An Interview with Ben Edelman

Chuck Talk writes "Orange Crate has an interview with Ben Edelman, a Harvard Law student and PhD candidate in Economics. Ben is noted for his work in studying issues of privacy, spyware, internet content filtering and the global supporters of those actions."

Comments

Summary of linked site:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some guy is a student with opinions about spyware.

He gets interviewed.

Article is a bit wordy.

Not worth reading.

Sorry.

Yet Another

[Uber Banker]

Pseudo 'blog' article which offers little other than reshashing old ground.

1. 'Orange Crate': Another site run on Slashcode/Scoop/Whatever. Look at all the article comments it attracts and groundbreaking insight on its pages.
2. 'An Interview with Ben Edelman': So I post something in a blog/personal website, post it to a 2-bit unread news site desperate for anything original it can get, with the entire aim of reposting that on a widely read site merely to generate traffic, not for the quality of the article.
3. 'Ben Edelman': So he's a law student, fine, but you're pushing it with 'PhD Candidate' - remember this means someone who has applied and been accepted to a PhD course, but that's it - so be means of credibility this scores 0.

And I did RTFA, and while not bad, I fail to see what it added other than another person beating their chest under the supposition they have unique invaluable insight when the items discussed have been mentioned 100s of times in Slashdotters comments before. "Ben is noted for his work in studying issues of privacy, spyware, internet content filtering and the global supporters of those actions...", no, Ben is noted for his self delusion.

Re:Yet Another

[pfafrich]

OK so not the best interview, but don't diss Ben so much. As a Ph.D sutudent he has probably spent three years full time research on spyware, has copiled some good resources on funding of spyware, has been an expert witness in a legal case against gator. So does maybe know a bit more on this issue than your average slashdotter.

Re:Yet Another

[cleetus]

I've actually met Ben in a professional capacity at the Berkman Center. He is one of the smartest people I've come across; he has a rare depth of understanding of both the technical and legal sides of the internet (and is able to do it through the fairly objective filter of microeconomics).

Most importantly, he has been an expert witness is several important software cases (see here, last paragraph). Take my subjective opinions above for what they're worth, but people with much at stake trust his opinions. What he thinks matters: judges and lawyers hear his views, not slashdot's.

cleetus

Indeed

[Uber Banker]

If you wade around the site, it has the odd interesting point r.e. legal agreements in spyware EULAs and who invests in spyware companies (clickable link), topics recently posted to slashdot. The content on the site is hardly partisan, while this fits in with the mindset of the lawyer, I'm curious how it aligns itself with a PhD student (given research should be as unbiased as possible).

Cut the kid some slack

[MLopat]

In all fairness, this is not such a bad article. Just because everyone that reads Slashdot has the oppurtunity to be well informed about these issues, doesn't make his interview any less valid for the millions of non-slashdot readers that are not so well informed. Slashdot readers just assume that when they open up a new story, they're going to read something groundbreaking, and that just wasn't the case this time.

Sure he's just a student. But he's a phD student, which means he's been accepted into a program where his life will consist of academically monitored research in this ares.

Cut the kid some slack; he's the closest thing there is to an expert in his field.

Re:Cut the kid some slack

[locokamil]

He's not a 'kid'.

He's a Harvard Law student. Please, please try to understand how much of a prick you have to be before you can make it into that school (this isn't blatant Ivy bashing... I came out of one myself).

The signs are all there: long words, over inflated sense of self (whoever heard of a PHd candidate giving interviews?) and shallowness of content.

No slack. This guy deserves to be cut down.

Re:Cut the kid some slack

[locokamil]

The point is this: the guy says nothing of substance and expects us to applaud.

As for millions of non-slashdotters out there who are uninformed, I think they're better off getting their information from someone who's been further than law school... and possibly had a decent amount of experience countering/dealing with spyware. Seen the trenches and what not.

I'll go ahead and maintain that this is irresponsible journalism-- if you want your writing to be taken seriously, you should at least be using credible, experienced sources. That means not using freshly minted Harvard Law students

One of the Good Guys

[Dynamoo]

Ben Edelman is one of the good guys in the fight against cruft that installs on your computer without your knowledge. The work he does is both comprehensive and shocking.. if you haven't checked out his site do so now. Particularly, look at some of the videos and documentary evidence at what actually happens, despite the claims otherwise of the scumware publishers themseves.

There are a handful of other people I can think of who've done a similar amount of work. Merijin Bellekom, Patrick Kolla and Andrew Clover spring to mind, although there are others.

Not Really

[Uber Banker]

Sure people can have many backgrounds, and a fresh-faced enthuastic, perhaps naive one approach is fantastic. It would be a disaster if everyone had this approach, but here we have someone clearly enthusiastic (check out his site), clearly intersted, and very establishment ('Harvard Expert' gets a lot of cred r.e. 'professional journalism'). So what if he's just starting out (cut your teeth somewhere, would you prefer it if he kept his mouth shut and had no feedback about his approach until graduation?!).

31337 h4x0r5 may write anti-spyware programs, reverse engineer viruses and edit the Windows Registry (!) - something extremely valuable in treating the symptom, but that's always reactionary to something that's happened. This guy is going after the cause - he had a story posted a couple of days ago about who invests in Spyware companies (valuable in 'outing' the 'villans'), he is looking at the legal agreements and increasing awareness to how they subtly change (for example, he browses through and highlights points from Gator/Whatever its called now, in their 63 page EULA (who removed a print option), he is beginning to look at the incentives these companies are subject to.

So thanks for your first ever post, but how about getting off your self appointed high horse and realising that to tackle a problem it takes all sorts, and Ben is spearheading the legal and academic approach to the Spyware problem, a problem which 31337 h4x0r5 writing anti-spyware tools or even Microsoft cannot solve alone (given ilknowledgable users, etc).

Why not get visual

[digitalgimpus]

This guy obviously has some brains. Read just part of that, and you realize that.

IMHO here's what he should be researching and perfecting:

Visual EULA's

Just like creative commons has iconic easy to read licenses (link goes to LGPL sample).

Why? Because they are easy to read, use, analyze.

The US would benefit so much if we required electronic licenses to follow such a format. EULA's, TOS, AUP's, SA's, etc.

A standard of icons, and formatting.

So anyone, can have the option of viewing in that format, or the legal jargon.

Some more useful additions to the Creative Commons icons:
- Monitors Traffic or Usage
- Commercial Mailing
- Advertising Included

You get the idea.

Every program, with the option to view the license in an easy to read visual format.

Then everyone knew what they were installing or signing up for.

Would be much better than the "canned spam act", or "anti-spyware" bills in progress.