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2. To maximize the outflow of cash from the local economy into foreign wallets.

A good example would be: Directive 2011/77/EU on the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights.
As EDRi put it:

In short, this is a piece of European legislation which is almost impressively bad. It achieves the worst of all available outcomes, disadvantaging young performers, placing a barrier between citizens and their culture and producing a net loss of money from the EU to the US.

Windows 7 doesn't access the Windows Store. The Windows 7 install base is HUGE. They want those people off Windows 7 and on an OS that has their store built in. Windows 7 runs on almost 60% of general user PCs, this number includes Macs. https://www.netmarketshare.com... That's a shit ton of potential people buying from your store. Let's face it, most people running W7 won't pay to upgrade, but their logic will be "hey if it's free, why not?!?". There you go, more money extracted from what would otherwise be a zero revenue generating install.

MS takes 30% of sales on their Windows store. MS wants everyone purchasing from their store so they get a 30% cut of every other company's programming work.

How I interpret MS's a long term goal - it's likely that they want to at some point force you go through the "Windows Store" to buy programs, just like Apple does on their "App Store". Hey,if you can't ignore the forced update that makes this change, then too bad for you. Here's how I see it as a general outline:
1. Develop New Windows OS that Data Mines (read new MS agreements @ https://edri.org/microsofts-ne... ), "cloud services", and more importantly includes the windows store and forced OS updates to add/remove features as they see fit. - Check

2. Offer "Free" windows upgrades - Check
3. Gain Installs / market penetration for new windows OS - In Progress
4. Sell / Use mined data for marketing purposes - Check (See above)
5. Leverage "cloud" services as a vendor lock in - Future
6. Sell more "windows services" - Future
7. Use forced Os updates to lock windows program installation down to their store just like Apple does on iOS - More Distant Future
8. Utilize a 90%+ PC device install base to profit massively off the "windows store" ( http://www.windowscentral.com/... ) - More Distant Future

Can you really imagine smart phones developing if cell carriers had been under any net neutrality-like rules? What rule would apply to streaming video? What rule would apply to SMS texts? Since none of those existed, they're be no rule to allow them to be used.

That's because rulers cannot keep pace with innovators. Indeed, last year's leaked document naively noticed "a simplified principle-based approach, in order not to inhibit innovation and to avoid technological developments making the regulation obsolete". A rather self-discrediting stance, which just add[s] confusion for freedom of communication and online innovation, according to European Digital RIghts.

How do you know that they used these backdoors in the SISMI scandal? This is the source for the Wikipedia page (reference #2, but the link in the Wikipedia page is broken). They write about a flaw without further details. It could have been an easy to guess password. I didn't check the page for the Greek scandal, not enough time.

Let me rephrase: that wasn't exactly a very wild guess/hard prediction, since they did exactly the same thing in the UK in the past (see bottom half of page 7).

That's not very prophetic, since they did exactly the same thing in the past (see bottom half of page 7).

http://www.edri.org/porn_ban

Thankfully, if adopted, the draft resolution would not be legally binding. It is also extremely badly drafted and almost certainly too absurd to be taken seriously. However, it is still important for the European Parliament not to undermine its own credibility with such proposals. It is also important not to give any support to privatisation of the regulation of our freedom of speech.

The vote takes place next Tuesday (12 March).

Will your MEP be supporting this absurdity?

Well, I guess I'll just email my MEP and ask . . .

"Use the Fax, Luke. Use the Phone, Luke."

Thanks for the response. However, I'm sorry, but your argument is very wanting.

You are saying, quite literally, "because private companies should not be able to spy on internet traffic, internet traffic cannot be policed, and therefore all uses of the internet should be left alone." This is almost scandalous in its willful torpidity.

your argument effectively makes it impossible for law enforcement to engage in any meaningful oversight of everything from child pornography to bank fraud. "but" you'll say, "these are crimes, and copyright is a civil affair." except that it isn't.. or rather, what you will find yourself arguing for is for the government to be more actively involved in prosecuting copyright infringers- is this really what you want?

if piracy (i use this term as shorthand for unfettered, ahem, 'sharing') results in increased sales, then tell me why rightsholders are so against it? I find your claim about the spanish movie industry to be "flourishing" to be comedy, as anybody who can google the words "Spanish film industry subsidies" can quickly see.

I fully agree that civil liberties are important. however, they don't exist in a vacuum--for example, the reason that sweden is sweden and not somalia with regards to weapons is that swedish weapons laws are balanced. I suggest you have a read of the excellent (but dated) book "rights talk" which goes into this in some detail. while i understand that you try to frame this issue int terms of "big evil hollywood with its billions in profit" because that attracts teenagers to your cause, let's look more realistically on what's going on in sweden - the recent case and the court ruling against you vis a vis a small publisher of audiobooks is telling. http://edri.org/bonnier or are you going to tell me that the swedish audiobook firm was gaining business by having its work expropriated? how many examples, excactly, do you need of the chilling effects of piracy, companies that have gone bankrupt because of piracy, and BROAD academic studies comparing rates of innovation to IP protection (the "pro-piracy" people invariably make small focused studies to pick out statistical anomalies - like your spanish film claim which is not actually true) before you admit that really what you are after is power?

