Infothought

New Year's Resolutions 2008

I'll just revisit and update the last go-around:

0) Looking back at e.g., 2005 or 2006, be aware that I tend to repeat myself in frustration, and try to address the reasons for that.

[Or 2007. Definitely a failure here. I've got to put more effort into not making that mistake.]

1) Stop arguing with marketers about "conversation". It wastes my time, and it annoys the flack. It's not going to do any good.

[Despite the occasional lapse, I think I've made progress here]

2) Stop being delusional about ever having more influence. That ship has sailed.

[Sigh ...]

3) Fish or cut bait on whether to try to push out my moldering Google and Wikipedia reports, or just write them off like the censorware research, since it's likely more effort to beg attention than it's worth for me.

[Basically decided it's a write-off]

4) "Life Trumps Blogging"

[Need more work here :-(]

My stance on "Net Neutrality" - I'm staying OUT

With yet another "Net Neutrality" brouhaha in full swing, I think it's finally time I did a public post declaring my own, if not exactly neutrality, profound disinterest in being "used".

My executive summary: If Google/Yahoo/etc. OR the telcos, want me to act as a lobbyist for them, they can pay me, at lobbyist rates. No unpaid lobbyist work. Rich companies on either side do not need my help. And while it may be my undoing, I'm not going to join up for the dubious PR.

This whole issue is driven by a fight between content-providers versus telecommunications companies over who will pay for the cost of upgrades to network infrastructure. The telecommunications companies want to pit the content-providers against each other, essentially in an auction for best service, and hence extract more money. The content-providers don't want to play that game, and want to make sure the telecommunications companies can't even try it.

This is worth BILLIONS of dollars, and both parties know it. You can see the lobbying money in all the astroturf and camp-followers. But it's got nothing to do with freedom, democracy, or making little girls cry because their website is slow.

It's not for me.

Pre-emptive: Please don't try to recruit me with the pitch that without Net Neutrality, the telecos could impose censorware. They already can. In fact, there's already a specific non-net-neutrality censorware provision in US law for the telecos, that dates from the 1996 Communications Decency Act: "Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material":

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on of account

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or ...

I've heard this pitch from a few people in the past, one I'm confident was well-intentioned, another I have my doubts about. Which sort of tells you the level of the debate.

Comcast and BitTorrent

There is something really strange going on here, but it's extremely difficult to tell what it is.

A story's going around about the Comcast high-speed internet service allegedly interfering with user's ability to use BitTorrent. I recently had occasion to download a large Linux distribution (sigh, note this is completely legal), and so saw the problem firsthand. There's definitely a network issue somewhere.

But ... it's very subtle. And given the intense politicization of anything have to do with so-called "Net Neutrality", I have to confess I'm deeply put-off from getting involved. It looks like we're in for yet other round of extensive political campaigning drowning out any real analysis of the technical issue.

[Update: See Richard Bennett's posts]

Debunking AT&T Censoring Criticism Via Terms-Of-Service

[I wrote this for a mailing list, in a futile shouting against the wind. Sigh. Why bother? It's a bad habit. ]

Please folks, whenever an it's-an-outrage campaign starts going around, do the following: Type a few words into a search engine, try to ignore the echoes, and see if there's anything to it. If not, say "There isn't anything to this". I understand the social process where one gets reputation-points for extremism, and can even lose for critical thinking. But we should be better than the geek version of talk-radio dittoheads.

Like this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22damage+the+name+or+reputation%22+-%22AT%26T%22

This shows that a TOS clause about "damage the name or reputation" is a common boilerplate, and has nothing to with AT&T trying to supposedly CENSOR CRITICISM. It took me around a minute to find that.

I used to think this sort wolf-crying needed to be affirmatively opposed because it reflected badly on net activism. Now I've come to believe I'm just not cut out for politics.

[Update:

Verizon : Policies Prevent No One from Speaking Out about VZ

AT&T statement

Oh, and my message above eventually got rejected by the mailing-list's moderator]

My _Guardian_ column on the difficulties of making a difference

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2091220,00.html

"If you want to change the world, a blog may not be the place to start"

Seth Finkelstein: Getting ideas into the system can be more difficult than writing web pages and hoping somebody reads them.

