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

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.

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.