b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Recently
RIAA's Educational Spam
License to Steal
Earthquake Rocks Atlanta
Plan to Protect USA Patriot Act
T-Mobile WiFi
Rick Boucher - Man With A Clue
Piracy is Not Like Shoplifting
PlaNetworks Conference - Networking a Sustainable Future
Defining an Innovative Community -- A Cool Radio Site
More Low-end CMS Props
Sharing Calendars via iCal
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
How the Verizon Decision Affects You
Ranting on acronyms. Thomas Greene of The Reg waxes ill over DMCA, DoJ, RIAA, and the 4th Amendment in regards to the Verizon case.DoJ supports RIAA in Verizon P2P privacy scuffle.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has weighed in on behalf of RIAA piratebusters in a court filing against telecomms giant Verizon, which is struggling to keep the identity of a customer and alleged P2P bootlegger confidential.
[...] [the Fourth Amendment] doesn't actually say that a judge needs to be involved. It only says that the proposed intrusive activity mustn't be "unreasonable," and insists that there be "probable cause" to act. Over the years it's come to be established that the way to ensure that probable cause exists is by obtaining a judge's approval. The DMCA, along with several other bits of 'tough-on-crime' legislation rammed through Congress in the past decade, eases the legal burden on those who would accuse their neighbour of wrongdoing, especially when the accuser is a corporate cartel with piles of money available to pursue neighbours doing wrong. This type of burden-lifting doesn't directly contradict the Fourth Amendment -- merely 230 years of case law, which the DoJ has conveniently neglected to recall. [...]
[The Register]
RIAA's Educational Spam
The three R's -- Reading, 'Riting, and RIAA. The Reg reports RIAA spews pollution into the digital environment.
'We know who you are' - RIAA spams IM users. Psyops[...] The messages are sprayed around the file sharing networks using the built-in chat function. One ominous message is intended to give the impression that the Pigopolists' Police are watching your every move:-
[You] "are not anonymous and you can easily be identified."
"By reaching out to individuals directly through these educational instant messages, we hope to encourage individuals to take the necessary steps to stop stealing music," says the RIAA's Cary Sherman, quoted here. [...]
[The Register]
License to Steal
Dan Bricklin points out a sticky wicket. Watch what license you use. You never know who you might be indemnifying. By the way, that's one reason I set my metatags to disallow caching. If a search engine follows the rules it won't cache my pages and if I need to make some sort of change to the legal jargon the correct pages will show up in the search engines, not the old one. (I don't know how many search engines actually obey the rules. Probably not many.)Which license is best? It's a personal choice. I use a Creative Commons license for all original material on my site (modeled after language from Denise Howell's Bag and Baggage), and crafted a heavy disclaimer for all other material. This is a mixed approach similar to what Dan describes in his article.
Will it keep me from getting sued? I don't know, but being broke and moving back to Texas will sure be a disincentive. (Note: Texas has really favorable laws for people entering bankruptcy or fighting court judgements.)
No commons left at all[...] What the Creative Commons people didn't do, as far as I can tell, is make a set of licenses for the casual weblogger, who does not want to consult a lawyer before each post. The Creative Commons licenses say, in effect, "After checking, I guarantee no one will sue you if you copy my work, with some restrictions". What many casual webloggers really want to say is "I guarantee I won't sue you if you copy my work, with some restrictions". [...] [SATN]
Earthquake Rocks Atlanta
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! 4.9 shaker hits deep South. No biggie for you folks on the left coast -- a 4.9 comes free with your house title. But here it's a novelty. We do get earthquakes from time to time. No, I didn't feel it. Here's the history of earthquakes in Georgia.Southern Earthquake Reaches 4.9
Web Editor: Tracey Christensen
Provided By: The Associated Press
Last Modified: 4/29/2003 11:01:44 AMA rare Southern earthquake rattled windows and woke people from western North Carolina to south Alabama early Tuesday, but there were no reports of serious damage.
