The real meaning of the Wizard of Oz

I share Brian Tamanaha's complete surprise that Frank Baum's story The Wizard of Oz was originally written as a political allegory. (I saw the Judy Garland film before reading the book but loved both as a boy, not that it was something that any red blooded male would have openly admitted in a tough neighbourhood at the time).

There is at least a thick volume's worth of material to be filled with stories like this about children's literature and IP disputes in the genre. Maybe I should suggest that to my publishers as my next writing project? Here's what Tamanaha had to say:

"Every now and then I read something that comes as a complete surprise. You might have the same reaction to the following passage from Jack Weatherford's The History of Money (1997), which comes out of his discussion of the late nineteenth century debate over adding silver to the gold monetary standard:

The most memorable work of literature to come from the debate over gold and silver in the United States was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, by journalist L. Frank Baum, who greatly distrusted the power of the city financiers and who supported a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver. Taking great literary license, he summarized and satirized the monetary debate and history of the era through a charming story about a naive but good Kansas farm girl named Dorothy, who represented the average rural American citizen. Baum seems to have based her character on the Populist orator Leslie Kelsey, nicknamed "the Kansas Tornado."

After the cyclone violently rips Dorothy and her dog out of Kansas and drops them in the East, Dorothy sets out on the gold road to fairyland, which Baum calls Oz, where the wicked witches and wizards of banking operate. Along the way she meets the Scarecrow, who represents the American farmer; the Tin Woodman, who represents the American factory worker; and the Cowardly Lion, who represents William Jennings Bryan. The party's march on Oz is a re-creation of the 1894 march of Coxey's Army, a group of unemployed men led by 'General' Jacob S. Coxey to demand another public issue of $500 million greenbacks and more work for common people...

I'm sure others know about this, and maybe I'm exposing my particular ignorance, but I had no idea that The Wizard of Oz was a political allegory. What makes this discovery especially jolting, for me at least, is that its meaning at the time--when many people would have recognized Baum's allusions--was so radically different from its taken-for-granted meaning today.

I hesitate to sully a discovery that is fascinating for its own sake, but I will use this example to quickly make a serious (albeit tangential) point. The original meaning theory of constitutional interpretation has prominent contemporary advocates--including, famously, Justice Scalia--who point to solid political theory arguments in support. But we must be mindful of the elusiveness and haze that envelops original meanings. Unless we turn constitutional interpretation over to trained historians with ample resources and time (and even then there will be problems), our assumptions about original meaning will be precarious."

To make an even more tangential point in the context of what I call "digital decision making" in my book, policymakers dealing with large scale digital systems and technologies they don't understand, don't even come anywhere close to the competence of trained historians. If we are to be mindful of the elusiveness and haze Tamanaha notes here in relation to expert interpretation of original historical meanings, how much more so do we need to be in the deployment of high and wide impact digital systems of mass surveillance by people who have demonstrated little or no understanding of these systems.

Foolproof

I like this, by Brian Hayes in American Scientist, via Arts and Letters Daily, regarding the proof that the trisection of angles is impossible. (Warning: not recommended for maths-phobes)

"Mathematical proof is foolproof, it seems, only in the absence of fools...

Socrates, drawing figures in the sand, undertakes to coach an untutored slave boy, helping him to prove a special case of the Pythagorean theorem. I paraphrase very loosely:

Socrates: Here is a square with sides of length 2 and area equal to 4. If we double the area, to 8 units, what will the length of a side be?

Boy: Umm, 4?

Socrates: Does 4 x 4 = 8?

Boy: Okay, maybe it's 3.

Socrates: Does 3 x 3 = 8?

Boy: I give up.

Socrates: Observe this line from corner to corner, which the erudite among us call a diagonal. If we erect a new square on the diagonal, note that one-half of the original square makes up one-fourth of the new square, and so the total area of the new square must be double that of the original square. Therefore the length of the diagonal is the length we were seeking, is it not?

Boy: Whatever...

A purported trisection procedure is required to take an angle ? and produce ?/3. Since the procedure has to work with any angle, we can refute it by exhibiting just one angle that cannot be trisected. The standard example is 60 degrees. Suppose the vertex of a 60-degree angle is at the origin, and one side corresponds to the positive x axis. Then to trisect the angle you must draw a line inclined by 20 degrees to the x axis and passing through the origin.

To draw any line, all you need is two points lying on the line. In this case you already have one point, namely the origin. Thus the entire task of trisection reduces to finding one more point lying somewhere along the 20-degree line. Surely that must be easy! After all, there are infinitely many points on the line and you only need one of them. But the proof says it can't be done.

To see the source of the difficulty we can turn to trigonometry. If we knew the sine and cosine of 20 degrees, the problem would be solved; we could simply construct the point x=cos20, y=sin20. (Of course we need the exact values; approximations from a calculator or a trig table won't help.) We do know the sine and cosine of 60 degrees: The values are ?3/2 and 1/2. Both of these numbers can be constructed with ruler and compass. Furthermore, formulas relate the sine and cosine of any angle ? to the corresponding values for ?/3. The formulas yield the following equation (where for brevity the symbol u replaces the expression cos?/3):

cos? = 4u ³ - 3u.

For the 60-degree angle, with cos? = 1/2,the equation becomes 8u ³ - 6u = 1. Note that this is a cubic equation. That's the nub of the problem: No process of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and taking square roots will ever solve the equation for the value of u."

RIAA drop lawsuit v NY mum

The RIAA have decided, according to the Washington Post, to drop "its lawsuit against Patti Santangelo, a mother of five who became the best-known defendant in the industry's battle against music piracy." Though they are continuing with the action against two of her children.

What BlackBoard's patent tells you about them

Martin has been giving a keynote address outlining his concerns about BlackBoard's patent at a conference of BlackBoard users.

"I talked about web 2.0 and some of the usual VLE topics I have covered (succession, metaphors, future directions, etc). From a BB audience perspective the key slide was one that focused on the patent where I played the YouTube movie on software patents, gave some of Michael Feldstein’s interpretations of the patent, and linked it back to the succession model. The Blackboard company representatives in the audience looked a little unhappy with this, although slightly battle weary too – I suspect they are getting tired of talking about it. In the questions someone asked me about other patents and I outlined some of their dangers and why I considered them an ‘educational menace’. So, it was a good audience to raise that topic in (in many ways better than preaching to the converted at an open source conference, say). I think it is also another example of why it is such a dumb move on BB’s part. Without the patent I wouldn’t have said anything bad about them, I had a lot of time for them. What the patent does is effectively polarise users, forcing them in to mutually opposing camps. It has made me much more of an advocate of open source for example, and that reaction manifested across many HE institutions will ultimately do a good deal of harm to BB."

How to fix almost anything

Jonathan Rowe suggests that the most effective way to ensure serious problems get addressed is to ensure that wealthy and powerful people suffer the consequences of those problems. That way they have a direct incentive to tackle them.

"To put this another way, when big shots can glide through life in gilded cocoons, it breaks the social feedback loop. Those in a position to do something about a problem do not feel an urgency to do so...

We naturally get worked up about the things that rattle our own cages. Potentially it is a mighty social force; but it goes untapped when the rich and powerful are exempt from the problems that most Americans face. If every CEO in America had to fly economy class, send their children to public school, and deal with computer help lines themselves rather than have gofers do it for them, the quality of life in America would increase measurably. If the very rich had trouble getting medical insurance they would show as much concern for that problem as they do for the diseases they themselves contract. This basically is the thinking behind Rep. Charles Rangel’s proposal to revive the draft. Imagine Dick Cheney speaking at one of those mega-buck Republican fundraisers, to an audience worried that their own offspring might be drafted. The bellicosity and swagger over an Iraq would be quite a bit less. "

Usability in the Movies -- Top 10 Bloopers

I really like this. One of the reasons for the widespread and erroneous belief that computers can automatically and easily solve a multitude of ill-specified problems is their representation in films and on TV.

"The way Hollywood depicts usability could fill many a blooper reel. Here are 10 of the most egregious mistakes made by moviemakers.

1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI

Break into a company -- possibly in a foreign country or on an alien planet -- and step up to the computer. How long does it take you to figure out the UI and use the new applications for the first time? Less than a minute if you're a movie star.

The fact that all user interfaces are walk-up-and-use is probably the single most unrealistic aspect of how movies depict computers. In reality, we know all too well that even the smartest users have plenty of problems using even the best designs, let alone the degraded usability typically found in in-house MIS systems or industrial control rooms.

