In Napster's case, they directly benefited from the downloading of music; this was their business model. But ISPs provide connectivity and server-space; they do not directly benefit from the downloading of music. I'm not a lawyer, so I can only hope this goes to court so that ISPs can be freed from this sort of pressure.

- - - - - - - -

At first glance, this may seem like nothing new, record companies clamping down on file-trading services. But the method they are using, pressuring the ISPs, is an important development.

It is widely accepted that pressure on ISPs is not a method that should be utilized to suppress content. Individuals must be held accountable for their actions; asking ISPs to police their servers is tantamount to passing a burden of censorship to these companies.This is the very kind of behaviour that Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen have been condemned for practicing. The fact that in the United States it is corporations, not the government exerting this pressure only shows how warped our power structure has become.

- - - - - - - -

‘There will be a protest held outside the US Embassy in London, on Friday 3 August, calling for the immediate release of Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian programmer who was arrested by the FBI for creating software which circumvented the copyright protection mechanism in Adobe's eBook Reader.

‘Adobe has since issued a joint statement with the Electronic Frontier Foundation calling for Mr Sklyarov's release, but the US Department of Justice still has Mr Sklyarov in custody, and appears to intend to proceed with the trial.’

- - - - - - - -

The more ‘anti-globalisation’ talks I go to (that seems to have become the buzzword for everything activism-related today- and my experience of it all is usually through some detached academic lens), the more it seems many people are in it for the culture more than for the ‘movement.’ These two groups happily acknowledge that the parties are just as much a part of their way of life as the issues, and they seem to have melded the two in, as they aptly put it, a ‘potent concoction.’

schnews

squall

‘The SQUALL Crew are a multimedia collective of cultural activists dedicated to top quality edutainment. The news team investigate current controversy with an attention to accuracy, whilst the events team provide free party underground music from the funky end of the dance spectrum at a variety of venues and festivals.’

- - - - - - - -

‘October 21st has been designated "JAM ECHELON DAY" and on that day we are encouraging email messages to be sent out in great numbers, containing as many 'trigger words' as possible. (There is a list of 1700 on the web site.) While the goal of "jamming up" ECHELON is a lofty and likely unattainable one, is it not better to signal displeasure at being monitored than passively allow it to happen? We think so.’

I find it interesting that amidst trigger words like ‘assasinate’ and ‘FBI’ we find ‘Nike’ and ‘MSNBC.’

More about echelon

- - - - - - - -

GnuPG (The GNU Privacy Guard)

‘GnuPG is a complete and free replacement for PGP. Because it does not use the patented IDEA algorithm, it can be used without any restrictions. GnuPG is a RFC2440 (OpenPGP) compliant application.’

HushMail

HushMail is web-based encryption.
‘HushMail messages, and their attachments, are encrypted using OpenPGP standard algorithms. These algorithms, combined with HushMail's unique OpenPGP key management system, offer users unrivalled levels of security.’

Keep in mind that HushMail's implementation is not Open Source. Here are some comments on hushmail, and hushmail's reponse.

-via nettime

To be perfectly honest, I really couldn't care less who reads my email, but then, I am an exhibitionist of the worst kind. I do, however, think that we should all have the choice of deciding who knows what about us, and I acknolwedge that the current popular email system is not secure.

Besides, it seems the thing to do. No-one takes your seriously in a lot of these circles unless you have a key.

But who wants to be taken seriously?

- - - - - - - -

A short post at nettime that takes the LA Times wild-west article mentioned earlier in context with Dmitri Sklyarov's incarceration.

- - - - - - - -

‘How often are legal threats used to silence Internet activity? Help us to find out and counter baseless threats with the "chilling effects clearinghouse."’

‘This website is a prototype for a project being developed by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and clinics at law schools across the country. We will be gathering cease and desist notices sent to Internet users, and will analyze those letters in issue-spotting FAQs (informal memos) to be posted on the site.’

- via Phil Agre's Red Rock Eater News Service

- - - - - - - -

A priceless Ditherati quote today:

‘The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws. The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists’

Quoting from the LA Times article,Taming the Wild, Wild Web.

More opinions on Richard Stallman:

• Salon 21st | The Richard Stallman saga, redux
• WIRED's selected archives on Stallman
• An ode to Richard Stallman

- - - - - - - -

Nick Taylor, who recently made an example of this site as ‘an extrordinary candidate of a site that I would consider to be not designed, but instead "designer"’, points out some inaccuracies in my Bio of Linus Torvalds.

^{(note: I've added the links not specifically mentioned by url)}
‘...most people don't fully realize how small Linus' contribution was (in the larger picture) to the initial genesis of the Linux system. Most of the work was done by GNU, Richard Stallman's initiative. Linus developed the Linux kernel based on the Minix system which is his main credit, as well as the fact that he's taken over the Linux system entirely and is doing a fine job with it. But to say he "invented" it does a mild injustice to the people at GNU who did a majority of the work. It's a hair-splitting issue, I know, and it's not a big deal. Anyway, poke through gnu.org for history on Linux and the GPL.’

