The Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947 assault rifle, better known as the AK-47, is simple, inexpensive to manufacture and easy to maintain. It can be used in arctic conditions, dragged through mud, sand and dust and still fire without jamming. A fusion of best designs adapted to mass manufacturing and close combat, the Soviet Union exported massive numbers of these weapons - at cost or even free of charge - to arm revolutionary forces around the world struggling to liberate their nations. The image of the AK-47 is featured on the flag of Mozambique and the coat of arms of Zimbabwe and East Timor.
The XO-1 is a small laptop manufactured by Quanta and distributed to schools - mostly in developing countries - by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) association. The XO-1 is designed to be inexpensive, energy efficient and easy to maintain. A new display technology makes the XO-1 screen readable in direct sunlight and does away the toxic mercury backlight required by today's laptops. The XO-1 is ruggedly designed for use in hot, humid and dusty environments which would severely damage an ordinary laptop. OLPC with assistance from governments and schools distributes these machines "To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves."
Read the full article on Google Documents.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Way We Live Now
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, eBay seller Troy Augusto is being sued by Universal Music Group (UMG) for reselling promotional CDs which the music company gave away to create advertising "buzz". The CDs are labeled "Promotional Use Only, Not for Resale", but according to the "first sale" doctrine in copyright law, once a copyright holder sells or gives away a CD, the recipient can resell it without further permission.
At first the lawsuit seems to be a basic copyright question that could be applied to offline stores or even books. But second-hand music stores have resold promotional CDs for years without being sued. Troy Augusto was targeted because he set up his shop online. When the recording industry goes after it's own customers we are sometimes shocked into focusing on the drama and miss the ethical issues, but in this case the target is a business following widely-accepted business practice. Reselling of music copies - promotional or otherwise - does not directly profit recording companies so this case reminds us that copyright policies should also protect stakeholders other than authors and publishers.
But this case introduces a much broader issue of technology ethics: to what degree can entities that generate culture also generate law? Are shrink-wrap and click-through "end-user license agreements" (EULAs) on software and services legally binding contracts? Does writing "not for resale" on a CD change a gift into a loan? The current trend is for judges and lawmakers to support industry practices, but if courts enforce any rules publishers invent, then the publishers are writing the law and the courts are simply instruments of enforcement. Recently deployed "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) technologies go a step further and actually enforce these "laws" in ways that a typical user will not know how to circumvent, even if they have a legal right to do so. The example of the "not for resale" sticker on a few free CDs may seem trivial, but the potential to embed "rights management" rules into physical goods, electronic transactions and documents, and project them everywhere in both the physical and digital worlds raises serious questions about how power should be shared in society.
There are alternatives to a culture dominated by control-obsessed organizations which write draconian laws in their own interests. Governments could agree to a more limited (and arguably more traditional) interpretation of copyright, trademark and patent law instead of the fuzzy and ever expanding extensions to these laws now called "intellectual property". The original US copyright law, intended to encourage publication in the public interest, limited copyright to 14 years plus one optional 14 year renewal. Patent law, intended to encourage the development of new industrial applications of technology, could be interpreted to require both a more substantial physical component and more originality than patents which are primarily about software algorithms, business practices, or genes found in nature. Trademarks protect the consumer from deceptive labeling, so they should and do operate differently from copyright or patents.
Instead of lobbying for changes in international law which may take a very long time, businesses might adopt commons-based production models such as open-source software, perhaps using the power to create their own laws to establish a "free trade area" where culture can be produced and traded without excessive barriers. In the virtual economy of Second Life, for example, users are allowed to sell content which cannot be copied or which cannot be resold, but not content which can be neither copied nor resold. Such cultural commons initiated by businesses and grassroots movements are growing, but governments may be more naturally inclined to respond to the interests of the "squeaky wheels": entrenched interests clamoring for more aggressive protection of their self-written laws. A two-pronged approach may be necessary: developing open markets with flexibility and rules that protect all stakeholders while steering traditional legal systems in a direction that protects this type of innovation.
At first the lawsuit seems to be a basic copyright question that could be applied to offline stores or even books. But second-hand music stores have resold promotional CDs for years without being sued. Troy Augusto was targeted because he set up his shop online. When the recording industry goes after it's own customers we are sometimes shocked into focusing on the drama and miss the ethical issues, but in this case the target is a business following widely-accepted business practice. Reselling of music copies - promotional or otherwise - does not directly profit recording companies so this case reminds us that copyright policies should also protect stakeholders other than authors and publishers.
