As expected, Russia has passed a law that will allow Web sites to be blacklisted, ostensibly to "protect children". According to this AFP report, the very vague "harmful information" category has been narrowed somewhat, but future threats remain:
Something that's proving popular with politicians running out of ideas for tackling unauthorized sharing of copyright materials online is to make ISPs and Web sites responsible for the actions of their users -- even though nobody would think of doing the same for telephone companies. SOPA was one of the best-known examples of this approach, and now it looks like Russia wants to join the club:
A couple of days ago I wrote that ACTA was doomed because its attempts to enforce copyright through even more punitive measures will simply alienate people, and cause more, not less, copyright infringement. Here's indirect support for that view from a rather surprising source: a paper [.pdf] published by WIPO (although it does emphasise "The views expressed in this document are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Secretariat or of the Member States of WIPO").
In the context of enforcement it has the following to say about the continued failure to "educate" (= indoctrinate) people about the sanctity of copyright, noting that it is a lost cause because piracy is so widely accepted today:
The most comprehensive comparative analysis of these issues to date is a 2009 Strategy One study commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce. Strategy One examined some 176 consumer surveys and conducted new ones in Russia, India, Mexico, South Korea, and the UNITED KINGDOM. Like nearly all other surveys, Strategy One’s work showed high levels of acceptance of physical and digital piracy, with digital media practices among young adults always at the top of the distribution. The group concluded that “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’ has become the norm” (ICC/BASCAP 2009). At this point, such findings should come as no surprise. In the contexts in which we worked, we can say with some confidence that efforts to stigmatize piracy have failed.
There is little room to maneuver here, we would argue, because consumer attitudes are, for the most part, not unformed — not awaiting definition by a clear antipiracy message. On the contrary, we consistently found strong views. The consumer surplus generated by piracy in middle-income countries is not just popular but also widely understood in economic justice terms, mapped to perceptions of greedy United States of America and multinational corporations and to the broader structural inequalities of globalization in which most developing-world consumers live. Enforcement efforts, in turn, are widely associated with the United States of America pressure on national governments, and are met with indifference or hostility by large majorities of respondents.
It also makes this rather interesting point about the changing nature of people's music collections:The collector, our work suggests, is giving ground at both the high end and low end of the consumer income spectrum. Among privileged, technically-proficient consumers, the issue is one of manageable scale: the growing size of personal media libraries is disconnecting recorded media from traditional notions of the collection — and even from strong assumptions of intentionality in its acquisition. A 2009 survey of 1800 young people in the UNITED KINGDOM found that the average digital library contained 8000 songs, with 1800 on the average iPod (Bahanovich and Collopy 2009). Most of these songs — up to 2/3 in another recent study — have never been listened to (Lamer 2006). If IFPI’s figures are to be trusted, up to 95% are pirated (IFPI 2006).
Such numbers describe music and, increasingly, video communities that share content by the tens or hundreds of gigabytes — sizes that diminish consumers’ abilities to organize or even grasp the full extent of their collections. Community-based libraries, such as those constituted through invitation-only P2P sites, carry this reformulation of norms further, structured around still more diffuse principles of ownership and organization.
What's really fascinating for me here is that it clearly describes the trend towards owning *every* piece of music and *every* film ever recorded. The concept of owning a few songs or films will become meaningless as people have routine access to everything. Against that background, the idea of "stopping" filesharing just misses the point completely: few will be swapping files - they will be swapping an entire corpus.
The whole report is truly exciting, because it dares to say all those things that everyone knew but refused to admit. Here are few samples of its brutal honesty:To be more explicit about these limitations, we have seen no evidence — and indeed no claims — that enforcement efforts to date have had any impact on the overall supply of pirated goods. Our work suggests, rather, that piracy has grown dramatically by most measures in the past decade, driven by the exogenous factors described above — high media prices, low local incomes, technological diffusion, and fast-changing consumer and cultural practices.
...
we see little connection between these efforts and the larger problem of how to foster rich, accessible, legal cultural markets in developing countries — the problem that motivates much of our work. The key question for media access and the legalization of media markets, in our view, has less to do with enforcement than with fostering competition at the low end of media markets — in the mass market that has been created through and largely left to piracy. We take it as self-evident, at this point, that US$15 DVDs, US$12 CDs, and US$150 copies of MS Office are not going to be part of broad-based legal solutions.
Fab stuff - even if it is not quite official WIPO policy (yet....) (Via P2Pnet.)
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Regular readers of this blog will know that I've tracked the rather painful history of attempts to increase the deployment of free software in Russia, notably in its schools. Well, that saga continues, it seems, with doubts being expressed about the creation of a Russian national operating system based on GNU/Linux:Иногда приходится слышать, что идея национальной программной платформы содержит в себе логическое противоречие. Ведь если такая платформа действительно будет создаваться на базе СПО, то такое программное обеспечение будет более чем на 90% произведено не в России, а за рубежом. Соответственно, и НПП у нас получится, скорее, какая-нибудь американо-германо-индийская, а не российская.