Yeah, yeah, I know, obvious objection - It's a column, so it's self-refuting, right, huh, huh, huh? No. To a good approximation, there's an exponential curve of influence (per-topic), and you can draw an arrow labeled "You Are Here" pointing to your spot on it. The more you want to do, the higher up on the curve you have to be, and it's a very hard climb. Of course, if you don't want to do anything, you won't care where you are along it. But that's sort of a trivial answer.

Won't be at ONI censorware conference - couldn't get travel documents

To anyone who saw my name on the attendees list on the ONI "Future of Free Expression on the Internet" conference in England, sadly, I couldn't get my travel documents in time, so I had to cancel out, regrets.

[If you want to read some ramblings of an "inside view of net-politics" regarding the problems of someone close enough to the elite to see inside, but far enough removed to still be an outsider, I've put it after the jump, so as not to bore people who don't care about such indulgences.]

I attend, as I sometimes describe it, between 0.3 to 0.5 conferences a year, and I've never traveled outside the country. It's just not a part of my life. When I happened to see that the OpenNet Initiative was having a "Global Internet Filtering Conference 2007", I signed-up, for many reasons (one being that maybe I should be there to defend myself ...). Then, later, when I went to book a flight, I realized, uh-oh, I don't have a passport. In an ideal world, I would have thought of this earlier. But again, having never been out of the US, the vital mental association of travel-to-conference-in-England == need complicated government document, was not made soon enough.

If I were part of the club, I'd have the necessary documents already, as a basic cost-of-doing-business. But I'm not. In fact, I'm looking at spending a day on a plane, then another day back, not to mention between airfare and hotel, this is likely to cost me around a thousand dollars, and that's by no means trivial (I did not get rich in the Big Bubble, and there's times I'm quite aware of it, though of course even being able to consider a trip to England puts me far above average).

So it ended up being another little lesson that I'm not really cut out to operate at the level I'd need to be, in order to make a difference. Sometimes it's little "cultural" things that trip you up.

Philipp Lenssen: A Chat with Aaron Swartz (about Google, China, etc)

Bandwagon: A Chat with Aaron Swartz, conducted by Philipp Lenssen, covers a lot of interesting ground on the topic of Google, censorship, tech culture, and so on (h/t Shelley).

I'll note one particular part of the exchange:

Philipp: It would be interesting to see where we'd be if some of these engineers, some of them the smartest in the world, would be working on anti-censorship technology today.

Aaron: Indeed. Google's hackers are a lot smarter than the Cisco people building the Great Firewall of China. Google's skills are in building clever technology, not persuading foreign governments to be nicer to their citizens. It's absurd to say that the best thing for the people of the China is to do the latter instead of the former.

This is the unending tech-vs-law argument. It's a big mistake to think that the only smart geeks are on the anti-censorship side. If nothing else, the pro-censorship side pays a lot better :-( ! And as we've seen, Google's brainpower can be co-opted, with their geeks put in the service of China's government censorship, by Google simply ordering their employees to help the censors.

Worse, one of the points I sometimes try to convey, is that the activist's biggest source of danger is generally not the government agent, but another activist or similar who has something to gain by turning him (or her) in.

The collaborationist dilemma is an old one, and I'm very much against it. But I've yet to find a way to make much progress with it.

New Year's Resolutions 2007

Some public personal goals as 2007 begins ...

0) Looking back at e.g., 2005 or 2006, be aware that I tend to repeat myself in frustration, and try to address the reasons for that.

1) Stop arguing with marketers about "conversation". It wastes my time, and it annoys the flack. It's not going to do any good.

2) Stop being delusional about ever having more influence. That ship has sailed.

3) Fish or cut bait on whether to try to push out my moldering Google and Wikipedia reports, or just write them off like the censorware research, since it's likely more effort to beg attention than it's worth for me.

4) "Life Trumps Blogging"

Lessig's CODE v2 released

Lawrence Lessig's book CODE, version 2, has been released. It's a book with much meaning to me.

I'm mentioned substantively twice in the book.

About the Al Gore / Internet story:

The only redeeming part of this story is that it's simple to document the falsity -- because of the Internet. Seth Finkelstein, a programmer and anti-censorware activist, has created a page on the Internet collecting the original interview and the subsequent reports about it. His is the model of the very best the Internet could be. That virtue, however, didn't carry too far beyond the Internet.