2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs

An even worse flaw is the assumption that time travelers from the past could use today's computer systems. In fact, they'd have no conception of any of modern technology's basic concepts, and so would be dramatically more stumped than the novice users we observe in user testing. Even someone who's never used Excel at least understands the general idea of computers and screens..."

Read the whole thing.

Code Version 2.0

Larry Lessig's terrific but difficult (for ordinary mortals) book Code and other laws of cyberspace has been updated.

> 1Million innocents on DNA database

Spyblog draws attention to the Sunday Times story, "Reid ‘buries’ news that police hold DNA of 1m innocent people" that more than a million "individuals whose details are kept on the database do not have a criminal record or a police caution."

The big opt out

I recently wrote to my GP asking that he not upload my family's medical records to the NHS central database or "spine" as he will be instructed by the government to do so early in the New Year.

Basically the system is very insecure and arguably in breach of data protection and other human rights laws, as beautifully articulated by Ross Anderson in a BBC radio 4 interview this morning. (You need RealPlayer to listen to it).

Ross and others are also leading a campaign to make people aware of the the situation.

Feynman on Schooling

Home educating blogger Carlotta has been reading Richard Feynman's views of formal schooling.

"I sometimes feel that it would be much better not to educate our children in such subjects as mathematics and science. If we left youngsters alone, there would be a better chance that, by accident, the kids would find a good book - or an old textbook - or a television program that would excite them. But when youngsters go to school, they learn that these subjects are dull, horrible and impossible to understand. When I went to school, I didn't learn that math and science were dull because I knew before I got there that they were interesting. All I saw was that they were dull in school. But I knew better".

Effective Counterterrorism and the Limited Role of Predictive Data Mining

Schneier also points to a terrific report by Jeff Jonas and Jim Harper at the Cato Institute pointing out that data mining is not the holy grail solution to countering terrorism that it is widely sold as. The executive summary:

"The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001,
spurred extraordinary efforts intended to protect
America from the newly highlighted scourge of
international terrorism. Among the efforts was the
consideration and possible use of “data mining” as
a way to discover planning and preparation for terrorism.
Data mining is the process of searching
data for previously unknown patterns and using
those patterns to predict future outcomes.

Information about key members of the 9/11
plot was available to the U.S. government prior
to the attacks, and the 9/11 terrorists were closely
connected to one another in a multitude of
ways. The National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks upon the United States concluded that,
by pursuing the leads available to it at the time,
the government might have derailed the plan.

Though data mining has many valuable uses,
it is not well suited to the terrorist discovery
problem. It would be unfortunate if data mining
for terrorism discovery had currency within
national security, law enforcement, and technology
circles because pursuing this use of data
mining would waste taxpayer dollars, needlessly
infringe on privacy and civil liberties, and misdirect
the valuable time and energy of the men and
women in the national security community.

What the 9/11 story most clearly calls for is a
sharper focus on the part of our national security
agencies—their focus had undoubtedly sharpened
by the end of the day on September 11,
2001—along with the ability to efficiently locate,
access, and aggregate information about specific
suspects."

TSA tip off airport screeners

It seems that TSA employees have been tipping off a private security firm that handles security at San Francico airport about visits of undercover agents sent to check the security.

"For 16 months ending last year, Transportation Security Administration employees tipped off screeners from Covenant Aviation Security that undercover agents were on their way to the airport's checkpoints to test whether the screeners were properly inspecting passengers and their carry-on luggage, the report said.

Despite the charges, the private security firm was rehired two weeks ago with a $314 million, four-year contract at the airport to screen passengers and checked bags."

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for the link.

Greek privacy watchdog fines Vodafone over wiretapping scandal

From AP via Findlaw:

"A Greek privacy watchdog on Thursday fined cell phone operator Vodafone €76 million ($100 million) over a wiretapping scandal that involved the illegal monitoring of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis."

Vodaphone are going to send the lawyers in to challenge the decision.

A system and method of providing personalized information

Google's new patent database search engine has led me to some more education system patents, which it is hard to believe that someone who actually knew something about computers in education would ever have granted. This System and method for network-based personalized education environment is a case in point. Here's the abstract:

"A system and method of providing personalized information to an individual over a network includes accessing a competency profile of the individual, such profile accessible to a server on a network and comparing the individual's competency profile with an education template and behavioral scenario accessible to the server. The template defines a current desired standard for the individual's competencies, in order to identify target training or learning areas. Information content relevant to the individual's target training or learning areas is provided over the network via user-selectable items of information content that may collectively have a plurality of information product types."

In other words a system to allow someone to tick some boxes on an electronic form so that the system can check through a list of provider courses and suggest a suitable one for that individual. Honestly! For 36 years people have been contacting the Open University to find out if we might have a course or degree programme that would suit them and then signing up for appropriate courses. Is anyone seriously expecting me to believe that now we carry out this process over the Net as well as face to face and via telephone that we might be infringing this ridiculous patent?

IBM and universities open up software research

From the IHT: IBM and U.S. universities work to open up software research

"The initiative, which IBM was expected to announce Thursday, is a break with the usual pattern of corporate- sponsored research at universities that typically involves lengthy negotiations over intellectual property rights.

The projects are also evidence that U.S. companies and universities are searching for ways to work together more easily, less hampered by legal wrangling about who holds the patents to research...

The current problem, research experts say, is that well-intentioned policies meant to encourage universities to make their research available for commercial uses have gone too far. The shift began with the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allowed universities to hold the patents on federally funded research and to license that intellectual property. Since then, universities have often viewed themselves as idea factories and, like many corporations, have sought to cash in on their intellectual property.

But there is a sense at both universities and corporations that the pendulum has swung too far, and that adopting less restrictive intellectual property policies could benefit both sides."

Blackjack v BlackBerry?

Having been on the wrong end of a more than half a billion dollar settlement in the patent dispute with NTP, RIM have decided to get active with their own IP lawyers in the trademark arena and have reportedly sued Samsung for "false designation of origin, unfair competition and trademark dilution." They believe that Samsung's "BlackJack" phone is too similar to the BlackBerry and the name might confuse some people. That will be a fun case to watch. Whilst I had a lot of sympathy with their plight in the NTP dispute - after all NTP were just a patent holding company and didn't make or deliver any products or services - I can't see that sympathy extending to a case of attempting to gain proprietary control of the word "black". Remember though that various courts found the NTP patent, which could have led to the shutting down of BlackBerry services in the US, to be valid. So the law was on NTP's side in that case. RIM in this case have to do more than prove that the law might be on their side.

I recognise that the case will be a bit more complicated than this initial report would make it appear and the detailed facts will, no doubt, be interesting. In the end though this comes down to controlling or owning the word "black" in a particular context and the onus is on RIM from my perspective to fully justify their stance.

The flaw in the government's child mass surveillance project

From icAyrshire:

"A court in Fife has heard that a Home Office expert who helped set up a national database for violent and sexual offenders sent child pornography to another man."

The next time a government minister trots out the usual platitudes about their child 'protection' mass surveillance programme they should be reminded of this case and some basic principles of security. It is not the vast majority of honest people you need to be concerned with but the attackers (insiders like this man or outsiders) who want to compromise your system and the people it holds personal details on. You also have to remember that with information systems it is possible to have scalability, functionality or security and sometimes even two of these simultaneously but not all three.

Thanks to Glyn via the ORG list for the link.

Judges perplexed

Check out para. 14 of this judgement by Lord Justice Rose and Mr Justice Crane and Mr Justice Openshaw:

"So, yet again, the courts are faced with a sample of the deeply confusing provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and the satellite Statutory Instruments to which it is giving stuttering birth. The most inviting course for this Court to follow, would be for its members, having shaken their heads in despair to hold up their hands and say: "the Holly Grail of rational interpretation is impossible to find". But it is not for us to desert our judicial duty, however lamentably others have legislated. But, we find little comfort or assistance in the historic canons of construction for determining the will of Parliament which were fashioned in a more leisurely age and at a time when elegance and clarity of thought and language were to be found in legislation as a matter of course rather than exception."

Wonderful. It should be enlarged, framed and stuck on the office wall of every minister whose reaction to the latest headlines is another legislative "solution."

Thanks to ARCH for the link.

