Don't be absurd. Telocity hasn't "basically" gone under. (Can anyone tell me what the fuck the word "basically" means? Is it sorta like you're "basically" dead? Or you're "basically" hungry?)
Hughes bought ought Telocity. At the moment, they're doing fine. And you gotta hand it to them to be being John Wayne in the calvary group that tried to unfuck Northpoint subscribers. (I'm not entirely sure of their motives -- whether it was goodwill or shrewd business [or a mixture of both]) -- but I gotta tip my hat to 'em. They got some good press outta their failed charge and at least attempted to give the NP folks a reprieve.
I'm replying to my own message, but what the hell. Katz never seems to reply to *any* messages, so I'm merely compensating for lack for lack of Katzian input on this -- oh so very! -- proletarian message boards.
To my diatribe above, I would add this: the upshot to the "secure box" will be a complex (but legal! very, very legal!) matrix of agreements between Microsoft and various marketers in which MS pledges to give data generating by the secure box running Windows XP 2002.
The secure box will be the first, truly *low-cost* PC because it will be subisidized by money-hungry marketers desperate for data. (All of it encrypted, of course.) You think the anon TIVO data is bad, just wait until some cypherpunk decrypts the data stream to the markets that will be coming out of the ass of the secure box 24/7.
*This* will be the first salvo of the new privacy wars. And this will get ugly: MS will have popped its last gasp with the secure box. The fact that their encrypted marketing stream will be decrypted will be the beginning of the end for Microsoft.
The second thing I'll add is this: that all of this -- the secure box, the decrypting of the encrypted 24/7 marketing stream -- will herald the *true* computer revolution. And everything will start over. Fresh. It'll be like the TRS-80 Model I 4K Level I all over again.
The only thing all this is leading to -- and, no, it won't be in my lifetime -- is a computer rennaissance. It might be a revolution -- or, yeah, I suppose it might be a counter-revolution.
But what'll happen is that MS secure box running Windows XP 2002 will be so fucking secure that it will turn into a granite cube. (I'm serious. Maybe not granite -- but it'll turn from a "computer" into a "cube". Not the Mac cubes. I mean, it'll be so secure that it'll -- physically -- even be stripped of any identifying mark.)
And then people will start talking about computers again -- as if they'd forgotten about computers in the first place.
(I say this jokingly -- the idea of the granite cube -- but it would seem to me that at some point technology evolves so much that it actually starts regressing. And it will be after a full-scale regression that people will, once again, start talking about computers. They'll understand that something has happened -- that the secure box turning into the granite cube -- and has taken us full course. And, then, FINALLY! -- the computer revolution will begin.)
Well, there's two ways to interpret this "no access" policy.
The first is that it's not a requirement of WinXP per se but is instead a recommendation for builders like Dell and Gateway: that the ideal, low-cost, affordable "WinXP" box should be an all-in-one solution. As has been pointed out, this is probably good news for Dell and Gateway since obsolecence will happen much, much faster.
So it's not so much an ex cathedra pronouncement as it is a goal: make the box in such a way so that the user will get X months out of it and not worry about having to muss and fuss with video cards, sound cards, and nics. (I imagine this is way MS will spin it. They'll say that this "no-access" policy is actually a thing that their basic users have been wanting for a long time: "Hey, all we want is a low-cost computer to browse the web. We don't want to have to worry about added a sound card."
Moreover, the sentence here says that *end-users* won't have access. The alternate way of spinning this is that MS here is trying to throw some business over to those wonderful Best Buy tech wizards. Maybe MS is looking to create a series of "Authorized Service Centers" -- Best Buy, for example -- that can install all the sound-cards that the user wants. But, dammit, if you break this "seal" then you null-and-void your warranty. (Because, as you'll note, there are "no user servicable parts" inside.)
Obviously, this is a way to keep the WinXP experience "pure" -- sorta the same way that Apple tried to keep the "Macintosh" experience pure (at least in the early days) and, say, the way that TIVO attempts to deter folks from tinkering. (Obviously it hasn't worked in the case of Apple or TIVO, but that's never the point with these kinds of corporate dictums.)
THe second -- and certainly more sinister -- view is that this is the first murmur of the "secure box." MS is working on the "secure box" and it could be that their in the beginning stages of "molding the customer experience" away from the do-it-yourself box of today to the "all-in-one" box of the future -- complete with the RIAA, MPAA, and NSA (for crypto) stamps of approval.
I'm *sure* that MS is in fairly intense negotiations with the RIAA and MPAA (and probably the NSA, too) to begin crafting the specs of the secure box that will be most probably be released in 2002/2003. Signed drivers only, no analog outputs, secure video and audio paths.
My theory is that they'll position this as the "consumer box". Windows XP 2002 (or whatever it will be called) will only work on the "secure box". Authorized service centers will appear that will service the box. The "professional box" will be the computer that we're using now, but if you want to run Windows on it, you'll need the "professional" version of Windows XP 2002 which will be prohibitively expensive for the ordinary consumer. (It will probably cost more than the hardware itself and be subject to hefty licensing restrictions. In fact, MS might only offer Windows XP 2002 in some sort of corporate multi-pack. You will not be able to purchase 1 copy of Windows XP 2002 Professional.)
They'll also make sure that whatever new browser they release -- IE 7.0 -- will only run on the customer or pro versions of XP 2002. Users who continue to use Win2000 or WinME will find themselves unable to browse sites "optimized for IE 7.0". (MS will implement some wacky signing/bizarre crypto that forces non-MS browsers to either upgrade to the 'secure path' or stop browsing.)
Now here's the kicker. I'm almost positive this is what will happen within the next 12 months:
Ballmer -- around the time of the XBOX release -- plans to leverage the "complexity" of Linux (a blatant falsehood, but it will be something that we'll hear more of once we start hearing about Windows XP 2002 -- the "Next Generation of Net") and will force ordinary users to choose between the all-in-one MS "secure box" or the more "complex" Linux option. Ballmer won't denigrate Linux, but he'll gradually shift his spin to indicate that, yeah, Linux is an option. It will always be an option. But we at MS have the monopoly on the low-cost, easy-to-use compute r-- our secure PC running XP 2002. Sure, go ahead and get Linux. But why? It's complex, unwiedly, and cannot be easily supported. (Again, all of this isn't true, but this is the direction of future FUD: complexity. There might also be a salvo of FUD -- and this is trickier -- which will focus on the "legality" of the secure PC running XP 2002. Copyright violators will be targetted, and part of the allure of the secure MS pc will be that it will be the "legal" choice. Mom's and Dad's: don't worry that that your kids will get arrested. Get a secure PC and we guarantee that they'll be safe. This will tie into MS's positioning of themselves as a friendlier, "family" option.)
It will be interesting to see how XBOX fits into the scheme here, but my guess will be that somehow it will be the "satellite" PC -- the main PC in the home will be the secure box running XP 2002 with some sort of secure datapath going to and from the XBOX which will -- in two years -- turn into a dumb terminal since most homes will have several XBOXen, all of which will communicate with the secure-box.
It's ironic that the problems currently facing the centralized communication networks -- the baby bells, I mean -- are exactly the sort of problems that the 'de-centralized' internet (assuming the 'internet' is the content flowing over the networks) was supposed to solve.
It's also becoming increasingly interesting -- to say the least -- to see how centralized networks (or, more specifically, corporations whose livelihoods depend on the centralization of their resources) cannot -- under any circumstances -- co-exist with de-centralized users or content.
De-centralized 'content' threatens the centralized 'form'.
Aha! Here's the link: Peter Barton, head of this wonky privacy foundation, was the former head of Liberty Media in which *GemStar* had a 21% stake. (Liberty Media also has their hands on a multitude of cable channels most of which, I'd bet, would *love* to see TIVO take a crash dive.)
But Gemstar: that's the kicker.
Gemstar, you'll remember, claimed that they have the patents on *all* onscreen guides and for the past few years has sued nearly everyone who implemented an "on-screen" guide in one form or another. They have a long-running suit with TIVO which does not look it will be settled quietly. All you patent-busters: GEMSTAR ought to be a target on the radar.)
Anyway, here's the link (as provided by one of the stories below):
And, yes, I see that Barton's foundation "shills for no corporate interest," but if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'll sell ya, real cheap. It's not possible these days to claim that you "shill for no corporate interest." Take away the corporations and what's left? Well, America's Christian right, of course.:) (LOL -- just kidding. Well, not really. The fundamentalists are as manipulative as the corporate stooges.)
Now, maybe Barton is really good guy and grew to, ya know (wink wink), "despise the role of corporations in the current media" and that's why he "had to go it alone and start up the privacy foundation." (I'm making these quotes up, but they sound like something a former corporate talking head might say in order to funnel donations and startup capital into his new -- and, of course! -- morally "just" enterprise. "Dammit, Jim, privacy is key! All our children will be destroyed! I must do something about it! I must take my, er, platinum parachute from this evil corporation and, um, do something for the common good! Now, um, where is that common good? Who do I talk to?")