Yes, the US is a bastion of never ever seizing domains (from domain holders outside the US even) for frivolous reasons and with no evidence.

There are many organisations already working on behalf of ordinary people in cases such as this...the summary already has highlighted one such in the most excellent EFF but there are a number of others who are charitable donation funded and the like so negating your belief that huge wealth is needed to have voices on our side in this, and other, conflicts with the corporations who seek to enrich themselves by removal of our freedoms and liberties. I'll offer a small selection of such organisations below: https://www.eff.org/ http://ffii.org/ http://www.publicknowledge.org/ http://keionline.org/ http://infojustice.org/category/trade-agreements/ http://www.article19.org/ http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ http://www.edri.org/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ The last link is to Professor Michael Geist a prominent a noteworthy intellectual and activist in the field. All the above worked diligently to stop ACTA.

European Digital Rights has launched http://www.edri.org/ACTA_Week with 5 one page briefings that you can send to your National and Euro member of parliaments. Please do so, it will not take you long.

I've kept all the alt.risk from 5-2000 to date. This is from Risks Digest 24.36

Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:20:30 +0200
From: removed
Subject: Voting machines in Ireland and The Netherlands

According to EDRIGRAM, the on-line newsletter of "European Digital Rights",
number 4.14:

On 4 July 2006, the Irish Commission on Electronic Voting released its
second report on the secrecy and accuracy of the e-voting system purchased
by the Irish Government.

The summary remarks at the beginning of the 200 page report say: "The
Commission concludes that it can recommend the voting and counting equipment
of the chosen system for use at elections in Ireland, subject to further
work it has also recommended, but that it is unable to recommend the
election management software for such use."

The "further work" includes, among others:
1) add a voter verified audit trail;
2) replace the election management software (which prepares election
      data, reads votes from "ballot modules", and calculates results) with a
      version that is developed to mission critical standards;
3) modify the embedded software within the voting machines to bring it
      up to mission critical standard;
4) make certain modifications to the machines themselves;
5) test all components to mission critical standard;
6) modify the specification for the PC that is to be used for vote management;
7) test the system as a whole (including end-to-end testing) to mission
      critical standard;
8) rectify the security vulnerabilities identified in the way data is
      transferred within the system.

This is quite a mouthful. In particular, the "mission critical standards"
may be quite difficult to achieve as a retrofit. The article speculates
that the responsible minister, who declares his intention to continue the
project, "may not realize the extent of the changes required". [Or is it a
polite way of saying "No thank you"? -EK]

Full article at http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.14/evotingireland
The article includes several links, including a link to the full report.

As far as I can make out from various sources, the voting machines in
question are essentially the same as the Nedap machines used in The
Netherlands for years. Little public criticism of these machines appears in
the general press.

But they do, indeed, have problems: According to the "Bits of Freedom"
newsletter:

In a local election, one candidate got 1, 3, 7, and 181 votes, respectively,
in the 4 polling stations where he was a candidate. The candidate not only
was en election official in the high-vote station, he operated the machine!

Peter Knoppers, according to the article an expert on voting machines, is
quoted saying that manipulation of the machine by a voting official is "a
piece of cake". For example, if a key is turned at the exact moment of the
vote being acknowledged by the voter, the vote will not be counted. The
missed votes can then be added manually at a later time, for any candidate
of your choice.

Full story (in Dutch) at
http://www.bof.nl/nieuwsbrief/nieuwsbrief_2006_14.html
This article also has several links, all in Dutch.

the issue with the BAF is not that it protects the copyright, but in the way it does it - by threatening and bullying ISPs
there is no legal ban of the TPB site, but BAF is trying to enforce it by going around the legal procedures.

There is a legal ban of the TPB site (see below), but it only affects two ISPs atm. BAF is not "going around the legal procedures". They're using tort law to enforce their business model. What I'd like to know is, why are the ISPs not banding together to fight this? Pretty much every other industry has an umbrella organization. Don't ISPs?

As for why TPB stories so often show up on /., it's because orgs like BAF in their "Bull in a China Shop" ways threaten to destroy the net in their myopic attempts to enforce their business model. Whether you're a pirate or a boycotter, destruction of the net is a huge over-reaction on the part of BAF and the legal system.

As for why nitwits have to ask /. why TPB stories end up on /., it's because even now some people can't think clearly enough to plug "baf tpb" into a search engine. A court has forced two ISPs to break DNS, and BAF is attempting to extort other ISPs into doing the same.

