Tag: Politics

SOPA

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

So, today was the “great blackout”.

I have to be honest, although I participated in the blackout [1], I’ve not really been much impacted by the blackout today. I tried to access wikipedia a couple of times, and drew a blank, well… ish. I tried to follow up a link to a profile on identi.ca, and got a black page. I tried to get a link to a podcast I listen to, and got a redirect to another site.

So, how do I feel it went? As a guy who lives in the UK, I think it was really interesting. I saw more comments about the loss of Wikipedia than I did about SOPA, I saw that the BBC did a news story on Wikipedia being down, and I had a really hard time explaining why it was an issue to my wife (to be fair she said “you always go into a long rambling explanation, why don’t you just summarize it in a sentence for me” – I said “It’ll might take down the blog site you spend a lot of time reading”, and she said “Oh, OK”).

I saw a lot of people posted a link to The Oatmeal’s SOPA blackout comic. I’d link to it, but it’s not exactly work safe, and you might be browsing this site, and don’t want to see a koala making sweet love to a donkey, or Oprah and Jesus on a jetski in space! Er, so anyway.

I don’t know. I hope it had much more of an impact in the US, but I think really, most people would have been going “WTF? Wikipedia is down… now how are we going to find out what the 23rd episode of the Transformers TV series was about” than about anything to actually do with SOPA, and I think people who did take an interest are going to be more like my wife (“how is this actually *really* going to impact me looking at lolcats” – not actual quote) than me (“OMG, The stinking AMERICAN GOVERNMENT are going to take down my podcast, my blog and all my code” – nearly actual quote).

[1] CCHits.net had a redirect on the main page to http://sopastrike.com/, and the daily exposure show was just Doris (actually the Festival voice “cmu_us_clb_arctic_clunits”) saying some stuff I programmed into her. The nearly-actual quote above was actually something like “This law, if enacted could take down not just cchits.net, but my personal blog, open source code I have written, my e-mail server, my authentication systems, and this is just my content. I use a shared web server, and every other customer on the same server could also be affected if any single user posts material they do not own the copyright to. Simply put, the law the American government wants to enact would destroy everything that is good about the internet.” There was more than that, but like my wife said, I waffle a lot. Sorry. See, I’m doing it again. BAH!

A warning about the evils of Facebook

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

Facebook is one of the current breed of “Social networking” websites – which means that they let you exchange information, pictures and videos with each other… sounds good so far, right?

Here’s where the problem is. Facebook is a company which is trying to make money. Your profile (the collection of all your information) on their website belongs to them. They can market that information to anyone and do whatever they want with it. If you put any pictures on there, then they own those photos too. On top of that, every “application” (or service that isn’t written by Facebook) knows everything about you and the people you are friends with… which means that if you’ve decided not to install an application that collects e-mail addresses, but your friend does – then that application knows your e-mail address. Wonderful!

Facebook have a real problem with their “privacy policy” and the pages which let you share details with the rest of the world – every few months they write a new version of both to help them get even more of a chance to sell off your information, to use your photos and videos in new and interesting ways… so much so, that about a year ago, their CEO (Chief Executive Officer – the person who makes all the day-to-day decisions about where the company goes next) had all his details shared publicly because he forgot that they started using the new privacy settings page on that day and he’d not set his details to the most private settings. This happens all the time – to the extent another website was created called http://youropenbook.org that shows what people are making publicly available!

A few months back, Facebook changed their privacy policy again to let you log into other websites using your Facebook details, which sounds like a great idea, but it means that the website then (again) knows your e-mail address, all your friends, your birthday and (if you enter it) your phone number… not good!

Realistically, it is possible to use Facebook in a vaguely safe way if you take a lot of precautions about what you are sharing and doing on their website, but I really wouldn’t recommend using it, and in fact, I’d recommend who ever suggested you use it be forwarded a link to this page, warning them not to use it! Sadly, there’s nothing else available right now that does the same thing in a way that still maintains your privacy. I’m watching a few projects, and once something safe and easy to use comes out, I’ll let you know!

(Just as a disclaimer, I do use Facebook, but I don’t like it and I want to move away from it, PRONTO!)

Another e-mail to my MP #debill #AndrewGwynneMP

JonTheNiceGuy
Dear Andrew [Gwynne MP],

I just noticed that, according to both this website:
http://debillitated.heroku.com/ and this one:
http://www.didmympshowupornot.com/ that you were not able to attend
the debate around the Digital Economy Bill.

Given that over 20,000 people are recorded as having written to their
MP, and over 23,000 twitter messages (since the 17th March) were sent
about the subject, and less than 4% of their MPs attended, I’m
slightly worried about whether this bill is being given appropriate
attention.

Will you reassure me that this bill is considered important enough to
your constituents (like me) that you will be asking the house to be
dropped until after the election, when it can receive the proper
scrutiny it deserves, or do you not feel that it’s important for your
constituents for you to be involved in the debate around a law which
permits the government to modify copyright without proper debate, and
which also enables “rights holders” to arrange the disconnection of a
whole household from participating on the Internet, where those
“rights holders” allege (and are never required to be proven in court)
file sharing has occurred.

