Hopefully, by the time this thing hits critical mass (if ever), Linux will be too firmly entrenched for the industry to allow it to be required.
I'm not taking that chance. First of all, corporate Linux distributions are becoming increasingly common and increasingly non-geeky. Finding ways around the GPL is just a matter of time and a room full of lawyers. When DRM hits mainstream, I'm sure these companies will find a way to attach it to Linux one way or another.
I don't know about you, but I'm stocking up on hardware and software NOW. As the article said, future improvements aren't going to be about speed but "security" (read: copy restriction at the cost of improved speed). This means that what we should do now is get the fast and free computers before they are no longer available. This stuff might become very expensive and rare -- available in places like the ghettos in 1984. Get two or three parts of everything. Maybe some LUGs can start "freedom hardware pools" where we will change out parts as the break.
One thing is certain: digital rights management has momentum, and is gaining more and more of it. The increased profitability of corrupt corporations and corrupt governments are at stake, and the fall of Napster is the first sign that the Internet is not government-proof.
I managed to get the article. Here is a reprint of the text.
Cyber Security Plan Contemplates U.S. Data Retention Law
Internet service providers may be forced into wholesale spying on their customers as part of the White House's strategy for securing cyberspace.
By Kevin Poulsen, Jun 18 2002 3:46PM
UPDATE:U.S. Denies Data Retention Plans
An early draft of the White House's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace envisions the same kind of mandatory customer data collection and retention by U.S. Internet service providers as was recently enacted in Europe, according to sources who have reviewed portions of the plan.
In recent weeks, the administration has begun doling out bits and pieces of a draft of the strategy to technology industry members and advocacy groups. A federal data retention law is suggested briefly in a section drafted in part by the U.S. Justice Department.
The comprehensive strategy is being assembled by the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, headed by cyber security czar Richard Clarke, and is intended as a collaborative road map for further action by government agencies, private industry, and Congress.
While not binding, proposals that find their way into the final version of the National Strategy would likely have added weight in Congress, and could lead to legislation.
A controversial directive passed by the European Parliament last month allows the 15 European Union member countries to force ISPs to collect and keep detailed logs of each customer's traffic, so that law enforcement agencies could access it later.
Data to be gathered under the European plan includes the headers (from, to, cc and subject lines) of every e-mail each customer sends or receives, and every user's complete Web browsing history. The period of time that the data will have to be retained is up to each member country; specific legislative proposals range from 12 months to seven years, according to Cedric Laurant, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which opposed the directive.
"Somebody could see their past for the last seven years be completely open," says Laurant, speaking of the European directive. "It violates freedom of speech and the basic principal of the presumption of innocence."
The draft of the U.S. plan does not specify how much data ISPs would be forced to collect, or how long they would have to store it. The White House did not return phone calls on the strategy, which is scheduled for release in September.
In terms of existing technologies for reality tv, I've discovered that an interesting p2p reality tv show is where I stair out the window, and the person in the office across the street stairs back.
P2p Reality TV at its finest. Aside from product placement (I like pepsi), it's commercial free too!
Next season I'm selling out, it's going to be a show on the WB.
Minimal hassle for you, easy backups, and everyone will fear you.
I think your entire strategy, as summarized by the above comment, has a formal definition.
My general strategy would be similar, EXCEPT for the CEO. Just backup his data after he goes home, and compliment him on how well he's backing stuff up. Then when everyone complains about backing up, he'll well - back you up - so to speak.
To dispose of a car or a house, you have to fire up big machinery, compress the car, buldoze the house, and recycle the raw materials. To dispose of information, you hit the delete button and save yourself $0.25 in storage space.
In actual cost though, they keep saying on CNBC, MSNBC, and other financial channels, journals and whatnot is not the cost of bandwidth, it's the cost of support staff. So why are they capping bandwidth, when tech support costs are really what's out of whack? Well,
Because most of the support issues on cable-modems are because the cable providers cut corners and used substandard equipment. But only the more avid (and thus, bandwidth consuming) user notices and bothers support about it. It's the guy who calls in because he has 10% packet loss that most users wouldn't notice, who wonders why certain ports don't forward, who questions the security of the firewalls the sell. That user also tends to use a lot of bandwidth, so it's easy to skapegoat the bandwidth issue when you're really trying to get rid of experienced users.
