Digital locks picking

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This week on Search Engine, Jesse Brown interviewed Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran, who believes that the Canadian Copyright Bill C11 (now in its 3rd reading) is a step in the right direction. [1] Jesse tried to explain that one of the big points of contention about this bill is that it would make it illegal to break a digital, lock even for lawful purposes.

I’m no lawyer, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but here’s where I think I found this in the bill:

• Section 41.1 says that it would be illegal to break a digital lock. [2]
• Section 29.22 says that it would be legal to make copies of the work you own for your own use, provided that doing so doesn’t require to break a digital lock.  [3]

So there you have it.  One one hand, the bill gives reasonable bounds on what is legal or illegal copying based on intent: personal use is legal, distribution to others isn’t.  But then, it allows media corporations to collapse this distinction through the use of digital locks: no matter what the intent, you can not break a digital lock.

It means that (according to sec. 29.22) if I buy a CD, I can copy it to my computer or my phone, but I can’t give the files to my friends.  But (according to sec. 41.1), if I buy an audiobook encrypted with DRM that will only play on iTunes (as I unfortunately did once), I can’t remove the DRM to listen to it on my phone.  Same intent, different legal consequence.

Jesse tried to explain that distinction to his guest.  As it is often the case with computer-related technologies, they used a “real-world” analogy (a painting) to help their discussion.  I’m not sure how effective that particular analogy was, but I think I might have another one to offer:

My front door has a lock on it.  It is illegal for others to break and enter into my apartment without my consent, but it is not illegal to pick locks (as a hobby for example).  If I lose my keys, it would be legal for me to pick the lock of my own door (if I have the skills).  In fact:

“In Canada, possession of lock picking tools, with the exception of key duplication tools, is legal. Lock pick tools fit in the same category as crowbars or hammers, meaning they are legal to possess and use unless they are used to commit a crime or if it is shown there was “intention to commit a crime” in which case “Possession of tools with the intention of committing a crime” applies [...] Some provinces require a license to carry lockpicks.  [4]

It should be the same with digital locks.  The legality of breaking them should be based on intent: personal use versus distribution.  Notice that this is completely separate from the issue of whether file sharing should be legal or not.  All we’re talking about here is the legality of picking locks, not the legality of sharing files.

There is one huge difference between a door lock and a digital lock however:  A door lock is meant to keep others out, unless I invite them in.  I can open my door for them, even lend them a copy of my keys.  A digital lock, on the other hand,  is meant to keep others out–always–since “inviting them in” (distribution) is illegal.  So the technical problem is this: how can I have a key that allows me to copy my own audiobooks to any of my devices, but not to my friends’ devices?  It’s like asking: could we design a door that only lets me in and no-one else, whether I want them in or not?

Maybe I’m not smart enough to figure that one out, but so far, it seems that no one else has either.  That’s why we’re not given the keys to our own digital locks: because who knows what we might do with them.  Instead, the key is given to particular media players (yes, the box has the key) in the hope that we won’t be able to find it.  But as Cory Doctorow explained in 2007, that scheme is intrinsically flawed.  Not only that, but it kind of blows back up in the face of the those who put the lock there: If I can’t listen to the audiobooks I legally buy on the devices I own because of digital locks, I might as well just torrent an illegal copy that I’ll be able to use on any device. [5]

And so, now we have locks that can be picked by those with enough know-how, but we legislate against picking them (regardless of intent).  The logical conclusion, of course, is that digital locks are the wrong tool for the job, and maybe no other systematic modes of control exist. It is an interesting technological puzzle to solve, but the law, as it is currently being proposed, is flawed: the legality of picking locks–digital or not–should be based on intent so that lawful use should be permitted.

Links:

1. Search Engine, Digitally Locked,
   <http://searchengine.tvo.org/blog/search-engine-blog/audio-podcast-129-digitally-locked>
2. Parliament of Canada, Bill C-11 Section 41,
   <http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=5144516&File=72#16>
3. Parliament of Canada, Bill C-11 Section 29.22,
   <http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=5144516&File=48#8>
4. Wikipedia, Lock Picking,
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_picking#Canada>
5. Cory Doctorow, Pushing the impossible,
   <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/04/lightspeed>
6. Brent Matthew Lillard, Lock Picking,
   <https://secure.flickr.com/photos/brentmatthewlillard/4538332759> under CC By-Nc-Sa license.

