Save the European Internet – Write to Your MEPs

Things seem to be going from bad to worse with the EU's Telecoms Package. Now, not only do we have to contend with French attempts to push through its “three strikes and you're out” approach again, which the European Parliament threw out, but there are several other amendments that are being proposed that will effectively gut the Internet in Europe.

The Open Rights Group has a good summary of two of the main threats (also available from its Blackout Europe Facebook group):

One of the most controversial issues is that of the three-strikes strongly and continuously pushed by France in the EU Council. Although most of the dispositions introducing the graduate response system were rejected in first reading of the Telecom Package, there are still some alarming ones persisting. France is trying hard to get rid of Amendment 138 which seeks to protect users’ rights against the three-strikes sanctions and which, until now, has stopped the EU from applying the three-strikes policy. Also, some new amendments reintroduce the notion of lawful content, which will impose the obligation on ISPs to monitor content going through their networks.

The UK government is pushing for the “wikipedia amendments” (so-called because one of them has been created by cutting and pasting a text out of the wikipedia) in order to allow ISPs to make limited content offers. The UK amendments eliminate the text that gives users rights to access and distribute content, services and applications, replacing it with a text that says “there should be transparency of conditions under which services are provided, including information on the conditions to and/or use of applications and services, and of any traffic management policies.”

To these, we must now add at least one more, which the indispensable IPtegrity site has spotted:

Six MEPs have taken text supplied by the American telecoms multi-national, AT&T, and pasted it directly into amendments tabled to the Universal Services directive in the Telecoms Package. The six are Syed Kamall , Erika Mann, Edit Herczog , Zita Pleštinská , Andreas Schwab , and Jacques Toubon .

AT&T and its partner Verizon, want the regulators in Europe to keep their hands-off new network technologies which will provide the capability for broadband providers to restrict or limit users access to the Internet. They have got together with a group of other telecoms companies to lobby on this issue. Their demands pose a threat to the neutrality of the network, and at another level, to millions of web businesses in Europe.

As you can read, this is a grave danger for the Internet in Europe, because it would allow telecom companies to impose restrictions on the services they provide. That is, at will, they can discriminate against new services that threaten their existing offerings – and hence throttle online innovation. The Internet has grown so quickly, and become so useful, precisely because it is an end-to-end service: it does not take note of or discriminate between packets, it simply delivers them.

What is particularly surprising is that one of the MEPs putting forward this amendment is the UK's Syed Kamall, who has a technical background, and in the past has shown himself aware of the larger technological issues. I'm really not sure why he is involved in this blatant attempt by the telecoms companies to subvert the Internet in Europe.

Since he is one of my MEPs (he represents London), I've used the WriteToThem service to send him the following letter:

I was surprised and greatly disappointed to learn that you are proposing an amendment to the Telecoms Package that would have the consequence of destroying the network neutrality of the Internet – in many ways, its defining feature.

Your amendment 105, which requires network providers to inform users of restrictions and/or limitations on their communications services will allow companies to impose arbitrary blocks on Internet services; instead, we need to ensure that no such arbitrary restrictions are possible.

As the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has pointed out when net neutrality was being debated in the US (http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144):

“When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA.

I blogged on net neutrality before, and so did a lot of other people. ... Since then, some telecommunications companies spent a lot of money on public relations and TV ads, and the US House seems to have wavered from the path of preserving net neutrality. There has been some misinformation spread about. So here are some clarifications.

Net neutrality is this:

If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.

That's all. Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.

Net Neutrality is NOT asking for the internet for free.

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn't pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will

There have been suggestions that we don't need legislation because we haven't had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past -- it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.”

He concludes:

“Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it.”

I'm afraid that what your amendment will do is to destroy that freedom. I am therefore asking you to withdraw your amendment, to preserve the freedom of the connection that allows new services to evolve, and innovations to be made without needing to ask permission of the companies providing the connection. Instead, the Internet needs net neutrality to be enshrined in law, and if possible, I would further request you and your colleagues to work towards this end.