I'm no journalist. Just an angry critic of media -- and corporate -- manipulation.
Hey, here's a question: if the DoubleClick (or TIVO, whatever) data is actually *worth* something -- in whatever currency you choose to define -- how come DoubleClick is on the verge of bankruptcy? (At least according to fuckedcompany.com which, yes, is not the most reliable source).
My point here being this: that if all this data -- the TIVO data and web data in general -- is so valuable: why can't companies who use it actually stay afloat?
I mean, why don't we see this data manifest itself into something tangible? (Maybe the data is manifesting itself, but because I have (admittedly) fairly nearly tunnel-vision -- maybe I can't see it. Fair enough. But has anyone done a study to actually demonstrate that, yes, data *is* worth something?)
Don't get me wrong. Privacy is very important. My quibble isn't with privacy.
My quibble is with the assumption that this data that we're gathering is, according to all these privacy web "foundations" is actually worth something? What is it worth? Can anyone measure it? Can anyone prove that my "click habits" can actually be aggregated into some hard currency used to fund the coffers of corporations?
Ultimately, where does this data end up? I mean, is the end result some e-mail database used by spammers to carpet-bomb email recipients with "re: The Information You Requested" emails?
I'm starting to wonder about this. Katz, are you listening? How about an editorial on the "real" worth of web data.
Where's the worth? The value? Is it valuable because we assume its valuable? Is this data actually charting the course for new technology? Or is just an asset -- much like the espresso machine in the break room or the foosball table in the seldom used 'rec room' -- that exists only on paper and has 'value' only when these companies hit the crapper?
That's the real issue: someone -- this damn privacy corporation, for example -- needs to assess the "value" of this shit before they go off and send their short press releases to every news media outlet about the *danger* of something.
Don't you need to define the actual value -- cultural value, economic value, whatever -- before you start decrying the collection practices of accumulating all this data? Does the collection itself contribute to the danger? (Yes, I suppose it does, and that's what has the privacy advocates worried. But there's another step -- and that's the *use* of the data. And then there's yet one more step: whether or not the use actually enhances the value.)
Well, here's a newsflash: it's not surprising because TIVO has said for the past two years that they've been doing this.
It's no mystery, never has been a mystery, and is only a mystery to those odd privacy foundation folks who -- after two years of TIVO -- suddenly cracked open their TIVO manual and read that, yes indeed, TIVO collects and aggregates usage statistics.
I love it when "foundations" underwrite studies in order to garner publicity. Their so-called "studies" -- or press releases, whatever you want to call them -- always ride the crest of this week's current "hysterical trend."
The question we should be asking -- and no, I haven't checked their web page yet -- is who, exactly, is this foundation? What corporation has them in their pocket? (They wouldn't be involved with Microsoft, would they? I mean, MS would love to indirectly spread TIVO FUD -- indirectly, you'll notice I say -- because their oft-delayed Ultimate TV will very shortly make its way into pipelines.)
Maybe they aren't affiliated with MS at all, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit. Likewise, it wouldn't surprise me if this place gets funding from the core foundations of the American "right" -- the NRA, the various Christian fundamentalist groups, or whatever non-profit "moral authority" is the flavor of the day.
("Hey, video games are what causes the school shootings! And, TIVO, by god, it's on a video screen -- and it sorta plays like a game -- so you bet, we don't like TIVO either. It's just proof that the private button presses of our gun-carrying members are used to further the left's 'liberal' agenda!" "MegaDittos, Rush! MegaDitto's to you from Spokane!" "MegaDittos from Newport News! MetaDittos from New Mexico!" "All hail Mom, Apple Pie, shotguns, and Rush Limbaugh! Because, as you know, this country was founded on freedom: the freedom to carry guns, blow shit up, and read the bible!")
The interesting thing about online ads -- and a topic I've never heard anyone talk about is the problem of the "failed click-through."
I don't usually click on the ads, but occasionally -- say, for ThinkGeek, or for another company I've actually bought stuff from -- I click an ad. But what happens next is usually the step the prevents me from *ever* clicking on it again: because of the machinations necessary to record the click in the database, set a cookie (or whatever), and then, finally, actually go to the site, I've found that oftentimes I'm greeted with a blank screen -- the database is waiting for an opening for an insert, the site for the company that plants the cookie is down, whatever.
The result is that more often than not, when I do choose to click, I don't actually *get to the fucking place I'm wanting to give my business to*.
And no, it's not just my connection or my browser. I've had this happen at work, at home, you name it.
Even Slashdot is guilty of this. Occasionally, as I say, I click on the ThinkGeek ad, only to be witness to an *inordinate* delay: something is loading, something is waiting, something is not routing properly.
It's fucked. And it pisses me off. I mean (and I say this to these companies who think that advertising the be-all and end-all of their business model) if you have the ads, make damn sure they work. Make damn sure your databases are working. Make damn sure the code is debugged.
Don't just assume that because your "ad-rotator" was designed by Biff the Bohemian in Perl/PHP/ASP/Cold Fusion that Biff the Bohemian knows how to *guarantee* you that the ad will provide the clicker (me, goddammit) with the result that I expect.
And, yeah, I won't even rant about absurd paradox that goes along with advertising, the advertising model, and sites that depend upon it -- that you cannot, no matter how much you cross your fingers, toes, and wish upon all the stars in the sky -- make a revenue upon a thing -- advertising -- that people simply don't like. I don't know anyone who likes ads. Even the good ads -- the odd new Webvan ads or the fucking sock puppets -- are tiresome after two viewing. (Take the Webvan ad, for example. The Dogma 95 handheld digital camera, a person in room, washed out color. "I want to take a nap but I need diapers." It works once. Maybe twice. But when you're inundated with it -- and with many others -- it ceases to function. It becomes a parody of itself. It becomes tiresome. ("Hey, man, it's 'Think Differently' not 'Think Different!'") I mean, how many 60's counter-cultural rock and rollers will sell their anthems to the fucked up new latinate-sounding companies with their goofy spellings and dumb middle-managers? Cingular? Verizon? Accenture? These are absurd names. Absurd, one, because they *sound* absurd. But absurd, two, because they sound *absurdly manufactured.* Okay, yeah, I'll agree out of work PhDs need a place to go -- and those companies that manufacture the names are as good as any place for a lazy PhD to sit and plant him or herself for a year, but, please, enough already. Enough with the wonky ads. The wonky names. The wonky revenue models. The wonky Katzian predictions of a revolution that IS NOT A FUCKING REVOLUTION.
Enough, enough.
Enough with the digital encryption. With the self-destructing files. With Napster. Fuck NAPSTER! It's goddamn useless now! Enough with Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti. Enough with Bluematter and (another stupid fucking name) and their stupid encrytion. Enough with the fucking clueless middle managers who think that because they have an MBA they actually have a clue. One does not go with the other, Bri ("Hey, my name's Brian, but you can call me, Bri. I'm a middle manager!") Enough with Motorola, Lucent, 3COM, and whoever else it is this hour -- this minute -- who will declare that they won't meet revenue expectations. Enough with cable and DSL and personal firewalls and Zone Alarm and Black Ice.
And enough with Telocity. ("You ain't seen nothing yet? How about this: we get acquired by Hughes and fire our management. Patti Hart, CEO, oh where are you can you go now that you've so royally screwed up customers so that they can't even *CANCEL* your "broadband" without still getting charged?") Enough with Bell Atlantic. Verizon. Ameritech. SBC.
Enough with Rhythms, Covad, and Northpoint. Face it, you'll all be giving your departing CEO's millions of dollars so that their platinum parachutes can land far, far away from wherever it is your nose cone burrows itself so far underground that it's gonna take the sorry Ameritech's and Sprint's to start excavating the messes you've caused.
many viewpoints giving wrong information, or one viewpoint giving correct information?
Neither.
That's my point. What's happening now with the net is that we have many viewpoints giving "wrong" information -- whatever "wrong" may mean -- and one viewpoint (i.e. traditional press) giving "wrong" information. It's the same old story of the "pre-net" days -- that
My point, I suppose, is that information itself -- "right" information or "wrong" information -- is only part of the equation. Humans are the other part of the equation. What they "do" with the information is the way in which, ultimately, the information should be evaluted.
Ironically, computers -- or the Katzian "net revolution" affect -- are nowhere to be found. The "net" is a carrier for the information. It may be more efficient than pre-net days, or, you might argue, it may be *less* efficient than "pre-net" days. But the net is the net.
But, IMHO, the "net" -- how I hate that term -- doesn't form the central part of the argument. Humans are still the crucial agents of action -- the real actors in the play. The center of the equation remains the politics and economic policy of the State (any state, any country). It's how humans use the net that matters. (The question, though is this: will nations allow the actors to implement the "props" in a way that weakens the impact of the theater? The actors (and props) will always be controlled by the director -- the state.)
