Russell McOrmond's Comments

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Limor Fried on Open Source Hardware

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:00:58 +0000

In the late 1980's I had an Apple II clone that came with schematics at the back of the manual. I worked as a repair person for Commodore computers, and most of their line of computers had full schematics easily available. Nearly all the integrated circuits (ICs) in the Apple II clone, the Vic-20's and Commodore 64's were off-the-shelf components where the logical layouts were publicly available in easy to obtain books (I had shelves of these types of books). The 6502 processor internals wasn't detailed, but all the internal interfaces and the public instruction set was fully documented. We now have FPGA and other technologies that allow us to custom create devices far more complex than the computers of those days. It is also much easier to have small runs of custom designed chips built -- meaning if the design allows modification you can build nearly everything you want. The physical ability to do these things is moving up the stack all the time. What is having a hard time keeping up is the legal regimes which grant excessive goverment granted monopolies on the simplest of things (patents on things which are inadequately novel or unobvious) -- and where these monopolies are disabling citizens from engaging in their own design and building of their own technology. The presumption that you need large top-down organizations granted extensive monopolies by government in order to incentivise innovation is extremely outdated.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Limor Fried on Open Source Hardware

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:50:58 +0000

Great interview. When Limor was talking about how makers are the next generation from when people tinkered with their cars, I remembered when I gave a eulogy at my fathers funeral in 2009. He was an auto mechanic, and I never got a drivers license and never owned a car. At first glance people might think this made us different, but I treated computers as something to tinker with (hardware and software) from a young person up to present day. In fact, I am part of a movement to try to keep tinkering legal, given there are companies and other interests who want to make it illegal for owners to tinker with their own computers. The most threatening policy at the moment is so-called "technical protection measures" TPMs which are applied to computing hardware, and where under "copyright" law it becomes illegal for the owner to remove TPMs applied by previous owners (primarily the manufacturer). It may seem like "copyright" law is off-topic to an interview about makers, but that is because TPMs are off-topic when it comes to copyright law. It is sad that copyright law is being abused to justify infringing the property rights of technology owners. (See our petition for those who want to get involved http://c11.ca/petition/ict ) P.S. Semi-related, but I hope that CBC is making a lot of money for all those Apple advertisements that are added before every MP3 file for the feeds. It makes me cringe when I hear them given Apple is one of the lead companies (along with Sony) in seeking to legalize and legalize their infringement of technology property rights.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Byron Holland on Canada's Internet Experience

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 15:08:39 +0000

While Jeff's message conveyed his emotions, we can't make public policy based only on emotions. As angry as people get about copyright infringement, we need to talk about the actual harm of the problem being solved and the actual harm of the solutions being proposed. The emotional language he used is part of a 200+ year old confusion which I've called the Jefferson Debate http://c11.ca/Jefferson_Debate since it was Thomas Jefferson who said on August 13, 1813: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." While it is true that the government granted monopoly of Copyright can be bought and sold, making the monopoly a form of intangible property, it is simply false to analogise copyright infringement with theft. The thing which is owned, the government granted monopoly, does not change possession with infringement so even if we did consider it equivalent to tangible property infringement would not be theft. The closest analogy that can be made is to trespass, which is an unlawful activity with respect to property, but doesn't change possession. Like trespass, some copyright infringement is economically harmful but it is wrong to claim that all infringement is economically harmful. Some infringement is as harmless as if a neighbour kid ran through your back yard to get to theirs. Some of the rhetoric from copyright holders sounds little different than a group of old guys yelling "get those damned kids off my lawn" : expecting the police to go arrest the kids (or their parents) for the alleged nasty wrong that was done to them. Jeff also attributed blame on technology companies simply because their technology can be abused by someone else. If the problem is copyright infringement, then the target of the legislation should be copyright infringers. This has not been the case for the majority of copyright revision proposals tabled in recent decades. All this laying blame on everyone else, other than the copyright holders (who often make business decisions which induce infringement) or the copyright infringers will always receive strong push-back from innocent bystanders. It is not a case of blaming the victim to attribute some infringement to the business decisions of copyright holders. In a normal business environment when someone doesn't like the way a product or service is offered, and don't buy it, nobody claims "theft". There are many copyrighted works that are not offered to Canadians (regional restrictions), not offered on the devices people own (misapplied technological protection measures), or not offered at all any more (the antiquated "out of print" problem which makes no sense in the modern age). When someone isn't offered the ability to pay, is it really wrong to then get so angry if they don't pay (even if they don't access the content at all)? The reality is that the statistical models used to allege the harm from infringement do not adequately differentiate between people switching to alternatives and those infringing. See: http://c11.ca/4540 The ability to abuse technology exists for every technology that has ever been invented by humans. This blaming and seeking to punish the neutral provider of products and services appears to be unique to digital technology. If a road could be used by a getaway vehicle from a crime, we would never blame and seek to punish municipalities for "enabling" that crime. This is essentially what SOPA said of providers of communications services. The same is true of the Paracopyright component of Bill C-11. As I said when I spoke in front of the Bill C-32 committee http://c11.ca/5293 : "We would never legally protect non-owner locks to all guns in a country where many are uncomfortable with the mere registration of long guns. We would never legally protect non-owner locks on our homes, alleging it was necessary to protect the insurance industry from fraud. We would never legally protect non-owner locks on our cars, allegedly to ensure that automobiles could never be used as a getaway vehicle." It is hard not to get emotional in these debates because the alleged "solutions" to copyright infringement seem far more comparable to "theft" than the copyright infringement itself. And at the end of the day there has never been evidence that these drastic measures reduce infringement, or increase revenues to copyright holders. In fact, much of the evidence suggests the opposite that these extreme measure induce infringement and reduce revenues to creators.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Byron Holland on Canada's Internet Experience

