The audio file from Stallman’s lecture in Göteborg. The file is in ogg vorbis (rms-speech-gbg-sweden-2007.ogg) its 78MB but is easy to download since there are quite a few of us seeding.
Click here to begin download via bit torrent.
Information about the free audio format ogg vorbis and about the file sharing system bittorrent.
To many users Google is understood as a neutral tool. A search engine without bias in any form. While Google has never made any such claim their attitudes and appearance do nothing to dispel this common misconception. It is easy to understand how the idea that technology in itself is neither good nor bad and may be seen as neutral comes about. But such an idea fails to take into account that technology is a man-made phenomenon and as such is the result of countless decisions and perceptions of right and wrong. Therefore while the technological thing may be neutral the choices behind its design, manufacture and use are not.
One of the implementations of Google that may be seen as less than neutral is the harvesting of user searches. Google has a long tradition of recording what people search for. This practice is not without its critics but until now Google has been silent about their purpose for harvesting this data. Last week Googleâ??s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer posted three reasons why Google captures and retains usersâ?? search queries. The reasons fall into three areas:
This has not passed uncommented. Micheal Zimmer and Seth Finkelstein are both critical to these explanations in two excellent commentaries they explain why Google’s reasons are mainly unsatisfactory and even misguided.
Tomorrow Richard Stallman arrives in Göteborg. During his stay here he will be giving a speech on the 16th May entitled Free Software and Beyond: Human Rights in the Use of Software and Other Published Works. More info on the rms2007.se website.
Stallman’s visit and speech can best be described as a very popular event. Originally we hoped that we would have about 200 attendees but we now have over 1000 people who have registered to come and listen to the talk.
When the registrations started pouring in we were happy then, after reaching 600, we were concerned. And now, after moving the venue to the Draken movie theater we think we have the situation under control. Whatever happens now we will have a good event…
Have you been following the recent blog craze on the topic of Digg and the HD DVD key? Basically the Digg team deleted a story that linked to the decryption key for HD DVDs after receiving a take down demand and all hell broke loose. More stories appeared and were deleted, and users posting the stories were suspended.
Naturally this just made things more exciting and the number now appears on over 50 000 websites, as a set of colors, a poem and at least one t-shirt!
Many of the blogs reporting this news have been in anguish over the fact that numbers should not be copyrightable but this is acutally missing the point. Fred von Lohmann (EFF) clarifies the situation in a neatly written post:
Is the key copyrightable? It doesn’t matter. The AACS-LA takedown letter is not claiming that the key is copyrightable, but rather that it is (or is a component of) a circumvention technology. The DMCA does not require that a circumvention technology be, itself, copyrightable to enjoy protection.
Copyright has a tendency to make library work difficult. This is a growing trend and many of the larger libraries in the world are struggling to come to terms with copyright issues.
Yesterday the EU’s High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries – which includes, inter alia, stakeholders from the British Library, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, the Federation of European Publishers and Google – presented an advisory report on copyright issues to the European Commission.
The group also discussed how to ensure more open access to scientific research and how to improve public-private cooperation. The work of the High Level Group is part of the European Commission’s efforts to make Europe’s rich cultural and scientific heritage available online. For this purpose, the group advises the Commission on issues regarding digitisation, online accessibility and digital preservation of cultural material.
Read their Report on Digital Preservation, Orphan Works and Out-of-Print Works, Selected Implementation Issues available here and the annex Model agreement for a licence on digitisation of out of print works available here.
A man in the UK has been fined £500 and sentenced to 12 monthsâ?? conditional discharge for illegally using someone elseâ??s open wifi (an offence under the Computer Misuse Act see more on note below*). These (one and two) BBC stories gives more information on this but it also includes lots of interesting pre-suppositions about the dangers of open wireless Internet access points.
The main arguments in the BBC stories are that the use of someone elseâ??s wifi is mainly to enter into illegal porn sites, launch hack attacks, to steal information or worse.
