Why is ACTA Bad?

ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. A new intellectual property enforcement treaty being negotiated by the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan, with Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada recently announcing that they will join in as well.

Why should you care about ACTA? Initial reports indicate that the treaty will have a very broad scope and will involve new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology.”


Even if your country is not listed above you should care because this will spread worldwide after it passes and even if your country doesn't sign it will indirectly affect you.

1) ACTA isn't the European SOPA. Its nearly Global, and will apply to every country that signs the treaty.

2) ACTA is far more aggressive. ACTA will not simply affect websites and have them blocked out of the internet - it's measures go as far as to surveillance of anything you share through private channels.

3) ACTA doesn't have a campaign against it that is as widespread and organized as SOPA. This is DANGEROUS, as there is less time between now and the final signing of ACTA.

4) ACTA has effects on healthcare, trade and even tourism.

The biggest problem right now is that your ISP's (Internet Service Providers) can report you for anything that "could" be copyright infringement and they will monitor you constantly.

- ISPS will now watch what you download, and tattle on you if you download a music track/ any data / rapidshares / torrents etc.
- ISPS will tattle on you, when you do anything which goes against "Governments policy".
- ISPS will be able to document and store EVERYTHING you do online. nothing will ever be private again

What this all means for you is no privacy whatsoever

Say NO to ACTA. It is essential to spread awareness and get the word out on ACTA.

Beyond Black Mesa

Remember the old game 'Half-Life'? It's possibly the best game ever made along with the second one. I never had a good enough computer for the Half-Life 2 but I spent hours playing the first one. The game engine was really what allowed those games to flow and have really decent graphics. They weren't ultra realistic but were just enough to make it incredibly immersive. The other thing was the perfectly timed 'surprises'. Even if you were expecting it the alien creatures and the commandos could jump out at you so fast you'd be left swinging your crow-bar aimlessly.

Anyway, some fans loved the games so much that they made a fan-made short movie with a couple extra bucks they had lying around. Actually it was only $1200 which is what makes the quality of this movie so incredible. This movie has been a long time coming (I remember reading about it a couple years ago) but man is it worth it.

Hyundai Canada tries it's hand at Viral Marketing

You probably have seen the completely unbelievable video where a driver of a BMW SUV drives over two cars while trying to park and then backs up and instead of sticking around just drives away.
Here it is:


Well it turned out that the driver got caught after the video was aired on the news all over the world. One of the workers at the fitness centre (who's car was ruined) recognized the vehicle and called the cops.
The lady had returned to the scene of the crime!

Anyway, Hyundai Canada decided to replace one of the victim's cars with a brand new Hyundai Elantra. Pretty cool!


They must have had to do this pretty quick to try and capitalize on the viral marketing aspect. Kudos to them.

If Fleet Foxes say it - it must be true!

I recently read a great quote from Robin Pecknold of the great indie folk rock band Fleet Foxes on Exclaim.ca. Speaking with BBC News he basically said that music is better off because of piracy on the internet.

He explained that we are seeing tons of new bands creating better music than ever before the piracy issues. He says that the internet is where he discovered most of his favourite music.

And to top it off when asked whether he minded if people 'stole' his albums he says "I've downloaded hundreds of records....why would I care someone downloads ours? That is such a petty thing to care about. I mean, how much money does one person need?"

Favourite quote of the year for me!

Actually this reminds me that I have to buy their latest album........

Chrome to be 30% Faster

Google is claiming that it's updated web browser will be 30% faster. I was a slow convert but after my Firefox started to get too bogged down with so many awesome applications I slowly started to use Chrome for any quick thing. Now I use Chrome far more than Firefox just because of the sheer speed. And now with this latest update coming it could be more of a tipping point for me.
C'mon Firefox you can match this......

Pirate Bay Verdict annnnd cue Retrial

The Pirate Bay trial wrapped up last week and sadly I have been too busy to blog about it. But the main thing is that they were found guilty and ordered to pay millions to the record companies and go to jail. I found this quite surprising until I found out that it was a super low level court and that they would appeal very quickly. The founders were saying things like 'don't worry we aren't going to jail' and 'we aren't going to pay those millions' and 'bit torrents will not be affected'. So I guess I wasn't surprised when they announced that they were appealing for a retrial.
So the saga continues....

Pirate Bay Trial continued...