TRIPS and the International Public Health Controversies

A special issue of the journal "Industrial and Corporate Change", Information, Appropriability and the Generation of Innovative Knowledge: December 2006; Vol. 15, No. 6 has been made available. I recommended two articles in particular: Hal Varian's Copyright term extension and orphan works, Information and intellectual property: the global challenges by Rishab Ghosh and Luc Soete and TRIPS and the international public health controversies: issues and challenges by Benjamin Coriat, Fabienne Orsi and Cristina d’Almeida.

Italian election vote recount scheduled

From today's Independent: "Eight months on, Italy recounts its votes"
Apparently there has been some emerging evidence that Silvio Berlusconi may have tried to rig the last election, so the Italian Senate's election committee have agreed that a large sample of blank and spoiled ballots should be recounted in the new year. With typical chutzpah Berlusconi has hailed the decision as a victory for himself. Even though Romano Prodi's group stand to gain from the recount, if the evidence that has so far come to light against Mr Berlusconi is confirmed, they're not interested in pursuing the investigation.

Update: Ian Brown via the org list points me to Scott Adams on evoting yesterday. Funny.

EU ID card on the way

Statewatch reports that the EU's Council of Ministers of the interior were proposing to adopt a resolution to introduce an EU biometric ID card, without debate. Their meetings were due to take place earlier this week (Monday and Tuesday) but I have not seen any indication of what was actually decided.

Gowers: It's a Wonderful Life

One of the nicest examples used by Andrew Gowers in his report is to be found on page 70, para 4.95:

"Many works that lie unused could create value. For example, the film It’s a Wonderful Life lost money in its first run and was ignored by its original copyright owners. When the owners failed to renew their copyright in 1970, it was broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service channel in the USA. It is now a family classic, and worth millions in prime time advertising revenue. The book The Secret Garden, since copyright has expired, has been made into a movie, a musical, a cookbook, a CD-ROM version, and two sequels. For works still in copyright, if users are unable to locate and seek permission from owners, this value cannot be generated. For example, documentary makers often find it impossible to track down the rights owners of old pieces of film, many of which have multiple owners, all of whom are untraceable, and are not able to use older works to create new value."

Gowers Review of Intellectual Property

The final report of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property was published yesterday. It is a remarkably sound and rational analysis of the IP landscape which I hope the government pay attention to when dealing with hysterical demands from the music industry for copyright term extension. As James Boyle so rightly said recently, the whole idea of retrospective copyright term extension is very stupid:

"But if this is the stupid idea we wish to pursue, then simply increase the income tax proportionately and distribute the benefits to those record companies and musicians whose music is still commercially available after 50 years. Require them to put the money into developing new artists – something the current proposal does not. Let all the other recordings pass into the public domain.

Of course, no government commission would consider such an idea for a moment. Tax the public to give a monopoly windfall to those who already hit the jackpot, because they claim their industry cannot survive without retrospectively changing the terms of its deals? It is laughable."

From the Gowers review press release:

"The Report argues that in the modern world, the UK's economic competitiveness is increasingly driven by knowledge-based industries, innovation and creativity. Intellectual Property (IP) - protecting and promoting innovation - has never been more important.

Whilst the Review concludes that the UK has a fundamentally strong IP system, it sets out important targeted reforms. The reforms aim to:

• strengthen enforcement of IP rights to protect the UK's creative industries from piracy and counterfeiting;
• provide additional support for British businesses using IP in the UK and abroad; and
• strike the right balance to encourage firms and individuals to innovate and invest in new ideas while ensuring that markets remain competitive and that future innovation is not impeded.

Andrew Gowers said:

"In today's global economy, knowledge capital, more than physical capital, will drive the success of the UK economy. Against this backdrop, IP rights, which protect the value of creative ideas, are more vital than ever.

"The ideal IP system creates incentives for innovation, without unduly limiting access for consumers and follow-on innovators. It must strike the right balance in a rapidly changing world so that innovators can see further by standing on the shoulders of giants. And it must take tough action against those who infringe IP rights at a cost to the UK's most creative industries.

"The Review provides sound recommendations on how the IP regime should respond to the challenges that it faces. Getting the balance right is vital to driving innovation, securing investment and stimulating competition."

The Review identified a number of areas where reform is necessary to improve the system for all its users.

With the music industry losing as much as 20 per cent of annual turnover to piracy and counterfeiting, the Review recommends strengthening enforcement of IP rights through:

• new powers and duties for Trading Standards to take action against infringement of copyright law;
• IP crime recognised as an area for police action in the National Community Safety Plan;
• tougher penalties for online copyright infringement - with a maximum 10 years imprisonment;
• lowering the costs of litigation - by using mediation and consulting on the fast-track limit. The Review acknowledges that prohibitive legal costs affect the ability of many to defend and challenge IP; and
• consulting on the use of civil damages and ensuring an effective and dissuasive system of damages exists for civil IP infringement.

To provide support for businesses using the IP system the review recommends that:

• UK Patent Office be restructured as the UK Intellectual Property Office, with recommendations for it to provide greater support and advice for businesses using IP domestically;
• Business representatives sit on a new independent Strategic Advisory Board on IP Policy, advising the Government; and
• Government improve support and advice internationally - including in India and China - to enable UK businesses to protect their investment around the world.

To ensure the correct balance in IP rights the review recommends:

• ensuring the IP system only proscribes genuinely illegitimate activity. The Review recommends introducing a strictly limited 'private copying' exception to enable consumers to format-shift content they purchase for personal use. For example to legally transfer music from CD to their MP3 player;
• enabling access to content for libraries and education establishments - to ensure that the UK's cultural heritage can be adequately stored for preservation and accessed for learning. The Review recommends clarifying exceptions to copyright to make them fit for the digital age; and
• recommending that the European Commission does not change the status quo and retains the 50 year term of copyright protection for sound recordings and related performers' rights."

The music industry's response has been predictable - a PR campaign trying to marginalise the report, including an advert in today's FT apparently signed by 4500 artists saying they desparately need a copyright term extension on sound recordings. Sadly such tricks, as I explain in more detail in my book, often have the power to influence policymakers in ways that rational argument based on sound evidence does not. Let's hope that Gordon Brown favours rationality over rhetoric in this instance.

Update: Some of the signatures on the music industry FT advertisement are those of dead artists. So it seems that dead people are keen on copyright extension, which means the rational argument suggesting dead people cannot be encouraged to produce new creative works is now also dead?

Books - Forbes

Forbes Magazine had a special report on books recently and I particularly recommend the articles by Cory Doctorow and David Serchuk on making books available for free download and senseless book burning respectively.

EX NSA Chief lambasts war on terror

Retired general and former head of the NSA when Ronald Reagan was president has been criticising the current administration's war and terror and what he sees as their infringement of civil liberties, on the "Metro Spirit National Security Blog"

"Metro Spirit: What are your feelings on the NSA’s program of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens?

William Odom: It didn’t happen under my watch. And I’m still puzzled why somebody hasn’t tried to impeach the president for doing it. Any conservative in the United States who values his life [ought to be outraged]. In fact, the South seceded in defense of minority rights — why the hell have they forgotten them now? Ben Franklin said, “somebody who values security over liberty deserves neither.”

MS: What do you say to people, and there are plenty here in Augusta, who say that cutting and running from Iraq is traitorous act?

WO: Well, just tell ‘em they’re full of shit. They're traitors. You know what lemmings are? Yeah, they’re lemmings. We went to war for our enemies’ best interests. You ask those people why it makes sense that we went to war to advance the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda."

Letter asking WHO review of the Essential Drugs List (EDL)

Jamie Love has written to the World Health Organisation asking them to review the asking the Essential Drugs List (EDL). OF the 312 medicines on the list, only 14 are protected by patents which would suggest that patents are not blocking access to essential medicines in developing countries. The trouble is that cost is one of the key factors in determining whether a particular drug is "essential." So large numbers of patented drugs don't make the list because they are too expensive. There is a good reason for including cost as a factor because the list is designed to avoid high priced (less cost effective) patented medicines. But an unintended side affect of this is that even drugs which developing countries would have a right to make cheaper generic versions of under compulsory licence, are not making the list because the cost of the patented rather than the generic version is what it taken into consideration in deciding whether it should be on the list. Love says:

"Drug industry representatives have used the WHO EDL to argue that rigid intellectual property protections are not a barrier to essential medicines, because “no” patented medicines are “essential” according to the WHO.[2] Of course this is a distortion; many patented medicines currently not on the EDL would be included were they available at generic prices – for instance the most recent list includes no patented anti-cancer drugs, and the core list includes no anti-cancer drugs whatsoever. The existence of a WHO “Essential Medicines List” which clearly does not contain many truly essential medicines may be confusing for public health officials and others and provide rhetorical fodder to those who oppose intellectual property flexibilities for health...