[Google Translate: Sometimes we hear that the idea of a national software platform contains a logical contradiction. After all, if this platform really will be created based on the ACT, then this software will be more than 90% are not produced in Russia and abroad. Accordingly, the NPP, we will, more likely, some kind of US-German-Indian, not Russian.]
That story will doubtless run and run. But what interested me was the accompanying quote from Nikolai Pryanishnikov, president of Microsoft in Russia; it's a corker:"Компания Microsoft выступает за технологическую нейтральность и считает, что выбор ОС должен быть обусловлен исключительно качествами самой ОС, ее экономической эффективностью, стоящими практическими задачами, безопасностью, а не идеологическими соображениями.
С нашей точки зрения, наиболее эффективным для развития инновационной экономики в стране представляется не создание аналога существующих ОС, на что уйдут огромные средства и много времени, а взяв за основу наиболее распространенную ОС, проверенную российскими спецслужбами, создавать собственные приложения и решения, вкладывая при этом средства в перспективные научные российские разработки. Нужно иметь в виду, что Linux не является российской ОС и, кроме того, находится в конце своего жизненного цикла".
[Google Translate: "Microsoft supports technological neutrality and considers that the choice of OS should be caused solely as the greatest operating system, its economic efficiency, standing practical problems, safety, rather than ideological considerations.
From our point of view, the most effective for the development of an innovative economy in the country seems not to create an analogue of the existing OS, which will take huge amounts of money and time, and taking as basis the most popular operating systems, proven by Russian security services, to create custom applications and solutions, investing in this funds in promising scientific Russian developments. We must bear in mind that Linux is not a Russian OS and, moreover, is at the end of its life cycle."]
The idea that "Linux is at the end of its life cycle" is rather rich coming from the vendor of a platform that is increasingly losing market share, both at the top and bottom end of the market, while Linux just gets stronger. I'd wager that variants of Linux will be around rather longer than Windows.
Update: the Russian publication CNews Open, from which the story above was taken, points out that Russia is aiming to create a national software platform, not a national operating system. Quite what this means seems to be somewhat unclear:даже российским участникам сообщества сегодня по-прежнему трудно понять, что конкретно представляет собой российская национальная программная платформа
[Google Translate: even the Russian participants of the community today is still difficult to understand exactly what constitutes Russia's national software platform.]
Let's hope things become a little clearer in due course: with its wealth of top-class programmers, Russia has the potential to become a key player the free software world.
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Here's a nice little moral fable.
Lake Baikal is a wonder, the world's oldest and deepest lake, with many unique species. But Vladimir Putin doesn't care about such things: he's worried about unrest arising from unemployment in the area, and so authorised the re-opening of a paper mill, which had been pouring mercury, chlorine and heavy metals into this amazing ecosystem for years.
So far, so depressing.
But here the story takes an interesting turn:It was late one afternoon in January when a squad of plainclothes police officers arrived at the headquarters of a prominent environmental group here. They brushed past the staff with barely a word and instead set upon the computers before carting them away. Taken were files that chronicled a generation’s worth of efforts to protect the Siberian wilderness.
The group, Baikal Environmental Wave, was organizing protests against Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to reopen a paper factory that had polluted nearby Lake Baikal, a natural wonder that by some estimates holds 20 percent of the world’s fresh water.
Instead, the group fell victim to one of the authorities’ newest tactics for quelling dissent: confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.
Across Russia, the security services have carried out dozens of similar raids against outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers in recent years. Security officials say the inquiries reflect their concern about software piracy, which is rampant in Russia. Yet they rarely if ever carry out raids against advocacy groups or news organizations that back the government.
As the ploy grows common, the authorities are receiving key assistance from an unexpected partner: Microsoft itself. In politically tinged inquiries across Russia, lawyers retained by Microsoft have staunchly backed the police.
Apparently Microsoft's willingness to help crush dissent isn't limited to this case:Given the suspicions that these investigations are politically motivated, the police and prosecutors have turned to Microsoft to lend weight to their cases. In southwestern Russia, the Interior Ministry declared in an official document that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was begun “based on an application” from a lawyer for Microsoft.
In another city, Samara, the police seized computers from two opposition newspapers, with the support of a different Microsoft lawyer. “Without the participation of Microsoft, these criminal cases against human rights defenders and journalists would simply not be able to occur,” said the editor of the newspapers, Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev.
What makes this development even worse, is that owning legitimate copies of Microsoft doesn't seem to help:Baikal Wave’s leaders said they had known that the authorities used such raids to pressure advocacy groups, so they had made certain that all their software was legal.
But they quickly realized how difficult it would be to defend themselves.
They said they told the officers that they were mistaken, pulling out receipts and original Microsoft packaging to prove that the software was not pirated. The police did not appear to take that into consideration. A supervising officer issued a report on the spot saying that illegal software had been uncovered.