And concerning the Nitke court case and geographic location on the Net:

But it is still possible to evade identification. Civil liberty activist Seth Finkelstein has testified to the relative ease with which one can evade this tracking. Yet as I will describe more below, even easily evaded tracking can be effective tracking. And when tied to the architectures for identity described above, this sort will become quite effective.

Thanks!

Psiphon and The Power Of Media Attention

CBC News: Interest in web anti-censorship tool rockets after launch

A new online tool designed to circumvent government censorship of the internet already appears to be a runaway success, a University of Toronto researcher who helped develop the software says.

Some 30,000 copies of psiphon (pronounced sigh-fawn) had been downloaded by 2 p.m. Monday after it was made available at 1 p.m. last Friday, Michael Hull, the program's lead engineer told CBC News Online.

That rate of interest by far surpasses his highest estimate for the total number of downloads anticipated, he said.

"I thought we were going to have maybe 10,000 downloads," he said, noting that traffic to the site was still on the rise. "I was amazed."

He said it, I didn't ("amazed").

I'm all for this project, but the activism lesson I draw from its prominent coverage is NOT necessarily a happy one. There's been activists working on this sort of stuff for years and years. The critical variable here is not technology, since those reporters wouldn't be able to tell a Tor from a FreeNet. What matters is *ATTENTION*. The backing from the various organizational sponsors is the reason for the widespread publicity.

Don't get me wrong. The attention being devoted to Psiphon is good. But I worry people are going to draw some very wrong lessons from the media frenzy. I've said this before, but it gets repeatedly demonstrated. Without some sort of support from an attention-system, it doesn't matter what you do in terms of fighting censorship, you'll talk to the crickets!

Minor DMCA censorware exemption reflections

Misc notes. I've said other material before, probably too many times.

Another ex-activism milestone passed (not a turning point, as no direction changed, but a milestone, passage of a notable event).

I made minor updates to my main censorware page, e.g. struck-out the part about
"Support needed! Legal and financial support is needed to continue this work! Please contact Seth Finkelstein if you can help."
It's been obsolete for a long time now anyway. Nobody ever responded in any case.

Blogging doesn't work (I'm being repetitive, but it bears repeating).

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

I probably should say more about the subject, but navigating between what I'd like to write, and what I can safely write, is too problematic.

"Hoodwinking the censors", and funding anti-censorship

"Hoodwinking the censors" is an interesting article about anti-censorship software being developed at the OpenNet Initiative [Update: Citizen Lab ] (hat tip: Philipp Lenssen). I'm going to skip the technical issues of the subject, and take the article as an opportunity to write a fragment of memoirs applicable to the "inside view of net-politics" part of the description line above (note I know at least two people appearing in the article will be reading this post, both of whom have kindly encouraged me to continue this blog, which is all the disclaimer necessary!). Namely, money:

More than a few people view the work of the Citizen Lab, and Psiphon, as important. The ONI as a whole receives funding from several major U.S. foundations that promote peace and democracy, including a recent $3 million from the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago. In addition, the Citizen Lab has received money from the New York-based Open Society Institute, which supports human rights projects and whose patron is billionaire George Soros.

At some point in late 2003, early 2004, somewhere in the mix of my winning a DMCA victory, and being turned down in the n'th attempt at getting a policy position, it became clear that if I wanted to seriously continue with Internet freedom activism, I was going to have to set up my own organization. Appoint myself Executive Director of something like "The Center For Censorware Studies". Go after foundation funding for money, maybe do the conference circuit.

I seriously considered it. But it just didn't seem like a workable idea. At the time, I'd gone through draining unemployment from the tech-wreck, and the programming market was finally picking up. Inversely, getting funding seemed like it was going to require a lot of work in competition with organizations which were far better "connected" than I was (Harvard!), so I'd be at an extreme disadvantage.