Is this really what people try to do on other peoples networks? My experience is that most unauthorized wifi use is travelers checking email, or neighbors using each otherâ??s nets out of sheer incompetence. Naturally there are always going to be nasty people attempting to abuse openness but how bad can it be?
Phil Cracknell has called for an awareness campaign to inform of the dangers of openness â?? â??The perception in the past has been that borrowing a bit of bandwidth is cheeky but not really criminal behaviourâ??. But then again Phil Cracknell is chief technology officer of security firm NetSurity and may be a bit interested in increasing our perception of insecurity.
Most of the people I come into contact with (ok, so I hang with the wrong crowd) donâ??t believe that borrowing bandwidth is cheeky â?? itâ??s a simple act that does not harm anyone.
Using anything for an illegal activity is however illegal and should be punished.
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* Added 23 April
Stealing wifi is actually an offence under the Communications Act of 2003. To be an offence under the Computer Misuse Act there has to be more than simple wifi use. Basically the Computer Misuse Act requires an unauthorised entry into the computer system. This is similar to Swedish law where “only” using someone’s wifi is not an offence while entering into someone’s system without authorisation is an offence (DatorintrÃ¥ng). This difference is quite subtle and should be investigated further since it could be argued that it is not possible to use wifi without unlawful entry.
The BBC reports that one of the top engineering schools will be shutting down their dorm Internet access every night in order to improve academic performance. Students will still be able to log on to the library or their departmental laboratories.
The authorities in India’s premier engineering institute, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Bombay (Mumbai), have cut off internet access to students in hostels at night.
They feel that 24-hour internet access is hampering students’ academic performance and overall personality development…Ms Thosar-Dixit said they were beginning to see a drop in attendance during morning lectures and a noticeable decline in students’ participation in extra-curricular activities.
“In the morning the students would not be fresh and attentive and their socialising patterns were changing as they preferred to sit in their rooms and surf the net rather than interact with their mates.
This is an exciting example of technology regulation. If the school chooses to regulate in this fashion it curtails free choice among students and punishes all students – even those who have a “good” relationship to technology. But if the school chooses to ignore the problem then the overall performance of the students (and the school) will decline.
The decision to turn of the Internet at night may be well-intentioned but the question of concern is not the regulators intention but rather the results of the regulation. In addition to the results an important consideration in regulation must be the signal regulation sends to the regulated. In this case the students are told that their behavior patterns are incorrect and unacceptable. Whether this is true or not is not the relevant issue. Right and wrong change over time.
I disagree with blanket prohibitions such as these. The paternalistic approach creates a great deal of tension between groups. Between them and us. The regulated and the regulators. I know for a fact that it is not only students at the IIT in Bombay that have “unusual” nocturnal habits. Therefore the school is attempting to impose a normality on a weaker group while the regulators themselves do not subscribe to the concepts of normality they are trying to impose.
Orwell again: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Say Guantanamo, and most people will think of human rights abuses and prisoners in orange clothes being mistreated, maltreated, denied basic human rights and denied legal representation. All this by a free democratic country. Karen Greenberg (Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law and is the co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib and editor of The Torture Debate in America.) writes an interesting note on the blog TomDispatch about how Gunatanamo may be addressed by the media.
It is very difficult not to think Orwellian thoughts about the control of language being the control of society.
Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside – knowing that these are the people claiming to be fighting for freedom and democracy worldwide…
(via Markmedia)
Sometimes I really feel that I don’t have the energy to mobilize against the next stupid/dangerous/horrifying/hair-brained scheme proposed by some evil/half-witted/misguided (take your pick) parliament. So I relax and let others write and argue for causes that I also should be arguing. It’s complacency legitimized with sentiments such as “I have a lot to do right now” or “I don’t have time to understand this new threat” etc.
This has been the way in which it was with the new Swedish proposal on digital surveillance. Yes, yes I know that this is not going to be a good thing. Yes, yes I know that the politicians are either intentionally lying to the people or are too stupid to understand what they are actually doing (I often wonder which is worse?) – but look I really don’t have the time or energy right now. Lots of work, lots of personal shit, lots of everything. So I lean back and let others write. The more I read the more I realize that my words are unnecessary.
