Also from the Indie on Tuesday: Whose secret diary was Facebook so keen for you not to read?
"In the Facebook era, where everyone is spilling their secret thoughts for all to read on a social networking site, it is as if nothing is private any more.
So it might seem highly ironic that Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has been pleading with a Boston court to censure a Harvard magazine that has ferreted out and published a personal journal from his university days and his 2001 application to study at the illustrious college. The judge, Douglas Woodlock, turned him down and ruled that the documents will stay in the public domain."
David Holtzman will no doubt have had a wry grin over the proceedings.
Friday, December 07, 2007
ELQ funding consulatation
Just a reminder to all OU and other part time students that the government "consultation" on their decision to cut a massive chunk out of the funding for part time students ends today. Yvonne Cook had an excellent article in Tuesday's Independent (4 Dec.) this week on the issue, 'The threat to lifelong learning'.
Good old Arsenal
With the Usmanov affair, the recent loss in the Champions league, draw to Newcastle and various injuries to key players like Fabregas, there are some concerns around the Emirates Stadium at the moment. But it's nice to hear that the Arsenal players, directors and many other staff are donating a day's pay to Treehouse, the national charity for autism education.
"Be a Gooner. Be a Giver
"Be a Gooner. Be a Giver
This season, TreeHouse is over the moon to be working with Arsenal to raise £250,000 to build the sports facilities in our new National Centre for Autism Education in Noth London.
We have launched "Be a Gooner. Be a Giver" to encourage everyone in the Arsenal family to give whatever they can afford to help us reach our target. We are delighted that Arsenal's amazing players and directors have already generously donated a day's wages - please join them in supporting us, so that we can help many more children with autism through our new National Centre. You really will be making a difference.
If you would like to find out more about TreeHouse and Arsenal, and for a chance to win tickets to the Chelsea game on 16th December, download the free TreeHouse epac at www.epacstore.com/treehouse
Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts....and go Arsenal!
From the Children, Staff and Parents of TreeHouse"
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Congratulations Fernando
The highly entertaining Fernando Barrio, who I met at Gikii 2 earlier this year has been nominated and shortlisted for the law teacher of the year award. Congratulations to him.
There is no tech bubble
Thanks to Ian Yorston, Head of Digital Strategy at Radley College, and aka the Unreasonable Man for alerting me to this:
Facebook not too hot on privacy
David Holtzman, author of the excellent Privacy Lost, is fairly fuming over Facebook's most recent privacy invading shenanigans.
"I was actually hoping this would blow over, but sigh. Another arrogant, young, venture-funded social networking company has done something counter-consumer, caused a furor and backed down, apologizing with a hearty "my bad." Yes, it's Facebook and their notorious Beacon program, which monitors things that members buy on 3rd party affiliated sites and broadcasts these purchases to the member's network, regardless of whether he/she wants them to or not. Originally Beacon was a compulsory "feature"--now it is kinda opt-out. It should have been opt-in all along, but I guess Facebook doesn't see it that way.
"I was actually hoping this would blow over, but sigh. Another arrogant, young, venture-funded social networking company has done something counter-consumer, caused a furor and backed down, apologizing with a hearty "my bad." Yes, it's Facebook and their notorious Beacon program, which monitors things that members buy on 3rd party affiliated sites and broadcasts these purchases to the member's network, regardless of whether he/she wants them to or not. Originally Beacon was a compulsory "feature"--now it is kinda opt-out. It should have been opt-in all along, but I guess Facebook doesn't see it that way.
Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg (who is by the way, younger than most of my dental work), has apologized to the user community. In an interview, he said: "I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better." I believe Mr. Zuckerberg has completely missed the point--it's not a problem of how he reacted, it's the fact that they rolled out an evil f**king system to begin with.
Even now, the opt-out is transactional, you have to say no each time. The fact these bastards are tracking people at all on 3rd party sites is highly creepy and invasive anyway.
However as most of the critics have said, you don't have to use Facebook.
Good idea. Let's not."
Ian did a forensic examination of Facebook's privacy settings for Gikii 2 this year and came to the conclusion that they didn't measure up too well. He was slightly more polite about their failings.Canadia Songwriters want to tap commercial potentional of P2P
Via Michael Holloway on the ORG list, the Songwriters Association of Canada are proposing to put in place a system to enable them to be compensated for the distribution of their works on peer to peer networks.
"We propose an amendment to the Copyright Act which would establish a new right: The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing.
