So: Early commercial computers were very expensive and there weren’t really what we’d today call “programmers” who didn’t directly work for the computer manufacturers to tailor-make and manage applications for clients.
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I never post political or controversial stuff... but I wanted to step out of line briefly to offer a lesser-known and very weird historical background to a news story that’s going around about a particular tech company collaborating with police on racial profiling.
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Computers were sold not as devices but as contracts for the machines and the technicians who developed the programs to client specifications and maintained their day-to-day operations.
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About 85 years ago, Germany wanted such machines and technicians to develop a program to organize a massive and unprecedented identification, relocation, and elimination program. It turned to an American tech company to make it all.
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Unfortunately for this tech company, collaborating with Germany was against looming wartime treason laws, so the tech company’s founder created subsidiaries (some he named after himself) to work “independently” in Europe (and still secretly report back to him).
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They oversaw, developed, and maintained programs and machines designed to identify certain types of people, move them through train systems, and manage the populations of camps they sent them to.
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They even came up with a clever way to match their records systems to the individuals whose fate was decided by these machines, by tattooing their system codes directly on the skin of their victims.
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If you’re wondering how much the company knew what was going on, know that the contracts were set up specifically for the SS “Race Office” with machines operated directly by these tech employees in each concentration camp.
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The punch card system had identifiers for specific concentration camps (001 for Auschwitz, 003 for Dachau), what ethnic group someone was (Jews were 8, homosexuals 3) and how they died (4 was execution, 6 was gas).
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That founder himself traveled to Germany a lot between 1933 and 1939 and was awarded a medal by Hitler for his extraordinary service to the Third Reich by a foreigner.
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After the war, having made profits from all these German contracts for managing their concentration camps and supply lines, this company became a household name across the world. I guess they were too big to hold accountable.
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But now this tech company is finally dying out, and instead of admitting or apologizing for any of their history, they named their last ditch swan song buzzword-bullshit product after their Nazi-collaborating genocidal founder.
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That’s not ancient history. That’s today. They’re actively celebrating their Nazi history and continuing their tradition of identifying everyday citizens by race for the authorities.
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Don’t work for them. Don’t do business with them. Don’t let them sponsor your events. Don’t allow atrocities to occur just because taking a stand is socially uncomfortable or financially difficult.
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Wow! I never knew computers helped set up their identification system. Definitely something I will look into further. Thanks for posting this.
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Check for a book called "IBM and the Holocaust". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust … It's a very interesting read and shows how the old Hollerith machines made the numbers possible in the first place.
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This was one of the most mind-bending books I've ever read. NOT how most of us are used to thinking about this era.
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It was an era of the same capitalism that is running today. And of companies having to choose between collaboration and being taken over by the regime. Not an easy one.
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I suspect we're thinking of different people when we hear the word "regime," but other than that, I agree 100%
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Maybe I missed a connection there. I was talking about 3rd Reich. Not sure if there are modern equivalent constellations yet. At least I hope.
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We hadn't quite reached the totalitarian tipping point we seemed to stumbling towards. I'm hoping now that our current political divide will lead to a decentralization of political, technological, and ideological control.
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I hope it'll be a wake up call for the voters. Like Obama said: Every vote counts to get a picture of what the people want and are willing to tolerate.
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