Then today I read Oscar Swartz blog on the topic (his blog is excellent – unfortunately, or naturally, in Swedish) and I realized something. It’s not a matter of whether or not my voice is needed. Of course it isn’t needed. Not mine, personally. But by leaning back and letting others do the work I am making others work a little bit harder. It’s like being on a tug-of-war team that may still win even if one team member isn’t pulling his/her weight. Damn! I knew I should have been active earlier. Guilt bores its way under my skin, my orginal annoyance at the suggestion has been fermenting for much too long.
So here it is.
The proposed FRA law in brief is that the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt – FRA) shall be given the power to listen to all cable based communication (yes that means everything on the Internet) which crosses Sweden’s borders. The idea is that only international communication (i.e. communication exiting Sweden) will be monitored. Basically since even most national Internet communication passes over international borders the focus on international communication is only a way of pacifying the general population.
Basically the idea is to force all Internet and Telecom providers to copy all communications to state surveillance systems. This means telephones, email, chat, websites, comments on blogs – the works.
Naturally in the age of doublespeak the proposed mass violation of integrity is legitimized by the need to protect the democratic country. People will lose their rights and be viewed as criminals as a default. This will not protect the country. It may help catch people after they have done something but it will not (it cannot) prevent actions.
To make matters worse – oh yes it can be worse – the surveillance is not being carried out by the police. Why is this important?
Well the police have to follow due process. This means in practice that when the police want to bug someone they need to have probable cause to suspect a crime. This new system will make this unnecessary. Everyone will be under surveillance and the state may now order special surveillance on individuals or groups who are not suspected of crimes but who hold political views which are “wrong” – oops now we lost freedom of thought.
Sweden has a long tradition of presenting itself as a bastion of democracy. But this is old stuff. The last decade has seen Sweden shed these ideas and attempt to rush to the forefront of lowlife nations who feel the need to enact a surveillance regime which would have made big brother green with envy.
So what can be done? What did Oscar do to get me going? He just reminded me that the most important feature in a society is the ability of its members to remain active against opposition. To talk, to write and to maintain a voice of dissent – especially when the odds are stacked against us.
It does not come as a surprise to read (in Swedish here) that Sweden is on it’s way to criminalise denial of service attacks. This is unsurprising since it is simply another step in the obvious direction of EU harmonisation following the framework decision on attacks against information systems. The latter framework decision is part of a general scheme to fight against terrorism and organised crime within the information society.
The problem is that criminalising DoS attacks in this way makes all DoS attacks illegal. Even if an attack is carried out in the form of political protest, in other words, not terrorism, not organised crime. For example, in a case settled in 2006 where the Frankfurt Appelate Court found the groups â??Libertadâ?? and â??Kein Mensch ist illegalâ?? (No Human is Illegal) had carried out a legitimate form of political protest when they organised 13000 people in an online blockade (With a script- client- based distributed denial of service attack) of the airline Lufthansa. The protest was against the companies part in the deportation of asylum seekers (for more see links below).
When states now criminalise the act of DoS they also make sure that this tool cannot be used as a form of political protest. Therefore the regulators go far beyond their intention and scope of preventing terrorism and organised crime.
A more paranoid person may suspect that the regulator is using the label of terrorism to create rules which limit our ability to use technology in political communications… Read more about the “unintended” negative consequences for democracy, which occur when regulators attempt to control technology in my thesis: Disruptive Technology.
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Decision by the Frankfurt Appellate Court (in German only, 22.05.2006)
http://www.libertad.de/service/downloads/pdf/olg220506.pdf
Statement by Libertad on the ruling (in German only, 1.06.2006)
http://www.libertad.de/inhalt/projekte/depclass/verfahren/libpe010606.shtml
In German (1.06.2006)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/73755
In English (2.06.2006)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/73827