James Hogg's Favorite BestNetTech Posts Of The Week
Greetings to all of you BestNetTech readers! And thank you to Mike Masnick for allowing me the chance for a front-page post after I opportunistically jumped at the opening.
BestNetTech is a dependable resource for discovering where the heat of most technology synthesis takes place. I shall be frank: skepticism, science, language, dialectical thinking and argument for the sake of argument are all grand virtues in my background. Whether you are of the thesis or the anti-thesis, it does not matter nearly as much as your thought process. I shall respect, for example, an advocate of copyright far more if he has taken the time and effort to investigate his position and come to his own non-clichéd conclusions. Far more than those who have believed in copyright solely because everyone else has.
Let us begin with one of five articles this week that caught my eye. Beginning chronologically, we start with the MacGyver-esque videos posted by Evan Booth detailing how to improvise the assembly of dangerous weapons with items collected after TSA screening. The answer he gave to the critical question about the consequences of revealing the information to the public was spot on: Islamic fascists no doubt already know this stuff and then some if Evan can so casually come across these findings himself (the better question is why fascists have not attempted this while many were unaware). The true danger, if there is to be one, lies with the public not knowing about the potential threats, never mind them being even more hindered from coming to the rather self- evident conclusion that most airport screening practices punish many and deter few. If the danger presented by these videos is so nasty, why not a) have an open discussion instead of shoving the issue under the carpet and pretending that it will solve itself, and b) give the opportunity for the TSA to ban the items in these videos as well, only to look equally ridiculous in the future.
There can be good reasons for wanting to not know something, but “ill-intentioned fanatics will find out” is not one of them. Just because you choose not to research into if you can build a nuclear bomb in the name of the survival of our species does not mean the worst totalitarian nightmares of our planet will take as kindly. You are far better off beating them to the discovery so that you can prepare to resist it accordingly. Just remember this any time you hear people claim that scientific inquiry is evil in itself, never mind common inquiry.
Next, we note the story about the malicious re-routing of internet traffic and its repercussions. If there is one ideological odor that can almost always show it to be stinking of wrong — I am tempted to just say “always” but for the sake of avoiding absolutism I won’t — it is a utopian odor. We are unfortunately still in the premature age of the internet despite how far it has progressed, and as a result we still have a wave of cyber-utopians claiming that the internet can set you, and keep you, free on its own. But the internet, like all tools and/or weapons, does not free people. People free people, to improve on a well- known mantra. And we have to remember that technology accumulates power as well as separates it. For instance, here is one slogan you are unlikely to see as you go about your daily lives: “CCTV is in operation in this area to protect you from the police.”
This traffic diversion shows exactly why all technology, even such as this sophisticated mass-communications channel, is not infallible. To still be uncertain as to how it is even happening speaks volumes in itself. The last thing you want is for dictatorships or other dodgy states to take advantage of traffic flowing through their servers for profiteering purposes or otherwise. And you certainly do not want them decrypting the NSA-backdoor-encryption for their own purposes (which they could most likely do, thanks to the NSA). Do not ever forget: just because the NSA deliberately weakens encryption for the “security” of the nation does not mean that everybody will use that tainted encryption.
Believe it or not, the large corporate tentacles of Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc do not extend everywhere on the planet. There is no reason why an Al Qaeda fascist cannot research the mathematical techniques independently and write his own encryption program that IS up to standard, and will not be crackable even if you throw millions of years of supercomputer-workload at it. David Cameron was simply being frivolous when he invoked Alan Turning for NSA expansion a few days ago. Alan Turning did not help crack the Enigma code by politely asking the Nazis to install backdoors. And he would have failed miserably had the Nazis been using uncompromised SSL. This is why you have to be ready for the real possibility that technology can turn against you. Al Qaeda, as I have said before, are not likely to be stupid. Totalitarian, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, nihilistic and religious, yes. But not stupid.
I do have hopes that this attitude will pass. Ultimately, it is a reactionary phase to the birth of the mainstream internet, and in a few decades we shall have seen enough to know that the internet has its limits when “it” fights states and corporations.
Next, we have LG having to embarrassingly look into claims that its smart TVs were picking up user data without users’ consent. If I were older back in the days of the PC really proliferating, the first reaction I would have had to cameras being installed on the screens as a norm would have been “Sweet merciful CRAP… Orwell was right about THAT particular deadly nightmare?”, and flipped my shit. However, we have been reasonably fortunate that what we call “telescreens” have not been under the sole control of a state. But still, for the most uncomfortable of reasons, we have been surrendering our resistance to even potential eavesdropping from “user-friendly” companies so slowly and passively: PCs, Laptops, Kinect, and now the TV on its own?