This is a followup to my previous blog post about the trial against notorious Swedish Bittorrent site 'The Pirate Bay'

I suppose you have to know some stuff about Bit Torrents to get it.  I know some of you will find it funny though.  Basically if you allow people to download stuff off your computer than you are a seed.  If you don't and just download off other seeds than you aren't very nice.

Thanks to xkcd once again!

Here is the latest on the trial.  The verdict is due on April 17th.

Net Neutrality in Canada

For us in Canada there are actually two notable things going on that have to do with bit torrents and net neutrality.  

First of all there is the more international news of the popular swedish bit torrent site 'The Pirate Bay' which is in court right now with some major record labels (Warner Bros, MGM, EMI, Colombia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG and Universal) in Stockholm.  It was 

announced yesterday that half the charges were dropped which is pretty significant but here is what the lawyer for the labels said:

"It's a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it sim

plifies the prosecutor’s case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works."

This has not stopped the founders of The Pirate Bay from trying to turn the trial into a gong show.  They are showing up in a multi-coloured bus, twittering from the trial and generally getting the bit torrent community/internet all riled up.

The second big event concerns just Canada and our net neutrality laws.  Last year the CRTC ruled that it was ok for Bell to throttle the internet speed of it's customers.  Bell was doing this on the pretext of preventing illegal bit torrents.  But they are also preventing legal internet uses like Skype and Google Video Chat.  The interesting thing about this is that both of those services could be seen as competitors to Bell's phone service.  If people are using either of those free services they may not use their phones.  That, my friends, should be illegal.

So the CRTC set a deadline for all the companies to submit specific information regarding

 internet use.  That deadline was last week.  The companies of course waited till the last minute so that nobody would be able to comment on their data.  However the data was so surprising that the CRTC extended the time limit on comments until April.  One of the things that interested me was that the broadband rate of use was not as high as everyone thought.  There was a point where everyone was getting high speed and so the rate of growth was very fast.  But in the last few years that growth has slowed considerably because most people now have high speed.  That means that the internet providers claims that the internet is getting clogged by people using bit torrents is actually false.  There is quite a bit more room for growth than was

 previously thought.  Here is another article from Ars Technica that explains some other points on this issue.

So I hope the CRTC makes some good decisions here.  Canada is seriously lagging when it comes to Net Neutrality.  We aren't quite as bad as China but we are nowhere near the level of most European countries.  Even the States, especially with Obama, is way ahead of us in this respect.  This is one of the worst problems with our current government.  C'mon Steve!  I hope his meeting today with Obama (which is causing serious transportation woes in Ottawa today) will touch on this but somehow I think the economy will be at the top of the list.  One can always hope though.  It really is a very important issue.  Far more important than people realize.

Oh Wikipedia

I came across this story on Slashdot about Wikipedia which illustrates exactly why it can backfire on itself even with it's relatively good checking mechanisms.

Here is the story:

'Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.' 

What resulted from this edit points to a big problem with wikipedia:

Several reputable media outlets started using the wrong name from Wikipedia.  Although wikipedia had been corrected it was looking for proof of the correct name.  The proof was quickly found on the same newspapers and internet sites which had used the wrong name in the first place.

In short, this is what can happen:

Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia.

The first problem here is a reputable media outlet getting it's info from wikipedia.  But the real issue is that we may have so much info at our fingertips but that info is doomed to be forever flawed with errors.  Oh well that is life I guess.

Interesting Music News

There is some interesting news coming from Amazon concerning their best selling MP3 album of 2008. According to this story, you could have downloaded it for free - legally.
The latest album from Nine Inch Nails was put under a Creative Commons license which meant you could download it legally for your personal use. But it was still the best selling downloadable album on Amazon.

Pretty cool stuff. Oh and I don't really recommend downloading that album. NIN isn't really for everybody.

Yay for Itunes

So the annual Mac symposium was held today. Other than all the rumours surrounding the health of Steve Jobs there really wasn't all that much super exciting news. Those super exciting rumours were quelled by Steve himself in a letter to all apple fanboys.

The only things that interested me was the news that Picasa is now availiable on Macs and....wait for it..... iTunes are now DRM free!!!!! Yes you read that right. Apple is relinquishing it's deathgrip, albeit slightly, on it's users. I am sure not everybody will be as excited about this as me and my ilk but it means a lot for apple to do something like that. They like being able to pull all the strings, even after you buy their products and try to bring them home and use them for what you want.

Now all they have to do is make iPods able to plug into multiple computers without deleting everything. Yes, all you iPod drones, regular MP3 players can do that without a problem - why can't yours?