Funny thing is, DNS isn't necessary:

(0) infidel /home/blah_ nslookup depiraatbaai.be
Server: 10.0.1.1
Address: 10.0.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: depiraatbaai.be
Address: 194.71.107.15

(0) infidel /home/blah_ nslookup malaysiabay.org
Server: 10.0.1.1
Address: 10.0.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: malaysiabay.org
Address: 184.173.151.99

The ruling is not quite as broad as I would have liked, since it only pertains to filtering 'which applies indiscriminately to all its customers; exclusively at its expense; and for an unlimited period."

That seems like a perfectly adequate compromise position.

It's not a compromise. The court simply ruled on the question it was asked, which is in fact all it could rule about. See also the FAQ by European Digital Rights (EDRI).

It is supposed to be an introduction, a short two-minute film to raise awareness, not an hour long masterclass.

You should check out the large amount of material available online. You could start, oh I don't know, by the link suggested at the end of the video http://lqdn.fr/acta

Or http://acta.ffii.org/ or http://www.edri.org/copyright/faq-on-leaked-acta for instance.

Clearly this is a guerilla marketing ploy by RealNetworks. By utilizing the Streisand effect, they hope to boost the offerings of content in their proprietary formats. That can only help them sell their lame tools, which otherwise nobody buys anymore. Perhaps they're desperate, but it's still clever. The interesting question is whether the Dutch courts will eventually punish them for their attempt to hijack judicial process. Oddly, neither http://eff.org/ nor http://edri.org/ seem to have anything to say about the case.

Hmm. Well.

No, they suffer from wanting to justify something they're not actually able to justify.

This is exactly I was thinking about. Whining about lack of comprehension, amnesia etc. does not make sense.

What IMO makes sense is looking who bribed them, was this bribing legal and are we able to make them liable for corruption.

No, that does not make sense. Most likely no bribing whatsoever was involved. The people working on this are most likely simply "captives" of the system. Not in the sense that they are being blackmailed, but simply that they are so deeply embedded in that world that they honestly cannot imagine how having more and harsher enforcement of any kind of "intellectual property rights" can be bad in the grand scheme of things. Of course, with an ex-IFPI lobbyist now being responsible for ACTA at the European Commission, they definitely are crossing quite a line. That's not a single point you can win on though, no matter how despicable it is.

Anyway, politics generally does not work like in movies of in TV-series. You seldom win by finding some secrets and then exposing them for the world to see. You win by exerting political pressure yourself. Example: Slashdot gets syndicated all over the web, just look at the google results for the (afaik unique) title of this story. Now, an IDG journalist wrote her own take on the blog post (while I can't be certain she picked it up from Slashdot, it certainly can't have hurt). This article again is being posted all over the web because IDG has many publications and those are also being syndicated. And yesterday I wrote another article on this topic for EDRI-gram, a respected European newsletter on digital rights issues that's also read in political circles.

The reason that all this is important, is because the European Parliament (EP) still has to assent to ACTA. And in the EP there are several people who are critical of ACTA. Furthermore, the Commission hasn't been very forthcoming with information about ACTA in the past, which made the EP naturally a bit peeved about this. While such press coverage is unlikely to convince anyone in the Commission, it might (note: might) weaken the position of whoever was responsible for that "rebuttal" (the Commission obviously does not like getting press coverage about how badly they botched something up). It also strengthens the position of members of the EP critical of ACTA, by showing that society cares and that the Commission is putting the EU in bad light with its antics.

And in case you think all that doesn't matter: it does. It's how we won the fight against the software patents directive. That doesn't mean we will win now, but wide press coverage and visibility are a basic requirement for getting results in politics at large. On the other hand, focussing on figuring out who bribed whom when there isn't any need whatsoever to bribe anyone to get such nonsense distributed in the name of a political body "specialised" in trade/ipr/enforcement is only a waste of time.

This may or may not be a good idea, depending on where you live.

Better than a machine translation...

http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.24/loppsi-2-french-law

Repeating the standard pub arguments about politics is not the same as "insightful", mods.

The whole ACTA thing is already being negotiated behind closed doors. It's unlikely that anyone is trying to bribe MEPs at this point since the European Parliament is not directly involved in the negotiations itself, and the European Commission is trying its best to keep them as far as possible from the negotiations. Not to mention that it's pretty hard to bribe that many individual MEPs with so many different political backgrounds and nationalities so as to block a written declaration from passing. It would be one of the most expensive and idiotic strategies ever.

And of course MEPs do this because it advances their agenda: they don't want to be kept out by the European Commission from negotiations like this only to be presented with a fait accompli later on. Well, that combined with the fact that several of them also don't like the inclusion of patents in it, and all the stuff about cutting people's Internet access for copyright infringements is also not very popular there.

Note that I'm not saying that it *is* over now. However, that is unrelated to any alleged bribery or selfishness.

If I'm not mistaken, that's an article about board games.

The first paragraph on the linked page is about games in general. Every definition of copyrightable matter I've ever seen also always mention that only the *expression* and not the underlying idea can ever be copyrightable. It's simply one of the fundamental properties of copyright. There's also a UK Court of Appeals ruling confirming that specifically for computer games.

