Sleepycatz

Hunters - Gatherers

Johannes Ullrich over at SANS, reminded me of an increasing threat to the telecommunications and power infrastructure: copper and fiber theft. Odd as it seems, we have arrived at a point where people are robbing both construction sites and critical infrastructure of copper in order make a few bucks. Over the past few months several people have been hurt or killed while trying to harvest copper wire from live electrical lines. There is, of course, some kind of sad darwinian justice to these injuries, but the overall success of these thieves seems to be quite high.

Recent copper thefts have caused major phone, Internet, and video outages for Time Warner, AT&T, Verizion, and other carriers. It has gotten so bad, that at the beginning of this month AT&T and Time Warner have started offering rewards for information regarding the thefts, and Pennsylvania and other states are working to pass new metallic theft laws.

Copper prices have been at their highest levels for the past couple of years and scrap copper has been hanging around $3.40/lbs. The high prices are primarily due to the construction boom in the US, and infrastructure modernization in China and throughout Asia. Yes, this is the global trading village where one can pillage copper phone lines from one country, re-mold it to new wire, and sell it to another.

There is something both frightening and sad about people ripping apart their own infrastructure for a few dollars a pound. This problem seems much more prevalent then one would imagine and I wonder if it is a sign of the times, or simple a new avenue of common thievery.

New Domain

Every few years I go through old domain names and get rid of some. When you have been working on the Internet for a number of years, you tend to collect domain names like old clothes. At one point, I had some 50+ domains, but, as I am not a squatter, I let them go over time. I have discovered that it takes about a year to clean out a domain; so I have begun with auroraliberty.com. The domain name and previous links will be redirected to this domain. Thanks

Blessed are the hateful

As I was poking about the nutty side of the blogosphere today , I came across the following invocation:

Father God,

In our hearts we believe that you will hear our prayers and will put all these curses upon our enemies and on those who hate us, who persecute us. We will keep not silence, for the mouths of the wicked and the mouths of deceit are opened against us; they have spoken against us with lying TONGUES. They have compassed us about also with words of hatred, mockery, and deciept; and have fought against all that is Holy without a cause. In return for our agape love they are my adversaries, but we now resort to prayer. They have rewarded and laid upon us evil and slander for good, and hatred for love. Set a wicked man over them as judge, and let a malisious accuser stand at their right hand come Judgment Day.

When Liberal talk show host Randi Rhodes and her followers; when the wicked and mockers at Democratic Underground are judged, let them be condemned, and let their prayers for leniency be turned into sins. Let their days be few; and let others take their offices and charge. Let their children be parentless and their souses become widowed. Let their children be continual vagabonds as was Cain and beg; let them seek their bread and be driven far from their ruined homes.

IN JESUS NAME, I BIND UP EVERY DEMON COMING ACROSS THE COMPUTER LINES, AND I RETURN THEM AND ANY CURSES.

In Your Name, Amen.

As an example of an imprecatory prayer, or curse, it’s pretty mediocre, but the mere idea of such a prayer would strike many as anti-christian. We can easily imagine that muslim fundamentalists pray for similar retributions� against American citizens. The barbarity of religion begins when hate turns to prayer and then prayer turns to action. It seems that we are two-thirds there.

The Wall Lengthens

A few days ago, I wrote about how AT&T censored anti-administration lyrics from Pearl Jam’s webcast. The Chicago Sun Times is now reporting that this was not the first instance of AT&T’s squelching of music questioning the Bush administration:

AT&T’s Blue Room Webcast also had silenced comments during two performances at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee last June, cutting remarks by the John Butler Trio bemoaning the lack of federal response to Hurricane Katrina and comments about Bush and the war in Iraq by singer Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

“The sound did not cut out at any other time — only when someone was talking about George Bush or the government in a negative way…” AT&T did confirm that other, unspecified political comments have been cut from its Webcasts.

The Daily Swarm is also collecting anecdotes and evidence of further AT&T censorship. A number of the comments suggest that the practice is even wider spread then first thought.

As Jon Stokes pointed out, AT&T’s argument against Net Neutrality legislation has been simply “trust us.” AT&T’s actions have shown, many many times, that they cannot be trusted. It should concern all of us that AT&T — with the encouragement of the FCC — continues its unregulated, monopolistic, expansion. They have shown that they are more then willing to censor political content. Whether the censorship is done for either business or ideological reasons is still unclear, but AT&T has greatly benefited from the administration’s FCC board members. As I said previously, AT&T has completed most of the wall to censor content on the Internet, it is now simply beginning to filter at the gates now.

Fashion Police

At a time when people are beginning to realize the massive abuse and problems caused by the current intellectual property laws, in steps congress to expand and further confuse the system. Just prior to his summer vacation, Sen. Schumer (NY) introduced the Design Piracy Prohibition Act of 2007. Like pretty much every bill introduced in congress for the last 10 years, the name of the act has almost nothing to do with its function, and the small amount of media coverage of this bill has been erroneous at best. Of course, getting the media to intelligently cover copyright, or Internet issues for that matter, is like teaching  cats to play chess: they’ll knock around the pieces to amuse themselves, but will never understand the game.

