News

Bush Mashup

Another excellent mashup! Images of George Bush singing U2’s song Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The work is prestented on ThePartyParty. Think about the text of the song in relation to Iraq.

i can’t believe the news today
can’t close my eyes and make it go away
how long how long must we sing this song
how long too long for too long

broken bottles under children’s feet
bodies strewn across the dead end streets
but i won’t heed the battle call
it puts my back up puts my back up against the wall

and the battle’s just begun
this many lost and tell me who has won
the trench is dug within our hearts
mothers children brothers sisters torn apart
(words & music: U2)

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

Ending the cold war

Hey â?? remember the cold war? Itâ??s over right? When a war ends it would be nice if the warring factions could pick up all their stuff and move it back to were it belongs. Despite this (obvious?) point the US maintains 480 nuclear weapons in Europe (Germany, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey). Formally these are NATO but they are owned and controlled by the US. It would be really nice if the US would take them back home.

The weapons are placed on European soil and if anything goes wrong the damage will be carried by Europeans. They were designed as a deterrent â?? at least that was what we where told the arms race was for. So now that there is no major power to deter (if there ever was a need for nuclear deterrent) please take the crap off our front lawn.

Why not do something really wild and make Europe a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone?

Greenpeace has more information and also a fun video â??Nato Big Brotherâ?? â?? after the video you are asked to vote whom should leave.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) released its report entitled Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms read about the report launch here.

Commission Chairman Dr. Hans Blix presented it [the report] to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the UN Headquarters in New York, and thereafter to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Mr. Jan Eliasson, to whom Dr. Blix expressed his and the Commissionâ??s gratitude to the Swedish Government for having established and assumed the main financial responsibility of the WMDC.

The report calls for (amongst other things) the removal of nuclear arms in Europe.

The report clearly states that the nuclear weapon states are in breach of their Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitment to disarm and “no longer seem to take their commitment to nuclear disarmament seriously – even though this was an essential part of the NPT bargain, both at the treaty’s birth in 1968 and when it was extended indefinitely in 1995.”

That’s the kind of thing we have been saying for decades – but which rarely features in the UN Security Council, dominated as it is by the five permanent members, all of whom possess nuclear weapons.  Far from disarming, they’re actually upgrading their arsenals.

The report also observes:

While the reaction of most states to the treaty violations was to strengthen and develop the existing treaties and institutions, the US, the sole superpower, has looked more to its own military power for remedies. The US National Security Strategy of 2002 made it clear that the US would feel free to use armed force without authorization of the United Nations Security Council to counter not only an actual or imminent attack involving WMD but also a WMD threat that might be uncertain as to time and place.

Download and read the full report here.

(via Real Peter Forsberg)

Posted on by mklang

Prudent use of DNA

The official position towards the use of DNA in police investigations in Sweden has until quite recently been unanimously positive. This positive stance has occasionally burst out in fits of blind optimism. One such example was when an ex-police chief and a law professor wrote a debate article in one of the main Swedish newspapers arguing (on extremely weak arguments) that everyone in Sweden should be forced to give DNA samples since this would prevent those who had been forced to give DNA samples in the line of police inquiries from being discriminated.

This techno-optimism approach to DNA may however be receiving a few more sober reflective comments. In an article in Dagens Nyheter the head of Swedish homicide investigation Dag Andersson states that the police must be very careful of becoming single minded. In other words DNA is a useful tool but it can also limit the efficiency of the police since they are too busy searching and analysing DNA samples to actually use more traditional â?? and no less efficient methods.

My critique of DNA in police investigations is the danger of over-reliance on technology and the misallocation of resources. Taking masses of DNA samples from a high number of suspects is sloppy work. It promotes laziness and is connected with high costs. These costs could have been better used in preventative measures enacted before the crime took place.
The Swedish Minister of Justice is a big fan of the implementation of high-tech. But in common for all his techno-optimism is that they are high-cost measures designed to be implemented after the fact. This high-cost techno-optimism approach is designed to hide the fact that there is really no plan or initiative to work in a manner to prevent crime.

An additional “side-effect” is also that civil rights are trampled upon with the bad excuse that such trampling is necessary.

Posted on by mklang

good plagiarists arenâ??t caught

The BBC ran a story on plagiarism a couple of days ago. The main point was to present the work of Professor Sally Brown. The results are not surprising but the interesting thing is that this has become an issue to report on the BBC website (or maybe it was a slow news day!). Sally Brown says that plagiarism is affecting all UK universities: â??The ones that say they havenâ??t got a problem have got their heads in the sand.â??

I have written about university plagiarism before â?? both when itâ??s students plagiarising and when itâ??s the researchers. The non-recognition of the problem is not only due to the google-generation. There are too many examples of scholars schooled in pre-google, and indeed pre-Internet, who have been caught cheating in this way.