But this case introduces a much broader issue of technology ethics: to what degree can entities that generate culture also generate law? Are shrink-wrap and click-through "end-user license agreements" (EULAs) on software and services legally binding contracts? Does writing "not for resale" on a CD change a gift into a loan? The current trend is for judges and lawmakers to support industry practices, but if courts enforce any rules publishers invent, then the publishers are writing the law and the courts are simply instruments of enforcement. Recently deployed "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) technologies go a step further and actually enforce these "laws" in ways that a typical user will not know how to circumvent, even if they have a legal right to do so. The example of the "not for resale" sticker on a few free CDs may seem trivial, but the potential to embed "rights management" rules into physical goods, electronic transactions and documents, and project them everywhere in both the physical and digital worlds raises serious questions about how power should be shared in society.
There are alternatives to a culture dominated by control-obsessed organizations which write draconian laws in their own interests. Governments could agree to a more limited (and arguably more traditional) interpretation of copyright, trademark and patent law instead of the fuzzy and ever expanding extensions to these laws now called "intellectual property". The original US copyright law, intended to encourage publication in the public interest, limited copyright to 14 years plus one optional 14 year renewal. Patent law, intended to encourage the development of new industrial applications of technology, could be interpreted to require both a more substantial physical component and more originality than patents which are primarily about software algorithms, business practices, or genes found in nature. Trademarks protect the consumer from deceptive labeling, so they should and do operate differently from copyright or patents.
Instead of lobbying for changes in international law which may take a very long time, businesses might adopt commons-based production models such as open-source software, perhaps using the power to create their own laws to establish a "free trade area" where culture can be produced and traded without excessive barriers. In the virtual economy of Second Life, for example, users are allowed to sell content which cannot be copied or which cannot be resold, but not content which can be neither copied nor resold. Such cultural commons initiated by businesses and grassroots movements are growing, but governments may be more naturally inclined to respond to the interests of the "squeaky wheels": entrenched interests clamoring for more aggressive protection of their self-written laws. A two-pronged approach may be necessary: developing open markets with flexibility and rules that protect all stakeholders while steering traditional legal systems in a direction that protects this type of innovation.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Computer Ethics Changes Everything
James H. Moor, What is Computer Ethics? Metaphilosophy, October 1985, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 266-275
Moor defines computer ethics “as the analysis of the nature and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology.” He argues that computer ethics should be a special field of study, involving general ethics and science as well as problems specific to the domain of computer technology.
Moor points out that computers are revolutionary in the sense that they have “logical malleability”: the data in a computer can be used to represent any symbol. This allows computers to become part of any activity, and when computers become an essential part of that activity, the ethical issues surrounding the activity itself have to be reexamined – not just the usefulness of computers in that activity. Moor also cites invisible abuse (unauthorized access and malicious software) invisible programming values (assumptions in the software that bias the system’s behavior) and invisible complex calculations (computer activity which cannot be completely observed and understood by humans) to support the need for the special study of computer ethics.
David S. Touretzky, Free Speech Rights for Programmers, Communications of the ACM, August 2001, Vol. 44 No. 8, pp. 23-25
Touretzky argues that software is free speech which should be protected, making the DMCA provisions He focuses on the DeCSS case in which the judge decided that code is speech but that compilable and executable code are more dangerous than protected speech. Touretzky is particularly concerned that the DMCA and this ruling are interfering with the publishing of computer science research.
Touretzky supports his argument with the testimony he gave in the courtroom: There is no clear distinction between discussing an algorithm and distributing software that implements the algorithm. Although Touretzky provided numerous examples blurring the distinction, the judge still ruled on the basis of a distinction between functional software and protected speech.
Response
Moor’s two lines of argument – that any activity changed by computer technology needs to be reexamined, and that invisibility creates new ethical issues – represent two different attitudes toward computer ethics that are now very common.
Invisibility concerns are more easy for the general public to understand because they involve clear bad guys: untrustworthy voting machines, biased search engines, viruses, spyware, phishing and so forth. These problems get lots of press, but the existence of botnets suggests the response has been inadequate. (Botnets are remote-controlled networks of hijacked computers owned by unsuspecting victims, often sold or rented for nefarious purposes on the black market. This represents a convergence of both invisible complexity and invisible abuse.) Techniques exist to control malicious software and to enforce accountability in computerized activities such as accounting, but they don’t get used.
Touretzky’s paper is an example of the more abstract justification for the study of computer ethics: computers force us to re-examine activities. This is difficult to communicate, but it is more likely to result in meaningful action than popular concern about invisible enemies inside the machine. The invisibility problem is a bit like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, penned when industrial technology was still a frightening power only beginning to transform human lives. The real computer revolution, however is more like the later industrial revolution of Charles Dickens where the ethical issues are not the problems of technology changing human lives but problems of human lives which have already been changed by technology.
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