In other news, my father-in-law just bought a Macbook Pro and iPod touch both of which I am really in love with.

Attention all Drones

If anybody is still actually using Internet Explorer these days (I know you exist) they should stop right about now.
Since Tuesday Microsoft has been admitting that IE is vulnerable to some pretty serious security leaks which allow hackers to steal passwords and other personal information. The internet has been abuzz with stories like this and news clips like this. Basically you should be using anything (Firefox, Chrome or Safari) but IE.
I personally just installed the update along with the Microsoft anti-virus software on my computer at home but who is going to trust it when it was made by the same guys who brought us Vista.

Update

An Update to my previous blog:

Ken Starks has updated his blog with an apology to the Teacher. He apparently did not realize the extent to which this would spread. Apparently it even made the front page of Slashdot.
The teacher, who he refuses to identify to the media, has even talked to him and they seem to have made nice. Either way, it may have been some good press for the open source community.

What!?! Software is free!?!

Yes it's true. I didn't know it was so unbelievable but apparently a lot of people don't know about it. I stumbled across this article about a teacher in the States threatening a student for giving out Linux cds and other open source software for free while introducing some fellow students to it.
She sent a letter to a blogger named Ken Starks who is involved in introducing cheap computers to disadvantaged children. She says:
"...observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization."
Why would you do that? What the kid is doing is impressive, schools should be encouraging that type of thing. If schools went completely open source they could save so much money. She then goes on to show her ignorance by saying:
"I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful."
What!?! There is TONS of free software! Everybody uses open source stuff now even if they don't realize it. You really don't need to pay anything to use your computer anymore.
Then after talking of pursuing legal action and how Linux is holding kids back she starts going all 'Pro-Microsoft':
"This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all."
No, this is a world where more and more people are turning away from Microsoft. The only reason it is so prevalent is because they have created these situations where it is hard to switch operating systems. But instead of developing a good one they constantly churn out relatively archaic junk. They know that many will purchase it because they don't know any better or they just buy the pre-built system in Future Shop. And many more businesses will purchase it because they have to. Why bother spending resources creating a better product if you know you will be selling millions anyway. It sounds suspiciously like another failing business model which I blogged about earlier. There is a shift that already began with Apple reinventing itself and Firefox becoming the browser of choice. Even Dell is offering computers preloaded with Linux Ubuntu! Dell! Seriously! Regular people are ready for change.
Now if you read the comments below the article it starts to get a little sketchy fast. People commenting on links between the teacher's union and Microsoft, the teaching quality today and the usual Microsoft hate speak. But some of it is valid. I have recently reformatted my computer and am now dual booting with Windows XP and Linux Ubuntu 7.1. My computer is 5 years old and only has 512 RAM with a small 2.2GHz processor. I have been really careful to keep it clean and quick but there is only so much you can do when XP uses such a sizeable chunk of your computer just to run. With Ubuntu I have all the awesome open source software I need and it runs so smoothly, flawlessly and effortlessly. The graphic effects in Ubuntu rivals Vista but Vista would never run on my computer. I truly am a satisfied 'customer'. I was always a little scared of it since I know almost nothing about programming etc. but this is almost the most user friendly experience ever.
Now the only reason I have Windows is for AutoCAD and I almost wish I hadn't bothered. AutoCAD and Windows are the only things I am 'paying' for. Everything else is free. I use GIMP or Paint.NET instead of Photoshop, Firefox instead of IE, OpenOffice instead of MS Office, Gmail instead of Outlook, AVG instead of Norton. And by the way, all those open source products work on Windows too because they are, well, open-source. Do some research and you will find many good reviews of all these products. Once again, there is no reason you should be paying for software these days.
Seriously, if you have an older computer kicking around that you think is garbage, stick Ubuntu on it and you will have a perfectly good usable computer. If you want an install disc you can order the latest one here for free (I know, its crazy). Or you can have mine. If you are having trouble with your computer now, consider switching. And if you have kids, I think it is really important to expose them to things other than Microsoft if you want them to have the computer skills of the future.

I just read this article about Toyota trying to clamp down on pictures of their cars. I just can't believe it. Here is an excerpt from that article:

Toyota, one of the biggest car companies in the world, is often a name synonymous with quality. There is even a philosophy of doing business, called “The Toyota Way”, which emphasizes that the right result will come from the right process, and that solving the root problems brings the organization the greatest benefit.

