management

Digital Culture book

The book Structures of Participation in Digital Culture is now available for download for free. Here is a part of the blurb:

Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, …explores digital technologies that are engines of cultural innovation, from the virtualization of group networks and social identities to the digital convergence of textural and audio-visual media. User-centered content production, from Wikipedia to YouTube to Open Source, has become the emblem of this transformation, but the changes run deeper and wider than these novel organizational forms…

The contents include some familiar and some unfamiliar names and a lot of chapters that seem worth reading, take a look at this:

  • The Past and the Internet (Geoffrey Bowker),
  • History, Memory, Place, and Technology: Plato’s Phaedrus Online (Gregory Crane),
  • Other Networks: Media Urbanism and the Culture of the Copy in South Asia (Ravi Sundaram),
  • Pirate Infrastructures (Brian Larkin),
  • Technologies of the Childhood Imagination: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Media Mixes, and Everyday Cultural Production (Mizuko Ito),
  • Pushing the Borders: Player Participation and Game Culture (T. L. Taylor),
  • None of This Is Real: Identity and Participation in Friendster (danah boyd),
  • Notes on Contagious Media (Jonah Peretti),
  • Picturing the Public (Warren Sack),
  • Toward Participatory Expertise (Shay David),
  • Game Engines as Open Networks (Robert F. Nideffer),
  • The Diablo Program (Doug Thomas),
  • Disciplining Markets in the Digital Age (Joe Karaganis),
  • Price Discrimination and the Shape of the Digital Commodity (Tarleton Gillespie),
  • The Ecology of Control: Filters, Digital Rights Management, and Trusted Computing (Joe Karaganis).

Download the Entire Book

Posted on by mklang

Handbook of Applied Cryptography

The Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott A. Vanstone is available free online for download. This is an important book – in my discussions with online activists I try to explain the importance of them doing all they can to protect themselves. This is certainly a step in the right direction.

  • Chapter 1 – Overview of Cryptography ps pdf
  • Chapter 2 – Mathematics Background ps pdf
  • Chapter 3 – Number-Theoretic Reference Problems ps pdf
  • Chapter 4 – Public-Key Parameters ps pdf
  • Chapter 5 – Pseudorandom Bits and Sequences ps pdf
  • Chapter 6 – Stream Ciphers ps pdf
  • Chapter 7 – Block Ciphers ps pdf
  • Chapter 8 – Public-Key Encryption ps pdf
  • Chapter 9 – Hash Functions and Data Integrity ps pdf
  • Chapter 10 – Identification and Entity Authentication ps pdf
  • Chapter 11 – Digital Signatures ps pdf
  • Chapter 12 – Key Establishment Protocols ps pdf
  • Chapter 13 – Key Management Techniques ps pdf
  • Chapter 14 – Efficient Implementation ps pdf
  • Chapter 15 – Patents and Standards ps pdf
  • Appendix – Bibliography of Papers from Selected Cryptographic Forums ps pdf
  • References ps pdf
  • Index ps pdf

The book is not under a particularly generous license but it is available. Make sure you read the copyright notice.

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

Thunderbird

 Apparently two core developers working on the Thunderbird email client have quit. Following the continued development of Thunderbird should be interesting.

The two core developers of Thunderbird have left Mozilla. Scott McGregor made a brief statement: ‘I wanted to let the Thunderbird community know that Friday October 12th will be my last day as an employee of the Mozilla Corporation.’ Meanwhile, David Bienvenu blogged: ‘Just wanted to let everyone know that my last day at The Mozilla Corporation will be Oct. 12. I intend to stay involved with Thunderbird… I’ve enjoyed working at Mozilla a lot, and I wish Mozilla Co and the new Mail Co all the best.’ A few month ago Mozilla management considered abandoning their second product and setting up a special corporation just for the mail client. (Slashdot)

Naturally there are lots of alternative email clients to chose from Eudora, Claws Mail or Mulberry but I really like using Thunderbird so I hope that it continues to develop.

(via Guardian)

Posted on by mklang

iCommons Summit

The third annual iCommons summit will be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia (15-17 June) and this year I have the good fortune to be able to attend.

The event includes people like Creative Commons CEO, Larry Lessig, CC Chairman and Digital Entrepreneur, Joi Ito, Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales and CTO of Linden Labs, Cory Ondrejka. We have also add some new voices to the debate this year including Indiaâ??s Lawrence Liang who has become renowned for his considered commentary on the positive impact of piracy in developing countries, Jonathan Zittrain discussing themes from his new book â??The Future of the Internet and How to Stop Itâ??, Benjamin Mako Hill from MIT who will talk about competing visions of â??free cultureâ?? from the free software perspective, and Becky Hogge from the Open Rights Group, who will talk about successful campaigns to rid the world of restrictive IP laws.

I am really looking forward to it and to meeting all the other commoners. Naturally the event will be blogged 🙂

Posted on by mklang

The smell of a city

Places smell. Usually the smell of a place is ignored since it is familiar to us. But the smell of places is, in part, what makes us fell comfortable or uncomfortable. This becomes more obvious when we are met with an unusual smell (either good or bad). The good/bad smell sticks out and is therefore a challenge to the norm.

But our sense of smell is also stored in our memories. Mumbai is a hot, messy city. Some of the dusty and plainly less attractive scents have reminded me of my childhood in Malta. It isnâ??t that I enjoy these smells â?? itâ??s just that they are familiar to me.