Sometimes people would suggest working for an existing group in a support role, but that was extremely problematic. Nobody wanted the specialized technical decryption work, it's not cost-effective for its legal risk. For generic programming, they could hire someone much less senior than me. And it wasn't a resume-enhancing job for me either. So, purely as a job, it was hardly a good deal for either side. Compare:

The third member of the Psiphon team, 42-year-old Michael Hull, was hired in January to make the program user-friendly. ... Trained in physics, Hull sold his document encryption company in 2003. "Over the years I've been building commercial, private software to solve problems for corporations," Hull says. "So this is nice because it kind of flips it all around. It's a way to give back while I have a chance."

Good for him. But it's why I sometimes say I regret doing so much unpaid anti-censorship effort, and not taking my chance at the tech IPO goldrush when money was falling from the skies (or at least it seemed that way). It seems that in order to do such activism, one has to be (the following are not exclusive):
1) Professional policy person (lawyer, lobbyist, etc)
2) Institutionally supported (i.e. an academic)
3) Independently wealthy *or* unconcerned with employment
And, sadly, I don't fit any of the categories, or been able to find a functional way to get myself into any of the categories. I've never been able to solve this "business model" problem.

[Update: Prof. Ronald Deibert says there's a Psiphon FAQ]

Aftermath

With the end of the Nitke case, it's clear everyone involved is disappointed. The problem with taking on tough tasks is that, by definition, it's a tough task. Fighting the good fight is no guarantee of victory. I've come to know some of the people involved, and how much they've put into this case.

I suppose, on a personal level, I came out of it OK. I didn't get attacked (deposed and cross-examined in testimony, but I could handle that, it was conducted professionally). I made some friends, and will be warmly recommended (though I don't think I'm connected enough to get any $110/hour expert-witness gigs, those are political plums, at least I can ruefully note another "dues payment" to The Cause). I did my best, helped with what I could, and at times that's just not enough to win.

This case was my last big "open" civil-liberties task. I too often think I'm going to get my big break, and be vaulted to netgeek rockstardom (or at least some level above street performer). But that's a delusion. It won't happen unless either I strike it rich (so I can buy the necessary attention), or get a prestigious policy position (so the institution directs attention to me) - both of which, contrary to some myth, are relatively difficult and improbable. Otherwise, I'm going to be slogging in obscurity forever.

Now that this case is over, I think yet another reason for me to keep a blog is gone. I thought there might be something to "citizen journalism" coverage. But again, I think any objective assessment of the results would have to be negative. Nobody is going to read me just for the very occasional update. And as I keep asking, what's so great about being an unpaid freelancer?

Posting will be light/attic-cleaning mode due to real work and other writing. Blog is not quite dead (yet?), but "Life Trumps Blogging".

On the Alleged "Outing" of Secure Computing's Chief Blacklister

Politics is not harmless.

I've been watching the controversy over certain alleged fetishes of Secure Computing's chief blacklister. From one perspective, the way it's been handled would make a good Monty Python comedy routine, something I'll parody as:

"The Minister Of Silly Posts has issued the following statement: "I shall have nothing to do with the rumors that my opponent likes to wear lady's knickers on his head, and eat peanut butter from his partner's private areas. His alleged extremely weird sexual fetishes should not be an issue in this campaign. Even if the reports of his multiple drunken orgies were true, no laws were broken, and all attendees were consenting adults. As there has been no credible evidence he has seduced underage schoolgirls, exchanged drugs for sex, or sold his office to High Street tarts, we should strive to keep this campaign on a higher level. That is all. Thank you."

[I'm sure going to get some strange keyword searches with that paragraph!]

The debate on the morality of "outing" is extensive in general, and I'm not going to go over it here. I am only going to make a meta-observation:

I am now SO GLAD that I did not volunteer to be the human sacrifice, err, main proponent, of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention rulemaking exemption for censorware, this time around. Because there's going to be a backlash, and I'm happy *not* to be a tempting target. Writers for the number-1 blog can defend themselves, in a way that a Z-lister can't (so much for the blog mythology).

I'm told one never knows who is reading, so if anyone from the Library Of Congress committee is lurking out there - THIS is the sort of politics that I've tried to convey is not a reasonable background for determinations of fair use to allow research. Is my point clear? Could it be any more, err, explicit? Of course you try your best, I know that. But the fact remains, the DMCA process is broken.

