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I love Information Society. A party of their fans? Cool! Their classic album is 'Hack' (which, yes, is themed about that) but 'Peace and Love, Inc.' also rocks.

Is this the same Murat Konar who sang 'Running' for Information Society?

Kewl!

When Kurt Harland, the original lead singer of the band Information Society, released his first solo album "Don't Be Afraid," he included an entire second CD full of fannish goodness in data form. There was a previously unreleased music video, there were all sorts of text files and images, there were movie clips from his archives, and - best of all for music geeks - there were wav files of many of the samples he used to make the songs with. Furthermore, there was a segment of a massive digital scavenger hunt he ran, which spanned the data disc as well as many websites, the prize of which was a WAV file of the album's missing final track. There was a game, a Windows sound theme, and images from rare data discs distributed to fans in the band's early days. He even had some room left over after all that, so he solicited his fans to contribute pretty much anything they wanted to fill out the disc.

And all this was in 1997.

Innovate much, music industry?

When Kurt Harland, the original lead singer of the band Information Society, released his first solo album "Don't Be Afraid," he included an entire second CD full of fannish goodness in data form. There was a previously unreleased music video, there were all sorts of text files and images, there were movie clips from his archives, and - best of all for music geeks - there were wav files of many of the samples he used to make the songs with. Furthermore, there was a segment of a massive digital scavenger hunt he ran, which spanned the data disc as well as many websites, the prize of which was a WAV file of the album's missing final track. There was a game, a Windows sound theme, and images from rare data discs distributed to fans in the band's early days. He even had some room left over after all that, so he solicited his fans to contribute pretty much anything they wanted to fill out the disc.

And all this was in 1997.

Innovate much, music industry?

...at a U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society...

Wow, a World Summit on the Information Society?? I didn't think they were popular since the early 1990s.

Hunnamunnagunda... pure energy :O

Lyrics. Discography. Buy album. Information Society's album "Peace & Love Inc." has a track "300bps 8,N,1" which is designed to be played into a modem. Original release date was October 1992, and I'm not sure if it was available on Vinyl or only on CD.

Griffin is incredible, they've come up with so many neat ideas! Actually, I've got another one for them: my idea on how to playback pictures through the iPod onto a television! Quick Griffin, do it before the next gen picture iPod comes out :)

Anyways, I "bumped" that post for three reasons: to get the idea more attention, to relate that I discovered a steganography program that could be useful for this project and also to plea for help in finding a program that can generate modem audio. Unfortunately google has yet to produce anything useful, besides this funny site. I think the people discussed in this article would probably be a good resource for it, but I think, for example, that the members of the band Information Society would be hard to track down now. So I figured that after Google I should appeal to Slashdot. So anyone got any leads?

had a "hidden" track on the CD of Peace & Love, Inc. that was a 300bps 8-N-1 modem squeal that (if you could get your modem to talk to it) typed a message out to the screen. Then on Don't Be Afraid he had another one that (supposedly) was the first part of an "Internet scavenger hunt". Heh, the "winners" look just like you would imagine they would...

There was a band like that called Information Society.

It's obvious that what these guys were doing is illegal. Still I feel sorry for them, with their multi-year prison sentences, because they really weren't costing the software industry that much money in lost sales, and because they are scapegoats.

As many others have said, most people wouldn't have bought the very expensive applications anyhow. When someone makes a pirated copy of Photoshop to do web graphics, at worst, they are depriving The GIMP community of a new user, or depriving Jasc of $99 -- usually not depriving Adobe of $600. There is some financial impact on the industry, but the numbers are lower. Also, there are plenty of software copiers. Software "theft" won't be reduced one iota by locking these guys up.