- - - - - - - - -

noborder.org | camping2001

‘Borders are there to be crossed. People have the right to decide for themselves, where they want to live and how. We don't need a globalisation designed for corporations and their hunger for more and ever cheaper labour, no matter if legal or illegal.’

‘Each of the six camps is a site for political, cultural and media activities, they are creating a space to gather and meet, discuss, make actions and create connections. ’

Camps are happening in: Tarifa [esp] 02.-08.jul • Lendava [slo] 04.-08.jul • Krynki [pol] 05.-12.jul • Genova [ita] 21.-24.jul • Frankfurt [ger] 28.jul-05.aug • Tijuana [mex] 24.-26.aug

- via nettime

- - - - - - - -

core dump of mp3 player, from sound-hack

You ever open up a file in the ‘wrong’ program and end up with something that definitely wasn't what you expected, but pretty cool in its own right?

Sound-hack and fällt are developing that theme, forcing software to do things it wasn't intended for, and creating art in the process.

‘fork()bomb: A program or shell script which (either intentionally or accidently) creates new processes repeatedly using the fork() system call. New processes are created so fast that within no time the process table gets filled up and the system comes to a grinding halt.’

Or stuffing sound-loops within a recursive function until the overlapping melodies unite in one shivering note that freezes your machine.

Subverting tools is nothing new, but it's always exciting.

^{just don't click the ARTISTS link at fallt. just don't. it's hard to love the stuff after seeing that page.}

- - - - - - - -

This is a mailing list to help people in the UK organize to free Dmitry Sklyarov. If you're in the UK, sign up; a lunch-break of your time spent in Hyde Park handing out pamphlets can really spread awareness. Or just sign up to learn more about what's happening.

- - - - - - - -

‘WASHINGTON -- Rep. Rick Boucher wants to spring a Russian programmer from jail.

‘Boucher, a maverick Virginia Democrat, is hoping to rewrite a federal law that led FBI agents to arrest Dmitry Sklyarov in Las Vegas, Nevada, last week on copyright felony charges.

‘"It's a broad overreach to have a person arrested under the federal criminal laws simply because they made software that circumvents a technological measure," Boucher said. Boucher said his office will draft a bill to be introduced later this year. ’

Of course, another article at Wired states that Congress [is] No Haven for Hackers.

‘Even as the world's geeks march against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, key legislators and lobbyists are dismissing concerns about the controversial law as hyperbole. ’

Boucher's stance is nothing new; Boucher has been against DMCA for quite some time.

So we should take this one congressman's anti-DMCA stance with a grain of salt. It's great to have support on capitol hill, but we've still got a way to go.

You can learn more about Rep. Rick Boucher here and here. Or email him to show your thanks for his support.

- - - - - - - -

So, this article doesn't tell us anything we didn't know would happen several months ago, and the illustration is uninspired. But that quote alone, ‘the Napster diaspora’ makes it worth a read, if just to see it in context.

‘Some [Napster alternatives] will be vulnerable to the same kind of lawsuit that has hobbled Napster, but many others will not, and the harder the RIAA pushes the legal strategy, the more it will push the public -- and the developers -- toward the decentralized, noncommercial alternatives, those best inoculated against legal suppression. When that happens, the music industry will face the ultimate disaster toward which it has been heading ever since it decided to take Napster to court: To enforce its copyrights, it will need to take legal action against the hundreds, thousands or millions of individuals who have taken up file sharing with alacrity -- individuals formerly known as customers. Down that impractical road lies only commercial suicide. ’

So it seems the decentralized model is still vexing the authorities, and the only way for them kill a decentralized model would be to fight it in a decentralized way, prosecuting every individual, or craft some heinous law that forbids any software that could be used to share ‘intellectual property.’ The former is impractical; the latter is oppresive and, hopefully, impossible. There is that shiver of doubt that the government would actually do this (and I'm not just talking about sharing music), which is why the strengthening and popularization of anonymous decentralized systems may be the only way to ensure our rights in a time when so many governments seem more concerned about the interests of the corporate than the individual.

I'm not saying we have any ‘right’ to copy music online; I'm saying that the measures necessary to stop this music-sharing could scar a whole lot of more important rights as well. Let's just hope that we don't all end up living in a society where we need to hide behind an electronic curtain. But we need to weave these curtains, while we lobby the people in power, so that we are not left uncovered should they fail us.

Seems a good time to link back to this, which covers the importance of addressing the power structure itself when seeking change.

- - - - - - - -

Let me know if you'd be interested in helping out with a UK protest at the US embassy to free Dmitry.

- - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - -

François Naudé (of alt.sense fame) has put the source to his wonderful link_R.I.PPER online.

If you don't recall my post from a few days back, this program throws the gauntlett at all of us link-harvesters, encouraging us to create original content rather than just rely on the acheivements of others. This, I believe, is one of the tenets of webactivism, pushing what the Internet achieves by pushing the boundries of the people who build and use it.

