Mozilla Dot T-shirt

This is why Firefox is unstoppable: T-shirts.

Hacking the Analogue

This digital stuff is all very well, but how can you hack it? Well, maybe along the lines of these hackable T-shirts:

C-Shirt shirts each come with a scannable little QR (Quick Response) code in the corner. If you see a C-Shirt that you like, worn by someone walking around town, you can scan the QR code with your mobile phone. (Especially if you're in Japan where people scan QR codes with their phones all the time.) Your phone then captures the shirt's unique URL on the Nota website, where you can load it up and edit the design however you like.

Each design is given a Creative Commons license (that's what the C stands for) according to the wishes of the creator. Once you've got it how you like it, you can have it shipped to you just like any other T-shirt website would do.

So this is how it would work.

Hackable (physical) objects that had digital blueprints would display (discreetly) the QR code, allowing you to download the blueprint and hack it, before uploading it to the supplier. All we need are some fabbers....

Bruce Schneier Knows Alice and Bob's Shared Secret

I want one, too.

This is the Way the World (of Copyright) Ends...

...not with a bang, but a whimper:

YouTube may be best known for showing video clips from its users of hamsters’ pratfalls or attempts to don as many T-shirts as possible. Starting today, it will also become an easy way to view content from Al Jazeera English, the English-language version of the Qatar-based television news station.

Now, some may not be happy with Al Jazeera's viewpoint (me, I like diversity), but here's a strange thing. Points of view that run counter to Al Jazeera's are likely to be thin on the ground online. Why? Because those that produce them will use copyright law to pursue anyone posting them to YouTube.

Could this be the straw that breaks the camel's back, as the US Government realises that its blind support of copyright maximalism places the US viewpoint at a disadvantage globally?

No, I suppose not.