The cable companies are squarly to blame for prices being high, cable modems being unreliable, and their own lack of profit.
I think we should definitly lift the trade embargo on Iraq, but only for Microsoft products.;-) For obvious reasons. Just put something about billions of barrels of oil in the EULA.
Your argument would be relevant if all internet information transfer were purely copyright infringement AND if copyright infringement were legally or ethically related to theft. Neither of these are true. This has nothing to do with who infringed on who's copyright, what we're discussing is polluting a network with bogus data.
The iMac firmware issue is completely unrelated, and quite irrelevant to what I posted.
No, it isn't. It's the exact same issue: attacking the vulnerabilities of a network/computer based on what you would prefer someone do or not do. In the case of the iMac, playing a CD with your computer isn't even illegal. But you praise the music industry for attacking the Internet and computers in general, but shame on someone who writes a virus? The only difference between crackers and the RIAA is that the RIAA is in it for the money! How noble!
The CD firmware issue is a virus plain and simple. Distribution of false information on the Internet is not a computer virus, but it is abusing the Internet. Flooding a network with bogus information like a mail bomb, is illegal. But flooding a file sharing system with a music bomb is perfectly OK? That's like saying it's ok to stick a pipe bomb in a car because the driver was speeding.
Personally I've had it with the RIAA. The only way we can get defect-free music is through file sharing anyway, at least for albums released under Sony. We really have no choice but to stop buying cds altogether and get our music exclusively from the Internet. Unless the music downloadable free on mp3.com is stealing too. It must be, somehow!
"more speech is the best solution to bad speech" isn't a new idea either. With politicans don't have any really profound ideas, why do they always run MORE ads on TV and radio to drown out the compeditors?
Personally I think a good solution to the RIAA/MPAA problem is something like the Internet 3. The Internet2 is non-commercial. But maybe we could create an Internet 3. Similar to the "No-Homors Club" on The Simpsons, we could have the "NO-RIAA/MPAA Club" -- where in order to get online, you have to sign a "license agreement" where you state that you aren't from the MPAA or RIAA. Therefor, in order to sue you, the RIAA would have in fact had to break a contract. "By clicking here, you agree to release all your copyrights and promise to spit at Jack Valenti"
I have to take exception with this. The RIAA is exploiting it because it is open not because it's free. What does cost have to do with this? This is no different than Microsoft releasing a bunch of fake Linux patches to discredit Linux. Wouldn't that be perfectly OK, because Linux is free and you get what you paid for? You're some kind of lying, stealing bastard to get something for free aren't you?
It's wrong for someone to write a program that exploits obvious problems with Microsoft outlook, but exploiting p2p or iMac firmware issues on CD players is a perfectly acceptable way to "get back at" those darned copyright infringers?
News flash: Most of the interstate highway system is free. Does that give me the right to blow up a highway? Hardly.
Ok, putting computer equipment in the bathroom? That's out of control. Get over that one, bug guy. Frankly I'm rather amazed she's put up with you as much as she has. What would you do if she were into noisy, heat-creating, ugly (unless you own one of those stylish aluminum cases) things? Does she have a doll collection strung over your shower curtin? Would you put up with a pink flamingo collection in your kitchen?
Get a bigger apartment with an extra room for an office. Now that you're living together, maybe you can afford one. Then, put *ALL* computer equipment in that office -- no exceptions. You have to draw the line somewhere.
If you are living in New York or something and can't offord a larger apartment, I think it's only fair that you get a notebook, ONE computer that sits in a CLOSET, A PDA and a wireless LAN (no cables, dammit). Sorry -- I'm a geek too, but this is what's fair.
Besides, cuddling up in bed watching "couples" porn on your laptop? She might actually like that idea. Just turn off popups.