I really have to ask: how has it come to this? Why is such a monstrosity even necessary?
If I were an investigative journalist, the first thing I would look into as a result of this story is how many other companies supposedly have such glitches and manifest a great headline piece of my own. The first place I would start with is Digital Rights Management within software — a theory that works so well to protect the unauthorized copying of data that we do not need copyright law whatsoever.
If EA will go as far to split their games in half — one half on a PC and the other half on a server of theirs — in order to protect their content, only to have it disproved so swiftly and so humiliatingly within days, shows that the control- freak mentality of corporations cannot be healthy, and we have every right to be suspicious in the days of mass NSA wiretapping. Do yourselves a favor: start being hostile towards built-in cameras as a first principled step if you need to take one. I do not think Cory Doctorow exaggerates when he stresses the urgency of watching out for a war on “general purpose computing.”
And finally, we yet again have assaults on the rights of derivative artists with Paramount’s attacks on the public domain. I would indeed like to know if there is any other property system out there that claims somebody can have ownership of property before it even exists, because I certainly do not know of it. And I also would certainly like to know why retroactive extension of copyright of ANY kind is considered democratic: either a law is valid at the time of it being in effect or it is not. We do not hold people’s actions of the past under the laws of the present. That I would have thought was a very important principle. But no. It does not matter how much labor and work went into a derivative work that was ready for release for after the original’s copyright expiry. All of it can be spat on and thrown away.
Then again, you can always work around the transparent nonsense of copyright and start a viral Twilight fan-fic, replace the characters at the very last moment and make tons of money. Mass scale infringement has, after all, still occurred quite profoundly in this situation, yet the answer to stopping it does not seem to come anywhere close to sane. Some others would rather pretend such a dilemma does not exist at all.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read. Enjoy your weekends!
How to always claim copyright is in the right:
"I have the right to stop all derivatives of my work because these are lost sales I am missing out on. My livelihood is at stake."
*said derivative actually increases sales for the original*
"I hereby give permission for this particular derivative to be put up. You see? Because copyright allows me to give permission where I want, those additional sales are actually because of copyright law working in my favour!"
This whole mentality is set up as what we might call an "unfalsifiable claim", a sign of weak rational thinking and intellectual dishonesty. If the test for lack of copyright enforcement is strung up so much that it can't be tested properly, the mentality isn't valid at all.
Well that's a headline you don't see every day. "Relgious cult complains about blasphemy of its symbols."
...oh wait, you pretty much do see that every day.
If you yell fire in a crowded theatre when there is no fire, and people get injured trying to escape in panic, that's a safety issue regarding the building itself.
Yelling fire when there really is a fire can cause the same injuries in said burning crowded theatre, and I think injured people in this situation would be quite ready to blame the design of the building and lack of crowd control first and foremost, and not really be ready to entertain the possibility of shifting the blame had the yelling been false.
Point is, when you've got a powder keg, any random spark that sets it off is nowhere near as important or dangerous as the powder keg itself. Would we also ban fire drills on the basis that they too are falsely shouting fire using their sirens, and people get hurt leaving the building? No, you'd blame something else that deserves it.
What is it about copyright courts that just keep retrying and retrying until an infringement is found, and then stop there? That's always the impression I get.
Re:
"The phrase clearly refers to causing a panic by falsely convincing people their lives are in danger when they are in fact not in danger."
Dumb fire drills. Always putting lives in danger.
Re:
You know what they say about a man who represents himself... with a monkey.
I wonder... if a Computer Science student at university was ever given an exam on encryption for DRM uses, how that exam would go? Perhaps something like this:
"Alice wishes to send a message to Bob without Eve being able to intercept and read the message. Please write an algorithm that allows Bob to read the message whilst preventing Bob from reading the message."
Re: Re: Med domstolsregleringen, Fläktens undertexter Officiellt upphovsrättsintrång i Sverige
"You want to translate this page? Well too bad, our Content ID algorithms won't let you."
Imagine having the absolute nerve to say speakers of a certain language in a certain country should be forbidden from watching a movie in its full. Or reading a book. Or any free expression. While others can do so. At the sole whim of a copyright holder. In any other situation this would be called discrimination, or in even worse cases than this, xenophobia and racism.
I mean, let me really, really get this straight: if the viewers of these movies decided not to get the fan translations and instead decided to learn how to speak English as a second language, then imported the raw movies to enjoy them in that second language, *it is the viewers who are in the moral wrong and the imports should be banned in order to appease the pathetic solipsism of the copyright holder who doesn't want his movie to even be translated within the privacy of the viewers' own minds?*
Because there is no difference there.