Before the raid, the environmentalists said their computers were affixed with Microsoft’s “Certificate of Authenticity” stickers that attested to the software’s legality. But as the computers were being hauled away, they noticed something odd: the stickers were gone.
Of course, there's a simple solution to all this: use free software. With that, no stickers are needed, and so there's no way the authorities can frame you for using it. Indeed, given free software's greater security, I can't really understand why human rights groups aren't routinely installing it anyway. Let's hope they learn from these awful experiences and switch soon - not least for Lake Baikal's sake.
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I've been writing for a while about Russia's on-off idea of creating its own GNU/Linux distro. It looks like Ukraine is following suit. Via Google Translate:its purpose is to optimize the expenditure of budgetary funds and the solution using unlicensed software in state bodies.
According to estimates from officials, the savings of switching apparatus to free software can be 87%.
Among the expected outcomes of the program - improving the legal framework of research on creation and use of open software infrastructure for its development, creation and dissemination, and coordination of state infrastructure using open source software in the bodies derzhvlady, a basic set of localized distribution, adapted to the needs of public authorities.
Let's hope it doesn't get so bogged down as the Russian one.
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The global environmental catastrophe that we all face is, of course, a typical tragedy of the (analogue) commons. Resources that are held in common like the atmosphere, or water, or fisheries are exploited for short-term gain by powerful players able to push to the front.
But it's often hard to grasp these tragedies because of their vast scale; what we need is something smaller, more human in dimension that pits personal gain against common weal to make obvious what should be the outcome of that struggle if we want to survive as a species. Something like this:It's hard to imagine a more agriculturally vibrant place than Russia's Pavlovsk Experiment Station near St. Petersburg. The "station," part of the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry, really isn't a laboratory at all — it's a global seed vault holding tens of thousands of living, growing plants. As USA Today recently reported, "there are apples from 35 countries, 1,000 varieties of strawberries from 40 countries, black currants from 30 countries, plums from 12 countries and multiple other crops."
And what do they propose to do with that wonder of the seeds commons? This:Last year, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development transferred the rights to two of Vavilov Research Institute's tracts of land to the Russian Federal Fund of Residential Real Estate. A Russian court will likely rule on Wednesday whether developers can move forward with development plans for the land. If real estate developers succeed, all those thousands of varieties of crops — 90 percent of which are not found anywhere else in the world — will be bulldozed to make way for luxury homes.
In fact:The fate of the collection at the Pavlovsk Experimental Station, which includes more than 70 hectares planted with 5,500 different varieties of apples, pears, cherries, and numerous berry species -- most of which occur nowhere else on Earth and were developed over hundreds of years by farmers in northern Europe, Scandinavia and Russia -- was decided in Russia's Supreme Arbitration Court at 10:30 AM, Moscow time.
The result? Send in the bulldozers: who cares about the future of food?
If the proposal seems utterly outrageous, the reasoning behind it is utterly insulting:the property developers argue that because the station contains a "priceless collection", no monetary value can be assigned to it and so it is worthless. In another nod to Kafka, the government's federal fund of residential real estate development has argued that the collection was never registered and thus does not officially exist.
What's particularly galling is that the sums involved are quite small:the developer, the Housing Development Foundation, would pay 92 million rubles (more than USD $3 million) to acquire a special, five-year leasing license on the 70 hectares. After that five-year period, they'd have the opportunity to own the land outright.
Surely, then, this would be a great way for one of those high-profile modern philanthropists - hello, Bill Gates - to do something amazingly powerful for the world at minimal effective cost to their foundations.
Failing that, little people like you and mean can send a couple of tweets, and sign a petition. That's not much, but sadly it's all we can do to prevent this all-too graspable tragedy of the commons.
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I love travelling by train. In my youth, I bought Interail passes for many years, and basically lived on trains for a month, wending my way slowly around Europe. More recently, I spent 36 hours on a train travelling from Italy through Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Belarus (don't get me started on how I was dragged out of my carriage at gunpoint, at 5 o'clock in the morning, because I didn't have a transit visa for Belarus...)
But the big daddy, of course, is the Trans Siberian Railway. And now, thanks to those kind, but troublingly pervasive people at Google, I/you can travel that amazing journey without leaving home:
Moscow-Vladivostok: virtual journey on Google Maps
The great Trans Siberian Railway, the pride of Russia, goes across two continents, 12 regions and 87 cities. The joint project of Google and the Russian Railways lets you take a trip along the famous route and see Baikal, Khekhtsirsky range, Barguzin mountains, Yenisei river and many other picturesque places of Russia without leaving your house. During the trip, you can enjoy Russian classic literature, brilliant images and fascinating stories about the most attractive sites on the route. Let's go!
And when they say Russian classic literature, they mean classic literature *in Russian*; indeed, it's worth hopping aboard just for that.