It seems to me that the biggest problem with these patent policies is that like privacy policies, that can easily become empty promises. If they were serious about not stepping on the toes of other hard working programmers, they would not have a policy on inforcement, but have a license. Grant the community a license with a list of terms in the license. I'm not a lawyer, but I would see it working similar to a license agreement for software. You can take it or leave it.
Patent policies are like proprietary software companies just promising that they won't sue you if you copy the program. Back it up with a real license, so there's no unisys/GIF-patent like back stabbing of a community. The fact that this company would want a software patent in the first place shows their low ethical standards.
What you are talking about is software design patterns. I suggest Eddison Wesley's book on the topic of object orientation. There's less information on structured programming out there becuase structured programming isn't very trendy right now. New materials on cutting edge (yes, cutting edge) structured programming methodology is really only available on usenet and in people's code. For that, you are on your own.
I also would advocate you not to follow the dogma that object orientation is the holy grail of software. Be open minded to structured programming too!:)
I think we should read something into the fact that encryption was not in the "Patriot Act" (you know, the anti-liberty, pro-FBI bill passed with no debate last year?). No one seems to be really pushing for more encryption controls as strongly as the rest of the laundry list. Perhaps the government has found some cracks, and would like to give the public a false sense of security?
One of the most useful gadgets I use is the bash completion project. It's a handy-dandy tool where tab-completion does more, oh, so much more than filenames. When I do a Debian apt-get install python-, I get a list of Debian packages to install starting with python-
There's more fun too. It completes tons of crazy stuff. I'd check it out.
This is pretty simple, but on one of my machines I like to have the same directory location when I log in and out. If I'm in/home/foobar/monkey/dance, and I close my ssh connection, then I open a new one, I want to start in/home/foobar/monkey/dance. Here's how:
In my.bashrc:
cd "`cat ~/.lwd`"
In my.bash_logout:
pwd > ~/.lwd
Pretty basic, but it does the job. One problem you have to watch for: scp'd files appear in your last working directory.
You are generally correct in that a few brave people in the technology sector, who would generally be the types to read slashdot, have keenly grasped the obvious: intellectual property is out of hand. I believe in SOME intellectual property, but let me play devil's advocate for a bit.
Just because you haven't come to that conclusion yet doesn't mean that we are unethical. The only workable argument for intellectual property is that greedy people want it. We've heard this argument applied to pollution, slavery, and fraud. Intellectual property, possibly one of the biggest frauds ever, is no exception.
Your two points:
Piracy clearly violates many philosophical principles of ethical behavior.
Absolutely. Boarding another person's vessel and stealing the cargo clearly will have no positive impact on society. The coast guard really should get on those bastards.
If, by chance, you're referring to the unrelated topic of copyright infringement, I disagree. No non-modern culture ever embraced copyright, it is an invention of the past couple hundred years. Philosophies before that condemned plagiarism, but not simply making copies.
Philosophy itself, I argue is mutually exclusive to intellectual property. A philosophy is a set of ideas based on certain objective principals. In order for these ideas to make their way into society, they must be distributed -- copied if you will. All philosophies are derivative works of other philosophies. Intellectual property's most basic and common thread is the prevention of distribution of ideas. Therefor, you cannot have a philosophy and therefor a society and have intellectual property too. You can choose: public knowledge and freedom, or more power for Valenti and Gates.
For example, Kant's categorical imperative: the software industry could not exist if everyone pirated, therefore those that do pirate are hypocrites, because in order for them to pirate, they require other people to pay and support the industry.
Free software essentially takes copyright and turns it on its head. And there is a thriving community of open source businesses doing business on the principal of providing a service. The proprietary software industry exists to rob its customers of their basic human rights, to steal that is. My most basic right as a human is the freedom of thought. The intellect, is the part of a human that thinks. Intellectual property is the ownership of thought. Therefor, copyright, being the most common form of intellectual property, steals my right to think.