Professor Brown also comments on the flaws of software based solutions against plagiarism: â??The good plagiarists arenâ??t caught.â?? Again this is not new but it is interesting that it needs to be said.

But is â??goodâ?? plagiarism really plagiarism? The amount of work it takes to personalise a text can really be greater than writing it. Editing other peoples work is not an easy process and it is most definitely a learning process which the university in one way claims to be interested in.

If plagiarism is when the student (lets ignore the professional plagiarists for now) hands in someone elseâ??s work and claims that it is his/her own â?? by these standards ripping off someoneâ??s name from an essay and adding ones own is plagiarism. But so is bad or inadequate use of references.

All too often we demand that our students think independently on issues where many superior minds have thought for a long time. If the student â??simplyâ?? collects the thoughts of others and references this process well it is considered a fair essay â?? it lacks the individual thought. If the references are badly done its plagiarism.

Maybe, just maybe, we should begin to reappraise this process. In the age of Internet and CIO (Chief Information Officers) is the goal independent thought? Or is the goal the ability to sift through the mass of information and then present it in a new and coherent way? By focusing on the independent thought we are (indirectly) promoting the urge to plagiarise since the student always will be able to find someone who has had their idea before themâ?¦

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 report II

Eben Moglen began his presentation by putting recent news in new perspective. He spoke of the retirement of Bill Gates in a way that I found intriguing.
When a CEO states that he resigns there is a period of calming the market. Therefore when Gates says he will step down in two years this should not be seen as a long time. Two years it is the minimum timeframe that will not spook the market. The important issue is that the resignation comes 6 months from the shipping the most important product in 10 years.

Also we can put this into another perspective the FSF is on schedule with the most important product in 15 years. The update of to the GPLv3. The process going to version three is open and public. Philosophically it reflects the rule-making process put forward by Habermas where the idea is that those affected by the rules should be part of the decision making process.

When discussing the substantial changes Eben explain why the GPLv3 has been adapted to meet the needs of issues such as distribution via torrents, the developments within patents and the increase in DRM.

On the latter he explained that companies feel that they should be allowed to have rights (digital) and want to protect them. Many of these feel that RMS is attempting to change their vocabulary (from Rights to Restrictions). But this is not about attempting to use a software license to address non-software problems. The license (and its implementation) is about the software and the four freedoms. DRM is about the attempt to prevent users from practicing the 4 freedoms.

In closing before an extended Q&A session Eben returned to the issue of Microsoft. The falling revenues and the stepping down of Bill Gates will have the effect that one of strongest voices against Free Software will be silenced (almost). In the future arguing for Free Software will therefore not meet the strong resistance it is accustomed to.

Posted on by mklang

The guilt of a travelling techie

I replaced my iPod yesterday after the total collapse of my last one. Today I read about the iSweatshops. The iPods are assembled in China by mainly female workers. The workforceâ?¦

â?¦resides in “iPod cities” with as many as 200,000 employees. Outsiders are forbidden, and 15-hour workdays are the norm. As you might expect, the wages are low, even for China. (Foreign Policy).

Tomorrow I will fly to Barcelona to participate in the GPLv3 conference besides being an event that I am looking forward to, the privilege of visiting foreign cities is one I value. Recently the discussion on environmental damage caused by flights has taken speed â?? especially with the rapid rise of cheap tickets which increases our â??unnecessaryâ?? flights.

Monbiot writes: â??Flying kills. We all know it, and we all do it.“

Monbiot is referring to the environmental effects of flying. He claims (convincingly) that while most of our reliance on fuels causing carbon emissions can be reduced without a too serious limitation to our freedom â?? this does not apply to flying. Reducing carbon emissions caused by flying means reducing the number of flights we take.

Both these arguments (iSweatshops & flying) have something important in common. They both bring into question things I appreciate. The question that must be posed from this information is â?? what shall I do about it?

When bringing this information to people he meets Monbiot writes of the listeners response: â??They just want to enjoy themselves. Who am I to spoil their fun? The moral dissonance is deafening.â??

The first impulse may be the ostrich approach â?? by sticking oneâ??s neck into the sand the bad news can be ignored. This approach should not be ignored â?? it works surprisingly well and is applied successfully by many. I tried this for a while â?? unfortunately it eventually wears thin. Another approach is self-denial. A no-excuses approach to technology and flights. This entails limiting everything to the bare necessities â?? without allowing for rationalisations. This involves denying oneself of many of the things that I appreciate â?? not an easy approach.

Can there be a middle-of-the-road approach? Is awareness better than ignorance? This argument would mean that our knowledge of the harm our choices entail legitimises our actions even if this has no real effect on physical events (better working conditions or environment). As much as I would like this, I cannot believe this is a solid approach to improvement.