- - - - - - - -

• Human Rights Watch: Freedom of Expression on the Internet

  ‘In Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, ISPs-either under government orders or pressure-all blocked Web sites on the basis of their content. At least in the first four of these countries, blocking extended to cultural and/or political content. Proxy servers such as the ones in place in the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia could be used by authorities to track which computer terminals were accessing which Web sites and for how long. While U.A.E. authorities denied monitoring individual Web use, Saudi Arabian users who requested blocked sites received a message on their screens warning that all access attempts were logged.

  ‘State-controlled or state-influenced ISPs in Tunisia, Iran and Bahrain blocked Web sites containing political or human rights criticism of their governments. Tunisia acknowledged blocking only those sites that offended moral values, but apparently this included the sites of various human rights organizations critical of the government.’

• Reporters wihout borders: The Enemies of The Internet

  ‘ Freedom of expression is clearly dangerous, but any attempts to block this freedom are even more so.’

• And of course, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign

- - - - - - - -

This could be just a coincidence, but if companies in purportedly non-censored countries are censoring sites that allow people in censored countries to access the Internet freely, how uncensored are we? And what does this say about the balance of power between citizens, governments and corporations on the web?

- - - - - - - -

This source definitely deserves a post in its own right.

I must admit, that title scared me off of this site initially; seemed like something a group of neo-luddites would put together to scare people away from computers. But it's run by a bunch of sensible and intelligent people.

A good bookmark, or hey, subscribe.

- - - - - - - -

This one is a double-whammy. It shows:

1. how the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's (DMCA) anti-reverse engineering attempts would have made the White House site's rescue illegal
2. how OpenSource software (wget on FreeBSD) worked as a run-around for Microsoft's faulty file transfer of their ‘hot’ patch.

- from The Risks Digest

- - - - - - - -

Thanks to Matthew Silver, who pointed out that webactivism.org has been pretending to own everyone it links to. Bad, website, bad!

Instead, I'll be opening links in new windows, which is almost as bad. I do sincerely hate forcing new windows on you, but it's alot cheaper than getting webactivism.org its own server.

Please, if you feel strongly about this, let me know. After all, without all of you, I'd just be happily posting links to nobody.

- - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - -

I'm out of the loop on this one. What happened at flash forward?

- - - - - - - -

This is a conglomeration of the people and products around Open Source

The author seems a bit bitter and his approach is way too insidey. The introduction describes this chronicle as ‘it's an anti-slashdot attempt’

Different points of view are always good to get at, so this is an interesting look at Open Source.

- - - - - - - -

First let me say that I am glad Adobe has come to this decision. Now let me see that this is a very deceptively worded press release. Lurking in the free-sklyarov mailing list, I've watched EFF mount support for this cause and have to browbeat Adobe into meeting with them (to which Adobe only agreed after a promise from EFF to call off its protest). Now Adobe slyly sides itself with EFF, after responsibiliy for the case has already passed out of their hands.

This is too little, too late. Dmitri Sklyarov is in jail; the US government is prosecuting him. Adobe still supports the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. A more realistic headline for that press release would be ‘EFF finally convinces Adobe to stop prosecuting this Russian Programmer, only now it is too late.’

Two words: FREEHAND and GIMP

- - - - - - - -

The nitty-gritty of it isn't as interesting to me as the goals behind it, and the fact that this was all specified twenty years ago. For instance,

‘The internet protocol is specifically limited in scope to provide the functions necessary to deliver a package of bits (an internet datagram) from a source to a destination over an interconnected system of networks. There are no mechanisms to augment end-to-end data reliability, flow control, sequencing, or other services commonly found in host-to-host protocols. The internet protocol can capitalize on the services of its supporting networks to provide various types and qualities of service.’

Plus the ascii tables are very charming:

        
 +------+ +-----+ +-----+     +-----+  
 |Telnet| | FTP | | TFTP| ... | ... |  
 +------+ +-----+ +-----+     +-----+  
       |   |         |           |     
      +-----+     +-----+     +-----+  
      | TCP |     | UDP | ... | ... |  
      +-----+     +-----+     +-----+  
         |           |           |     
      +--------------------------+----+
      |    Internet Protocol & ICMP   |
      +--------------------------+----+
                     |                 
        +---------------------------+  
        |   Local Network Protocol  |  
        +---------------------------+  

         Protocol Relationships

               Figure 1.

- - - - - - - -

‘<OFF_TOPIC_RANT>
I find it very strange when the citizens of country that is so proud of its "First Amendment" and the "Right of Free Speech" need to travel north, cross the border and apply for "Political Asylum" here in Canada, as happened last month. </OFF_TOPIC_RANT>’

- - - - - - - -

Some interesting charts here for analyzing the Internet. I particularly like the Internet Weather Report.

‘The Internet Weather Report presents ongoing animated scans of conditions within the Internet. It is analogous to daily newspaper or television weather radar reports, except that it is about conditions within the Internet itself, rather than about real world meteorology. The Internet Weather Report is presented as geographical maps that show latency--the amount of time it takes to send a packet and receive a response from an Internet node. ’

Though I must admit it is the gimmickry, not the actual usefullness (letsee what the weather's like, should I go on the Internet today?...) that appeals.

