CFP 2000 Wrapup

Roger Clarke, a computer scientist at Australian National University, was lucky enough to attend the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference this year, and has placed his notes online. CFP covered nearly every topic we address in the YRO section of Slashdot, so this is recommended reading for anyone interested in freedom of speech, privacy, encryption, domain names, or a host of other issues. It sounds like Neal Stephenson's address alone was worth the cost of attendance...

Comments

How Technology Can Enslave Us

[MicroBerto]

I was hoping to see more notes from Steve Talbott's speech, all it says is this:

'How Technology Can Enslave Us' - Steve Talbott, NetFutures (who provided a pleasant rendition of the 'technology is almost always bad' argument, but it was a little bit over-blown, and contained little that was new)

.. under the Other Invited Speakers Section. Can anyone that was there enlighten me?

Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto

What the hell?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Neil Stephenson is suggesting changing from watching for ``Big Brother'' threats to guarding against ``Domination System'' threats. It sounds like he's describing some ``fringe'' community (which one is that perchance). Maybe I read this wrong, but it sounds like he condones turning a blind eye to large corporations/government (Big Brother) and focusing on the little guy. What gives? I know my eyes must deceive me, but it says Neil Stephenson is worried about small, focused groups? Script kiddies? WTF? Somebody explain this to me because I wasn't expecting something like this to be attributed to Stephenson...

Re:What the hell?!

[Merk00]

I believe that he's trying to say that there is not an overreaching conspiracy to put the public under complete survelliance. Instead, it is more along the lines of a smaller groups that aren't seeking to control everything, just a small part of our lives. The cumulative effect is that our entire lives are under control, albeit different groups. He's trying to point out that they are more likely to occur even though they are less sexy to look for.

Matt Leese

Re:What the hell?!

[Joe E Sunshine]

I think that what he, more or less, is trying to say is that we need to look out for the evolving of too many watchdogs to keep track of, instead of the all-powerful all-seeing enemy that will some time soon, due to the possibilities of limiting privacy these days (echelon-type systems, surveillance cameras etc. ad infinitum), emerge out of nowhere (or, for that matter, an already existing one (e.g. NSA)).

In that I think he is indeed right. The biggest threat to privacy may today not be everybody's favorite No Such Agency, the Illuminati or whatever, but the enormous amount of small organizations all looking out for their little corner of the world, may it be just a supermarket, that together ensure that noone is ever unseen by everybody. Then there is no need for a big org. watching everything, since everything is already watched. You by then do only have to know who to talk to and pull some strings to find out whatever you want to know about whoever you want to know something about.

Although the projects of the NSA and all the other spook orgs give me the creeps as well, this is a more acute fear, that, moreover, is by all means justified.

.. or maybe it was just too long ago I saw an x-files episode.

Re:What the hell?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that makes sense. I was disturbed however by what Clarke meant when he said ``[Stephenson] suggests that the data be split, secured and stored, and only extracted and analysed retrospectively when justification is shown.'' This means actively policing people doesn't it? Like installing cameras everywhere but just not accessing the film unless a crime is committed?

The whole thing is really weird and while what you said makes sense (who the threat is), I'm still trying to wrap my head around out what Stephenson is suggesting we do about this threat. In fact, it almost sounds like he's suggesting we set up a Big Brother that doesn't use the information it gathers on you unless you commit a crime. Maybe I'm misinterpreting that, but that last line is rather frightening. Or did I misinterpet that one too? I dunno... The whole Neil Stephenson section kinda made me shiver because I read it as ``Forget watching out for Big Brother because he doesn't exist. We need to set up a system [Big Brother] that makes sure the little guys don't start any trouble.''

Re:What the hell?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there is no need for a big org. watching everything, since everything is already watched. You by then do only have to know who to talk to and pull some strings to find out whatever you want to know about whoever you want to know something about.