Patented medicines currently available only at prohibitive prices may nonetheless offer the “potential for cost-effective treatment” as countries have the opportunity to legally produce or import generic versions. More critical to the evaluation of cost effectiveness under the emerging system is the true marginal cost of production, which bears little or no relationship to the market price in developed countries.

We believe that it is more appropriate that the Essential Medicines List reflect the opportunity that many countries have to obtain currently patented drugs at generic prices by assessing cost-effectiveness not only on the basis of current market prices, but also on the basis of potential generic prices if countries were to avail themselves of their right to exercise TRIPS flexibilities, including the granting of compulsory licenses. Developing countries in particular might stand to benefit from a model WHO Essential Medicines List that does not exclude essential patented medicines by ignoring the potential that those drugs could be obtained more cheaply. A welcome side-effect of this change would be an “Essential Medicines List" that more fully reflects the range of truly essential medicines, where essential reflects both the need for treatments and the costs of meeting those needs unburdened by patent rents.

We recognize that the current WHO Essential Medicines List (EDL) is designed to avoid high priced (less cost effective) patented medicines, that some national laws that reference the EDL create obligations for public outlays, and that these outlays may not be justified at the higher prices for patented medicines. The WHO could easily address this problem by creating a category within the EDL for medicines that are essential "if available at generic prices," an option that is clearly relevant for many developing countries."

Essential reading.

Poll: Millions may resist ID cards

This morning's Telegraph has a big story on a YouGov poll which suggests that millions may resist the government's ID cards scheme.

I'm not sure it will run into the millions but suspect it could be tens or possibly hundreds of thousands. Once the reality of the government's specific ID card system disaster starts to dawn on people the protests may then grow.

I had an interesting chat with someone at the weekend about the children's index. She's a parent of primary school children who had no inkling that the government were developing the children's index database nor that there were so many other children's databases in operation. She had recently received a letter from her children's school, however, noting that what she considered to be significant items of personal information were now going to be collected about her children. She was angry that her family's privacy was being invaded with no justifiable reason and that her permission was not sought for the collection of this data.

She asked me about the databases because I had mentioned recently that I had written a book about civil rights and computers. At the time she had noted politely that that sounded interesting but it was clear that the subject was really too remote and abstract for her to take a real interest. The school's letter, however, suddenly turned it into something of immediate concern. We might find that once the ID card system begins to operate it will provide a similar jolt to many others' sensitivities to how the goverment are building massive new insecure information systems in their name.

Australia's new copyright law

IP specialist, Kim Weatherall, has been explaining Australia's new criminal copyright laws: strict liability, 'negligence' and why these laws just haven't been thought through. She also points out that though the worst excesses of the original draft, e.g. criminalising iPod owners, didn't make it through, the law still makes it a criminal offence to sell a second hand iPod with some songs still on it.

Podcast interview with Ross Anderson

Outlaw have a podcast interview with Ross Anderson about the government's approach to child surveillance and the powerful FIPR report for the Information Comissioner on same.

Ross highlights what he considers to be the two main concerns raised in the report. Firstly that by asking social workers to look into the affairs of about a hundred times more children, the overwhelming majority of whom need absolutely no such intervention, the government will take scarce resources away from children at risk, with the result that some of these children at risk will come to harm. Secondly the kind of intervention that is justifiable in cases where children are truly at risk e.g. where parent or guardian suspected of criminal abuse - e.g. removing the child from the family and holding the suspect in custody - is illegal if the intervention is as a result of welfare concerns such as not doing as well as might be expected at school. Child protection justifies overriding privacy and the wishes of a parent suspected of being a serious criminal but this is not the case in child welfare.

He also makes the point that in the case of the databases related to youth justice, the Home Office takes the view that it is immune from data protection and human rights law i.e. if it is using any data for police purposes it can do what it likes regardless of the law. "The government is not obeying the law of the land when it comes to getting consent for data sharing from children and their families."

It's a relatively short interview and worth listening to in full.

Software Freedom Law Center challenge Blackboard Patent

The Software Freedom Law Center set up by Eben Moglen has challenged the Blackboard patent on elearning systems, asking the US Patent Office to re-examine it with a view to invalidating it. Moglen's group are concerned at the potential impact of the patent on open source projects like Moodle, despite the fact that Blackboard have said they have no intention of targetting such initiatives for legal action.

Regular readers will know I believe that the Blackboard patent should never have been granted.

Haloscan censorship

Well I've had no reply from Haloscan to my request for an explanation as to why Spyblog was blocked from posting a comment to this blog last week. I think ten days is a reasonable length of time to allow them to get back to me but I have not even received an acknowledgement. So I will be removing Haloscan commenting from this blog as soon as I can get a spare moment.

I'm disappointed by Haloscan's lack of acknowledgement and by their filtering processes which, whatever the detailed mechanics might be, are interfering with the legitimate exchange of ideas.

Update: Well I've removed the code the template relating to Haloscan but when trying re-publish the template, Blogger helpfully tells me "there were errors" without specifying what they are and does not update the code. I'm not a code jockey and I accept that I've tweaked the html on this blog so often to make it more readable that it is now a bit cumbersome. I have probably therefore missed a stupid simple error in the changes. I just wanted to get rid of Haloscan and have spent the past hour and a half mucking about with the template, unable to get Blogger to accept the changes. If any readers happen to be html specialists I'd appreciate a pointer to the error(/s) so I can rectify them quickly and consign Haloscan to the past, as far as this blog goes. I can't updgrade to the new Blogger yet either, since my blog is too big.

Further update: I've finally erased Haloscan. Blogger still doesn't like my html but I can live with that.

Tony Blair is not Hitler: official

From The Register:

"An advert showing a close-up picture of Tony Blair with a barcode on his top lip was not offensive, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled."

Evoting setbacks in Italy and the US

Currently deployed electronic voting has received a couple of setbacks in the US and Italy in recent days. The Italian Prime Minister's office has been reported as saying that evoting trials in Italy have been a failure and evoting will be discontinued there. (Thanks to Glyn via the ORG list for the link)

In the US the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is required to assist the Election Assistance Commission with the development of voluntary voting system guidelines, has issued a draft white paper. Amongst other things the white paper concludes that "Software-dependent approaches such as the DRE are not viable for future voting systems." (DREs are 'direct record electronic' machines run by proprietary software). From the body of the report "software independence" is described as follows:

"A voting system is software-independent if a previously undetected change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome. In other words, it can be positively determined whether the voting system’s (typically, electronic) CVRs are accurate as cast by the voter or in error. In SI voting systems that are readily available today, the determination can be made via the use of independent audits of the electronic counts or CVRs, and independent voter-verified paper records used as the audit trail.

A simple example of this is op scan, in which a voter marks (by hand or using an EBM) the paper ballot. The voter verifies the paper ballot is correct, thus it is voter-verified, and the paper ballot is “outside” or independent of the voting system, i.e., it cannot be changed or modified by the voting system. As a consequence of these two factors, the paper ballot can be considered as independent evidence of what the voter believed he or she was casting. After the paper ballots are scanned, they can subsequently be used to provide an independent audit, or check, on the accuracy of the electronic counts.

If an undetected change or error in the optical scanner’s software were to cause erroneous counts, subsequent audits would show the errors. Even if malicious code was inserted into the scanner’s software, the audits would detect resultant errors in the counts. Therefore, the correctness of the scanner’s counts does not rely on the correctness of the scanner’s software, and thus op scan is software independent: changes or errors in its software will be reliably detected by independent audits of its electronic counts. Thus, the primary ingredients to SI as illustrated in op scan are (1) voter-verified records that are (2) independent of the voting system used in (3) audits of the scanner’s electronic counts."

Well worth a read for evoting geeks.

Italian prosecutors investigate Google over bullying video

Italian prosecutors are, according to News.com, investigating to Google representatives after a video of teenagers bullying an austistic classmate appeared on the Google video site.

"The two are accused of failing to check on the content of the video posted on the Internet search engine's Web site.

The video, which sparked outrage in the country, showed four teenagers beating and poking fun at a 17-year-old disabled boy in a classroom in the northern Italian city of Turin.

Prosecutors have already put the four students and a teacher under investigation. The students have also been suspended until the end of the school year.