The 4.9 magnitude quake was centered near the Alabama-Georgia line, not far from Fort Payne, Ala. Many Ft. Payne residents reported feeling a short-lived, intense rumbling throughout their homes. [...] [ 11Alive News]
Plan to Protect USA Patriot Act
Interesting view, by Andrew Glass of The Hill, on Ashcroft's politically astute plan to keep USA Patriot alive, hidden, and safe from exposure. Hill says Ashcroft, sensing a real problem with his heavy-handed use of USA Patriot, did the following (some background on Sensenbrenner):Ashcroft has been in Congress and politics a long time. He's a sneaky SOB, grown adept at hiding his political motives and actions from his constituents, and he now has the benefit of an unelected position with no answerability to voters. If Ashcroft gets his way and the (already marginal) sunset provisions of Patriot are killed we are in for a long, sad period in US history.[...] First, he soft-soaped Sensenbrenner, arranging to have lunch with him regularly, bringing him into the "national security" tent.
Second, he persuaded Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, to sponsor legislation that in the warm afterglow of the Iraq War would repeal the laws sunset provisions and make it permanent.
Third, he pulled the plug, for now, on further expansion of the governments snooping powers under a proposed "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," promptly dubbed Patriot II.
thehill.com - We're watching you: national security and privacy issues.[...] Last summer, Sensenbrenner and committee's ranking Democrat, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, asked the department for basic statistical data about how it was using its powerful new surveillance tools.
The department stalled for so long that Sensenbrenner threatened to subpoena Attorney General John Ashcroft and to oppose renewing the act.
Sensenbrenner reported to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had told Ashcroft: "If you want to play I've got a secret, good luck getting the PATRIOT Act extended. Because if you've got bipartisan anger in the Congress, the sunset will come and go and the PATRIOT Act disappears."
Beating a tactical retreat, Ashcroft thereupon launched a three-pronged damage-control effort.
[Privacy Digest]
Monday, April 28, 2003
T-Mobile WiFi
I just signed up for T-Mobile WiFi Hot Spot access. I would have preferred to use Earthlink, but the majority of their access points seem to be in hotel lobbies. It just makes a lot more sense to have access at Starbucks, Borders, Kinkos, and retail-type locations, at least for my feasibility testing.I signed up for the 300-minute prepay plan -- $50, 300 minutes, expires in 120 days, 10-minutes ($1.60) minimum, round up to next minute over 10. That should be plenty for me to figure out if this is worth doing or not. I'll be testing it tomorrow for the first time. Let's see how it goes.
Rick Boucher - Man With A Clue
This is a Wired article from back in November, and my most recent post on Boucher was in January. But this is worth revisiting. It seems as if the undercurrents of the "Copy Fights" are shifting, and Boucher's proposals may be due for more consideration. Let's hope so. We desperately need rational, reasoned representatives in Congress to offset the shrill, ignorant, lobbyist-led postions of the bought-and-paid-for representatives of the RIAA.
Congressman With a Copyright Plan. Five years after it was enacted, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has lived up to its critics' worst fears. But Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) thinks he knows just how to fix it. He explains in an interview with Lucas Graves from Wired magazine. [Wired News]
Piracy is Not Like Shoplifting
Dan Bricklin provides a reasoned explanation of why online piracy is not the equivalent of shoplifting, and why it needs to be addressed differently. Of course, understanding Dan's line of thought requires that you have-
some understanding of the online environment
a willingness to debate issues sans emotion
a genuine desire to find a rational and just solution to piracy.
Neither the RIAA, the MPAA, nor any of the ill-informed, overwrought, Congressional screechers have any of these qualifications. That's too bad. Instead of effective leadership, we get Bozo the Clown and Judge Roy Bean running the debate.
Online piracy is not like shoplifting[...] Pirating works online is really more like kids watching a baseball game through a hole in the outfield wall, or listening to a concert just outside the gate.