That makes a lot of sense. In fact I reread the paragraph that I tripped over and realized who he was talking about (DoubleClick & Barnes&Noble sprung into my head). I still can't figure out what he meant here:

Stephenson's approach is similar, to the extent that he also argues for observation to be undertaken by everyone, such that countervailing power can be brought to bear by 'the good guys' against 'the bad guys'. His argument is not, however, for streams of video data to be monitored in real time. He suggests that the data be split, secured and stored, and only extracted and analysed retrospectively when justification is shown.

This one threw me. I don't like the sound of that. It sounds like he condones gathering all this information and putting it together if ``justification is shown.'' Kind of ironic if Neil Stephenson of all people ended up breathing life into Big Brother.

Stephenson, Sterling and other ramblings

[B. Samedi]

Is it me or is Neal Stephenson taking the Bruce Sterling approach? They both write good stories and both throw out some rather interesting ideas.

The idea of small groups using video survelliance to fight their oppresors is a interesting idea as well as the idea of small groups banding together to help each other (see Diamond Age for a full fleshing out). Of course were these small groups are going to get the equipment neccassary is another question.

This is a better way to look at the world then the all pervasive mode of Big Brother. Because when you think about it trouble does come from all sides not just one titanic foe. And to fight it you need to be flexible and have lots of options open to you. The heroic last stand against overwhelming odds might be thrilling and interesting to hear and read about but it sucks as a option. So look and see who your allies are and make use of them. Remember that the enemy of your enemy is also not always your friend.

The idea that people do act better when they are being watched is nothing new really. Why do you think criminals were masks? It's not just so they won't be caught. It's so that people won't see them committing a crime and then shun them and people close to them. How about the old saying that the way to tell how good and honest a person is is to watch and see how they act when they think no one is watching.

Stephenson is throwing off some good mind workers and I can't wait to see where he is heading next.

Read Snowcrash

[iamriley]

Stephenson portrays the "Federal Government" as a bloated, practically powerless entity that is used by a small group of actual bad guys just for it's manpower. I think that hints at the viewpoint that he presented at the conference.

Like YRO?

[Signal 11]

They addressed the same topics as slashdot did?

Flash forward to the future YRO Slashdot Summit...

Malda gets up on stage for the keynote and thanks his readers for attending the conference and promises that the schedule will be released to everyone real soon. "Don't ask me about it again though or I'll delay it another day!" he said. Then the stage is turned over to a random journalist who comments about how little privacy they have. Suddenly, 20 hooded trolls jump forward and shoot him with their petrification raygun. Natalie portman is caught in the crossfire and coincidentally was streaking across stage when this happened. The random journalist continues talking about the paradigm shift linux is going through and how it'll revolutionize the industry. Several people nod their head in agreement, except for a short guy in red with a tail who mutters something about heretical literature.

While Malda and Hemos are busy shooting their SuperMod guns at the trolls, the rest of slashdot is busy arguing whether ninja taco burritos are heated more efficiently with dual celerons or an overclocked Athlon processor. Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman sit quietly in a corner glaring at each other. The reporter finally finishes and is then promptly zapped into the -1 regions of the conference as a trapdoor opens, dropping him into the FUD Chasm.

Jon Katz gets up to say how this is all because the troll outcasts were neglected during their high school career and are seeking retribution. Halfway through his speech, in a desperate attempt to save humanity his major intestine leaps up to strangle him to death. The trolls start cheering and Malda begins throwing perl scripts at them. At this point, the room lights go out and we hear thousands of tacos raining down on the audience.

And so here I was sucking down my 32nd can of mountain dew having been awake for about 60 hours staring at my laptop's screen which now had nothing but 30 pointers pointing to structures of pointers which in turn were calls to pure virtual functions.. and that's when the conference really got wierd. So I hit submit and posted my notes to slashdot.

Re:Like YRO?

[thopkins]

Funny but you didn't mention hot grits.

Re:Like YRO?

