Access & infrastructure

Victoria & Albert Museum photography contest

Digitalization is not a cheap process for museums but the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has, in collaboration with Wikipedia, thought of a way to get a head start on the process:

Wikipedia Loves Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum is a free content photography contest organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Wikimedia UK and other Wikipedians. It is due to take place in February 2009 and is part of the wider Wikipedia Loves Art project that month.

The objective for the V&A is to compile a public digital collection of the major art pieces held at the museum. For Wikipedians, the objective is to collect images and use them to illustrate articles throughout Wikipedia.

Posted on by mklang

Information control in a connected world

In 1973 in Stockholm a bank robbery went wrong and resulted in a six day hostage situation when the police showed up and the would be robbers withdrew into the vault with four hostages. The police managed to enter the bank and close the vault door. The police then opened a hole in the vault roof in order to communicate with those inside (short piece on Wikipedia). While in the vault the hostages began to fear the police and sympathize with their captors in a psychological process which has come to be known as the Stockholm Syndrome. But I digress.

An interesting factor was the way in which communications took place. The authorities (including the Prime Minister) and criminals communicated via telephone. The robbers inside the vault had no way of monitoring the outside world or communicating with it freely.

Now fast forward to Mumbai last week. According to Gizmondo the terrorists inside the hotel did not rely on traditional communications methods

Commandos were not only surprised to find the devices [BlackBerrys] in the terrorists’ rucksacks, but that they used the internet to look beyond local Indian media for information, watching the global reaction in real-time as well.

There is something shocking, and at the same time predictable, about the authorities naivete about the terrorists use of technology. Why wouldn’t a terrorist be monitoring the outside world for reactions?

In addition to this the way in which the outside world understood what was happening inside the hotel was not a traditional news source controlled and transferred by authorities. In a hallway conversation Martin Börjesson (a colleague) and I exchanged notes about our news uptake from the Mumbai attacks. Naturally we used traditional media – but neither of us believed that they really knew anything. More interestingly we followed news feeds such as twitter and a flock of blogs (or what is the right word?)

Following blogs is something both Martin and I do everyday so we were not surprised by this. What was interesting however was the experience that some online sources were clearly political disinformation attempting to place the blame for what was happening at the door of different states. (Bruce Schneier has some interesting takes on the outside conversations and analysis). Clearly following live feeds is also demands a questioning of sources.

Mumbai has shown that web technology is used: (1) by the terrorists (2) by the world (3) by the media. The result is an amazing mix of rehashing of information, the transmitting of live experiences (from within and from those witnessing) and formal channels. The question is can, and should, the authorities be able to control this information? The first answer is that controlling this information is only possible at a great cost and at a great loss in the ability of others to transmit innocent information. It is doubtful whether a media blackout is at all possible. Should it be possible – not sure. As the BlackBerry’s show the terrorists monitored the outside world and possibly profited from the information, but would the outcome have been much different if they did, or could, not?

Information control is not dead but it is being taken to a new level… to be continued…

Posted on by mklang

Open Access & Scientific Publication in Malmö

Tomorrow I am off to Malmö to give a copyright & Creative Commons presentation at a seminar on Open Access and Scientific Publication. This should be an interesting event (not because I am there) because the speakers are an interesting group concerned with increasing accessiblity to scientific publication. Judging from the amount of registered participants it should be a good meeting. I am looking forward to the trip.

Posted on by mklang

Happy Birthday GNU

This month GNU is celebrating its 25th birthday and among the well wishers is Stephen Fry who helped make the video Happy Birthday to GNU.


Grattis GNU!

My first thought was that this was just a gimmick but after watching the video I realized that it was a really good introduction to Free Software and actually a sincere appreciation of the amazing task Richard and thousands of others has carried out. It’s well worth watching.

Posted on by mklang

Access to Language

Erin McKean writes an interesting article in the Boston Globe about the creation and use of new words and the unfounded fear of criticism some of the users of these newisms have.

Whenever I see “not a real word” used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading “I am not confident about my writing” on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an “unreal” word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police? The revocation (as the joke goes) of your poetic license? A public shaming by William Safire? The irony is that most of these words, without the disclaimer, would pass unnoticed by the majority of readers.

So I get he impulse not to be beaten up and accused of having a shitty vocabulary but really I agree with McKean – who cares! It’s the communication that counts. But never forget who your audience is.

