Annoyances

Senseless security

Bruce Schneier has an excellent blog, Schneier on Security, where he often lists examples of pointless security but today his list of senseless anti-terror actions was both funny and scary:

The “War on the Unexpected is being fought everywhere.

In Australia:

Bouncers kicked a Melbourne man out of a Cairns pub after paranoid patrons complained that he was reading a book called The Unknown Terrorist.

At the U.S. border with Canada:

A Canadian firetruck responding with lights and sirens to a weekend fire in Rouses Point, New York, was stopped at the U.S. border for about eight minutes, U.S. border officials said Tuesday.[…]

The Canadian firefighters “were asked for IDs,” Trombley said. “I believe they even ran the license plate on the truck to make sure it was legal.”

In the UK:

A man who had gone into a diabetic coma on a bus in Leeds was shot twice with a Taser gun by police who feared he may have been a security threat.

In Maine:

A powdered substance that led to a baggage claim being shut down for nearly six hours at the Portland International Jetport was a mixture of flour and sugar, airport officials said Thursday.

Fear is winning. Refuse to be terrorized, people.

Posted on by mklang

Talk, talk, talk, talk

Its been a long week. It isn’t over yet but tomorrow is the last day and I must say that I am glad. The reason for the “thank god it’s Friday” attitude is because this week I have managed to become tired of my own voice.

Most students see the work of a university lecturer as being comprised of standing in class lecturing. Few people (or students – even though students are people too) realize that the main part of the lecturers work is not actually giving lectures. This is actually a good thing too. Giving lectures is an intense activity. Preparation is a heavy part but the thing that really does it is the delivery. Being able to deliver a lecture is all about personality, attitude and presence. But giving good lectures also takes a lot of energy. Expending this energy affects the ability to carry out mental work – especially after the lecture.

This week has been especially heavy. On Monday I gave three lectures in Stockholm: Basic Copyright, Digital Copyright and Creative Commons. Basic copyright was supposed to be done by someone else but he called in sick at the last moment. Leaving me to step up. Tuesday was regulation of technology in Lund. Wednesday – No lectures, phew! Today was Copyright in Lund. Finally tomorrow is Digital Copyright in Göteborg. Different audiences and audience types every time.

Right now I am resting for tomorrows gig. In reality I am tired of my own voice. I want to be inspired and inspiring tomorrow. Even though I have heard myself too many times this week it is all news to the audience.

Posted on by mklang

Bad Internet, Good Internet

Andres over at Technollama is reading “The Cult of the Amateur”, by Andrew Keen, the Internet critic. I have been avoiding commenting on this book and on the author. Lots of other have been there already. Actually I will probably eventually get around to reading the book. Anyway, Andres notes that Keen has a bone to pick with the web and provides this Keen quotation which I could help but comment upon:

“When I look at today’s Internet, I mostly see cultural and ethical chaos. I see the eruption of rampant intellectual property theft, extreme pornography, sexual promiscuity, plagiarism, gambling, contempt for order, intellectual inanity, crime, a culture of anonymity, hatred toward authority, incessant spam, and a trash heap of user-generated-content. I see a chaotic humans arrangement with few, if any, formal social pacts.”

Well of course. I agree totally with Keen. Thats the beauty of the Internet – you get what you look for. Keen went looking for garbage and appears shocked when he found it. Big deal. I can do the same in any city in the world from Bombay to Boston from Seoul to Stockholm. What he then does is attempts to explain the world from the empirical garbage he picks up. This is not a reflection of the Internet but only an expression of Keen’s Internet related interests.

Posted on by mklang

Scientific Impact and Scientific Books

Maybe it’s the approach of the first winter snows or maybe it’s just the most recent PhD cartoon (probably a combination of factors). But I began to think about my scientific impact.

phd111207s.gif

Jorge Cham PhD Comics

It’s been a year since I defended my thesis so I guess a little thought on the topic may not be entirely out of place. Since 1999 I have written over 40 academic texts (journal and conference articles, book chapters, reports and more). Besides my PhD I have also acted as editor to a book, taught an endless amount of classes and given countless guest lectures.

