Monthly Archives: January 2012

Prior Restraint and the Closure of MegaUpload

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Prior restraint is a simple concept.

A man owns a book store where half the books are evil, the other half are not. Because his stores inventory is half evil, it is shut down.

A man owns a book store with one evil book and forty thousand good books.  Because of that one evil book, his store is shut down.

Prior restraint describes both of these cases. Both book stores were shut down, preventing access to the good, legitimate, and legal works. When in reality only the evil books should have been removed, and the stores allowed to continue doing business. Simple isn’t it?

The lead up is done, now the article …

Recently a web site called MegaUpload.com was taken offline by the FBI. MegaUpload.com was an online file hosting service where you could store your files and access them from anywhere with an internet connection. Many of the files infringed on copyright, but many others did not. This is a difficult conundrum, for a sizable portion of the 180 million users of this file service. If even 2% of them are not sharing files that are somehow are illegal, that means 3.6 million people have lost their files. What they see is this, with no ability to reclaim their files.

Now I ask a simple question. If one book in a store is good, and 40 thousand are bad, do you close down the book store, or do you remove the bad books and leave the one?

 

Before you answer. ….   the Dictionary, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,  Death Be Not Proud, The Collected Works of Shakespeare,  Kama Sutra,  collected works of Ancient Greece, Bible, Koran, philosophy from Thales to Aristotle.

 

Welcome to the Internet, Please, do not Poke the Hornets Nest

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Welcome to the internet. If this is your first day here let me explain some rules to you.

There are two billion of us here and we all talk to each other. So, don’t be a dick. Don’t come here with an agenda, we will sniff it out and tell everyone.  It will not end up on the nightly news, but it will ruin your reputation. If you are here to spout talking points, we will ignore you. If you are here to astroturf a movement, push your political views, rally the masses towards your corporate agenda, feel free to try. No one will listen.

If you run a blog, allow everyone to comment, especially anonymously, and  do not require moderator approval to post. Censoring comments, and having rules on what can, and can’t be said doesn’t go over well here. People have reputations and will self moderate.

If you have a social media page, allow people to express themselves, and respond to their comments and concerns. The nature of the internet isn’t the same as broadcast news. People expect interaction online, if they do not get responses they do not return. Do not create false comments online to present the image of being followed. It will be found out and fail.

Allow people to have their say and express their views. If you look out for people, are righteous, enlightened, and truthful, they will believe and believe and follow. In this place, we are not watching TV, we are interacting.

Remember, there are two billion of us here, once you lose our trust, it can never be regained, and you will not be remembered kindly. Please, do not poke the hornets nest, we are in here.

 

The Original Party of We Article

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THE PARTY OF WE

Douglas Wood wrote a great article titled “WikiLeaks Lessons: The Party of We — Already in Control” on Law.com. This is one of those classic articles that begins to understand what is going on online.

The party of we is Anonymous, the Arab Spring, the 14 million strong protest over SOPA and PIPA. It is the growing separation between old news sources and online blogs, it is us finding, discussing and spreading news and ideas online.

This is a concept that I will  expand and report on over time.

  archived version

A Short Open Letter to the Content Industry

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Dear Big Content

I recently heard that you said “that there would be no culture if there was no copyright monopoly.” I guess the library of Alexandria is a myth, there are no Greek tragedies, the Bible doesn’t exist, the Koran is a fairy tale, that fairy tales are recent fakes, philosophy from the times of Thales and Aristotle is one of my delusions, and we do not have extant literature from Sophocles and Euripides.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

David

my comment on  techdirt.com

Full Text of ACTA, TPP, SOPA and PIPA

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In order to make an truly informed decision about (wikpedia links >>->) ACTA, TPP*, SOPA, and PIPA you need to read them. Everyone is talking about how these are internet-killing, speech-stifling, and how they will be abused. All this is true. In all actuality  how many have actually read these bills, and trade  agreements?