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:04:16 +0000

Great interview. I believe work done by ietf.org , and its governance structure, was attributed to ICANN. IETF is the consensus governance around the technology, and ICANN focuses on the domain name system (DNS). As the CEO of CIRA it is undertandable Byron is focused on DNS, with SOPA threatening the secure upgrade of DNS. An unamended Bill C-11 doesn't get involved in DNS, but it does harm other technology through legal protection for "technological mesures" which often involves locking technology owners out of what they own. Bill C-11 may also see amendments, and there have been push on the Canadian government to add SOPA-like policy within Bill C-11. We won't know how much worse C-11 will get for the Canadian economy until the final version is passed thrugh both houses. As it stands, the most controvercial part (TPMs) will harm not only technology owners, but the vast majority of copyright holders as well.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Cory Doctorow on the War on General Computing

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:17:07 +0000

When I talk to people about the two locks of DRM (one on content to make it only interoperable with "authorised" devices, and one on devices to disallow the owner from making their own choices), the most common reaction I get is disbelief. They don't believe that this is how DRM works, and most truly believe that what these laws are talking about is "copy control" (some magic pixie dust you can put on content that allows it to come alive and make decisions on its own without the need of software running on computing hardware). People presume that they can do with their computers any legal thing they want to. Many less technical people are convinced that these restrictions are defects in the device. This is one of the reasons why the "Defective by Design" campaign was named that way: to let people know that these defects are deliberate choices being imposed on them, not something accidentally broken on their computer. I think once people realise how these restrictions work, they can then begin to ask the right question. a) Should copyright holders have the right to impose brands of access technology? I suspect most believe that copyright holders should have as much say in their choice of digital technology as book authors had in what brand of eye glasses people wore. b) Should someone other than the owner of something be allowed to place a lock on it where the owner is denied keys? I believe most people believe property law should protect us from this, and that denying keys from owners is far more analogous to "theft" than any type of copyright or related rights infringement. Once we get to these simpler and more relevant questions, and away from the science-fiction "pixie dust" nonsense, we can enact laws which better reflect the expectations of the majority of citizens in our society. At the moment, I don't believe that citizens or politicians are making informed choices about the content or devices they are purchasing, or the laws that are being tabled/passed. BTW: I've been creating/repairing/programming/using computers since the mid 1980's. Various attempts at things marketed as "copy control" have been with us since that time. What is new since the mid 1990's is proposed radical changes to the law to grant legal protection for activities that if we were talking about non-digital property would be prohibited. It is sad, but politicians not understanding digital technology has enabled lobbiests to dupe them into passing laws which are backwards to how other technology and property are treated.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Andrew McAfee on Race Against the Machine