If you are also based in London – or in a constituency represented by one of the five other MEPs mentioned in the IPtegrity story - I urge you to write a similar (but *not* identical) letter to them. It is vitally important these amendments be withdrawn, since most MEPs will be unaware of the damage they can do, and might well wave them through. Further letters to all MEPs will also be needed in due course, but I think it's best to concentrate on these particular amendments for the moment, since they are a new and distrubing development.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

A Question Red Hat Must Answer

With apologies for returning to the theme of patents, I'd like to direct your attention to a long and interesting piece that has appeared on the Digital Majority site asking a very important question: “Did Red Hat lobby for, or against software patents in Europe?”

On Open Enterprise blog.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

Copyright: An Open Letter for Closed Minds

Another impressive line-up of mega-academics denouncing the lack of logic for the proposed copyright extension currently being considered in the EU (I'll be writing about this again soon). Here's Rufus Pollock's intro, setting this open letter in a historical context:

The letter, of which I was a signatory, is focused on the change in the UK government’s position (from one of opposition to a term extension to, it appears, one of allowing an extension “perhaps to 70 years”). However, it is noteworthy that this is only one in a long line long line of well-nigh universal opposition among scholars to this proposal to extend copyright term.

For example, last April a joint letter was sent to the Commission signed by more than 30 of the most eminent European (and a few US) economists who have worked on intellectual property issues (including several Nobel prize winners, the Presidents of the EEA and RES, etc). The letter made very clear that term extension was considered to be a serious mistake (you can find a cached copy of this letter online here). More recently — only two weeks ago — the main European centres of IP law issued a statement (addendum) reiterating their concerns and calling for a rejection of the current proposal.

Despite this well-nigh universal opposition from IP experts the Commission put forward a proposal last July to extend term from 50 to 95 years (retrospectively as well as prospectively). That proposal is now in the final stages of its consideration by the European Parliament and Council. We can only hope that they will understand the basic point that an extension of the form proposed must inevitably to more harm than good to the welfare of the EU and should therefore be opposed.

Do read the letter too: the intellectual anger at this stupidity is palpable.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

UK Pupils to Learn How to Be Spied On

Here are two interesting stories:

First, the government wants children to use social networking sites like Twitter:

Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned.

However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes.

Second, the government wants to monitor social networking sites like Twitter:

Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government under proposals to make them keep details of users' contacts.

Putting these together, we can deduce that UK government has decided that passively monitoring people isn't enough: now it's time actively to train future generations in the fine art of being spied upon.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

And RMS Spake, and it Was Good

As well as being a great coder, RMS is a fine writer (he made a number of excellent suggestions when I sent him rough drafts of the relevant chapter of Rebel Code). So it's a pity that he doesn't write much these days.

And it's also a red-letter day when he does, as with his latest missive: "The Javascript Trap". This describes a problem he has spotted: non-free Javascript.

It is possible to release a Javascript program as free software, by distributing the source code under a free software license. But even if the program's source is available, there is no easy way to run your modified version instead of the original. Current free browsers do not offer a facility to run your own modified version instead of the one delivered in the page. The effect is comparable to tivoization, although not quite so hard to overcome.

...

It is possible to release a Javascript program as free software, by distributing the source code under a free software license. But even if the program's source is available, there is no easy way to run your modified version instead of the original. Current free browsers do not offer a facility to run your own modified version instead of the one delivered in the page.

He comes up with some interesting solutions:

we need to change free browsers to support freedom for users of pages with Javascript. First of all, browsers should be able to tell the user about nontrivial non-free Javascript programs, rather than running them. Perhaps NoScript could be adapted to do this.

Browser users also need a convenient facility to specify Javascript code to use instead of the Javascript in a certain page.

RMS: where would we be without him?

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

Why Software Should not be Patentable

As I've written elsewhere today, there's a lot of activity happening around software patents at the moment. One forum where they're being considered is WIPO.

The FSFE has put together a suitably diplomatic submission to that one of its committees about why software should not be patentable; here's the key section:

the economic rationale for patents is based on providing incentives in cases of market failure, disclosure of knowledge in the public domain, as well as technology transfer, commercialisation, and diffusion of knowledge. The “three step test for inclusion in the patent system” should therefore be based on demonstrated market failure to provide innovation, demonstrated positive disclosure from patenting, and effectiveness of the patent system in the area to disseminate knowledge. Software fails all three tests, for instance, as innovation in the IT industry has been dramatic before the introduction of patents, there is no disclosure value in software patents, and patents play no role in the diffusion of knowledge about software development.

