One man Driver-writing Machine

In a feat of freelance programming, a French programmer running Linux bought a cheap webcam and decided he needed drivers. He went on a rampage, and ended up coding 352 webcam drivers for Linux.

What kind of world are we living in, where people write huge portions of operating system software for free? Linux in many forms is a free operating system, and this man is enabling video chat for a whole population of people who have never paid Microsoft or Apple for their computer's main OS.

Does this represent a new way of coding computers that will replace big market styles, or will huge Google-armies always be able to strongarm better software?

For one thing, Firefox is continuing to gain popularity (around 31% of all web traffic!). Even in Europe, Firefox is being run nearly 25% of the time the internet is used.

As of right now, the limiting factor for open source software is not programmers, but ideas for innovation. There is a standing call for any Mac users to complain about Firefox on their OS so that it might be enhanced. That's more responsive than most corporations! Will they retake the browser wars, or has the war already been won?

Jobs aims to de-DRM iTunes

Steve Jobs, a DRM-free advocate, has only used DRM in iTunes to get music companies to sell their music through his service. But through hard work, he believes iTunes will have 50% DRM-free by the end of the year.

Criminalising the Consumer

The Economist is running a story on the downfall of DRM. The author here suggests that the turn where DRM is oriented not to ensure artist compensation, but consumer prosecution is making more consumers spite the notion of intellectual property all together.

Happy Intellectual Property Day!

Today is the 7th annual World Intellectual Property Day! Celebrate by reading a funny article about how recklessly one web comic artist who had quite the knack for coming up with ideas other people had already posted on the net! Enjoy!

Ohio University Bans File Sharing

Following the spirit of colleges such as UCI, Ohio University will be banning p2p file sharing. This debate essentially boils down to two issues:
1. Is the network (with file sharing) too slow to use for other purposes?
2. Are the students willing to pay for extended internet service?
I wrote about UCI's Resnet censoring p2p earlier this year, but once I talked to a ResNet representative, I found that #1 is the true point of contention. While survey after survey says the student body is unwilling to pay extra for any extra services (and the equipment required to offer different service types is prohibitively expensive), the one point that the two sides of the debate conflict on is whether or not the network was bogged down prior to the network ban. The "slow network" argument has been used before, and what I notice is all the students who I ask from around then say that the network was never slow, and all the network administrators insist it was unusable.

Clearly one side is exaggerating, but if nothing is done, network censorship will continue to spread around college campuses.

If students want to protect their network's speed, they would be wise to build a support base of students willing to sign a petition that they would pay extra. But until students aren't poor, we will probably be subject to whatever internet cutbacks the administrators deem cost-effective.

Wifi no Kiddie Porn Alibi

The Fifth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals has ruled that having a wifi network is not an alibi for content downloaded via your ip address. In a case regarding child pornography as its illegal content, a man tried and disproved an old theory that keeping your wireless internet access point (WAP) open was a free pass to download anything. The reasoning being, since the network is open, it could've been anyone.

Actually it couldn't have. This article neglects to mention the MAC address assigned to every computer's ethernet port. It's like a fingerprint unique to each machine that is used in electronic transmission so the routers know where to send what information. So trying to say his IP address was unverifiable was fair, but there was still probable cause.

The danger in this case comes from the next step legislators are considering taking: Making using an open network, or having one, a crime. This is a premise that has been pursued by ISPs in the past, who are not fond of free internet sharing. There should be a distinction made between having the capacity to commit a crime and actually committing it. I completely disagree with the thought-police-esque pre-emptive action approach. It's like arresting someone for practicing karate because they could kill, or arresting someone for selling goods because they could be robbed.

However, an area is left open for speculation: Just how anonymous can the internet be? Should we need to use our government-issued IDs to log onto the internet, or is the open model acceptable? While my usual "Information wants to be free" approach would say it's impossible to force identification on the internet, at the same time it has been considered. But since MAC addresses are trackable, how anonymous is the internet anyway? Sure, you can browse the internet, set up accounts from a library. But you can't share illegal files, or run 3rd party p2p applications. I don't know if this is a widespread practice, but in a way, by limiting what programs a library computer can run, a library can set a standard of censorship. Quite contrary to the standard librarian fare, if you ask me.

China intends to further censor Internet

Reuters reported this morning that Chinese President Hu Jintao has declared his intention to not only increase existing filtering and search-and destroy missions of information, but also to encourage all "internet units" to contribute to creating a culture of Socialism.

