a-cubed.info

There has been a recent spate of reports regarding Research In Motion and their difficulties with various surveillance-oriented regimes (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) demanding access to the emails sent from the famous and popular Blackberry mobile communications system. The most recent addition to the countries demanding such access is India. I find it interesting that they are targetting the Blackberry in this way. Standard email protocols provide exactly the same facility as the proprietary systems used by Blackberry and many other smartphone systems to send and receive email to remote servers with end-to-end encryption so that only if the user device is cracked or the server is located in-country, can the government access the communications data (modulo claims of encryption cracking capabilities of Forth Worth and GCHQ).

More flexible smartphones such as the iPhone, Mobile Windows- or Android-based systems can of course be set up with standard email servers anywhere in the world. Are these the next target, or are the users of Crackberries seen as the most likely to be “misusing” (according to the governments in question) email? This attempted fragmentation and re-bordering of the internet was analysed by Goldsmith and Wu a few years ago in Who Controls the Internet? Will open platforms such as the Android be banned in favour of iPhones but only if Apple follows RIM’s example and limits email apps to in-country servers? What about travel to these countries? Will entry into Pakistan with an iPhone be followed by a revocation of any app allowing out-of-country encrypted communications?

I just came across a book which I thought would be useful for one of the courses I’m teaching at Meiji University: Information Society. It’s a 2009 book called The Information Society and it includes the same kind of approach I’m using, with a historical background and various sociological, technological, economic and other facets explored. It’s a huge book, admittedly, at almost 2,000 pages. You can see the full details at the publisher’s web site. I’m not going to be using it as a book, though, even purchased for my University library, because it costs £675.00 (Amazon UK) $1,325.00 (Amazon US) $1,192 (Routledge List price). What on earth? That’s 25p per page! (more…)

David Ignatius, one of the Washington Post Writers Group, recently wrote an article (widely syndicated under different headlines) on The case for spreading press freedom around the world, in support of Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University‘s call for a global “First Amendment” (i.e. a global guarantee of freedom of speech, imposed by the US). In that article he mentions that “Bollinger’s call for a global First Amendment has been criticized as too chauvinistic. But the world’s embrace of the Internet tells me that we’re on the right side of history on this one.”

I am a strong advocate of freedom of expression myself, but I find the analysis of both Bollinger and Ignatius to be missing some important elements here. There is indeed a chauvinistic assumption here that lies at the heart of the US’ attitude to the world at large. America seeks to impose certain thing on others, largely those which large power blocs within the US see as in their own interests (consider the capture of US trade policy by a small group of “intellectual property” businesses charged by Drahos and Braithwaite in their book “Information Feudalism“). An attempt to directly impose the US first amendment on other countries is indeed chauvinistic. However, there is a moral high ground that the US could legitimately take, though it is highly unlikely to do so. First, it could expand the scope of US constitutional guarantees and in particular the first amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, to all human beings within the scope of US dominion. Second it could enjoin all US-based companies from engaging in activities violating those rights anywhere in the world.

At present as a non-US citizen even when I visit the US I do not enjoy the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Indeed as shown by the case of Peter Watts, beaten up by a US immigration official and then prosecuted and convicted for non-compliance with a border official when he asked why he was being assaulted, and the case of the Guantanamo Bay detainees (and others in Bagram Air Base) other basic liberties such as Habeas Corpus also do not apply to non-US citizens under effective US dominion.

While I am a Bright and not a religious person, the New Testament comment about specks, beams and eyes comes to mind. Before the US starts trying to impose its particular constitutional settlement on others, it should first ensure that its constitutional settlement is appropriately fair and universally applicable within the legitimate scope of its own authority.

In a clear abuse of the parliamentary process and a travesty of democracy, the Digital Economy Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons yesterday, a process which now allows the final passage of the bill to be pushed through “wash-up”. The reason this is a travesty is that the wash-up process is supposed to be for bills with cross-party support and few concerns about the detailed provisions needing further parliamentary scrutiny, to avoid clogging up the post-election parliamentary timetable with uncontroversial matters getting in the way of (supposedly) the new governments’ manifesto commitments. Neither of these is truly the case for the Digital Economy Bill. While the Conservative and Labour Front Benches may have whipped sufficient of their MPs into line this did not have all-party support. It was not (and is not) uncontroversial. Claims that it had received significant debate in the Lords ignores the constant cries from the current government about how undemocratic our Upper Chamber is. When the Lords blocks something the government doesn’t like, it’s undemocratic, but when it serves as a mechanism for the near-dictator Lord Mandelson to push through a piece of captured legislation then it’s sufficient democratic scrutiny for a major bill. The Digital Economy is incredibly important to the UK and a bill to support and develop it needed to be put through the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny and crafted with balance on all sides of the discussions. Ramming something through with Henry VIII powers, a lop-sided set of proposals which run the risk of destroying significant chunks of internet access and business through chilling effects if not legal action, all because Lord Mandelson got his ear bent by a rich representative of a dinosaur industry, is not democracy, it’s corruption and abuse of power.