Хорошо!
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I've written before about Russia's ambitious plan to install free software throughout its education system. Worrying news suggests that things are not going smoothly:Президент РФ Дмитрий Медведев поручил разобраться с ситуацией с поставками в российские школы свободного программного обеспечения (СПО). С просьбой об этом к нему обратился глава IT-компании "Армада" Алексей Кузовкин, который считает, что программа поставок Linux в школы находится под угрозой срыва.
[Via Google Translate: President Dmitry Medvedev instructed to deal with the situation with supplies in Russia's school of free software (ACT). The request for this approached by the head of IT-companies "Armada" Alexei Kuzovkin, who believes that the program supplies Linux to schools is in jeopardy.]
Part of the problem is money:В 2009 году планировалось установить СПО во всех школах страны, а с 1 января 2011 года — отказаться от закупок коммерческого ПО для школ за счет федерального бюджета. Но с начала года финансирование проекта было урезано в три раза, говорится в письме "Армады", а конкурс на внедрение СПО во все школы до сих пор не объявлен. 13 июля Министерство образования и науки приняло решение о разделе работ по проекту 2009 года на три лота. В письме "Армады" говорится, что это "неизбежно приведет к провалу всего проекта в результате размытия ответственности среди исполнителей".
[In 2009, planned to be installed in all ACT schools across the country, and from January 1st 2011 - refuse to purchase commercial software for schools at the expense of the federal budget. But from the beginning of the year funding for the project was pared down to three times, the letter says "Armada", a competition for the introduction of ACT in all the schools have not yet been announced. July 13 The Ministry of Education and Science has decided on the topic of the project in 2009 to three lot. The letter "Armada" states that it "will inevitably lead to failure of the project as a result of spreading responsibility among the performers.]
Another factor seems to be problems with the free software discs that were sent out:
Но опыт рассылки пакетов с СПО в этом году не удался (выполнял IBS), вспоминает один из участников рынка: "Данный пакет был разослан, но с ошибками, которые возникли при записи ПО на диски". Быстрый отказ от платного ПО вряд ли возможен, считает аналитик ИК "Финам" Татьяна Менькова. По ее мнению, прежде всего школьникам нужен будет достаточный объем различного прикладного софта, причем простого и понятного, а с этим у производителей СПО традиционно есть проблемы. Кроме того, скорее всего, придется платить за обновление операционной системы, за апдейт того же прикладного софта. "Достаточно много ресурсов потребуется на переобучение учителей, большинство из которых привыкли к Windows. Конечно, в перспективе нескольких лет это все равно будет в разы дешевле закупки решений от Microsoft, но есть и издержки для экономики. Так, на Linux приходится всего около 1% пользовательских ОС, то есть стране все-таки нужны специалисты, знающие Windows",— указывает Татьяна Менькова.
[But the experience of sending packets from the ACT this year was a failure (served IBS), recalls one of the market participants: "This package was sent, but with errors that occurred when recording to disk. Quick refusal to pay software is hardly possible, says analyst IK "Finam" Tatiana Menkova. In her opinion, first of all students will need an adequate amount of different software applications, with simple and understandable, and with that the producers ACT traditionally have problems. In addition, most likely have to pay for upgrading the operating system update for the same application software. "Quite a number of resources needed for retraining of teachers, most of whom are accustomed to Windows. Of course, in future years it will still be many times cheaper to purchase solutions from Microsoft, but there are costs to the economy. So, on Linux there are only about 1% custom operating system, that is, the country still in need of professionals who are familiar with Windows ", - points Tatiana Menkova.]
Finally, Microsoft has been up to its old tricks of offering special deals for its software: $30 per computer (it's not clear whether that's just for Windows XP, or includes Microsoft Office too):Контракт на поставку лицензионного программного обеспечения в школы в течение 2007-2009 годов получил системный интегратор "Компьюлинк". Конкурс Рособразования под номером НП-17 подразумевал поставку в 60 тыс. российских школ (650-700 тыс. компьютеров) пакета лицензионного ПО в 2007-2009 годах. В пакет вошли: ОС Windows XP, Microsoft Office, словарь Abbyy Lingvo 12, антивирусное ПО Kaspersky Work Space Security, Adobe Photoshop CS3 и другие. Источник в Рособразовании знает, что Microsoft согласилась лицензировать ОС Windows на всех ПК примерно за $20 млн (около $30 за компьютер).
[The contract for the supply of licensed software in schools during 2007-2009 was the system integrator "Compulink". Competition Rosobrazovanie numbered NP-17 meant the supply of 60 thousand Russian schools (650-700 thousand computers) license software package in 2007-2009. The package includes: operating system Windows XP, Microsoft Office, dictionary Abbyy Lingvo 12, anti-virus software Kaspersky Work Space Security, Adobe Photoshop CS3 and more. A source at the Federal Agency of Education knows that Microsoft has agreed to license the Windows on all PCs for about $ 20 million (about $ 30 per computer).]
