Spyware EULA dispute

From CNet News, Spyware spat makes small print a big issue

A maker of surveillance software is using a product download agreement to attempt to bar detection by anti-spyware tools, raising questions about the legal scope of such agreements.

RetroCoder is threatening legal action against Sunbelt Software, representatives of both companies said Wednesday. The British company wants Sunbelt, maker of CounterSpy, to stop flagging its SpyMon software as spyware. RetroCoder charges that Sunbelt has violated the terms of the copyright agreement contained in its software, which specifically excludes anti-spyware research.

That reminds me. Isn't it time UCITA reappeared on the computer news scene?

Blogger lift the spam tag from B2fxxx

Well Blogger has lifted the spam tag from this blog and I don't have to go through word verification to post this. Here's the email they sent:

Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and whitelisted so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

I'm still considering whether to move to a new name and url. The whack-a-mole game of chasing software filters attracted to the triple x like moths to a flame is tedious, time consuming and unproductive.

Thanks to the real person at blogger who sorted this out and to Spyblog for the supportive comments.

Blogger has tagged me as a spam blogger

Well, I've found out why I'm having to go through word verification to post.

After 3 years of using Blogger, their new automated spam detecting system has tagged B2fxxx as a spam blog. I've related before how crude software filters at conference centres have prevented me accessing my own digital scribblings here but it's a real disappointment to have effectively the same treatment dished out by my host.

For the Blogger folks reviewing this blog (now that I've found out how to get through after having emails ignored by your automated response system), the xxx was originally going to be a three digit code related to an Open University course I had written. Since the university administrative processes confirming the code associated with the course had not cleared when I originally started the blog, I put it up with xxx in the title and the url.

I'm going to give some serious thought to whether I can continue this blog either with Blogger or under the same name. The irritation of being tagged as a false positive by crude software filters is something I can certainly do without.

DRM crippled CD tale

Recommended reading: DRM Crippled CD: A bizarre tale in 4 parts

Blogger is bugging me

If anyone out there knows of a work around to stop blogger requiring word verification for every single post I put up, I'd really appreciate your advice. Blogger have been ignoring my emails requesting that they sort it out.

Grokster shuts up shop

It looks as though Grokster has shut up shop, at least as far as further facilitating free file sharing is concerned. Presumably they have come to some arrangement with the entertainment industry to end the ongoing litigation over damages following their loss in the Supreme Court. The site reads:

"The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed
that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal.
Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files
using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is
prosecuted by copyright owners.


There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service is not one of them.

Grokster hopes to have a safe and legal service available soon.

If you are interested in that service, go to www.grokster3g.com, or send an email to:


info@grokster3g.com


to be included in the beta for the next generation."

The Struggle for Music Copyright

For the dedicated pursuers of copyright, Michael W. Carroll, of the Villanova University School of Law, has an interesting paper on the history of copyright as applied to music.

What the Environmental Justice Movement Might Teach Us

David Bollier has been thinking about what the environmental justice movement might teach us.

Sony drm may go on anti virus hit lists

This is really funny, if you don't like drm. Kaspersky and Sophos have been scathing about Sony's drm and the security holes it creates and may put it on their anti virus hitlists.

The Princess Bride

I read William Goldman's, The Princess Bride, whilst on holiday with my family last week. The italicized interruptions, where he details his troubles with his fictional family (cold psychiatrist wife and fat son, whereas in reality he has two daughters and no sons), the S.Morgensten estate (he claims to be merely abridging Morgenstern's original), 'Florinese' scholars (who supposedly criticise his abridgement) and Hollywood, are as entertaining as the main narrative itself. They demonstrate not only a wonderfully inventive story telling technique but also that the frustrations of the intellectual property landscape existed well in advance of our current digital age.

His tales of woe regarding the abridgement have a seriously authentic feel but there are loads of clues like the name of the Morgenstern estate's lawyer, Kermit Shog. In the 25th anniversary edition of the book he includes a story about his now athletic son convincing him to write a sequel, Buttercup's Baby. After years of lawsuits with estate, a timely peace offer arrives, coincidently just as he decides to do it. The peace offer has a sting in the tail, though, as they are only offering to drop all the lawsuits in exhange for his public blessing for a sequel written by Stephen King. The estate is keen to cash in on royalties and King sells more books. Total fiction, as Stephen King himself relates on his own website.

The book or at least the interludes should be required reading for students of intellectual property, amateur or professional.

CCC & Blackboard

Michael Madison on the Copyright Clearance Center/Blackboard deal.

LSE estimate of ID card costs goes up

The latest findings of the London School of Economics investigations of the UK government's ID card scheme are expected to say that the cost will rise to about £500 per card, according to the Sunday Times. I lok forward to seeing the report. The LSE's earlier research has been by far the most comprehensive and balanced assessment of the proposals to be found anywhere.