- - - - - - - -

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I've put it on wiki, so develop it as you see fit.

Wiki, for those who don't know, is the most beautiful idea on the Internet. Please treat it with respect.

- - - - - - - -

Funny how 1994 registers as nostalgia, yet he still uses 1995 data for his arguments.

But enough Jakob-bashing. I've decided that trend is long past. In fact, I went in and put youzit/ usabilitysucks.com out of it's misery. No, I haven't removed it (I've got enough bad 404 karma from my recent server switches), just closed every live part of it.

It died several months ago anyway.

- - - - - - - -

• Internet time-line
• Bush's Memex as poetic machine
• Internet History and Community Memory Project
• Augment Knowledge Management

How vapid can I get!

(and the title »oh« how can you not love that title: this is where the dog is buried at the bottom of the sea)

What stories that evokes! Think of the nuance:
this is where the dog is buried at the bottom of the sea
this is where the dog is buried at the bottom of the sea
this is where the dog is buried at the bottom of the sea
this is where the dog is buried at the bottom of the sea

I think we have all learned a lesson here. I should not be allowed anywhere near this site when I am up this late.

That'll be the GPOW - Giddy Post Of the Week - just one a week I promise.

- - - - - - - -

An Atlas of Cyberspaces- Historical Maps

Putting together the books section I've been retrodding some old Internet History links, and its been just as exciting as the first time!

That Book section has turned out to be a lot richer than I had anticipated, with lots of links nestled in the reviews. So even if you're illiterate and don't care about the books themselves, it's still a good read.

Wander off to the right and take a look. The Dust or Magic review is chock full o' Intenret history links.

- - - - - - - -

This is really positive coverage, and in USA Today, the most mainstream of mainstreams! They're the ones who pepper their charts with cute little pictures so their readership will bother looking at them.

Now this very readership has read an article talking about the positive activist work of hackers.

- - - - - - - -

‘Our goal is to build a non-commercial free software GNU/Linux distribution optimized for multimedia performance and production, and we intend to make this distribution freely available over the Internet and other usual non-commercial distribution channels. ’

Another CodeFork or an opportunity for another community to benefit from Open Source in a major way?

- - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - -

Every possible extrapolation of the banned deCSS DVD decryption code. The idea is, the judge had decided that ‘executable source code was not subject to First Amendment protection against prior restraint of speech,’ so let's render the code as something that is protected by free speech. Like dramatic reading, music, or Haiku.

Old hat, I know, but still amusing (yet frightening that this would be necessary) . Obviously, these various forms haven't been deemed illegal just yet.

The goal is, goad those lawyers until they try to apply DMCA in such a ridiculous circumstance that the world sees its folly.

- - - - - - - -

‘Openlaw is an experiment in crafting legal argument in an open forum. With your assistance, we will develop arguments, draft pleadings, and edit briefs in public, online.

‘Building on the model of open source software, we are working from the hypothesis that an open development process best harnesses the distributed resources of the Internet community. By using the Internet, we hope to enable the public interest to speak as loudly as the interests of corporations. Openlaw is therefore a large project built through the coordinated effort of many small (and not so small) contributions. ’

The concept is great, and the content actually lives up to its promise. Personally, I'll be using it more as a news site than as a legal resource, and the language is clear enough for it to work in that way.

But who knows, I may ‘post-links’ myself into court, and then I can use it as a legal resource too!

Here's to the silver lining.

- - - - - - - -

Gary Chapman's LA Times feature is no more, but it looks like some good will come out of it. Says Gary:

‘I have asked the Times to supply me with ASCII text copies of all my columns since the first one in 1995. I will attempt to make these available online with a searchable index.’

Most main-stream news slots on the Internet cover recipe sites and AmIHOTorNOT. Digital Nation actually brought some of the politics on the net to a main-stream audience.

- via nettime

- - - - - - - -

Does mainstream press even care?

I was delighted to learn than New York Times is covering it, but they've buried it in their tech section. A search on CNN.com brings nothing. Correction, it helps when you spell Russian names properly, CNN covers it too!

Better than I had guessed!

- - - - - - - -

Andrea needs your help:

‘I would really like to have stickers I can pass around and put on things and people to build awareness of the issue. Not bumper stickers (for me, anyway) but real live sheets of Avery's Finest. Maybe one of you unemployed pixel-pushers can come up with something. I want to see a design that gets the attention of people who don't give a rat's ass about some Russian and have never heard of the DMCA and convinces them they should.’

- - - - - - - -

While the European version of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is not nearly as onerous as its American counterpart, it still has some sticky clauses, namely Article 6:

‘Article 6 of the directive is the most important, and most debated, one. Note that a technical protection measure is protected by law even if it contains other restrictions in addition to preventing copyright infringement. This means that technical measures that enforce DVD region locks or deny the act of giving or lending a book is protected by law. ’

The directive was accepted in Apr 09 2001, though it has yet to be implemented.

- - - - - - - -

How to be an Obstacle
Ending Neoliberalism and the Anti-Globalisation Movement

ICA usually puts together good talks, and Richard Barbrook can be counted on to make interesting points, so I'll be sure to be there.

- - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - -

Heck, so should baseball bat makers. And I could probably do something illegal with a pencil, like threaten the life of the...

I know I have reduced this argument to insanity, but that's the point. Electronic ‘stuff’ is only going to become more and more important in our society, and forbidding thse tools will someday affect the average person's life as much as some of the ridiculous laws I just proposed.

I guess until the DMCA brings a case so ridiculous that every average citizen will see its danger, the fight against the DMCA will only be a fight of the geeks.

This world is getting more surreal by the minute! We have to end the DMCA

- - - - - - - -

(The guy who got arrested under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) for making a program that decrypts adobe E-books)

- - - - - - - -

cryptome.org

- - - - - - - -

His name is Dimitry Sklyarov, and we have set up a mailing list to coordinate helping him out: http://zork.net/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov
:end Nick Moffitt quotation

Says Barlow: ‘I think this will be the galvanizing arrest that brings down the DMCA, but it will take a lot of us working in concert to make that happen. ’

-via nettime

- - - - - - - -

Re:New Rules for the New Actonomy

‘Gone are the days when we would have thought that all that is required is for the right people, for the true representatives of the 'democratic will' to be in positions of power, for power itself to turn benign. What is required now is a saboteurs imagination that will render existing relations of power unworkable,that will render 'representative politics' unworkable, not on sporadic and spectacular levels, but on an everyday basis.

‘What is required also is the act of bringing into existence modes of creative and resistant action that hold in abeyance the conventions of existing institutional frameworks of bieng. That point to more and not less pleasurable ways of being.’

- - - - - - - -

This is a gem, a sign of the times. I have taken a screenshot for posterity.

Accessing Activism on the Web
User name:________
Password:_________
(This course is not open to guests.)

- - - - - - - -

‘On one side, there's a younger student Left that's got its head up identity politics and single-issue crusades. On the other, there's an older labor Left that believes you ain't got a thing 'il the union boss sings...

‘And between these sides are people like Robert A. Rhoads, whispering, “Can’t we all just get along?” through one side of a clubbed face. ’

It's true, a lot of activism has become a culture rather than a goal. To so many, activism is sticker-bombing and pamphlets.

But to be perfectly frank, the reason this review is interesting (how's that for meta- a review of a review) is because it focuses on the split cultures of activism. The best parts aren't the issues these people are fighting for, it's the people who are fighting the issues.

I'm sorry; I just cannot end on a line sounding that *neat*.

The book does go past an analysis of activism culture and offer real advice for student activists:

‘To reduce it to a sentence: once you’ve got your shit together, identify as many potential sectors of support as you can—faculty, alumni, staff, off-campus organizations, etc.—and organize them before they mobilize against you.’

- - - - - - - -

I just heard from Link R.I.Pper hisself, and the opensource is on its way. He is currently grappling with that situation we know so well: do we present that tangled mess of code that works to the masses, or do we make it pretty and pure before opening up the zipper?

In no way I am saying he is a sloppy programmer; I'm sure his code is pure as something really, really pure. But on a practical, and emotional side, it is revealing to put our code out there for all to see.

Pure code is elegant and beautiful, but those first steps, where we weave such a tangled web to do something we achieve in just a line later on, are endearing.

But not very useful for open-source, yes. So the delay is all for the best reasons.

- - - - - - - -

Not sure why they are so adamantly against ‘sites that merely provide links to other sites, providing no original content of their own.’ There is so much stuff on th web; it's nice to have humans with similiar interests sifting through it and picking out the morsels. Of course, this does mean you are spoon-fed your experience through someone else's opinions of what is ‘good,’ but is nevertheless an appreciated service.

Kept in context.

This project seems wonderful as well. Sort of a peer to peer link trader , it looks to be an application through which people can submit sites, thereby bypassing the ‘link harvesters’ they hate so much. It also serves as a meta link-harvester, RIPping links from these other sites.

They speak of open-source, but I don't see the code anywhere. Of course, I've spent all of 5 minutes checking it out.

I can only hope that someday this site will be blessed enough to make it into the RIPper database as one of those sites with no original content. As that's what this is, we may at least be a distinguished one.

- - - - - - - -

‘Thanks to the European Union, globalization could be improving your privacy.

‘Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Procter & Gamble have recently pledged to provide European-grade privacy protection to their customers in the United States and around the world, even though no law requires them to do so.’

It's good to see the EU have some positive impact on the states' dastardly dealings, and would be nice if this sort of thing would shame the U.S. into drafting some decent privacy laws.

- - - - - - - -

Scary stuff about the impact of pro-republican media corporations on the US presidency. I keep wanting to believe I am paranoid, but then things like this happen, and I am frightened to realize that perhaps I am not suspiscious enough.

- - - - - - - -

Friday, 7 September 2001

Not sure what it will accomplish, but it looks to be lots of fun, with theSurveillance Camera Players already signed up.