Updated summaries of Censored Censorware Research

I've added one-line summaries to the material linked in my page of Censored Censorware Reports. These are general descriptions of censorware research which I could not complete and publish, due to fear of legal liability, and being marginalized. I've wanted to improve that page somewhat, and the recent interest in censorware due to attention from a gatekeeper seemed a good reason to go back to it. If you've already seen it, it's not worth re-reading (for the summaries, rather than in general). But there might be new or casual readers who would have an interest in what won't be done, because of the lack of support for my research.

I still regret having to write-off all that work, since a huge amount of effort went into it (some bits and pieces were usable here and there, but much remained a total loss). But nowadays the realistic choice is just between bad (write it off) and worse (ignored AND possible lawsuit).

As the saying goes: "Remember, no matter how hard you work, no matter how right you are - sometimes the dragon wins."

Resisting The Temptation To Ever Do Censorware Research Again

BBoing's latest on censorware banning translation service:

"It's hard to believe that Secure Computing would behave so irresponsibly as to actually block access to a translation service just to keep its censorware from collapsing."

Sigh ... November 16 2000 - SmartFilter's Greatest Evils - "Abstract: This paper examines what the censorware product SmartFilter considered to be the worst websites, as measured by the number of categories under which the site was blacklisted. It was discovered that two broad classes of websites were maximally blacklisted. These were privacy/anonymity service sites, and language-translation services. In retrospect, this is in fact an obvious requirement of censorware, as any private or anonymous browsing ability is antithetical to the goal of control in censorware."

August 2001 - BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity) - "Abstract: This report examines a [then] secret category in N2H2's censorware ... This category turns out to be for sites which must be uniformly prohibited, because they constitute a LOOPHOLE in the necessary control of censorware. The category contains sites which provide services of anonymity, privacy, language translation, humorous text transformations, even web page feature testing, and more."

This is what marginalization looks like.

I can decrypt and write and blog ... IT'S NOT HEARD!!!

I'm even on the first page of results for a Google search on "SmartFilter". Which debunks the pollyanna argument that you can toss the information out there, into the ocean of webpages, like a message in a bottle, and it'll be found by the magic Google.

I can't say I haven't experienced temptation over the last week. But I think I've been shown once more that, at best, I'm going to have the research ignored and later others will get the credit, and at worst, I'm going to hurt my life (note, again!) by making myself a target. Caveat, that last sentence encompasses a few things I shouldn't discuss in public. But, even so, the objective results seem re-affirmed :-(.

Global Internet Freedom Task Force, China Net Censorship, etc.

Censorware's in the news every day now it seems, from NYT on China Censorship hearings to the announcement of a "Global Internet Freedom Task Force":

Washington --An informed citizenry is one of the greatest forces for global peace and stability, said Josette Shiner, under secretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs, at a State Department briefing February 14 announcing the formation of the Global Internet Freedom Task Force.

"It's a top priority for the State Department and the U.S. government to do all we can to ensure maximum access to information over the Internet and to assure minimum success by censors," Shiner said.

The task force will make recommendations to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on policy and diplomatic initiatives, Shiner said.

As a segue from recent gatekeeper discussion, note how blogging is utterly and completely useless for anti-censorship activism. If the goal is to reach people, squeaking from the tail doesn't work. In fact, one often overlooked point is that for activism, blogging can be counter-productive, since energy might be wasted preaching to the choir, inside an echo chamber.

Another evangelism argument is that you never know who is reading, tempting z-listers with the delusion that someone like the President or the Pope might be secret fans. Well, I'm reasonably sure the government of China is not reading my blog (or, if someone there is in fact doing so it's for "opposition research", which is something that is not often mentioned in blog evangelism).

That leaves reaching specialists. But there are plenty of ways to communicate with such people, that don't constitute the grind and downsides of a blog. Sure, somebody who has a lot of power already can make it work. But the (attention-)rich are different from you and me (they have more links).

So, back to Net censorship, What Is To Be Done?. I keep reminding myself that there's much consciousness-raising going on, which is good. And that my perspective, as a bitter pioneer with many arrows in his back, is not typical.

