THE ARCHIVAL MIND: The Brain's Third Hemisphere Digital Divide8/4/2000; 9:59:47 PM 'Indeed it also seems possible that we are now developing a new thought-consciousness. Our intuitive awareness of this fact accounts, I believe, for the characteristic love affair people come to have with their computers. To the outsider they are "computer nuts" or "nerds." The outsider can never understand one thing the present analysis makes clear. People who fall in love with their computers are really falling in love with their own minds, and the stunning new Boolean capabilities it makes possible.'This strongly reminds me of the concept of Intelligence Amplification, or IA (to provide a counterpoint to AI, Artificial Intelligence). The idea is that computers and humans will evolve together, with each providing unique strengths, into a symbiotic relationship, rather then the more morbid and scary AI Conquers World scenario.I catagorize this as a Digital Divide story because when I think digital divide, this is what I think about. "Access to information"? Not really so importent. The question is, will there be a class of people who can use their third hemisphere, and a class of people for whom it forever remains economically inaccessible? Computer 'literacy' is aptly named; the importence of being able to manipulate computers and obtain useful data and knowlege from them is on par with conventional literacy, for much the same reasons, and those reasons are growing stronger daily.Without computers, without the network of webloggers functioning almost as a prototypical group mind (without all that nasty mind-merging stuff I'd hate), without the computers to manage the astonishing flow of data I take in every day, I'd never be able to run this site. I don't just mean that because, as a web site, you need a computer of some kind to read it and I need one to create it, but I mean I'd never be able to hunt down the amount of information on these topics that I do... and still have time to do anything else. Rather then a consuming life passion, iRights is much more like a hobby, one of many.So, look at it this way: Because I make good use of my third hemisphere, I routinely engage in an activity as a hobby that in any other century would have required full time engagement. To deny these abilities to anybody is on par with denying them the ability to read. Perhaps they can't or won't read, but they must be given a chance.Note that conventional computer classes taught in high-school and even college (for the non-Computer Science majors) do not cover this sort of thing at all... they teach computers as a tool to do paperwork, or perhaps as a glorified calculator, but not as a thought tool. (This will not be easy to correct until we have a better understanding of how this thought tool affects us, and learn how to exploit it to the fullest.)This is also in some sense why Linux and Unix geeks like those operating systems so well... they may be a pain to use, but they facilitate being used to process information and extract meaning that Windows can't do (without massive effort).'People who fall in love with their computers are really falling in love with their own minds, and the stunning new Boolean capabilities it makes possible.'
Privacy Plan Likely to Kick Off Debate Surveillance and Privacy from Government8/4/2000; 10:26:00 AM 'he goal of the plan announced by President Clinton's chief of staff, John Podesta, sounded admirable: to overhaul the nation's privacy laws, harmonizing a patchwork of inconsistent rules and extending to e-mail and mobile phone messages the same strict safeguards against government snooping that now apply to telephone calls.' ...'In arguing that all e-mails should be given the same enhanced protections as telephone calls, Podesta in effect declared that the telephone wiretap law should be the privacy baseline.'By saying that, however, he also signaled his intention to greatly lower the standard that may be protecting a relatively small but fast-growing class of e-mails and other electronic communications: messages created by users of cable-based Internet services. 'That's because the laws governing the cable television industry, the Cable Act of 1984 and the related sections of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 have privacy protections for cable subscribers that make the telephone wiretap laws seem positively pallid. '
Registrar Sues for Whois Spam Privacy from Companies8/4/2000; 8:29:58 AM 'In a dispute that could test the legal limits for how of personal information stored on publicly available websites is used, a domain name registrar has filed suit against a firm it claims illegally used its customer contact information in an aggressive marketing campaign of unsolicited email and phone calls.'Register.com, a New York company that registers Internet domain names, filed suit this week against Verio Inc., a Colorado website developer and hosting firm, charging that the company engaged in "unauthorized commercial use of Register.com's Whois database."'This registration information is public knowlege, I'm just surprised it took this long for a major suit to emerge over somebody misusing it.