[Signal 11]

I wasn't planning on putting /all/ the troll tags in there... but next time I'll try harder. :P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stephenson continues to impress.

[booch]

Just the summary of Stephenson's speech touches on so many things. I find it very interesting that he contrasts his ideas about threats to privacy with the Big Brother model. I think there's a good chance he will end up writing a work that will be seen as the "1984" of the 21st century. And I think he's already hit the nail on the head.

I think that corporatism will have a large part to play in this domination system. That seems to be where the biggest threat is coming from already. I've already seen a book or two on how opression has moved from the racial minorities to the working class in general, and how employers use various methods to keep workers from becoming too powerful.

Regarding corporatism, I find it rather sad -- I see so many workers with good ideas that work in corporate cultures where their ideas have no way to be expressed. If the Open Source community can somehow get their merit-based methods to be applied to the business world, I'll have a much more optimistic outlook on the future of this country (and ones like it).

Re:Stephenson continues to impress.

[GooseKirk]

Oppression hasn't moved from minorities to workers. They're not related that way. One, minorities are still slowly moving out from under mainstream oppression (here in America, anyway). It's an organic process. It's slow. But it's happening because people want it bad enough.

Two, employers have always kept workers from becoming too powerful. That's kind of the nature of the whole employer/employee paradigm. But again, if people want it bad enough, it doesn't have to be that way. Especially now. We live in a fine time to be an oppressed employee, at least relative to, say, 1880, 1920 or 1955.

The domination system can work in our favor. It's a better, more hopeful model for us than the old. We have opportunities, mostly thanks to the internet, that are practically limitless. Ain't no power like the power of the people, baby... yeah, it's trite. But like the Cluetrain, it doesn't necessarily make it not so.

And I don't necessarily even mean that "we" have the power collectively. Sometimes it works out that way, more often it doesn't. What's more important to me is that this paradigm gives us some remarkable opportunities as individuals. Have your wits about you and you can play one circle of domination against the other... you can be a conspiracy of one. Oh, man, I better stop now before I start rambling off along some rather obtuse tangents... but just use your imagination, and remember that human nature - whatever that means - stays pretty constant, and so far, domination systems require human oversight to function.

What I think Neal was proposing...

[farrellj]

He was trying to promote the idea of a global Neighbourhood Watch program using encrypted video streams. Basically, you can either have a friend watch over your house while they are on computer, and you return the favour...ideally, you are on opposite sides of the planet, or one is a night person, the other a morning person.

Another proposaal was that you take a videostream that is monitoring your home, and split it into multiple streams, so that all parties have to agree that it is nessisaarry to look at it. One goes to your local police, another to your ACLU ( or your countrie's equiv) and a third to your most trusted friend/relative. If there is a break in, for example, and all three parties agree, then you can have all the streams combined, and a video of the breakin to your house will help the police investigate things.

Just commenting on the conference...I probably lost more sleep than I do at a Science Fiction Convention! There were more interesting things that started at 8:30 and others that didn't finish until after midnight...wow! Kudos to the organizer's! I just wish there was more programming that was Canadan specific...

ttyl
Farrell

Very Interesting the part about

[_Mustang]

Another proposaal was that you take a videostream that is monitoring your home, and split it into multiple streams, so that all parties have to agree that it is nessisaarry to look at it. One goes to your local police, another to your ACLU ( or your countrie's equiv) and a third to your most trusted friend/relative. If there is a break in, for example, and all three parties agree, then you can have all the streams combined, and a video of the breakin to your house will help the police investigate things

but even the best intentioned systems of surveillance are still just that; surveillance of my privacy. Frankly while I think that IS a kick-ass concept, it's invariably in the execution that everything falls apart. I'm not the most paranoid person on the planet, but I for one will resist direct *anything* of this nature, even when there are clear benefits. The simplest of reasons should suffice - my privacy is it's own end, and no means should comprimise that just for the sake of expediency.

