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January 18th is ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day: remember Aaron Swartz
January 18, 2013 — xanthippaUnless you are plugged in to the ‘geek’ community, chances are you have never heard of the brilliant Aaron Swartz, his activism or how he was hounded to death by malicious US prosecutors who wielded the power of the broken US justice system as a club.
I have been racking my brains for days how to write this story, because it is an important one and it needs to get out. But, I also wanted to make sure that I connected all the dots that, in my never-humble-opinion, need connecting. I still don’t know how…so I’ll take the brutally honest approach, simply sketching out the ‘skeleton’ and then supplying the links to flesh it out, because otherwise, this post would be a book, not a post…
1.
When you ‘steal’ something, you deprive its rightful owner of its use. As in, if someone steals your car, you can no longer use it for transportation. But, if you make a copy of something, you are not depriving anyone else of the use of the original. Sure, you may potentially limit their ability to monetize it in the future and laws covering that may be necessary. But, it is not the same action and must not be treated as equivalent.
2.
In the past, the way a person monetized their ideas was by charging for the ‘vessels’ or ‘containers’ which were the only means of distributing the ideas themselves. As in, a person would not be paying for the ideas themselves but for purchasing the book in which these ideas were contained. In the digital world, this system is not functional and it is unreasonable to attempt to cripple the internet in order to superimpose the outdated means of monetizing ideas onto it.
3.
It is my philosophical position that ideas are not ‘owned’ by anyone – that their existence is independent of us and that to ascribe ‘ownership’ to them in any manner is immoral. As such, I think that all – yes, all – copyright and the very concept of ‘intellectual property’ are fundamentally wrong and any laws on this very subject are immoral and must be fought against. Yes, I suspect I am more extreme in my position on this than most people and am rather in line with the ideas of the Church of Kopymism.
Aside: Not finding what religions are ‘officially recognized as religions’ in Canada on our government’s website, I’ve called around to the relevant government departments and talked to many of the civil servants in the ‘appropriate’ departments. I know they were the ‘appropriate’ departments because the other civil servants bounced me there… And, the most informed civil servants on this issue have told me that the Canadian Government does not itself ‘officially recognize’ individual religions: rather, if something is officially recognized as a religion anywhere on Earth, it is automatically recognized as a religion in Canada. That means that since Sweden has recognized ‘The Church of Kopymism’ as an official religion, it is legally recognized as a religion in Canada. This means, of course, in no uncertain terms, that all Canadian laws that restrict the free sharing of information are in direct conflict with our freedom of religion laws.
Why?
This position may seem extreme, but it has taken me many years and much thinking to arrive at it…and the ‘why’ is, perhaps, the most important reason for me taking such an extreme position…
So – why?!?!?
Because it is precisely by the use of laws – any laws – which assign ‘ownership’ to ideas, by enacting and then protecting these laws that our freedom of speech will be limited in the age where most of our communications are internet-enabled.
Please, think about it – I will not go further into this because I consider it self-evident.
In other words, I consider freedom of speech to be a necessary pre-condition (not the only pre-condition, but an essential one) for a free society.
Societies are built through communication.
The most powerful tool of communication ever build is the internet.
Therefore, communication over the internet MUST be free.
It is a pre-condition for us to live is a free society.
Which brings me back to Aaron Swartz.
I think that most people truly and honestly do not understand the salient point he was attempting to make…
Please, bear with me because I think this is very important.
Older scientific papers were in the public domain: that means that the information they contained was ‘public’ and no longer copyrighted. Spreading the information contained in these articles was 100% legal.
The problem was that this information was contained in physical journals – the ‘vessels’ I ranted on above. So, a company decided to digitize them. Perfectly legal. They digitized them, housed them on their servers and made them searchable, so that the information contained therein would be easily accessible. All this work of digitizing and storing and managing the ‘free information’ costs money – and so that company charged money to access their database of this ‘free information’.
They charged different organizations different amounts: so, an educational institution in Africa would have free access while universities and colleges in richer countries would have to pay. But, once the college or university paid the fee, all its students and staff would automatically be lawfully allowed to access this information for free.
Aaron Swartz was one such person: he had full free access to all these articles, because he was affiliated with an educational institution that subscribed to this database. So, he had full, lawful access to this database and all the information in it.
So, he accessed it.
But NOT through the ‘regular’ path.
Instead, he went to a different educational institution, one which also had prepaid access to this database, and downloaded the articles through them.
Consider the implications: a person who has legal access to public domain information downloaded it through an organization that had legal access to this public domain information – he just did not do it through the organization he belonged to. (Important point – once an organization paid for access, they no longer had to pay ‘per article’ – so nobody was monetarily disadvantaged by this action.)