What is it that makes people think they're entitled to stop others pressing CTRL-C and CTRL-V within their own homes? These people do not understand the concept of boundaries, privacy, property rights, anything.
"Behold our new policy: the digital-analogue rights management pen hybrid! Now programmed to burn to a crisp its own ink supply upon detecting the writing of infringing poems, even if they're only a toe over the line of fair use! All of our newly government regulated pens connect to a server - yes, only ONE server! - with incredible UDP technology to download all hash signatures of any literature ever written or ever will be written! 100% legal and only $700 each! (A high-speed non-encrypted deep-packet inspection ISP is required, any server costs for the literature hash signatures is passed onto the consumer as agreed upon purchase). Warranties do not cover accidental infringement, deliberate hacking of pens or self-inflicted injury."
Take THAT, big-tech cyber-utopians! You see what YOU brought about, here!?"
Remember, the only thing stopping these scenarios is basic common sense and thankfully massive impracticalities. They would *if they could*.
"In the Deadline piece, however, Nigam alleges that hackers have previously reached out to pirate websites offering $200 to $5000 per day “depending on the size of the pirate website” to have the site infect users with malware. If true, that’s a serious situation and people who would ordinarily use ‘pirate’ sites would definitely appreciate the details. For example, to which sites did hackers make this offer and, crucially, which sites turned down the offer and which ones accepted?
It's important to remember that pirates are just another type of consumer and they would boycott sites in a heartbeat if they discovered they'd been paid to infect them with malware. But, as usual, the claims are extremely light in detail. Instead, there's simply a blanket warning to stay away from all unauthorized sites, which isn't particularly helpful."
I can't hear you over the sound of my Virtual Machine snapshots.
Yes. I'm saying the risk-seeking attitude that he's part of to get new material and less comic-book movies is now in this day and age leading to the opposite and the need to play safe.
An assurance contract method of making a profit would mean if a brand new idea was thrown out to people, you can be safe in the knowledge that there's no harm done if people don't back it, because you won't be throwing money away. In other words, plenty of new material, but no "risk" in the same way. I'll admit though this is only if people want new material. If people want to stick to comic-book movies, well, it can't be helped if that's the market. But at least there's plenty of room to experiment freely with no pain, to throw out ideas and see if people will pledge towards them.
Why do lobbyists for Hollywood like to talk about creative risk-taking as if it's a good thing?
I don't find it a very attractive idea to force working-class creators into the role of entrepreneurial risk-takers against their will. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that when you don't have as much money as others and you are really struggling to make money in the creative world, gambling what time and earnings you have on something as creative "risk" doesn't seem to strike me as wise.
Because that's what copyright forces creators to do. If a creator invests tons of his own labour and money into a project, and then waits to know what the copyrighted benefits will be AFTER that investment, he can't exactly guarantee that recuperation unless it's a known brand of art with plenty of corporate backing or at a minimum selling your soul to a middleman for SOME prospect of return, which is unlikely for artists who are not the top 1%, and of course puts that corporation in the natural position of offsetting all the downsides of any risk onto anyone but themselves (by that I mean the hard-working creators). Just look at the way some musicians have been bankrupted because of this.
Whereas... if you revolve creative economies around assurance contracts, not copyright, look what happens: <i>you know what you're going to make from a project BEFORE you invest all that labour and money</i>. When a band does a gig, we know what the profit will be before the gig starts. When a magazine sells monthly, they know what they will make from their monthly subscriptions before they write their columns. When a crowdfunded piece of art is about to start, we already know how much is made before. When you take tons of time, effort and care into setting up an expensive nature shoot, it doesn't matter if a monkey pressed the shutter, you've still made the money you were going to make anyway because of the assurance contract system of gathering your customers' fees beforehand, and you don't end up down a road of despair and depressing lawsuits.
In each of these cases the creator doesn't gamble - he knows what his profit is going to be, and hence doesn't slave away for what could be nothing in the end.
In fact... if you were to take a job, any job, which was meant to support your daily life, your daily expenses, why on Earth would you sign an employment contract that said "we don't know how much we can pay you because we have no idea if your labour will succeed or not" unless you were anything but the most adventurous risk-taker who thinks it'll all be fine when it comes to pay the bills? No! You want to know what you're damn salary is going to be! Like anyone else!
Why is it that copyright folk want creators to be paid "just like anyone else who has a job" and not be made to work for free, but then immediately demand to be treated <i>differently</i> from any other employee with things such as not even having a basic guarantee of salary?
That's one reason why assurance contracts are superior to copyright, never mind the Monopoly Money connotation copyright has.
Assurance contracts are not callous enough to keep demanding that poor creators take risks all the time, with no guarantee of income.