Highs, Lows

Filed under: Rants

In contrast to my last post, this one is a bit less perky.

The fact that this happens at all is nearly enough to make me physically ill. The fact that I’m probably never going to encounter it, simply because I’m not brown-skinned…

You’re a threat, too.

Filed under: General Thoughts

If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear
If you’ve something to hide, you shouldn’t even be here
You’ve had your chance, now we’ve got the mandate
If you’ve changed your mind, I’m afraid it’s too late

We’re concerned
You’re a threat
You’re not integral to the project

Update

Interestingly, today Bruce Schneier wrote an article about culture’s war on the unexpected that fits really nicely with this. It illustrates the flat-out falsehood of the statement “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.”

I have a hard time reading this; I realize that it’s unlikely that any of this will happen to me, but that’s not because it can’t, it’s because on some level I’m already suppressed in that way. This stuff makes me sick inside.

Maynard

Filed under: General Thoughts, Internet, Media and Rants

Nothing on internet censorship (note: If you’re on a Canadian ISP and reading this, there are now sites blocked for all Canadians. Right now they’re kiddie porn only… but it’s a short step from that to deciding other sites are objectionable and blockable. Your ISP — the one you pay to provide you with internet access — is doing this. Respond as you will).

What I’m actually posting on is an excellent interview with Maynard James Keenan (of Tool) at the Onion AV Club.

The quote that really got me is this one:

All I can do is say I smell a rat. I don’t know where it is or what kind of rat it is, but as an artist, I can express how [I feel about it]. But I couldn’t responsibly stand up and tell people which way to go, because then I’m just as guilty as the people who are telling everybody else what to do and where to go.

He’s quite a guy, one with whom I’ve no doubt that I could argue for days.

Privacy? What privacy?

Filed under: General Thoughts, Internet, Media and Rants

One might be led to wonder whether there is any real expectation of privacy, out in the wilds of the internet. Certainly, it’s clear that people typically act in such a way as to minimize this. An example, and one with more than a few facets to be examined, is the incident provoked (and prodded… and …) by a blogger by the name of Jason Fortuny.

Fortuny, looking at Craigslist, observed this, and made a decision that is — at best — unethical, and at worst actively sociopathic. He posted an explicit ad to a casual encounters section of a Craigslist site (a section devoted to hooking up for no-strings-attached sex) and waited for responses. Those, he got in spades. Having accumulated a fair number of responses from all walks of life, containing personal information such as phone numbers, names, e-mail addresses, and photos — many of which consisted of nude or semi-nude shots — he proceeded to post this information to the web.

At waxy.org, there are at the very least two fairly serious potential legal ramifications to Fortuny’s actions (Sex Baiting Prank on Craigslist), having to do with the exposure of private information, and deliberate attempts to cause distress. These pale, however, beside the ethical and moral ramifications. Fortuny’s stated aim with this was to “push buttons”, and at this he’s succeeded. He’s also succeeded in causing at least one separation (no citation, sadly, except a peripheral mention in the Waxy article) and no small amount of distress to parties involved. Moreover, he’s spawned a copycat already.

So, the question that’s worth asking — and is well asked at the Wired blog that pointed me at this — is, for those who are thinking… “well, they got what they deserved, trolling for sex on the internet”, is this thought experiment:

What if it the Craig’s List posting was about:

• A 25 year-old woman looking for a sugar daddy?
• A depressed woman looking for a fellow depressed guy?
• A dom woman looking for submissive men to humiliate?
• A gay man looking for ‘straight’ guys?
• A ‘straight’ woman looking for a butch lesbian?
• A butch lesbian looking for a ‘straight’ woman?
• A lesbian looking for a lesbian?
• A closeted gay man looking for another closeted, discreet man?
• An overweight, not attractive straight guy looking for a date?
• A 21-year-old hipster looking for another hipster into?
• A goth woman looking for a goth guy into leather and trenchcoats?
• A couple looking for a third person to watch them have sex?
• A Christian woman looking for a Christian man?
• A furry looking for another furry?
• A Cos-Player looking for someone to dress up with them?
• A middle aged woman who doesn’t know she has terrible taste in poetry looking for a man who will buy her flowers, take her for walks on beaches and compose saccharine poems that rhyme?

Which of these do you feel superior enough to that you would want to see their private notes and photos displayed illegally on the internet? And what’s your justification for choosing what kind of people are reprehensible enough to you that their private lives should be splayed on the internet for anyone, from family to friends to co-workers to acquaintances to their bosses, to see?

—from Wired 27B Stroke 6

So, tempest in a teapot? Violation on a par with rape? Just short of? Sadistic action of a man-child? Sociopathic cruelty?

What do you think? There’s a fair number of starting points for thought on Metafilter, where this is presently being hotly debated.

Losing things you never knew you had.

Filed under: General Thoughts and Internet

Although the likelihood of any of my readers directly using the freedoms that they have at present with regards to circumventing digital content management schemes is low-to-nil, it still occurs to me that you might be interested in bill C-60, which would take these silent, but vital, rights from you.

So, well, here’s a very well-spoken law professor’s take on it, by way of 30 days of DRM

Looking Out for my Rights

Filed under: General Thoughts and Projects

After reading about some disturbing events in the US detailing the arrest and mistreatment of citizens whose only apparent crime was the recording of police activity (see here, with discussion here, and here, with discussion here), I’m interested in looking out for my own rights in that respect, as a Canadian citizen.