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:04:16 +0000

"The future is already here, it is just not evenly distributed" (William Gibson, and many others) If you look at the worlds richest people they are primarily from sectors where governments have granted monopolies: telecommunications (spectrum, right-of-way), software+media (copyright+patents). Rather than the efficiencies of the machine offering benefits to all citizens, the benefits largely went to those who were the primary beneficiaries of these government granted monopolies. Is this failure a social sciences one (IE: government policies on spectrum, copyright, etc), or one that relates to the "machine"? Nora has already covered many stores about how we become more productive in collaborative volunteer ways when we have more unallocated/leisure/free/libre time. We may not be working for an employer, but often when we are volunteering we are being even more productive participants in society than we are when at our "jobs". Note: I negotiated an 80% rather than the 100% time that my employer wanted, so that I would have that 20% to do volunteer work. As much as I like my current job, I find contribution to society is far more in the 20% than the 80%. Side-note: There is quite a bit of talk of the copyright/patent monopolies and alternatives. For those who haven't thought about the impact of spectrum monopolies, I've found http://www.apc.org/en/pubs/issue/openaccess/spect... contains a good primer.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Andrew McAfee on Race Against the Machine

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:54:34 +0000

It was suggested we crowd source some thoughts. While I hope to read the book in the future to better understand the argument, I haven't done so. Please take the comments in that light.. I'd like to offer an alternative theory to the reduction of jobs that we've seen in recent decades. I'm not saying my theory is the only one, but that it is likely part of the puzzle. In the late 1980's and early 1990's Western governments decided to outsource manufacturing jobs to majority-world countries (India, China, etc) in exchange for stronger government granted monopolies on usage of the ideas that were behind the processes and expressions (Copyright, Patent, Trademark, industrial design, etc). The theory was that the "smart" people in western societies would come up with all the good ideas, and that the "large number of people" in other societies would build it all for us. They wouldn't be able to build things on their own because of the government granted monopolies on the basic knowledge building blocks upon which everything was built. Half of this deal happened: manufacturing jobs were deliberately exported by western governments. Then large portions of the world started to question these government granted monopolies, wondering if reduced-friction information sharing -- sometimes called peer production http://peerproduction.org -- was a better way to organize the further development of knowledge. From the growth of Free Software which dominates the mobile, server and cloud spaces to Wikipedia, open access science and educational material, and so-on. In fact, more and more people believe that thinking of each other as nodes in a network able to collaborate better is a better way to grow the economy than having governments grant monopolies on knowledge. For a growing part of society, including here in the west, these monopolies are seen as friction on the economy. They see government policy which grants stronger monopolies as job killers. I happen to believe that Bill C-11 is a job-killing bill, and will make Canada less competitive compared to the majority-world BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China, etc) countries that we are competing with for jobs. The same is true of job-killing bills like SOPA in the USA. Is it the machines we are competing against, or each other where government policies by western governments are killing our competitiveness? Money is a measure of comparative wealth between people, and whatever "jobs" exist that we will want to pay each other for will be filled by humans. I guess I don't see this as a race against machines but against backward-facing government policies where those who are able to better harness the machines are getting competitive advantage to those whose governments are creating barriers. Remember: everyone equally making more money is called inflation, and everyone equally making less money is deflation. It is when one human extracts more money than other humans that things are interesting.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Cory Doctorow on the War on General Computing