This, apparently, is a crime so severe, the prosecutors were seeking to put him in jail for 35 years!!!
This is not a joke!
The company that had digitized the information and from whom Aaron Swartz downloaded it did not want to press charges: they may have been annoyed, but they did not think any crime had occurred.
Yet, this apparently merited longer jail sentence than rape, murder and terrorism would have earned him.
And people wonder why hactivists are trying to bring attention to just how misguided our laws are?!?!?
Also, if you take the time to read the links below, note not just what is being reported, but how…
OK – that was the ‘skeleton: here are links to some of the articles about Aaron Swartz.
Federal justice and Aaron Swartz’s death
Aaron Swartz: Idealist, Innovator—And Now Victim
Aaron Swartz’s reckless activism
I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for
Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz
There’s more, much more….
So, today, on what OpenMedia terms ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day, please, do take a moment and think about it all..
UPDATE: US Senator Cornyn Questions Holder Over Death of Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz
Guest post on Aspergers’ by Angel: Teaching the Art of Conversation
December 13, 2012 — xanthippaA reader, Angel, who is raising an Aspie son, has been kind enough to contribute this article on Asperger’s and teaching the art of communication. I hope you like it as much as I do!
Teaching the Art of Conversation:
Let’s face it. Kids don’t want to talk to the odd kid out—the dork who always says the wrong thing. This sets up a vicious cycle—those who need practice interacting the most, get it the least. My son fell victim to this downward spiral—practically no one would talk to him, so he couldn’t get the practice he needed to talk to them. In an essay he wrote recently, he recalls what it was like to fall into this pit:
I couldn’t understand them, these seven-year-old kids. I felt like I was the butt of every joke, and I couldn’t handle it. It seemed like I always said the wrong thing, and I couldn’t ever just roll with the punches and “play along,” the absolute skill. Embarrassment was a fire that never ceased to scorch me. It was a daily emotion, and one that I learned to hate above all else. All of this culminated in one event that I’m still unwilling to share, especially with an unknown number of strange readers. It was so embarrassing to me that I was absolutely sure that I could not go back, could not face the kids who shared the knowledge of that day.
Though he didn’t confide in me at the time, I saw something I hadn’t seen before—a dark side emerging from this loving son of mine. I pulled him out of public school and taught him myself until he decided to return in his junior year. To both of our amazement, when he returned, he was instantly popular with other kids.
How did talking to me about his reading and writing assignments translate into excellent social skills nine years later? It seemed that by practicing his skills on me, he was not only able to catch up, but actually got ahead of other teens. Why are adults so much better than kids when it comes to teaching Aspergers how to conduct a good conversation?
Adults can be skilled listeners who help children “fill in the blanks.” They will entertain any topic, shared or not. They don’t insist on conventional turn-taking, doing most of the talking for children who barely respond and most of the listening for children who talk like the wind. Adults will also prompt for further elaboration, or provide elaboration when a child omits the details he needs to complete a story.
If you are doing what comes naturally when talking to children, you are practicing speech therapy—coaching your child in what therapists call Speech Pragmatics. Pragmatics concerns itself with what people mean, not what they say—usually the only type of speech therapy that Aspergers need. Pragmatics teaches three fundamental skills: contextualization, turn-taking, andelaboration.
Contextualization may be the hardest for Aspergers to learn. If a child’s statements are irrelevant to a shared topic, he may have misunderstood or forgotten its original context—responding as if he is willfully evading a question or changing the subject. Parents must listen carefully for this conversation killer, gently insisting that the child stay on topic. Queues for opening and closing a conversation should be explicit. Taking turns is also a discipline that should be gently enforced—this could mean getting your child to pipe down and listen or prompting your child to come out of his shell. Finally, elaboration is necessary to keep a conversation going.
To slow down the action, so that an Aspergers child has the extra time he needs to rehearse each of these three vital skills, you might try what I did for my son at home—interactive reading. With a book in hand, the context of any topic will not be forgotten or misunderstood until you are ready to turn the page. You can practice taking turns with your child through give-and-take questions and answers, then move on to general two-way discussions. The story also provides a springboard for further interpretation and elaboration.
If you take every opportunity to rehearse proper contextualization, turn-taking, and elaboration in a safe environment as a pace your child can handle, you’d be amazed at the way this translates to better conversation with friends.
My son, now a teenager, happily converses with friends as if he never had Aspergers. Words are spun round and round as each speaker elaborates, thickening the context of shared information, beginning a new round of contextualization, turn-taking,and elaboration,a self-perpetuating cycle, spinning so effortlessly that it sometimes escalates into the wee hours of the morning—particularly with teenagers who are keenly interested in self-expression.