Interestingly they go on to say that although they are not opposed to TPM/DRM and laws against circumvention (Canada are just about to pass their very own version of the the DMCA and EUCD), they believe their proposal makes DRM obsolete. In addition
"Given the consumer aversion to TPM’s, we believe their use will inhibit the success of recordings in which they are embedded, and they will simply fall out of use."
Nice to see them thinking about using rather than banning p2ps but the sticking point might well be the $5 per month on every account. All the usual economic arguments about levies supporting special commercial interests come into play but it is progress. As with the webcasting levies the devil would be in the detail, though the proposal is probably too late to have any effect on the Canadian government's deployment of their very own DMCA.
"We propose an amendment to the Copyright Act which would establish a new right: The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing.
4. We define Music File Sharing as the sharing of a copy of a copyrighted musical work without motive of financial gain.
Since the new right is limited to activities that take place without motive of financial gain, parties who receive compensation for file sharing would not be covered by this right. Therefore, this new right is distinct from rights licensed by legal music sites like iTunes and PureTracks.
5. The new right would make it legal to share music between two or more parties, whether over Peer to Peer networks, wireless networks, email, CD, DVD, hard drives etc. Distinct from private copying, this new right would authorize the sharing of music with other individuals.
6. In exchange for this sharing of their work, Creators and rights holders would be entitled to receive a monthly license fee from each internet and wireless account in Canada.
7. We propose a licence fee of $5.00 per internet subscription, per month. Payment of this fee would remove the stigma of illegality from file sharing. In addition, it would represent excellent value to the consumer, since this fee would grant access to the majority of the world’s repertoire of music. Existing download subscription services generally charge considerably more than $5.00 per month, while offering a mere fraction of the file-sharing repertoire."Interestingly they go on to say that although they are not opposed to TPM/DRM and laws against circumvention (Canada are just about to pass their very own version of the the DMCA and EUCD), they believe their proposal makes DRM obsolete. In addition
"Given the consumer aversion to TPM’s, we believe their use will inhibit the success of recordings in which they are embedded, and they will simply fall out of use."
Nice to see them thinking about using rather than banning p2ps but the sticking point might well be the $5 per month on every account. All the usual economic arguments about levies supporting special commercial interests come into play but it is progress. As with the webcasting levies the devil would be in the detail, though the proposal is probably too late to have any effect on the Canadian government's deployment of their very own DMCA.
EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 5.23
EDRI-gram - Number 5.23, 5 December 2007 has just been issued and as usual is essential reading for digital rights folks. Contents:
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Microsoft disables remote disabling
It seems that the good guys in Microsoft (and there are a quite a few of them btw) have got the message through that it is not a good idea to remotely disable customers's computers if it suspects piracy.
"Microsoft Corp. is pulling back from a system that disables programs on users' computers if it suspects the software is pirated, opting instead for a gentler approach based on nagging alerts.
Microsoft said late Monday it will roll out the new version of Windows Genuine Advantage with the first "service pack" for Windows Vista, due in the first quarter of 2008.
When computer users activate a copy of Windows Vista or try to download certain software from Microsoft's Web site, the Windows Genuine Advantage system scans their PCs for signs of pirated software. Today, if the tool finds an unauthorized copy of Vista, the glassy Vista user experience disappears and other features are suspended."
I suspect the nagging alerts are going to create major problems as innocents get targetted (identifying copyright infringement is an inexact science not best turned over to software) but it is a little better than having your brand new machine disabled.
"Microsoft Corp. is pulling back from a system that disables programs on users' computers if it suspects the software is pirated, opting instead for a gentler approach based on nagging alerts.
Microsoft said late Monday it will roll out the new version of Windows Genuine Advantage with the first "service pack" for Windows Vista, due in the first quarter of 2008.
When computer users activate a copy of Windows Vista or try to download certain software from Microsoft's Web site, the Windows Genuine Advantage system scans their PCs for signs of pirated software. Today, if the tool finds an unauthorized copy of Vista, the glassy Vista user experience disappears and other features are suspended."
I suspect the nagging alerts are going to create major problems as innocents get targetted (identifying copyright infringement is an inexact science not best turned over to software) but it is a little better than having your brand new machine disabled.
German court says iPhone network tie-in ok
From SiliconValley.com: German court upholds T-Mobile's exclusive iPhone contract
"T-Mobile can sell Apple's sought-after iPhone exclusively locked to its own service, a German court ruled Tuesday, reversing an injunction last month requiring the company to sell an unlocked version in Europe's biggest economy.
The Hamburg District Court said Tuesday that T-Mobile, part of Deutsche Telekom AG, could indeed sell the phone, coupled with a two-year contract, that could not be used on networks provided by rival wireless companies.