House of Lords on ID cards

Ian also has some fantastic quotes from the House of Lords debate on ID cards. One of my favorites was from Lord Waddington:

"In one case in 1951, Lord Goddard castigated the police for using powers passed to safeguard national security to require motorists to produce identity cards as a matter of routine whenever they were stopped on the road for whatever reason. In another case, two girls minded to spend the night in a hotel with men friends registered in false names and were prosecuted—mark you, prosecuted under a measure passed for reasons of national security. I do not think that anyone in the House today would be brave enough to say that under this scheme, such abuse would not take place... I do not argue that no national identification scheme could ever be justified, but when the Government present to Parliament a Bill that gives the Secretary of State power to make no less than 61 statutory instruments; when they ask for enormously wide powers to collect and store on a national identity register information about every person in the land and then allow that information to be accessed by a wide range of public bodies; when they seek power to require the citizen to have a card and to pay the cost of getting it, and keeping it up to date, it is surely up to the Government to show not just that some benefit may come of it all, but that the scheme is absolutely necessary to meet the threat that the country faces and that the cost in terms of individual liberty and money is absolutely justified. So far, the Government have done nothing of the sort."

EU Data Protection Commissioners criticise data retention plans

From Ian Brown via his brand new blog:
EU Data Protection Commissioners criticise data retention plans

Wouldn't it be better if...

In the spirit of William Heath's wonderful Ideal government blog, where his purpose is to ask "Wouldn't it be better if..." (or "Wibbi" for short), I've been having a quite grumble to myself this afternoon, in the midst of drafting the education chapter for my book, about how badly we as a nation deploy technology to enable education. To some degree it is all tied up with the kinds of problems I was referring to earlier in the day about ID cards. In any case, here's a random list of some of my wibbis on information and communications technologies in education...

Wibbi we didn't try to make kids and teachers use computers in school for the sake of using computers in school.

Wibbi in a digital, participative, collaborative age people used the technology to learn from each other.

Wibbi policy and decision makers public and private understood the difference between information technologies and information systems.

Wibbi if people had the skills to get access the information they need, like, are interested in.

Wibbi the suits could see the value of technology as an enabling tool rather than as something that you buy because it is expensive, flashy and it is good PR to be modern.

Wibbi kids growing up with and assimilating technology naturally were given the freedom to be creative with it.

Wibbi educators facilitated that freedom with ideas, sound information practices, and the imparting of critical assessment skills to interpret, assess and use the knowledge gained. Better to teach the kids where to find the information they need and how to decide whether it is trustworthy.

Wibbi we used computers in education to enable people who suffer from dyslexia to bypass that disability.

Wibbi we realised the technology is just the plumbing and it will eventually fade into the background. It i?s the message, the information, the knowledge, the sharing, the community thatÂ?s important, not the medium, the wine not the bottles. "E-learning" doesn't exist, so to quote a well known techie millionaire, "?get over it."

Wibbi teachers became less the gatekeepers of "?facts"? or approved curricula and more guides in the acquisition of knowledge.

Wibbi teachers were not just curriculum experts (if you'?re lucky!) but content creators and networkers -? models for the children/students to follow

Wibbi if we realised that anyone with a PC and internet connection now has access to a printing press of their own and a potential global audience.

Wibbi the school and college curricula were on wikipedia (like the South African high school curriculum or MIT OpenCourseWare).

Wibbi we learned how to compliment what we already do well in education with collaborative information generation along the lines of Wikipedia.

Wibbi school children and college students communicated and learned through books, periodicals, TV, blogs, wikis, creating, sharing and engaging with multimedia technologies, photos, videos, podcasting, digital stories, webpage building, browsers, databases, screencasts, RSS newsfeeds, IM, communities in the classroom and remotely?

Wibbi kids had the choice to publish their homework and/or hand it to the teacher or fellow learners who had acquired the skills to provide positive feedback and support. (Don't kid yourself - there i?s not a school in the world where some small number of children are not already doing a much better job of "?teaching"? their peers than any of the professionals in the institution and entirely without their knowledge)

Wibbi if we taught ourselves and our children how to manage the information firehose and how to be selective to facilitate healthy minds and communities (an information diet, if you like).

Wibbi we got over the notion that we have to change for change sake and started using the technology to establish stability in educational institutions; not stability in the sense of stagnation but stability in the sense of space and time to focus on learning (rather than boredom or fear, confusion or avoidance, keeping your head down, or enduring, testing, or form filling or procedures or artificial targets). Within that space and time the educational process can be as calm or anarchic or adventurous as the students and teachers want it to be in order to serve the personal development needs of every single individual

Wibbi we stopped concentrating on kids/students misusing the technologies and started focussing on how to enable and encourage them to use them constructively for their own and others'? benefits.

Wibbi we got over the fear factor and focussed on the potential of the students and how we and the technologies can help them reach that potential.

Wibbi some massively rich philanthropist or the government funded the nationwide construction of an open access, open architecture, broadband networks.

Wibbi all digital educational platforms were interoperable and based on open standards.

Wibbi the folks who really do know how to deploy computers in education (because we've done it - children, students and teachers alike - and have the scars to prove it) were able to help those who haven't yet done so, or who might be nervous about trying.

Wibbi we were able to use a pencil and paper when it is still the BAT (best available technology) for facilitating particular types of learning.