Wiki Notes on Free Software

Almost four years ago wrote a series of blog posts about free software.  About a week ago, I found myself returning to them with the urge to update them with some of the latest development.  Instead of editing the posts directly, I decided to combine them all into one wiki page that I’ll be able to keep current more easily as I make more connections regarding this huge and important topic.

The topics are:

• What is free software?
• Why is it important (specially to education)?
• How to go about switching to free software?

I’ve also installed a basic comment plugin to the wiki so feel free to comment there (instead of here).

Links:

• Free Software (wiki)
  <http://ptruchon.pagekite.me/wiki/doku.php?id=freesoftware>
• Original blog post
  <https://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/free-software-part-1-the-philosophy/>

Can iBooks do … ?

Since the iBooks app [1] came out a few days ago, it’s been hard not to read about it. One thing is for sure, there’s a lot of varied opinions about it, particularly, about the impact (or lack-there-of) that it could have on education if used to its full potential. Personally, I didn’t get a chance to see it first hand until yesterday when one of my colleagues showed me a physics textbook she had bought, and a book she started writing to experiment with it. I have to admit, I thought it was pretty cool. The idea that students could finally ditch bulky textbooks and carry gigabytes of information with them in their tablet, or that teachers could customize and make media rich textbooks for their students, is very exciting. In some geeky way, at least for me, it taps into the utopian ideals of the treky universe: “Computer, what is …?” Now, I know that in the end, books are just books; they don’t (in themselves) revolutionize education (at least, that’s my opinion). I have a few questions, though, about the iBooks app that I think are important (for education).

Looking at the book my colleague is writing, the first string of questions that popped to my mind was : can this be exported as a website? Can students read this on their laptop or their phone? Can I read it on my Android tablet? Or is this just for iPads. In other words : is the format platform agnostic or does it bind us (or worse: our students) into a “vendor lock-in” [2] relationship with Apple? There are different degrees to this question.

At one extreme, programs like Apple’s iWork office suite (Keynote, Pages, etc), produce files that are completely incompatible with other office suites. Documents can be exported as PDFs or other more open file formats, but at the cost of loss of functionality or formatting. In the middle, programs like Apple’s iWeb produce work files that can only be edited with iWeb, but the “publishable” output they produce can be viewed by any web browser on any computer or mobile device. Finally, at the other end of the spectrum are Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) like LibreOffice [3] or NeoOffice [4], which use open file formats [5] that any program (no matter the operating system) can fully support.

In the past, I have argued that as educational institutions, we have an ethical responsibility to use the latter kind of software [6] with our students. For computers, this isn’t so hard anymore since there’s a lot of very good (and arguably better) FOSS out there. For tablet, though, the selection is a little slimmer, which is why I think we should at least regect apps that use closed file formats in favour of those that use open file formats that are platform agnostic. My question about the iBooks app is: where does it fall on this continuum?

I am not a software developer, so please correct me if I’m wrong here, but it seems that something like the iBooks app could easily produce a “book” that any web browser (or modern e-Book app) could read without loss of formatting. Maybe it already does (I don’t know). But I guess to me, the whole point of producing a book is that anyone can read it, no matter what kind of device they use.

The second string of questions that later came up in my mind was: Could iBooks be used by students to produce work collaboratively? At the most basic level, could students easily share their files with each other (like an office document for example)? But to take it one step further, what would it take for a group of students to work on the same project at the same time a la Wikipedia or Google Doc? How difficult would it be to have a wiki-like editor that would allow groups of people to write a book collectively?

But maybe that’s not what iBooks is about in the first place. Maybe it’s about the publishing industry clumbsily trying to survive in the new landscape of digital media. Or maybe, it’s another step closer to the big brother state [7]. Maybe, it’s not about openness and education.

