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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 |
MPAA rips off software for "anti-piracy" site.
The MPAA's ReportPiracy site uses free software code, but fails to comply with the license. The studios talk a good line about the need to respect copyright, but it's their copyright they care about -- I'd love to see a No Electronic Theft Act suit against the MPAA for this. Link (via Digg)
[Boing Boing]
7:05:41 PM 
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Tuesday links.
Iran's Rogue Rage (Newsweek):
Nukes: Iranians want nuclear know-how—and seem to be daring the West to stop them. Iranian technicians surround a container of radioactive uranium. ‘We have a right to have nuclear technology,’ says Mahsid Sajadi.
Slamming Its Doors on the World (Time)
As Iran confronts the West over nukes, its leaders are patrolling the Web to silence critics at home. (Azadeh Moaveni says I do "a quirky, Jon Stewart--like brew of political commentary" in my blog. Flattering.)
[Editor: Myself (English)]
7:04:45 PM
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The Read-Write Internet.
I wrote this piece for the FT about the next war in copyright. If you've not seen AMVs, you should. Look here. This will be the next big copyright war -- whether this form of noncommercial creativity will be allowed. But there will be a big difference with this war and the last (over p2p filesharing). In the p2p wars, the side that defended innovation free of judicial supervision was right. But when ordinary people heard both sides of the argument, 90% were against us. In this war, the side that will defend these new creators is right. And when ordinary people hear both sides, and more importantly, see the creativity their kids are capable of, 90% will be with us. I saw this first hand in the eyes of a father. From the FT piece:
But to those building the Read-Write internet, economics is not what matters. Nor is it what matters to their parents. After a talk in which I presented some AMV work, a father said to me: “I don’t think you really realise just how important this is. My kid couldn’t get into college till we sent them his AMVs. Now he’s a freshman at a university he never dreamed he could attend.”
These are creators, too. Their creativity harms no one. It is the heart of a whole new genre of creativity -- not just with anime, but will all sorts of culture. If, that is, it is allowed.
[Lessig Blog]
7:03:35 PM
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Hotel Room Keys.
For example, last fall, an IT director at a travel club in Wyomissing, Pa., told Computerworld that he had found personal information on magnetic hotel key cards when visiting three major hotel chains. The IT professional said he read the cards using a commonly available ISO-standard swipe-card reader that plugs into any USB port. At one resort, he said, his card key contained credit card information, his address and his name. He said the hotel expressed surprise when he showed it the results. His comments, which appeared in a Computerworld blog in September [QuickLink a7730], created a furor. He subsequently declined to comment for this story.
As part of a Computerworld investigation into the allegations, reporters and other staff members who traveled last fall brought back 52 hotel card keys over a six-week period. The cards came from a wide range of hotels and resorts, from Motel 6 to Hyatt Regency and Disney World. We scanned them using an ISO-standard card reader from MagTek Inc. in Carson, Calif. -- the type anyone could buy online.
We then sent the cards to Terry Benson, engineering group leader at MagTek, for a more in-depth examination using specialized equipment. MagTek also gathered cards from its own staff. In all, 100 cards were tested. From "It's Just the Key to Your Room." It's a pretty darn good article that carefully reports on how hotel keys work, and what's on them, but one thing jumped out at me: They couldn't understand the data they read:
Only 15% of the cards tested yielded any data using the USB card reader. The alphanumeric strings did not match any of the users' credit card numbers, nor was any intelligible text found. At MagTek, Benson was able to pull up strings of binary data from the cards but could not decode it...
Let me be absolutely clear: I don't think your name or credit card is encoded on these cards. I think they use algorithms as described in the article. Anyone reading this blog will know that I and my co-bloggers take privacy very seriously. Nevertheless, I hate it when people say "the data is unintelligible." So, Computerworld, why not put the raw data online? Let others follow up on your excellent analysis methods? If, as the companies say, there's nothing interesting, then there's not only no reason not to, there's every reason to be open with the data. Maybe someone else can figure it out.
[Emergent Chaos]
Same source points at "Liberty Is Security" at John Quaterman's Perilocitym, which sounds like it's worth a read.
6:35:21 AM
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Software Libre in Venezuela.
 Brazil has some local competition.
We've long celebrated Brazil's efforts to encourage the proliferation of Linux and other free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) as a tool for leapfrog technology development. Brazil has come up with some really interesting ideas, but the results have been mixed. Nonetheless, the concept of "software libre" as a catalyst for economic growth outside of the "Washington Consensus" has definitely taken root -- but it's one of Brazil's neighbors that may well take the concept even further than Lula and company could have dared hope.
This month, Venezuela's open source law goes into effect. This law mandates a two year transition to open source software in all public agencies. Jeff Zucker at the O'Reilly Radar blog has the details:
. . .