I think this is one of the best summaries on the subject. One to cut out and keep.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

Are You Using R?

It seems appropriate on Ada Lovelace Day to note the move of one of the best-known female champions of open source from Intel to the startup REvolution Computing....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Patently, There's Something in the Air

Yesterday I was writing about the latest moves in the TomTom saga, and its involvement with the Open Invention Network patent commons. But beyond that specific case, patents – particularly software patents – really seem to be in the air at the moment....

On Open Enterprise blog.

We Have a Choice

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.

Where are the Alpha *Female* Hackers?

Today is Ada Lovelace Day:

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.

Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. That’s a relatively simple problem to begin to address. If women need female role models, let’s come together to highlight the women in technology that we look up to. Let’s create new role models and make sure that whenever the question “Who are the leading women in tech?” is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues.

Not surprisingly, my first thought was: who have we got in the world of free software? There are certainly some big names like Mitchell Baker, Chief Lizard Wrangler of Mozilla and Stormy Peters, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation.

But notice that both of these occupy executive positions: they hack business/legal/social systems. And while there are plenty of female coders contributing to free software projects, I can't think of any high-profile ones that might stand alongside the obvious alpha males in the coding world.

Now, this is probably due to my ignorance as much as anything. So I'd like to put out a call for names that I ought to know in this context - women who code at a high level, and whose names I should be mentioning more often. And as a pendant I'd also be interested on people's thoughts as to how we can nurture more top-flight female hackers.

Update: Just come across this great List of women in Open Source.

The New Crowdsourcing: Pubsourcing

Interesting development here:

The United States has unveiled an unlikely weapon in its battle against drugs gangs and illegal immigrants at the Texas-Mexico border - pub-goers in Australia.

The drinkers are the most far-flung of a sizeable army of hi-tech foot soldiers recruited to assist the border protection effort.

Anyone with an internet connection can now help to patrol the 1,254-mile frontier through a network of webcams set up to allow the public to monitor suspicious activity. Once logged in, the volunteers spend hours studying the landscape and are encouraged to email authorities when they see anyone on foot, in vehicles or aboard boats heading towards US territory from Mexico.

But the important point here is not just the quaint locale: it is the fact that the observers are completely disconnected from the observed. There is no human connection, so there would be no compunction in reporting anything required.

This is the perfect surveillance system: not where your neighbours keep an eye on you, but where total strangers the other side of the world do. (Via The Reg.)

Have I Got News for *Them*

This is just incredible:

Major media companies are increasingly lobbying Google to elevate their expensive professional content within the search engine's undifferentiated slush of results.

Many publishers resent the criteria Google uses to pick top results, starting with the original PageRank formula that depended on how many links a page got. But crumbling ad revenue is lending their push more urgency; this is no time to show up on the third page of Google search results. And as publishers renew efforts to sell some content online, moreover, they're newly upset that Google's algorithm penalizes paid content.

Let's just get this right. The publishers resent the fact that the stuff other than "professional content" is rising to the top of Google searches, because of the PageRank algorithm. But wait, doesn't the algorithm pick out the stuff that has most links - that is, those sources that people for some reason find, you know, more relevant?

So doesn't this mean that the "professional content" isn't, well, so relevant? Which means that the publisher are essentially getting what they deserve because their "professional content" isn't actually good enough to attract people's attention and link love?

And the idea that Google's PageRank is somehow "penalising" paid content by not ignoring the fact that people are reading it less than other stuff, is just priceless. Maybe publishers might want to consider *why* their "professional content" is sinking like a stone, and why people aren't linking to it? You know, little things like the fact it tends to regard itself as above the law - or the algorithm, in this case? (Via MicroPersuasion.)

Patent Commons: Uncommon but Patently Good

News that TomTom is joining the Open Invention Network (OIN) reminded me that the latter is an example of a patent commons, where patents are shared on a like-for-like basis:

OIN grants patent license to licensee

– All OIN patents and applications for all products

Licensee grants patent license to OIN

– All licensee patents and applications for the Linux System

Licensee grants license to other current and future licensees

– All licensee patents and applications for the Linux System

It's an interesting approach, and one that's gradually gaining adherents. For example, IBM set up something called the Eco-Patents Commons:

The Eco-Patent Commons is an initiative to create a collection of patents on technology that directly or indirectly protects the environment. The patents will be pledged by companies and other intellectual property rights holders and made available to anyone free of charge.