The answer? Donâ??t look at me. I believe it is better to be aware than ignorant of the harm I do â?? even if this cannot mitigate the harm.

Posted on by mklang

Death Vans

In a move that is eerily echoes the mobile Nazi gas chambers China has begun to use specially designed busses as mobile centres of execution where they administer death by lethal injection. It is no secret that China has capital punishment, but the amount of capital punishments undertaken remains undeclared by the Chinese government.

Death Van

Product Specifications (via USA Today):
Cost: $37,500 to $75,000, depending on vehicle’s size
Length: 20 to 26 feet
Top speed: 65 to 80 mph

The van is divided into three sections:

Execution chamber: in the back, with blacked-out windows; seats beside the stretcher for a court doctor and guards; sterilizer for injection equipment; wash basin
Observation area: in the middle, with a glass window separating it from execution area; can accommodate six people; official-in-charge oversees the execution through monitors connected to the prisoner and gives instruction via walkie-talkie.
Driver area


Banality of Evil
In an earlier post I wrote about the banality of evil â?? here is another excellent example. How does it feel to design such a vehicle? Does the designer add this to his/her CV? What about the company that sells them? What does the sales rep think when he/she wakes up in the morning? Is it a good thing that they are selling well?

This is an excellent example of the responsibility of the designer which I hope to make use of in my teaching. The main point is to problematize around designer responsibility and the issue of whether it is right (ethically & morally) that the designer does his/her best to solve the needs and meet the requirements of the customer.

Death in China
Amnesty International writes that capital punishment can be used â??â?¦for as many as 68 crimes, including non-violent crimes such as tax fraud, embezzlement and drug offences. 1,770 executions were reportedly carried out in China during 2005.â??

USA Today report that the majority of these executions are by firing squad but death by lethal injection is growing. China has introduced mobile execution vehicles where lethal injections are administered as a

â??â?¦civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely.â??

It has been speculated that one reason for the transfer to lethal injection is that the method keeps the organs in better condition for removal and sale. For a longer report on the Chinese death penalty read this Amnesty report (March 2004)

(via Space and Culture)

Posted on by mklang

Does Bodström dream of high-tech hammers?

The Swedish Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström can without a doubt be placed among the European Ministerâ??s most hostile to civil liberties (older posts about this here & here & here). Besides blogging about it (along with many others) Henrik Sandklef and I wrote a debate article concerning this mans naïve faith in technological solutions to crime. It was published in the newspaper (in Swedish) and the Minister replied â?? well sort ofâ?¦he never actually met our arguments on civil rights violations, but claimed that the police needed tools to do their job (in Swedish).

Yesterday the Chairman of the Swedish Police Union, Björn Ericson, wrote in a debate article (in Swedish) that despite the Ministerâ??s claims that the police force has increased by 1500 policemen the actual numbers show that the number of policemen have decreased by almost 700 since 1997. Ericson wonders whether the 1500 policemen are all working deep undercover since nobody besides the Minister seems to know where they are.

Besides the politics (it is, after all, an election year), Ericson brings up a vital point in his article. Who will watch the tapes, analyse the data and read the log files? Much of the current wisdom concerning police enforcement deals with the importance of visibility. Policemen on the streets. It is not only important that the police patrol but also that they be seen to be patrolling.

Technology costs. The cost of building and maintaining a high-tech police force will create higher costs for the police. This will mean that they will have to make budget choices. Either be visible or spend money on technology. Our Minister has shown his inclination lies in the dream of a technological future â?? but what is missing in this dream?

Implementing the high-tech surveillance society will entail making choices. Simple choices with far reaching effects. The Bodström vision entails moving the police from all types of prevention and focus them on the cure. In the long run prevention is more cost efficient than cure. All the high-tech in the world cannot, will not, prevent crime. The only aspect of use is that high-tech may provide proof in the ensuing court case. And this can only be achieved through the trampling of civil liberties and therefore must only be used as little as possible.

The choices the police are being forced to make will therefore change their purpose. They will not be about the prevention of crime but rather the police will become the servants of the courts, the errand boys of the prosecutor. Despite their handcuffs, handguns and truncheons their primary work will be the collection of data for analysis. This is not unworthy work but it does not prevent the bulk of most crimes.

Technology such as that of bugging (phones and computers), DNA databases and surveillance cameras are all tools. Tools work well to resolve certain problems. With the right tools people became efficient â?? a large part of human development can be studied in the development of certain tools (fire, bronze axes, steam engines, silicon chipsâ?¦) but with the wrong tools the work becomes difficult, if not impossible. Of course you can bang in a nail with a screwdriver â?? but at a cost.

Most violent crimes (Terrorism, Saturday-night brawling, violence and abuse at home) will not be prevented by buying technology. The 9/11 terrorists used their own names â?? it would not have mattered to them if they had been asked to donate DNA. Putting more, and better trained, police on the streets â?? does have an effect on crime.