The real revolution -- or, I suppose, the counter-revoltion -- will occur when the actors achieve a sort of meta-awareness of the "stage" -- the field upon which they've been placed -- and a "meta-awareness" of the props -- the tools that they've been given to use upon their field. The counterrevolution will occur when actors achieve a singular awareness that the tools -- or props, whatever -- can be used in ways other than those proscribed by the state.
I don't know enough to know if what I'm positing is some sort of fucked up socialist revolution or if it's just a more "critical" capitalism in which the actors use their props in specific ways in order to routinely undermine (or, perhaps, to "check and balance") the state. The actors are still on the stage, the props are still the props, but there's an awareness of the props-as-props, the stage-as-stage, and the actors-as-actors.
I'll agree with the idea of "monolithic" coverage. Yes, old-school press and news outlets have been monolithic in their coverage for years and years.
But I disagree with your essential assertion that the internet engenders a more "polylithic" (or, I suppose, "polyphonic") view -- and is (ergo) better.
I mean, yeah, many viewpoints are better than one viewpoint -- you can argue this successfully -- but many viewpoints don't necessarily get us any closer to the "truth" -- or, more realistically, don't *necessarily* approach a heightened or a more critical understanding of the specific events in which we hope to *approach truth*.
It is here -- that many voices aren't necessarily better than one voice -- where I differ with many of the critics (Katz included) that call this sort of thing a "revolution."
The polyphony engendered by the internet is (I suppose) a necessary condition of heightened critical awareness but it's not a sufficient condition. It doesn't (by itself) guarantee we're getting "better" or "clearer" or more "critical" information on -- to use your example -- the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
What many critics fail to mention, I think, is that the *people who utilize the net* must develop a "critical awareness" above and beyond the information gathering abilities that the net allows We must be able to sort through the polyphony of voices and determine our own version of "truth" or at least determine the actions that we must take to lead us closer to "truth."
This is why I think that, yes, the net is nifty and all that -- but the burden still rests on the individual. Perhaps it partly rests upon the state or the nation to support the individual in his or her "mission to glean the truth." I don't know. I suspect that is dangerous.
But to imply that just because the net offers many voices we should embrace the net is, IMHO, a wrong headed reading of the "net revolution."
I think Katz's series, moreover, is flawed from the get-go. I don't understand his notion of "revolution." What, exactly, is the net "revolting" against? How do we differentiate revolution from evolution? And what if the net is actually a "counterrevolution?"
What if the revolution actually exists *outside* of the "internet" and is in fact the triumph of capitalism and the triumph of corporations to control the state?
What if the "net" is actually some sort of "socialist" counter-revolution that threatens to undermine the fundamental tenets of global capitalization? (It threatens, for example, to make extinct the notion of "intellectual property." I mean, really: just what is "intellectual property?" It's not a natural right. Where does our notion of "intellectual property" actually come from?)
Katz, do you even *read* the comments posted to your articles?
Several days ago, for example. Numerous posters took you to task (myself included) for talking about all this stuff as if it's "revolutionary" or in some way indicate a "revolution."
For my particular take on your misreading of Hannah Arendt, see: Katz at his worst.
The problem with your rhetoric -- both here and in your previous story -- is that it lacks essential content. Do you even know what you mean -- nevermind Arendt -- when you say "revolution." Do you understand the social, cultural, and economic forces that drive a "revolution?"
If so, please explain. Please explain the Katzian version of "revolution". I mean, for chrissake Katz, *everyone* says the "net is a revolution." Hell, we oughta get a gigantic pair of those chattering teeth on top of the White House that say nothing but: "The web is a revolution. The web is a revolution."
What, exactly, is the web revolting *against*? The answer is nothing. The web is evolving, yes. But culture is also *evolving.* How do you separate the two? What makes the evolution of the "net" particularly *revolutionary?*
My answer? Nothing. There's nothing remotely *revolutionary* about the net. It's become a puppet to corporations and a vast landscape of, well, the same stuff that makes up the vast landscape of culture: information, bits and pieces of this and that, and, yes, an occasionally stellar piece of... well, what?... information? I don't know.
Sometimes, yeah, you get what you need through the web. You're looking for a good price on a computer, you go to the web, and BAM! there it is: A GOOD PRICE ON A COMPUTER.
Fair enough.
But is this revolutionary? Is this changing culture in a particularly vital and particular way? No, of course it's not. Why? Because I can go down to my local store and find a good price on a computer. The only difference is that with one form of purchase I can sit at my desk and with the other form of purchase I actually have to go outside.
So, what then: the net is "revolutionizing" our physical modes of travel? Either way I get the computer. Either way I probably get the same price. The only difference is that with one I must move my physical body more than six inches.
Wow. What a revolution.
Yes, that's a silly example. But it's not far off. Tell me what's "revolutionary" about the web? Or even about technology? I look and see people earning money, doing jobs, having babies, families, marrying, dying -- no different than in those dark "pre-web" days.
I see a lot of businesses with dumb business plans and even dumber executives. (Ever read the 'Organization Man', Katz?)
You're talking like you're still gee-whized by all this web stuff. And, yeah, if you still are "gee-whized" by this stuff, fine. You're entitled to your gee-whizziness. But, please -- and this goes for all the rest of the so-called "visionaries" or (as they probably prefer to be called) the "cultural critics" be careful and canny with your analyses. Why? Because you're essentially picking out odd specifics to highlight, what? -- the same culture that's always existed and that is now (as was then) always *evolving* -- but revolting? No. I'm not convinced. Who are the revolutionaries? The tech guys? The web developers?
Please. Give me a break. They're hacks like everyone else. We're all hacks. That's not a bad thing, see. But that's not *revolutionary*. And least not in the context that Katz is providing.
"Gee whiz! Look at all this! PRetty soon we'll all be travelling in spaceships! There will be no more hunger! No more war! No more conflict!"
Who knows... Microsoft might find out that.NET runs best on Os's with an X!
Yeah, but if they do find this out, they won't publish the results or allow the results to be published by a third party. (I'm thinking here of the story last week that MS SQL runs faster on NT than on 2000 but that MS won't let the professor publish his findings.)
I hate to say this, but this is Katz at his future-mongering worst. What he fails to address is the dominant (and ruthlessly efficient) role of corporations in the "revolution."
This isn't about the gee-whiz-in-the-year-2002-we'll-all-be-flying-in-h over-cars. This is about corporate control over nearly every single aspect of our lives. The corporations are controlling technological evolution in order to decimate any semblance of technological revolutions.
It's ironic you quote Arendt, Katz. I wonder if the "revolution" she isn't talking about isn't the Nazi's and their totalitarian regime -- made all the more efficient thanks to IBM and their Holerith counting machines. (See Black's new book, 'IBM and the Holocaust' for more info. Very interesting read. Katz, how about you write about this -- about the way in which corporations put profits above and beyond anything else? What sort of "revolution" is that?)
The net hasn't "revolutionized" anything. Don't kid yourself. The "net" that Katz is talking about -- the "revolution" that he's touting -- is just a veil for ruthless efficiency conducted by corporations at expense of *people* and their fundamental, human rights.
Pretty soon instead of fretting over the "separation of church and state" we'll be worrying -- and debating amendments -- that talk about the separation of "Microsoft and state."
How much longer until corporate sponsored "war squads" will descend upon copyright violators, circumventing whatever "legalities" are in their way?
I can certainly imagine a scenario where a corporation -- RIAA or Microsoft, for example -- frustrated with the slow legal process of finding and then prosecuting copyright violators decides to covertly sponsor a Delta Force-like "tactical copyright squad" to go in and eliminate the copyright violations.
I started to think about this a few stories back when folks were talking about the possibility of placing OpenNap servers on SeaLand. You *know* that this would piss off the RIAA to no end -- just as the lengthy legal process with Napster is probably causing the RIAA execs considerable pain and suffering -- and I can certainly imagine a scenario where the RIAA (covertly) would sponsor, say, a tactical copyright squad to go in and destroy the OpenNap servers on SeaLand.
It seems to me that this isn't that far fetched or "conspiratorial" -- I mean, these tactical copyright squads would have training and equipment backed with the millions and millions of dollars of the corporations. Sort of the BlackOps of today's global corporations. And -- it wouldn't surprise me one bit -- if governments (America, British, Candadian, Australian, etc. etc.) would assist with sponsoring the ops.
They would do in 15 minutes what would take 8-12 months in an American courtroom.
I mean, come on, that's what all this is leading to. For chrissake, self-destructing MP3 files? Give me a fucking break. I would never purchase a file that contained the implied threat of "self destructing" if it falls in the wrong hands.
I got 2000+ books at home. Books I can Xerox, read on a train, read on an airplane. I can carry it around in a gym bag and not have to worry about it "blowing up" if it's viewed on the wrong computer or "tampered with." What, I decide to scribble in the margin of volume 2 of Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" and then have to contend with the reality that because I "tampered with the text" I must then relinquish ownership and watch it self-destruct?