Domination Systems are Big Brother

[ltcordelia]

One of the observations that didn't seem to be drawn (or wasn't in the notes at least) is the idea that "Big Brother" (to most of us, this seems to be the US gov't) is just a collection of Domination Systems.
Sure, the NSA and the CIA and the FBI are out there monitoring things, along with a lot of other TLA's. Most of the time, though, they won't talk to each other (a lot of this is for legal reasons; the NSA isn't supposed to be monitoring US citizens (Title 10), but the FBI is pretty dedicated to that). The backstabbing and infighting within US federal agencies is pretty extreme - there isn't enough money for everyone to get what they want, so they fight over shrinking budget dollars.

I think we can see good examples of "surfing the fringe" in the battle between M$ and DOJ; or Napster using the DMCA (an MPAA tool) to defend itself against the RIAA.

And personally, I really like the Virtual Neighborhood Watch idea - I put a videocam in my house, and stream its data to 5 friends, who are each streaming their data at me. Every week, unless something happened, we all delete the data.

Information wants to be free

You are your own Big Brother

[ltcordelia]

You collect your data streams, and warehouse it offsite somewhere. Send them to friends, neighbors, bonded data warehouses, FreeNet, whatever you'd like.
Information wants to be free

Freedom without responsibility?

[chazR]

--BEGIN RANT MODE
Sometimes I get angry. I have read the 'notes'. And I can find *no* reference to responsibility anywhere. This is worrying. I am concerned that a growing number of people have no idea what freedom means.

A lot of people rant on about 'freedom' and 'privacy'. Why do none of these people talk about responsibility?

Freedom is an abstract concept that only a minority of the human population currently enjoy. When you talk about freedom, what do you mean? Let's start with Roosevelt's four:

Freedom of speech and expression

Freedom to worship in your own way

Freedom from want

Freedom from fear

A *lot* of people don't have these. And many of them would be grateful for any one of them. Try living in Burma, Somalia, Serbia or China if you find it hard to believe.

I get tired of hearing skript kiddies on this forum saying things like 'Information wants to be free' as they deprive an artist of money by using closed-source Napster to rip of another mp3. What about the artist's right to 'freedom from want'?

I get tired of seeing the 'troll' posts about a certain young lady. Does the troll's 'freedom of expression' outweigh her freedom from fear?

I am increasingly irritated by the same hormonally-challenged kiddies burbling on about 'information wants to be free' insisting that they have a right to strong encryption for *their* information.

Here is my point: Freedom brings responsibility. If you can't handle the responsibility, don't abuse the freedom

-- END RANT MODE

Do to others as you would be done by. Trite, but true.

Re:Freedom without responsibility?

[Signal 11]

There are some legitimate reasons why we cannot add responsibility. Take, for example, an online forum dedicated to helping people recover from rape/molestation. It's an unmoderated forum (for legal reasons) and an anonymous one (for psychological reasons). It's anonymous for a damn good reason, actually - it's to *prevent* people from disclosing their identities.

Now, obviously a forum like this could be easily abused. Somebody could post snide insulting things. Somebody might masqarade as someone/something they are not. This is true for any anonymous forum.

However, nothing short of providing methods to uncover the identity of all involved parties will provide /any/ responsibility. Yet, the freedom is there. As is the potential for abuse.

You see, freedom and responsibility aren't attached at the hip. One can exist without the other. Ask any teenager. Or anyone who uses crypto. There's alot of examples where it works in reverse - you get the responsibility without the freedom. I have to pay taxes every year.. for stuff I'll never use. Maybe even stuff I find morally reprehensible. Conversely, I'm a mouse-click away from posting this anonymously. Will my clicking that box affect your judgement of me?