More patrolling policemen would not have prevented 9/11 â?? there is no way to prevent the determined. More patrolling police will not prevent abuse in homes. This takes an even more costly prevention â?? education and social welfare. But it is a better preventative cure for most other crimes. In addition to this it does not violate the civil rights of law-abiding people in the hope of catching the criminal.

There is a saying: When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Thomas Bodström is busying buying the dream of the big high-tech hammer and no matter how many different problems people attempt to explain to him with this approach all he can see is nails â?? and he cannot wait to pound us down.

Posted on by mklang

Exciting news and GPL3

Exciting news! I will be part of a panel at the 3rd International GPLv3 Conference in Barcelona next week. Look at the schedule (highlights below) can you imagine a more interesting two days?

Highlights day 1 – 22 June
10:30 – Georg Greve: opening introduction
11:00 – Richard Stallman: Overview of GPL v3 Changes
12:30 – Ciarán O’Riordan: The public consultation process
14:30 – Eben Moglen: The wording of the changes

Highlights day 2 – 23 june
10:30 Panel: Current projects of FSFE

  • Carlo Piana (Tamos Piana & Partners), the MS anti-trust case
  • Pablo Machón, building the Spanish team
  • Ciaran O’Riordan, Legislation from Brussels
  • Stefano Maffulli, FSFE’s Fellowship

11:30 Panel: Awareness and adoption of GPLv3

  • Fernanda Weiden, Associação SoftwareLivre.org
  • Anne Ã?stergaard, GNOME Foundation
  • Alexandre Oliva, Free Software Foundation Latin America

12:30 Pablo Machón: GPLv3 and the European software patent struggle
14:30 Panel: The Discussion Committees

  • Niibe Yutaka, Free Software Initiative Japan (committee A)
  • Philippe Aigrain, Sopinspace (committee C)
  • Masayuki Hatta, Debian (committee D)

15:30 Panel: Enforcing the GPL, thwarting DRM

  • Harald Welte, gpl-violations.org
  • David “Novalis” Turner, Free Software Foundation
  • Mathias Klang, Informatics researcher, University of Goteborg

16:30 Stefano Maffulli: Closing presentation

Posted on by mklang

The Death of Memory

OK â?? so articles that begin with the title â??The Death ofâ?¦â?? have a tendency to be alarmist. Despite this the recent news that Dr. Martin Luther Kingâ??s estate is about to auction off his papers (10 000 papers) creates thoughts in this direction. (via On the Commons)

The main fear is that the collection of sermons, speeches and papers that King wrote between 1946-1968 (including drafts of  â??I Have a Dreamâ??) will be bought by an investor and then sold off in pieces to the highest bidders. The economics of this is totally logical it will raise the most money. The downside is that this amazing collection will be spread making research difficult, and maybe impossible. As part of a collection a small note written by Dr King is a valuable addition. Taken on itâ??s own it is worth little and can be maltreated and eventually lost â?? as history has often shown.

This is indeed a death of memory.

The second part of the death of memory concerns the digitisation of communications. Since the dissemination of computers there has been a dramatic rise in communication and creativity. The general impression is that more and more people are writing and creating different forms of creative works. In addition to this more of our photographs are stored on digital storage devices. What are the implications of the shift to digital storage devices?

Cuneiform writing on clay tablets can still be read today after over 4000 years. Through this we have been able to read the Hammurabi code of law and the Gilgamesh epic and legends. (UPenn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). Older books have a relatively long life expectancy in particular those printed on paper made from cloth rags. â??Ordinaryâ?? paper is less enduring and in particular modern paper since the acid remains in paper made between 1850 and 1950 cause this paper to slowly disintegrate (actually a slow burning acid fire) (Wikipedia).  Microfilm and Microfiche have a life expectancy of 500+ years but in reality this is substantially lower due to wear and tear by users.  Magnetic tape, Videotape, Magnetic disk and Optical disk will last less than 30-40 years.*

Stored digital photos will not be recovered from dumpsters and garage sales (Swapatorium) since they will have become unreadable as well as deteriorated.

All information storage forms require that the reader be able to understand the data. In the case of cuneiform tablets it is necessary to understand the written language. In the case of technologies such as tapes and microfilm it is also necessary to maintain functioning equipment that will be able to read the stored data. In the case of digital equipment it is necessary to save both the hardware and the software.

A good way to begin to understand the magnatude of this problem is to look at the â??Mother Tonguesâ?? chart of the development of computer languages that shows the rise and fall of programming languages.

Who will save the hardware, software and knowledge to be able to auction my collected works stored on several decaying computers? Even if someone eventually would want to read itâ?¦

* Rothenberg, Jeff. ‘Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents’, Scientific American (Jan 1995): 24-29.

Posted on by mklang