Not sure how video games translate into that, and how that interacts with the DMCA, which covers... Digital... Media... Copyrights...

The DMCA is about the enforcement of copyright. Afaik, it does not extend the scope of what is copyrightable. Computer programs (including games) have been copyrightable since long before the DMCA came into existence.

Before you pack up your wagon, google around a bit for the recent (~2 years) data laws passed in Germany

That was recently overturned (well, nullified) by Germany's Supreme Court, confirming a lower court decision. It's even been on /.

It's however doubly so applicable to software, because software innovation requires much less investment in materials, works with an idealised abstraction (rather than with finicky physical bits), and consists almost exclusively of incremental innovation.

I'm curious. Which one of these would *not* apply to mousetraps?

Before you point to the "abstraction", remember that all claims cover concepts in the abstract, even if they are attempts to describe a physical object.

I wasn't talking about the claims, but about the innovation. In case of software, the innovation is purely in the abstract, unlike in case of mousetraps (where you do have to play with the "finicky physical bits" I mentioned). As far as incremental innovation is concerned, I guess that mouse traps at this point indeed also are mostly in that boat, and it's quite likely that patents are hardly useful anymore for the purpose of stimulating "mousetrap innovation", too.

I'm not aware of any economic studies looking at the effects of patents on the mousetrap industry though, presumably mostly because unlike software, mouse traps are not a pervasive enabling technology forming a fundamental underpinning of our daily lives and the entire economy.

Of course, there are many more arguments than those I mentioned above, such as

• network effects: mouse traps have no compatibility requirements with other mouse traps
• alternative innovation means in the software world (such as open source)
• the high pace of innovation in the software world and the rapid changes of requirements: mouse traps don't evolve that rapidly, and even if they would, it would hardly matter unless the mice also evolved equally quickly :)
• the complexity of software: in 2004, there were 783 patents on the ethernet plug, and as David Martin nicely explained at that conference:

  The degrees of freedom in a plug, Ladies and Gentlemen, are two. You've got the insulative surface, you've got the prongs. That's two degrees of freedom. The third degree of freedom is where you shove it.

  With software, the number of freedoms are much larger than in an ethernet plug or a mouse trap, so the problem of patent thickets is much bigger (and the cost of analysing whether or not you infringe as well -- personally, I'd say it's virtually impossible to guarantee that any reasonably complex program does not infringe on any currently published patent).

You might want to have a look at the studies overview I linked to earlier. It contains various citations from economic studies explaining why patents are inappropriate specifically for the software field.

Here's a bunch of citations I once collected (note that it also includes a few opinions of political committees, but those are clearly marked).

Thank you for that... I'll have to read through them. Will get back to you.

Since State Street, there has been immeasurable innovation in the field of software. You've got nothing to back up this assertion.

I think we can indeed agree that software patents have not killed the software industry. That's however not a very strong argument if you claim that software patents are necessary or even helpful.

Yes, but it refutes GP's argument that software patents are bad per se. It's equivalent to an assertion that if we didn't have the death penalty, there would be a thousand-fold increase in the murder rate. Sure, that's an interesting thought, but there's no evidence whatsoever, so on its own, it doesn't really mean much.

The same could be said about any field of invention, including machines and compositions of matter.

It's however doubly so applicable to software, because software innovation requires much less investment in materials, works with an idealised abstraction (rather than with finicky physical bits), and consists almost exclusively of incremental innovation. A.o., the FTC report and the report by the National Research Council cited above go into more detail.

Sure, but this goes to my later statement that software patents may deserve a shortened term. It doesn't support GP's argument that software needs no patent protection because, after all, it would get invented eventually.

Well, you could read the claims of the patent. That would make it very easy to figure out whether your program is off the hook.

Of "the" patent? You mean of all the granted patents, right?

This was a reference to GP's argument that it was impossible to determine if you'd infringe a patent. Which I find a bit disingenuous, him allegedly being a patent attorney.

And actually, the risk of whether or not you infringe on a patent (software or otherwise) is simply not manageable in practice. How do I know? Because you cannot insure yourself against such risks. AIG, Lloyds and others have tried for a short while to offer such policies, and suffered losses up to 3000%! So if even those guys specialised in risk management can't determine the risk of infringing on a patent, what makes you think Joe the Programmer can do so with any degree of accuracy?

Joe Shmoe gets an insurance policy from Lloyds to cover him in case he infringes... At that point, he's indemnified. Therefore, he performs no due diligence, because it's expensive and he's fully covered against loss. I don't think it's particularly dispositive that people who are fully insured against any sort of loss act riskier than those who aren't.

Furthermore, while Lloyd's may be specialized in risk management, due diligence with regards to patents is another field entirely, requiring claim construction expertise rather than statistics.

Patent attorney here. Yes, software patents shouldn't be there. Patents are there to stop people from sitting on their ideas. Stopping people from sitting on their ideas helps society, because it give society more knowledge. However, for software there is no need for this mechanism.

[Citation needed].