The free software market, although smaller, is distinctly void of spyware, shitter software, bullshit license agreements, and most of the other problems plaguing the proprietary software racket. Perhaps there is more money in proprietary software, but there was more money in slavery than in regular farming too. In either case, the potential to become rich off the suffering of others is not ethical.
Political bias? There's no more anti-IP political bias here than there is pro-IP political bias in the news media. The slashdot community sees the benefit of the free flow of information and how that could improve the world we live in. You see the restricted flow of information and how you could profit from it. Way to take the ethical high ground, sport!
First of all, I think we need to make something clear. One thing that often decides debates is language. Any side of a debate adopts a language all its own. "Pro-life" vs "pro-choice"; "illegal immigrants" vs "undocumented immigrants," etc. The similarity between the Analog Hole article, this testomony, and the wording in the rest of the Hollywood argument is establishing a general-purpose set of words for the MPAA to use.
The time has come for advocates of general purpose tools to adopt some words. "General purpose" I like, but it could be better. Suggestions? Some more ideas, but please, come up with more, everyone:
'Piracy' -- Copyright infringement is called just that, 'copyright infringement.' I suggest you stop someone when they use the word 'piracy' and ask them what boats on what ocean they are talking about. "Piracy" has no legal meaning and it only exists because 'copyright infringement' doesn't sound as bad. It's hard to argue with this fact.
Spyware is an excellent word to use for DivX and Kazaa kind of cases. It's not directly related to this debate as much, but it's an excellent example of choosing your own vocabulary.
I think we should call programs that play DVD's but don't copy them 'crippleware' or 'defective' -- the MPAA calls them 'secure' -- I call them 'defective.' Even better, let's call anything related to copy restriction 'defective.'
When speaking specifically, don't use the word 'protection', use the word 'restricted.' Everyone wants a 'protected' computer, no one wants a 'restricted' computer.
'Circumvention devices' is OK. But how about 'repair' devices that fix things like defective CDs. Or maybe 'full use' -- the DeCSS is a 'full use' device, in that it gives you full use of your computer.
As an experiment I suggest you go look over someone's monitor while they read slashdot on their Debian/GNU box. You'll probably get punched in the nose. I suggest you rethink your argument.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about you, but I'm stocking up on hardware and software NOW. As the article said, future improvements aren't going to be about speed but "security" (read: copy restriction at the cost of improved speed). This means that what we should do now is get the fast and free computers before they are no longer available. This stuff might become very expensive and rare -- available in places like the ghettos in 1984. Get two or three parts of everything. Maybe some LUGs can start "freedom hardware pools" where we will change out parts as the break.
One thing is certain: digital rights management has momentum, and is gaining more and more of it. The increased profitability of corrupt corporations and corrupt governments are at stake, and the fall of Napster is the first sign that the Internet is not government-proof.
Cyber Security Plan Contemplates U.S. Data Retention Law
Internet service providers may be forced into wholesale spying on their customers as part of the White House's strategy for securing cyberspace. By Kevin Poulsen, Jun 18 2002 3:46PM UPDATE:U.S. Denies Data Retention Plans
An early draft of the White House's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace envisions the same kind of mandatory customer data collection and retention by U.S. Internet service providers as was recently enacted in Europe, according to sources who have reviewed portions of the plan.
In recent weeks, the administration has begun doling out bits and pieces of a draft of the strategy to technology industry members and advocacy groups. A federal data retention law is suggested briefly in a section drafted in part by the U.S. Justice Department.
The comprehensive strategy is being assembled by the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, headed by cyber security czar Richard Clarke, and is intended as a collaborative road map for further action by government agencies, private industry, and Congress.
While not binding, proposals that find their way into the final version of the National Strategy would likely have added weight in Congress, and could lead to legislation.
A controversial directive passed by the European Parliament last month allows the 15 European Union member countries to force ISPs to collect and keep detailed logs of each customer's traffic, so that law enforcement agencies could access it later.
Data to be gathered under the European plan includes the headers (from, to, cc and subject lines) of every e-mail each customer sends or receives, and every user's complete Web browsing history. The period of time that the data will have to be retained is up to each member country; specific legislative proposals range from 12 months to seven years, according to Cedric Laurant, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which opposed the directive.