Despite all this “scientific” or “academic” production my impact on the scientific community is negligible. Ok so I realize that my field is not high profile. But I have the sneaking suspicion that the impact of my work is not what it should be or could be.

If we choose to set aside arguments that my impact is low because I am unreadable – since they provide no help – then there may be another reason.

The focus of scientific/academic work has become the journal article. We are not measured in research but in publication. The problem with this system is that it creates a desire (intentional or unintentional) to manipulate the system. What we have seen over the last thirty years is the explosion of the number of journals and the publication hungry academic is always in the market for yet another place to deliver an article to.

The purpose of the journal was to provide an avenue where scientific work could be published quickly and in a focused manner. Well while some journals have longer time-to-print than books this is no longer an advantage. And the dance between authors, editors and reviewers has become so stylized that it resembles a kabuki theater (complex, ornate & beautiful but incomprehensible).

So where am I going with this? Not very far. The process of academic work entails journal publication – we are locked into this system. But to achieve true recognition and impact, in my field, I think your either need to be a cartoonist – or to write books.

Posted on by mklang

How to embed YouTube videos into WordPress

For a long time all of my efforts to embed YouTube videos into this blog have been frustrated. Most of the help I found online was not helpful since it did not work. Finally I came across ShandyKing and hey presto I now can embed YouTube (wow! everyone is really excited now)

The main problem is that using WordPress, Mac and Firefox together is a bad combination if you want to be able to embed YouTube. The only way I managed to make it all work is by going into Users tab in the Admin section, find your user name and click on Edit. There is a “Your Profile Tab” and a box that say’s “Use the visual editor when writing”. Uncheck this, and click “Update Profile”. Then go back to your post and past the Embed code provided by YouTube.

Using the Code View under write did not work so I had to use the long way. Unfortunately this setting also means that I need to write in html – not fun. So the choice is either to go back and forth in the User settings or change browsers. But Firefox is staying!

Posted on by mklang

Books as marketing channels

A pet hate of mine is people who make notes in library books. I just cannot understand the arrogance of some people who are prepared to borrow a book and then mess it up. It’s not about cost it’s about a lack of interest in other peoples property and a lack of consideration for the next reader.

But now it’s not only the lenders doing it. The Guardian reports that public libraries in the UK will be using books as a direct marketing channel. The project will insert advertising into library books and provide libraries with much needed extra funding.

Up to 500,000 inserts a month are due to be handed out by libraries in Essex, Somerset, Bromley, Leeds and Southend.

The plan is being run by the direct marketing company Howse Jackson, whose business development director Mark Jackson said the company was “very proud” of what he described as “a brand new channel” for direct marketing.

Obviously Mark Jackson is more of a marketer than a reader. Guy Daines (director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) was dismayed by the scheme.

(via Lex Ferenda)

Posted on by mklang

Don't believe in (cyber) war

Once again one of Sweden’s largest daily papers refers to a report about the state of Swedish national IT security. Apparently we are totally unprepared and vulnerable to everything that’s out there. Two things really annoy me about reports like this:

Firstly, very few people seem to question the motives of these “expert” reports. Most of them are written either by companies attempting to provide systems intended to solve the problems they discover, or (as this latest report) is provided by organizations (often governmental bodies) that need to show that there is work to be done. The implication is that the organization should be funded to carry out the work.

Secondly, if the world was so unprotected and vulnerable to cyberwar and cyberterrorism then why is it that most of our technology related collapses, disasters and problems do not originate from bad people, purposely intending to do us harm but rather by faulty systems, incompetent staff, greedy management and pure incompetence. Just look at technology related disasters such as Five Mile Island, Chernobyl, Bhopal and Exxon Valdez.

Terrorism and war remain on the primitive level of bombs and rockets – incompetence and greed accompany high level technical systems.