What's interesting here is that one commons - that of eco-patents - is being used to protect another - the environment. There's more information about the idea in this post by someone who works for IBM and is involved in the project.

Why TomTom is the new SCO (in the nicest possible way)

The 2003 SCO lawsuit, for those of you too young to recall, began as a modest request for $1 billion from IBM for allegedly “misusing and misappropriating SCO’s proprietary software” amongst other things....

On Open Enterprise blog.

The State of the Database State

A recurrent theme in these posts – and throughout Computerworld UK – has been the rise of vast, unnecessary and ultimately doomed databases in the UK.

But those stories have been largely sporadic and anecdotal; what has been lacking has been a consolidated, coherent and compelling analysis of what is going on in this area – what is wrong, and how we can fix it.

That analysis has just arrived in the form of the Database State report, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation from the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why Barclays Are Barking

The little brouhaha concerning the Guardian and Barclays Bank is a wonderful object lesson in how the Internet changes everything. Once those super-secret documents were put up for even a few seconds, the game was over: taking them down from the Guardian afterwards really is the proverbial closing of the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Inevitably, a copy has made its way to Wikileaks; inevitably that link is being exposed all over the place, which has led to the site being overloaded (do make a donation if you can: I've given my widow's mite). Barclays Bank can apply for as many injunctions as they like, the judge can - and probably will - huff and puff as much as he/she likes, but the game's over: this stuff is out.

And quite right too: these documents either show the bank engaged in something dodgy, in which case they should be published, or they don't, in which case there's no problem in them being public anyway, since the bank is asking for serious scads of public dosh, and is effectively being part-nationalised.

But even if it weren't, it would be folly to try to keep them secret now: it would only ensure that even more people write about them, and point to them, and maybe even read them. The rules have changed.

Тaking the War against Terror to a New Level...

..of utter, inane stupidity. Here's the grand summing-up of Brown's "new level":

Terrorism threatens the rights that all in this country should hold dear, including the most fundamental human right of all - the right to life. We know that terrorists will keep on trying to strike and that protecting Britain against this threat remains our most important job.

That tired old Blairite trope: the "right to life" as the "the most fundamental human right of all". Except that it's not a *right*: do I have a right to life when I'm suffering from a terminal disease? Do I have a right to life when I'm 123 years old? Do I have a right to life when the Sun explodes? "Right to life": an idiotic meme, which certainly has no "right to life".

What he should have said is this:

This government threatens the rights that all in this country should hold dear, including the most fundamental human right of all - freedom. We know that this government will keep on trying to strike and that protecting Britain against this threat remains your most important job.

RMS "Broke into Microsoft and Stole Software"...

...that, at least, is what this deranged story in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper claims:

Ричард Столлман. В 1990 году он объявил крестовый поход против компании Microsoft и ряда других китов компьютерного бизнеса. Он взламывал сайты, где предлагалось купить новое программное оборудование. И потом раздавал его народу бесплатно.

[Via Google Translate: Richard Stollman. In 1990, he announced a crusade against Microsoft and several other whale computer business. He cracks the sites where the proposed purchase new software. And then handed out to the people free.]

Not quite sure why the newspaper has the word "Pravda" - truth - in its title given the utter incorrectness of this from just about every viewpoint. (Via Stargrave's blog.)

Of Blacklists and Barbra Streisand

In the wake of news that Australia's blacklist has been leaked, I came across these interesting comments:

"Because this is a secret that has been leaked, everyone will be after it.”

“Every Australian will want to know what they were not they were considered so irresponsible to not leave alone.”

Guys said the leakage is proof that the list will be continually leaked if the Internet content filters are enforced, which he said will completely undermine its effectiveness.

Of course, the classic Streisand effect applied to blacklists: as soon as you create one, everyone wants to know whats on it, and some will manage to do so despite the blacklists - thus ensuring that those sites will get far more traffic than if no blacklist had been created.