So has free software lost its big chance to form the minds of a generation? And has Russia condemned itself to years more dependence on Microsoft's products? Stay tuned for further instalments of this exciting Russian epic...
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Russia's President Medvedev has decreed a new holiday for the country:Президент России Дмитрий Медведев своим указом установил профессиональный праздник - День программиста, который отмечается 13 сентября, если год високосный - 12 сентября, сообщает пресс-служба главы государства.
Неофициально День программиста отмечается в мире уже много лет на 256-й день каждого года. Число 256 выбрано потому, что это количество целых чисел, которое можно выразить с помощью одного восьмиразрядного байта и также это максимальная степень числа 2, которая меньше 365.
13 сентября уже давно стало неофициальной праздничной датой для программистов, напомнили в министерстве. Указ об официальном утверждении праздника был подготовлен Минкомсвязи после консультаций с профсоюзами и отраслевыми ассоциациями и внесен в правительство в июле 2009 года.
[Via Google Translate: Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree established a professional holiday - Day of the programmer, which is celebrated on Sept. 13 if a leap year - September 12, the press office of head of state.
Unofficially Programmer's Day celebrated in the world for many years at the 256 th day of each year. The number 256 is chosen because it is the number of integers that can be expressed using a single eight-byte, and also is the maximum degree of 2, which is less than 365.
September 13 has long been an informal celebratory date for programmers, recalled in the ministry. Ordinance approval Minkomsvyazi feast was prepared after consultation with trade unions and industry associations and submitted to the Government in July 2009.]
Russia leads the way again....
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Well, not quite, but it's clear somebody really dislikes the Twitter user @cyxymu: it seems that the coordinated attack on Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal were to silence him:A Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial of service attack that led to the site-wide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on Thursday, according to a Facebook executive.
The blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu," (the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia) had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNET News.
"It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," Kelly said. "We're actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can."
Sounds pretty incredible, but the chap himself confirms it on his Twitter account:да, меня ДДоСили
which roughly means "yup, I was DDoS'd", and he also opines:
this hackers was from Russian KGB
Supporting this view is the fact that his LiveJournal blog is still unreachable.
Fascinating, of course, to see how events in the Caucasus - today's the first anniversary of the ill-advised attack of Georgia on South Ossetia, and Russia's gleeful counter-attack on Georgia - reach and affect even global online worlds like Twitter and Facebook. Interesting times.
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Russia is emerging as a real open source power-house, especially in the eduction sector. Here's some more good news, this time from Siberia:За 2009 год школы Сибирского федерального округа должны перейти на "Пакет свободного программного обеспечения для образовательных учреждений", в основе которого лежит операционная система Linux. Об этом сообщил корр. "ТАСС-Сибирь" президент ассоциации "Информатизация образования Сибири" Виктор Корнеев. Более того, от популярной операционной системы Windows будут отказываться и бюджетные учреждения, однако в них процесс перехода на новое программное обеспечение затянется на ближайшие 5 лет.
Особо Виктор Дмитриевич отметил, что среди трех регионов России, в которых проводилась апробация этого программного обеспечения, был один регион СФО – Томская область. Именно здесь, наряду с подобными мероприятиями в Татарстане и Пермском крае, Областной центр развития образования проводил мероприятия по внедрению программного обеспечения на базе Linux во все школы Томской области. "А сегодня мы готовы перевести на эти программы все школы Сибирского федерального округа, причем сделать это в кратчайшие сроки – не более чем за один год. Единственное отличие от пилотного проекта в том, что упаковка будет несколько скромнее", - отмечает Виктор Корнеев, демонстрируя массивную запечатанную коробку, в которой находилось 4 вида программного обеспечения для разных типов компьютеров.
[Via Google Translate: During 2009 the School of the Siberian Federal District to move to "free software package for educational institutions", which is based on the operating system Linux. The statement was made by a correspondent. Moreover, from the popular Windows operating system will refuse, and budgetary institutions, but in the process of transition to new software is delayed for the next 5 years.
Especially Victor D. noted that among the three regions of Russia, in which the testing of the software, was one region SFD - Tomsk Oblast. It is here, along with similar activities in Tatarstan and the Perm region, the regional center for educational development activities conducted on the introduction of software based on Linux in all schools in the Tomsk region. "And today we are ready to transfer these programs to all schools in the Siberian Federal District, and to do so as soon as possible - no more than one year. The only difference from the pilot project in that the package will be slightly more modest," - noted Victor Korneev, demonstrating massive sealed box in which there were 4 types of software for different types of computers.]
