"Julian Assange is tech world's Donald Trump"

October 26, 2012 by Robert X. Cringely | Infoworld

A Comment...

In observing that all messages are influenced by the medium that conveys them, Marshall McLuhan may have inadvertently made us into a world so focused on the medium that we ignore the message.

Perhaps it might be wise to not let Julian Assange's self-serving ego blind us to the social good WikiLeaks has produced.

The information in the WikiLeaks documents seems largely uncontested. It's not argued that Assange made it up, but rather that he disseminated what was intended to be kept secret.

WikiLeaks is a watershed event in the birth of a new information society. It proves that widespread "security by obscurity" is no longer a practical approach to keeping secrets. In the future, far less information will be protected, but in far more reliable ways. And because so much potentially harmful information about people will be widely available, focus will have to turn to regulating how that information can be legally used.

We'll grow into a healthier society if we avoid letting feelings about Assange discredit the WikiLeaks information and the lessons learned about the new Internet medium. After all, most of history's major disrupting figures morally falter under close scrutiny... we now know that even the revered Thomas Jefferson would be pilloried by many today for his questionable morality.

Maybe a big ego is even a requirement to have the courage (or foolishness) to so disruptively break the rules?

If such an action turns out to be of great benefit to society, we put them in the history books.

If the harm exceeds the benefit, we throw them in jail.

Historically, we've often done both.

An Open Letter to Senator Bill Nelson of Florida

I was very disappointed to learn of your cosponsorship of the PIPA legislation in the Senate (companion to the House SOPA legislation). I've been an enthusiastic supporter of yours for many years, so I'm desparate to believe that you have been grossly misled as to the impact of this kind of legislation.

The Internet is the printing press of our day. WikiLeaks may be our "Pentagon Papers". If moguls like William Randolf Hearst, who by their wealth wielded the kind of power PIPA/SOPA gives all copyright holders, had existed in 1787 The Federalist Papers might never have been published. In today's America, just the existance PIPA/SOPA laws would cause the vast majority of personal, small business, charitable organization and certainly most all free websites to be closed for fear of a take-down for unintentional infringement leading to a lawsuit.

The Internet is the only tool left us to fight "The 1%". I fear the chill PIPA/SOPA would place on the last vestiges of our democracy would be the final nail in the coffin of The American Dream.

Please don't silence our final gasps for freedom... withdraw your support of PIPA.

"U.S. senator demands suspension of phone-tracking system"

November 28, 2011 By Ted Samson | InfoWorld

A Comment in response to...

"I admit this is bit big brother, but as a licensed amateur radio operator, many forget the airwaves are essentially public domain.  If you transmit using the air, those signals are not owned by anyone. Maybe this needs to change, but as for now this is a century old standard." -- Benjamin Adams

Excellent point!

Until your comment, I was entirely in the privacy camp along with most people. I now have to take pause.

Back in my emergency service days, I too was an amateur radio operator. As you know, the law requires all licensees like amateur radio operators, radio stations, police, fire, etc to regularly broadcast their "call-sign" (unique identifier) so they can always be located. That's often automated these days. The general public is largely unaware of this however and their idea of two-way radio is usually CB radio or FRS. CB radio used to be licensed and had to identify, but licensing was dropped in the 1980's because the laws were so widely ignored. FRS is unlicensed.

For the benefit of other readers...

Cellphones and Wi-Fi are very sophisticated two-way radio systems hidden under telephone and computer user interfaces respectively.

Mr. Adams, you are absolutely right that the airwaves are, by law, effectively a public domain shared and limited resource. The FCC was created to manage that resource in a way that prevents its users from interfering with other users.

In actuality, all electric devices transmit radio waves. Every wire is an antenna. A great deal of device design is dedicated to blocking those radio waves from leaving the device and interfering with other devices.

Also, the airwaves may appear limitless, but in reality, receiving devices like cell-phone towers can only handle a limited number of signals at a time. Too many signals hitting one tower is a lot like a network Distributed Denial of Service DDOS attack.

So how does this impact cellphone tracking and privacy?

As much as I hate to admit it, tracking is probably on sound legal grounds here. The FCC only really regulates transmitters, not receivers. So businesses intercepting cellphone signals is probably perfectly legal.

The question is -- should it be?

Our century of airwaves regulation and case-law has always controlled the activities of a very limited number of people. When CB radio use became widespread though, that regulatory system had to throw up its hands in defeat. With cellphone use approaching universal, identification requirements that allow tracking becomes a major invasion of privacy issue.

Not every problem can be solved by technology. This is one of those that is going to require laws and regulations to prevent widespread victimization of the public by ruthless businesses and government.

Don't hold your breath!