Here's a bunch of citations I once collected (note that it also includes a few opinions of political committees, but those are clearly marked).

Since State Street, there has been immeasurable innovation in the field of software. You've got nothing to back up this assertion.

I think we can indeed agree that software patents have not killed the software industry. That's however not a very strong argument if you claim that software patents are necessary or even helpful.

There is no shortage of innovation because of lack of progress. If one person doesn't think of it, another one will.

The same could be said about any field of invention, including machines and compositions of matter.

It's however doubly so applicable to software, because software innovation requires much less investment in materials, works with an idealised abstraction (rather than with finicky physical bits), and consists almost exclusively of incremental innovation. A.o., the FTC report and the report by the National Research Council cited above go into more detail.

Well, you could read the claims of the patent. That would make it very easy to figure out whether your program is off the hook.

Of "the" patent? You mean of all the granted patents, right?

And actually, the risk of whether or not you infringe on a patent (software or otherwise) is simply not manageable in practice. How do I know? Because you cannot insure yourself against such risks. AIG, Lloyds and others have tried for a short while to offer such policies, and suffered losses up to 3000%! So if even those guys specialised in risk management can't determine the risk of infringing on a patent, what makes you think Joe the Programmer can do so with any degree of accuracy?

Wow, you mean like the data protection laws that Europe has had for decades?

Your bank details belong to us, well since Sept 2001 anyway, almost a decade.

Very good point.

And I'll give the example of the McLibel case where the court ruled that the UK libel law breached the European Convention on Human Rights and fined the UK for damages.

Could you please see this law in perspective for a moment:
1) This law requires the ISP to hold identification data for only 6 months - most ISPs keep it longer than that.

[ citation needed ] Before the data retention directive, this time was limited by the privacy directive. That one specifies that such data may only be kept as long as strictly necessary for billing and general administrative purposes.

Moreover, it's not just about identification data, but also about who emails/calls whom when and from where.

And collecting all of this data costs about £45.8m for the UK according UK government estimates.

2) The only way to have access to this data is to have a court order.

That depends on the Swedish proposed implementation (with which I'm not familiar). The data retention directive mandates nothing of the sort (which was one of the strong points of criticism against it).

in the end we just want our privacy and not make it impossible for police to do their jobs.

The point is that this directive is not required for the police to do their job reasonably well, and that the costs and privacy invasions of the directive are completely disproportionate compared to the potential gains in effectiveness for the police.

The Commission referred in its proposal to exactly one (yes 1) single study on this topic. That one concluded that it was not clear whether or not data retention would help a lot in investigations.

So the big complaints are: no demonstration of necessity, hugely disproportionate, major costs, big dangers of abuse and other negative effects. Of course, in addition to the way it was pushed through.

Now I think we can all see (at least at an intellectual level) why they want to try this. In theory, at least it'll allow for faster and more accurate convictions.

The problem is, the UK, who has the largest DNA Database in the world, is having some problems with accuracy. And the Germans spent 15 years hunting a serial killer who didn't even exit.

Furthermore, juries are lead to believe that DNA is perfect evidence. While in theory the probability of two non-twins matching is very low, the issue is there is absolutely no way to prove how exactly that material got there. What if you were in a car, and two weeks later someone else is shot in it? Or worse, what if you and your girlfriend did some dirty business in the back? Your DNA will be in the back, and it's going to be hard fighting that off in court, because the Jury believes that DNA is full-proof evidence.

You're obviously right, because noone ever got sued because of file sharing in Germany before the implementation of this EU directive, as there was no basis to give out the data.

If they got a court order, they probably could get the data regardless of what the investigation was about. And even that practice has now been limited by the German Constitutional Court in a preliminary ruling.

If you cannot see the difference between that and "preventive" dragnet investigations (enabled by providing carte-blanche access to such data, mandatorily retained over very long periods of time), so be it.

You're obviously right, because noone ever got sued because of file sharing in Germany before the implementation of this EU directive, as there was no basis to give out the data.

If they got a court order, they probably could get the data regardless of what the investigation was about. And even that practice has now been limited by the German Constitutional Court in a preliminary ruling.

If you cannot see the difference between that and "preventive" dragnet investigations (enabled by providing carte-blanche access to such data, mandatorily retained over very long periods of time), so be it.

When the EU directive was implemented in Germany, guess what changed for my ISP? Absolutely nothing, because they recorded everything the law requested already.

Previously such data all was protected by the privacy directive and its implementations, which meant that it had to be destroyed as soon as it was no longer necessary (e.g., to deal with spamming complaints or for billing purposes), and could not be made available to anyone except under very strict conditions (like having a court order or so).

With the directive/laws coming into effect, law enforcement agencies (and others) are pushing to turn all of this data into massive pools in which they can go on fishing expeditions, or at the very least they want to be able to trawl through it in the context of any "investigation" (no matter what about -- nevermind that the directive was of course pushed through with sob stories about kidnapped children and terrorists). This is no different in Germany.