Links

1. Apple, iBooks,
   <http://www.apple.com/ipad/built-in-apps/ibooks.html>
2. Wikipedia: Vendor Lock-in,
   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in>
3. LibreOffice,
   <http://www.libreoffice.org>
4. NeoOffice,
   <http://www.neooffice.org>
5. Wikipedia: Open File Format,
   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format>
6. Patrick Truchon, Free Software (Part 2: In schools),
   <http://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/free-software-part-2-in-schools>
7. Copyfight, Stallman on E-book Evils and Privacy,
   <http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/01/19/stallman_on_ebook_evils_privacy.php>

Censored

To oppose SOPA and PIPA, today’s xkcd cartoon is very serious.  It can be found at   http://xkcd.com/1005   but for some reason, https://xkcd.com/1005   (the encrypted version) doesn’t work for this cartoon only.  Part of the message?  Also, using the instructions found on  http://explainxkcd.com  , I opened the picture in GIMP, and increased the intensity and the contrast of the picture to their maximum values to find this:

A 30-day trial of identi.ca

Here’s a chain of event that recently got me thinking (and worrying) about Twitter:

Last month, Twitter suspended some mobile apps for policy violation. [1] Ok, so it was annoying.  I had to go and download the official Twitter app for my phone, and move on…

Last week, Twitter told developers to stop building clients. The rational, apparently, is that “consumers continue to be confused by the different ways that a fractured landscape of third-party Twitter clients display tweets and let users interact with core Twitter functions” [2] Ok, now I’m getting a bit more annoyed.  First of all, I’m not a “consumer”, I’m a contributor to a community of like-minded (and not so like-minded) people.  Second of all, as a teacher, I really hate the one-size-fit-all philosophy.

A few days ago, Twitter took away @girlgeeks (Moran Simpson’s a two-year-old twitter name with thousands of followers) to give it to “an organization called @GIRLGEEKS [who] had registered trademark for the name and wanted the @girlgeeks account for themselves.” [3] Although the matter has apparently been resolved, here are screenshots of the cached and live google search results for “girlgeeks”:

The current page:

Here, I’m just speechless.

I understand that Twitter is a business and it’s not breaking any law by doing all of this.  Like most businesses, it’s in it for the money.  I get that.  For society, however, social networks are increasingly being used as instruments of social change and mobilization.  At the very least, they are spaces where complete strangers can learn from one another.  Case in point, here’s a tweet that just came up from an educator I’ve never met but have been following for over a year [4]:

The essence here is that social networking tools are too important to be controlled by profit-driven entities and should be viewed as public goods.  The good news is that there are alternatives.

• Instead of twitter, there’s identi.ca
• Instead of facebook, there’s diaspora

Both of these were designed to us in power of our social spaces.  Sure, they feel a bit different, but they’re as functional as the closed systems they try to replace.  Only one essential part is missing: YOU!

To help others make the transition from Twitter to identi.ca, here’s what you can do:  Sign up to identi.ca and only post there.  At the moment, identi.ca can’t import tweets from those you follow on Twitter into identi.ca so you’ll have to continue reading your Twitter feed in addition to your identi.ca feed.  However, you can set up identi.ca so that all tweets written from identi.ca are also sent your Twitter feed.  By only posting to identi.ca, you will slowly make it easier for your communities to migrate to this freer space.

This weekend, I committed myself to trying this for at least a month and I’d really like you join me.  In fact, I’ll send a diaspora invite to the first 8 people who want to give identi.ca and diaspora a try.  Just send me your email address on identi.ca at @ptruchon

Links:

1. Twitter Suspends UberTwitter and twidroyd for Policy Violations, Now What?
   <http://topicfire.com/share/Twitter-Suspends-UberTwitter-and-twidroyd-for-Policy-Violations-Now-What-16885378.html>
2. Twitter Tells Developers to Stop Building Twitter Clients,
   <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_tells_developers_to_stop_building_twitter.php>
3. So you think you own your twitter name ?
   <http://ac31004.blogspot.com/2011/03/so-you-think-you-own-your-twitter-name.html>
4. @brasst Tweet <http://twitter.com/#!/brasst/status/47070057217523712>

Quebec Considering Free Software

Source [1]

This morning, one of @glynmoody ‘s tweets [2] pointed me to an article in The Gazette claiming that:

The province [of Quebec]‘s public sector will favour free computer software, like the Linux operating system and the OpenOffice suite of applications, over commercial software, like Microsoft Corp.’s Windows and Office applications. [3]

This opening paragraph was very exciting news, since two years ago the Quebec government was being sued for not even considering free software. [4] Upon further reading, however,  it seems that “favouring free software” was a little bit of an exaggeration and “considering free software” might have been more appropriate.   But hey, I guess that’s a good first step.  After all they even came up with three criteria for deciding whether or not they should switch over:

• The free software must meet their needs
• It must be a quality product
• It most be cost favourable

At first glance, these seem like reasonable criteria.  They realize, for example, that free software takes resources to maintain and presumably someone will do the math to see how much it costs.  I’m not too worried about the quality because I know there’s a lot of really good, free software out there.  What I worry about, however, is the first criterion.