The arrangement is similar to those Apple Inc. has with other carriers around the world. In the United States, AT&T Inc. is Apple's exclusive partner."
"T-Mobile can sell Apple's sought-after iPhone exclusively locked to its own service, a German court ruled Tuesday, reversing an injunction last month requiring the company to sell an unlocked version in Europe's biggest economy.
The Hamburg District Court said Tuesday that T-Mobile, part of Deutsche Telekom AG, could indeed sell the phone, coupled with a two-year contract, that could not be used on networks provided by rival wireless companies.
The arrangement is similar to those Apple Inc. has with other carriers around the world. In the United States, AT&T Inc. is Apple's exclusive partner."
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Judge Dismisses LimeWire Antitrust Suit
Also via Michael: Judge Dismisses LimeWire Antitrust Suit
"A federal judge on Monday threw out an antitrust lawsuit that the operator of the LimeWire online file-sharing service filed against a coalition of major record labels.
U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch in New York ruled that Lime Group LLC failed to make its case that it has been harmed by the recording companies' business practices, and he granted the companies' motion to dismiss the claims.
Lynch also dismissed several claims brought under state laws "without prejudice," which gives New York-based Lime Group the option to pursue the claims in state court."
"A federal judge on Monday threw out an antitrust lawsuit that the operator of the LimeWire online file-sharing service filed against a coalition of major record labels.
U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch in New York ruled that Lime Group LLC failed to make its case that it has been harmed by the recording companies' business practices, and he granted the companies' motion to dismiss the claims.
Lynch also dismissed several claims brought under state laws "without prejudice," which gives New York-based Lime Group the option to pursue the claims in state court."
Passport applicant finds massive privacy breach
Via Michael Geist: Passport applicant finds massive privacy breach
"A security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the personal information - including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licence numbers - of people applying for new passports.
The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser."
"A security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the personal information - including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licence numbers - of people applying for new passports.
The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser."
Monday, December 03, 2007
Websites sell secret bank data and PINs
On the front page of this morning's Times: Websites sell secret bank data and PINs.
Nothing particularly new here but the Times have reported the specific sites to Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, and he has agreed to investigate.
"Mr Thomas will address the Commons Justice Committee tomorrow on the addional powers that he says are needed to prevent breaches of data protection. He believes that reckless failure to protect information should result in prosecution and that his staff should have powers to raid government and business premises.
Hacking sites act as online bazaars for stolen personal information. They are well run, hierarchical groups structured like businesses. Some even have review sections where buyers can recommend a particular fraudster...
Senior police officers are concerned that current methods of dealing with large-scale data protection breaches are unworkable. Detective Chief Inspector Charlie McMurdie, of the Metropolitan Police e-crime unit, said: “At the moment people report internet crimes to a local police station but no one locally has the resources to investigate properly.”
Since April customers have been told to report card crimes to their banks rather than to the police. Mr McMurdie, backed by the main banks, has asked the Home Office for £1.3 million to fund a central e-crime unit."
All I would say is that the government has already rejected overtures to get serious about technology-complemented crime and I suspect Chief Inspector McMurdie is asking for a small sum in the expectation of not getting much. But £1.3 million is nowhere near enough to fund the technically literate police force we need to deal with these kinds of crimes not to mention the technical infrastructure required.
Nothing particularly new here but the Times have reported the specific sites to Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, and he has agreed to investigate.
"Mr Thomas will address the Commons Justice Committee tomorrow on the addional powers that he says are needed to prevent breaches of data protection. He believes that reckless failure to protect information should result in prosecution and that his staff should have powers to raid government and business premises.
Hacking sites act as online bazaars for stolen personal information. They are well run, hierarchical groups structured like businesses. Some even have review sections where buyers can recommend a particular fraudster...
Senior police officers are concerned that current methods of dealing with large-scale data protection breaches are unworkable. Detective Chief Inspector Charlie McMurdie, of the Metropolitan Police e-crime unit, said: “At the moment people report internet crimes to a local police station but no one locally has the resources to investigate properly.”
Since April customers have been told to report card crimes to their banks rather than to the police. Mr McMurdie, backed by the main banks, has asked the Home Office for £1.3 million to fund a central e-crime unit."
All I would say is that the government has already rejected overtures to get serious about technology-complemented crime and I suspect Chief Inspector McMurdie is asking for a small sum in the expectation of not getting much. But £1.3 million is nowhere near enough to fund the technically literate police force we need to deal with these kinds of crimes not to mention the technical infrastructure required.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Copyright’s Heart of Darkness
Matthew Sag & Mark Schultz have offered a comment on John Tehranian’s “Infringement Nation”.
