I can’t go to a conference on an Amnesty International conference on whether technology is good for human rights., but the organizes said they were accepting videos and other contributions. So, I dashed this off in a hotel room the other day.

Evgeny Morozov very likely disagrees.

5 Comments »

How many patents do you think there are in the United States? (I believe that the number that I have, which comes from Beth Noveck’s excellent Wiki Government, refers to the number of patents in effect.)

Because this is an Order of Magnitude quiz, you win if your answer is within one order of magnitude of the right answer.

The right answer is in the first comment.

Note: Winning means that you win nothing. Just to be clear.

4 Comments »

Ok, so the headline is misleading. But you might enjoy reading Charlie Nesson’s (et al.) brief [pdf] asking for a vast reduction in the $675,000 penalty Joel Tenenbaum is supposed to pay to the RIAA for downloading and sharing 30 songs. Here’s a taste:

Contrary to Plaintiffs’ assertion that Joel Tenenbaum caused them “billions of dollars” of damages in lost revenue, Pl. Opp. at 28, with respect to the thirty songs which are the subject of this action, Tenenbaum actually caused damages to the plaintiffs of, at most, $21.00. Had he purchased the thirty songs on iTunes he would have paid 99 cents apiece, of which Apple would have passed on 70 cents to the record companies.1 Assuming, contrary to fact, that the record companies have zero costs so that every cent returned to them is profit, the total return would have been $21.00.

4 Comments »

Fantastic forensic post by Bunnie Huang (via BoingBoing) on tracking down Kingston microSD crappiness. If this were published in a newspaper, it’d be called investigative journalism. But, it wouldn’t have been in a newspaper because this could only have been done by someone with Bunnie’s deep expertise.

1 Comment »

Ralph Benko proposes in an op-ed that our federal legislators amend the rules so that they can cast votes from their local offices. That would get ‘em out of Washington, that den of iniquity.

There’s undoubtedly some good that comes from allowing our Senators and Reps to hang out together. But there’s certainly some bad that comes from it, including making it easier to lobby them, and keeping them isolated from their constituents. And, as Ralph points out, if reps could vote from their local office, they’d very likely start making the voting a public act, with supporters cheering and at least having a sense that they’re being represented.

Good? Bad? Certainly interesting.

3 Comments »

Yochai Benkler headed the Berkman project that, at the request of the FCC’s Broadband Strategy folks, looked at all available data to try to figure out where the U.S. compares internationally when it comes to broadband penetration, price, and speed. Overall, the report [pdf] found that we’re in the middle of the pack. The relevant factor seems to be: Countries with competitive markets for broadband do better.

I interviewed him last week and have just posted it. (There are more interviews at Broadband Strategy Week.)

7 Comments »

Public Knowledge is proposing copyright reform for the connected age. I’m heading for a plane (Oklahoma Research Symposium) so I’ve only had time to skim it, but I at least like the areas it’s covering — more fair use, lower penalties, allowing legal circumvention of copyright protections, etc. Plus, I’m a fan of Public Knowledge, Gig Sohn, and many others connected to this project.

6 Comments »

I’m a little late getting to this because the first time I saw it, I thought Ethan was writing about geocaching, a topic I knew little about because I, well, didn’t care. But Ethan is after bigger game, even while doing a pretty spectacular job of showing geocache’s appeal.

Spoiler:

’m interested in building structures that facilitate serendipity, because I worry that I, you and everyone else spends too much time walking familiar paths and too little time wandering in the wilderness.

Be the first to comment »

Bloomberg reports that the FCC is considering requiring AT&T and Verizon to lease their physical lines to other companies that want to provide access to the Internet.

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. would be forced to lease fast Internet lines to rivals providing Web services to small businesses under a proposal being weighed by the Federal Communications Commission.

The idea, proposed to the FCC by computer-services company Cbeyond Inc., has support from the Small Business Administration, which said it could spur job creation. The plan would add to competition for business clients, who are also being courted by cable providers led by Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

Letting competitors lease lines into businesses may boost Internet adoption, help small businesses grow and aid job creation, said Colin Crowell, an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “That is certainly something that we’ll look very closely at, and has a lot of appeal as part of a national strategy,” said Crowell. The change may be proposed as part of the FCC’s national plan for increasing the use of high-speed Internet, or broadband, that is to be delivered to Congress in March, Crowell said.

This is (to me) unexpected good news. Assume that we want competition in the Internet access market; the Berkman study for the FCC [pdf] provides evidence that competition is the single most important factor in providing low cost, high speed coverage. But, it’s impractical to think that each competitor is going to get all the permissions and spend all the money required to string (or bury) a new connective fiber. Therefore, requiring those who have strung wires (frequently with generous incentives and handouts from taxpayers) to act as wholesalers to other Internet providers seems like the most pragmatic way to make the market competitive. (I don’t know who Cbeyond is or what their role in this is.)

I did not think the Broadband Strategy Initiative might propose something so transformative of the market. I am encouraged. (BTW, there are interviews with FCC folks working on the Broadband strategy up at Broadband Strategy Week. A new one with Yochai Benkler, leader of the Berkman study, will go up early next week.)

2 Comments »

Apparently 32 million passwords were exposed last month in a breach of RockYou, a social media app. The most common were:

1. 123456

2. 12345

3. 123456789

4. Password

5. iloveyou

6. princess

7. rockyou

8. 1234567

9. 12345678

10. abc123

Phew! I can relax! My password (“1111″) isn’t in the top ten!

Here are the ten most secure passwords. Feel free to pick whichever you want:

10. passw0rd
9. assword
8. pssword
7. secretpassword
6. psswrd
5. ass_sword
4. passgas
3. drowssap
2. whatismypassword?
1. IfYouTypeThisYouAreAMonkey

Each of these is 100% guaranteed to be secure.

10 Comments »