In my personal computing history, I’ve gone from using Microsoft Windows and Office, to using Mac OS X (with Microsoft Office), to using GNU/Linux with OpenOffice.  Each transition was not only difficult because the systems were different, but because files I had created with one system didn’t open properly with the next.  A big problem that doesn’t seem to be on the government’s radar is file interoperability. [5] The fact is that as soon as office documents contain a little bit of graphics or fancy stuff, they don’t open well in a different office program.  If all programs (free or proprietary) used OpenDocument formats [6] this problem wouldn’t exist.  Software companies like Microsoft or Apple, however, have a vested interest in keeping this gap in interoperability as wide as possible to create vendor lock-in situations [7].

So the first criteria worries me the most because no-one really needs Microsoft products, unless they already use them.  This challenge must be recognized by any organization or individual wishing to switch to free software.  I am not saying that they shouldn’t do it.  I really hope they do, and that more organizations follow their lead (especially schools [8]), but I’m worried they won’t if they don’t prepare themselves properly.

Links

1. Picture licensed under CC By-Nc-Sa by ryyo, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryyo/41609610>
2. @glynmoody, <http://twitter.com/glynmoody/status/13169028709220352>
3. The Gazette, Public Sector Eyes Free Software, <http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Public+sector+eyes+free+software/3950528/story.html>
4. Patrick Truchon, <http://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/proprietary-software-issue-in-government>
5. Wikipedia, Interoperability, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperability>
6. Wikipedia, OpenDocument, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument>
7. Wikipedia, Vendor Lock-in, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in#Lock-in_for_electronics_and_computers>
8. Patrick Truchon, Free Software in Schools, <http://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/free-software-part-2-in-schools>

Diaspora

A few weeks ago [1], I read an article about the importance of decentralizing the social web so that each of us can have control over our online identities.  In his talk, Eben Moglen [2] outlined how easy it would be to create cheap mini-servers (no bigger than cell phones) that could accomplish this task.  According to him, the hardware already exists and all that’s needed is the software making it all work.

Soon after Moglen shared his vision, a brilliant group of university students decided to start the Diaspora Project [3] to create that software.  They managed to raise enough money to devote themselves to this project full time for the entire summer vacation.  Their promise: a first iteration of Diaspora released under the GPL by September 2010.

1. Patrick Truchon, Re-Decentralizing the Internet, <http://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/re-decentralizing-the-internet>
2. Eben Moglen, Freedom in the Cloud, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEMv0S8AcA>
3. Diaspora, Kickstarter Pitch, <http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/04/27/kickstarter-pitch.html>

PlayOgg

Quirks & Quarks [1] is a Canadian weekly science news program heard over CBC Radio One.  Since 1975, it has been hosted by David Suzuki (1975-79), Jay Ingram (1979-91) and Bob McDonald (1992-now).  [2]

I’ve been a big fan of Quirks since the end of the 90′s.  Back then, the Internet was slow so I would actually tune in to Radio One at precisely the right time of the week to spend an hour listening to Bob’s fascinating interviews.  Nowadays, his program is part of my RSS news reader, and I download the interviews that might interest me to my Android phone.  Times have changed, but the program is still as good as it used to be.

About eight years ago, I noticed something new on Quirks web site: a link called “what is ogg“.  Following it, I learned that the new audio format offered by Quirks was:

“Ogg Vorbis, a new audio compression format [that] is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.” [3]

That simple link, offering me to download an ogg file instead of an mp3, lead me to learn more about open formats [4] and the whole issue of patents in computing.

Unfortunately, since September of 2009, Quirks has dropped the ogg format.  Because I filter their website through my RSS reader, I only noticed that last week.  But when I asked them about it (on April 7), [5] they promptly replied:

“We stopped due to lack of use and lack of demand. Only a handful of people were using them – which did not justify the extra work involved.