- - - - - - - -

‘Privacy is a crucial component of liberty which our society cherishes above all else. If you cannot have private thoughts, and if you cannot freely associate with others without the fear of being spied upon, you can't have a free society. Some people actually equate privacy with liberty. I don't go that far but I do recognize it as one of liberty's essential elements.’

I guess I am one of those extremists he speaks of, but I find the concept behind his book and the following it has received (Vint Cerf, Alan M. Dershowitz)a bit frightening.

US Congressman Tom Coburn claims that Etzioni ‘offers much of what has been missing from contemporary public policy - thoughtful common sense.’

Yet in the mouths of the powerful, ‘common-sense’ is all too often a euphamism for the ‘bottom-line.’

- - - - - - - -

‘Dear All,

On the 17th July, 'BBC Radio 3' will be broadcasting a 30 minute analysis of the life of Guy Debord which will be available live via the BBC website if outside the UK. Details of the broadcast provided by the BBC state:

> Night Waves: Richard Coles on Guy Debord
> Tue, 17 Jul, BBC Radio 3, 2145-2215
>
> "Richard Coles investigates the life of Guy Debord,
> originator of the Situationist International."

Non-UK listeners/users can access the programme live (obviously at UK time) via the "Listen" link on the following web page.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/speech/nightwaves.shtml
(Real Audio plug-in required)

Best Wishes

PPUK’

- - - - - - - -

Nothing but a submit form for now, tho' it certainly is a perty one. But let's keep an eye and see what blossoms. Let's hope it goes beyond anti-capitalist stickers.

-via the soon-to-be-temporarily-defunct k10k

- - - - - - - -

‘One thing is clear. While entirely of human design, the emerging network appears to have more in common with a cell or an ecological system than with a Swiss watch. ’

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‘AT&T Corp., the nation's biggest cable operator, won an key victory on Wednesday with an appeals court ruling the company did not have to provide access to its cable lines to rival Internet service providers.’

This sets a horrifying precedence. If large access-providers are permitted to keep smaller companies off of their lines, the resulting network effects will force all but the few largest companies out of business.

The US made ths same mistake with telephone companies, and soon realized their error over a decade ago. What will it take before they realize the folly of this decision?

Or does the political and legal climate now cater to a few big companies to such a degree that driving smaller companies out of business was the whole point?

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Great post on nettime, links to Markle's recent report Toward a Framework for Internet Accountability, as well as some other articles tackling similar questions.

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According to the site, release 1.0 will include ‘an upper ontology for all of human consensus reality.’ And according to a recent post on nettime, ‘the military has taken interest in the project.’

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THE RALPH NADER CAMPAIGN,

v.

AMERICA ONLINE, INC.

During Ralph Nader's run for the US presidency, AOL was blocking e-mails sent from the Ralph Nader Presidential Campaign (the Campaign) to AOL subscribers.

‘Plaintiff argues that summary judgment should be precluded because a triable issue of fact is raised that AOL has used its monopoly power in the ISP market to “leverage power in another market . . . our democratic system.”’

He lost largely because AOL is not a monopoly, so the anti-trust suit this was based on fell apart.

Seems to me this should have been an ammendment case. Did AOL block all Republican and Democratic Party campaign e-mails? If so, should they be allowed to?

We're towing the line to grant a consitutional right to SPAM here, but it does seem that, considering AOL's huge chunk of the market, AOL effectively has the ability to silence a political candidate digitally.

We need to determine if they have the right.

via Phile Agre's Red Rock Eater News Service

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It looks like an interesting experiment in collaborative story making. Pretending these papers are historical documents discovered in the future creates the perfect medium in which to seamlessly annotate and comment as readers.

As an application of Open Source outside of programming, however, I think it falls short. But as a book it looks pretty darn good so far, and it is all for free online, so Open Source or not, why not have a read? Besides, a completely Open Source book really just means framing a discussion board, shared blog, or wiki, eh? So, confining "collaborators" to adding comments is a good start.

It's mostly about government efforts to block access to or filter Internet contentand efforts to keep the Internet open and free everywhere. The governments use Proxies, forced censor-ware, pressure on ISPs, and state monopolies on local Internet and telephone infrastructure to ensure that their citizens only talk about the things they want them to talk about, and only hear the news and information the government has deemed appropriate.

Human Rights Watch lambasts the Saudi government for stating ‘bluntly during 1998 that the continuing delays in opening the Internet to public access were due to the search for a system by which authorities could block the flow of "undesirable" information’

But that was 3 years ago, you say, in Saudi Arabia.

Rifling around the Internet this morning, I came upon this description of a panel in a conference: ‘Networks have rendered state attempts to isolate and silence internal dissent more difficult, and have become powerful tools in the mobilisation of external support to undermine state authority and security.’

Another forum focuses on the fact that ‘Great opportunities exist for the establishment of public-private alliances that further mutual security, making use of the specialized capabilities of government and industry.’

Where do you think this conference is taking place? Good ol' Blighty of all places, Cambridge in fact.Visit The Internet and State Security Forum at Trinity College of Cambridge, and rifle around to figure out just what is going on with the Government, the academics and the industry.

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‘rolux minordomo is free software and can be redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the gnu general public license’

I almost didn't link it because of that awful scrolling text at the bottom of the page.