It's craziness. Mark my words. Ten years from now. We'll be hearing stories about "corporate BlackOps". Copyright squads. This is what all those black helicopters are. They're corporate-sponsored "Information Fighters."
The danger isn't that the Taleban is blowing up the Buddhas. The danger isn't the guns in our schools or the rage on our roadways.
The danger is the corporations. They've got this fucked up notion that what they produce is more important than anything else -- more important than even the people who consume their productions.
Obviously, the route to go would be open source. But according this morning's WebSite mailing list, this might be a problem. It seems that the software is still copyrighted by the original author.
So apparently the only way this could go OS would be if the original author agreed to it. And, according to the most recent WS mailing list at least, this is yet to be determined. (The common wisdom at this point that, yes, if WS goes OS then the author will forgo future profits.)
It's a shame. IIRC correctly, the original version of WebSite came bubdled with Cold Fusion 1.0. Now, I know there are a lot of CF detractors out there (spare me, I've heard all the anti-CF stories) it was -- in the early days of the web -- a killer combo -- WS and CF.
My question is this: which is more dangerous? Napster trafficking in copyrighted materials or a flash of ritter's ballsack popping (and broadcast, I might add, on Nickolodean)?
As a parent, I think it's most definitely the latter. Screw the RIAA. I want the MPAA -- or the TV guys -- to bear down on 'Three's Company' and *rate it properly.* If one day I sit down with my future TIVO with the VCHIP I want to know that my young son (or daughter) can't see ritter's sac flop out from between the fly flap in a pair of loose-fitting skivvies!
Patents are not about who is right, or who is first; patents are about who can sue.
Yes, and are therefore about dominance: or, rather, about reinforcing the *idea* (or *ideas*) of the dominant class -- about upholding the hegemony, in other words.
Maybe this is what "law" and "legality" is all about anyway: upholding the dominant social ideas by reinforcing their dominance through society itself, but it does make one (me, at least) particularly cynical towards the monied classes.
That's not to say that I abhor capitalism or those with clear profit-motives (generally those who are in power, in other words) -- I don't. I see capitalism and for-profit interests as a necessary and driving force in (western) culture.
But what galls me is the *methods* that those in power use to exploit and leverage (i.e. exert their power over those less powerful -- the MPAA and their high falutin' legal guns over sites like 2600.org) their hegemonic advantage. And for what? Why are they doing this? Not just for profits. That's a given. (And that's okay -- to a point). But to make sure that their power is not stripped away, usurped, or displaced. Their doing this in order to fulfill their notion of *how things should be* and therefore fulfilling their notions of how things *ought* to be.
It's a self-propelling 80 ton motor car heading down a highway with no chance of being stopped. All those who attempt to slow or stop the car are assimilated into the very car that they are attempting to stop.
Well, and remember this: that the idea of "copyright" was not created in order to protect a monopoly or to make the copyright holders "rich".
The essence of copyright was that it was devised to promote the robust dissemination of information by compensating artists for their work. And -- as if that weren't enough -- the idea of "copyright" was that it was *limited* protection.
It's time Boies starts harping on this, too. The RIAA (and everyone else) is using "copyright" as a shield to legally (or, I suppose, illegally) construct monopolistic, monolithic conglomerates. That's not what "copyright" is about. Never has been but -- because of Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti -- is clear that that's what it is becoming.
"Copyright" is yet another example of corporate exploitation. (As if we need another.)
Sorta like the absurd comments last week about the "dangers" of "open source" and how it threatens "intellectual property."
Come on, stop and think: *intellectual property*? What kind of capitalistic, corporate oxymoron is that? It's absurd and every day grows more so.
I used to write off RMS just like everyone else. But then I started to actually listen to what he was saying, and realized that he's right.
It pains me to say this, but RMS is right only in the same way that Freud was "right" or Marx was "right" or Rousseau was "right".
I *like* RMS's rhetoric. And, yeah, I *do* believe he is fighting the good fight -- a fight that needs someone leading the charge. And I don not believe (as some posters suggest) that he ought to tone down the rhetoric and start thinking "strategically." (Which is shorthand for saying he ought to think in "business" terms instead of theoretical terms. I think the way we view "business" is part of the problem -- so I urge RMS *not* to tone down but instead to stay the course.)
That said, I'll say this: the problem with RMS's worldview is that he's espousing an ideology that's particularly dogmatic. The end result -- apart from the ability to "write off" RMS the same way one could "write off" Marx and Freud (by thinking, in other words, in purely "business" terms) -- is that like any ideological argument, its force to sway and persuade relies primarily on its ability to undermine the current, contemporary "prevailing wisdom". His argument remains strong so long as it remains a "minority view" -- a single voice from within the wilderness.
But as soon as the current power structure shifts -- however and wherever that shift might occur -- RMS is obligated to shift his mechanisms of persusaion, dogmatism, and ideology. If he fails -- and (to put it crudely) harps on the same old shit over and over again -- he *will* become a laughing stock and his argument, while perhaps skillfully constructed, will no longer carry any persusasive sway. He'll be relegated to "just another socialist wannabe" or "someone who espoused good ideas and fought the good fight but was eclipsed by the times." Sorta like Marx, in other words. Frued, too. He'll become historical (but no less historic, I suppose.)
No one can deny the elegance and energy of, say, Marx. But today we always (or, most always) read 'Captial' in a very compartimentalized historial context. We read 'Capital' because we're curious about the way in which Marx puts his own spin on Hegel's dialectic. We read it because it is a unique document borne out of a specific and very important time -- the industrial revolution. Be we don't -- or at least we ought not to -- read Marx as revolutionary dogma. We *could*, of course. We're certainly free to choose to do so. But if do, we run the risk of ignore the very historical forces that we're supposed to critique.
This is actually a fantastic question: what was the first open source project?
The Iliad? Gilgamesh? Perhaps.
But I wonder if, in fact, the first *sanctioned* open source project -- a project with the same sort of "hierarchical blessing structure" that the current OS movements has -- might not be the compilation of the old and new testaments. (There might be better non-western examples -- if so, please let me know, as I'm curious about the whole hierarchical structure with promotes the cyclical path of authorship and interpretation -- canon formation, in other words. The Koran, maybe? It, like the biblical texts, was "dictated to" Mohammed by a 'divine' voice, but I'm not sure of how its actual formation -- its life after dictation -- came to be.)
There are debates about the Iliad. While it's true, they probably *are not* the result of just one author, we don't know enough about either to pin down the structure of their composition. Obviously, the Iliad was primarily oral -- a song, perhaps, or a long poem meant to be spoken/sung -- but I'm not sure if we know how what has come to be accepted as the official text actually came to *be* the 'official' text.
The quote is odd. My guess it was some strange off the cuff remark that's not contextualized.
He doesn't make a causal link between the dangers of open source and the demise of intellectual property.
He seems to be implying that a commodity such as an "operating system" loses its "value" (and remember, there's more to value than just a price tag) if it's open and free.
And from this I assume (making an ass of u and me, of course) such a reduction in value means that "intellectual property" is weakened and therefore endangered.
In a sense, this is plausible. I mean, sure, why not? But it seems to me that the whole argument rests on (a) your definition of "intellectual property" and (b) your idea of what constitutes "value".
I mean, let's face it: MS employees (and MS in general) operates on an entirely different world-view than does open source and its advocates. Neither purely exist to promote "goodness" in its pure essence. But I think it's safe to say that MS's priorities are quite different than the priorities of open source advocates. (I'm not saying one is better -- I'm saying that their means and ends are different.)
So the real complaint of this guy -- the MS hotshot who made the quote -- isn't that open source weakens property it's that open source weakens the *value of MS intellectual property.*
But what this guy doesn't understand is that from a non-MS perspective this isn't a bad thing. It means that MS has to compete. It means they can't just walk over the gameboard with their size 14 shoes, kick the pieces across the room, and then go into their bedroom and lock the door.
This belief is faulty, however, when you consider that tomorrow's computer professionals start gaining experience in their teens, not in their twenties or thirties.
Have you read fuckedcompany.com lately?
Obviously not if you think tomorrow's computer "professionals" are in their teens. I suspect "teens" are the first ones laid off or the first ones to fuck their company. FC.com will attest to that.
I mean, come on: a teenager is a teenager. And a whiny, snivelling 23 year old with 6 months of "professional" experience is still a whiny, snivelly 23 year old, experience or no.
Don't fall into the "Hey, man, I'm 17 but I know whereof I speak." trap. You don't know whereof you speak if you're 17. It's just the facts. "Experience" is more than just on-the-job experience. It means maturity, awareness, and -- get this! -- wisdom.
Wisdom don't come at age 18. Wisdom barely comes at age 28 or 38 or 48. Some are wiser than others. But just because you've compiled your kernel a few times and fielded tech support calls from a couple of disgruntled users doesn't make you "wise".
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be absurd. Telocity hasn't "basically" gone under. (Can anyone tell me what the fuck the word "basically" means? Is it sorta like you're "basically" dead? Or you're "basically" hungry?)