Hope you will continue to listen to the program. Thanks for writing.”

I replied to them again on that day to explain the educational value that offering such a format provides, but I’m still waiting for an answer.

Here’s a quick break down of the audio formats that Quirks has offered over the years:

• Feb 10, 1996: Quirks offers program in Real Audio (Online “radio”!)
• Sept 9, 2000: Quirks adds mp3 option (a big plus)
• Sept 7, 2002: Quirks adds ogg option (very impressive)
• May 6, 2006: Quirks removes Real Audio (not a big loss)
• Sept 26, 2009: Quirks removes ogg (disappointing)
• Oct 24, 2009: Quirks adds flash (not a big gain)

If, like me, you think that our national radio should lead by example and use Open Formats, write them a little note.

Links:

1. Quirks and Quarks, <http://www.cbc.ca/quirks>
2. Wikipedia: Quirks and Quarks, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirks_&_Quarks>
3. Vorbis.com: FAQ, <http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#what>
4. Wikipedia: Open Format, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format>
5. Quirks and Quarks: Contact, <http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/contact.html>

Digital Citizenship

First, Inform yourself:

Then, Spread the word [1]

Finally: Act [2]

–Update– And when it fails:  Mobilize [3] and  Rebel [4]

Links

1. Stef, Debillitated, <http://debillitated.heroku.com/>
2. Glyn Moody, <http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/04/yes-another-letter-to-my-mp.html>
3. Twitter, #debill, <http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23debill>
4. Whatdebill, <http://whatdebill.org/>

Re-Decentralizing the Internet.

I read an interesting article on “The H Open” [1] this morning about how social networks (and web 2.0 in general) could be designed to give us back the freedom to control some of the tracks we leave online.

The Big Deal:

To help explain what the problem is, let’s imagine the Internet as it was originally designed: it allowed computers and networks with no hierarchical relationships to one another to connect to each other in a peer-to-peer way.  Each machine was both a client and a server, and web logs of who was doing what were not kept in a centralized location.  Now comes the idea of having huge servers manage many clients.  Suddenly, these web logs can be organized to divulge what people are doing, and there’s nothing individuals can really do about it.  The problem with web 2.0 in general (think Google Doc, Facebook, whatever) is that when our data (and what we’re doing with it) is stored on a central server, we don’t control who has access to that information.

It may seem like a necessary evil, after all, how could we have all this convenience without big servers to manage it all?  Glyn Moody argues that “with the exception of search, which is a service that nobody knows how to decentralize efficiently, most of these services do not actually rely upon a hierarchical model” [1] In fact, he thinks that we could decentralize most web 2.0 services, disaggregate the logs, and provide people with the same features by using existing technologies that would be in the hand of individuals.

The key lies in each of us owning an ultra-small (and cheap) server to host our own personal data (and our own activity log).  This server could be used for a multitudes of things like:

• Holding our social networking data (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
• Keeping and encrypting our emails
• Providing us with encrypted proxies to “anonymize” our web surfing (the way TOR does [2])

But Who Cares?

The catch?  Well, there doesn’t seem to be one.  Of course, we’d need some people to write the code, but with all the amazing free and open source projects out there, I don’t think that would be a big problem.  In fact, the OneSocialWeb project [3] seems to be taking steps in that direction, but I haven’t looked into it in much details yet.  In my opinion, the biggest road block is the lack of public awareness.  Working in a one-to-one laptop school, I can tell you that younger people don’t care much about digital privacy.  But since it’s hard to blame a generation who has grown up using Facebook, it’s up to teachers to be aware of these issues and reflect these principles in their practice.  A while ago I wrote a short post pointing to things teachers can do to help promote digital freedom in schools. [4]

Update: The Diaspora Project [5] is now working on this.  We should have a solution by the end of the summer!

Links

1. The H Open, Interview: Eben Moglen – Freedom vs. The Cloud Log, <http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Eben-Moglen-Freedom-vs-the-Cloud-Log-955421.html>
2. Tor: Anonymity online, <http://www.torproject.org/>
3. OneSocialWeb, <http://onesocialweb.org/>
4. Patrick Truchon, Just Because it Works, <http://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/just-because-it-works>
5. Patrick Truchon, Diaspora, <http://ptruchon.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/diaspora>