"John Tehranian’s recent Utah Law Review Essay, Infringement Nation, tells a riveting story about copyright law and the widening gap between law and norms. Like Charles Marlow’s journey into the Congo River, Tehranian has given us a transporting narrative of copyright’s potential despotic application to the life of an “ordinary law professor” named John. At the end of John’s journey down the copyright river, Tehranian asks us to “imagine a world where every act currently deemed infringing under the law were actually prosecuted.”
One can almost hear Kurtz’ whispered cry, “The horror! The horror!”
Tehranian argues that “on any given day, … even the most law-abiding American engages in thousands of actions that likely constitute copyright infringement.” Tehranian makes his case with an imaginative list of seeming benign “infringing” acts and concludes that “if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, [John] would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year.” (emphasis added)
Without any disrespect to Tehranian, we take issue with his argument and almost all of his analysis. To begin with, many of his examples clearly do not qualify as copyright infringement, others are marginal cases at best...
The real problem with copyright law today is not so much the tyranny of the law as eventually applied, but rather the tyranny of uncertainty as to how the law will be applied. This uncertainty is the product of factors including, the opaque structure of the Copyright Act, the complicated and fact specific nature of the fair use doctrine and defenses such as implied licensing. It is easy and rhetorically expedient to construct a dystopian scenario of copyright gone wild, but this kind of exaggeration does little to address public confusion about the law and only emboldens copyright maximalists by lending credence to their most grandiose claims.
What kind of copyright debate do we want to have? The “Orange Alert” strategy employed by too many copyright commentators simply produces a clash between irreconcilable extremes: “information wants to be free” versus “sole and despotic dominion.”
We continue to hope for something more."
A worthy response which should be read in full.
"John Tehranian’s recent Utah Law Review Essay, Infringement Nation, tells a riveting story about copyright law and the widening gap between law and norms. Like Charles Marlow’s journey into the Congo River, Tehranian has given us a transporting narrative of copyright’s potential despotic application to the life of an “ordinary law professor” named John. At the end of John’s journey down the copyright river, Tehranian asks us to “imagine a world where every act currently deemed infringing under the law were actually prosecuted.”
One can almost hear Kurtz’ whispered cry, “The horror! The horror!”
Tehranian argues that “on any given day, … even the most law-abiding American engages in thousands of actions that likely constitute copyright infringement.” Tehranian makes his case with an imaginative list of seeming benign “infringing” acts and concludes that “if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, [John] would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year.” (emphasis added)
Without any disrespect to Tehranian, we take issue with his argument and almost all of his analysis. To begin with, many of his examples clearly do not qualify as copyright infringement, others are marginal cases at best...
The real problem with copyright law today is not so much the tyranny of the law as eventually applied, but rather the tyranny of uncertainty as to how the law will be applied. This uncertainty is the product of factors including, the opaque structure of the Copyright Act, the complicated and fact specific nature of the fair use doctrine and defenses such as implied licensing. It is easy and rhetorically expedient to construct a dystopian scenario of copyright gone wild, but this kind of exaggeration does little to address public confusion about the law and only emboldens copyright maximalists by lending credence to their most grandiose claims.
What kind of copyright debate do we want to have? The “Orange Alert” strategy employed by too many copyright commentators simply produces a clash between irreconcilable extremes: “information wants to be free” versus “sole and despotic dominion.”
We continue to hope for something more."
A worthy response which should be read in full.
Chinese Computer Scientist Jailed for Copyright Infringement
William Stepp at Against Monopoly reports that a Chinese computer scientist has been jailed for copyright infringement.
"Chen Shoufu, an innovative Chinese computer scientist, was jailed August 16 in Beijing for violating the copyright of China's leading instant-messenging service, Tencent Holdings Ltd., owner of the popular QQ program. Mr. Chen's program Coral QQ made QQ more user friendly by blocking ads, resolving internet addresses, and identifying the computer from which a message is sent at no charge. (Tencent charges for the ID service.) He had previously paid a 100,000 yuan fine, about $13,600. Here is the article in the Wall Street Journal.
He has become a hero in China, the second largest internet market. One blogger decried Tencent for "bullying Chinese users by monopolizing the market."
This is yet another chilling example in a long list of violations of the liberty of people to use their property in non-invasive and very often innovative ways that ironically could improve the lives of their prosecutors, as well as countless other people. "
"Chen Shoufu, an innovative Chinese computer scientist, was jailed August 16 in Beijing for violating the copyright of China's leading instant-messenging service, Tencent Holdings Ltd., owner of the popular QQ program. Mr. Chen's program Coral QQ made QQ more user friendly by blocking ads, resolving internet addresses, and identifying the computer from which a message is sent at no charge. (Tencent charges for the ID service.) He had previously paid a 100,000 yuan fine, about $13,600. Here is the article in the Wall Street Journal.
