CFP 2002 Wrapup

Roger Clarke is an computer scientist who attends many of the CFP conferences, and more importantly for our purposes, takes notes. His notes for this year's conference make good reading and cover a wide variety of issues that Slashdot touches upon. Privacy, biometrics, domain names, the digital divide, intellectual property, it's all here. NTK this week has a nice quip on the conference: "And the more the CFPers confer, the more they seemed to realise that Hollywood is going for the hat-trick: taking away freedom, privacy *and* computers. Pretty impressive. But only if they manage it."

Comments

National ID cards and credit cards?

[bmw]

Does this scare anyone else?

Proponents argue that digitizing the nation's social security card system to resemble a credit card system, and creating one national information database, are needed to protect against terrorism. Critics argue that such a tracking and/or monitoring system would violate the core freedoms of the nation's citizens and that what is needed is better procedures among agencies and standardization of data entry.

Our current system for credit cards is horribly insecure. A 12-15 year old child has no problem acquirring and using stolen credit cards. I know, because I used to be one of those children. Credit card fraud is remarkably easy. Combine this with the dangers of having an international database containing all this sensitive information and we have a serious threat on our hands. The risks involved here are astounding.

Re:I know!

[Nogami_Saeko]

Sure, but what they'd say is something to the effect of "the license fee is $0.01 - the other $14.99 is for media and shipping and handling".

But I tend to agree - if I purchase something, it's MINE, regardless of what the "license" says, and I can do what I want with it.

Re:Need to do more than complain

[White Roses]

So very sorry, I wasn't aware that playing DVDs on my Linux box or copying CDs to my computer's hard drive were cutting in to their revenue stream. I mean, really, I thought purchasing their CDs and DVDs was helping them make money, not the other way around.

And don't we already have laws in place crimializing file sharing? Copyright laws? Funny, if they can't adequately prosecute people under the existing laws, that's their own fault, not the law's.

Frankly, it's not their content they're protecting, it's their outmoded business model. Their content is already protected by a myriad of laws. Yes, they need to make money, and yes, the artists need to have their work protected. But the current run of laws which are ostensibly for the latter, are really for the former, and make no mistake.

Allowing me to play DVDs on my system of choice, or copying my CDs to my computer for my personal convenience, while not my right per se, is actually in the best interest of the companies currently trying to outlaw such things, because it makes me more likely to puchase more of their product.

Region encoding and broken audio formats aren't protecting the artist from illegal copying. A bit-wise copy of some media on to other media can't be stopped, it simply has to be caught, which takes money and effort which the MPAA and RIAA aren't prepared to put forth, because laws are cheaper and require less effort to purchase. In any case, these two methods are merely for the protection of a business model. A bad business model, some may argue. The business model is dying, and rather than coming up with something else, the business is alienating it's customers with draconian tactics. Ultimately, these tactics will cut into their revenue far more than copyright infringements will. Selling one copy to an infringer is better than not selling any to people who despise you.