Larry Lessig changed his tack in the US from lobbying for more sensible copyright (and related rights) laws to the issue of corruption in US politics and the capture of the law-making process by small groups with large amounts of money. After the DEBill fiasco in the UK, it’s easy to see why he felt that move necessary.

PM on Radio 4 today incldued interviews with people about the launch of ID cards for “volunteers” in Manchester. A frelance journalist was first in the queue to get one and was interviewed about the process. She reported having to create five “secret” questions and answers (i.e. passwords with menmonics). The quality of these, represented by her interview, leaves much to be desired: “What is your favourite food?” being the one quoted. There is some very good recent evidence regarding the flawednature of such questions. These flaws are both false negative (people’s preferences change) and false positive (easy to remember, and therefore not likely to be forgotten, are generally easy to find out or even guess). For example, the answer to “What is your favourite food?” is probably “chocolate” in a large proportion of cases. Next, they discussed the “biometric” elements. Due to having burnt her finger on foodstuff recently (not an uncommon occurrence, I would think) she had a plaster on the index finger they use, obscuring part of the print. Again, this presents both false positive and false negative issues.

Once again, the UK ID Card scheme is shown to be deeply flawed at the most basic level.

According to this article in The Grauniad, the UK government is set on ignoring the recommendations of yet another report it commissioned (this time the Digital Britain Report, last time the Gowers Report) and are set to introduce proposals for a two strikes law on suspending/removing internet access from those accused by rights’ holders of illicitly sharing copyrighted material online (official government details). (more…)

In the 30th April 2009 issue (1,894) of the Times Higher Education magazine, Prof Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford Unviersity wrote an ill-considered and wrong-headed attack on digital communication in general and on Open Access in particular titled Those who disseminate ideas must acknowledge the routes they travel. (more…)

The Counter Terrorism Act 2008 includes the provision:

76. Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc

(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert:
“58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc

(1) A person commits an offence who:

(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been:

(i) a member of Her Majesty’s forces,

(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or

(iii) a constable,

which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or

(b) publishes or communicates any such information.”

This is in addition to a prior claim in December 2008 where the Home Secretary informed the National Union of Journalists that photography in public places may be restricted when it “may cause or lead to public order situations or inflame an already tense situation or raise security considerations”.
(more…)

OK, I admit it. I was ego-surfing Pandora’s Box on various Amazon sites. While looking at the list of other sellers on Amazon.co.uk, I found somewhere that’s selling our book, published in November 2007 and still fully in print, at over £130. The new retail price is less than £30. Do people really buy things listed at such outrageous prices, when one can get it for less than a quarter of the cost direct from Amazon (and over 30 other sellers). This is bizarre.

Amazon.com have an “editorial review” by Karl Jones of Liverpool John Moores University (why this is only on .com and not also/instead on .co.uk I’m not sure) which says: “This book provides a breath of fresh air in the subject… with numerous examples. Further, it provides a nice link between ethical behaviour, professionalism and the law.”

I’ve painfully pushed my way through “Cult of the Amateur”, despite its huge flaws. As mentioned last time, the author constantly follows the “broken window fallacy” in all his economic arguments so far.

A couple of sections cover the issues of accountability in the press and the undermining of advertising. Keen offers up examples of where mainstream media have been caught out, including outright lies, poorly researched stories etc. He offers these up as examples of the higher quality of the infrastructure because of the sanctions then applied. However, the very fact that these failings exist in the mainstream media rather undermine his case, particularly as there’s no way of knowing how many flawed articles aren’t spotted. He also excoriates the self reinforcing groups “talking only to themselves”. These groups are no worse than the existing examples of biased media, for example “Fox News”. One of the differences between mainstream media and the new online media is that new media does not generally make the same claim to lack of bias, or claim to “authority” made by existing media. (more…)