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as civilization collapses, we're going to see horrific scarcities, creating massive personal and collective stresses that will break both individuals (to the point of suicide, terrorism and murder) and nations (to the point of insurrection, civil war, and anarchy -- a hundred Afghanistans). We're going to see dreadful pandemic diseases and poverty and famine that will be utterly shattering, like the abject horror the world witnessed during the Irish potato famine where millions simply sat around, hopeless and increasingly gaunt, until they died an agonizing death alongside those they loved and couldn't save. We're going to see the kind of spiritual vacuum and decay that is eating Russia and the former Soviet republics alive today, with population and life expectancy plummeting, drug addiction at epidemic levels, and crime and gang violence out of control. It is nature's last and most reluctant way of restoring to sustainable populations species whose numbers and voraciousness have run amok.
Or, as an alternative, we could be sensible and tackle the problems facing us - climate change, deforestation, overfishing, overpopulation, peak oil, peak water, poverty - seriously, not with political posturing and soundbites, and maybe come out the other side.
Russia is rapidly turning into open source's best-kept secret. A little while back I wrote about plans to roll out free software to all schools; more recently, there has been talk about creating a Russian operating system based on Fedora. And now there's this:На сайте Минкомсвязи РФ опубликованы проекты документов, посвященных переходу органов государственной власти на свободное программное обеспечение. В документе «Методические рекомендации по разработке и приобретению программного обеспечения для использования в органах государственной власти и бюджетных учреждениях» имеется рекомендация органам госвласти и бюджетным учреждениям отдавать предпочтение свободному ПО при выборе программных средств, за исключением случаев, когда СПО не обладает необходимой функциональностью.
...
Также опубликован проект плана перехода органов государственной власти и бюджетных учреждений на использование свободного программного обеспечения. Проект включает ряд действий, необходимых для поэтапного внедрения СПО в российские госструктуры, включающий обучение государственных служащих, проведение пилотных проектов по внедрению СПО, поддержку разработки свободного ПО в России.
[Via Google Translate: The site Minkomsvyazi Russian Federation published a draft document on the transition state authorities to free software. The document «Guidelines for the development and acquisition of software for use in public authorities and budget organizations» has recommended authorities gosvlasti and budgetary institutions to give preference to free software in the selection of software, except when the ACT does not have the necessary functionality.
...
It also published a draft plan of government bodies and agencies to use the budget of free software. The project includes a number of actions required for the phased introduction of ACT in the Russian government, including the training of public servants, a pilot project on introduction of ACT, support the development of free software in Russia.]
Aside from the scale of these plans, which foresee all Russian government departments using free software, and civil servants being trained in its use (a shrewd move), what's particularly interesting is the formulation that open source will be the default except where it does not have the necessary functionality. This approach has been adopted elsewhere, and is reasonable enough, although it's important not to allow lock-in to proprietary formats to lock out open source solutions based on open standards.
Whatever happens in detail, Russia's announcement is not only important in itself, but also provides a useful addition to the roster of governments making the switch to free software. As the latter grows, so will the pressure on other countries to follow suit.
Here's confirmation from the top that Russia is pushing ahead with its plans for introducing free software not just into its schools, but the entire domestic market:Президент РФ так обозначил свою позицию по свободному ПО: «Ещё одна тема — это информационные технологии в социальной сфере. Сейчас нужно начинать массовое обучение школьных учителей новым технологиям. Мы, собственно, пытались это делать в рамках национального проекта. Наверное, кое-что удалось, но пока это только самое начало. Надо подумать и о том, чтобы двинуться дальше — к использованию отечественного свободного программного обеспечения. Я этой темой занимался, результаты у нас есть, мы подготовили уже свои программы, которые позволяют создать, по сути, продукт абсолютно качественный, на основе свободного программного обеспечения, но привязанный уже к нашим реалиям».
[via Google Translate: President of the Russian Federation as outlined its position on free software: «Another issue - this is information technology in the social sphere. We actually tried to do so as part of a national project. Probably something that succeeded, but for now this is just the beginning. We must consider that the next move - to the domestic free software. I dealt with this topic, the results we have, we have already prepared their programs, which allow to create, in essence, a product is qualitative, based on free software, but is already tied to our realities ».]
This is also worth noting:Стоит также напомнить: недавно появлялось сообщение о том, что бюджет, выделенный в 2009 году для оснащения российских школ свободным ПО, оказался примерно втрое меньше ожидаемого (180-250 млн рублей против предполагаемых 650 млн).
[It is also worth recalling: appeared recently reported that the budget allocated in 2009 to equip Russian schools free software, was approximately three times less than expected (180-250 million rubles against the anticipated 650 million).]
What that means in practice is that there is less money, and so more incentive to use free software. But the bigger news is that Medvedev has confirmed the wider roll-out to the general domestic Russian market.
An interesting conversation took place recently:Несколько дней назад в Минкомсвязи России прошла встреча с участием главы Минкомсвязи РФ И.О.Щёголева и директора европейского подразделения, вице-президента корпорации Red Hat Вернера Кноблиха. В ходе встречи было объявлено, что развитие свободного программного обеспечения в России – одно из главных направлений работы Министерства.