A spokeswoman for Google in Europe said the Internet search engine was sorry for the distress caused by the video and had acted swiftly when it was informed of its content."

This is a tough situation. Would the authorities have dealt with the bullying if it had not come to light via Google? Are they dealing with it appropriately even now? How could the situation have been allowed to happen in the first place? Schools are required to have anti-bullying policies but such policies are meaningless if they are left to gather dust on the shelf without meaningful measures tackling real bullying in practice. What about the privacy of the victim, which has been compromised in this case? Michael Geist has been thinking about the challenges ubiquitous video is imposing on society

"While there are some obvious benefits that arise from the transparency and potential accountability that can come from video evidence of controversial events, the emergence of an always-on video society raises some difficult questions about the appropriate privacy-transparency balance, the ethics of posting private moments to a global audience, and the responsibility of websites that facilitate Internet video distribution...

Rather than banning the technology, we must instead begin to grapple with the implications of these changes by considering the boundaries between transparency and privacy. As our expectations of the availability of video changes, so too must our sense of the video rules of the road. "

Time to re-visit David Brin's The Transparent Society.

Universities urged: 'share benefits of health research'

Eva Tallaksen at SciDev.Net has a succinct report on the Philadelphia Consensus Statement which "outlines how universities can improve access to medicines and transfer of knowledge to the developing world by changing their licensing policies and intellectual property (IP) rights." From the Philadelphia Consensus Statement:

"According to the World Health Organization, about ten million people—most of them in developing countries—die needlessly every year because they do not have access to existing medicines and vaccines. Countless others suffer from neglected tropical diseases, such as sleeping sickness, lymphatic filariasis, and blinding trachoma. Because these neglected diseases predominantly affect the poor, they attract very little research and development funding, which leads directly to a paucity of safe and effective treatment options.

We believe that access to medical care and treatment is a basic human right.¹ Lack of access to medical treatment in developing countries stems from several factors, including high prices for medicines, underfunded health care systems, and a global biomedical research agenda poorly matched to the health needs of the world’s destitute sick. Comprehensive solutions are thus needed to increase both access to existing medicines and research on neglected diseases.

We believe that universities have an opportunity and a responsibility to take part in those solutions. University scientists are major contributors in the drug development pipeline. At the same time, universities are dedicated to the creation and dissemination of knowledge in the public interest. Global public health is a vital component of the public interest. Therefore, universities best realize their objectives when they promote innovation and access to health-related technologies.

To this end, we, the signatories of this Statement, urge universities to adopt the following recommendations.

---

As owners of intellectual property, universities have the ability to promote widespread availability of their technologies in the developing world. When university-owned intellectual property is necessary for the development of a health-related end product—including but not limited to drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, monitoring tools, know-how and technical expertise—universities should:

PROMOTE EQUAL ACCESS TO UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

1. Require the inclusion of licensing terms in exclusive technology transfer agreements that ensure low-cost access to health-related innovations in the developing world...

2. Develop a transparent, case-by-case global access strategy to ensure access to health-related technologies where licensing provisions like the EAL will not serve the access objectives defined above...

PROMOTE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOR NEGLECTED DISEASES

1. Adopt policies promoting in-house ND research...

2. Engage with nontraditional partners to create new opportunities for ND drug development...

3. Carve out an ND research exemption for any patents held or licenses executed...

Given their avowed commitment to the public good, universities should measure success in technology transfer by impact on global human welfare rather than simply by financial return. The positive social impact from university innovations—particularly in poor countries—would go largely unnoticed if technology transfer were to be measured in dollars alone. In order to develop transparent criteria measuring access to health technologies and innovation in neglected-disease research, universities should:

MEASURE RESEARCH SUCCESS ACCORDING TO IMPACT ON HUMAN WELFARE

1. Collect and make public statistics on university intellectual property practices related to global health access...

2. Collaborate with other universities and consortia to develop more robust technology transfer metrics that better gauge access to public health goods and innovation in neglected-disease research."

Thanks to Thiru Balasubramaniam of the Consumer Project on Technology, via the A2K list, for the pointer.

We need leaders to adhere to the rule of law

Martin Kettle had a nice article in the Guardian on Saturday reporting on Lord Bingham's recent speech at Cambridge on the rule of law.

"In my view, no more important speech has been given in this country this year, for Bingham warns that some of the most sensitive decisions made by government are currently incompatible with his definition of the rule of law...

the law must be accessible and intelligible; disputes must be resolved by application of the law rather than exercise of discretion; the law must apply equally to all; it must protect fundamental human rights; disputes should be resolved without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay; public officials must use power reasonably and not exceed their powers; the system for resolving differences must be fair. Finally, a state must comply with its international law obligations. Now start to tease out what these implications might mean in practice. This is where Bingham's legal principles suddenly lock gears with the real world.

If the law is to be accessible and intelligible, for example, then there must be an end both to judicial prolixity and to what Bingham calls "the legislative hyperactivity which appears to have become a permanent feature of our governance - in 2004, some 3,500 pages of primary legislation; in 2003, nearly 9,000 pages of statutory instruments." This applies particularly in the "torrent of criminal legislation", not all of which is "readily intelligible". To uphold the rule of law, in other words, lawmakers will have to do less of it and be clearer...

No government is perfect. But when the most revered of these guardians suggests that critical decisions by ministers have fallen short of the rule of law on a range of counts, then it follows that Britain needs a better form of government, whose members can succeed where the current ones have failed and who better understand the real meaning of the principles they claim to support."

Update: John points out that an audio recording of Lord Binghamm's speech is also available here.

Government attempt to smear FIPR report

The UK government have been at it again. Instead of engaging with the constructive criticism of their mass surveillance approach to child safety contained in the FIPR report for the Information Commissioner, Children's Minister, Beverley Hughes, decided to attack the report with vague claims of factual inaccuracies, in a letter to the Telegraph on Friday. The report authors have now replied and I hope they don't mind me quoting them in full:

"Sir – Beverley Hughes, the Minister for Children (Letters, November 24), does a disservice to families by an evasive response to our report to the Information Commissioner on the range of databases being set up to monitor children.

She makes a vague claim that the report contains factual inaccuracies, but she does not mention that the chapters on the different databases were sent to her department for checking before publication.

She also suggests that it is not based on evidence, when there is extensive evidence in the report drawn from government publications and interviews with senior officials and practitioners.

The Minister's response misleads by referring only to the Information Sharing Index. This is just the hub of several more detailed databases that will contain highly personal and often subjective information on children and their parents. Moreover, the index will reveal which children are known to other databases and hence provide sensitive information (such as attendance at a special school) to any viewer.

The Information Commissioner has called for a debate on the challenges this policy is posing to traditional family life. The Minister for Children should not duck this challenge. Trying to smear us is not an adequate response.

Dr Eileen Munro, London School of Economics
Professor Ross Anderson, Cambridge University
Dr Ian Brown, University College London
Dr Richard Clayton, Cambridge University
Terri Dowty, Action on Rights for Children
Professor Douwe Korff, London Metropolitan University"

Ms Hughes, by the way, was the Immigration Minister forced to resign in 2004 for making misleading statements about suspected visa fraud. According to the BBC at the time,

"The Tories had accused the Home Office of approving visa claims from eastern Europe despite warnings they were backed by forged documents.

Ms Hughes had dismissed calls to quit, saying she had not known of the claims.

But No 10 said it was now clear she was warned about it a year ago, by Labour deputy chief whip Bob Ainsworth."

When non-IT people make IT decisions

When non-IT people make IT decisions. Hilarious.

Retired Brigadier arrested for bringing tiny toolkit on train

Tom Foulks, a retired army officer, was arrested, detained and cautioned recently for attempting to bring a credit card sized toolkit on to a train, a toolkit which has travelled all over the world with him.

"After nearly four hours of processing and questioning I cheerfully admitted the “offence” in order to terminate this tedious ordeal, get back to Waterloo and resume my journey to Paris. Having signed the necessary forms, I was released on caution."

Now that he has such a caution for attempting to smuggle an "offensive weapon" contrary to "Section 1 of PCA 1953", he might well find himself flagged for more detailed security checks on his future travels.

South Korea and Ireland

Susan Crawford is encouraged by network developments in South Korea and Ireland.

"South Korea made the decision ten years ago to invest in high-speed (competitive) internet access and subsidize cheap PCs -- as a result, they have just about the highest broadband penetration in the world. Not only has the dream come true, but economic growth comes attached.