Hughes bought ought Telocity. At the moment, they're doing fine. And you gotta hand it to them to be being John Wayne in the calvary group that tried to unfuck Northpoint subscribers. (I'm not entirely sure of their motives -- whether it was goodwill or shrewd business [or a mixture of both]) -- but I gotta tip my hat to 'em. They got some good press outta their failed charge and at least attempted to give the NP folks a reprieve.
So, no, they aren't "basically" going under.
I'm replying to my own message, but what the hell. Katz never seems to reply to *any* messages, so I'm merely compensating for lack for lack of Katzian input on this -- oh so very! -- proletarian message boards.
To my diatribe above, I would add this: the upshot to the "secure box" will be a complex (but legal! very, very legal!) matrix of agreements between Microsoft and various marketers in which MS pledges to give data generating by the secure box running Windows XP 2002.
The secure box will be the first, truly *low-cost* PC because it will be subisidized by money-hungry marketers desperate for data. (All of it encrypted, of course.) You think the anon TIVO data is bad, just wait until some cypherpunk decrypts the data stream to the markets that will be coming out of the ass of the secure box 24/7.
*This* will be the first salvo of the new privacy wars. And this will get ugly: MS will have popped its last gasp with the secure box. The fact that their encrypted marketing stream will be decrypted will be the beginning of the end for Microsoft.
The second thing I'll add is this: that all of this -- the secure box, the decrypting of the encrypted 24/7 marketing stream -- will herald the *true* computer revolution. And everything will start over. Fresh. It'll be like the TRS-80 Model I 4K Level I all over again.
The only thing all this is leading to -- and, no, it won't be in my lifetime -- is a computer rennaissance. It might be a revolution -- or, yeah, I suppose it might be a counter-revolution.
But what'll happen is that MS secure box running Windows XP 2002 will be so fucking secure that it will turn into a granite cube. (I'm serious. Maybe not granite -- but it'll turn from a "computer" into a "cube". Not the Mac cubes. I mean, it'll be so secure that it'll -- physically -- even be stripped of any identifying mark.)
And then people will start talking about computers again -- as if they'd forgotten about computers in the first place.
(I say this jokingly -- the idea of the granite cube -- but it would seem to me that at some point technology evolves so much that it actually starts regressing. And it will be after a full-scale regression that people will, once again, start talking about computers. They'll understand that something has happened -- that the secure box turning into the granite cube -- and has taken us full course. And, then, FINALLY! -- the computer revolution will begin.)
Well, there's two ways to interpret this "no access" policy.
The first is that it's not a requirement of WinXP per se but is instead a recommendation for builders like Dell and Gateway: that the ideal, low-cost, affordable "WinXP" box should be an all-in-one solution. As has been pointed out, this is probably good news for Dell and Gateway since obsolecence will happen much, much faster.
So it's not so much an ex cathedra pronouncement as it is a goal: make the box in such a way so that the user will get X months out of it and not worry about having to muss and fuss with video cards, sound cards, and nics. (I imagine this is way MS will spin it. They'll say that this "no-access" policy is actually a thing that their basic users have been wanting for a long time: "Hey, all we want is a low-cost computer to browse the web. We don't want to have to worry about added a sound card."
Moreover, the sentence here says that *end-users* won't have access. The alternate way of spinning this is that MS here is trying to throw some business over to those wonderful Best Buy tech wizards. Maybe MS is looking to create a series of "Authorized Service Centers" -- Best Buy, for example -- that can install all the sound-cards that the user wants. But, dammit, if you break this "seal" then you null-and-void your warranty. (Because, as you'll note, there are "no user servicable parts" inside.)
Obviously, this is a way to keep the WinXP experience "pure" -- sorta the same way that Apple tried to keep the "Macintosh" experience pure (at least in the early days) and, say, the way that TIVO attempts to deter folks from tinkering. (Obviously it hasn't worked in the case of Apple or TIVO, but that's never the point with these kinds of corporate dictums.)
THe second -- and certainly more sinister -- view is that this is the first murmur of the "secure box." MS is working on the "secure box" and it could be that their in the beginning stages of "molding the customer experience" away from the do-it-yourself box of today to the "all-in-one" box of the future -- complete with the RIAA, MPAA, and NSA (for crypto) stamps of approval.
I'm *sure* that MS is in fairly intense negotiations with the RIAA and MPAA (and probably the NSA, too) to begin crafting the specs of the secure box that will be most probably be released in 2002/2003. Signed drivers only, no analog outputs, secure video and audio paths.
My theory is that they'll position this as the "consumer box". Windows XP 2002 (or whatever it will be called) will only work on the "secure box". Authorized service centers will appear that will service the box. The "professional box" will be the computer that we're using now, but if you want to run Windows on it, you'll need the "professional" version of Windows XP 2002 which will be prohibitively expensive for the ordinary consumer. (It will probably cost more than the hardware itself and be subject to hefty licensing restrictions. In fact, MS might only offer Windows XP 2002 in some sort of corporate multi-pack. You will not be able to purchase 1 copy of Windows XP 2002 Professional.)
They'll also make sure that whatever new browser they release -- IE 7.0 -- will only run on the customer or pro versions of XP 2002. Users who continue to use Win2000 or WinME will find themselves unable to browse sites "optimized for IE 7.0". (MS will implement some wacky signing/bizarre crypto that forces non-MS browsers to either upgrade to the 'secure path' or stop browsing.)
Now here's the kicker. I'm almost positive this is what will happen within the next 12 months:
Ballmer -- around the time of the XBOX release -- plans to leverage the "complexity" of Linux (a blatant falsehood, but it will be something that we'll hear more of once we start hearing about Windows XP 2002 -- the "Next Generation of Net") and will force ordinary users to choose between the all-in-one MS "secure box" or the more "complex" Linux option. Ballmer won't denigrate Linux, but he'll gradually shift his spin to indicate that, yeah, Linux is an option. It will always be an option. But we at MS have the monopoly on the low-cost, easy-to-use compute r-- our secure PC running XP 2002. Sure, go ahead and get Linux. But why? It's complex, unwiedly, and cannot be easily supported. (Again, all of this isn't true, but this is the direction of future FUD: complexity. There might also be a salvo of FUD -- and this is trickier -- which will focus on the "legality" of the secure PC running XP 2002. Copyright violators will be targetted, and part of the allure of the secure MS pc will be that it will be the "legal" choice. Mom's and Dad's: don't worry that that your kids will get arrested. Get a secure PC and we guarantee that they'll be safe. This will tie into MS's positioning of themselves as a friendlier, "family" option.)
It will be interesting to see how XBOX fits into the scheme here, but my guess will be that somehow it will be the "satellite" PC -- the main PC in the home will be the secure box running XP 2002 with some sort of secure datapath going to and from the XBOX which will -- in two years -- turn into a dumb terminal since most homes will have several XBOXen, all of which will communicate with the secure-box.
It's ironic that the problems currently facing the centralized communication networks -- the baby bells, I mean -- are exactly the sort of problems that the 'de-centralized' internet (assuming the 'internet' is the content flowing over the networks) was supposed to solve.
It's also becoming increasingly interesting -- to say the least -- to see how centralized networks (or, more specifically, corporations whose livelihoods depend on the centralization of their resources) cannot -- under any circumstances -- co-exist with de-centralized users or content.
De-centralized 'content' threatens the centralized 'form'.
Katz, are you listening?
Anyway, here's the link (as provided by one of the stories below):
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 18919,00.html
And here's the link to Liberty Media:
http://www.thestandard.com/companies/display/0,206 3,51395,00.html
And, yes, I see that Barton's foundation "shills for no corporate interest," but if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'll sell ya, real cheap. It's not possible these days to claim that you "shill for no corporate interest." Take away the corporations and what's left? Well, America's Christian right, of course. :) (LOL -- just kidding. Well, not really. The fundamentalists are as manipulative as the corporate stooges.)
Now, maybe Barton is really good guy and grew to, ya know (wink wink), "despise the role of corporations in the current media" and that's why he "had to go it alone and start up the privacy foundation." (I'm making these quotes up, but they sound like something a former corporate talking head might say in order to funnel donations and startup capital into his new -- and, of course! -- morally "just" enterprise. "Dammit, Jim, privacy is key! All our children will be destroyed! I must do something about it! I must take my, er, platinum parachute from this evil corporation and, um, do something for the common good! Now, um, where is that common good? Who do I talk to?")
I'm no journalist. Just an angry critic of media -- and corporate -- manipulation.
Hey, here's a question: if the DoubleClick (or TIVO, whatever) data is actually *worth* something -- in whatever currency you choose to define -- how come DoubleClick is on the verge of bankruptcy? (At least according to fuckedcompany.com which, yes, is not the most reliable source).
My point here being this: that if all this data -- the TIVO data and web data in general -- is so valuable: why can't companies who use it actually stay afloat?