I agree with much of EFF's proposals, notably:

Free governments benefit from sponsoring anti-censorship and anonymizing software, such as those supported by the United States' International Broadcasting Bureau. But companies, too, stand to gain from investing in development that might lead to an opening of previously closed societies. If U.S. companies find that oppressive governments block or impede their Internet services, they should not simply give in to the threat. By working together on ways to surmount Internet control they will not only be providing wanted new products to 1.3 billion new customers, they will help open trade and communications between all countries, and all citizens.

Shorter version: Money (i.e. for "sponsoring anti-censorship and anonymizing software"). If none if it appears, there's nothing beyond posturing.

I keep wondering when there'll be an announcement from Harvard that they've got a grant of a million or two to produce a (say this in a singsong voice) study and recommendation for a policy paper on Internet governance and the challenges of censorship in the cyberspace age. If that happens, you heard it here first :-)

By the way, please don't suggest I chase after a piece of the so-far-nonexistent funding pie. Given all the better-connected organizations, and existing projects, it's not for me. Though if someone wants to put me on their "advisory board" in return for stock options, I'm available! :-)

Anti-Censorship Talk Is Cheap, Anti-Censorship Money Is Scarce

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're doing what we can

-- Beatles, "Revolution"

In the wake of ChinaCenGoo, I was looking at the website of Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system.

Activism is hard, as in, unprofitable. It seems they don't have money these days, so they're asking for donations:

As of October 2005, EFF no longer has any money for supporting the Tor project. Your donation will help Roger and Nick focus on Tor development and usability rather than looking for new sponsors and getting distracted by day jobs. Help us keep Tor under active development!

It's no psychic trick at all to predict that there will be a new outpouring of blathering about fighting China's censorship with The Internet! and Blogs!!! [links omitted out of self-preservation]. When you read that stuff, please take note of how much serves merely to attract attention for the bibblers, as opposed to helping anyone actually do anything.

Poll - Do A New (Google-ish) Site?

Given the recent Googlevents, I'm again thinking about whether it would be a good idea for me to set-up a more "professional" site, focused currently on publishing Google investigations (though I wouldn't want to lock it into Google/search as a topic exclusively, that's definitely where the action is these days).

Pro - People ask me for Google stuff. Google doesn't sue (compare censorware legal risk). Some A-list Google bloggers like me, and none of them hate me. It occasionally even pays!!!

Con - I'm reasonably employed at the moment, so I don't need to drum-up consulting business. It's still work. A lot of people are in the field already, it's downright crowded. There remains a potential downside of getting flamed for contradicting the ranty net.catechism (repeat after me : It's An Outrage. They're Coming For You. The Feds Are Gonna Get You.)

Question: Did I get any new readers from the past week's Google-punditry? Specifically for Google material?

Note: DMCA Rulemaking Exemptions Must Be Renewed Every Three Years

I was just talking to Jay Sulzberger (a Linux and Fair Use activist) about the upcoming DMCA Exemptions proceeding, where there's a rulemaking for special exemptions for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibition against (only) circumvention. He was interested in my thoughts regarding an idea of his, a broader, user-focused, security-based exemption, as illustrated by the issue of the infamous Sony "rootkit". I gave him some advice on drafting a proposal. The conversation then turned to what I planned to do - or not to do! - with the DMCA censorware exemption. I was surprised to learn that he did not realize that any DMCA rulemaking exemptions only last three years, and then have have to be re-argued all over again, from scratch. Per the Notice of inquiry:

There is a presumption that the Sec. 1201 prohibition will apply to any and all classes of works, including previously exempted classes, unless a new showing is made that an exemption is warranted. Final Reg. 2000, at 64558. Exemptions are reviewed de novo and prior exemptions will expire unless sufficient new evidence is presented in each rulemaking that the prohibition has or is likely to have an adverse effect on noninfringing uses. The facts and argument that supported an exemption during any given 3-year period may be insufficient within the context of the marketplace in a different 3-year period. Similarly, proposals that were not found to warrant an exemption in any particular rulemaking could find factual support in the context of another rulemaking.