Finally for today, since blogger has been playing up badly again, wibbi blogger stopped mucking about and got back to normal, so that I didn't have to go through a ridiculous word verification process every time I wanted to post. Have a good weekend.

Identity 2.0

Brilliant presentation from Dick Hardt at OSCON 2005.

Siva remains concerned about Google Print

Siva Vaidhyanathan remains seriously conerned about the happenings surrounding Google Print.

"can I get a shout out from some more librarians on this issue? Let's get control of this debate, please. We can't let the technologists and lawyers tell librarians what their job is and keep making facile comparisons between a company that merely ranks things and the process of effective and ethical information organization and management.

Bluntly: Librarians have ethical codes. Libraries have public duties and oversight. Is that enough "so what?"...

First, let me assert once again that Google of 2025 most certainly will not resemble the Google of 2005. It might not even exist. Think about it...

So just as the widespread worship of Google baffles me, the widespread faith in the reasonableness of courts (especially SDNY and the 2d Circuit) baffles me more. Have we not learned any hard lessons from the last few years...

I suspect the courts are exhausted by all the hard thinking we have made them do over the past few years and they are in fact more rigid, more fundamentalist, than in the recent past. The copyright moral panics have made a difference. And this one is no different.

And have we not learned not to count on private industry to stand up for principle and the public good? Where is the consumer electronics industry now in the DRM fight? ... "competition." I have not seen this mythical beast for many years. Google can only do this project because it has this amazing super-secret patented scanning machine. It controls the patents on it. There shall be no competition unless some other firms actually licenses the electronic files from publishers (a market that would dry up if Google continues).

I can't believe I have to remind anyone of this: DRM, nondisclosure, and patents destroy competition. That's why we have them. They are what Google depends on to do its job. These are not trivial problems. These are not neutral technologies. There are great complications and problems here. We should not be blind to them.

"a Google loss would choke off competition." Exactly. Before Google loses, there is a crowding-out effect. After it loses, there will be a chilling effect. Meanwhile, publishers fear that a market that Amazon created for them: "search inside the book" licensing, will evaporate. Worse, of course, is possible. A bad loss threatens everything we hold dear about the Internet.

And I am still waiting for anyone (Derek, Michael, Larry?) to come to terms with the privacy problems here. As Julie Cohen and Sonia Katyal have shown us, digital copyright and surveillance are intricately linked. What is Google doing to prevent anyone from snooping on our reading habits? Please read the Google privacy policy. I promise it will send chills up your spine. Check out the part about law enforcement. Then go ask your librarian if he would go to jail to protect your confidentiality. I know many librarians who would. Google: promises to turn you over to the Feds. Libraries: promise to do everything they can to protect you from the Feds. You decide who you trust.

So to review: a Google win (unlikely as it is) would choke off competition. A Google loss would choke off competition. And we are unlikely to get the really cool public library text-search index we deserve in any case.

This remains a good dream and a bad deal all around."

Kim Cameron on Engineering disaster lessons

Kim Cameron on engineering disaster lessons for digital security is spot on as usual.

"Much of our work is intended to correct early initiatives involving identity and identification so we don't end up as the subject matter for some future generation's history of engineering disasters.

Queryable fixed tracking devices when wrongly used can result in death (in the literal sense) as surely as the other disasters outlined above. Designing and massively deploying an infrastructure which is an identity-catastrophe-in-waiting is as irresponsible as the actions of earlier generations of engineers who lacked the doubt and capability for self-criticism and re-examination necessary to be an engineering professional."

Information Commissioner on ID cards

Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has again formally expressed his concerns at the government's plans for ID cards. He concludes:

"The measures in the Bill go well beyond establishing a secure, reliable and trustworthy ID card. The measures in relation to the National Identity Register and data trail of identity checks on individuals risk an unnecessary and disproportionate intrusion into individuals' privacy. They are not easily reconciled with fundamental data protection safeguards such as fair processing and deleting unnecessary personal information. An effective ID card can be established avoiding these unwarranted consequences for individuals as research has shown. The primary aim of Government with this legislation should be to establish a scheme which allows people to reliably identify themselves rather than one which enhances its ability to identify and record what its citizens do in their lives. The Commissioner hopes that during the passage of the Bill parliamentarians will not just focus on the desirability of ID cards but look into the acceptability of government recording so many unnecessary details of their own and their constituents' lives."

Government response? Yada, yada, yada... got my fingers in my ears... don't want to hear it... DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT... NOT LISTENING.

Thanks to Caspar Bowden for the link.

Here's a suggestion for the next big reality TV project - how the OU/BBC Child of Our Time series, presented by Robert Winston, can provide insights to the workings and psychology of government.

Scathing parliamentary reports on ID cards

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) and the House of Lords Constitution Committee have produced scathing reports criticising the UK government's ID cards proposals.

The JCHR report offers a detailed analysis of how the ID cards breach the Human Rights Act and the Constitution Committee say the scheme fundamentally alters the relationship between the individual and the state. The government, as per the previously mentioned thinking trap, have got their hands over their eyes and fingers (or probably thumbs) in their ears.

Thanks to Phil Booth for the links.