One might argue we don't have much freedom in the Real World, hence the strong demand for it here in the online one. In the Real World, speaking your mind can get you slapped with a lawsuit. Acting on your morals can get you thrown in jail.. and sometimes even doing something as simple as making a copy of your Matrix soundtrack so you can put the original in a box at home (incase your car gets stolen!) can be illegal..

I'll leave you with a quote... "A free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular". Given the global political climate.. anonymity may be the only way to ensure you can be safe.. and unpopular.

Re:Freedom without responsibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does constantly posting sexual references to Natalie Portman create in her any fear? I she's a public figure and along with that comes a lot of horny guys masturbating to pictures of her. She knows this and accepts it as a natural consquence of her lifestyle. If she didn't want it she would never do another movie or go out in public again. I don't believe that any of this represents a credible threat to Ms. Portman (which is not her real name BTW) but that it is a bunch of bored teenagers with no social life.

Re:Freedom without responsibility?

[KahunaBurger]

However, nothing short of providing methods to uncover the identity of all involved parties will provide /any/ responsibility. Yet, the freedom is there. As is the potential for abuse.

I disagree. Responsibility can be provided within the forum even if you cannot link it to outsiders. I consider everyone on /. to be annonymous with the exception of kisrael, who's handle I recognize as an ex-housemate. I don't know who anyone else is in "real life", I cannot impose any sactions on them outside this forum.

But, except for the anonnymous cowards, slashdotters do take responsibility within the forum. I put my handle on everything I write. If you want to come at me for saying X on one thread, when I said Y on another, I have to reconcile those or lose respect. If you challenge something I say, you will know that it's me responding. If I make a total ass of myself and you want to informally killfile me by skipping everything else I write, that is responsibility for my actions. That responsibility would exist even if I was completely untraceable back to my real life identity.

Also, responsibility (like freedom) doesn't have to be something imposed from the outside. You take responsibility for your actions, you don't just wait for someone to force it on you. I think that this may be what the original poster was most concerned about - that everyone is talking about free this or untraceable that, but no one was talking about how a person could or should use technology responsibly. Without that discussion, ethics degenerate into "just don't get caught".

Freedom and responsibility are not opposites. They have to be discussed together for either to be meaningful.

-Kahuna Burger

Re:Freedom without responsibility?

[ruin]

Okay, one last time.

'Information wants to be free' refers to the following set of facts:

-- information can be easily duplicated at basically no cost to the holder.

-- humans enjoy sharing information.

Because of the above, information duplication is widespread and quick. In fact, observing the immense speed and scope of information transfer, one might anthropomorphize it, saying that it has the quality of "wanting to be free."

Keeping information secret is difficult. Sometimes, the cost of keeping a bit of information is secret is less than the value of having the secret information.

Sometimes the cost of keeping information secret (ensuring that nobody who possesses a copyrighted mp3 shares that information with anyone?) is greater than the benefits.

(just my two cents)

--

Re:Freedom without responsibility?

[PatientZero]

Upon reading

Freedom and responsibility are not opposites. They have to be discussed together for either to be meaningful.

the following thought ripped through my mind: Freedom is what naturally arrises when everyone acts responsibly.

If so, then freedom is merely an effect (albeit a highly desirable one) of responsibility. We are taught this by our parents as children, although it tends to be used as a reward for doing what you're told or a punishment for doing something "wrong."

By trying to create freedom without first creating widespread responsibility, that freedom will be inherently unstable.

Slashdot is the perfect example. Everyone has the freedom to say what they want, anonymously if they desire. That usually works out well for those that take responsibility naturally. However, one need not read far to encounter numerous trolls and first posts.

Is Slashdot stable? Given that only a small increase in the number of irresponsible posters could make it almost unreadable speaks enough to that point. That a large amount of moderator time is put into weeding out the crap does, too.

The question then becomes, how can we teach others to act responsibly? Obviously, the first step is to do so ourselves as doing something is a method of teaching others to do the same.

Another question is, do people really not know how to act responsibly, or do they simply choose not to? I've met many of the latter.

