Category: Technology

The EFF needs to adopt an open source model

Lessig’s analogy between legal and computer code is one that we should explore a little more deeply. We are caught in a seemingly intractable pull between digital modes of expression that push the boundaries of copyright, and a content industry (with government support) that pushes for even stronger copyright protection. If copyright were a computer program, we might call this a “bug.”

Other than the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has perhaps done the most to give “the public” a seat at the copyright law negotiating table (as the 1976 Copyright Act is continually being revised through legislation and Executive action). From the outside, however, the organization appears to be a bit “old school.” The model of donating money to fund lawyers to mount defenses and to argue at the copyright table, in my opinion has a limited value.  Additionally, the number of issues that the EFF involves themselves in (the list of their causes is here, on the right) perhaps waters down their ability to fight specific fights on the intellectual property front.

There are, however, a large number of people, lawyers, and scholars who are interested in each of these issues.  In many cases, their interest extends to expertise and perhaps passion about these issues. I see this as a great, untapped resource.

In my work with open source communities (most specifically, Drupal), I have seen how a hive mind can attack extremely complex and systemic problems. Often, only one or two people have a grasp on a full project. Yet, a large community is available to identify existing bugs, suggest (and debate!) how to fix them, and to actually do the work of making changes.

Copyright (in addition to all of the other issues the EFF is involved in) is a similarly complex problem, but perhaps one where more coordinated action might have more success in bringing true change to the law. To use another analogy, the “linux approach” to organizing multiple communities of interest to work together on individual issues might work better than the “microsoft approach” of unilaterally attempting to speak for the public interest.

As Litman said some years ago, “our copyright policy is becoming our information policy.” Something as important and complex as an information policy is worth distributing the workload on — and I think the EFF is a group with enough clout to make it happen. Funding lawyers for legal defenses is absolutely necessary, but the need for that defense will decrease if a coordinated public outcry succeeds in changing the law.

The battle against tethering has been fought before

AT&T To Revoke Unlimited Data Plans From Jailbreaking iPhone Tetherers | Wired.com

The fight over tethering (or using a cell phone to access the internet on a nearby computer) might appear at first blush to be a classic company-wants-to-charge-more vs customer-wants-to-pay-less battle. At its heart, however, the quarrel might be said to be over control of consumer devices — or more specifically, what one might connect to a phone. AT&T and their gang likely do not want customers to know that this is a battle that they have already lost.

The history

Carterfone

As you may know, phone service in America operated as a natural monopoly and was regulated by the FCC.  A condition in that monopoly allowed AT&T to be the sole provider of telephone equipment, and to prohibit devices from being attached to a telephone (and thus the network).

No equipment, apparatus, circuit or device not furnished by the telephone company shall be attached to or connected with the facilities furnished by the telephone company, whether physically, by induction or otherwise. (FCC Tariff Number 132)

The Hush-A-Phone and Carterfone devices were responsible for pushing the limits of this rule. Most notably, the inventor of the Carterfone (a device for extending the range of a telephone — which might be very useful on a large Texas ranch) put his own money on the line to fight AT&T and the FCC to get the rule changed. He was eventually successful in convincing the FCC to overrule the device-prohibiting tariff. The common parlance for the decision is that “any lawful device” might be connected to the network.

Carter’s invention has been credited with stimulating non-AT&T phones, services, and most importantly, devices like early “acoustic coupler” modems. This is perhaps an example of how the least controlled products and services push adoption, and ultimately innovation.

(For an excellent and brief rundown of the history, please read Any lawful device: 40 years after the Carterfone decision.)

The rub

One might reasonably think that using a smartphone to connect a computer to the internet sounds very much like what is described above. I would go further – using an existing account is functionally equivalent to yesterday’s acoustic coupler. A smartphone should essentially be considered a potential modem for a computer.

What’s holding everyone back is that wireless carrier’s contracts and acceptable use policies prohibit “unauthorized” tethering. While private companies are free to make contracts with their customers, I would argue that they are not free to universally ban a practice that has been permitted for 50 years.

AT&T uses security as a rationale, stating:

Examples of system or network security violations include but are not limited to … using manual or automated means to avoid any use limitations placed on the IP Services.

The question

Should a computer connected to the internet via a smartphone be counted as “any lawful device?” Other than the economic harm of loss of additional charges and the potential harm of increased cellular network load, does tethering cause any harm to the network.

There have been efforts to renew the Carterphone decision for the Internet age. Now that AT&T and Verizon have renewed their efforts against tetherers who do not pay the fee, these efforts should be renewed. For those that are ok practicing a bit of civil disobedience, there are options (I do not take responsibility for any impact this might have on your contract).

Tethered iPhone

Your post(wo)man as a server admin?

Google execs, tech experts focus on future of Postal Service – The Federal Eye – The Washington Post.

I like this — a lot.  I’m a fan of the postal service, because of its important role in our history, but realize the challenge that the Internet poses to a costly distribution of paper could be too much for the service to bear. It may be that the postal service somehow gets into the business of providing e-mail addresses, or credentialing/identity verification.

Regardless of the role that the service might play in our national communication landscape, I’m interested in another aspect of this story. Postal workers have a bit of a professional ethic (“neither rain, nor sleet…”). This is the kind of thing that I think we could use more of in the technological realm. Sure, my sysadmin warned me that sudo access comes with “great responsibility,” but given the recent oversights at Sony, how common is this approach? It seems to me that, as security and privacy become increasingly core to what technologists need to concern themselves with on a daily basis.  I think that professionalism might do more than laws to cultivate this approach among the guardians of our servers and wires.

This idea is still in the hatching stage, so I hope to blog more about it in the future.

Berners-Lee: Long Live the Web

Web inventor, Tim Burners-Lee pens an article for Scientific American that is an impassioned, yet reasoned argument for open standards and Internet Neutrality (Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality: Scientific American). By couching his argument in principles of liberty, he articulates many of the principles that underlie some of the problems I’ve seen in closed systems like social networking sites and mobile apps.  Here are a couple of highlights that hopefully can stand on their own:

In these cases, no due process of law protects people before they are disconnected or their sites are blocked. Given the many ways the Web is crucial to our lives and our work, disconnection is a form of deprivation of liberty. Looking back to the Magna Carta, we should perhaps now affirm: “No person or organization shall be deprived of the ability to connect to others without due process of law and the presumption of innocence.” …

Some people may think that closed worlds are just fine. The worlds are easy to use and may seem to give those people what they want. But as we saw in the 1990s with the America Online dial-up information system that gave you a restricted subset of the Web, these closed, “walled gardens,” no matter how pleasing, can never compete in diversity, richness and innovation with the mad, throbbing Web market outside their gates. If a walled garden has too tight a hold on a market, however, it can delay that outside growth.

For some reason all of this reminded me that we’re in desperate need of a good mobile browser.  I think that might solve some of the app-etite we’ve been suffering lately.