Meanwhile, someone sent me a Wall Street Journal Europe article about VCs carving up an Irish telephone company to treat transport like a utility. The big guys can watch the model and then think about selling their own networks to raise some cash."

Is Blair exaggerating the threat of terrorism?

Simon Jenkins has been indulging in his favorite sport of Blair-bashing again.

"The west is ruled by a generation of leaders with no experience of war or its threat. Blair and his team cannot recall the aftermath of the second world war, and in the cold war they rushed to join CND. They were distant from those real global horrors. Yet now in power they seem to crave an enemy of equivalent monstrosity. Modern government has a big hole in its ego, yearning to be filled by something called a "threat to security".

After 1990 many hoped that an age of stable peace might dawn. Rich nations might disarm and combine to help the poor, advancing the cause of global responsibility. Instead two of history's most internationalist states, America and Britain, have returned to the trough of conflict, chasing a chimera of "world terrorism", and at ludicrous expense. They have brought death and destruction to a part of the globe that posed no strategic threat. Now one of them, Tony Blair, stands in a patch of desert to claim that "world security in the 21st century" depends on which warlord controls it. Was anything so demented?"

Dear Father Christmas...

Could I have one of these please?

"It's an MP3 player. It's an FM radio. It's video and photo display device. It's an e-book reader. It's a sound recorder. It's a Linux-based personal computer ready for web, email and office usage. Yes, it's Wizpy, the Swiss Army Knife of handheld gadgets announced by Japan's Turbolinux this week."

Sadly they won't be available in my part of the world until February 2007.

Ndiyo: Sharing PCs to bridge the digital divide

Andrew Donoghue at ZDNet UK ZDNet has been interviewing John Naughton and Quentin Stafford-Fraser about Ndiyo. Recommended.

Former UK Diplomat Critical of UK foreign policy

Carne Ross, a former high flyer at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, has heavily criticised the government in his Testimony to House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: Commentary on FCO White Paper "Active Diplomacy" earlier this month. In his conclusions he says:

"In "Active Diplomacy" and in general, the FCO and government proclaim their knowledge of the world and ability to deal with its challenges: here is the world, they say, and here is how we intend to deal with it. It is an illusion comforting to those in government and the public alike. The evidence however suggests that parliament - and indeed the public - is unwise to accord them this responsibility unquestioned. The last few years have been disastrous for British foreign policy, and no one is held to account[3]. The edifice of human rights law and norms, which took half a century of careful work to construct, has been undermined by those who claim to defend it...

14. We are so inured to the rhetoric of anti-terrorism and macho posturing about building democracy while fostering chaos, that it is hard to imagine an alternate direction for British foreign policy. But it is available, as it always was. This alternative lies in consistency of application of international law and a robust defence (including intervention when necessary, as in Kosovo and Sierra Leone) of those under assault or oppression. It lies in remedy to the "diplomatic deficit" whereby those affected by our - and others' - foreign policy have no capacity to influence it while those in whose name policy is carried out - us, the public - also have scant means to affect it. Together, such changes will produce a more just and therefore more stable world...

...the world needs an international system that gives a legitimate voice to all those affected by others' foreign policy... The Prime Minister himself has claimed that Britain stands by the oppressed, wherever they are. It is not too late for the policy reality to match that rhetoric, but it does require change, perhaps even a revolution."

Inspired compromise?

The Guardian's Free Our Data blog reports that:

"The European parliament and council of ministers have finally agreed a compromise wording to the Inspire directive designed to harmonise spatial information around Europe. The directive had become a cause celebre in the movement to make public sector data freely available. Broadly, the European parliament backed our position, while the council of ministers was opposed."

Article 20 Working Party Conclusions on SWIFT

The EU's Article 29 Working Party (the group of EU privacy commissionsers) has publihsed its opinion on the SWIFT financial data transfers to the US intelligence services. It's pretty damning. Here's some of the highlights:

"In this Opinion the Article 29 Working Party emphasizes that even in the fight against terrorism and crime fundamental rights must remain guaranteed. The Article 29 Working Party insists therefore on the respect of global data protection principles...

Article 29 Working Party comes to the following conclusions:
a) The EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC is applicable to the exchange of personal data via the SWIFTNet FIN service;
b) SWIFT and the financial institutions bear joint responsibility in light of the Directive for the processing of personal data via the SWIFTNet FIN service, with SWIFT bearing primary responsibility and financial institutions bearing some responsibility for the processing of their clients’ personal data.
c) SWIFT and the financial institutions in the EU have failed to respect the provisions of the Directive...
d) The Working Party is of the opinion that the lack of transparency and adequate and
effective control mechanisms that surrounds the whole process of transfer of personal
data first to the US, and then to the UST represents a serious breach in the light of the
Directive. In addition, the guarantees for the transfer of data to a third country as
defined by the Directive and the principles of proportionality and necessity are
violated.
As far as the communication of personal data to the UST is concerned, the Working
Party is of the opinion that the hidden, systematic, massive and long-term transfer of
personal data by SWIFT to the UST in a confidential, non-transparent and systematic
manner for years without effective legal grounds and without the possibility of
independent control by public data protection supervisory authorities constitutes a
violation of the fundamental European principles as regards data protection and is not
in accordance with Belgian and European law...
e) The Working Party recalls once again1 the commitment of democratic societies to
ensure respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual. The
individual’s right to protection of personal data forms part of these fundamental rights
and freedoms...

In view of the above, the Working Party therefore calls for the following immediate
actions to be taken to improve the current situation:
a) Cessation of infringements...
b) Return to lawful data processing: The Article 29 Working Party calls upon SWIFT
and the financial institutions to immediately take measures in order to remedy the
currently illegal state of affairs...
c) Actions as regards to SWIFT: For all its data processing activities, SWIFT as a
controller must take the necessary measures to comply with its obligations under
Belgian data protection law implementing the Directive...
e) Actions as regards to Financial institutions: All financial institutions in the EU
using SWIFTNet Fin service including the Central banks have to make sure according
to Articles 10 and 11 of the EU Directive 95/46/EC that their clients are properly
informed about how their personal data are processed and which rights the data
subjects have. They also have to give information about the fact that US authorities
might have access to such data. Data protection supervisory authorities will enforce
these requirements in order to guarantee that they are met by the all financial
institutions on a European level and they will cooperate on harmonized information
notices...
The Working Party also stresses the following:
f) Preservation of our fundamental values in the fight against crime: The Working
Party recalls that any measures taken in the fight against crime and terrorism should
not and must not reduce standards of protection of fundamental rights which
characterise democratic societies. A key element of the fight against terrorism
involves ensuring the preservation of the fundamental rights which are the basis of
democratic societies and the very values that those advocating the use of violence seek to destroy.
g) Global data protection principles: The Working Party considers it essential that the principles for the protection of personal data, including control by independent
supervisory authorities, are fully respected in any framework of global systems of
exchange of information."

Excuse the dodgy formatting. The original press release is only 5 pages and well worth reading in full. The full opinion runs to 29 pages. If you can't find the time to read the full thing take a look at the executive summary and the "IMMEDIATE ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN TO IMPROVE THE CURRENT SITUATION", particularly item 6.6 on page 29, which repeats item f from the presss release:

"Preservation of our fundamental values in the fight against crime: The Working Party recalls that any measures taken in the fight against crime and terrorism should not and must not reduce standards of protection of
fundamental rights which characterise democratic societies. A key element of the fight against terrorism involves ensuring the preservation of the fundamental rights which are the basis of democratic societies and the very values that those advocating the use of violence seek to destroy."

Quote of the day

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free." Ayn Rand.

I wonder what Rand would have made of CCTV, RFIDs, biometric ID cards and passports, mass phone tapping, no fly lists, EULAs, electronic voting, children's databases, software filters, NHS type IT programmes, mass warrantless phone tapping, remote mobile and email and web surfing tracking, to name but a few.

Racial Profiling at U.S. Airways

Talkleft has yet another example of irrational and discriminatory behaviour of an airline triggered by the nervousness generated by the "war on terror."

A passenger concerned about the "6 suspicious Arabic men" - six imams praying before boarding a flight - and they were removed in handcuffs and held in detention for hours.

"U.S. Airways refused to book the imams on another flight to Phoenix. According to the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslims (both passengers and airline employees) have more complaints about U.S. Airways than other airlines. The incident prompted the Council and the NAACP to ask for Congressional hearings on racial profiling in airports.