When discussing Free, Open & Propriatary software I am often inclined to talk about language as being a product which we are all free to use, borrow, steal, plagiarise, remix to suit or own needs. In most cases we use and abuse our language to achieve a communicative purpose rather than to appease a dominant system of governance. Naturally some people will argue that there are rules to language and these rules are notto be toyed with.

This is not always so and there have been languages which have been firmly in the control of certain power groups. In this way langauges were used as a method of controlling the users, and often the non-users.

The languages such as Sanskrit, Greek and Latin have all been used as exclusive devices. In many languages  correct vocabulary, right dialect and proper enunciation of words have been used to identify and control insider and outsider groups. Basically if you did not talk like one of us – then you were not one of us. It is amazing to see how such a fundamental social infrastructure can be used to keep groups in check.

Added to this is the topic of language as a form of control in the sense that it controls what we are able to say and communicate to others. If you cannot articulate a word for freedom (as in liberty) and the people you talk to cannot comprehend such a word – then will the idea cease to exist? George Orwell explored this in 1984. Today technology has created two different impulses. Old formal language is being controlled by what is permitted grammar and vocabulary in the spell-check program. An opposite development is the growth of new languages and forms of language (for example slang) online.

This is something I have been kicking around for a long time but I need to develop it much further.

Posted on by mklang

British Library Digitalisation Strategy

The British Library has published its Digitisation Strategy 2008-2011 and in the document it focuses on a continued commitment to produce a critical mass of digitised content. They write in the

We aim to help researchers advance knowledge by becoming a leading player in digitisation. We will produce a critical mass of digitised content, reflecting the breadth and depth of our collection. We will provide a compelling user experience that facilitates innovative methods of research and meets 21st century requirements for interacting with content.

Over the next 3 years we will build on our existing digitisation programme. Current projects include the digitisation of:

  • 20 million pages of 19th century literature [approximately 80,000 books];
  • 1 million pages of historic newspapers in addition to the 3m already digitised;
  • 4,000 hours of Archival Sound Recordings in addition to the 4,000 hours already digitised;
  • 100,000 pages of Greek manuscripts.

The British Library has been very active in digitalisation and in it’s attempts to make sure that the public knows the value and importance of this work. Even though I tend to have a sceptical approach to feelgood documents such as these the British Library have proven themselves to be great open access activists.

Posted on by mklang

Frenchmen risk being banned from the Internet

The French have gone and done it! Times Online reports:

Anyone who persists in illicit downloading of music or films will be barred from broadband access under a controversial new law that makes France a pioneer in combating internet piracy.

“There is no reason that the internet should be a lawless zone,” President Sarkozy told his Cabinet yesterday as it endorsed the “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” scheme that from next January will hit illegal downloaders where it hurts.

This is, as I have argued earlier (last time in January), a really bad idea. Why is banning people from the Internet a bad idea?

The Internet has been promoted and become our most basic communications infrastructure (my focus here is Europe since this is where the the French are).

1. The punishment does not fit the crime: We have changed the way Banks, Post Offices, ticket sales, hotel booking, insurance (etc, etc) work and banning someone from the Internet will be tantamount to branding a symbol of guilt onto the person. Not to mention the increased costs involved in time and money. Indeed why should copyright violation prevent me from online banking?

2. Group punishment: If an Internet connection is involved in copyright violation this does not mean that all those dependent upon that connection should be punished. The actual violator may be underage or the network may be open to others.

3. Privatizing the law: The ability to punish copyright violators should not be delegated to private bodies. Internet providers are not equipped to mete out legal punishments.

Earlier, when arguing against proposals such as these I wrote:

The proposals seen above are simplistic, naive and dangerous they show a fundamental lack of understanding not only of technology or its role in society but also a lack of understanding of the role of communication in a democratic society. The actions of the politicians proposing such measures show that they are not acting in the interests of the individuals they are there to serve.

Even if the French have chosen to go the other way – I still believe that they are wrong…

Posted on by mklang

Activist Wifi

Stealing wifi is an old subject but it remains an interesting one. That some people have been prosecuted for stealing wifi in different parts of the world is also old news.* Still most of us have no problem checking for open networks when we need to access. I have also known users to be on their neighbours wifi without knowing or meaning to – they just don’t understand the difference. But this may be a minorty.

The availablity of open networks is either intentional, unintentional or even accidental. Accidental occurs when people don’t know about wifi and unintentional happens when people don’t know what they are doing. Then there is the group who intentionally shares their wifi.**

Some would prefer to share because sharing is good. Bruce Schneier has written about the added good of openness.