Here they are the actual texts for your perusal.

ACTA – Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (text)

TPP – Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (text)

SOPA – Stop Online Piracy Act (text)

PIPA – PROTECT IP Act (text)

 * The TPP is a leaked draft from 2011

A Quote From Thomas Jefferson That is Very Relevent Today

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Quote:

Thomas Jefferson

“A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Something to ponder … With all our governments, doing the exact opposite, what does that make them?

SOPA, PIPA, and Google’s Changes to Privacy Settings

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Google Censors its Name in Protest

SOPA and PIPA are two bills that have been temporarily shelved due to public pressure. They are internet crippling pieces of legislation written and pushed forward by the MPAA.  They make it possible to shut down almost any website that allows user generated content. These bills open the door to second and possible third party liability for user generated content. Under these bills private rights of action are allowed, circumventing the legal system and due process. Financial institutions and advertisers are given immunity for shutting down payments to sites accused of infringement,  can be sued, and may face criminal penalties if they do not comply. Which will lead to site being shut down after being accused of infringement. Much like the DMCA, this will be abused to shut down websites that compete with, embarrasses, ridicule, and tell the truth people do not want the public to see.

On Wednesday the 18th of January 2012, Wikipedia, Reddit, and many other sites went dark, Google censored its name in search and all of them directed people to where and how they could contact their government representatives about SOPA and PIPA. Leading to 14 million people emailing, calling, and signing petitions.

There was a virtual blackout on these events on the news networks and in the newspapers, who supported these bills. After the massive public outcry they suddenly began coverage of the events on the 18th.

Many people in the content and news industries believe Google is the root of their ills. Stealing their precious ideas, ruining their businesses, pointing people at infringing material, or just plain paranoid.

Unless you live on the corner of Rock and Under,  you know this already. It is an important lead up to the events that are, and will, unfold over the next year.

What most people do not know is, on 1-24-2012 Google announced changes to its privacy policy. Those changes are an being done so Google can pull all of their properties under the umbrella of Google+.  Currently they have in excess of 70 privacy policies, which will become a single policy that spans most of their properties. What this means to you is, you will no longer have to search YouTube for your cat video’s, G+ for your friends invite, and docs for that Vogon poetry you wrote for your ex. Instead, Google will allow you to search for the information that is spread out across multiple Google properties. This is information that is already on Google’s websites, you can become anonymous by just logging out.

With the lead up done,  now to the prediction tag on this post.

Over the next few months we will be seeing the news media attempting to out hype each other over Google’s privacy changes. Each reporter will be trying to out do the previous one in scare tactics and exaggerations. We are already seeing TV news organizations targeting the privacy changes. Since the politicians pay no heed to what is going on online, they know what is on the news, and believe that to be what people believe. The end result for Google will be federal investigations,  sub committee meetings into Google’s policy changes, and possible investigations into Google’s role in the events of the 18th. All driven by the mistaken belief, that Google is responsible for the public outcry. Even though they came to the party just a few hours beforehand. All of which will make the politicians, news, and content industry, look even more petty and corrupt to the people that actually communicate. We the people online.

Anyone see any other outcomes?

Why Internet Trolls Are a Good Thing

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It occurred to me recently that a lot of my time online is spent responding to the always dreaded Trolls. They live on blogs, and hide in the shadows of news sites, and are forever present.  They always attempt to alter peoples views or change the subject of the conversation to suit their agenda. Trolls are also a teaching tool.

After arguing with a troll in a blog, for the better part of a day, something extremely interesting happened. Call it an inspirational flash or a realization, the trolls, the sock puppets, and the shills are having the exact opposite effect they intend. They come from an age of one way communications. Where they broadcast to you, expect you to sit idly by, and assume you believe what you are being told. Where they give you of their version of the facts, and do not want your feedback. This isn’t the way the internet works.

