This guy's views are not just hard to support, they're downright psychotic. Here's a summary:
He equates copyright infringement with theft.
He characterizes current technology as "offering comfort to hackers, spies, pirates and pedophiles."
He says that if intellectual property is not respected, the Internet will "suffer the fate of the buffalo", and "wither and die like the Hantavirus".
He claims to know about technology that can "trace every Internet download and tag every file."
He defines anonymity as meaning "being able to get away with stealing, or hacking..."
and then he gets really crazy.....
Allowing anonymity on the internet "would undermine the very basis of our civilized society".
The widespread copyright infringement of Napster users "is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery." [The musicians being the "slaves", I guess.]
The current dangerous anarchy of the internet, like the equally unjust Soviet Union, "will crack, crumble and collapse."
He declares war on the Internet, for its own good, and compares it to World War II. If only the forces of Copyright can bring "enough men and women, weaponry and money" to bear against the Internet, as the Allies did against Nazi Germany, then the world will be once again made safe.
I read the discussion linked to -- thanks for the info. It's too bad that a full response from IJ Good did not appear.
Unfortunately, I think there is too much misinformation and potential deception out there for me to decide which of the available evidence to trust. It's even more of a mess than the whole "global warming" debate. Too difficult to measure directly, and too many reasons for both sides of the debate to deceive themselves to trust indirect reports. But I'll take a look at Radin's book...
This development has nothing to do with "controlling your mind" or even reading your thoughts.
They're claiming that by really, really _wishing_ that a random number generator will output more ones than zeros, you can make it happen.
Now of course they also claim that this effect does not diminish at all with distance. Presumably, several thousand people all doing this at once would have an even stronger effect. So, everybody reading slashdot, lets all use the power of our collective consciousness to make PEAR's random number generators spell out "FIRST POST". Visualize!
I wouldn't take this at face value. PEAR has been claiming these results for years and nobody else seems able to duplicate them.
Check out http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980515S0019 . Brenda Dunne, PEAR manager, is quoted extensively and comes off sounding like she is trying to sell the most alarmist ideas that can be made to sound plausible. So it seems to my reading.
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the results when she says things like "Or what about the guy in a missile silo, watching the output of a radar detector hour after hour" when there is no evidence whatsoever that such a system might be affected in any way by the phenomena PEAR is describing -- I mean, that tendancy to automatically assume the likelihood of such extreme hypothetical situations from insufficient evidence (or in this case no direct evidence) is very dangerous when you're researching this kind of barely detectable and scientifically far-out result. Its exactly that sort of attitude that can mislead one into seeing something that's not there -- concentrating on "what might be true if only this works" before you've really established that it does work.
Anyway. Maybe it is for real, but then again maybe it's not. Be sure to have better evidence than has been presented here before you make up your mind....
There's no doubt that Robert deNiro's character in Brazil is in many ways a hacker. You might argue that there are other revolutionary outlaw archetypes that might fit the description just as well, but I can't think of any.
To start with, there's the fact that he happens to be a highly expert engineer who likes to get down to the nuts and bolts of the dominant technology of the day. Is that not enough? Well then...
A hacker enjoys coming up with elegant solutions to technical problems. ie. when Harry Tuttle fixes the heating system by bypassing one simple part where the official tech support guys would be re-installing the whole damn system.
A hacker plays mischevious pranks by using the technology in ways it wasn't designed for, ie. what HT does to the Central Services guys when they do show up.
A hacker tends to care more about getting the job done, and having fun doing it, than following all the rules and regulations. He'd rather not bother with form no. 27B-6, thank-you-very-much.
A good hacker knows how to take precautions and not get caught when he's doing something that might get him in trouble... Harry Tuttle's silent and sudden dissapearance into the night is what many hackers aim for.
Hackers are often seen by the authorities as a dangerous criminal terrorist outlaws who must be stopped....
Various attributes are associated with "hackers", and de Niro's character in Brazil exemplifies them all. If it wasn't intentional, then perhaps it was an independant invention based on the possibilities of an information society, but in any case the parallels are too strong to deny.
It just goes to show that there are a few clueless, illiterate, Outlook-using newbies on any mailing list, even one like this where you'd expect people to be at least somewhat experienced with the net...
My favourites are always the people who post messages to tell everyone else to stop posting messages.
Consumer "piracy" with VCR's and cassette tapes was/is not so uncommon as you make it out to be. Trading cassette tapes (of Aerosmith, INXS, etc) was very popular back when I was in high school. I don't know much about VHS trading, but I frequently see it going on, and there are web sites where you can trade or buy everything from the Max Headroom series to Little Lulu cartoons.
I agree that the analogy of Napster to previous devices is somewhat flawed, but not for that reason.
The difference with Napster is that thanks to its network architecture, it's much more visible and accessible - that's the whole point of the way it's built.
In principle it's not all that different than email networks of people who trade VHS, cassettes and DAT's. It's just way more efficient and easy to find.
It seems obvious to you that your "simple economics" is correct, equally obvious to others that it is directly opposed to common sense.
I make no judgement one way or the other.
But I do want to point out that your example is very weak.
Even to the extent that the lack of software development in China is related to the strength of "intellectual property" controls there, it can not be considered in isolation. Perhaps if they did not have all that marvelous software to import and copy from the USA, they would write their own, even in the absensce of IP enforcement.