But it's a great effort, so enjoy, scrolling text and all. The color scheme is right on with my mood at the moment as well.

- via nettime

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I spoke at the first one in London, and am excited by what they are doing. While many new media festivals have become expensive platforms for companies to hawk their wares, this is a festival that brings our back back to the people who do it. Entry is usely either free or something like $10, anmd the atmosphere is passionate and exploratory.

Speakers at this event include:

• Spydr, http://www.deconcept.com
• Mannytan, http://www.uncontrol.com
• Amit Pitaru and James Patterson, http://www.pitaru.com and http://www.presstube.com
• Trakko, http://www.openlgx.org
• Mr. Zeldman, http://www.webstandards.org, http://www.zeldman.com
• Dr coFFice, http://www.neuralust.com/~coffice
• Neuralust http://www.neuralust.com
• Abe1x, http://www.oneinfinite.com
• etrepum, Bzort-12 and Konstruktiv. http://www.undefined.org, http://www.bzort-12.com and http://www.konstruktiv.net
• Shockfusion. http://www.shockfusion.com
• Lo9ic, http://www.lo9ic.com
• Surprised guests

Details here

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Saturday, July 21^st - CB's gallery, Noon till 3AM, New York City

‘WEBZINE, an annual non-profit event held in San Francisco for the last 3 years, is making its debut on the East coast for the first time this year. It is an all day event with various speakers and panelists as well as entertainment. WEBZINE represents people with a passion and a drive to create media that is outside of the mainstream, media where expression, rather than money is the bottom line. WEBZINE celebrates the fact that the Internet is still a powerful tool for personal publishers, despite the avalanche of corporate sites.’

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‘The IT security industry has been scathing in its attacks this week on the Cybercrime Bill 2001, labelling it "draconian and dangerous".

‘Under the bill, which proposes seven new computer offences carrying jail terms of up to 10 years, it is illegal to possess hacker toolkits, scanners and virus code.’

I wrote this as sci-fi, but we're getting closer...

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That is an incredibly offensive comparison- a living human to a website.

There, I said it for you; now go see what I'm talking about. Or if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you probably don't care, so don't go see what I'm talking about.

- via Zeldman

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What the hell am I talking about? You can see for yourself in the webactivism.org beta section. Be warned, it's in beta for a reason. The content's not done and the code probably doesn't work on many platforms. View»source for some ascii fun.

This blog is getting a little too bloggy for my liking. Back to straight nuse for awhile. Or do you like my banter?

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‘The Gnutella Network is beginning to attract the attention of academics and researchers. Lime Wire LLC would like to encourage further research on the Gnutella Network, as we believe that such research will benefit the Gnutella community at large. Therefore, Lime Wire LLC proudly announces the 2001 Gnutella Research Contest. Anyone who wishes is invited to submit a research paper to Lime Wire LLC on a technical issue related to the Gnutella protocol or the Gnutella Network. One (1) First Place winner will receive a free trip to New York to discuss his findings with the Lime Wire LLC technical staff, and will receive $2,000 cash. Two (2) Second Place winners will receive $500 cash, and ten (10) Third Place winners will receive Lime Group t-shirts. ’

‘Gnutella Network has the potential to move far beyond simple file-sharing, replacing much of the functionality currently found on the World Wide Web. NO COMPANY OWNS GNUTELLA.’

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Now, I can understand the logistical reasons for not wanting to print the dirty little words themselves in this publication, but looking at search queries as an analysis of British culture while ignoring some of the most frequently searched terms seems to invalidate the accuracy of the statistics a *bit*.

If we ignore everything we don't officially like about what we like, here's what we like.

A related aside (because this whole post is an aside), judging by the search queries that run through my LimeWire Gnutella client, what people really, really want most of the time is Porn and Harry Potter.

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I have to say I was rather dissapointed. I've never been particularly adamantly in love or in hate with Carson's work. It is nice to look at, but as became clear during the conversation, there's really not that much behind it.

Nevertheless, he did get my mind percolating, and here's some of that:

Art or Design?

People criticize Carson for self-indulgence in his work, and he embraced this saying ‘Yes I am self-indulgent, what's wrong with that.’

Which brings up a fact I often struggle with: I'm in it for ME. My true goal in any design is for ME to be happy. I may have to make the client happy, and in all fairness I really should get their point across. It's also nice if other people like it, but all I really want is for ME to like it.

This is a selfish attitude, and immature and amateur attitude, but it is an attitude that makes perfect sense in another light: of course me loving my work should come first.

Right?

This brings up the question: as designers, are we servants or artists? Do we provide a service for someone or allow them to use our work in a way that will benefit them?

Common ‘sense’ and respect for the client usually makes me compromise, but really, my ideal priorities are:
1) I like it
2) Users like it
3) Client likes it

Then reality strikes and it becomes
1) I like it
2) Client likes it
3) Users like it

Always I have the guilty feeling that I should not be at the top of that list. I make compromises in the name of service, but often that degrades my service, and I have never been truly happy with a compromised project.