This part of our conversation was disheartening to me, on many levels (n.b. he gave me his permission to write about it). Jay isn't a lawyer, but he's been an activist for many years, and in fact testified himself in the previous DMCA exemption proceedings. It was disheartening since my deep unhappiness is based on not wanting to go through that grinder all over again, with the prospect of an outcome even worse for me personally this time than last time. Abstractly, this strikes me as a thoroughly reasonable point of view (i.e., give all the stress and flaming I went through once, subjecting myself to it again, probably worse, is an unbearable burden). Now, when I explained to Jay about the expiration, and that I'd have to go through everything I went through before, plus whatever further attacks were heaped on me, he had a much better understanding of why I felt the way I did. But seeing how little this background was commonly understood, and so how likely I was to get even more negative reputation-points because people just didn't grasp the reasons - that was a very gloomy experience.

Thanksgiving blog note

In terms of what I write about on my blog, there's things to be thankful for.

I haven't been sued, pauperized, or made unemployable.

I do have the distinction of being an EFF Pioneer Award winner, and achieving a DMCA victory

Occasionally some big-time cyberlawyers say nice things about the censorware work I did.

But it cost much ... . Happy Thanksgiving.

China, Microsoft, Censorship, etc. etc.

I feel I have an obligation to post something about the Microsoft/China/Blog censorship issues (what a combination!). Yet I don't really have much original to say. The comparatively few people reading me are likely civil-libertarians already, so why clog the web with yet another post on it (or "opposition research" from censorware-makers, same issue from a different perspective)?

There's a few Lessig-style code-is-law implications, about how government and large businesses can work together to enforce control. But I'm not sure this incident works well as a teachable moment about the concept. When some people see a large corporation doing the bidding of a repressive government, it tends to reinforce the simplistic "government-bad/business-good" framework, and they'll just conclude all the bad aspects of the situation should be attributed to the bad government.

The government of China sure doesn't care what I think.

Any issue of censorship has a whole host of generic arguments, ranging from extreme moral relativism ("But it's a traditional culture value to burn heretics"), to cheap contrarianness ("I say heretics should be burned, and the reaction shows I'm being persecuted for my courageous stance against the totalitarian orthodoxy of permissiveness!"). Those are being iterated over ad nauseum.

There's also the free-speech politics as it affects me. I have some thoughts regarding various projects in the air. But I tend to keep them to myself. Given various players involved, negative comments from me would just come across as sniping, and positive comments would set me up to look very bad if I was asked to follow through (i.e., if I said "X is a bad idea, it won't work", well, it's not my project, so that sounds like carping. If I do "[Think: X is a bad idea, Y is a bad idea, there might be something in Z - say:] Z sounds so neat!", then if someone says "We're doing the X,Y,Z project, why not get involved?", I'll then look like I'm making excuses for not walking the walk). I managed to navigate my way around one of these dilemmas a while back, taking no damage, but it was choppy seas, and things have just gotten worse for me since then. I sometimes joke, I don't to want to deal with stressful software-project politics even for lots of money, much less no (or very little) money. I suspect somebody will end up getting a grant for the topic. But I'm nowhere near connected enough to be in the running for such a grant (as well as lacking the sales skills).

Oh, China Herald is a good non-echo-chamber site.

Hopefully I have now fulfilled my "obligations" on this topic.

RSF: Results of the competition for best blogs defending freedom of expression

Reporters sans frontieres - Blog awards 2005 results http://www.rsf.org/blog-awards-en.php3

"Reporters Without Borders selected around 60 blogs that, each in their own way, defend freedom of expression. The organisation then asked Internet-users to vote for the prize-winners - one in each geographical category."

Congratulations to the winners.

I was nominated, but some of the winners are far better deserving of an honor here. Particular attention should be paid to the winner in the Iran category, Mojtaba Saminejad. Says RSF:

"A weblog that earned its editor, Mojtaba Saminejad, a two year prison sentence in June 2005 (See : www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12563). In a demonstration of solidarity the 10 webloggers named here, who were also nominated for a prize, all voted for Mojtaba.They were : Nikahang, Shabah, Mithras, Khorshidkhanoom, Z8un, Memarian, Ghaja, Webnaameh, Shabnamefekr, Shargi."

iLaw

iLaw, the Berkman Center's Internet Law Program, is being held again on June 22-24 in Cambridge, MA. Lawrence Lessig says: "The program is great fun, and you even get to live in the dorms! ... But I'm just (one of) the teachers. There are scholarships and group rates, so ask."