The reason for that is, they were just functioning as a completely essential part of a healthy information economy -- the underground. Why is it essential? One reason is that, espescially near the turning points in society and revolution, information occasionally must transcend barriers created by law. If these underground data networks -- very small ones, if you believe the numbers in the NYT article -- are maintained, hidden, and keep working based on an economy of commercially available pilfered information, and if more citizens are trained in how to communicate covertly, and people are indoctrinated to know that storing or exchanging illegal information may not actually be wrong, then our surveillance-laden society has paid a fair price.

The loosely hierarchical distribution network used by warez kidz is analogous in form and function to those used in China and other repressive regimes by political dissidents. Capable of passing only information, peer-organized, and with a medium level of identity isolation -- bring down one and you bring down a few others, but not the whole group. Personally, I feel more secure knowing that there exist these sophisticated illegal networks, capable only of traffic in information, that would be rather difficult for any authority to completely shut down. Who knows when they may be needed...

-=Ivan (actually not very paranoid at all)

"Here are a few notes from the underground / load them at your pleasure / These are the dusty pictures that I found / while on my search for treasure" -- Information Society: Mirrorshades

It's obvious that what these guys were doing is illegal. Still I feel sorry for them, with their multi-year prison sentences, because they really weren't costing the software industry that much money in lost sales, and because they are scapegoats.

As many others have said, most people wouldn't have bought the very expensive applications anyhow. When someone makes a pirated copy of Photoshop to do web graphics, at worst, they are depriving The GIMP community of a new user, or depriving Jasc of $99 -- usually not depriving Adobe of $600. There is some financial impact on the industry, but the numbers are lower. Also, there are plenty of software copiers. Software "theft" won't be reduced one iota by locking these guys up.

The reason for that is, they were just functioning as a completely essential part of a healthy information economy -- the underground. Why is it essential? One reason is that, espescially near the turning points in society and revolution, information occasionally must transcend barriers created by law. If these underground data networks -- very small ones, if you believe the numbers in the NYT article -- are maintained, hidden, and keep working based on an economy of commercially available pilfered information, and if more citizens are trained in how to communicate covertly, and people are indoctrinated to know that storing or exchanging illegal information may not actually be wrong, then our surveillance-laden society has paid a fair price.

The loosely hierarchical distribution network used by warez kidz is analogous in form and function to those used in China and other repressive regimes by political dissidents. Capable of passing only information, peer-organized, and with a medium level of identity isolation -- bring down one and you bring down a few others, but not the whole group. Personally, I feel more secure knowing that there exist these sophisticated illegal networks, capable only of traffic in information, that would be rather difficult for any authority to completely shut down. Who knows when they may be needed...

-=Ivan (actually not very paranoid at all)

"Here are a few notes from the underground / load them at your pleasure / These are the dusty pictures that I found / while on my search for treasure" -- Information Society: Mirrorshades

1. Take the phone off the hook
2. go to class
3. get back
4. check to see if the phone has stopped beeping, but still has power
5. hit ATA in telix, as I hit play on the stereo, and hold the phone up to a speaker.

1. Take the phone off the hook
2. go to class
3. get back
4. check to see if the phone has stopped beeping, but still has power
5. hit ATA in telix, as I hit play on the stereo, and hold the phone up to a speaker.

1. Take the phone off the hook
2. go to class
3. get back
4. check to see if the phone has stopped beeping, but still has power
5. hit ATA in telix, as I hit play on the stereo, and hold the phone up to a speaker.

If someone gave ME a couple hundred thousand dollars, I'd buy or build something slightly more badass AND more usefull than a NON-FUNCTIONAL lightsaber. Besides, every burgler within a hundred miles would be gunning for your house if word got out that you had an item like that :P

If someone gave ME a couple hundred thousand dollars, I'd buy or build something slightly more badass AND more usefull than a NON-FUNCTIONAL lightsaber. Besides, every burgler within a hundred miles would be gunning for your house if word got out that you had an item like that :P

Now, this is hacking cars.. ;)

Am I the only one who mistakes this for an InSoc reference whenever stories like this come up?

o/~ Peace and Love, Incorporated! o/~