The image of the primadonna designer nauseates me, but then the gutless fish designer is even worse.

How can one be both open-minded and dogged? Thoughts?

Software as Cultural Reference

When we watched a 20 minute video at the end of the talk, I noticed a technique that caught my attention.

The voice-over was talking about Caesar beheading the Druid High Priest, and thus causing a chain reaction that brought the downfall of the entire faith.

He symbolized this onscreen with a dialog box. It flashed too quickly to read what it said, but we saw the mouse click OKAY, and window after window of Photoshop documents of Druid paraphenalia cascaded shut.

I've seen the Photoshop background checkerboard to denote transparanecy, a similiar technique in which the metaphors of software become cultural references.

The question is: which culture? Does this only work for the Designer clique, or have the paradigms of dialog boxes and closing windows become so common place in so many cultures that they have become a new language?

Television is a very general cultural reference. The metaphors of the Internet have become a general cultural reference. And now software is becoming a general cultural reference.

A tool we have created has come to define us. Certainly not a new phenomena, but still interesting to note as it occurs.

Seems like a good place to link to good ol' Guy Debord

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‘If adopted, the changes would give police access to telephone, email and Internet records going back up to seven years, although the length of time the records would be kept has not yet been agreed. Furthermore, the European Parliament is expected to reject the proposal, which faces strong opposition from privacy advocates and many European politicians.’

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Virus as art, and a good jumping ground for the jodi clique.

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-via k10k

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RETURNING TO THE SOURCE. ONCE KNOWLEDGE DISAPPEARS INTO CODE, HOW DO WE RETRIEVE IT?

-via wiki

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Sort of a blogger for message boards (though predates blogger...)

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‘A startling report from the Minnesota Senate race provides a stunning example of American politics as tech-cluelessness combined with petty nastiness.

‘Christine Gunhus, the wife of a U.S. senator who ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 2000, pleaded no contest last week to charges of using a pseudonym to unlawfully send e-mail messages that disparaged her husband's Democratic rival.’

Another chilling current in this case is the ease with which her hotmail account was traced back to her home phone number, underscoring the true lack of anonymity on the web.

‘Prosecutors say they traced the IP address back to an AT&T WorldNet user that had repeatedly used the "Katie Stevens" Hotmail account by connecting from Gunhus' home number. (Guess Worldnet keeps Caller ID logs.) ’

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‘Calling All Warriors: Here's a chance to do some real good, real fast.

This is forwarded from the Guild's Public Affairs Committee. If you've been affected by this issue, or know someone who has, PLEASE pass your story back to me ASAP

We are looking for infringements of the creative works of artists, photographers, writers by ANY STATE AGENCY, in ANY STATE in the USA.
THANKS!
~C., WQ

--Everybody:

--The Congress is currently addressing the issue of state immunity from suit in the area of copyright. It is highly likely that a bill to remove state immunity in copyright suits will pass Congress this year. They are necessary NOW because the GAO (General Accounting Office) is doing a report on state abuses; there is a serious lack of examples of state abuse, and the report closes in perhaps two weeks.

--THE GUILD NEEDS TO SUBMIT STORIES OF STATE ABUSE OF IMMUNITY IN THE AREA OF COPYRIGHT.

--If you have, or know someone who has:

--1) Worked for a state, or a state agency--park service, highways, anything, INCLUDING STATE UNIVERSITIES OR UNIVERSITY PRESSES--which exceeded the license granted, OR

--2) Had work done for another client copied or otherwise infringed by a state or state agency, INCLUDING STATE UNIVERSITIES OR UNIVERSITY PRESSES

--and been barred from bringing an infringement suit against the infringing state because of state immunity, THAT STORY NEEDS TO GO TO CONGRESS IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS.’

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laboratory for media-strategies - open project page - nonlocated online - computer aided nature - and other intriguing digital musings.

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-via Phil Agre's Red Rock Eater News Service

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Scott McCloud cartoons on Napster, piracy and micropayments.

- via rumori

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The IP Counter Essay Contest has been launched in reaction, amid concerns that the WIPO contest is biased towards a corporate analysis of the question.

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A New York Times article (-->login required) that discusses how the Internet, usually heralded for lowering the barriers to entry into various marketplaces, has become a breeding ground for monopolies.

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‘A special research committee convened by the U. S. Treasury Department, and including officials and economists from the General Accounting Office and Federal Reserve Board, released on Thursday its "Final Report on the Role of Money in the Economy," concluding that "money is currently the single greatest source of inefficiency in the exchange of services and goods," and recommending that Congress "take steps to phase out the public use of the U. S. Dollar."’

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‘This project serves up random banner ads that are parodies of actual web advertising or critical of modern day consumer culture capitalism. ’

To use the anti-ad server on your site, paste the following code into your HTML:

<a href="http://anti-ads.detritus.net/link"><img border=0 src="http://anti-ads.detritus.net"></a>

- another project from Detritus

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antknee.com runs a quirky ‘alternate start page’ that ‘contains various libraries and resources for the lateral activist and researcher.’

The internet section has some interesting musings...

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