This ‘Way’ is probably not communicated to its lawyers in great detail, which is why Desktopnexus, a site that provides desktop backgrounds, has been contacted by them. In perhaps one of the most wildly arrogant demands in DMCA history, Toyota’s lawyers are demanding the withdrawal of all wallpapers that feature a Toyota, Scion, or Lexus. The site’s owner, Harry Maugans contacted Toyota to clarify. He was told that all images featuring Toyota vehicles should be removed, even images with copyright belonging to others.

It seems almost as crazy as the new initiative by Queens University to clamp down on any talk that doesn't align itself with the university's views. But actually that story is much worse. I almost chocked on my lunch when I read that one. Back to Toyota: What is with big corporations these days and their backward thinking philosophies. This is the internet age people, change your corporate plan to fit with it or your company will suffer the same fate as the movie and music industry. In this day and age companies have to learn to change faster and faster. By threatening to sue a Desktop Wallpaper website you are not accomplishing anything but you are losing touch with your customers.

Finally!

This is what I have been waiting for. Leave it to those sneaky Scandinavians to challenge Apple on their DRM system. DRM (Data Rights Management) is really my only hang up with Apple. Honestly, they make really well designed products but when you start getting into Apple they turn out to be just like Microsoft. Both companies feel the need to control their products so tightly that they squeeze out some of the functionality and advantages. With Itunes and DRM you can't just take your Ipod to your freinds computer and copy your songs onto his computer. Song sharing is such a big deal to me (and millions of other people) that I can't buy an Ipod just for this reason. I am forced to use a mildly inferior product (a Sansa mp3 player) which uses the more standard mp3 format.
In Scandinavia there are many bittorrent websites becuase of the very open copyright laws. So it doesn't really come as a surprise to me that a Norwegian consumer advocacy group is suing Apple because of DRM. The consumer ombudsman said "It's a consumer's right to transfer and play digital content bought and downloaded from the Internet to the music device he himself chooses to use, iTunes makes this impossible or at least difficult, and hence, they act in breach of Norwegian law."
I hope they get somewhere with that. Then I can buy a Mac.

Get ready to be shiny

As noted in Google's own blog earlier today, they have acknowledged the existence of a Google internet browser. Google Chrome will be released today!
The story was originally 'accidentally' leaked in the form of a comic strip explaining the concept of this new browser. I somehow missed it because I was on holidays.
I will keep checking to see when it is downloadable.

UPDATE:
Download it here!

GooHoo or Yahgle

I came by this story (Slashdot) about Yahoo turning down Microsoft's bid and turning to Google. I have been following this story for a while now, all the while secretly hoping that this was going to happen.
I know its not all good news because competition is good but wouldn't it be awesome to have both flickr and del.icio.us under your google account. I would definitely be using them more.

OpenID: Its only a matter of time (I hope)

I read this article a few weeks ago and it finally got me to research and understand what OpenID is and how it's supposed to work. Here are my thoughts....
It would be so awesome to be able to sign into one account and have access to all your different online profiles. It sounds like a brilliant idea but as the article says it will take a lot of time.
"OpenID looks like it’s going to be a winner, so big companies making their user accounts OpenID compatible is a good hedge. Everyone, of course, wants to be an ID issuer, since they get to “own” the user. Less attractive is allowing users from other sites to log into your services, so don’t expect that functionality to come for some time."
I, for one, would definitely be more willing to sign up for some sort of forum or random discussion group if I could use my OpenID and not have to create a new profile. In case you haven't noticed, you can comment on this blog (and any other blogspot site) with your OpenID which is pretty cool.
The only thing that worries me is the security of this thing. What if someone somewhere is able to hack into your OpenID account and then suddenly has all your information for all your online profiles. That could really suck.
But overall it would make the online experience much easier and I'm all for that.

What!?! No Gphone?!?

Even though I am not a programmer I'm a huge fan of open source software and hardware so this is huge for me.
I have been looking forward to the new Google Phone for a while now and they are just starting to release previews of it. It looks fantastic. It probably won't be an Iphone killer but I think it will be way cooler. The reason it will be way better is that they are making the 'Android' program totally open source to allow for as many 3rd party applications as possible. This is in stark contrast to Apples totally closed 'you-aren't-worthy-of-touching-our-programming' attitude.
Way to go Google!
I may actually get a phone if this isn't too expensive.
Check out this video preview: