work as computers flashing out reference numbers, photocopies relayed by telephone perhaps even instant transmissions of fingerprints all to keep track of members of the population. 00:25:02.267 --> 00:25:05.170 Sounds like George Orwell's 1984, doesn't it? 00:25:05.170 --> 00:25:29.827 Well, if South Africa's way of modernizing and streamlining its past and influx control system so computers were heavily used and at the same time, in response to this, the BBC movement grew as the kind of anti-apartheid organization tool for activists and the movement also became stronger. 00:25:29.827 --> 00:25:33.298 And its relationship to tech was very mutual. 00:25:33.365 --> 00:25:39.770 The networks grew stronger and more organized to counter strike oppression. 00:25:39.871 --> 00:25:47.112 And so the technology developed, which in turn accelerated the mobilization of activists again. 00:25:47.178 --> 00:25:52.450 So do the government know that the activists were using the work, not PBS? 00:25:52.550 --> 00:25:57.788 Yeah, I mean, not unless you were out on the streets. 00:25:57.855 --> 00:26:09.200 It's not like the government or authorities could come to your home and kind of arrest you for using a BBC, but they would be able to, but they would be able to let go on to the BBC themselves. 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:09.534 Right. 00:26:09.534 --> 00:26:14.239 And onto work net and you see what was happening, right? 00:26:14.239 --> 00:26:17.875 Because it wasn't like it was password protected or something. 00:26:17.942 --> 00:26:18.643 Yeah. 00:26:18.643 --> 00:26:43.201 So I don't know how advanced surveillance technology was on these networks, but the system must have developed regardless because it's really clear how these networks were shaped by the people in retaliation to state authority and racism, racial segregation, which is another thing that we could go in detail about in the future when we cover PBS. 00:26:43.201 --> 00:26:53.545 But for now, yeah, I mean, like, you know, I've sort of been looking at into it a little a little bit just sort of with the idea that we might do a future season. 00:26:53.612 --> 00:27:18.202 These like smaller groups, whether it be a hobbyist group or whether it be like a political group, whether it be a group centered around like specific identity, that that was a really key part of these early forums or, you know, communication sort of groups that it did allow people to kind of connect with people that with shared interests. 00:27:18.202 --> 00:27:33.151 And we saw that with minutes later, you know, that allowed people that that lived really far away to connect with each other in a way that hadn't been possible or was a lot more difficult up until we got sort of computer networks. 00:27:33.218 --> 00:27:49.099 And I mean, you then would have hobbyists and activists and, I don't know, entrepreneurs like get together and shape the actual software of these networks and the way that they're being used and kind of make the forms more efficient. 00:27:49.099 --> 00:27:51.036 And then the Internet came about. 00:27:51.036 --> 00:27:56.574 So you would have these social movements like actually shape the technology as well. 00:27:56.574 --> 00:27:59.943 So it was this kind of mutual, like I said, this mutual relationship. 00:28:00.010 --> 00:28:18.163 And the same can count for politics as well because, you know, when Nelson Mandela eventually signed the Bill of Rights on the 31st of December 1996, it was the response to four four, like something like the apartheid never happen again. 00:28:18.296 --> 00:28:29.507 But it also contained two major clauses which fundamentally shaped the policies for the freedom and access of information online forever. 00:28:29.606 --> 00:28:41.819 Well, it's clauses stated First of all, the right to privacy, for example, the right not to be surveyed by anyone, including the government or commercial entities. 00:28:41.885 --> 00:28:46.624 And secondly, the access to information and the freedom of expression. 00:28:46.691 --> 00:28:48.660 So does that has that changed? 00:28:48.660 --> 00:28:51.663 Like is that still in the Bill of Rights? 00:28:51.730 --> 00:28:57.067 Like, I wonder I just wonder how that affects current technology in South. 00:28:57.067 --> 00:29:15.886 IT yeah, it's still it's still effective but there were many tech legislations that aimed to work against the Bill of Rights that have tried to be signed during the noughties in the early tend in South Africa to increase. 00:29:15.987 --> 00:29:22.460 It's just so funny to hear that you have that word in the context of these really serious. 00:29:22.594 --> 00:29:28.799 I know because the noughties were just so stupid. 00:29:28.866 --> 00:29:46.151 Yeah, but in the there were a couple of bills that have been tried to sign to kind of debase that bill because it was either to increase surveillance or mined data, especially after WikiLeaks and Snowden. 00:29:46.217 --> 00:29:52.022 They really tried to attack these these clauses. 00:29:52.022 --> 00:30:00.230 None of them passed, luckily, but it was kind of, again, a very highly contested field of law and still is. 00:30:00.330 --> 00:30:09.641 There's actually a really interesting talk by David Robert Lewis called the Electronic Struggle from 2016, which goes into detail about this. 00:30:09.641 --> 00:30:32.163 He was a social justice activist at the time and says something quite outstanding after mentioning how the people were engaged in writing the Bill of Rights because it was written after the first Democratic election, and it was there for a period when the country and its people were extremely engaged in writing peace laws. 00:30:32.230 --> 00:30:44.576 And he says that he doesn't, and I quote, think that there was any nation on the planet that had gone so far to protect information, access and privacy rights through legislation. 00:30:44.642 --> 00:30:52.683 Well, yeah, but back to computers that were used by the state and law abiding citizens. 00:30:52.951 --> 00:30:59.423 You had Battelle, which was a quite restrictive, socially speaking piece of tech. 00:30:59.423 --> 00:31:09.601 This government sponsored system was everything but progressive for the population, and they soon came to ban it in 1999, officially. 00:31:09.601 --> 00:31:11.903 And rightly so. 00:31:11.903 --> 00:31:22.079 You get billed monthly from this machine that came in one piece of beige and demanded payments in tax to a government that was repressing me. 00:31:22.145 --> 00:31:28.385 Yeah, its hardware and software was based on Presto and Unitel. 00:31:28.553 --> 00:31:32.457 So it already kind of contains like colonial roots. 00:31:32.457 --> 00:31:37.895 And on top of that it recited, you know, state propaganda through their news channels. 00:31:37.961 --> 00:31:44.801 So it's no surprise that the search of bulletin board systems replaced video text completely. 00:31:44.801 --> 00:31:54.979 And it was quite a quick transition and it's known that Battelle was used by the police department and they regime. 00:31:54.979 --> 00:31:59.750 But the documentation and to what extent is very limited. 00:31:59.851 --> 00:32:05.923 One thing that is quite well documented, though, is IBM's technological support of the apartheid. 00:32:06.023 --> 00:32:15.666 So you said before that IBM's hardware was being used to keep the what was it called, the pass book, The Passbook. 00:32:15.732 --> 00:32:17.067 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. 00:32:17.067 --> 00:32:38.556 And the very profitable South African warfare operations had resulted in explosive growth of investment during the 1970s by several large American technology corporations, their main one being IBM International Business Machines. 00:32:38.623 --> 00:32:40.490 Okay, two points I want to make. 00:32:40.490 --> 00:32:41.659 Yeah. 00:32:41.659 --> 00:32:43.260 Number one, did not know that. 00:32:43.260 --> 00:32:47.597 So what IBM stood for as social justice issues. 00:32:47.597 --> 00:32:55.239 And then number two, what year did you say that the UN did the sanctions? 00:32:55.306 --> 00:32:59.876 I don't think I specified a year, but it would have been later than this, right? 00:33:00.044 --> 00:33:00.811 Well, yeah. 00:33:00.811 --> 00:33:11.321 During the seventies it looks like 1962, the general Assembly condemned the policies, but that's just General Assembly. 00:33:11.321 --> 00:33:18.997 And as we found out on my tour, they they don't have legal ramifications to their decisions. 00:33:19.196 --> 00:33:19.564 I don't know. 00:33:19.564 --> 00:33:23.768 I mean, I just wanted to say what IBM was up to. 00:33:23.835 --> 00:33:29.307 Yeah, well, they still supplied computers to the state no matter the sanctions. 00:33:29.307 --> 00:33:38.782 They were the largest computer supplier in South Africa throughout the years of apartheid and were also Battelle compatible. 00:33:38.883 --> 00:33:56.834 And also one of the policies of apartheid was to remove black citizens from citizenship so that you had a white country and then you had these homeland states that were supposedly independent homelands, none of which were recognized by the international community. 00:33:56.933 --> 00:34:07.678 And this would be done by gathering census data from the people for race criteria, such as bloodline, the blood. 00:34:07.744 --> 00:34:14.085 Yeah, which is ridiculous, because if you look at our DNA, it's very difficult to prove that there is such a thing as well. 00:34:14.085 --> 00:34:15.585 There is no such thing as right? 00:34:15.585 --> 00:34:20.891 No, because it's difficult to prove because it doesn't matter. 00:34:20.992 --> 00:34:29.900 The science tells us that, you know, that innate adaptation such as hair and skin color, are not indicative of the separation between the species. 00:34:30.001 --> 00:34:32.436 We're all biologically the same species. 00:34:32.436 --> 00:34:33.570 Yeah, Yeah. 00:34:33.570 --> 00:34:35.773 IBM, IBM. 00:34:35.773 --> 00:34:44.581 However, allegedly, allegedly cited technology to tabulate these characteristics. 00:34:44.581 --> 00:34:56.226 And the regime and military soon became quite dependent on this tech to surveil and categorize and segregate depending on race. 00:34:56.293 --> 00:34:58.795 The concept that was the concept of race. 00:34:58.795 --> 00:35:00.431 Yeah. 00:35:00.431 --> 00:35:10.007 And just taking some stats from that same report to give some perspective on the regime's inherent dependance on IBM. 00:35:10.108 --> 00:35:15.512 In 1970, South Africa had an estimated 400 computers. 00:35:15.746 --> 00:35:23.521 That number continue to grow, totaling more than 4500 in 1982, which is quite a lot. 00:35:23.521 --> 00:35:42.405 And just to put that into perspective, in the middle of the surge in, let's say 1990, in 1977, only the US and Britain spend more on computer technology than South Africa as a percentage of gross national product. 00:35:42.507 --> 00:35:53.384 And back then, in 1980, 75% of computers in South Africa were purchased from American corporations, and the rest of them were British. 00:35:53.483 --> 00:35:54.885 Yeah, yeah. 00:35:54.885 --> 00:36:28.186 And Almost half of computer sales went to the government in 86, and Battelle did not have the capacity to harness this information, but the communication exchanges were done via the network between the State departments like Intercom and classified mailing, like bell bass and CDS classifieds, which is the kind of networks where they were communicating through. 00:36:28.286 --> 00:36:42.632 So you mean like it's not like Bell Tower was being used to store the this information or anything, but it was still like a place to put propaganda and like and communicate between departments. 00:36:42.632 --> 00:36:44.367 Exactly. Okay. 00:36:44.367 --> 00:36:44.702 Yeah. 00:36:44.702 --> 00:37:04.487 And then, you know, using remote terminal links, also, police operators at regional centers around the country had immediate access to a secret criminal databank, which stores details about anyone on the government's wanted list. 00:37:04.588 --> 00:37:13.530 So again, this gave the police bell chill, just gave the police remarkable power over political opposition. 00:37:13.597 --> 00:37:19.936 Well, I mean, like we know this, but, you know, it's like tech can be used for good or for bad, I guess. 00:37:20.070 --> 00:37:20.804 Yeah. 00:37:20.804 --> 00:37:26.277 You know, it's interesting to look at this and then think also about say, in Chile during the Allende period. 00:37:26.277 --> 00:37:40.791 And like they that was, I guess, a telex network, but they used the ability to communicate and kind of form networks and things as a way to work against like CIA infiltration. 00:37:40.791 --> 00:37:45.262 And yeah, it all depends on who it falls in the hands of. 00:37:45.362 --> 00:37:47.398 Well, who's hands it for? Yeah. 00:37:47.398 --> 00:38:15.992 It also sets a lot of context for legal work, how the technology is being used, because as a retaliation by the people and towards the disintegration of apartheid in the nineties, South Africa's general activities around the use of technology by the state turned into something quite remarkable because it set the grounds for legal inquiries into apartheid, some of which are still ongoing. 00:38:16.059 --> 00:38:30.507 So the companies such as Ford, IBM and Shell suddenly found themselves accused of supporting racist power structures and IBM were sued over apartheid era abuses. 00:38:30.574 --> 00:38:34.945 And again, this battle is one of longest running court cases in history. 00:38:34.945 --> 00:38:41.686 It actually ended in 2016 when the apartheid victims had lost the battle. 00:38:41.686 --> 00:38:55.565 And IBM continually asserted that the applications of their computers were not used to abridge human rights, even though they acknowledge that the uses to which computers were put could not be known in all cases. 00:38:55.565 --> 00:38:55.965 Right. 00:38:55.965 --> 00:38:59.003 I mean, that's how they was still able to like supply. 00:38:59.003 --> 00:39:00.338 Yeah, exactly. 00:39:00.338 --> 00:39:17.121 The computers and actually the South African parliament made it illegal for companies to report the uses of their computers, which is probably why there's such little documents on how software like Bell Toll was used by the police, too. 00:39:17.221 --> 00:39:25.362 So this is also one of the reasons the trial is so long, because it just makes the case extremely complicated. 00:39:25.463 --> 00:39:35.972 Yeah, and yet it's very clear that Bell tell and the technology linked up to it played a part in the maintenance of segregation back then, you know? 00:39:36.039 --> 00:39:38.541 Right. Yeah. 00:39:36.039 --> 00:39:38.541 I mean, like the whole system. 00:39:38.541 --> 00:39:39.710 The whole yeah. 00:39:39.710 --> 00:39:46.650 How political and even like, you know, social system was like, set up to maintain segregation. 00:39:46.650 --> 00:39:57.427 And so, like, no matter what gets put into that, it kind of, you know, not if you're not Yeah if you're not actively working against it, then everything is part of it. 00:39:57.494 --> 00:39:58.128 Yeah. 00:39:58.128 --> 00:40:12.710 There's a quote by the managing director of the South African subsidiary of Burroughs Corporations, which he said, We are entirely dependent on the US. 00:40:12.809 --> 00:40:18.449 The economy would grind to a halt without access to the computer technology of the West. 00:40:18.516 --> 00:40:20.016 No bank could function. 00:40:20.016 --> 00:40:23.920 The government could collect its money and couldn't account for it. 00:40:23.987 --> 00:40:26.990 Business can operate, payrolls could not be paid. 00:40:27.190 --> 00:40:31.829 Retail and wholesale marketing and related services would be disrupted. 00:40:31.896 --> 00:40:37.835 So the government's strength was, yeah, in the hands of such machines. 00:40:37.835 --> 00:41:02.626 And it's important to think about and execute on how these things can be weakened as much as possible, whether that's by making legislation for harmful surveillance software or through hacktivism or economic boycotts targeted at the regime or even the companies such as IBM. 00:41:02.726 --> 00:41:06.931 But either way, Bell TELL Service came to a halt in 1999. 00:41:07.063 --> 00:41:17.775 Its credit checking communication, agriculture management Directory services because it used electronic yellow pages all like the sign. 00:41:17.875 --> 00:41:19.777 Yeah, that's a classic. 00:41:19.777 --> 00:41:23.213 That's a classic. 00:41:23.280 --> 00:41:26.717 It even had entertainment channels and news weather reports. 00:41:26.717 --> 00:41:29.719 They were all replaced by the Internet. 00:41:29.753 --> 00:41:56.179 And so the Stanford report that I mentioned earlier concludes that although the sort of conditions in South Africa were unique, the lessons learned from studying the actions, motives and results are universally applicable since, you know, the essential is political and economic power through technology. 00:41:56.280 --> 00:42:10.193 David Lewis, who gave that talk, who is the hacktivist that spoke about the electronic struggle, states that one of the problems with apartheid is that it wasn't just something that happened in isolation. 00:42:10.393 --> 00:42:11.295 It has a history. 00:42:11.295 --> 00:42:14.431 And one of the ways of looking at that history is through technology. 00:42:14.565 --> 00:42:29.346 So I think, again, like the history of Bell Tell, although if service was on the fringes of how it was used in apartheid and how it helped maintain the system is quite a good marker on how to follow the. 00:42:29.380 --> 00:42:36.253 Yeah, just like the reprehensible logics of systematic oppression, right? 00:42:36.253 --> 00:42:46.063 I mean, I guess like we've been looking at all these video text networks and a key part of them all really is that they're government run. 00:42:46.163 --> 00:42:46.530 Yeah. 00:42:46.530 --> 00:42:50.099 And in some cases that's been good. 00:42:50.099 --> 00:42:55.139 In some cases that has helped the network and helped people. 00:42:55.204 --> 00:42:59.242 But it depends on what that government is. 00:42:59.242 --> 00:43:03.380 And in this case, videos in this case use. 00:43:03.447 --> 00:43:18.429 The computer was not our friend now that you know yeah like I guess it's there is technology and like where it gets introduced into and the way that those societies that is specific. 