Of course, subsequently that idiocy got challenged and largely curtailed by the German Constitutional Court.

People being all up in arms about it and acting all concerned, doesn't change the fact, that the EU directive doesn't actually accomplish much beyond legislating the present state into continuation.

Whatever makes you feel complacent in doing nothing and in anonymously wining about those who do (and who try to make sure that you can continue doing so)...

When the EU directive was implemented in Germany, guess what changed for my ISP? Absolutely nothing, because they recorded everything the law requested already.

Previously such data all was protected by the privacy directive and its implementations, which meant that it had to be destroyed as soon as it was no longer necessary (e.g., to deal with spamming complaints or for billing purposes), and could not be made available to anyone except under very strict conditions (like having a court order or so).

With the directive/laws coming into effect, law enforcement agencies (and others) are pushing to turn all of this data into massive pools in which they can go on fishing expeditions, or at the very least they want to be able to trawl through it in the context of any "investigation" (no matter what about -- nevermind that the directive was of course pushed through with sob stories about kidnapped children and terrorists). This is no different in Germany.

Of course, subsequently that idiocy got challenged and largely curtailed by the German Constitutional Court.

People being all up in arms about it and acting all concerned, doesn't change the fact, that the EU directive doesn't actually accomplish much beyond legislating the present state into continuation.

Whatever makes you feel complacent in doing nothing and in anonymously wining about those who do (and who try to make sure that you can continue doing so)...

When the EU directive was implemented in Germany, guess what changed for my ISP? Absolutely nothing, because they recorded everything the law requested already.

Previously such data all was protected by the privacy directive and its implementations, which meant that it had to be destroyed as soon as it was no longer necessary (e.g., to deal with spamming complaints or for billing purposes), and could not be made available to anyone except under very strict conditions (like having a court order or so).

With the directive/laws coming into effect, law enforcement agencies (and others) are pushing to turn all of this data into massive pools in which they can go on fishing expeditions, or at the very least they want to be able to trawl through it in the context of any "investigation" (no matter what about -- nevermind that the directive was of course pushed through with sob stories about kidnapped children and terrorists). This is no different in Germany.

Of course, subsequently that idiocy got challenged and largely curtailed by the German Constitutional Court.

People being all up in arms about it and acting all concerned, doesn't change the fact, that the EU directive doesn't actually accomplish much beyond legislating the present state into continuation.

Whatever makes you feel complacent in doing nothing and in anonymously wining about those who do (and who try to make sure that you can continue doing so)...

Sorry to say this, but Microsoft will own you. They may well destroy your career and attack members of your family:

I was sitting on the XML Working Group and co-editing the spec, on a pro bono basis as an indie consultant. Netscape hired me to represent their interests, and when I announced this, controversy ensued. Which is a nice way of saying that Microsoft went berserk; tried unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor, and then launched a vicious, deeply personal extended attack in which they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small struggling company because my wife worked there.

Only take Microsoft on if you don't care about your family, they will get personal, and everything they do is legal, as the state generally agrees with them. See the Mass. ODF affair for example, they've also been allowed to attack charities and bribe officials. Frankly, it seems their strong-arm tactics mean most legislators are scared of Microsoft.

Good luck. You'll need it.

Let's look at the facts, shall we?

Before even starting to discuss about your so called "facts", let me point out a couple of things: the article is from 5 years ago (old facts) and there are no information to gain further insight on those numbers (it has links to the studies but they are not available, so we have some important information missing).

According to a German studyon wiretapping across the western world:

The report concludes that Italy has the highest number of wiretaps per capita, 76 per 100.000 inhabitants. The Netherlands follow closely on the second place with 62 and Switzerland gets a third place with 32. Austria has the lowest number in Western-Europe with 9 wiretaps per 100.000 inhabitants. The statistics show a remarkable low figure for the Anglo-Saxon countries. The USA apply only 0,5 wiretaps for the given number of inhabitants. The statistics would mean that Italy engages into wiretapping about 140 times more often then the USA when compared to the number of inhabitants.

Italian courts order an inordinate amount of wiretaps, and the contents of the tapped conversations are often illegally leaked to the press, even when they are not relevant to any trial.

Ok, so we have 3 problems here:

1. too many wiretaps ordered by courts
2. sometimes content from some wiretaps illegally leaks
3. sometimes content from wiretaps is not relevant to any trial

Let's start from the first one.

First of all, the article that you have quoted simply doesn't tell us anything about the sources of the wiretaps.

Do they include only wiretaps ordered by courts? In some countries other institutional forces are allowed to independently wiretap. In Italy only courts can do that. You know, it can make a huge difference...

Secondly, without making some correlations at least with crime rates those numbers don't tell us much. They only tell us that one country wiretaps more per capita than another country.

Thirdly, when you look at the number of persons over 100k persons, numbers look much different than what they are when you go back to the total population (almost 60mio in Italy vs 8.3mio in Austria). All those countries are in the zero-point-zero-something space.