Similarly, I appreciate an open network when I am otherwise without bandwidth. If someone were using my network to the point that it affected my own traffic or if some neighbor kid was dinking around, I might want to do something about it; but as long as we’re all polite, why should this concern me? Pay it forward, I say.

The attitudes about freeloading and sharing vary. Some are scared of intrusion, some support the openness and others could not care less. Unfortunately the latter group is growing. I say unfortunately since the default settings on more wireless routers, especially those provided by ISPs, are closed.

This is the equivalent of the house advantage in roulette. Slowly and surely their will be no openness left other than those few activists who strive to ensure open networks. This means that the struggle for openness will go from the commonplace to the realm of the activists.

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* Arstechnica reports that an Illinois man was arrested and fined $250 in 2006 & in Michigan man who parked his car in front of a café and snarfed its free WiFi was charged this past May [2007] with “Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks.” In a similar case from Singapore (Engadget) a 17-year old recieved 18 months of probation under the Computer Misuse Act for stealing his neighbours wifi. In the UK one man was been arrested and two people have been cautioned for WiFi theft or “dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services with intent to avoid payment.”

** Sharing wifi will in most cases violate the contract terms for most internet service providers.

Posted on by mklang

The Swedish Surveillance State

I am almost ashamed for not blogging and discussing this in more detail. There have been plenty of media, discussions, and a blogging frenzy in the past two weeks…

Short of actually doing the work myself I simplified life – or gave way to my laziness and re-post this post from the EFF

A proposed new law in Sweden (voted on this week, after much delay) will, if passed, allow a secretive government agency ostensibly concerned with signals intelligence to install technology in twenty public hubs across the country. There it will be permitted to conduct a huge mass data-mining project, processing and analysing the telephony, emails, and web traffic of millions of innocent individuals. Allegedly these monitoring stations will be restricted to data passing across Sweden’s borders with other countries for the purposes of monitoring terrorist activity: but there seems few judicial or technical safeguards to prevent domestic communications from being swept up in the dragnet. Sound familiar?

The passing of the FRA law (or “Lex Orwell”, as the Swedish are calling it) next week is by no means guaranteed. Many Swedes are up in arms over its provisions (the protest Facebook group has over 5000 members; the chief protest site links to thousands of angry commenters across the Web). With the governing alliance managing the barest of majorities in the Swedish Parliament, it would only take four MPs in the governing coalition opposing this bill to effectively remove it from the government’s agenda.

As with the debate over the NSA warrantless wiretapping program in the United States, much of this domestic Swedish debate revolves around how much their own nationals will be caught up with this dragnet surveillance. But as anyone who has sat outside the US debate will know, there is a wider international dimension to such pervasive spying systems. No promise that a dragnet surveillance system will do its best to eliminate domestic traffic removes the fact that it *will* pick up terabytes of the innocent communications of, and with, foreigners – especially those of Sweden’s supposed allies and friends.

Sweden is a part of the European Union: a community of states which places a strong emphasis on the values of privacy, proportionality, and the mutual defence of those values by its members. But even as the EU aspires to being a closer, borderless community, it seems Sweden is determined to set its spies on every entry and exit to Sweden. When the citizens of the EU talk to their Swedish colleagues, what happens to their private communications then?

When revelations regarding the United Kingdom’s involvement in a UK-US surveillance agreement emerged in 2000, the European Parliament produced a highly critical report (and recommended that EU adopt strong pervasive encryption to protect its citizens’ privacy).

Back then, UK’s cavalier attitude to European communications, and its willingness to hand that data to the United States and other non-EU countries, greatly concerned Europe’s elected legislators. Already questions are being asked in the European Parliament about Sweden’s new plans and their effect on European citizen’s personal data. Commercial companies like TeliaSonera have moved servers out of Sweden to prevent their customers from being wiretapped by the Swedish Department of Defence. Sweden’s own business community have expressed concern that companies may move out of Sweden to protect their private financial data.

Sweden has often led the charge for government openness and consumer advocacy, and has, understandably, much national pride in seeing its past policies exported and reflected in Europe and beyond. Before Sweden’s MPs vote next week to allow its government surveillance access to whole Net, they should certainly consider its effect on their Swedish citizens’ privacy. But it should also ponder exactly how their vote will be seen by their closest neighbors. If the Lex Orwell passes, Sweden may not need something so sophisticated as a supercomputer to hear what the rest of the world thinks about their new values.

Posted on by mklang