When I first took him out of school, he had a long way to go before this could happen. He needed extra prompting to move a conversation forward. For years, we privately worked at sowing the seeds of his future success. We rehearsed the contextualization, turn-taking, elaboration, contextualization, turn-taking, elaboration, contextualization, turn-taking, elaboration “spin cycle” until it became second nature. Who could have imagined that rehearsing at home would eventually lead to popularity at school? In my son’s own words:
So, can you successfully educate an Aspergers kid at home, then, after he has matured, send him back to public school? While I can’t say that this method will work for everyone, the answer is yes, it is possible. At least one person has done so.
Telecom giants and repressive regimes are teaming up to use a little-known UN agency to make the Internet more expensive, surveilled, and censored.
November 14, 2012 — xanthippaFrom OpenMedia:
Wow. Telecom giants and repressive regimes are teaming up to use a little-known UN agency to make the Internet more expensive,1 surveilled,2 and censored.3
We need you to take a stand as part of a global community right now.
Internet freedom means connection with loved ones, open innovation, and free expression without interference by Big Telecom or repressive governments. All this is under threat right now, but you can make a difference in just a few seconds.
You are part of what’s shaping up to be the largest movement in history, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
We’re already working together globally to stop new Internet restrictions from being imposed through trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),4 and we’ve taken massive strides in Canada to push back against Big Telecom’s price-gouging activities.5 This kind of success is unique and inspiring, and it’s something you should be proud of.
Please don’t let them take it away from you – raise your voice now.
Thank you so much for being a part of this,
Steve, on behalf of your OpenMedia Team
P.S. Whether it’s stopping Big Telecom price-gouging and online surveillance in Canada, or opening the secret negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to citizen comments, we’re bringing the pro-Internet community together to amplify your voice. Our community can only continue to be successful with stable support; you can help by becoming an Ally.
Footnotes
[1] See our blog, ITU proposals threaten Internet freedom and access, or the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Two Page Memo on Telecom Operators Proposal for New Internet Charging Scheme [PDF]
[2] See our blog, UN proposals threaten the Internet as we know it, or the Wired magazine article, The Kremlin’s New Internet Surveillance Plan Goes Live Today
[3] See GigaOM: Is the UN the next big threat to Internet freedom?
[4] See the successes with the StopTheTrap.net campaign so far listed in this recent letter to supporters: It’s time to amplify our voice against the TPP’s Internet trap
[5] See our infographic about the famous StopTheMeter.ca campaign here, or learn more about how we recently pushed for (and won) transparency around Big Telecom’s costs here.
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A gratuitously personal post
August 15, 2012 — xanthippaI am the first person to admit that my brain is not ‘wired’ in the neuro-typical way.
The more l learn about other people, the more I realize just how atypical my thinking processes are.
Which is a bit of a self-conscious segway into my post…which is all abouot the excitement of finding a ‘lost’ song…
When I was ‘an itty-bitty-baby’, my parents used to listen to ‘their’ music: and, being political dissidents from the ‘other’ side of the ‘iron curtain’, this naturally included a few records they had managed to get in English.
(And, yes – growing up, I saw many performers who would do ‘yodling’ and ‘stepdancing’ together in one musical piece because they both typified ‘Western culture’ and were thus part of ‘the same culture’…ok, let me re-focus…)
In other words, the ‘classification norms’ I grew up with were ‘slightly’ different from the ‘North-American-perspective’!
But, that is not my point – at least, not now: now, my point is that my parents had acquired a few records in English, back when I was an itty-bitty-baby who did not speak a word of English – and they used to listen to them.
Before I had learned to speak any English whatsoever, that is.
And, I, too, would listen.
Over and over and over…
As a matter of fact, there were a few songs that I picked out that I liked and I would play them – even though I was forbidden to use the record-player by myself -1 song at a time, over and over and over…when my parents weren’t home!
I had no clue what the words said, but I memorized the sound of them and tried to reproduce it…and, I’m afraid, it was as dismal a lingustic failure as I was a musical one (as I am almot completely tonedeaf).
But, I did not give up!
I kept the memory of the sound of those songs deep in my brain…including the sond that the ‘foreign’ singing would encompass.
Fast forward a few decades: I now live in an English-speaking country and can, most of the time, pass for an Anglophone who might speak a littlepeculiarly…but an anglophone nonetheless.
The point is – I remembered the song and re-played it enough times from my memory – once I had learned English – to make ‘some’ sense of the sounds!
OK – except for a tiny little bit – I had made complete sense of these sounds!!!
And, being a new parent, I reverted to my parent’s patterns and tried to sing to my babies the lulabyes I had recalled from my own early childhood – including the ones that were in English!