[Via Google Translate: A few days ago in Minkomsvyazi Russia held a meeting with the head of the Russian Federation Minkomsvyazi IO Schegolev and Director of the European division, vice-president of the corporation Red Hat Werner Knobliha.During the meeting it was announced that the development of free software in Russia - one of the main directions of the Ministry.]
It's good news that Red Hat has had the opportunity to talk to senior government officials about open source - in this case, at the ministry of communications - but what's much more important are the specifics mentioned in the story:
На встрече обсуждался широкий круг вопросов, касающихся развития рынка свободного программного обеспечения (СПО) и его практического применения в действующих системах. Отдельно отмечена важность создания российского сообщества разработчиков Russian Fedora, которое может послужить одним из шагов навстречу создания отечественной операционной системы. Министр отметил: «Мы считаем, что интеллектуальный потенциал российских специалистов таков, что в России можно вести не только сборку, но и полноценную разработку кода».
[The meeting discussed a wide range of issues related to market development of free software (ACT) and its practical applications in existing systems. Separately, the importance of establishing a Russian community of developers Russian Fedora, which could serve as a step toward the creation of the domestic operating system. The Minister noted: «We believe that the intellectual potential of Russian experts is that Russia can not only build, but a full-fledged development of the code».]
This seems to be a reference to the call for an independent Russian operating system, based on GNU/Linux, that I wrote about last month. The suggestion in the above post is that a step towards such an operating system would be establishing a Russian Fedora project, which would then allow Russian coders to contribute on a much larger scale than hitherto.
The fact that these talks have taken place is an indication that the idea of a national operating system for Russia - dismissed by some as fanciful - is under serious consideration. Let's hope Red Hat responded positively to the overtures.
(NB: For fast updates on this and similar stories, you can also follow me on Twitter at glynmoody.)
The Sunday Telegraph has shocking news:
Russia and China have been identified as having the most active spy networks operating in the UK but it is understood that some European countries are also involved in espionage attacks against Britain.
Details of the spy plots were revealed in a government security document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph which states that Britain is "high priority espionage target" for 20 foreign intelligence agencies.
Security sources have revealed that the list of foreign agencies operating within the UK includes Iran, Syria, North Korea and Serbia, as well as some members of the European Union, such as France and Germany, who have traditionally been regarded as allies.
The document, marked "restricted", warns that foreign spies are trying to steal secrets related to the military, optics, communications, genetics and aviation industries.
And what, pray, may these top-secret secrets be?A Whitehall source told The Sunday Telegraph that Russia uses its massive spy network as an "extension of state power" in an attempt to "further its own military and economic base".
The source said: "If a country, such as Russia or Iran, can steal a piece of software which will save it seven years in research and development then it will do so without any hesitation.
Seven years? Seven??? The only thing that takes seven years' development comes from Redmond, US, not Reading, UK, and you can't give that away, judging by the sales figures of Vista.
This ludicrous idea rather undercuts the story's central assumption that there's *anything* high-tech worth nicking left in this country, let alone worth being pursued by half the secret services of the world. Risible.
Here's an interesting idea: for Russia to fund the creation of a "national operating system" to replace Windows, based on GNU/Linux:
Отечественное ИТ-сообщество просит президента поддержать идею национальной операционной системы.
Будущие разработчики российской «национальной операционной системы» могут получить поддержку в виде федеральной целевой программы. Во всяком случае, на это рассчитывают авторы письма президенту Дмитрию Медведеву, которое сейчас готовится в Госдуме.
[Via Google Translate: Domestic IT community has asked the president to support the idea of the operating system. Future developers Russian «national operating system» can get support in the form of federal target programs. In any case, the authors expect this letter to President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now preparing for the State Duma.]
Details are still unclear, but the ideas seems to be to build on top of GNU/Linux - described as "open code" here:
Кроме просьбы инициировать подготовку федеральной целевой программы в нем будет обоснована польза от создания «национальной ОС». Хотя подразумевается, что основой для нее станут уже существующие системы с открытым кодом, вопрос о степени ее свободности в письме «останется открытым, чтобы не загружать президента техническими подробностями».
[In addition to the request to initiate the preparation of the federal program, it would be justified benefit from the establishment of «national OS». While it is understood that the basis for the existing system will be open source, the extent of its free, in a letter «remain open so as not to load the president technical details».]
As is often the case, the key advantage that would flow from the creation of such a "national OS" is the control that it would give the Russian government - something it doesn't have with Windows, say, or even generalised free software produced elsewhere:Смысл создания в России «национальной ОС» для силовых структур и госучреждений прокомментировал гендиректор ALT Linux Алексей Смирнов: «Национальной можно назвать ОС, если государство имеет право ее распространять и изменять, и, как заказчик, влияет на ее разработку. Систем, удовлетворяющих таким требованиям, сейчас не существует ни среди свободного, ни среди проприетарного ПО». Смирнов полагает, что проект «национальной ОС» на первом этапе будет базовым: «Без нее, например, речи быть не может о разработке в свое время “национального железа”». Не надо забывать, напоминает Смирнов, что, если для системы будет принята «свободная» модель, то, «чем больше Россия будет вкладывать в мировое движение СПО, тем больше она на него станет влиять».