"Somebody could see their past for the last seven years be completely open," says Laurant, speaking of the European directive. "It violates freedom of speech and the basic principal of the presumption of innocence."
The draft of the U.S. plan does not specify how much data ISPs would be forced to collect, or how long they would have to store it. The White House did not return phone calls on the strategy, which is scheduled for release in September.
P2p Reality TV at its finest. Aside from product placement (I like pepsi), it's commercial free too!
Next season I'm selling out, it's going to be a show on the WB.
My general strategy would be similar, EXCEPT for the CEO. Just backup his data after he goes home, and compliment him on how well he's backing stuff up. Then when everyone complains about backing up, he'll well - back you up - so to speak.
That's why.
Because most of the support issues on cable-modems are because the cable providers cut corners and used substandard equipment. But only the more avid (and thus, bandwidth consuming) user notices and bothers support about it. It's the guy who calls in because he has 10% packet loss that most users wouldn't notice, who wonders why certain ports don't forward, who questions the security of the firewalls the sell. That user also tends to use a lot of bandwidth, so it's easy to skapegoat the bandwidth issue when you're really trying to get rid of experienced users.
The cable companies are squarly to blame for prices being high, cable modems being unreliable, and their own lack of profit.
I think we should definitly lift the trade embargo on Iraq, but only for Microsoft products. ;-) For obvious reasons. Just put something about billions of barrels of oil in the EULA.
Your argument would be relevant if all internet information transfer were purely copyright infringement AND if copyright infringement were legally or ethically related to theft. Neither of these are true. This has nothing to do with who infringed on who's copyright, what we're discussing is polluting a network with bogus data.
The CD firmware issue is a virus plain and simple. Distribution of false information on the Internet is not a computer virus, but it is abusing the Internet. Flooding a network with bogus information like a mail bomb, is illegal. But flooding a file sharing system with a music bomb is perfectly OK? That's like saying it's ok to stick a pipe bomb in a car because the driver was speeding.
Personally I've had it with the RIAA. The only way we can get defect-free music is through file sharing anyway, at least for albums released under Sony. We really have no choice but to stop buying cds altogether and get our music exclusively from the Internet. Unless the music downloadable free on mp3.com is stealing too. It must be, somehow!
Personally I think a good solution to the RIAA/MPAA problem is something like the Internet 3. The Internet2 is non-commercial. But maybe we could create an Internet 3. Similar to the "No-Homors Club" on The Simpsons, we could have the "NO-RIAA/MPAA Club" -- where in order to get online, you have to sign a "license agreement" where you state that you aren't from the MPAA or RIAA. Therefor, in order to sue you, the RIAA would have in fact had to break a contract. "By clicking here, you agree to release all your copyrights and promise to spit at Jack Valenti"
It's wrong for someone to write a program that exploits obvious problems with Microsoft outlook, but exploiting p2p or iMac firmware issues on CD players is a perfectly acceptable way to "get back at" those darned copyright infringers?
News flash: Most of the interstate highway system is free. Does that give me the right to blow up a highway? Hardly.
Get a bigger apartment with an extra room for an office. Now that you're living together, maybe you can afford one. Then, put *ALL* computer equipment in that office -- no exceptions. You have to draw the line somewhere.
If you are living in New York or something and can't offord a larger apartment, I think it's only fair that you get a notebook, ONE computer that sits in a CLOSET, A PDA and a wireless LAN (no cables, dammit). Sorry -- I'm a geek too, but this is what's fair.
Besides, cuddling up in bed watching "couples" porn on your laptop? She might actually like that idea. Just turn off popups.
Patent policies are like proprietary software companies just promising that they won't sue you if you copy the program. Back it up with a real license, so there's no unisys/GIF-patent like back stabbing of a community. The fact that this company would want a software patent in the first place shows their low ethical standards.