Take for example the hotel room. Our rooms at the hotel are liberally sprinkled with mothballs. No I donâ??t mean that there are one or two at the back of the cupboard â?? I mean they are everywhere: In the cupboard, on the floor (they tend to congregate in the corners of the room), in the sink and in the bath. It is not due to the fact that the manager is paranoid about moths or the fact that they probably act as repellent against other nasty creepy crawlies â?? we have been informed that the management (maybe all the staff) recognize the smell of mothballs as the smell of cleanliness.

For me the smell of mothballs takes me back to when we would by a new school blazer. The shops storeroom always smelled of mothballs. Every blazer was in a plastic cover that always contained a few of the white marbles. They fascinated me as a child and I had to be reminded often that they were poisonous.

Other nostalgic smells are things like humid heat, rotting produce and horse pee in 30-degree heat. New smells include incense, food sold in stalls, and a mixture that for me is outdoor Mumbai since there is a (not unpleasant) different smell to the place.

BBC on Nostalgic smells.

Posted on by mklang

Torrent BBC

The BBC must be seen as being among the avant garde of television today. Not too long ago they opened up their archives under licenses similar to Creative Commons licenses (Look at the Creative Archive License Group). In doing this they were ahead of their time.

Now they have decided to make â??hundredsâ?? of episodes of BBC programmes via bittorrent.

By doing this the BBC once again show that they â??getâ?? technology. While in Sweden the term file-sharing is becoming synonymous with illegal action the BBCâ??s deal with Azareus shows that they can recognize a superior distribution system when they see one.

The new deal means that users of the software will be able to download high-quality versions of BBC programmes, including Red Dwarf, Doctor Who and the League of Gentleman. Classic series such as Fawlty Towers will also be available through a BBC “channel”. BBC News

Naturally the BBC is not into giving away these top titles (you didnâ??t think it would be that good â?? did you?) No, the titles will be protected by digital rights management software to prevent the programmes being traded illegally on the internet.

The BBC might carry the nickname Auntie Beeb but all I can say is that I wish my Swedish public service relatives were as creative.

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

The Sting, or why suckers happily pay

Much of the visible focus of the Free Software vs Proprietary Software discussion revolves around products such as the browser, or the operating system. But what really gets me depressed is the fact that my own faculty has chosen to use proprietary software (the Norwegian Fronter) as their course management system. The best thing is that none of the teachers are particularly happy with this choice. But I doubt that anyone is ever happy about software.

But the fact that we have chosen proprietary software which we cannot develop (even if we wanted to) increases the sense of: â??No, no please let us pay for the privilege of being unhappy with software we cannot improve.â??

UPDATE: The system our faculty uses is the Open Source system called Fronter. The fact is that we have the legal technical ability to make changes to the system. The faculty have contributed in the past (Thank you, Aleksander!). The lack of understanding about this among the teachers (me included) can only be seen as a lack of internal communication.

Just to make sure that I maintain that unhappy feeling â?? UCLA have decided to rub salt into my wound. The UCLA have decided to adopt the Moodle as their sole course management system. Moodle is licensed under the GNU General Public License and is under active development in collaboration by universities all over the world.

Moodle is a course management system (CMS) – a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a 50,000-student University.

If my own department is too dumb to see the merits of this argument then what hope is there for Free Software? People seem to want to be part of the P. T. Barnum worldview “There’s a sucker born every minute…and two to take ’em.” But why do I have to work with the ones who want to be conned and pay happily for the privilege?

The misleading title of this post may suggest that I have an answer to this question beyond human stupidity. But I don’t – or maybe I am just tired and cranky?

Posted on by mklang

DRM & Dog Poo

I wrote an article which has been published on the Swedish Green Party website Cogito.nu. The article discusses the dangers to democracy posed by digital restrictions management (DRM). In the article I discuss the way in which regulation works by using an example of picking up dog poo. Strange mixture of DRM & dog poo but I think it works. The article is available here (in Swedish).

Posted on by mklang

Cyberbalkanization

Sometimes the world seems more bizarre than usual. Nothing really big, just a bit like looking at a mirror from an angle… It’s the same, vaguely familiar space… and yet slightly different. Too much work has made me ignore the fun part of blogging. What is left is zipping rapidly through the news not really registering what is going on. This becomes a disjointed reality. It’s close, vaguely familiar and yet slightly unreal. Even explaining it all makes it seem stranger than it is.

Here are three examples of “news”

Swedish media is full of the news that we will soon (tonight) have our first Swedish astronaut. Christer Fuglesang is to be the first Swede in space (sounds like an episode of the Muppet Show). Actually it gets a bit strange since the Norwegians seem to be claiming him as well. Well wikipedia says he is one of ours so it must be right.

The Swedish tennis star Björn Borg has sold the rights to his name for 124 million kronor (18 MUSD) to Worldwide Brand Management. WBM has previously had the license to the brand and paid royalties to the Dutch company Fabulous Licensing, which has connections to the Borg family.

NASA announced plans Monday to begin building a permanent base on the moon by 2024, four years after the space agency starts sending crews of four astronauts there for weeklong exploratory missions. The base would probably be located near the lunar south pole and be staffed by rotating teams of international astronauts for up to six months at a time, according to NASA officials.

When I have less time I tend not to follow much “traditional” media (newspapers, radio & television). Then when I see these kinds of news items zipping past the horizon I get the feeling that I am not missing much.
In 2001 Cass Sunstein wrote about the dangers of Internet media in his book Republic.com (sample chapter). He argued that the Internet could weaken democracy because it allows citizens to isolate themselves within groups that share their own views and experiences, and thus cut themselves off from any information that might challenge their beliefs, a phenomenon known as the theory of cyberbalkanization.

Posted on by mklang