Also; it is far from clear that the reason for Chinese people on average produce very little computer software isn't simply that they don't have the kind of pervasive computing infrastructure that we in North America enjoy. Something like >50% of American homes have at least one PC in them. I doubt China can make the same claim.
The analogy to barriers to entry in heavy industry also fails. "Historically", if what you suggest is true, there has been no barrier to plagiarism. What you describe is a barrier to production. Software is different in that it is being treated as a product, not a means of production.
Slashdot Mirror
and then he gets really crazy.....
I read the discussion linked to -- thanks for the info. It's too bad that a full response from IJ Good did not appear.
Unfortunately, I think there is too much misinformation and potential deception out there for me to decide which of the available evidence to trust. It's even more of a mess than the whole "global warming" debate. Too difficult to measure directly, and too many reasons for both sides of the debate to deceive themselves to trust indirect reports. But I'll take a look at Radin's book...
This development has nothing to do with "controlling your mind" or even reading your thoughts.
They're claiming that by really, really _wishing_ that a random number generator will output more ones than zeros, you can make it happen.
Now of course they also claim that this effect does not diminish at all with distance. Presumably, several thousand people all doing this at once would have an even stronger effect. So, everybody reading slashdot, lets all use the power of our collective consciousness to make PEAR's random number generators spell out "FIRST POST".
Visualize!
I wouldn't take this at face value. PEAR has been claiming these results for years and nobody else seems able to duplicate them.
9 . Brenda Dunne, PEAR manager, is quoted extensively and comes off sounding like she is trying to sell the most alarmist ideas that can be made to sound plausible. So it seems to my reading.
Check out http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980515S001
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the results when she says things like "Or what about the guy in a missile silo, watching the output of a radar detector hour after hour" when there is no evidence whatsoever that such a system might be affected in any way by the phenomena PEAR is describing -- I mean, that tendancy to automatically assume the likelihood of such extreme hypothetical situations from insufficient evidence (or in this case no direct evidence) is very dangerous when you're researching this kind of barely detectable and scientifically far-out result. Its exactly that sort of attitude that can mislead one into seeing something that's not there -- concentrating on "what might be true if only this works" before you've really established that it does work.
Anyway. Maybe it is for real, but then again maybe it's not. Be sure to have better evidence than has been presented here before you make up your mind....
There's no doubt that Robert deNiro's character in Brazil is in many ways a hacker. You might argue that there are other revolutionary outlaw archetypes that might fit the description just as well, but I can't think of any.
...
To start with, there's the fact that he happens to be a highly expert engineer who likes to get down to the nuts and bolts of the dominant technology of the day. Is that not enough? Well then...
A hacker enjoys coming up with elegant solutions to technical problems. ie. when Harry Tuttle fixes the heating system by bypassing one simple part where the official tech support guys would be re-installing the whole damn system.
A hacker plays mischevious pranks by using the technology in ways it wasn't designed for, ie. what HT does to the Central Services guys when they do show up.
A hacker tends to care more about getting the job done, and having fun doing it, than following all the rules and regulations. He'd rather not bother with form no. 27B-6, thank-you-very-much.
A good hacker knows how to take precautions and not get caught when he's doing something that might get him in trouble... Harry Tuttle's silent and sudden dissapearance into the night is what many hackers aim for.
Hackers are often seen by the authorities as a dangerous criminal terrorist outlaws who must be stopped.
Various attributes are associated with "hackers", and de Niro's character in Brazil exemplifies them all. If it wasn't intentional, then perhaps it was an independant invention based on the possibilities of an information society, but in any case the parallels are too strong to deny.
It just goes to show that there are a few clueless, illiterate, Outlook-using newbies on any mailing list, even one like this where you'd expect people to be at least somewhat experienced with the net...
My favourites are always the people who post messages to tell everyone else to stop posting messages.
Consumer "piracy" with VCR's and cassette tapes was/is not so uncommon as you make it out to be. Trading cassette tapes (of Aerosmith, INXS, etc) was very popular back when I was in high school. I don't know much about VHS trading, but I frequently see it going on, and there are web sites where you can trade or buy everything from the Max Headroom series to Little Lulu cartoons.
I agree that the analogy of Napster to previous devices is somewhat flawed, but not for that reason.
The difference with Napster is that thanks to its network architecture, it's much more visible and accessible - that's the whole point of the way it's built.
In principle it's not all that different than email networks of people who trade VHS, cassettes and DAT's. It's just way more efficient and easy to find.
It seems obvious to you that your "simple economics" is correct, equally obvious to others that it is directly opposed to common sense.
I make no judgement one way or the other.
But I do want to point out that your example is very weak.
Even to the extent that the lack of software development in China is related to the strength of "intellectual property" controls there, it can not be considered in isolation. Perhaps if they did not have all that marvelous software to import and copy from the USA, they would write their own, even in the absensce of IP enforcement.
Also; it is far from clear that the reason for Chinese people on average produce very little computer software isn't simply that they don't have the kind of pervasive computing infrastructure that we in North America enjoy. Something like >50% of American homes have at least one PC in them. I doubt China can make the same claim.
The analogy to barriers to entry in heavy industry also fails. "Historically", if what you suggest is true, there has been no barrier to plagiarism. What you describe is a barrier to production. Software is different in that it is being treated as a product, not a means of production.