Brazil tried this first, but got mired in resistent legislators and pressure from Microsoft. Venezuela already has a much more antagonistic relationship with the United States than does Brazil, so whatever arm-twisting BillG might bring to bear will pale against attempted coups.
This leads to an important point: as much as Brazil's Lula is occasionally blasted by conservatives as being (for example) too friendly to Castro, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a whole order of magnitude larger bogeyman. The Chavez government is known for cracking down on dissent -- but also came to power in elections (and re-elections) considered to have been free and fair.
The political element becomes even more pronounced in the context of a strike by bureaucrats in the state-owned oil company in 2002, during which some of the company's computer systems were sabotaged -- computer systems outsourced to an American company, SAIC. Andrew Leonard, at Salon's How the World Works, has more details. In short: the dependence upon proprietary software requiring foreign expertise to manage was a major catalyst for Venzuela's move to open source.
It appears that Venezuela under Chavez may be able to pull off some of the plans initiated (but not yet completed) by Lula in Brazil. It will certainly be an interesting case study in the utility of Linux and other FLOSS as tools for escaping the Washington Consensus-controlled part of the global economic system.
[WorldChanging: Another World Is Here]
6:34:34 AM
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The Amazing World of iTunes Celebrity Playlists.
I'm sure every one of us has, during some moment of curiosity, weakness, or both, investigated the "Celebrity Playlists" section of iTunes. It's occasionally interesting, but after seeing that Frank Black is listening to nothing but Burl Ives, I grew bored. Until I hit the last page. Now, I'm not sure what the criteria is to get your playlist featured on iTunes as a celebrity playlist, but the last page of them (page 15 when I checked this morning) is full of some amazing playlists. I'm not even sure how or why some of these people have playlists on here....
[Stay Free! Daily]
6:34:13 AM
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Hitsville Yahoo.
I know I've already lit into Lloyd Braun, Yahoo's Hollywood guy, but it's irresistible.
Today's Journal carried news of his latest plot to bring TV-style hit shows to the Web -- a revival of the long-forgotten, ill-starred reality show "The Runner."
Braun's aim, the Journal reports, is "For Yahoo to create the first mass-market Internet hit, which would do for the medium what 'The Sopranos' did for pay cable or Milton Berle did in the early days of broadcast TV."
Now, this is not a direct quote from Braun. Maybe he's not as dumb as the Journal summary implies.
That aside, well, Braun needs to be brought up to speed about the Web. And wait, he's in luck! All he needs to do is hop on his private plane and fly up to Sunnyvale and sit down with two guys named Jerry Yang and Dave Filo. They can tell him a lot about what a "mass-market Internet hit" really is. Yang and Filo created the very first one; it was even a reality show of a sort -- just a little directory of Web sites that evolved into the juggernaut we now know as Yahoo.
Some other Internet hits Braun could study: Amazon. EBay. Napster. Linux, Apache and open source. You fill in the rest.
Sure, these are not "shows" at all -- they're complex hybrids of businesses, services and communities in which people connect and, in a sense, perform for one another.
That is what a "hit" on the Web looks like. Few of us could see that a decade ago. To not see it today is just plain blind. Braun's quest for a mass-market "hit show" on the Web displays a complete misapprehension of its nature.
I get this picture of a TV executive in the early '50s. Someone who worked in the movies until this new thing came along. He sits, fretting, in his office. He knows exactly what he's looking for -- that first breakthrough TV show, one so compelling, so overwhelmingly great that people would want to see it in a movie theater!
[Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
6:21:52 AM
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Bushmail.
"...Bushmail is worldwide Email that works via HF Radio anywhere in Africa. It allows 100-KB Excel and Word attachments and is powered by just a 12-Volt battery, with an antenna that can be suspended from a tree. It requires an HF Radio, HF Modem and an antenna, which can all be installed on an easy Do-It-Yourself basis. Bushmail can also be used in a vehicle, with a Laptop PC being powered and charged from the cigarette lighter plug. It is extremely robust and even works during cyclones and with baboons swinging from the antenna....
Read the rest in ... Timbuktu Chronicles [PJM - Top Stories]
6:20:20 AM
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GM salmon on the market in 2008?.
A salmon that grows up really fast could soon be approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). In fact, it's possible that such a fish could be on the market as early as 2008. Even if this genetically modified salmon grows twice as fast as normal farmed salmon, it will look like -- and taste -- as normal salmon.
Links: Primidi, ZDNet [Smart Mobs]
6:19:16 AM
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Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.
Abstract: Ioannidis JPA (2005), PLoS Med 2(8): e124: “There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.” (PLosMedicine... thanks, adam)
6:19:09 AM
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Some commercial outfits are painting giant ads on their roofs for the benefit of the aerial/satellite photos used by services like Google Earth/Google Maps. 