I mean, why don't we see this data manifest itself into something tangible? (Maybe the data is manifesting itself, but because I have (admittedly) fairly nearly tunnel-vision -- maybe I can't see it. Fair enough. But has anyone done a study to actually demonstrate that, yes, data *is* worth something?)
Don't get me wrong. Privacy is very important. My quibble isn't with privacy.
My quibble is with the assumption that this data that we're gathering is, according to all these privacy web "foundations" is actually worth something? What is it worth? Can anyone measure it? Can anyone prove that my "click habits" can actually be aggregated into some hard currency used to fund the coffers of corporations?
Ultimately, where does this data end up? I mean, is the end result some e-mail database used by spammers to carpet-bomb email recipients with "re: The Information You Requested" emails?
I'm starting to wonder about this. Katz, are you listening? How about an editorial on the "real" worth of web data.
Where's the worth? The value? Is it valuable because we assume its valuable? Is this data actually charting the course for new technology? Or is just an asset -- much like the espresso machine in the break room or the foosball table in the seldom used 'rec room' -- that exists only on paper and has 'value' only when these companies hit the crapper?
That's the real issue: someone -- this damn privacy corporation, for example -- needs to assess the "value" of this shit before they go off and send their short press releases to every news media outlet about the *danger* of something.
Don't you need to define the actual value -- cultural value, economic value, whatever -- before you start decrying the collection practices of accumulating all this data? Does the collection itself contribute to the danger? (Yes, I suppose it does, and that's what has the privacy advocates worried. But there's another step -- and that's the *use* of the data. And then there's yet one more step: whether or not the use actually enhances the value.)
Well, here's a newsflash: it's not surprising because TIVO has said for the past two years that they've been doing this.
It's no mystery, never has been a mystery, and is only a mystery to those odd privacy foundation folks who -- after two years of TIVO -- suddenly cracked open their TIVO manual and read that, yes indeed, TIVO collects and aggregates usage statistics.
I love it when "foundations" underwrite studies in order to garner publicity. Their so-called "studies" -- or press releases, whatever you want to call them -- always ride the crest of this week's current "hysterical trend."
The question we should be asking -- and no, I haven't checked their web page yet -- is who, exactly, is this foundation? What corporation has them in their pocket? (They wouldn't be involved with Microsoft, would they? I mean, MS would love to indirectly spread TIVO FUD -- indirectly, you'll notice I say -- because their oft-delayed Ultimate TV will very shortly make its way into pipelines.)
Maybe they aren't affiliated with MS at all, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit. Likewise, it wouldn't surprise me if this place gets funding from the core foundations of the American "right" -- the NRA, the various Christian fundamentalist groups, or whatever non-profit "moral authority" is the flavor of the day.
("Hey, video games are what causes the school shootings! And, TIVO, by god, it's on a video screen -- and it sorta plays like a game -- so you bet, we don't like TIVO either. It's just proof that the private button presses of our gun-carrying members are used to further the left's 'liberal' agenda!" "MegaDittos, Rush! MegaDitto's to you from Spokane!" "MegaDittos from Newport News! MetaDittos from New Mexico!" "All hail Mom, Apple Pie, shotguns, and Rush Limbaugh! Because, as you know, this country was founded on freedom: the freedom to carry guns, blow shit up, and read the bible!")
The interesting thing about online ads -- and a topic I've never heard anyone talk about is the problem of the "failed click-through."
I don't usually click on the ads, but occasionally -- say, for ThinkGeek, or for another company I've actually bought stuff from -- I click an ad. But what happens next is usually the step the prevents me from *ever* clicking on it again: because of the machinations necessary to record the click in the database, set a cookie (or whatever), and then, finally, actually go to the site, I've found that oftentimes I'm greeted with a blank screen -- the database is waiting for an opening for an insert, the site for the company that plants the cookie is down, whatever.
The result is that more often than not, when I do choose to click, I don't actually *get to the fucking place I'm wanting to give my business to*.
And no, it's not just my connection or my browser. I've had this happen at work, at home, you name it.
Even Slashdot is guilty of this. Occasionally, as I say, I click on the ThinkGeek ad, only to be witness to an *inordinate* delay: something is loading, something is waiting, something is not routing properly.
It's fucked. And it pisses me off. I mean (and I say this to these companies who think that advertising the be-all and end-all of their business model) if you have the ads, make damn sure they work. Make damn sure your databases are working. Make damn sure the code is debugged.
Don't just assume that because your "ad-rotator" was designed by Biff the Bohemian in Perl/PHP/ASP/Cold Fusion that Biff the Bohemian knows how to *guarantee* you that the ad will provide the clicker (me, goddammit) with the result that I expect.
And, yeah, I won't even rant about absurd paradox that goes along with advertising, the advertising model, and sites that depend upon it -- that you cannot, no matter how much you cross your fingers, toes, and wish upon all the stars in the sky -- make a revenue upon a thing -- advertising -- that people simply don't like. I don't know anyone who likes ads. Even the good ads -- the odd new Webvan ads or the fucking sock puppets -- are tiresome after two viewing. (Take the Webvan ad, for example. The Dogma 95 handheld digital camera, a person in room, washed out color. "I want to take a nap but I need diapers." It works once. Maybe twice. But when you're inundated with it -- and with many others -- it ceases to function. It becomes a parody of itself. It becomes tiresome. ("Hey, man, it's 'Think Differently' not 'Think Different!'") I mean, how many 60's counter-cultural rock and rollers will sell their anthems to the fucked up new latinate-sounding companies with their goofy spellings and dumb middle-managers? Cingular? Verizon? Accenture? These are absurd names. Absurd, one, because they *sound* absurd. But absurd, two, because they sound *absurdly manufactured.* Okay, yeah, I'll agree out of work PhDs need a place to go -- and those companies that manufacture the names are as good as any place for a lazy PhD to sit and plant him or herself for a year, but, please, enough already. Enough with the wonky ads. The wonky names. The wonky revenue models. The wonky Katzian predictions of a revolution that IS NOT A FUCKING REVOLUTION.
Enough, enough.
Enough with the digital encryption. With the self-destructing files. With Napster. Fuck NAPSTER! It's goddamn useless now! Enough with Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti. Enough with Bluematter and (another stupid fucking name) and their stupid encrytion. Enough with the fucking clueless middle managers who think that because they have an MBA they actually have a clue. One does not go with the other, Bri ("Hey, my name's Brian, but you can call me, Bri. I'm a middle manager!") Enough with Motorola, Lucent, 3COM, and whoever else it is this hour -- this minute -- who will declare that they won't meet revenue expectations. Enough with cable and DSL and personal firewalls and Zone Alarm and Black Ice.
And enough with Telocity. ("You ain't seen nothing yet? How about this: we get acquired by Hughes and fire our management. Patti Hart, CEO, oh where are you can you go now that you've so royally screwed up customers so that they can't even *CANCEL* your "broadband" without still getting charged?") Enough with Bell Atlantic. Verizon. Ameritech. SBC.
Enough with Rhythms, Covad, and Northpoint. Face it, you'll all be giving your departing CEO's millions of dollars so that their platinum parachutes can land far, far away from wherever it is your nose cone burrows itself so far underground that it's gonna take the sorry Ameritech's and Sprint's to start excavating the messes you've caused.
Enough, enough, enough. ENOUGH!
Um, Slashdot?
many viewpoints giving wrong information, or one viewpoint giving correct information?
Neither.
That's my point. What's happening now with the net is that we have many viewpoints giving "wrong" information -- whatever "wrong" may mean -- and one viewpoint (i.e. traditional press) giving "wrong" information. It's the same old story of the "pre-net" days -- that
My point, I suppose, is that information itself -- "right" information or "wrong" information -- is only part of the equation. Humans are the other part of the equation. What they "do" with the information is the way in which, ultimately, the information should be evaluted.
Ironically, computers -- or the Katzian "net revolution" affect -- are nowhere to be found. The "net" is a carrier for the information. It may be more efficient than pre-net days, or, you might argue, it may be *less* efficient than "pre-net" days. But the net is the net.
But, IMHO, the "net" -- how I hate that term -- doesn't form the central part of the argument. Humans are still the crucial agents of action -- the real actors in the play. The center of the equation remains the politics and economic policy of the State (any state, any country). It's how humans use the net that matters. (The question, though is this: will nations allow the actors to implement the "props" in a way that weakens the impact of the theater? The actors (and props) will always be controlled by the director -- the state.)
The real revolution -- or, I suppose, the counter-revoltion -- will occur when the actors achieve a sort of meta-awareness of the "stage" -- the field upon which they've been placed -- and a "meta-awareness" of the props -- the tools that they've been given to use upon their field. The counterrevolution will occur when actors achieve a singular awareness that the tools -- or props, whatever -- can be used in ways other than those proscribed by the state.