-- PatientZero

Re:Freedom without responsibility?

[guran]

There are some legitimate reasons why we cannot add responsibility. Take, for example, an online forum dedicated to helping people recover from rape/molestation. It's an unmoderated forum (for legal reasons) and an anonymous one (for psychological reasons). It's anonymous for a damn good reason, actually - it's to *prevent* people from disclosing their identities.

Yes take that forum. Remove responsibility. Then *someone* is bound not to respect anonymity and disclose someone elses identity. (I'm sure my friends recognize my real identity even when I use an alias, especially if I talk about personal things)
*Someone* is bound to post false charges on the forum, effectively destroying someones life...

I'm sure the original poster did not mean responsibility forced upon you by technical measures and law, but *moral* responsibilities.

However, nothing short of providing methods to uncover the identity of all involved parties will provide /any/ responsibility. Yet, the freedom is there. As is the potential for abuse.

An alias provides some responsibility. An alert moderator/administrator as well.

One [freedom/responsibility] can exist without the other. Ask any teenager.

"I won't get caught" is *not* the same as "I am not responsible"

I have to pay taxes every year.. for stuff I'll never use.

You pay taxes every year... for the *freedom* for anyone to use that stuff (Lets take the discussion about govenmet efficiency some other day OK?)

I'm a mouse-click away from posting this anonymously. Will my clicking that box affect your judgement of me?

"Signal 11" carries a bit more weight then "Anonymous Coward" dont you say?
If you had clicked that box it would have influenced my judgement of the post. Not primarily because it would no longer be from Signal 11 but because I generally rank AC posts lower than signed posts, as long as there is not an obvious reason for the anonymity.
If you had clicked that box it would *not* have influenced my judgement of you, since I wouldn't know it was you.
Since you did *not* click it, my judgement of you is influenced (either way). Merely marginally, since you have a track record, but somehow influenced.

In the Real World, speaking your mind can get you slapped with a lawsuit.

In the online world, I'm virtually powerless against slander. Today someone cracks CSS and distribute it so the action can never be undone. Tomorrow someone cracks NN's encrypted mail, where she talks about how she was molestated and distributes *that* the same way.

"A free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular"

Let me rephrase: "A free society is one in which the unpopular does not need to hide"

There are very real problems concerning the freedom we currently enjoy on the net. Some people even think that those problems outweigh the advandages of the freedom.
I do not agree, neither do you (I guess), but refusing to admit there are problems instead of adressing them will only make *their* case stronger. Therefore this rant.

Freedom from reality..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. is what you appear to be insisting on with this:

I get tired of hearing skript kiddies on this forum saying things like 'Information wants to be free' as they deprive an artist of money by using closed-source Napster to rip of another mp3. What about the artist's right to 'freedom from want'?

I can just see Madonna starving because she only has 60E6 dollars instead of 100E6 dollars. Your coupling of freedom from want of the starving and the tortured to freedom-of-the-rich-U.S.-artist is nauseating and indicates either a complete lack of empathy with the hungry or else a near maniacal acquisitiveness.

Neal Stephenson got it backward

[Zigurd]

If Roger Clarke quoted Neal Stephenson accurately, Stephenson got Conan Doyle's story exactly backward: Holmes did not like the countryside because the influence of society was less there than in the city.

The influence of law enforcement was never part of Doyle's point. Quite the opposite. His point was that social norms operate better in the city crowd than in the isolated countryside, implying police have little influence in crime prevention. (In most of Doyle's work, depictions of police range from well-meaning boobs to completely hopeless boobs.) This is a relevant point: current police obsession with crime prevention drives intrusions into privacy. Police should stick to being good at quickly and reliably catching the bad guys.

To go a bit OT here: Getting, and keeping, the high-productivity criminals off the street is very effective. If the system did this reliably, the remaining crimes would be much fewer in number, and traditional, non-intrusive police methods would be more than sufficient, not to mention the overall reduce tolerance for crime.