Can you imagine the outcry from the religious right if six Christian pastors were removed from a flight because they prayed together at the gate? U.S. Airways would be deservedly out of business in a week."

ARCH on the Children's Index

ARCH have updated their terrific page on the Children’s Information Sharing (IS) Index. Essential reading for parents and anyone else who comes into contact with kids in a professional or social context. The children's index is shaping up to become more database disaster fodder for academics to study for years to come.

Military Documents Hold Tips on Antiwar Activities

From yesterday's NYT: 'Military Documents Hold Tips on Antiwar Activities' A database called Talon, used by the US Department of Defense has entries on antiwar meetings at churches, libraries and university campuses. The head of the counterintelligence unit responsible for Talon says these details should not be on the database and that those recording such details had misinterpreted the remit of the project.

"Mr. Baur said that those operating the database had misinterpreted their mandate and that what was intended as an antiterrorist database became, in some respects, a catch-all for leads on possible disruptions and threats against military installations in the United States, including protests against the military presence in Iraq."

Of course he doesn't want such details, since they amount to more mountains of data hay polluting his already complex task of finding and sorting through useful intelligence in the existing data haystacks he is aware of.

But that is precisely the point about the operation of mass surveillance in practice. It takes on a life of its own. Operators act defensively collecting and recording even useless data because the perceived cost of missing something is so great. In the mass surveillance era, no amount of data, however seemingly insignificant each individual item might be, will be enough. Now the panic will be over recording and retaining data just in case the security services need it.

The people doing the legwork to feed the databases often find they are not properly briefed or have such a range of pressures guiding their day to day activity that even on the rare occasion when the original objective underlying the construction of the database is clear, the actual practice of operating it hopelessly corrupts the ability to fulfil that objective.

As Ross Anderson is fond of saying, you can have scalability, functionality or security and you can even have two of these simultaneously but not three together.

Youtube video "Charles Nesson is insane"

Charles Nesson at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center has long been thinking along similar lines to Martin Weller about integrating the most modern technologies into his courses.

Nesson has been using wikis, blogs, podcasts, webcasts and Second Life in a course on argument he has been running at Harvard. He would like Martin's notion of taking the ten coolest technologies and building a course around them. Find out what these technologies can really do by playing with them.

Computer voodoo

Martin has been engaging in some entertaining rituals with his problematic new Toshiba laptop.

"During the whole saga I became aware of two things:

i) The emotional state the rational machine induces in us. I ranged between violent swearing, sobbing, ennui, despair and hysteria as I wrestled over the course of three days with various start-up techniques.

ii) The superstition and irrationality you bring to these problems. At one stage I managed to get it all the way through the start-up process by continually moving the mouse. This became the first of many actions that came to constitute a start-up ritual that any religion would be proud of. Further rites included holding the laptop at an angle (and in one extreme fundamentalist sect even holding over one's head), closing and opening the lid three times and removing the power lead for ten minutes. I can't say these had any objective measure of success, but they had enough promise of success to be worth doing. And computers have become so complex that although I know they were mostly ridiculous, I couldn't be quite sure that they were redundant. They became the IT equivalent of sprinkling the dirt from a grave before midnight over the computer - sure it doesn't work, but hey, it's worth a try."

Hilarious but scary, especially since it brought back haunting memories of my own difficulties with my Toshiba laptop only a few years ago. The magic of the new toy disappeared in the quickly decelerating pace of operations on the machine, the causes of which I never got to the bottom of. In fairness to Toshiba, when the screen blew in the first few months, they quickly replaced it under warranty. If only Martin had videoed some of his more effective voodoo tricks, I might have been able to give them a try.

Vista EULA

Mark Rasch at SecurityFocus is concerned about the end user licence that will come with Microsoft's Vista operating system. Recommended reading.

"The terms of the Vista EULA, like the current EULA related to the “Windows Genuine Advantage,” allows Microsoft to unilaterally decide that you have breached the terms of the agreement, and they can essentially disable the software, and possibly deny you access to critical files on your computer without benefit of proof, hearing, testimony or judicial intervention. In fact, if Microsoft is wrong, and your software is, in fact, properly licensed, you probably will be forced to buy a license to another copy of the operating system from Microsoft just to be able to get access to your files, and then you can sue Microsoft for the original license fee. Even then, you wont be able to get any damages from Microsoft, and may not even be able to get the cost of the first license back...

Now Microsoft will invariably deny that what they are doing is “self-help.” More likely, they will claim that the disabling provisions of the software are mere “features” of the software. They will also argue that the licensee controls whether or not the code disables by either registering, or “getting Genuine.” But what the boys in Redmond are really doing is deciding that you have not followed the terms of a contract (the EULA) and punishing you unless and until you can prove that you have complied.

And what if Microsoft is wrong, and they disable your software erroneously? Well, you can keep buying and activating their software until you are successful. And that means more fees to Redmond. Or, following the movie “Happy Feet,” you can decide to find software with a little penguin on it."

Hands off our fingers!

Henry Porter is in full flight at the Guardian again today, this time regarding the new gadget the police are using to check fingerprints by the roadside.

"It must be clear that if the police are demanding fingerprints today,
they will be asking for our papers (ID cards) tomorrow, a notion that
would have been unthinkable in Britain 10 years ago. Yet now we seem to
accept that the authorities have these new rights over us and that we
must simply roll over and go along with this oppressive behaviour.

Every part of me recoils from these developments. I go on complaining
and making the case that a profound change is underway which is not a
matter of debate, but of actuality. We are living this revolution. Our
apathy and complacency enables it. One day our children and
grandchildren will look back and wonder what on earth was going through
our minds; how we lost our faith in liberty, which when it comes down to
it will be the story of how we lost our self respect as citizens.

Unless many more understand what is going on with the nightmarish
clarity that afflicts some of us, and they start campaigning and doing
everything they possibly can to reassert individual rights, the fight
will eventually be lost. "

Read the original in full.

Lawsuit alleges evoting negligence in Florida

The EFF are amongst the complainants in a lawsuit alleging evoting negligence in Florida. I understand that David Jefferson and Dan Wallach are amongst the technical experts working on the case.

The lawsuit is calling for a re-run of the election in that area because nearly 20000 ballots didn't register a vote in the county's House of Representatives race. Even if independent experts do get to examine the machines involved, they may not be able to determine whether there was malicious code used, since as Ed Felten and others have ably demonstrated, such code can erase itself once the damage is done.

That the ACLU, the EFF and a number of other advocacy groups are putting scarce resources into this case might mean it has the kind of detailed facts making it a good test case to break through significant barriers with evoting, such as the vendors using secret software. It should be an interesting one to watch, as the current state of affairs with evoting in the US is unsustainable.

MacDonalds want patent on making a sandwich

MacDonalds have, according to the Guardian, applied for a patent, in the US and EU (in 55 pages of legalese), on making a sandwich. That deserves a prominent spot at Totally Absurd Inventions.

Thanks to Louise bia the ORG list for the pointer.

Haloscan filtering on this blog

Spyblog has been blocked from posting a comment to this blog by Haloscan. As someone who is forever getting snared by blunt software filters because of the title and url of this blog, I am not pleased. I have written to Haloscan to ask for an explanation.

Children's Databases: Safety and Privacy

The Foundation for Information Policy Research are releasing a report today for the Information Commissioner entitled Children's Databases: Safety and Privacy explaining that the government's blanket surveillance approach to child safety is actually going to put children at risk.

The reports authors are:

Professor Ross Anderson, University of Cambridge,
Terri Dowty, Director, Action on Rights for Children,
Dr Richard Clayton, University of Cambridge,
Professor Douwe Korff, London Metropolitan University,
Dr Eileen Munro, London School of Economics,
Dr Ian Brown, UCL,

so you can guarantee it is worth reading.

Elsewhere on a similar theme, the New Statesman decided not to publish this excellent article from Dave Hill about the Children's Index. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall at the New Statesman editorial meeting which decided not to run with the article.