TheStandard.com: Privacy Report Criticizes 'Infomediaries' Privacy from Companies8/3/2000; 9:16:41 AM 'A new report released by Internet security firm Interhack, based in Columbus, Ohio, warns that the practice of outsourcing data collection on the activities of Web site visitors creates significant potential for privacy breaches. 'The report takes several e-commerce Web sites to task, as well as Coremetrics, the firm that collects and analyzes their customer information. But concern about outsourced data collection is applicable to any company that serves as an "infomediary" between the customer and the Web site.'Links The Standard Didn't Think You'd Need:
In particular, the response contains important clarifications of what Interhack was trying to say. In light of the response, I have to agree with the point Interhack was trying to make: Only our trust in CoreMetrics prevents them from perform exquisitely detailed tracking... and many people are forced to so trust them against their knowlege.Reform Voting Evokes E-Votes
Political Speech
8/3/2000; 8:47:53 AM '[Reform] Party officials say that the contest between Patrick Buchanan and John Hagelin for the Reform Party presidential nomination will be settled through a unique "mixed-media" election, giving voters the option of voting either through a mail-in paper ballot or on the Web over a three-day period prior to the party's Aug. 10-13 national convention.'
'The entire voting process -- electronic and postal -- is being handled by eBallot, a relatively new entrant into the raucous electronic voting industry, in which upstart companies are tripping over each other to get valuable commissions from national organizations.'
EBay Accused of Monopolization Content Integrity8/2/2000; 2:11:02 PM 'The judge in the eBay v. Bidder's Edge case has refused to throw out antitrust allegations leveled by the auction listing re-aggregator against auction giant eBay. 'Bidder's Edge contends that eBay behaved anticompetitively and that therefore the company is guilty of monopolization or at least attempted monopolization.'Mmmmmm... "anticompetitively" because eBay won't let Bidder's Edge use a substantial portion of eBay's bandwidth for reasons that eBay will find possibly economically damaging? I'm having a hard time with this "we have the right to access eBay's data and do whatever we want with it, and if they don't let us, it's anticompetitive" argument coming from Bidder's Edge. Flip it around... why is eBay obligated to let Bidder's Edge in?
'Uncle Spam' wants you!
Spam & E-Mail
8/2/2000; 2:02:48 PM 'Uncle Sam could become "Uncle Spam" if the government follows through with plans for creating an "official U.S. e-mail box" for every address in America, say industry executives briefed on the proposal.'
Is a Stitch Online a Crime? - Napster Case More Then Music Misc.8/2/2000; 12:31:16 PM 'If the $40-billion global music business thought it had problems with the emergence of a revolutionary Internet tool called Napster, consider the now-terrified needlepoint industry. 'For years, grandmotherly hobbyists, hungry for doily-and-swan patterns, have forked over $6 and $7 for them. Without a peep of complaint, they have provided a steady stream of revenue to pattern publishers such as Cross My Heart and Pegasus Originals. ...'As the clash continues, people on both sides of the pattern debate say they are closely watching the Napster case unfold in San Francisco. Their future, they say, is ultimately tied to the fate of a technology start-up that has wrestled control over distribution from major entertainment conglomerates.'
"If You Can Put It On A T-Shirt, It's Speech" DVD & DeCSS8/1/2000; 1:32:46 PM 'We got word last night that Copyleft has joined the ranks of the named defendants in the DeCSS suit - they received their subpoena yesterday, because they "distribute" the DeCSS source code - on t-shirts.'I suppose this is their reward for being used as an example by Touretzky.It's the logical conclusion of the testimony. What's interesting to me is that this is almost an implicit admission by the MPAA that there are indeed speech issues involved... since it nearly torpedos their case to admit that, it's wierd that they'd do this. Yet I suppose they had to, since they can't afford for this 'loophole' to remain open. I suspect they are doing this with heavy hearts, knowing this is probably the loss of the case for them either way...
Market researcher sues AOL, others for blocking email Spam & E-Mail8/1/2000; 1:03:18 PM 'Harris Interactive said it is suing Internet service providers including America Online for blocking the online market researcher's email from reaching registered participants.'Also named in the suit are Microsoft's HotMail, Qwest Communications International and other Internet service providers. Harris said its email is being blocked even though it contacts only those who have registered to take part in its surveys. It doesn't send unsolicited mail.'Keep an eye on this case, it's another one that will probably be under-reported because the implications are too subtle to be seen immediately by the press.This is similar in many senses to the eBay cases (filter on eBay if you have IE5+ or Mozilla M16+)... do I have a right to access your computers for communicating to others, which is then violated if you block me? Also, the Yesmail vs. MAPS that has been left unresolved touches on many of the same access issues.