I also would advocate you not to follow the dogma that object orientation is the holy grail of software. Be open minded to structured programming too! :)
My two cents.
Damn. You got me there. Saudi Arabia, I guess.
The obvious comment here, is that perhaps the US should ban junked electronics from China. (ie; those to come fresh out of the factory)... hehe.
There's more fun too. It completes tons of crazy stuff. I'd check it out.
In my .bashrc:
In myAll the tricks you can cram into one of those big books, and more: Unix Power Tools -- O'Reilly's best book, IMHO.
Just because you haven't come to that conclusion yet doesn't mean that we are unethical. The only workable argument for intellectual property is that greedy people want it. We've heard this argument applied to pollution, slavery, and fraud. Intellectual property, possibly one of the biggest frauds ever, is no exception.
Your two points:
Absolutely. Boarding another person's vessel and stealing the cargo clearly will have no positive impact on society. The coast guard really should get on those bastards.If, by chance, you're referring to the unrelated topic of copyright infringement, I disagree. No non-modern culture ever embraced copyright, it is an invention of the past couple hundred years. Philosophies before that condemned plagiarism, but not simply making copies.
Philosophy itself, I argue is mutually exclusive to intellectual property. A philosophy is a set of ideas based on certain objective principals. In order for these ideas to make their way into society, they must be distributed -- copied if you will. All philosophies are derivative works of other philosophies. Intellectual property's most basic and common thread is the prevention of distribution of ideas. Therefor, you cannot have a philosophy and therefor a society and have intellectual property too. You can choose: public knowledge and freedom, or more power for Valenti and Gates.
Free software essentially takes copyright and turns it on its head. And there is a thriving community of open source businesses doing business on the principal of providing a service. The proprietary software industry exists to rob its customers of their basic human rights, to steal that is. My most basic right as a human is the freedom of thought. The intellect, is the part of a human that thinks. Intellectual property is the ownership of thought. Therefor, copyright, being the most common form of intellectual property, steals my right to think.The free software market, although smaller, is distinctly void of spyware, shitter software, bullshit license agreements, and most of the other problems plaguing the proprietary software racket. Perhaps there is more money in proprietary software, but there was more money in slavery than in regular farming too. In either case, the potential to become rich off the suffering of others is not ethical.
Political bias? There's no more anti-IP political bias here than there is pro-IP political bias in the news media. The slashdot community sees the benefit of the free flow of information and how that could improve the world we live in. You see the restricted flow of information and how you could profit from it. Way to take the ethical high ground, sport!
The time has come for advocates of general purpose tools to adopt some words. "General purpose" I like, but it could be better. Suggestions? Some more ideas, but please, come up with more, everyone:
- 'Piracy' -- Copyright infringement is called just that, 'copyright infringement.' I suggest you stop someone when they use the word 'piracy' and ask them what boats on what ocean they are talking about. "Piracy" has no legal meaning and it only exists because 'copyright infringement' doesn't sound as bad. It's hard to argue with this fact.
- Spyware is an excellent word to use for DivX and Kazaa kind of cases. It's not directly related to this debate as much, but it's an excellent example of choosing your own vocabulary.
- I think we should call programs that play DVD's but don't copy them 'crippleware' or 'defective' -- the MPAA calls them 'secure' -- I call them 'defective.' Even better, let's call anything related to copy restriction 'defective.'
- When speaking specifically, don't use the word 'protection', use the word 'restricted.' Everyone wants a 'protected' computer, no one wants a 'restricted' computer.
- 'Circumvention devices' is OK. But how about 'repair' devices that fix things like defective CDs. Or maybe 'full use' -- the DeCSS is a 'full use' device, in that it gives you full use of your computer.
Think of some good terms, everyone.They key thing here, Sheldon, is that this is copyLEFTED software.
Reminds me of an Philip Greenspun article on the exact same topic. I think Linux Journal ran some ideas on that as well. Not exactly original.
As an experiment I suggest you go look over someone's monitor while they read slashdot on their Debian/GNU box. You'll probably get punched in the nose. I suggest you rethink your argument.