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:03:07 +0000

Thanks for covering this critically important issue. North America's war against the general purpose computer could be seen as originating from the Clinton/Gore administration in the USA during their National Information Infrastructure task force. This is when I first heard of the idea that we should redesign general purpose computers and communications technology to somehow work and yet not allow its owners to do things which someone else didn't like. This idea was exported to the world through some policy laundering with the 1996 WIPO treaties, and showed up in Canada first as Bill C-60 under the then Liberal government. When the Conservatives formed government in 2006 I mistakenly thought we had won that battle. These were people who supported those who were uncomfortable with the mere registration of long-guns, so there was no chance that they would support locking up our computers. I launched the Petition to protect IT Property Rights http://c11.ca/petition/ict , assuming I would get back a confirmation from the Conservatives that they would reject the Clinton/Gore/Liberal policy of abrogating responsibility for protecting the property rights of technology owners. I was unfortunately wrong. I believe the problem is that non-technical people believe the marketing brochures from the TPM vendors. They believe it will reduce infringement, even though there is no evidence of this and considerable evidence that these TPMs increase infringement. Since they incorrectly believe that TPMs are something applied to content, rather than primarily something that is applied to devices, they don't realise the considerable harm to technology owners and competing technology vendors. Content alone cannot make decisions, and if any decision is made (including "copying") it is encoded as software running on a computer. Any TPM that alleges to restrict "copying" is in fact restricting the rights of technology owners to control the keys to any locks on their own property, and to make their own software choices. I believe if studied it would be proven that legal protection for TPMs will cause far more harm to the economy (including to copyright holders) than the good that would be gained even if the marketing brochures were true. It is frustrating that people who claim their motivations are to stop people infringing their copyright related rights believe that attacking the property rights of many more people is a valid option. I hope Canadians will write their MPs and tell them to respect technology property rights. If hundreds of thousands of people signed the Petition to protect IT Property Rights http://c11.ca/petition/ict , we might get the attention of a government that claims to have respect for property rights as a founding principle.

http://www.themarknews.com/ : The Next 70 | The Mark

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:04:51 +0000

Electoral reform has been an issue growing for decades, and it not about the current federal government. There has been large pushes provincially as well, and it was Liberal governments that IMHO messed things up for BC and Ontario. I joined Fair Vote Canada long before the federal Conservatives formed government, and it was the false-majorities of the federal Liberals that upset me when I joined. I find it unfortunate that Fair Vote Canada has focused on party proportionality, rather than getting rid of vote-splitting and the antiquated First Past the Post voting system. I'm a bigger fan of ranked ballots (alternative vote, single transferable vote, BC STV, etc) than I am party proportional representation. Canadian federal political parties already have too much influence, with the Chretien and Harper governments being so centralized in the PM's office as to be questionable whether Canada is still a representative democracy. That said, I voted YES in the Ontario referendum for Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) which is far better than the current horse-and-buggy system we use now. On this message: I'm a big fan of Charlie Angus, being one of the few sensible people on Copyright reform in the house (see http://c11.ca for my involvement). If he thinks Dewar is the right guy for the party, then I'll go along with that. But I'm not a partisan person, and see good ideas in all 4 of the federal parties with seats.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 162 â November 13 & 16, 2011

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:48:29 +0000

I like your line of questioning, and wish more people did it, but disagree with your specific conclusions. I think you missed the part where he said the device had a battery within it, meaning it is already "Always On". We can discuss efficiencies of batteries vs capacitors as a temporary energy storage mechanism, but I think even with battery storage we are talking about a system far more efficient (Less complex, etc) than trying to tie into the electrical grid. If anything, we should be creating a DC electrical system within our homes so we can have fewer devices that tie into the electrical grid (One efficient AC->DC power supply to replace the rest). The fact that so many devices are USB powered even suggests a type of plug to be using. To go back to your suggestion, the electronics to synchronise the DC generated by solar with the phase of the AC electrical grid could easily itself be responsible for more waste and less efficiency than not having a battery in the device would (IE: not always being on). I disagree with the centralisation inherent in your suggestion. The more devices we get off the grid and onto decentralised power, the better for everyone (except maybe the utility companies, but I don't factor their economic interests into this). (Cue the engineers to insert some of the numbers and latest research!)

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 162 â November 13 & 16, 2011

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:01:47 +0000

I have an ASUS transformer+keyboard which has two batteries (one in tablet component, one in keyboard component) which is what makes it last so long. I often charge my Nexus One phone from the ASUS. I find with this type of tablet/etc I'm not using my much more power hungry desktop as often, which is a great power saving. Thought not mentioned in interview: If we continue to increase our consumption without moving to renewables/etc, we are likely to experience load shedding like other countries. Having devices independently powered not only allows for things like solar chargers (that don't have to be plugged into the devices themselves), but also means we're less reliant on what will likely become a less reliable power grid. BTW: great interview -- listening to full show later, but listened to the interview earlier as part of your feed.