I had separated the sounds into words, understood their meaning (in time), and filled-in-the-blanks as I needed to…and then sang them as a lullaby to both my ‘surviving’ sons…
A few weeks ago, I actually thought of searching for that song on YouTube…
OK, I should have thought of it before…it seems so obvious now – but I did not really trust my recollections…
…still, I found it!!!!
‘when those cotton balls
get rotten, you can’t pick
very much cotton….’
I freely admit I remembered the song lyrics as:
‘when them cotton fields
get ripened, you can see
very much cotton…’
But – that is the only divergence from the lyrics!!!
I mean – we are talking decades and re-playing the sounds in a language I did not know until years later!
That is pretty cool – is it not?
Michael Geist: CETA Update, Part Two: ACTA Provisions Are Still Very Much Alive
August 13, 2012 — xanthippaMichael Geist warns that despite its rejection, ACTA provisions are still very much alive and may be imposed through other mechanisms…
RIM lays down for the Indian government
August 3, 2012 — xanthippaOnce upon a time, RIM, the maker of Blackberry, was known for excellent security in communications.
So much so that unscrupulous governments sought to ban it – lest they not be able to spy on their citizens.
Now, RIM seems to have rolled over and decided to let governments trample over its users’ civil liberties:
‘RIM recently demonstrated a solution developed by a firm called Verint that can intercept messages and emails exchanged between BlackBerry handsets, and make these encrypted communications available in a readable format to Indian security agencies, according to an exchange of communications between the Canadian company and the Indian government.’
RIM had originally built its reputation – and marketshare – based on the security the encryption it put all messages through provided. Its encryption was so secure, governments that would like to monitor their citizens’ communication threatened to shut them out of their marketplace.
Hence the flop.
Without this enhanced security, however, there is little to elevate their product over cheaper or ‘sexier’ smart phones.
This, therefore, is a serious gamble on the part of RIM: will access to the Indian market permit them to grow, or will this latest corruption of the security of its communications be the last nail in their coffin?
Declaration of Internet Freedom
July 2, 2012 — xanthippaDECLARATION
We stand for a free and open Internet.
We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:
Expression: Don’t censor the Internet.
Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.
Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.
Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users’ actions.
Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used.
SIGN THE DECLARATION
A response to my post ‘Aspergers and Writing’
June 26, 2012 — xanthippaOne of my most popular posts of all times is ‘Aspergers and Writing’, in which I explore some of the difficulties Aspies face when writing and, perhaps, some practical advice on how to improve this difficult-for-most-Aspies skill.
Over the years (yes, years…) since I have written it, it has received a lot of comments which update the post and keep it ‘fresh’.
Here is an example of a ‘conversation’ in the comments which shows how the comments people leave help others and keep the post relevant.
A reader called Riayn left this comment:
I’m an adult with Aspergers and what you have written rings very, very true.
As a child I had enormous problems with handwriting and had to undertake remedial handwriting classes. I never learnt how to form cursive handwriting that is legible. I even have problems signing my name that matches what I have signed on the back of my credit card as I can’t always form the letters properly. However, my printed handwriting, when I concentrate and take my time, is extremely neat.
When it comes to writing, I find there is a disconnect between my brain and the page. I know exactly what I want to say but I just can’t write it down. I blog to improve my writing abilities, but many of my posts sound fantastic in my head but come out completely different & inferior on the page.
I wish I could remove the mental block.
To this comment I replied:
I SO KNOW what you mean. I have found the same thing with my posts…
Though, I have found that if I write it – but not really finish, then I can’t get back into writing from where I stopped. Especially if I have had the chance to bounce the ideas off of someone else – to actually verbally ‘speak’ what it is I am trying to get across in the post.
Then, I find it easier to just start from the beginning again: complete different angle, and so on. The act of trying to write it, then saying it out loud (sometimes getting feedback – my poor family!), and then tackling it from a different angle seems to help me get more of my point across.
I also find it much easier to answer comments: then, it’s more like talking to a person, and it seems easier for me to type the words ‘naturally’ than if I am trying to compose a post. Perhaps that is connected to the fact we, Aspies, tend to be more verbally skilled than and less skilled at writing.
Have you tried recording yourself as you ‘speak’ your post – then transcribing it? I’ve been toying with the idea of, perhaps, doing a few of my blog posts by speaking them, instead of writing them down, just to see. Perhaps.
This exchange had been up in the comments for a while.
Then, a new reader named CD joined the conversation:
‘I’m an aspiring writer who has Asperger Syndrome. This post defines me to a “T”.
‘endlessly and uncontrollably’ until I complete an entire story, then return to fix it up. After that, the process of general editing, which a normal person without As would’ve already completed, comes into play.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 