We live in an age where information that is fed to us, can be questioned, discussed, and verified or discounted very quickly. We do not need to go to town hall meetings, write letters and wait two weeks for a response, or spend time in multiple libraries to find an answer. We Google it, we use social media with our friends, we blog, we chat and text, we walk away from lies and deceit, and eventually we end up with the truth. With our almost unlimited access to knowledge, people seem to be using Occam’s Razor, on an instinctive level to find the simplest answer.  The rate at which this happens has gone from weeks or months to hours.

On blogs and news sites, we get baited, and we respond. It is human nature to defend your position and your beliefs. What trolls do not understand is, with each response we post, things become more clear and concise in our minds. Each post a troll makes teaches us to spot the straw men, ad hominem attacks, and the misdirection’s more quickly. We watch other people respond to the misinformation and the trolling, and we learn.  In essence the trolls are teaching us how to spot those who lie, twist meanings, contradict themselves, and attempt to misdirect.

The internet is a very large place, with 2 billion people online at this point, each one adds to the discussion. Each discussion teaches people. Each response to a troll makes people think things through. Internet trolls are a good thing.  We read their posts, we realize that what they are saying is not true or a distortion. We respond, and we learn. In the end their words do not convince us, they have the opposite effect.

 also : mouseover the pictures, top to bottom, there is a second story.

Your memories as evidence … the thought police are coming for you.

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image credit - emotiv.com

Truth be told, being an engineer and a programmer, a brain computer interface (BCI) or headband is something I crave to the core of my being. The ease of having a swype style mental keyboard. The ability to think a mouse into position and click, highlight, copy, and paste is amazing. The ability to visualize an image onto the screen (1), with just a thought. The ability to record and playback events through my own eyes. This seems like science fiction yet IBM predicts that mind reading computers are less than five years away.

This is worrisome with the continued slow erosion of the US fourth amendment and EU privacy rights. Combine that with warrant-less wire tapping and the push to have ISP’s track everything you do online, and you have serious issues. Computer programs now store most of what you type temporarily so that you can undo mistakes. They cache the websites you have visited and the searches you have done. They store the files you have opened recently. Now imagine a time when there are no keyboards or mice, when you wear a headband instead of a using a keyboard. When you think to your computer. The programs will likely store your thoughts.

Imagine your first day with a new BCI headband. You just picked it up at the local computer store, the clerk blue toothed it to your phone with 64 T-bytes of memory and you turn it on and begin recording. You you look at the person passing by, think about work, how your boss is a jerk, you wife annoys you, your kids screaming, and fantasize about the woman in the red dress that just walked by. You then begin your drive home and get pulled over.

What random memory could a law officer find while pulling someone over for a traffic violation.  It is an interesting thought, in light of how often police search cellphones without  a warrant, and US customs agents need no warrant is needed to search through your electronics. In this near future an officer is able to pick up your BCI and go through your last mental notes, any stray stored fantasies, or random thoughts. That is the first step towards saying good bye to the fifth amendment, having thought police (*), and allowing dreams and fantasies to be used against you in a court of law.

Between ISP monitoring, the drift away from the fundamental rights of the US Constitution, ACTA in the EU and US, never ending expansions of copyright lengths, warrant-less wire tapping, the cloud, and mission creep this is a reality far from what our founding fathers could have ever predicted when penning the constitution.

In ten years, don’t worry when a politician asserts. “If you aren’t thinking anything wrong, then you shouldn’t worry about us monitoring your thoughts.” after all he only has your best interest in mind.

also: mouseover the links, I was told the titles are funny.

WikiPedia Says More Than Thank You

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Looking at the header of Wikipedia the first thing that comes to mind is, you’re welcome and thank you for helping us. Then you notice the second line “We’re not done yet”, and you wonder, what do they mean? Could this be warning us of more site blackouts, that Hollywood and the MPAA will continue to push some version of SOPA and PIPA forward, that we should remain eternally vigilant against the loss of our Constitutional rights, or all of the above.