Yours, in hope,

Jon Spriggs

Posted via email from Jon’s posterous

[Politics] “Digital Economy Bill” = Internet Disconnection Bill

JonTheNiceGuy

It’s very rare that I’ll inflict my political views on people by
e-mail, however, this has recently come up, and I wanted to make sure
that you understand what this newly proposed law could mean to you.
It’s only relevant to people in the UK, to ex-pats or Armed Forces
people, so if you want to forward it on – please do, but please think
before you forward, and don’t just blanket send it to everyone.

** If you don’t want to read all of the below, then I’d encourage you
instead to have a look at http://www.dontdisconnect.us/ **

In the Queen’s Speech [1] when parliament was opened for the 2009-10
session, the following was said:

“My Government will introduce a Bill to ensure the communications
infrastructure is fit for the digital age, supports future economic
growth, delivers competitive communications and enhances public
service broadcasting.”

The bill referred to is the “Digital Economy Bill”, which is due to be
introduced to Parliament this or next week, and it’s caused a lot of
fuss with us Technophiles.

Essentially, this bill allows “Rights Holders” (for example, Music
Labels, Film Studios and Television Networks) to contact your ISP and
insist that they issue you with a formal notice if they *believe* you
to be unlawfully sharing their content on the internet. After “a
certain threshold” the government has suggested [2] that it would be
acceptable to temporarily disconnect you from the Internet. A law
similar to this one was recently introduced in France, which insists
on disconnection after 3 warnings.

Now, again, this seems fair, if you can’t do the “time”, don’t do the
crime… but, how do they actually know it’s you? Because of certain
technical limitations of the Internet, everyone sharing a single
internet connection (for example in a house, at an office or a
internet café) will appear to come from the same internet address, and
this will cause you problems in this law, because:

* If you let someone use your computer to access the Internet, and
they unlawfully download some files, then the bill payer will be
blamed.
* If you have a Wi-Fi connection which is not properly secured [3],
and someone uses that connection to share a file they’ve downloaded,
again, the bill payer will be blamed.
* How about if your computer gets infected by malicious software
(spyware, becomes a member of a botnet, or worse still, is actively
hacked) and they use that as an untraceable machine to download their
content – again, the bill payer is blamed.

My other worry is that none of this goes in front of a court of law –
this all occurs between the ISP and Rights Holders, so if you get
disconnected, it will happen without any judicial oversight and the
prosecution’s burden of proof is never required… someone (usually
outside the UK) will accuse you of breaking the law and you will then
get disconnected from the Internet. To me, that hardly seems very
fair.

There’s a petition [4] against this law which is currently available
to be signed (provided you live within the UK, you are an ex-pat or
are a member of the Armed Forces), and, if you agree that it isn’t
fair, I would strongly encourage you to write to your MP [5]. If you
do decide to write to them, please review the content at the Don’t
Disconnect Us website [6] and review some of the letters which have
already been written [7] [8] as this e-mailing service will remove
duplicate e-mails so if you just copy the content it’ll never get to
your MP.

Thank you for your time. The links I have referred to above, labelled
[x] are listed below if you want to read them.

[1] Queen’s Speech: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21361
[2] Stephen Timms defends the Digital Economy Bill:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/20/digital-economy-bill-stephen-timms
[3] Ways to secure your WiFi connection:
http://www.dontdisconnect.us/secure-your-wireless/
[4] The petition against the Digital Economy Bill:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/
[5] You can contact your MP via e-mail at this website:
http://www.writetothem.com/
[6] Don’t Disconnect Us official website: http://www.dontdisconnect.us/
[7] A letter I wrote to my MP:
http://jonspriggs.posterous.com/a-letter-to-my-mp-threestrikes
[8] A letter written by someone else to their MP about this law:
http://grahambinns.com/blog/2009/11/24/digital-economy-bollocks/

Posted via email from Jon’s posterous

“Digital Economy Bill” = Internet Disconnection Bill

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

It’s very rare that I’ll inflict my political views on people by e-mail, however, this has recently come up, and I wanted to make sure that you understand what this newly proposed law could mean to you. It’s only relevant to people in the UK, to ex-pats or Armed Forces people, so if you want to forward it on – please do, but please think before you forward, and don’t just blanket send it to everyone.

** If you don’t want to read all of the below, then I’d encourage you instead to have a look at http://www.dontdisconnect.us/ **

In the Queen’s Speech [1] when parliament was opened for the 2009-10 session, the following was said:

“My Government will introduce a Bill to ensure the communications infrastructure is fit for the digital age, supports future economic growth, delivers competitive communications and enhances public service broadcasting.”

The bill referred to is the “Digital Economy Bill”, which is due to be introduced to Parliament this or next week, and it’s caused a lot of fuss with us Technophiles.