Big Brother vs Big Govt vs Great Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

About Stephenson/Brin: We need to get out of this trap of trying to make one of these abstract actors the enemy or saviour. Instead, think of it as people in a society using tools. We can use tools for good or bad, and we can set up rules to control use of tools. We need to set up good laws to protect our privacy while at the same time providing reasonable public safety. The libertarians are just as bad as the liberals when it comes to a real answer to our problems.

Look at the recent New York Times articles about the massacres by mentally ill people at http://part ners.nytimes.com/library/national/041100rampage-ki llers.html . Some wish to protect the privacy of these people by forbidding any information about mental hospital admissions from databases and so inaccessible to those who check backgrounds for those purchasing handguns. Why not set up a system (and one state has) whereby the FBI sends the query to the state keepers of the hospital admissions database, and the response is 'yes' or 'no'. The information is only used when appropriate, and not used for other data mining. The response from too many privacy advocates is, there is a 'right' to privacy that overrides this, or that, we can use technology somehow to overcome the problem. Get real!

For some more informed discussion of Brin's ideas, see Charles J. Sykes, "The End of Privacy," 1999, ISBN: 0312203500.

Litman on 'Piracy'

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Litman's talk on 'piracy' was adequately reported.

Recently at another conference, she spoke in favor of changing the rhetoric in these debates. I suspect her talk this time was an attempt to do that. In other words, we have to invent better ways of describing our good activities, instead of reusing the words of the enemy. And 'piracy' is exactly the word that Jack Valenti of the MPAA uses to describe us. (It's like the 'hacker' vs. 'cracker' rhetoric, only more extensive.)

Peggy Radin of Stanford used this expression, "You can't use the master's tools to take apart the master's house." (from feminist theory). Read more on that conference at NYU March 31 to April 1 at http://www.law.nyu.edu/ili/conferences (and check back later for the webcast archives and transcripts). Roger Clarke might wish to update his notes too.

Re:Litman on 'Piracy'

[Anonymous Coward]

I was there and Litman's talk is inadequately reported. As well as 'piracy' she mentioned other perjorative terms which are entering the media vernacular (eg cyber squatter). She also struggled to find a suitable term to describe "unauthorised" (as distinguished from "illegal") copying and made some points about the general underlying problems with IPR and copyrights. When pressed by a question from the floor, she reluctantly conceded ("..though as a lawyer I shouldn't...") that circumvention of meaningless laws may be justifiable in some contexts. Check out the conference web site photos for one of an NSA employee embracing the author of the EU Echelon report...

Re:Litman on 'Piracy'

[Mr_Ceebs]

One problem with this is that even if we do bring up new words for this debate we still have the problem that with the aid of the media our words can converted back to perjoratives again. It's Ten years to late to be fighting the hackers / crackers debate. To the outside world you just look like a person jumping up and down pointing at a car and shouting 'lion' it's in common usage and they know that lion's do not have four wheels and no matter waht you say they aren't going to believe you.
at some point this idea entered the common usage and it is an enormous waste of effort to try and change it back.
there are previous examples of this occurring. prior to about 1960 the word terrorism had a completely different meaning to that which it has now. Terrorism was acts that were committed by governments to oppress their own people with extreme violence. Conspiracy theorists amongst you might like to think that with the transition of meaning there is now no longer a single word for governments that have gone bad.
as for You can't use the master's tools to take apart the master's house what else is the internet?

I agree

[crayz]

I have been moderated down before for responding to a point made in another post that wasn't moderated down. I really think moderators abuse the "Offtopic" classification. If we had a story on Mars, and some people started a KDE/Gnome flamewar, that would be offtopic. But that post moderated down was taking issue with a point made in a previous post, a point relating to the topic at hand, I might add.

Personally I think there should be no "offtopic" moderation past the top level. As people discuss things, the conversation just naturally tends to drift. Slashdot should not be so regimented that such drift is not allowed.