I don't know enough to know if what I'm positing is some sort of fucked up socialist revolution or if it's just a more "critical" capitalism in which the actors use their props in specific ways in order to routinely undermine (or, perhaps, to "check and balance") the state. The actors are still on the stage, the props are still the props, but there's an awareness of the props-as-props, the stage-as-stage, and the actors-as-actors.
Well, yes and no.
I'll agree with the idea of "monolithic" coverage. Yes, old-school press and news outlets have been monolithic in their coverage for years and years.
But I disagree with your essential assertion that the internet engenders a more "polylithic" (or, I suppose, "polyphonic") view -- and is (ergo) better.
I mean, yeah, many viewpoints are better than one viewpoint -- you can argue this successfully -- but many viewpoints don't necessarily get us any closer to the "truth" -- or, more realistically, don't *necessarily* approach a heightened or a more critical understanding of the specific events in which we hope to *approach truth*.
It is here -- that many voices aren't necessarily better than one voice -- where I differ with many of the critics (Katz included) that call this sort of thing a "revolution."
The polyphony engendered by the internet is (I suppose) a necessary condition of heightened critical awareness but it's not a sufficient condition. It doesn't (by itself) guarantee we're getting "better" or "clearer" or more "critical" information on -- to use your example -- the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
What many critics fail to mention, I think, is that the *people who utilize the net* must develop a "critical awareness" above and beyond the information gathering abilities that the net allows We must be able to sort through the polyphony of voices and determine our own version of "truth" or at least determine the actions that we must take to lead us closer to "truth."
This is why I think that, yes, the net is nifty and all that -- but the burden still rests on the individual. Perhaps it partly rests upon the state or the nation to support the individual in his or her "mission to glean the truth." I don't know. I suspect that is dangerous.
But to imply that just because the net offers many voices we should embrace the net is, IMHO, a wrong headed reading of the "net revolution."
I think Katz's series, moreover, is flawed from the get-go. I don't understand his notion of "revolution." What, exactly, is the net "revolting" against? How do we differentiate revolution from evolution? And what if the net is actually a "counterrevolution?"
What if the revolution actually exists *outside* of the "internet" and is in fact the triumph of capitalism and the triumph of corporations to control the state?
What if the "net" is actually some sort of "socialist" counter-revolution that threatens to undermine the fundamental tenets of global capitalization? (It threatens, for example, to make extinct the notion of "intellectual property." I mean, really: just what is "intellectual property?" It's not a natural right. Where does our notion of "intellectual property" actually come from?)
Katz, do you even *read* the comments posted to your articles?
... well, what? ... information? I don't know.
Several days ago, for example. Numerous posters took you to task (myself included) for talking about all this stuff as if it's "revolutionary" or in some way indicate a "revolution."
For my particular take on your misreading of Hannah Arendt, see: Katz at his worst.
The problem with your rhetoric -- both here and in your previous story -- is that it lacks essential content. Do you even know what you mean -- nevermind Arendt -- when you say "revolution." Do you understand the social, cultural, and economic forces that drive a "revolution?"
If so, please explain. Please explain the Katzian version of "revolution". I mean, for chrissake Katz, *everyone* says the "net is a revolution." Hell, we oughta get a gigantic pair of those chattering teeth on top of the White House that say nothing but: "The web is a revolution. The web is a revolution."
What, exactly, is the web revolting *against*? The answer is nothing. The web is evolving, yes. But culture is also *evolving.* How do you separate the two? What makes the evolution of the "net" particularly *revolutionary?*
My answer? Nothing. There's nothing remotely *revolutionary* about the net. It's become a puppet to corporations and a vast landscape of, well, the same stuff that makes up the vast landscape of culture: information, bits and pieces of this and that, and, yes, an occasionally stellar piece of
Sometimes, yeah, you get what you need through the web. You're looking for a good price on a computer, you go to the web, and BAM! there it is: A GOOD PRICE ON A COMPUTER.
Fair enough.
But is this revolutionary? Is this changing culture in a particularly vital and particular way? No, of course it's not. Why? Because I can go down to my local store and find a good price on a computer. The only difference is that with one form of purchase I can sit at my desk and with the other form of purchase I actually have to go outside.
So, what then: the net is "revolutionizing" our physical modes of travel? Either way I get the computer. Either way I probably get the same price. The only difference is that with one I must move my physical body more than six inches.
Wow. What a revolution.
Yes, that's a silly example. But it's not far off. Tell me what's "revolutionary" about the web? Or even about technology? I look and see people earning money, doing jobs, having babies, families, marrying, dying -- no different than in those dark "pre-web" days.
I see a lot of businesses with dumb business plans and even dumber executives. (Ever read the 'Organization Man', Katz?)
You're talking like you're still gee-whized by all this web stuff. And, yeah, if you still are "gee-whized" by this stuff, fine. You're entitled to your gee-whizziness. But, please -- and this goes for all the rest of the so-called "visionaries" or (as they probably prefer to be called) the "cultural critics" be careful and canny with your analyses. Why? Because you're essentially picking out odd specifics to highlight, what? -- the same culture that's always existed and that is now (as was then) always *evolving* -- but revolting? No. I'm not convinced. Who are the revolutionaries? The tech guys? The web developers?
Please. Give me a break. They're hacks like everyone else. We're all hacks. That's not a bad thing, see. But that's not *revolutionary*. And least not in the context that Katz is providing.
"Gee whiz! Look at all this! PRetty soon we'll all be travelling in spaceships! There will be no more hunger! No more war! No more conflict!"
Yeah, but if they do find this out, they won't publish the results or allow the results to be published by a third party. (I'm thinking here of the story last week that MS SQL runs faster on NT than on 2000 but that MS won't let the professor publish his findings.)
I hate to say this, but this is Katz at his future-mongering worst. What he fails to address is the dominant (and ruthlessly efficient) role of corporations in the "revolution."
h over-cars. This is about corporate control over nearly every single aspect of our lives. The corporations are controlling technological evolution in order to decimate any semblance of technological revolutions.
This isn't about the gee-whiz-in-the-year-2002-we'll-all-be-flying-in-
It's ironic you quote Arendt, Katz. I wonder if the "revolution" she isn't talking about isn't the Nazi's and their totalitarian regime -- made all the more efficient thanks to IBM and their Holerith counting machines. (See Black's new book, 'IBM and the Holocaust' for more info. Very interesting read. Katz, how about you write about this -- about the way in which corporations put profits above and beyond anything else? What sort of "revolution" is that?)
The net hasn't "revolutionized" anything. Don't kid yourself. The "net" that Katz is talking about -- the "revolution" that he's touting -- is just a veil for ruthless efficiency conducted by corporations at expense of *people* and their fundamental, human rights.
Pretty soon instead of fretting over the "separation of church and state" we'll be worrying -- and debating amendments -- that talk about the separation of "Microsoft and state."
How much longer until corporate sponsored "war squads" will descend upon copyright violators, circumventing whatever "legalities" are in their way?
I can certainly imagine a scenario where a corporation -- RIAA or Microsoft, for example -- frustrated with the slow legal process of finding and then prosecuting copyright violators decides to covertly sponsor a Delta Force-like "tactical copyright squad" to go in and eliminate the copyright violations.
I started to think about this a few stories back when folks were talking about the possibility of placing OpenNap servers on SeaLand. You *know* that this would piss off the RIAA to no end -- just as the lengthy legal process with Napster is probably causing the RIAA execs considerable pain and suffering -- and I can certainly imagine a scenario where the RIAA (covertly) would sponsor, say, a tactical copyright squad to go in and destroy the OpenNap servers on SeaLand.
It seems to me that this isn't that far fetched or "conspiratorial" -- I mean, these tactical copyright squads would have training and equipment backed with the millions and millions of dollars of the corporations. Sort of the BlackOps of today's global corporations. And -- it wouldn't surprise me one bit -- if governments (America, British, Candadian, Australian, etc. etc.) would assist with sponsoring the ops.
They would do in 15 minutes what would take 8-12 months in an American courtroom.
I mean, come on, that's what all this is leading to. For chrissake, self-destructing MP3 files? Give me a fucking break. I would never purchase a file that contained the implied threat of "self destructing" if it falls in the wrong hands.
I got 2000+ books at home. Books I can Xerox, read on a train, read on an airplane. I can carry it around in a gym bag and not have to worry about it "blowing up" if it's viewed on the wrong computer or "tampered with." What, I decide to scribble in the margin of volume 2 of Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" and then have to contend with the reality that because I "tampered with the text" I must then relinquish ownership and watch it self-destruct?
It's craziness. Mark my words. Ten years from now. We'll be hearing stories about "corporate BlackOps". Copyright squads. This is what all those black helicopters are. They're corporate-sponsored "Information Fighters."
The danger isn't that the Taleban is blowing up the Buddhas. The danger isn't the guns in our schools or the rage on our roadways.
The danger is the corporations. They've got this fucked up notion that what they produce is more important than anything else -- more important than even the people who consume their productions.