Update: The report is now available and various corners of the media have picked up on it. It highlights five main concerns with the government's mass surveillance "solution" to child safety:

1. The government's strategy will divert resources and attention away from
frontline services;

2. The government hopes that sharing information from health,
education, social care and youth justice systems will enable it to
predict which children will become criminals. But predictions can
be highly fallible, and labelling children can stigmatise them.
Children 'fingered' by the computer as 'bad' may find that their
teachers have lower expectations, while the police may be more
likely to treat them as suspects rather than witnesses;

3. Moving responsibility from teachers, doctors and social workers to
a central system will also erode parental responsibility. Parents
and children's views will be more easily sidelined. The policy
involves micromanaged targets for every child, with responsibility
for achieving them placed on children's services, rather than
parents -- even down to meeting 'performance indicators' about the
amount of fruit and vegetables eaten and participation in
voluntary work;

4. Children will be bullied into providing intrusive data on
themselves, their parents and friends without proper safeguards,
and into giving their 'consent' to widespread data sharing without
involvement of their parents, in contravention of the law;

5. Families' privacy and autonomy will be corroded as the government
puts them under surveillance. The new policy will treat all
parents as if they cannot be trusted to bring up their children
and to ask for help if and when needed.

A Department for Education and Skills (DfES) spokesman is quoted by the BBC as saying: "We have some serious reservations about this report's objectivity and evidence base" which is actually quite funny when you look at the extensive list of government documents, listed in the footnotes, which the authors base their analysis and conclusions on. The DfES is trying to spin it by saying the report was done for the Information Commissioner but does not represent his views yet he has repeatedly made many of the same points when talking publicly about the government strategy in this area. No doubt he is coming under pressure in private to sideline the report but that just wouldn't wash, even in the highly unlikely event that the Information Commissioner was influenced by such pressure. The report is a thoroughly comprehensive, impeccable study by some of the most knowledgable people in the field. The government would do well to reign in its usual reflex response to constructive feedback and take note of the findings. Sadly I fear there will be pigs flying over Whitehall under their own volition before we see such positive engagement from the current incumbents.

From 7 laws of identity to 7 laws of privacy

Ontario Privacy Commissioner, Anne Cavoukian, has taken Kim Cameron's 7 laws of identity and derived 7 laws of privacy from them. What a good idea.

Welsh Dragon Sausages worry trading standards

According to IPKat, trading stadards officers in Wales are concerned that consumers might be misled by a food company, Black Mountains Smokery's 'Welsh Dragon' sausages, since they contain pork rather than dragon. Apparently officials have also said they wouldn't want vegetarians to think the sausages were meat free.

Podcast interview with Schneier

Dave Birch's podcast interview with Bruce Schneier is available at the Digital Identity Forum.

Home educator writes to Education Secretary

Home educator, Carlotta, has written a an excellent letter to Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, on the government's list of initiatives related to children.

Suspect Nation

Henry Porter did a nice documentary on More4 yesterday evening giving a broad ranging introduction to surveillance technologies like CCTV, ID cards, RFIDs, no fly lists, biometrics and mobile phones, and the blanket secret wiretapping in the US.

He even got Al Gore to quote Bruce Schneier's line about mass data collection being like trying to find a needle in a haystack by throwing more hay on the stack. Despite having written about the issues for a long time, he seemed somewhat amazed towards the end, when Adam Laurie demonstrated just how easily all the data being gathered can be accessed by a third party. Laurie showed the results of hacking into a CCTV system filming Porter on the streets of London, secretly recording Porter's conversation with another journalist by taking remote control of a mobile phone and breaking the security on the biometric chip on the new UK passports.

The programme is being repeated tomorrow evening at 10pm.

Update: Spyblog has kindly pointed out that I got the timing of the repeat wrong. It is due to be repeated Wednesday, 29th November at 10pm. Unfortunately his comment here got blocked by Haloscan filters. Grrr. I'm getting really fed up again with stupid software filters and will be asking Haloscan for an explanation as well as encouraging them to put the situation right.

The seed gestapo

Jonathan Rowe has been ruminating on grains of rice that are set aside and used as seeds in the next planting season and the impact of modern intellectual property law. Recommended reading.

Videos in cars

Robert Cringely has built a video player for his minivan and wonders why Sony or come like minded tech co. had not already thought of it.

NATO expert on Cyberterror

Ian Brown has been taking notes at a NATO-Russia round-table on cyberterror a couple of weeks ago. Essential reading.

National Academy for Parenting Practitioners

The government are now going to set up a National Academy for Parenting Practitioners.

Meanwhile the childminder is wondering about the government's committment to their every child matters agenda and a group of youngsters are dneied permission to enter the Lowry exhibition in Salford.

The UK has gone barking mad when it comes to dealing with children. Given that kids are growing up in a society that treats them either as total pariahs or innocent victims who need protection at all costs, it is remarkable that we have such a largely well adjusted young populace.

Thanks to ARCH for the links.

This Big Brotherly love is totally misplaced

Simon Davies on mass surveillance. Excellent.

UK copyright term extension proposals

James Boyle has a wonderful article in the FT on the music industry proposals to extend the term of copyright for sound recordings in the UK.

"The whole idea is very stupid. But if this is the stupid idea we wish to pursue, then simply increase the income tax proportionately and distribute the benefits to those record companies and musicians whose music is still commercially available after 50 years. Require them to put the money into developing new artists – something the current proposal does not. Let all the other recordings pass into the public domain.

Of course, no government commission would consider such an idea for a moment. Tax the public to give a monopoly windfall to those who already hit the jackpot, because they claim their industry cannot survive without retrospectively changing the terms of its deals? It is laughable. Indeed it is. Yet it is a better, saner proposal than the one before us. Which tells us something about the current state of copyright policy."

Universal sue MySpace

Universal has sued MySpace over postings of copyrighted music videos. The complaint is available at Findlaw, though not in a particularly user friendly format.

Fingerprint required for car hire at Stansted

The BBC are reporting that car hire firms at Stansted now require a fingerprint from every customer, allegedly for security reasons.

"If you want to hire a car at Stansted Airport, you now need to give a fingerprint.

The scheme being tested by Essex police and car hire firms, is not voluntary. Every car rental customer must take part.

These are stored by the hire firms - and will be handed over to the police if the car is stolen or used for another crime"

A CID spokesman said criminal gangs had been targetting car hire firms at the airport and that:

"It's not intrusive really. It's different - and people need to adjust to it. It's not Big Brother, it's about protecting people's identities. The police will never see these thumbprints unless a crime is committed."

His statement is understandable coming from a police officer with a serious car theft problem on his beat but it is flawed from a security perspective. The 'treat everybody as if they are a criminal because a small percentage of people engage in criminal activity' approach is not sustainable from a security or a societal perspective. The activity is intrusive; people do not need to adjust to it and can choose not to hire cars at Stansted; it will not protect people's identities and in fact exposes them to identity theft by car hire company insiders or those who gain access to their databases; and as for the police only seeing the thumprints once a crime is committed, well the security damage is already done as far as the individual is conerned long before any crime has been committed. Will it stop criminal gangs targetting the car hire firms? I doubt it but they may adjust their modus operandi in future, which I guess, from the police officer's perspective is a partially successful outcome i.e. the disruption of the criminal activity.

Back to the Future: sealed and delivered

I finally completed the book and delivered it to the publishers, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., yesterday. It was good to meet the folks I had been corresponding with via email. They seem very tuned in to issues of open access, visibility and the value of the long tail. I was also pleased to hear that they will be making one or two chapters of the book openly available online once it gets published.

Executive Editor, Beverley Ford and Sales Director, David Anderson even treated me to lunch, which was very decent. David suggested we change the title from 'Back to the Future: Digital Decision Making' to 'Digital Decision Making: Back to the Future', which I had no objections to, though I'd still be interested in the opinions of readers of this blog on the change.

Whilst I was being wined and dined, Jo Cooling and Helen Desmond were dissecting my printed manuscript and we had a meeting about it after lunch. They seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the final result and did a great job of making a new author feel he might have produced something worthwhile.

Beverley was interested in what my next book might be which I guess is a good sign and she asked me how I felt now the first one was completed. I told her I'd let her know today. I'm not sure it has even sunk in yet, though. Which reminds me - I have a leak in the kitchen that I've been promising to fix for the past ten days and I no longer have the excuse that I have a book to finish, so I'd better get on with it.

ID card mystery-benefits approach by Home Office

William Heath finds the latest assertion by the Home Office on ID cards "beyond parody." This week I'm finishing off a book, one of the main messages of which is that before you build a big complex information system, you need to know what it is for. The virtual reality world surrounding the government on this scheme goes way beyond anything that the most imaginative gaming programmer has ever produced.

IBM sue Amazon for patent infringement

Apparently IBM are suing Amazon for patent infringement.