Liberté, Egalité, Bureaucracy

French Bureaucracy.  Those words should strike fear into the hearts of everyone.  For a country whose motto translates into “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, the byzantine stretch of absurd regulations in France often makes one wonder if the ghost of Kafka is laughing or crying.  

So it really comes as no surprise to hear that the French government in its infinite wisdom recently decreed that hosts of television and radio programs must refrain from uttering the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” on the air. Imagine if that happened in the US.  CNN might as well shut down, as currently every third sentence is a request to “Join the conversation”.  Who knows, maybe they would have to go back to actually reporting the news rather than everyone’s reaction to it.  Hmmm… But I digress. 

What was surprising was the reaction to the decree in France, or should I say, the non-reaction.  Some newspapers published straightforward reports of the government action, some French bloggers questioned the decision, but overall the reaction was “meh” combined with the classic French shrug. 

Now there were reasons given, having to do with egalité.  The CSA (France’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, the equivalent to the FCC) maintained that any on-air mention of a program’s Facebook page or Twitter feed constitutes “clandestine advertising” for these social networks because they are commercial operations. In a word, French television and radio programs cannot be seen to be promoting Facebook and Twitter as commercial brands. There are outlets available other than Twitter and Facebook.  To allow the preference of the the two largest players in the room  would “be a distortion of competition”.  If the government allows Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it’s opening a Pandora’s Box — other social networks will complain saying, “why not us?”.

However, as pointed out by French blogger Benoit Raphael, Facebook and Twitter are now “public spaces” of communication with a global reach. And it is because of that reality TV and radio stations use the two extensively to connect to their audience.  Too bad, according to the bureaucrats.  No mention of Twitter or Facebook unless it is a direct story about the companies.

Of course, one may point out that la paperasserie is still motivated by an institutionalized hostility towards Anglo-Saxon domination, but that would be rude.

In Order to Have a Free Market, You Need to Have Choices

One of the great things about a “Free Market” is that if you don’t like the company you are getting services from, you can always go somewhere else. 

Well, except if you’re dealing with Internet Service Providers and live in North Carolina.  Then you’re pretty much screwed.  You see, Governor Bev Purdue says that she will neither sign nor veto H.129.  Now for those who do not know, H.129 is a bill that would put restrictions on cities that currently provide internet service to its citizens (Wilson, Salisbury, Morganton, Davidson, and Mooresville), and would significantly hinder any efforts by other cities to pursue their own municipal internet services. The obvious winners in this action are Time-Warner cable and AT&T, who have spent a lot of money improving their services, er, buying politicians, er, let’s just say, they’ve spent a lot of money over this. 

Some of the provisions in H.129 state that cities:

• Shall provide nondiscriminatory access to private communications service providers on a first-come, first-served basis to rights-of-way, poles, or conduits owned, leased, or operated by the city unless the facilities have insufficient capacity for the access and additional capacity cannot reasonably be added to the facilities.
• Shall not use city resources that are not allocated for cost accounting purposes to the city-owned communications service  to promote city-owned communications service in comparison to private services or, directly or indirectly, require city employees, officers, or contractors to purchase city services
• Shall not subsidize the provision of communications service with funds from any other noncommunications service, operation, or other revenue source, including any funds or revenue generated from electric, gas, water, sewer, or garbage services.
• Shall not price any communications service below the cost of providing the service, including any direct or indirect subsidies received by the city-owned communications service provider and allocation of costs associated with any shared use of buildings, equipment, vehicles, and personnel with other city departments.

The bill ensures that companies like Time Warner Cable and AT&T will continue to be the dominant players in most North Carolina markets, even with higher pricing and speeds that often lag far behind what cities themselves can provide for its residents.

Never mind the fact that these municipalities decided to vote to band together and provide its own municipal services.  And why did they do that?  Because the Internet service providers were dragging their feet and underserving the market.  The community did not have a choice that was fast and inexpensive, so they created one.  And because they are offering their community an alternative that is better, the telecoms run and pay off politicians to curtail it. Because as we all know, municipalities should not have an “unfair advantage” over the private sector.  In this case the unfair advantage is a service that is better, faster and cheaper.  You know, those same arguments that are used when a government decides to outsource a municipal service to a private company. 