Obviously, the route to go would be open source. But according this morning's WebSite mailing list, this might be a problem. It seems that the software is still copyrighted by the original author.
So apparently the only way this could go OS would be if the original author agreed to it. And, according to the most recent WS mailing list at least, this is yet to be determined. (The common wisdom at this point that, yes, if WS goes OS then the author will forgo future profits.)
It's a shame. IIRC correctly, the original version of WebSite came bubdled with Cold Fusion 1.0. Now, I know there are a lot of CF detractors out there (spare me, I've heard all the anti-CF stories) it was -- in the early days of the web -- a killer combo -- WS and CF.
But wait ... the real news today is John Ritter's ballsac.
That's right -- no kidding -- see the story on MSNBC news: about how in an old episode of Three's Company, John Ritter's scrotum popped out of his pants.
My question is this: which is more dangerous? Napster trafficking in copyrighted materials or a flash of ritter's ballsack popping (and broadcast, I might add, on Nickolodean)?
As a parent, I think it's most definitely the latter. Screw the RIAA. I want the MPAA -- or the TV guys -- to bear down on 'Three's Company' and *rate it properly.* If one day I sit down with my future TIVO with the VCHIP I want to know that my young son (or daughter) can't see ritter's sac flop out from between the fly flap in a pair of loose-fitting skivvies!
This is such a fucked up world.
Patents are not about who is right, or who is first; patents are about who can sue.
Yes, and are therefore about dominance: or, rather, about reinforcing the *idea* (or *ideas*) of the dominant class -- about upholding the hegemony, in other words.
Maybe this is what "law" and "legality" is all about anyway: upholding the dominant social ideas by reinforcing their dominance through society itself, but it does make one (me, at least) particularly cynical towards the monied classes.
That's not to say that I abhor capitalism or those with clear profit-motives (generally those who are in power, in other words) -- I don't. I see capitalism and for-profit interests as a necessary and driving force in (western) culture.
But what galls me is the *methods* that those in power use to exploit and leverage (i.e. exert their power over those less powerful -- the MPAA and their high falutin' legal guns over sites like 2600.org) their hegemonic advantage. And for what? Why are they doing this? Not just for profits. That's a given. (And that's okay -- to a point). But to make sure that their power is not stripped away, usurped, or displaced. Their doing this in order to fulfill their notion of *how things should be* and therefore fulfilling their notions of how things *ought* to be.
It's a self-propelling 80 ton motor car heading down a highway with no chance of being stopped. All those who attempt to slow or stop the car are assimilated into the very car that they are attempting to stop.
IIRC, there was a "doom shell": your processes were represented as monsters and it was possible to kill them. I remember the story here on Slashdot.
You could walk through the file system and everything was if you were walking through a doom game. Very clever.
Well, and remember this: that the idea of "copyright" was not created in order to protect a monopoly or to make the copyright holders "rich".
The essence of copyright was that it was devised to promote the robust dissemination of information by compensating artists for their work. And -- as if that weren't enough -- the idea of "copyright" was that it was *limited* protection.
It's time Boies starts harping on this, too. The RIAA (and everyone else) is using "copyright" as a shield to legally (or, I suppose, illegally) construct monopolistic, monolithic conglomerates. That's not what "copyright" is about. Never has been but -- because of Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti -- is clear that that's what it is becoming.
"Copyright" is yet another example of corporate exploitation. (As if we need another.)
Sorta like the absurd comments last week about the "dangers" of "open source" and how it threatens "intellectual property."
Come on, stop and think: *intellectual property*? What kind of capitalistic, corporate oxymoron is that? It's absurd and every day grows more so.
I used to write off RMS just like everyone else. But then I started to actually listen to what he was saying, and realized that he's right.
It pains me to say this, but RMS is right only in the same way that Freud was "right" or Marx was "right" or Rousseau was "right".
I *like* RMS's rhetoric. And, yeah, I *do* believe he is fighting the good fight -- a fight that needs someone leading the charge. And I don not believe (as some posters suggest) that he ought to tone down the rhetoric and start thinking "strategically." (Which is shorthand for saying he ought to think in "business" terms instead of theoretical terms. I think the way we view "business" is part of the problem -- so I urge RMS *not* to tone down but instead to stay the course.)
That said, I'll say this: the problem with RMS's worldview is that he's espousing an ideology that's particularly dogmatic. The end result -- apart from the ability to "write off" RMS the same way one could "write off" Marx and Freud (by thinking, in other words, in purely "business" terms) -- is that like any ideological argument, its force to sway and persuade relies primarily on its ability to undermine the current, contemporary "prevailing wisdom". His argument remains strong so long as it remains a "minority view" -- a single voice from within the wilderness.
But as soon as the current power structure shifts -- however and wherever that shift might occur -- RMS is obligated to shift his mechanisms of persusaion, dogmatism, and ideology. If he fails -- and (to put it crudely) harps on the same old shit over and over again -- he *will* become a laughing stock and his argument, while perhaps skillfully constructed, will no longer carry any persusasive sway. He'll be relegated to "just another socialist wannabe" or "someone who espoused good ideas and fought the good fight but was eclipsed by the times." Sorta like Marx, in other words. Frued, too. He'll become historical (but no less historic, I suppose.)
No one can deny the elegance and energy of, say, Marx. But today we always (or, most always) read 'Captial' in a very compartimentalized historial context. We read 'Capital' because we're curious about the way in which Marx puts his own spin on Hegel's dialectic. We read it because it is a unique document borne out of a specific and very important time -- the industrial revolution. Be we don't -- or at least we ought not to -- read Marx as revolutionary dogma. We *could*, of course. We're certainly free to choose to do so. But if do, we run the risk of ignore the very historical forces that we're supposed to critique.
This is actually a fantastic question: what was the first open source project?
The Iliad? Gilgamesh? Perhaps.
But I wonder if, in fact, the first *sanctioned* open source project -- a project with the same sort of "hierarchical blessing structure" that the current OS movements has -- might not be the compilation of the old and new testaments. (There might be better non-western examples -- if so, please let me know, as I'm curious about the whole hierarchical structure with promotes the cyclical path of authorship and interpretation -- canon formation, in other words. The Koran, maybe? It, like the biblical texts, was "dictated to" Mohammed by a 'divine' voice, but I'm not sure of how its actual formation -- its life after dictation -- came to be.)
There are debates about the Iliad. While it's true, they probably *are not* the result of just one author, we don't know enough about either to pin down the structure of their composition. Obviously, the Iliad was primarily oral -- a song, perhaps, or a long poem meant to be spoken/sung -- but I'm not sure if we know how what has come to be accepted as the official text actually came to *be* the 'official' text.
The quote is odd. My guess it was some strange off the cuff remark that's not contextualized.
He doesn't make a causal link between the dangers of open source and the demise of intellectual property.
He seems to be implying that a commodity such as an "operating system" loses its "value" (and remember, there's more to value than just a price tag) if it's open and free.
And from this I assume (making an ass of u and me, of course) such a reduction in value means that "intellectual property" is weakened and therefore endangered.
In a sense, this is plausible. I mean, sure, why not? But it seems to me that the whole argument rests on (a) your definition of "intellectual property" and (b) your idea of what constitutes "value".
I mean, let's face it: MS employees (and MS in general) operates on an entirely different world-view than does open source and its advocates. Neither purely exist to promote "goodness" in its pure essence. But I think it's safe to say that MS's priorities are quite different than the priorities of open source advocates. (I'm not saying one is better -- I'm saying that their means and ends are different.)
So the real complaint of this guy -- the MS hotshot who made the quote -- isn't that open source weakens property it's that open source weakens the *value of MS intellectual property.*
But what this guy doesn't understand is that from a non-MS perspective this isn't a bad thing. It means that MS has to compete. It means they can't just walk over the gameboard with their size 14 shoes, kick the pieces across the room, and then go into their bedroom and lock the door.
Isn't this the sort of thinking that went into the creation of the internet in the first place? The idea of a decentralized network, etc. etc.
Maybe Gnutella needs to take the meta-internet approach. A "new" internet on top of the current internet?
(I dunno. I ask because I'm curious. How is Gnutella in general different than the internet in particular?)
Have you read fuckedcompany.com lately?
Obviously not if you think tomorrow's computer "professionals" are in their teens. I suspect "teens" are the first ones laid off or the first ones to fuck their company. FC.com will attest to that.
I mean, come on: a teenager is a teenager. And a whiny, snivelling 23 year old with 6 months of "professional" experience is still a whiny, snivelly 23 year old, experience or no.
Don't fall into the "Hey, man, I'm 17 but I know whereof I speak." trap. You don't know whereof you speak if you're 17. It's just the facts. "Experience" is more than just on-the-job experience. It means maturity, awareness, and -- get this! -- wisdom.
Wisdom don't come at age 18. Wisdom barely comes at age 28 or 38 or 48. Some are wiser than others. But just because you've compiled your kernel a few times and fielded tech support calls from a couple of disgruntled users doesn't make you "wise".