Though billed as a piracy protection act, the bill goes far beyond that. Fashion designers are currently protected from knockoffs and piracy through trademark enforcement of their brands. One cannot, for instance, sell a leather handbag labeled as Coach if it is not made by Coach. Trademark enforcement is the bread and butter of litigation in the fashion world. Additionally, a designer may copyright a fabric pattern design under the existing classifications. This requires anyone wishing to use the pattern in their clothes to obtain a license from the copyright holder.

Schumer’s bill adds fashion design to existing copyright laws as an area of protection. This is a bureaucratic nightmare and a litigious boondoggle in the making. The proposed law defines the following as items protected by copyright:

A ‘fashion design’ is the appearance as a whole of an article of apparel, including its ornamentation.

The term ‘design’ includes fashion design, except to the extent expressly limited to the design of a vessel.

The term ‘apparel’ means:

an article of men’s, women’s, or children’s clothing, including undergarments, outerwear, gloves, footwear, and headgear; handbags, purses, and tote bags; belts; and eyeglass frames.’.

If this seems a bit ambiguous, you’re right. There is nothing denoting what constitutes an original design or the extent to which it is protected. For instance, if a designer attempts to copyright a pair of green pants with red pockets can they sue another designer who sells a pair of blue pants with red pockets? For that matter, does simply having a different colored pocket allow an item to protection, or has the idea been in circulation long enough it is public domain? Finally, how may ways are there to design a pair of pants, or a handbag, or a dress, or eyeglasses which does not derive from previous works? Unfortunately, questions like these an many many other will have to be answered through lengthy, complicated, litigation if the bill becomes law.

Finally, the fashion industry has survived and even thrived with a lack of intellectual property controls until now. As Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman pointed out last year in their paper “The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design,” the lack of intellectual property protection has actually forced the fashion industry to be more innovative and competitive then those industries with strong protections.

In recent years copyright law has become a cesspool of highhanded litigation and threats. The protection of intellectual property is suppose to allow for fair compensation to creators in order to encourage innovation. However, the opposite is becoming the norm. Innovation is being stifled by copyright litigation and confusion. To add, as Sen. Schumer wishes, fashion design to this already deepening pool is simply to add further litigation, and stifle competition and innovation. This bill will not give additional protection to designers from piracy, but simply add costs and create havoc in a marketplace is actually working quite well.

The More You Know

Carol, my intrepid wife, stenciled the above image on the front of our coffeehouse last week in protest of the Protect America Act of 2007. Of course the more we actually learn about the act the worse it seems. It has now become apparent that expiration date of the act is not the six months, reported in the major media, but eighteen months — allowing Mr. Bush to exert monarchical powers throughout the rest of his term. Susan Landau has pointed out that

To avoid wiretapping every communication, NSA will need to build massive automatic surveillance capabilities into telephone switches. Here things get tricky: Once such infrastructure is in place, others could use it to intercept communications.

She is absolutely correct to suggest that these systems, once in place, are ripe for exploitation by third parties. It should also be noted that to build these systems will take great deal of time and effort, and until they are in place it should be assumed that the NSA is simply capturing all phone data it must on a switch related to an investigation it’s performing. Additionally, once the infrastructure is in place to perform this type of automatic monitoring the chances that it will be misused are great and the chances that it will be dismantled are nil.

The Wall

Last weekend during the Lollapalooza webcast AT&T decided that some improvisation by Pearl Jam was just too questionable to be sent out over the Internets. AT&T decided that when Eddie Vedder sang out, to tune of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, “George Bush, leave this world alone;” “George Bush, find yourself another home.” it would offend some listeners and simply cut the audio.

To anyone who is familiar with AT&T, or with the debates on Net Neutrality, the only surprise should be that AT&T choose this moment and this event to exercise its authority. AT&T has been notorious in aiding the government in it’s wiretapping efforts and has received unparalleled support from the FCC to create a content carrier monopoly. In fact, one is hard pressed to think of a major FCC decision in the past five years which was not in AT&T’s favor. I am not suggesting that there is overt collusion between the two parties; simply, that AT&T knows which side it’s better off supporting in order to expand its business and eliminate competition.

AT&T’s decision to censor Vedder was probably a mistake, at this time. The result of a content manager overly eager to begin his new job as Internet supervisor. To their credit, Pearl Jam issued a strongly worded press release condemning AT&T and calling for greater support for Network Neutrality legislation and greater competition. Of course, the irony that AT&T choose to censor improvised lyrics to The Wall should not be lost on any of us. The album’s themes are ripe with overtones of fascism and repression. As Gerald Scarfe, the great illustrator, said of the album: “In the shadow of the wall, flowers turn into barbed wire; men turn into monsters.”

Make no mistake, AT&T will continue to use their facilities to control content in order to censor any type of speech which could be seen as detrimental to their business aspirations. For them, it is not a political issue, or a free speech issue but simply one of business growth and market control. For those of us who see the Internet as the new hope of free speech AT&T’s actions should strike terror into our hearts. At this time they have nearly every right to control and monitor any content delivered on their network; there is no law preventing them from simply discarding any traffic which delivers content critical of them, or the government whose support they so need. A wall of censorship has already been erected by the lack of action by our government — we are only awaiting the closure of the gates. It is time we demanded that the wall be torn down.