00:43:18.494 --> 00:43:18.996 Yeah. 00:43:18.996 --> 00:43:38.882 Is specific to them and like but you know in saying that like I don't think that absolves the tech or like the people that are introducing that technology to places I don't know it's like, like you said, it's like it's not just an inanimate innocent tool, despite the fact that like in a vacuum maybe it is, but we don't live in a vacuum. 00:43:38.882 --> 00:43:55.599 And that's why I think the transition of Patel to networks like working, that was quite a profound way of, looking at technology, because you can actually just like literally move away from something that is damaging. 00:43:55.632 --> 00:43:59.670 You don't have to kind of convert it or reform. 00:43:59.902 --> 00:44:02.172 You can just move away from this network. 00:44:02.172 --> 00:44:04.742 I mean, yeah, these things are good and they're bad. 00:44:04.742 --> 00:44:08.411 Well, then they're neither how people use them. 00:44:08.478 --> 00:44:12.382 They're good and they're bad and they're not innocent and they're innocent. 00:44:12.382 --> 00:44:14.550 And the computer is our friend. 00:44:14.550 --> 00:44:15.985 And I'll say another friend. 00:44:15.985 --> 00:44:19.889 I want the computer to be our friend. But it makes it hard. 00:44:19.889 --> 00:44:21.257 Sometimes. 00:44:21.257 --> 00:44:22.291 It does. 00:44:22.291 --> 00:44:28.666 Did you say that glitch in Instagram recently, where it was like making you watch people's stories from the start every time, every single time? 00:44:28.898 --> 00:44:31.501 No, I'm like, I was driving me nuts. 00:44:31.501 --> 00:44:33.436 I'm really glad that I missed that. 00:44:33.436 --> 00:44:35.972 I think they fixed it now. Okay. 00:44:35.972 --> 00:44:43.547 But I post those stories and I just refuse to post stories for a few days because I didn't want to force people to watch them over and over and over again. 00:44:43.547 --> 00:44:45.181 There's enough of that already. 00:44:45.181 --> 00:44:46.416 There's enough stories out there. 00:44:46.416 --> 00:44:51.588 I've never gone at the end of that chain, you know, the stories chain. 00:44:51.688 --> 00:44:52.556 I don't think, Oh my God. 00:44:52.556 --> 00:44:58.094 At the end of it, I, I very early on I used to be able to hit the end, but there's no way now. 00:44:58.094 --> 00:45:01.632 Now we just got too many followers. 00:45:01.731 --> 00:45:04.735 Thanks, followers for keeping along. 00:45:04.735 --> 00:45:06.903 And that was great. 00:45:06.903 --> 00:45:09.005 And that was so interesting. 00:45:09.005 --> 00:45:17.213 I'm really keen to maybe in the future delve a little deeper into some of, you know, maybe a bit more BBC work, net stuff. 00:45:17.280 --> 00:45:19.750 You need more IBM stuff. 00:45:19.750 --> 00:45:25.856 Yeah, there's so much IBM controversy, it's quite unbelievable. 00:45:25.956 --> 00:45:27.657 But they want it too. 00:45:27.657 --> 00:45:29.460 So they want the lawsuit. 00:45:29.460 --> 00:45:31.327 So what are you going to do? 00:45:31.327 --> 00:45:36.233 I guess the podcast is what's left. 00:45:36.333 --> 00:45:37.934 But yeah, no thanks. 00:45:37.934 --> 00:45:39.268 Thanks for tagging along. 00:45:39.268 --> 00:45:42.271 I think next week we're just going to do a little chatty episode. 00:45:42.271 --> 00:45:56.385 I'd like to maybe talk about maybe the end, the end of video text and how how that sort of happened and end was like the range of ways that the Internet sort of starts to take over. 00:45:56.385 --> 00:46:08.998 And I'd like to do a do a little bit of reflection, a bit of a debrief, some of our own personal input, our joys and our anger towards the system. 00:46:09.065 --> 00:46:13.469 What do the Kardashians do the the peak in the pit? 00:46:13.536 --> 00:46:14.670 Oh, I don't know. 00:46:14.670 --> 00:46:16.306 Is that what they think they do that at? 00:46:16.306 --> 00:46:21.277 Like oh, I just remember that from like in the past at the end of every day or something. 00:46:21.277 --> 00:46:23.347 They like what was the peak and what was the pit? 00:46:23.347 --> 00:46:24.715 Yeah. I don't want to hear your subs. 00:46:24.715 --> 00:46:29.686 What's your highlight of the week? 00:46:24.715 --> 00:46:35.659 And the worst thing that I want to know all because let's reflect on that other Sunday. 00:46:35.759 --> 00:46:37.094 All right, cool. 00:46:37.094 --> 00:46:38.961 Yeah. Everyone, thanks for listening. 00:46:38.961 --> 00:46:40.731 Thanks for listening, Will. 00:46:40.731 --> 00:46:44.867 We'll be back in two weeks and change the channel. 00:46:44.967 --> 00:46:46.135 Yeah. 00:46:46.135 --> 00:46:47.170 Thank you. 00:46:47.170 --> 00:46:50.039 Have a lovely, fabulous day. 00:46:50.039 --> 00:46:51.708 Goodbye. Hi.