http://www.themarknews.com/ : Should We Think Twice About Online Voting? | The Mark

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:38:55 +0000

Online voting is essentially a proxy vote system where we are (often blindly) trusting technology companies to return accurate vote results for those people who voted using that technology. It doesn't need to have everyone using the technology in order to change the outcome of the election. Many ridings are decided based on only a few percentages of votes. A corrupt supplier of technology only needs to manipulate the proxies that flow through them in a small way in order to change election outcomes. I don't think we should assume that online voting will increase voter turnout. Some people may decide based on this new proxy voting influence to not bother voting, given their votes won't impact the elections as much as the proxies will.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 158 â October 9 & 12, 2011

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:52:25 +0000

I am glad to note that discussion of Dennis Ritchie will be included in a future show. If you are looking for a technology person who died recently who had a major influence on the technology we all use today, he is the best example. Steve Jobs had influence, but as a marketing person and not a technology person. Mr Jobs was a very charismatic leader, but also a highly controversial one. His major influence was to simplify technology, but he simplified technology in a way similar to how a monarchy simplifies governance. As in all governance structures, citizens in a monarchy (or Apple users) still have influence over most parts of their daily lives where the government does not step in. The difference between a monarchy and a democracy is in the influence that citizens have over the decision areas where the government does step in and seeks to impose policy on citizens. Being the charismatic leader he was, Mr Jobs was able to sell his tethered technology monarchy to a growing number of people, and make it seem "sexy". As an outsider to his kingdom, I often found it interesting how people thought they were thinking differently. Some pretty non-mainstream artists and thought leaders happily handed over control of their computing over to the monarchy. I never understood it, but it was an baffling activity that was hard to miss. Even the influence of Microsoft over peoples lives comes indirectly from Jobs. While Jobs wanted Apple to retain control over a larger part of the bundle (hardware, operating system, and considerable influence over third-party hardware/software that was allowed to be compatible with Apple's hardware/software), Microsoft was happy to control the operating system and (with bumps here and there, including stuff that landed them in court) allow third party hardware and application developers a much more liberating experience. As more and more hardware/software developers fled Apple to the more open environment of Microsoft, computer users came with them. Note: I was an Amiga user back in the those days, so was observing many different companies trying to catch up with the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointers) interface that originated in the expensive (and at that time highly proprietary) UNIX Workstation marketplace. Contrary to those who first experienced this interface on a Windows or Mac computer, neither Microsoft nor Apple "invented" this interface. They all copied from the work done at Xerox :-) The most recent influence is on the political front. More than any other single company and individual, Apple and Jobs are behind the legal protection of Paracopyright (technical measures in "Copyright" law) where it is hardware/software manufacturers, not technology owners or copyright holders, that control the keys to digital locks applied to technology and/or copyrighted works. Jobs was able to convince many people that he was opposed to DRM with his open letter, pulling the wool over peoples eyes as he only spoke of the less-controversial lock on copyrighted works while he was (behind the scenes) directing Apple and allies to lobby for stronger protection of the non-owner lock on technology. I note some of the other interviews, such as the one with Douglas Rushkoff, which will be very useful in understanding the impact of this transfer of control from technology owners to hardware/software manufacturers that Jobs made seem acceptable and "sexy". Mr. Spence may cause people to ask questions about what it means to have a cybernetic implant that is under the control of someone other than the person it is implanted in. Karen Sandler may be helpful in this discussion as well http://www.fsdaily.com/Philosophy/A_cyborg_lawyer... (She is co-host of http://faif.us/ ) Hope this helps, and hope that this aspect of this charismatic and controversial person will be adequately covered. Far too much of the technology press was praising him for things he didn't do, and not at all being critical of some of the major influences he has actually had. I have more than once in the last few weeks just turned the radio off (Yes, CBC) due to the inappropriately biased reporting of Mr Jobs. --- Some links that may be helpful for context. Protecting property rights in a digital world http://l.c11.ca/own Spectrum from software/computing freedom to imprisonment http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2011/10/spectrum-fro... Will you explain why DRM is bad? http://c11.ca/5364

http://www.themarknews.com/ : Should We Think Twice About Online Voting? | The Mark