[...] So, if we are basing our laws on the belief that online sharing is the same as shoplifting, we are making a mistake. If we are trying to "make the punishment fit the crime", we must understand that the crimes are different. [...] [SATN]
PlaNetworks Conference - Networking a Sustainable Future
This is for Gordana, who keeps her interest in weaving technology together with social values at the forefront of her business practice with GH Group.PlaNetwork has numerous luminaries among their long list of cofounders and partners. The conference looks to have some interesting panelists and presenters, including:
-
Douglas Englebart
Brewster Kale
Mitch Kapor
Craig Newmark (Craigslist)
Looks like some interesting topics on the agenda as well, including discussions of social network analysis, 3D geobrowsers, and global scenario modeling.
The gratuitous Flash intro greatly sucks and serves absolutely no useful purpose. If you are going to be socially responsible that should also include not wasting bandwidth. So just bypass the intro and get on with your life.
I won't be attending this conference but hope some of the Bay area folks will blog it.
Networking to a sustainable future.This morning I received an email that pointed my attention to a conference that is dedicated to networking for a sustainable (global) future. It questions issues such as how to imagine the potential positive impacts on the world if a vast network of people sharing ecological and social justice values could come together, and come to see themselves as a whole, using the Internet.
It takes place in San Fransisco, on the 6th and 8th of June.
The website : http://www.planetwork.net
What kind of information technology might help to facilitate, and even catalyze the emergence of such an electronically mediated network on a global scale?
Things that are very interesting and are on the agenda of the event is how social network sand global communities, using internet technologies, can make a positive change to the world.
[It's all about people and networks]
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Defining an Innovative Community -- A Cool Radio Site
George Siemens points to an interesting view on the basic components of an innovative community of practice (CoP). The weblog, run by Erik van Bekkum, is part of the business site for efios, described as follows:"efios is an independent consultancy company that focuses on implementations of web based collaboration inside the enterprise. The efios organization was established in 2002, but brings in years of experience with virtual team working, communities and communities of practice."
This whole site appears to be built and maintained in Radio Userland. It's very well done. Has some very nice modifications to a basic Radio template, and is one of the best small consultancy sites I've seen anywhere. I really like it. It's worth going there to have a look around.
Innovation Community Ecosystem. Innovation community ecosystem Details the basic ingredients of innovation in a community of practice: context, sharing, diversity, debate.... [elearnspace blog]
More Low-end CMS Props
I'm planning to attend OSCOM at Harvard in May. It would be nice to get a chance to see TypePad around the time of the conference. It would provide a good reference point.
TypePad will lead CMS revolution.Content Management Systems are becoming mass-market, according to this story by Ben Hammersley about TypePad after an exclusive peak:
The features are remarkable: there is a very powerful, but extremely simple, template builder. Users can redesign their weblogs and create fully compliant XHTML pages, with out knowing what that last phrase means. There is a built-in photo album, built-in server stats, so you can see who is coming to visit you and from where, built-in blogrolling (listing the sites you like to read), and built-in listing for your music, books and friends, producing a complete friend-of-a-friend file for every user.[E M E R G I C . o r g]In short, with Typepad, SixApart has embraced almost every advance in weblogging over the past year, and wrapped it into a product my dad could use. It raises the bar for the personal publishing world in a way that the Blogger/ Google buyout promised but has yet to deliver. [...]
Sharing Calendars via iCal
Phil Windley has done something really neat -- and something that I want to do on my intranet -- built a standardized calendar interchange where key events can be automatically posted on his weblog via RSS. I think this should be a simple thing to do in Conversant, I'm just not sure it supports iCal. But it should, as that's about the only "standard" going in the calendar space, AFIK.
Where Am I Going? Blog Events from iCal.Thursday while I was listening to Ben Hammersly's talk on the semantic something or other, I noticed that he had a box on his weblog that showed events he was planning to attend in the near future. I thought that was a good idea, so I put one on my weblog too. If you look to the right, you'll see a box labeled Upcoming Events that lists things I'm planning on going to in the next 90 days. I didn't really want to double enter this on my calendar and my blog, so I decided I'd link the box on my blog to the calendar I keep on my Powerbook. This is the story of how I did it. [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]
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