Furthermore, these moderators quick to the trigger finger really degrade Slashdot, because people don't want to be modded down, and so they either don't post or they post as an AC. Anytime anyone wants to say something even the least bit controversial about the way Slashdot works, they switch to AC mode.

Moderators: just settle down.
(how was that for offtopic?)

Re:I agree

[Godfree^]

IMHO, that post was perfectly on topic. This is a YRO article, and what's being discussed is online rights (mainly censorship^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmoderation).

/. is a perfect example of why censorship is sometimes required (the A/C trolling does seriously piss me off at times, but sometimes it is hilarious), but it also shows that the power of censorship is easy to abuse if it is in the hands of the wrong people.

I'm not pro-censorship, but I'm not anti-censorship either. There are some things that really needs censoring (who wants to see videos of 4 year olds giving blowjobs?), but opinions aren't one of them. I expect most of the /. mods are Open Source fanatics of some form, and they'd get seriously pissed off if someone decided to deny other people access to their code, so why deny people access to other peoples comments?

Hypocrisy..

[Satsuki Yatoji]

People have no idea what the hell they want anymore...They want information to be free, but at the same time whine about privacy being ignored. Make up your minds before yelling about things, people.

Re:Hypocrisy..

[Tim C]

I think that people generally want "impersonal" information to be free (the activities of large corporations and governments, new technology/software/etc that would be of benefit to all, etc), whilst giving people the option of keeping their personal information private.

Personally, I don't see anything hypocritical in that - you can have my source code, but you can't have my address or buying habits.

Of course, there are people who seem to have things a little mixed up, and care only for their own privacy, but hopefully, they're a very small minority.

Cheers,

Tim

Catching the OT thread...

[guran]

Getting, and keeping, the high-productivity criminals off the street is very effective

True. Most efforts to do so have also been very, very unconstitutional. (pretty much any constitution, not US-specific)

My uncle is a small town cop. He and his collegues generally knows /exactly/ who is behind most car thefts and break-ins. Nevertheless they must prove the 100'th offence as careful as the first. That is called equality in front of the law and is IMHO a good thing.

Yes, it sucks not to be able to catch the guy you *know* did it.
It sucks even more to get sent to jail because someone "knew" you did something you didn't.

So while I agree with you in general (focus on a few "high-productivity criminals" being effective), achieving that focus with legal means is not that easy. Especially if the "targets" are aware of their rights.

Re:Catching the OT thread...

[Zigurd]

It is frustrating, but that is the point of three-strikes laws. Even if you catch him only 5% of the time, he'll hit three strikes well before the 100th car theft. Then you throw him in jail until he is too old for the game. Not unconstitutional at all. It also gives the cops an incentive to investigate these guys more thoroughly because it will result in a meaningful sentence.

All of which illustrates that it isn't crime prevention. No amount of Internet snooping will stop such criminals. The only solution for habitual criminals is long sentences. Unintrusive law enforcement, leniency for first offenders, and judicial discretion are all highly compatible with three strikes, because, as you point out, it usually isn't until strike #37 that these guys go up for the third time.

A fine time to be oppressed.

[booch]

We live in a fine time to be an oppressed employee, at least relative to, say, 1880, 1920 or 1955.

I got a chuckle out of that. But I would have to agree with it 100%.

I've been saying the same thing about poor people in this country. What do I have that they don't? Not all that much. Which leads me to the conclusion that they really aren't poor, but they don't realize it.

And it's the same with the middle class. They don't realize that they can take time to just enjoy and relax. That's what the Industrial Revolution, the Consumer Revolution, and the Techology Revolution have given us, but we've failed to realize how to take advantage of it.

If I were paranoid, I'd say that someone is keeping us from making that realization. If so, I'd guess that it is corporations. They need us to continue working for them and buying their products that we don't really need.