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:06:58 +0000

The convenience often comes with a cost, and often people don't even understand the costs. As a technology person with an interest in politics and law I have spent more than a decade trying to translate real-world technology into policy impacts for less technical people. Much of my focus has been on technical measures incorrectly being added to "copyright" law in a way that can (and will) be abused to circumvent contract, e-commerce, property, competition, trade and even copyright law. http://l.c11.ca/faq#tpmsfair While this specific work appears to be related to "copyright" law, the issue is actually a problem where many policy makers don't understand technology well enough to translate real-world technology into policy and vice-versa. The same is true of technology assist for voting. It is important that people understand how the technology works, otherwise they will make inadvertent policy changes without realizing it. While it is possible to create technology to mirror the policy goals of our current paper ballot (anonymous, verifiable, etc), it is also very possible that a system could be put in place with an entirely different policy without people recognizing it. For instance, the security model used for Banking is entirely different than for voting. In the case of online banking the two endpoints in the conversation only need to authenticate themselves to each other, and the privacy is from third parties. In the case of voting you not only can't trust third parties, but you also can't trust either endpoint. Any system that trusts the endpoints wouldn't work with voting. Far more than voters corrupting the election, I would be far more worried about the provider of the voting technology corrupting the election. While I am a promoter of Open Source, I also believe that while Open Source solves some problems (accountability/transparency of the intended policy rules implemented in software), it can't solve the problem of a poorly designed voting system that didn't take all the right security threats into consideration.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 157 â October 2 & 5, 2011

Wed, 5 Oct 2011 22:57:26 +0000

Here is a way to link your small C-11 http://c11.ca mention with the rest of the episode. The only way to have a reasonable conversation about the omnibus bill C-11 that doesn't loop you in circles and burn your brain is to divide it into components. What I do is divide into 4 sections: The "Copyright" component and the "Paracopyright" (AKA: technical measures, digital locks) component. Then subdivide each of those into policies proposed as part of the two 1996 WIPO treaties, and policies not related to those treaties. The most controversial and least understood part of the bill are the non-treaty Paracopyright sections of the bill. Specifically, the access control part of the bill which has no tie to activities previously regulated by copyright (IE: access), and where the prohibition against unlocking is untied in any way to activities that would otherwise infringe copyright. Details: http://billc32.ca/faq#wipovsdmca Translated to real-world scenarios, what we are talking about is two types of digital locks: one on content that makes the content only accessable with "authorised" devices, and a separate lock on devices (computing hardware and software) which locks the person who possesses the device (most often its owner) out of the device. In nearly all real-world scenarios, the person who owns what is locked (copyright or the device) do not control the keys to the locks. Locks, digital or otherwise, protect the interests of the keysholders. It is the law that normally protects the owners, but C-11 protects the interests of keyholders against the interests of owners. Think about this: this is a device which treats its owner as a threat, and where it is illegal to change the software to meet the needs of its owner rather than a third party. Having non-owner locked devices won't reduce copyright infringement , but will have implications that go far beyond copyright to the types of other issues discussed in the episode. These devices will by design be spying on those using them. Investigating how much unauthorized distribution of this private data is going on requires an unauthorized circumvention of a non-owner digital lock. Bill C-11 alleges to allow security research, but prohibits the distribution of tools required to unlock our devices in order to do that independent research. I wish people spent more time focused on this part of the bill. There are a lot of interesting things that can be said about the Copyright components of the bill, but really dangerous and widely misunderstood components aren't related to Copyright at all.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 156 â September 25 & 28, 2011

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:05:38 +0000

I remember when my Xmas list in the early 1980's was formed with part numbers from the Radio Shack catalog. My parents had no idea what most of these these things were: individual chips, PCB's, transistors, capacitors, etc -- all of which I was using to build various things with. Never purchased a computer from them, but did make major modifications to my Commodore 8-bit and Apple II clone with parts from Radio Shack. Hard to get parts like that any more -- even Active Components has moved away from selling individual parts. Have to order things online now that components to build something yourself are largely specialty items.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 156 â September 25 & 28, 2011