So blacklists are actually one of the most foolish ways of trying to censor: wonder how long it will take the authorities to work this one out?

GNU/Linux does "Fashion" Robotics

I'd not paid much attention to the Japanese "fashion" robot, until I came across this:

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has demonstrated a Linux-based humanoid robot that will perform in a fashion show next week. The HRP-4C runs the robotics-focused hard real-time ART-Linux distro, which was released this week for Linux 2.6xx under GPL.

The HRP-4C robot and the open-source ART-Linux distro (see more farther below) were developed by AIST's Human Robotics Group (HRG). ART (Advanced Real-Time) Linux has been used in a variety of humanoid robot prototypes from the Japanese government-backed HRG/AIST, says the group. The newest HRP-4C model announced earlier this week has been a hit on YouTube (see below). Designed to look like a young Japanese woman, the robot stands (and walks) about five feet, two inches (158 centimeters), and weighs about 95 pounds (43 kilograms).

Inevitable, really: why would you use anything else?

Ballmer: GNU/Linux Will Win on Netbooks

Here's what he said:

"The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be."

I think this is a very frank analysis of the problem for Microsoft: after all, who's going to pay extra money just to get the Windows logo on a netbook, when they can get the same features for less with free software...?

TeachingOpenSource.org

One of the signs of a healthy ecosystem is that it is constantly expanding into new niches. Here's a new angle on opennes I hadn't come across before - a site devoted to the *teaching* of open source coding skills:

Open Source is becoming a dominant development model in the software industy. The next generation of software developers, computer scientists, system administrators, analysts, and build engineers need to understand Open Source and must be able to work efficiently within Open Source communities.

This is a neutral collaboration point for professors, institutions, communities, and companies to come together and make the teaching of Open Source a global success.

It already has its own planet of associated blogs, alongside a host of other useful content.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall...

...who is the secure-est browser of them all? The answer may surprise you...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Coming to an ID Card Near You: Your DNA

One of the many disgraceful aspects about the disgraceful ID card programme is the reluctance of the UK government to make key documents available. For such a momentous change in the relationship of government to governed, it is critically important that a full debate about all the issues be conducted; but without key details of the scheme, that is made more difficult – which is presumably why the UK government has resisted the publication of the so-called “Gateway reviews” so long.

Finally, though, we have gained the right to see these somewhat outdated documents. Despite their age, and the unnecessary redactions, some useful new information has come to light, which more than justifies the long battle to gain access.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Welcome to the New (Networked) News

There's some fine writing coming out of the current newspaper crisis. Here's some more, from one of the my favourite thinkers, Yochai Benkler. He's replying here to an earlier article in The New Republic; two paragraphs in particular caught my attention:

Critics of online media raise concerns about the ease with which gossip and unsubstantiated claims can be propagated on the Net. However, on the Net we have all learned to read with a grain of salt between our teeth, like Russians drinking tea through a sugar cube. The traditional media, to the contrary, commanded respect and imposed authority. It was precisely this respect and authority that made The New York Times' reporting on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so instrumental in legitimating the lies that the Bush administration used to lead this country to war. Two weeks ago and then last Friday, The Washington Post was still allowing George Will to make false claims about the analysis of a scientific study of global sea ice levels without batting an eyelid, reflecting the long-standing obfuscation of the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change by newspapers that, in the name of balanced reporting, reported the controversy rather than the actual scientific consensus. On some of these, the greatest challenges of our time, newspapers have failed us. The question then, on the background of this mixed record is whether the system that will replace the mass mediated public sphere can do at least as well.

Absolutely: newspaper have their virtues, but as Benkler says, they certainly have their vices too. So criticising potential weakness in nascent news forms is perilously close to pots calling the kettle black.

This other point also struck a chord (well, it would do, wouldn't it?):

Like other information goods, the production model of news is shifting from an industrial model--be it the monopoly city paper, IBM in its monopoly heyday, or Microsoft, or Britannica--to a networked model that integrates a wider range of practices into the production system: market and nonmarket, large scale and small, for profit and nonprofit, organized and individual. We already see the early elements of how news reporting and opinion will be provided in the networked public sphere.

In other words, welcome to the new news: it's the future.