Funny how that works.

Protecting IPs From Whom?

It may be summer soon, but there is a chill in the air.  Legislation known as the “Protect IP Act” has been introduced in Washington.  Basically it is the successor to the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act that made its way through congress back in November. 

This is how the bill would work.  The U.S. Department of Justice would receive the power to seek a court order against an allegedly infringing Web site, and then serve that order on search engines, certain Domain Name System providers, and Internet advertising firms–which would in turn be required to "expeditiously" make the target Web site invisible.

Needless to say, Google is not happy.  The bill would also make Google, which makes most of its profits from its online advertising products, stop serving ads or sponsored links to those sites deemed as infringing. To quote Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Wednesday:

"If there is a law that requires DNSs [domain name systems] to do X, and it’s passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president of the United States and we disagree with it, then we would still fight it.”

…

"If it’s a request, the answer is we wouldn’t do it. If it’s a discussion, we wouldn’t do it”

…

"So, ‘let’s whack off the DNS.’ OK, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say ‘I don’t like free speech so I’ll whack off all those DNSs.’ That country would be China.”

As my dad used to say, those are fightin’ words.  And in many ways he is correct, because the main thrust of this is not the Pirate Bay and similar sites, as one might suspect, but rather Wikileaks. 

You see, under this law, leaking information such as governmental cables or embarrassing and/or damaging bank information showing rampant fraud and the like is basically distributing copyrighted material, and therefore subject to the takedown.  See how that works? Do not think for a minute that any of that was lost upon the members of congress who see the site as something they would like to see go away, and soon.

Of course the MPAA had words to fire back, seeing that they basically wrote the bill for the esteemed members of congress.  Michael O’Leary, an executive vice president for MPAA, in a statement:

“Is Eric Schmidt really suggesting that if Congress passes a law and President Obama signs it, Google wouldn’t follow it? As an American company respected around the world, it’s unfortunate that, at least according to its executive chairman’s comments, Google seems to think it’s above America’s laws. And the notion that China would use a bipartisan, narrowly tailored bill as a pretext for censorship is laughable, as Google knows, China does what China does.”

That last part may be true.  But if China does it, does that mean that we must follow their example?

The Ballad of George and Sony

“Christ you know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me.”

John Lennon, The Ballad of John and Yoko

George Francis Hotz is a highly regarded 21 year-old who first came onto the scene by jailbreaking iPhones, causing a great deal of hullaballoo amongst the population. 

In the end of 2009, Hotz announced his efforts to hack the Sony PlayStation 3, a console widely regarded as being the only fully locked and secure system of the seventh generation era. He blogged about his progress, announcing that he had successfully hacked the machine by enabling himself read and write access to the machine’s system memory and having hypervisor level access to the machine’s processor. Sony announced firmware updates; Hotz then announced plans of a custom firmware, similar to the custom firmware for the PlayStation Portable, to enable Linux and OtherOS support, while still retaining the features of newer firmwares.

I will take a step back here to say at this point, Hotz was simply a home-brew hacker showing off all this gee-whiz stuff to the public. This was not anything major, nor should it have been.  In fact, the pool of those people who would actually do such a thing within the entire pool of PS3 users could fill an auditorium.  A small auditorium.  Given the fact that this population is mainly dedicated enthusiasts, what happened next is a lesson in how not to run a business.

On January 2, 2011, George Hotz posted the root keys of the PlayStation 3 on his website. Sony immediately filed a lawsuit and demanded social media sites, including YouTube to hand over IP addresses of people who visited Geohot’s social pages/videos. Paypal granted access to Sony for them to view Geohot’s PayPal account. The judge of the case has given permission to Sony to view the IP addresses of everyone who visited geohot.com (George’s website).  Two things here.  Yes, Hotz was wrong to post the keys on his website.  But Sony forgot the one law of the internet: once it’s out there, it’s out there. Better to contact George and, I don’t know, hire the kid in order to make a better product.  After all, he’s doing more for the product than their engineers at that point. 