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:00:41 +0000

Loved doing the quiz -- lived through that period, with my first computers being a KIM-1 (A 6502 demo board) and the Vic 20. Was thinking of buying a Timex-Sinclaire ZX-81 at the time, but already knew 6502 assembly because my public school had PET computers. And unlike today I had to make a choice, as I could only afford to buy a single real computer (even had to borrow money from my older sister to get the Vic-20) Some other TV shows I loved like Knight Rider (1982 series, with the 2008 series being not quite as memorable) are available on Netflix if you want to catch up :-) Enjoyed all of those cultural references in my formative years. And why am I not surprised to hear that Erica Ehm is now associated with something called Yummy Mummy. Funny how you get older, and some of the cute TV personalities you remember seem just as cute as when you were younger... :-) Onto lawful access: If back-doors are mandatory built-in, they will be abused. There is no way to avoid this. The owners of a technology, and people that they delegate to, should be the only ones with the keys. http://flora.ca/own The argument that having police surveillance back-doors can make us more safe is built on a few mistaken beliefs: a) That it will only be authorized police personnel that will have access to the back-doors, and not criminals external to the police forces. b) That police themselves would never through deliberate or mistakes carry out activities which are (or should be) criminal or otherwise illegal. We should not put a growing part of our lives at additional risk of criminal behavior (inside and outside of police forces) without extreme circumstances to justify it. I believe the increased risk of enabling criminal behavior completely outstripping the largely theoretical benefits. Existing police tools are good enough, and there have yet been anything beyond "it would be more convenient" given to justify this massive increased risk.

Spark | CBC Radio : Opting out

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:42:13 +0000

In my case I try to opt out a class of technology which are locked against the interests of their owners ( http://flora.ca/own ). It is a form of consumer boycott, but rather than being against a specific brand as other such boycotts are, it is against a way of treating technology. It is unfortunately perceived as anti-Apple, anti-Sony, and/or anti-Microsoft, but that is only because those vendors are particularly bad. This type of opting out is hard as so much technology is being non-owner locked this way. If you want to *legally* access commercial content, you are nearly forced to purchase this type of technology. I have recently purchased a BoxeeBox to access NetFlix, and the only way I could justify it to myself is by recognising that as bad as it was it was a step up from a Rogers digital tuner. It was also better in my mind than the other alternative, which is to infringe copyright to get interoperable media files that would work with unlocked or owner-locked devices.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Jennifer Stoddart on Online Privacy

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 20:37:29 +0000

Two thoughts. Parents need to be educated on the harm to their children from excessive surveillance by parents. It promotes the idea in youth that their personal information isn't valuable, and makes them more willing to over-share with others. I remember being young and being more willing to share some things with people who weren't my parents. If parents excessively monitor, then what is shared with others will be that much more. The so-called "right to be forgotten" must be understood as highly controversial. We are not talking about "forgetting" at all, but the threat of the power of the state in order to demand that historical records be destroyed. While some may forgive the the thin-edge of the wedge with stories about youth (see the first comment as to source of that harm), we know that once this power exists it will be abused. I believe that the harm from state-mandated "book burning" will be far greater on society than the idea that less experienced people will misunderstand a historical record. And you can be certain that the records from the excessive state surveillance (warrantless wiretaps under "Lawful access", CCTV, etc) will be exempt, and it will only be independent citizen record keeping that will be subject to these laws. We are in a social transition, and we need to be careful of how we handle this transition. People who grew up with this technology, or are involved in open access and archivist movements, are aware of the need to put information in its historical context. The more raw data that is made available to the average citizen, the more these average citizens will need to learn how to accurately interpret and contextualise it. The problem isn't that the raw data is available, it is that neophytes are not yet trained in how to best make use of that data. As one current example, people who have only ever read "news" from mainstream media may have a hard time making sense of Wikileaks. On the other hand, people who are used to getting information from a variety of sources of a variety of quality have much less problems putting raw data into context. While I am a long-time privacy activist, I have to strongly disagree with Ms. Stoddart's acceptance of the concept of "right to be forgotten" (AKA: state mandated history rewriting). "We've always been at war with Eastasia"

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: Jay Ferguson on Musical Rarity

Fri, 20 May 2011 15:07:21 +0000

*sigh* Too bad it was "fixed".

Russell McOrmond's Comments

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