This should be an interesting experiment in attempted Governmental control of the internet. So far, the Chinese Government has fallen slightly short of total censorship, because they can only block a story once it has been posted to a blog or message board.

Apparently the Chinese Government is quite convinced of the need to propagandize their populace, because the article ends with another declaration made in the same press briefing, where sports will be further encouraged for youth, to mold an appropriately competitive persona.

Since China is a Socialist government, the prize for competition is not a higher income as in a capitalist state, but is a system of governmental awards of recognition. So the goal is surely to keep people from knowing what they could be rewarded with in another culture. I think by taking away free information, you're already telling the populace they're getting shafted. Trying to force loyalty is a great way to lose it.

1 Billion Songs a Day are Pirated

In a new IDC study, a billion songs are pirated every day via the internet, in an estimate that is being considered "conservative."

Based on the graph posted earlier today, this means in 10 days, (based on a 10-song album), more music is pirated than is sold in a year.

So why isn't the music industry hurting more? I'll suggest that the internet has opened people to listening to more and more diverse music. While this variety on one hand means far more music is being "exchanged" for free, it also means that people are getting more options in their music shopping, and are probably more discerning when it comes to what concert to attend.

Perhaps that's a reason that a major-label alliance like the RIAA would target internet piracy: Internet piracy means egalitarian taste. No longer can you buy up the top 20 artists of the decade and have a music monopoly. The music industry, thanks to the internet, is now a much more open forum for new artists to try to enter the arena.

RIAA Gives Students 24 hours

Despite its leveling sales, the RIAA has not relaxed its attack on consumers at all. In fact, this week, the RIAA gave a student only 24 hours to appear at a lawyer's office, on a school day.

A lot of the discussion has revolved around: Do those students have to respond to the RIAA? Lawyers say no, but most students don't know all their rights. So all these "Out of Court Settlement" letters the RIAA and MPAA send around the nation may actually be more coersive than legal.

RIAA Profits Rising

As a chart from Ars Technica illustrates, the online-mp3 market not only began to compensate for the decline in CD sales, for a year it actually boistered the music industry.

The article also has an interesting quote from Steve Jobs on why he refuses to raise his 99 cent price for mp3s, since he considers himself as competing with piracy.

Software Ownership and Government

I've written about copyrighted content a bit, but what about the battle for the software we use to create and view this content? With the advent of p2p technologies software developers have become more and more sophisticated at protecting their software from illegal use. And so have the software "krackers." In fact, software piracy among consumers has become so widespread that many companies are focusing on either free software with ads (Google), or selling to businesses and government.

Government is an interesting market to try to corner. The bidding process traditionally used simply asks who can do the job for the least amount of money? However, these days it often comes down to who you know (Cheney-Haliburton?), and who's got the best lobbyists.

Right now most of the government uses Microsoft software. Anyone who's familiar with the Open Source Software (OSS) movement knows there are free alternatives to paying Microsoft $500 per computer you run. Well, chair of the House Committee on Audit & Performance
Rep. Ed Horman thought maybe looking into OSS was a good way to save money. That is his job, after all. Well no more than three days after he suggested merely researching OSS into SB 1974, was he confronted by three Microsoft lobbyists. According to an anonymous legislative staff employee, "By the time those lobbyists were done talking, it sounded like ODF (Open Document Format, the free and open format used by OpenOffice.org and other free software) was proprietary and the Microsoft format was the open and free one."

The danger here is if Microsoft can bully around our government, then they're essentially stealing our tax dollars. The hope is that transparency upon the situation as given in the above article will keep the support behind Rep. Horman to stand by his beliefs. But this isn't only about who gets the money. It's about keeping our government secure.

Just yesterday the State Department was hacked using a Microsoft bug. This addresses a misconception people often have about OSS. That proprietary software is safer. Take the classic example, Diebold. Either Diebold has sub-acceptable security programming skills, deliberately covered up a bug to protect their reputation, or is in malicious communion with the Republican Party. In any case, open sourcing the voting machines may solve the problem. When the source code is open, if there is a hackable vulnerability, anyone who can read code can see it. In fact, California has suggested the intention to move towards OSS for its voting machines.

Hiring a crook to check your security system is an old idea, and now the Philippine Government is experimenting with this principle in regards to its proposed online voting system. By opening the system to public scrutiny, the Philippine Government is hoping to discover any fatal flaws in their system before they implement it in a major election.