[The sense of creation in Russia «national OS» for uniformed services and government commented director, ALT Linux Alexei Smirnov: «National include operating systems, if a state has the right to distribute and modify, and, as a customer, influence its development. Systems that meet these requirements, now there is no freedom of, or in proprietary software ». Smirnov believes that the project «National OS» in the first phase will be basic: «Without it, for example, the speech can not be on the development of its time," National Iron "». We should not forget, Smirnov recalled that when the system will be adopted «free» model, then, «the more Russia will invest in the global movement of the ACT, the more it will have an impact on him».]
Although the proposal is still in its early stages, the attractiveness of the proposal to a government keen to assert its independence at all levels is obvious. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
Ever wondered what those Latvians are up to with free software? Wonder no more:Latvia's Minister for Electronic Government Affairs Signe Bāliņa says open standards are key to improving efficiency and transparency in government.
Open technology and open standards are fundamental to efficient communication with the government, the minister argued in her opening address at the Latvian Open Technology Conference in Riga on 12 November. She said the government needs to use open IT systems to allow citizens and businesses to communicate easily with the government. "We think it is very important these systems are open and based on open technologies and open standards."
The conference in Riga, organised by the Latvian Open Technology Association (LATA), drew more than 250 participants from the central government, municipalities, IT firms and universities. LATA wanted to update the attendants on open source developments in the country and the region.
Several Latvian businesses and institutions described their use of open source software. The telecoms company Lattelecom for example presented on the use of open source in their data centres and the Latvian University showed how it uses the open source e-learning system Moodle to offer on-line education. The university also employs open source for its data storage and to create grid computing services.
There's also interesting stuff about Russia - somewhere I've long believed is set to emerge as an open source leader:
Marat Guriev, a representative of IBM in Eastern Europe and Asia, gave an overview of developments on open source software and open standards in Russia. He described how the Russian military has been working on its own version of GNU/Linux, parts of which have recently been declassified by the All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Control Automation in the Non-Industrial Sphere (Vniins). According to Guriev, many specialised version of GNU/Linux distributions are produced, often in response to requests by local governments. In three Russian regions, most of the PCs in use in about a thousand schools have been switched over to GNU/Linux. Moreover, Russian science institutes are publishing their work on open source systems, he said, for example on the web site Linux Testing.
I've written about the activity in Russian schools before. If you read Russian, you can read Guriev's presentation here - it has plenty of useful detail about free software in his country.
I was moaning recently about the appalling sloppiness when it comes to viruses et al.: they are practically all for Windows, and yet nobody mentions this fact. Here are two more egregious examples.
First:Researchers at BitDefender have discovered a new type of malicious software that collects passwords for banking sites but targets only Firefox users.
The malware, which BitDefender dubbed "Trojan.PWS.ChromeInject.A" sits in Firefox's add-ons folder, said Viorel Canja, the head of BitDefender's lab. The malware runs when Firefox is started.
The malware uses JavaScript to identify more than 100 financial and money transfer Web sites, including Barclays, Wachovia, Bank of America, and PayPal along with two dozen or so Italian and Spanish banks. When it recognizes a Web site, it will collect logins and passwords, forwarding that information to a server in Russia.
Firefox has been continually gaining market share against main competitor Internet Explorer since its debut four years ago, which may be one reason why malware authors are looking for new avenues to infect computers, Canja said.
Bad, wicked Firefox, bad wicked open source...except that this trojan *only* works on Windows...which means it's bad wicked Windows, yet again. But the article never mentions this, of course.
Or take this:BATTLEFIELD bandwidth is low at best, making networks sticky and e-mails tricky. American soldiers often rely on memory sticks to cart vital data between computers. Off-duty, they use the same devices to move around music and photos. The dangers of that have just become apparent with the news that the Pentagon has banned the use of all portable memory devices because of the spread of a bit of malicious software called agent.btz.
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The most remarkable feature of the episode may not be the breach of security, but the cost of dealing with it. In the civilian world, at least one bank has dealt with agent.btz by blocking all its computers’ USB ports with glue. Every bit of portable memory in the sprawling American military establishment now needs to be scrubbed clean before it can be used again. In the meantime, soldiers will find it hard or outright impossible to share, say, vital digital maps, let alone synch their iPods or exchange pictures with their families.
And yes, you guessed it, it only works on Windows. So that bit about "[t]he most remarkable feature of the episode may not be the breach of security, but the cost of dealing with it" is really about the cost of using Windows - well, it's The Economist, what do you expect, accuracy? When will they ever learn?
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