(Also: 40k sounds very strange... from what I remember that is the number of distinct telehpone numbers wiretapped but because many criminals had more than one number that needed to be tapped, the numbers should fall to something around 25k persons)

Still the fact that per capita wiretaps is higher in Italy holds (provided all sources in the other countries are taken into account).

Now, can anyone come out with a good (sensible) number of allowable wiretaps?

Because I simply can't. Most people can't. However, our friend Shin-LaC seems to know what an "inordinate amount" roughly is....

I can surely say that wiretapping more than other countries so far didn't result in less crimes per capita. But that's it.

So what is really the fact here? That the amount is high? No. Simply that Italy wiretaps more than other countries.

Ok, now let's move to the second problem with wiretapping in Italy: sometimes content illegally leaks.

This actually *is* the only real problem and it's just a problem enforcing already existing laws.

Instead, Italy's government tried to pass a law to make journalists accountable for publishing leaked material.

Please note that this has nothing to do with the previous point.

Also, to give readers some more context, you should be aware that in most cases journalists published material that was already public because at a certain point of a trial all the relevant material simply becomes public.

Of course the political forces that want to change the law simply put leaked and public material in the

The report concludes that Italy has the highest number of wiretaps per capita, 76 per 100.000 inhabitants. The Netherlands follow closely on the second place with 62 and Switzerland gets a third place with 32. Austria has the lowest number in Western-Europe with 9 wiretaps per 100.000 inhabitants. The statistics show a remarkable low figure for the Anglo-Saxon countries. The USA apply only 0,5 wiretaps for the given number of inhabitants. The statistics would mean that Italy engages into wiretapping about 140 times more often then the USA when compared to the number of inhabitants.

Italian courts order an inordinate amount of wiretaps, and the contents of the tapped conversations are often illegally leaked to the press, even when they are not relevant to any trial. That is why the rules for wiretapping are being revised. And even if the new rules made it ten times harder to authorize a wiretap, Italy would still have 14 times as many wiretaps per inhabitant than the US! Do you realize how ridiculous Grillo and Travaglio's propaganda is?

By the way, if the courts didn't waste millions of euro on wiretapping everyone and their dog, they would be far less likely to run overbudget. If the wiretap reform works, the judiciary will have all the money it needs to bury its offices in toner and gas, without having to increase its already considerable burden on taxpayers.

I was afraid this discussion was going to degenerate in a pro/contra Israel fight. But I think the last line of the post is more interesting.

"The article notes that no other democratic country has a comprehensive biometric database of all citizens."

Some EU coutries already have this database and more will follow soon.

http://www.libertysecurity.org/article1017.html
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.7/biometrics

Have you ever considered why those are your only options? (And, btw, isn't law in the US made by more than a single person?)

I am pretty tech-savy (having a Ph.D. in Computer Science helps), and I am also active in politics, both national and local (I am a member of my city council in DK, approx. 45000 residents, and was a candicate for the last national election). And, while one of my major motivations for joining politics was to work for better laws in the tech area, I quickly realised that in order to have any influence, or getting elected to anything you need a much wider scope. Tech stuff simply does not interest enough people to get you any votes. This is OK, by definition, the voters have a right to focus on what interest them. The problem with that however is, that in order to stay sharp on the issues of "the masses", in order to get any votes at all, you lack the time to work on/stay updated on "fringe" issues. But I digress.

Now, what pisses me off in your sentiment, which is echoed by many, is the inherent "it does not matter anyway" attitude. It does freaking matter what you do. But laying on the couch, waiting for a perfect candicate to get enough exposure that you discover him, and can vote on him, will never help. For the candicate it is a chicken and egg problem: As long as he can not demonstrate that tech issues has the interesst of a sufficient number of voters, he/she gets no leverage on the party. For fringe candidates (and most that are tech savy are that), you simply can not get any leverage on these issues. The candicate needs you to get off that couch and take part in the public debate (and, no, that is not Slashdot, believe me) and make this an issue that engages influential people or the media. Then, you will see tech savy candidates to your elections. So, get off that couch right now. Find the local candidate that are tech savy, and support the one that matches your overall political profile best. And by support, I mean: join his party, call him, go to meetings, write letters to the newspapers, let your neighbours, friends and coworkers know that this is something that matters to you. Join your local branch of whatever passes for a digital rights group in your area (EU: http://www.edri.org/).

As long as the political parties are made up of people that couldn't give less about IP and tech stuff, it is simply to hard to get any leverage for these issues, and the companies that are able to post large amount of money into professional lobbyists will get their way. Sure they will. But, you _can_ make a difference. And if you do not try to make a difference, quit complaining - you are wasting bandwitdh, really. (On satelitte here, btw, so I am entitled to complain about bandwidth :-).

How about your local Internet cyberfreedom group? That means EFF (US), Open Rights Group (UK), European Digital Rights Initiative, Digital Rights Ireland, Free Software Foundation or other civil liberties/human rights groups. Just an idea.