People were outraged over the heavy handedness of Sony’s lawsuit and contributed to George’s legal defense.  Then Anonymous (that band of merry internet pranksters, God love ‘em) got into the act, pronouncing

"Your corrupt business practices are indicative of a corporate philosophy that would deny consumers the right to use products they have paid for and rightfully own, in the manner of their choosing," continues the pronouncement. "Perhaps you should alert your customers to the fact that they are apparently only renting your products? In light of this assault on both rights and free expression, Anonymous, the notoriously handsome rulers of the internet, would like to inform you that you have only been ‘renting’ your web domains. Having trodden upon Anonymous’ rights, you must now be trodden on."

And then, as they say, it was on.  It really looked like this was going to be a real fight.  Add then this article from Ars Technica this morning:

“The legal action between Sony and George Hotz has come to a close, with both sides seemingly happy with the results. Sony has Hotz agreeing not to do bad things to its hardware, and Hotz gets to be left alone and continue with his life. Neither side has admitted any liability in the matter…”

What happened?  Two things.  This was going to be a legal Battle Royale. Could you see the next five to ten years of your life being consumed by this?  I can’t.  If you’re Sony, even though you have a room full of lawyers, you have just take a massive hit publicity-wise, right when you really did not need it.  Are you willing to throw what little reputation you have left on the altar over some smart kid showing you up?  Doubtful.  Is it better that both sides take a step back, and take a breath?

Yes and no. 

The fact is, while George can now go back to his life, some of the legal questions that needed answering will not be answered.  The fact is there are lawsuits of this nature every day. The non-fight only goes to show the world that Sony will spare no expense in suing anyone over their product.  But it points to a larger problem.

I still think the worst part of this is that the copyright owners come down on relatively law abiding citizens like a ton of bricks, while the real criminals remain free to pursue their criminal enterprises. Regardless of whether you think George’s actions were right or wrong, he’s basically a regular citizen – works, goes to school, pays taxes, etc. He was there for Sony to sue, operating under his real name and with real contact information available, and not living on the proceeds of illegal activity.

On the other hand, the guys who run illegal factories turning out millions of counterfeit games, DVDs, or whatever generally go free. What is worse is that these people are known to officials who claim to be protecting copyright.  Sony is pursuing regular people like Hotz, who almost surely lost money on this whole venture, while seemingly not even attempting to pursue the acutal criminal violators who are driving around in Bentleys.

That is the real criminal act here.

Somewhere Over the Google Rainbow

Google has finally announced the winner of its1GB fiber-to-the-home network extravaganza.  The winner is Kansas City, Kansas.

Google announced in February, 2010 that it would build and operate its own fiber test network.  Over 1,000 US town applied.  There were all kinds of ways to get Google’s attention.  Google plans to start building the Kansas City network later this year, offering service to residents in the first quarter of 2012. Pricing is said to be “competitive”.

So how did Kansas City do it?  First, KC had a lot going for it in the competition.  But, if you read the story in the Kansas City Star, it speaks of “staying below the radar and keeping the team very tight”.  It talks of confidentiality agreements.  It meant being secretive and not letting anyone know about it until the very end.  Because Google wanted it that way.

Excuse my progressive side here for a moment, but basically, the government of Kansas City was as transparent about this as a brick wall.  This is one of those deals that could be seen as having been done in a back room without any input from the people.  Oh, wait, that is exactly what happened.  The fact that not even executive assistants were clued in as to what was going on should give people pause.  This is government.  These are officials elected by the people to do the people’s business.  Shouldn’t the people get to know what is going on before the announcement?  The fact that this is a great win for a great city notwithstanding, the point is that if the deal turns out to be a proverbial pig in a poke somewhere down the line, what do you do?  You were not invited to the deal making.

But we all know that Google does no evil and therefore, this should be seen as a golden ticket to the chocolate factory.  But it is not.  It is a deal between a corporation and city and county government.  There were more than enough cities out there willing to be up front and honest about what they were doing.  They didn’t win.

Apparently being open about doing business is being evil these days.