He has become a hero in China, the second largest internet market. One blogger decried Tencent for "bullying Chinese users by monopolizing the market."
This is yet another chilling example in a long list of violations of the liberty of people to use their property in non-invasive and very often innovative ways that ironically could improve the lives of their prosecutors, as well as countless other people. "
NYT interactive debate transcript analyzer
Now this is really neat from the NYT - an interactive analyzer of the transcript of the recent Republican presidential candidates' debate.
The Nerd Handbook
Michael Lopp has compiled The Nerd Handbook. Recommended, especially for families and friends of nerds.
I thought I subscribed to them...
Google Reader now makes recommendations of feeds that are related to those you already subscribe to. The top four were ones I thought I already subscribed to, so I guess they've got me pegged.
Friday, November 30, 2007
The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers.
Via Mary Hodder: The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers.
"Did you know that sixty years ago, six young women programmed the ENIAC, the first all-electronic programmable computer?
And when LIFE magazine published a post-ww2 story about the ENIAC, the women were not mentioned. The article only featured information on the machine, not the engineers who made it work."
"Did you know that sixty years ago, six young women programmed the ENIAC, the first all-electronic programmable computer?
And when LIFE magazine published a post-ww2 story about the ENIAC, the women were not mentioned. The article only featured information on the machine, not the engineers who made it work."
A Financial Perspective on DRM
At Kuro5hin: A Financial Perspective on DRM
" I noted yesterday that there seems to be some media fanfare surrounding Amazon's launch of a digital book tablet. It occurred to me that the markets surrounding media such as books, music and movies bear more than a passing resemblance to financial markets, and as such, perhaps they were amenable to a similar method of analysis. Being the owner of a sizable collection of paper books, this led me to consider the drawbacks one faces when Digital Rights Management restrictions are put in place...
when one purchases media encumbered by ... DRM schemes, one is taking on undiversified credit risk with an indefinitely long time horizon -- that is, you're counting on Microsoft or Apple not going out of business any time in your life and making all of your media instantly unreadable. Worse yet, unlike in the credit market, there are no such strong and well-defined legal protections to offer you recourse in the event that the company defaults -- they may choose to end (or more likely, "upgrade") the service at any time and render your library of purchases useless...
While books and music are almost never bought as investments with the expectation of making a profit, in the financial markets, investors rationally demand a high return premium for taking on such extreme risk. Asking consumers to take on such risks with no prospect of them materially benefiting in return is an incredibly unreasonable proposition and, to me, is the chief mechanism standing in the way of widespread adoption. While DRM schemes of this nature may flourish for now, it is only a matter of time before consumers wise up, the markets become more efficient, and people demand a fairer deal from large media companies. Publishers may not like it, but attaining the same characteristics for their digital products as they have for their physical products is the best hope they have for slimming down their distribution costs and stemming the tide of digital piracy."
Interesting perspective.
" I noted yesterday that there seems to be some media fanfare surrounding Amazon's launch of a digital book tablet. It occurred to me that the markets surrounding media such as books, music and movies bear more than a passing resemblance to financial markets, and as such, perhaps they were amenable to a similar method of analysis. Being the owner of a sizable collection of paper books, this led me to consider the drawbacks one faces when Digital Rights Management restrictions are put in place...
when one purchases media encumbered by ... DRM schemes, one is taking on undiversified credit risk with an indefinitely long time horizon -- that is, you're counting on Microsoft or Apple not going out of business any time in your life and making all of your media instantly unreadable. Worse yet, unlike in the credit market, there are no such strong and well-defined legal protections to offer you recourse in the event that the company defaults -- they may choose to end (or more likely, "upgrade") the service at any time and render your library of purchases useless...
While books and music are almost never bought as investments with the expectation of making a profit, in the financial markets, investors rationally demand a high return premium for taking on such extreme risk. Asking consumers to take on such risks with no prospect of them materially benefiting in return is an incredibly unreasonable proposition and, to me, is the chief mechanism standing in the way of widespread adoption. While DRM schemes of this nature may flourish for now, it is only a matter of time before consumers wise up, the markets become more efficient, and people demand a fairer deal from large media companies. Publishers may not like it, but attaining the same characteristics for their digital products as they have for their physical products is the best hope they have for slimming down their distribution costs and stemming the tide of digital piracy."
Interesting perspective.
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