Essentially, this bill allows “Rights Holders” (for example, Music Labels, Film Studios and Television Networks) to contact your ISP and insist that they issue you with a formal notice if they *believe* you to be unlawfully sharing their content on the internet. After “a certain threshold” the government has suggested [2] that it would be acceptable to temporarily disconnect you from the Internet. A law similar to this one was recently introduced in France, which insists on disconnection after 3 warnings.

Now, again, this seems fair, if you can’t do the “time”, don’t do the crime… but, how do they actually know it’s you? Because of certain technical limitations of the Internet, everyone sharing a single internet connection (for example in a house, at an office or a internet café) will appear to come from the same internet address, and this will cause you problems in this law, because:

If you let someone use your computer to access the Internet, and they unlawfully download some files, then the bill payer will be
blamed.

If you have a Wi-Fi connection which is not properly secured [3], and someone uses that connection to share a file they’ve downloaded,
again, the bill payer will be blamed.

* How about if your computer gets infected by malicious software (spyware, becomes a member of a botnet, or worse still, is actively hacked) and they use that as an untraceable machine to download their content – again, the bill payer is blamed.

My other worry is that none of this goes in front of a court of law – this all occurs between the ISP and Rights Holders, so if you get disconnected, it will happen without any judicial oversight and the prosecution’s burden of proof is never required… someone (usually outside the UK) will accuse you of breaking the law and you will then get disconnected from the Internet. To me, that hardly seems very fair.

There’s a petition [4] against this law which is currently available to be signed (provided you live within the UK, you are an ex-pat or are a member of the Armed Forces), and, if you agree that it isn’t fair, I would strongly encourage you to write to your MP [5]. If you do decide to write to them, please review the content at the Don’t Disconnect Us website [6] and review some of the letters which have already been written [7] [8] as this e-mailing service will remove duplicate e-mails so if you just copy the content it’ll never get to your MP.

Thank you for your time. The links I have referred to above, labelled [x] are listed below if you want to read them.

[1] Queen’s Speech: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21361
[2] Stephen Timms defends the Digital Economy Bill: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/20/digital-economy-bill-stephen-timms
[3] Ways to secure your WiFi connection: http://www.dontdisconnect.us/secure-your-wireless/
[4] The petition against the Digital Economy Bill: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/
[5] You can contact your MP via e-mail at this website: http://www.writetothem.com/
[6] Don’t Disconnect Us official website: http://www.dontdisconnect.us/
[7] A letter I wrote to my MP: http://jonspriggs.posterous.com/a-letter-to-my-mp-threestrikes
[8] A letter written by someone else to their MP about this law: http://grahambinns.com/blog/2009/11/24/digital-economy-bollocks/

A letter to my MP #threestrikes

JonTheNiceGuy

Dear Andrew Gwynne,

I’m writing to you, as my MP, to ask for your support, to try to
discourage the implementation of the Digital Economy Bill that was
introduced recently.

This proposal is very worrying to me, as a Free Culture (Open Source
Software and Creative Commons) Contributor and activist. A large part
of the distribution of this Free Culture Content is performed over
peer to peer networks, such as BitTorrent, and it appears that this
law is trying (in part) to discourage the use of peer to peer
networks, on the grounds that they may be used to unlawfully transfer
files.

I also worry that during discussions of this law between Stephen Timms
(Treasury Secretary) and The Guardian newspaper, he suggested that a
temporary account suspension from one’s ISP would be an acceptable
movement without any judicial overview. Given that Finland has
recently recognised Internet Access is now such a fundamental part of
our day-to-day lives that they are classing it as a Human Right, I
worry that this movement could effectively prevent many of your
constituents from being active in society.

I’ve also noticed that many ISPs and most of the policing and
intelligence services have stated they disagree with the
recommendations of this bill (for a variety of different reasons), I
would be grateful if you could support their position and reject this
bill in it’s current state, if you are able, when it is presented.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Spriggs

Posted via email from Jon’s posterous

A letter to my MP

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

Dear Andrew Gwynne,

I’m writing to you, as my MP, to ask for your support, to try to discourage the implementation of the Digital Economy Bill that was introduced recently.

This proposal is very worrying to me, as a Free Culture (Open Source Software and Creative Commons) Contributor and activist. A large part of the distribution of this Free Culture Content is performed over peer to peer networks, such as BitTorrent, and it appears that this law is trying (in part) to discourage the use of peer to peer networks, on the grounds that they may be used to unlawfully transfer files.

I also worry that during discussions of this law between Stephen Timms (Treasury Secretary) and The Guardian newspaper, he suggested that a temporary account suspension from one’s ISP would be an acceptable movement without any judicial overview. Given that Finland has recently recognised Internet Access is now such a fundamental part of our day-to-day lives that they are classing it as a Human Right, I worry that this movement could effectively prevent many of your constituents from being active in society.

I’ve also noticed that many ISPs and most of the policing and intelligence services have stated they disagree with the recommendations of this bill (for a variety of different reasons), I would be grateful if you could support their position and reject this bill in it’s current state, if you are able, when it is presented.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Spriggs