I’ve realized that much of what I expect to be true in my interactions with the Police is informed by my consumption of US media, where, for example, there are property rights enshrined in the constitution, and the 4th amendment exists. Here in Canada, neither of those things are true.

I’m not so much interested in what the practical rights are, but rather what my legal rights are.

I’ve contacted the CCLA (Canadian Civil Liberties Association) on the subject, and will be posting this to Ask MetaFilter later this evening (Update: Did so, it’s at the other end of this link), so follow along as I try to find out what my rights are.

Maybe I’ll get lucky, and actually learn something.

To Brin, I Direct this Writing

Filed under: General Thoughts and Rants

David Brin, author of (amongst other things) “Glory Season” and, more relevant, “Earth,” is what one might call a surveillance utopianist, if such a term might be coined.

He argues (and argues well, I might add) that a world where our expectations of privacy have eroded to the point of total worldwide information transparency, to a degree where secrecy is one of the few true crimes left in the world, would be a good thing. “Earth” is founded, vaguely, on this idea, and although its protagonist seeks secrecy for just reasons, Brin himself gives every indication that he believes privacy to be an anachronism, a legacy of humanity’s brutal rise into civilization, and one best left behind.

I do not agree.

Bruce Schneier wrote an article for Wired magazine a short time ago on the value of privacy that I think bears reading. He contends, and I agree, that even the off-the-cuff responses we have to that old saw (“If you’re not doing anything wrong, why do you care if someone is watching”) are misdirected. Saying “The definition of wrong is in the hands of the government, and it keeps changing,” or “If I’m not doing anything wrong, you have no cause to watch me” is an implicit admission that privacy is intended to protect wrong actions.

This is not, and should not, be the case. The right to privacy protects our ability to grow, learn, and change. It protects the essential dignity of a loner who would otherwise fear constant examination by a society he rejects. It forms a fundamental component of interpersonal relations, or should we all feel that we must have sex in full view of the world, lest we be violating someone else’s right to examine our every behaviour?

This claim upon the details of my life is specious, and unethical, and must stop.

This claim upon the details of your life is no more right than the claim made by a peeping tom that nobody is hurt if he only looks in through the window.

As Schneier quotes Cardinal Richelieu: “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.”

This must not become the way of our free society, lest our society cease to be free.

It’s key.

Filed under: Events and General Thoughts

So, I just attended my first-ever keynote presentations, yesterday and this morning.  I can already see that there’s a lot of variation in delivery styles and value of content.  Yesterday had Joel Spolsky going over the importance of glitz in software development.  This is something I personally see a use for, but will admittedly be of limited use to my workplace software development, given that we develop the buried backend that makes the pretty output, not the output itself.

Today I was treated to what was, by and large, a discussion on the Apache project and differences in licensing models.  The former was a bit interesting — I didn’t know Apache had a database — but the latter was, at best, dull.  Licensing is interesting, don’t get me wrong, but I already know the basics of it, and it borders on religious for most people — they’re not going to change preferences based on a keynote.

An aside:  For the record, “LAN spigot” is the stupidest name for an RJ-45 outlet I’ve heard in ages (overheard just to my right, moments ago).

Well, the presentation I’m attending is about to start, so I should probably pay attention.  Later…

Forced ethics

Filed under: General Thoughts, Internet, Media and Rants

So, I’ve been thinking.

I’m watching the software piracy world being shaken up repeatedly by increasingly successful interventions in both distribution and production by the authorities of various nations, usually acting in the name of private, for-profit industry groups.

I’m seeing an ever-increasing degree of technical control exercised over the viewing and distribution of electronic media.

I’ve seen my ISP decide that they should clamp down on my use of the internet connection I’m paying for, and like others in the same business space, lie to me about what they’re doing.

It’s getting so that I’m going to have to start paying for everything.

And, to be honest, I’m pretty okay with that. Well, except for the traffic shaping shit from Shaw.

The thing of it is, I’m about to be in a position from which I can afford to pay for my software. Across the board. It’s kind of nice, actually. As discussed previously on this blog, I approve of software developers’ rights to charge for their creations, and have always had ethical issues with the means by which I have acquired them. Soon, that’ll be in the past. It’s already begun, in the sense that I’m starting to pay for the little shareware utilities that I use, and I foresee doing so in greater quantities as time passes. Couple that with increased reliance on Free/Open Source software, and I have realized that — at the moment — my computer at home is almost completely clean of illegitimate software. It’s a nice feeling.

The title of this post is a bit misleading — I’m not really being forced into ethical behaviour, here. It just so happens that concurrent with my own push to be more upstanding, the sources of my content are leaving me no other choice. It’s a valid statement, that ethical behaviour is meaningless without the option of behaving unethically. But I made my choice before it became impossible, and I feel that it makes me a better person.

Michael Geist - The Search for Net Neutrality

Filed under: General Thoughts, Internet, Media and Rants

Found on the net: The Search for Net Neutrality

Meaning, of course, that we’re still looking for it. It seems, and I’ve run into this issue myself over the last few months, that our wonderful ISP overlords have decided to quietly engage strict controls on the nature of the content that we will be allowed to get over their wires… You know, the ones you pay to use?

Read the article. And, if anyone knows of any way to derail this — legislative action, consumer agitation — I’d love to know. I’m not interested in ineffective protests or street marches — this is the internet, not Vietnam. But I’d like to make some kind of difference, here.

This has also been discussed on /., which should surprise nobody.