We just have to make sure our lawmakers are encouraged with our votes to seek more democratic computer systems for organizing the government. We just might be able to fix our democracy yet.

Adobe releases DRM'd Flash

An idea that hasn't worked out for content distributors yet is DRM (Digital Rights Management). The premise is generally that the content file (mp3 or video file) is also embedded with information that limits its use to some degree. Last year, Sony was sued for installing a form of subversive DRM on some Audio CDs that secretly installed spyware on a user's computer to track their activities.

Today Adobe, the owner of Macromedia, the company that controls the Flash format, the web-based format that allows a very popular form for displaying video files on a website, announced a new format of their now universal files which will include DRM capabilities. In the true spirit of a Trojan Horse, the new software will allow users of sites like YouTube to download the videos to view offline or on portable devices, HOWEVER can require the viewer to sit through an advertisement to watch the content.

Will this work? Well, as that article notes, hacking Flash files is nothing new. A variety of methods are available for ripping the video files from .swf (flash) files. Naturally, these hacks have been subject to the familiar cat-and-mouse game of "harder to hack" and "hacked."

The question really boils down not to "is this unhackable?" because software is inherently hackable. The question for content providers looking to advertise will be, "are the advertisements unintrusive enough that people won't try to hack them out?"

I think this question can be answered by another. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated in his recent interview with WIRED magazine, the advertising model is changing. The traditional advertising method of flooding as much space with your message as possible is no longer effective in an environment where consumers are savvy to avoiding commercials and dislike them. However, with properly targeted advertising, I believe ads will seem less like annoying pestering, and more like helpful suggestions.

So the question left to Adobe is, will the DRM'd .swf files have a set ad, or will the ad be customized for the user upon download? This is the Web 2.0, and if the new .swf file fails to recognize the need for a customized experience, its users will resent the attempts at control and turn to software hacks to download their flash-embedded videos.

Welcome to my new blog!

Excuse the slightly convoluted blog title, options were slightly limited but this one makes sense in a way.

"Intellectual Property" is a term that has become increasingly popularized since the advent of the internet. Ever since the mp3-swapping site Napster was shut down by the RIAA (Recording Industries Association of America), the U.S. government has facilitated the RIAA and MPAA in their quest to protect their "property rights."

Meanwhile, programs like BitTorrent are making file-sharing increasingly fast, easy, and anonymous. This cat-and-mouse game is sure to continue, and while it does, there is an interesting conversation occurring to the side of this battle.

Some companies are exploring new business models to compete even with the free (as in free beer) culture being swapped on p2p sites. Apple's iTunes charges 99 cents a song, or $1.99 per TV episode, commercial free. The major TV networks now provide their latest shows for free on their websites, with limited ads. YouTube operates on Google's business model, in which quantity of ads are replaced by quality of directed advertising. Even "free" piracy sites often ask for donations, or banner ad clicks.

Now many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have begun charging gradiated levels of internet access speed. A controversy around this move is that corporations can pay the ISPs to give everyone faster access to their mainstream websites. A poor person might not be able to afford to watch a video posted by another poor person, and would be bandwidth-limited to find the majority of their information from wealthy sources.

These latest developments have taken a major hit against the initial promise of the internet: free culture for all. Some would even suggest the motto of the internet generation is "information wants to be free." However I would suggest the internet is in its awkward teen years right now, and is experiencing some growing pains. ISP networks are not yet fast enough to handle the media onslaught the average TV-viewer is used to. Media distribution corporations are hugely powerful, with far reaching influences into government. A century of corporate monopolies refuse to go out without a fight.

But as people gain their news from more and more diverse sources, the focus of power will wane. However, even the diversity of our news sources is a huge point of contention! Even if a student films a newsbreaking video and posts it on YouTube, it is subject to their ability to socially network to get their video shown, and even if it does get distributed, the business model for independent content producers is still uncertain. Hosting a video on YouTube gives advertising rights to Google.

A handful of internet celebrities have been born each year, at an increasing rate. Lonelygirl15, Ask a Ninja, Homestarrunner, Somethingawful. Most of these have flourished by their consistently released content, mixed with selling memorabilia (shirts, keychains, bumperstickers, DVDs)

In this blog I will be tracking the evolution of the internet as a new venue for information distribution. I'll look at new ways to find new media, and the concessions these methods require (payment, advertising, or other) in hope to explore the most current ideal way to receive the information you surround yourself with.