I'd say give out lots of small donations. One group worth targeting in your donation are college students - often they are short on cash, and if they are trying to make the decision about whether to spend an hour hunting a bug in some open source code or get a crappy McJob flipping hamburgers, your donation may flip the balance for them. Having good experiences contributing to the free software world in one's formative years may also help a person avoid the temptation of crappy development jobs in the future.

And how many of that "majority" were only there to vote in support of the open XML proprietary format but in reality have no interest what so ever in standards? Some honesty here would be refreshing considering the suspicion of corruption.

http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.17/iso-procedures
"a leaked memo showed that Microsoft asked partners to influence the vote but had also offered to pay them to do so"

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/05/133219&from=rss
"It turns out there's an interesting correlation between Transparency International's 'corruption perceptions index' and voting behavior in ISO's OOXML decision. Countries with a lower score (more corruption) on the 2006 CPI were more likely to vote in favor of OOXML"

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=7E36CE19-D223-45C2-9704-A2F4B116AA26
"the publication of the voting results brings to a close a hard-fought and often bitter battle to win the approval of national voting bodies that has been tarnished by allegations of corruption, bribery vote stuffing"

*sigh* pathetic

Unlike what the summary suggests, this is not specific to Germany. It's the implementation of a European directive on data retention. And FWIW, the US is indeed less invasive than the EU at this point concerning data retention.

Unlike what the summary suggests, this is not specific to Germany. It's the implementation of a European directive on data retention. And FWIW, the US is indeed less invasive than the EU at this point concerning data retention.

Here are a couple of consequences of the text as voted by the EP. This directive was not and has never been about piracy (although some lobby organisations have tried to hijack it for that purpose). It is only about EU competence extension.

And fwiw, it does not exclude private users from criminal sanctions. The approved amendment reads:

(b) "infringements on a commercial scale" means any infringement of an intellectual property right committed to obtain a commercial advantage; this excludes acts carried out by private users for personal and not-for-profit purposes;

So it says it's on a commercial scale (one of the conditions for an infringement to be in the scope of this directive) if it is "to obtain a commercial advantage". It goes on to say that this "excludes" private users, but that is simply not true. This extra sentence about private users is not phrased as an explicit exclusion, but as an statement which supposedly explains what the first part achieves. However, "obtaining a commercial advantage" can be interpreted as "spending less money". For example when someone illegally downloads a song from the Internet, that person has a commercial advantage.

The Greens had tabled an amendment to actually exclude private users properly, but it was not carried. It read:

(b)For the purpose of this directive "on a commercial scale" means a large number of repeated infringements committed in pursuit of a direct pecuniary gain, excluding in particular any act carried out by a private person not intended to earn a profit.

As you see, here the private use is explicitly excluded, rather than just in a supposedly explanatory statement. And "direct pecuniary gain" and "earning a profit" are quite more strict than "obtaining a commercial advantage".

(I am replying to my own cowardly self who forgot to log in) I am now sure it is in fact IPRED2 we are talking about: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.6/ipred2

Yeah, I'd considered the FFII, along with EDRI, and some others whose names escape me at the moment. I'm not sure what EDRI does besides their newsletter though...

Please have a look at a presentation I gave in the EP to interested assistants and MEPs about this. Although it may not be that clear without the accompanying commentary, I hope it still can clarify some of the important points.

Basically, the problem is that it does not only apply to commercial scale copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting, but also criminalises

• Alleged trademark confusion, e.g. Burger King v. Wholebake, or L'oreal SA & Ors v Bellure NV & Ors

• Infringements on database rights. As you may know, database rights only apply in case a "substantial investment" occurred, but how is a competitor supposed to know this in advance? Further, case law on this new "right" is still very much in development (slides 14-15 of the presentation, e.g. a case about a company selling an electronic version of a phone directory )

• Non-piracy related copyright infringements: e.g. Deutsche Bahn (the German national railway corporation) has been convicted for copyright infringement, because it altered the plans of the architect which designed their new Berlin railway station in a way which the architect considered to be infringing on his copyright. Another very nice on: a museum which is being sued for repairing an artwork which consisted of a urinal, because that person who destroyed it considered the "destroyed urinal" as a work of art in itself.

• Then there are also registered and unregistered design rights, which like database rights are not examined at all for validity. If you start threatening criminal prosecution for infringing on "right" which may not be valid in the first place, you get really chilling effects in the market place.

If you have time to read only one background paper on this completely idiotic and misguided directive, have a look at the position paper of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys. But those of the Law Society of England and Wales and Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law are also very good. You can find a lot more position papers on FFII's IPRED2 workgroup page under "External opinions"

Unlike the software patents directive, this is not a case of big companies vs small ones. Pretty much everyone except for the IFPI (music publishing industry) are trashing this directive like there's no tomorrow. And if you want to know why it is nevertheless being pushed through by the Commission, read my ENDitorial in the previous EDRI-gram.

I dont like the path that the trend is following.