Posted on by mklang

Bad Planning

Most annoying. Here is a list of events I have been invited to attend. I want to attend but I will miss them all. Basically this is the worst case of bad planning I have ever experienced. But if you happen to be in the right place (as opposed to me) then I would recommend that you attend.

November 8th Makt och motstånd i den digitala tidsåldern, (Swedish text by Christopher Kullenberg can be downloaded here), Room 325, Annedalsseminariet. A text seminar at the Resistance Studies Network, Annedalsseminariet, Göteborg. This seminar will focus on the question concerning the conditions for resistance in the digital era of information technologies and surveillance. The seminar will discuss the shift from disciplinary societies to societies of control, and explore the relationships between power and resistance. I will be in Stockholm.

On 17 November: Who Makes and Owns Your Work? A multipart event in Stockholm addressing sharing, distribution and intellectual propert, Årsta Folkets Hus in Stockholm. I will be in Göteborg.

On the 5th December there will be a Surveillance seminar in Göteborg (room C430, Humanisten) but I will be in Norway.

Posted on by mklang

Tracking Schoolchildren with RFID

It’s strange that everyone sings the praise of RFID and the main struggle seems to be how to implement the technology in as many places as possible. The Register reports that a UK school is piloting a monitoring system designed to keep tabs on pupils by tracking RFID chips in their uniforms.

According to the Doncaster Free Press, Hungerhill School is testing RFID tracking and data collection on 10 pupils within the school. It’s been developed by local company Darnbro Ltd, which says it is ready to launch the product into the £300m school uniform market.

As Bruce Schneier points out the scheme is not difficult to thwart – simply ask a friend to carry the chipped uniform into class. Despite this, the dream of using technological surveillance seems to blind people of their lack of efficiency and reliability.

The real cost is the actual lack of integrity, the high potential for abusing the system and the fundamental shift in attitude which we are pushing on the children in the project. They are being taught (indoctrinated) that technology should be used as a surveillance tool. Asking the teachers to remember their names would apparently be too much to ask for.

Posted on by mklang

Another idiotic regulatory attempt

The latest idiotic proposed legislation comes from Italy. The proposal is that all blogs and websites need to be registered (and taxed).

Beppe Grillo writes

Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man , undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement.
The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.

Oh my God, Lets start with the easy stuff.

First, How will they intend to police this law. The law can apply to all Italian sites. What is an Italian site? Is it:

  1. a site with an Italian domain
  2. a site on a server in Italy
  3. a site in Italian

Second, what happens when the site is based in several locations with data pulled from several sources? Do they get a tax reduction?

Third, what is a website? Can you define it legally? Is there a difference between the site, server and domain? What about:

  1. A facebook profile
  2. A blog on blogger
  3. An advert on ebay
  4. A wikipedia page
  5. A flickr profile

These may be unique individual websites – but they can also be seen as part of a larger domain.
Fourth, what about free speech rights? Basically an unregistered website would be in violation of the law but would/should the reaction be to close down the site? What happens if a newspaper does not register can they be closed down?

Fifth, administration. How much money and resource can be used to police a law such as this? Can the revenue it brings in even begin to cover the investigative resources required? No of course not. Imaging attempting to chase every Italian blog. How do you know when they are Italian?

Proposals to regulate the Internet come at regular intervals. Often they are barely thought through and will collapse before they even reach the enactment stage. Some laws on Internet regulation have been enacted but are then thankfully forgotten by those who should enforce them.

In the end proposals such as these show that regulators seem to lack even a basic understanding of the technology which most of us use. They also lack a fundamental modern historical approach to regulation. It is really a case of being condemned to repeat the past since we cannot remember it. All the earlier crappy failed attempts to regulate the Internet have failed but since the people proposing regulation have no memory of this we are doomed to see the same mistakes repeated again and again.

At best this provides a form of light relief and humor.

(via BoingBoing)

Posted on by mklang