Last year, I was generously accepted to attend, and I had a very good time. Not the least because both Lessig and Zittrain praised my work to the entire audience (not every moment of my activism has been unhappy - just the overwhelming majority of them). I also put a lot of effort into the pre-class discussion forums, and that was apparently well-regarded.

But that was then, this is now. A year later, I'm in a much more unfavorable position with regard to the Berkman Center. A short version of the story: I had (very reluctantly!) done an extensive "Greplaw Interview" with a Slashdot-like site they sponsored. I was *asked* about censorware history and I related some of my tales of woe. Mike Godwin, an extremely well-known civil-liberties lawyer, took exception to, well, let's say, my description of his role in the historical account. *Months* later, he applied what he called "moral suasion" to the Berkman people, which I conjecture a non-lawyer would term saber-rattling about a libel lawsuit. In order to appease him, the Berkman Center then changed my interview to editorially feature various vicious smears. Quoth lawyer Peter Junger (thanks!):

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Seth should now threaten to sue the Berkman Center and Harvard for defamation. - --So interesting that I would be willing to donate a thousand dollars towards the legal expenses of such a suit and spend some time working on the briefs and pleadings.

The event deserves a long follow-up someday, which I've never been able to complete because it's so incredibly painful. But it was a major activism turning-point for me, that I had no good future in civil-liberties work. It wasn't the only turning-point, by far. But, e.g. it was pretty much the reason I didn't go to the open Berkman conference on "Votes, Bits and Bytes". In fact, I've never gone to an event there since. And I suspect it sealed my fate against ever becoming a Berkman Fellow (not that my chances were ever all that high, but between slim and none, slim then left the building).

So, regarding iLaw, it's problematic. One the one hand, there's the argument as to why let the poison kill? But on the other hand, the poisoned well can't be wished away. I wonder, do lawyers or A-lister's really get along after such actions? "Sure, you were blowing me off then, violating the pledges made to me about my interview, putting Harvard's name and credibility behind smears against me, simply because it was the least trouble - until some countervailing legal firepower on my side changed the equation. But these things happen. I sue you, you sue me, we're a happy family". Maybe that's another reason why law/policy just isn't for me.

Someone could say writing this post only makes things worse. Call that a further twist of the problem.

I suppose the "head" answer is what's done is done, and as the saying goes: "Remember, no matter how hard you work, no matter how right you are - sometimes the dragon wins." But the "heart" rebuttal is that doesn't make it any easier to bear.

[Comments off for this post, because I don't want to deal with trolls or misguided critics who might as well be trolls - if someone feels they need to reply, send email (I'll turn on comments for extraordinary cases of right-of-reply, but I hope that won't be necessary)]

[Update: I should have noted the back-and-forth was eventually "resolved" by a kind of moral equivalence of removing the editorial defamation AND the material Mike Godwin found objectional from me. Overall, per above, the result of the whole situation was enormously costly to me.]

SafeBrowse.com/"Safe Eyes", Consumer Reports, and reports undone

"Safe Eyes" / SafeBrowse.com censorware is now touting the Consumer Reports "Filtering software: Better, but still fallible" article:

Safe Eyes 2005 Rated The #1 Internet Filter!

Independent and unbiased testing by the leading consumer reporting publication confirms what our customers already knew....Safe Eyes is the best.

(note the message is a flash animation)

I'm not sure if Consumer Reports really did their testing as extensively as possible. I can see a way in which they took a reasonable course, which would have been the most obvious way to proceed if one is starting out with little knowledge of the internals of censorware (i.e. randomly try some URLs to see which are blacklisted). But there's much more information available, such as censorware blacklisting the Google cache, translation sites, and more. And note since it's a repackaged version of N2H2, all of N2H2's flaws apply.

In an alternate world, I'd do a report on this, with the "newsworthiness" peg about Consumer Reports' pick of censorware. It would then be publicized (remember, I'm talking fantasy here) getting the information out and being an important contribution to the body of knowledge on technology and policy. Which would be a reputation-credit for me which would have helpful implications in, for example establishing DMCA exemptions and discouraging potential censorware lawsuits.

In reality, I'd be marginalized to the same tiny fan audience which has heard it all before. While this audience is of course most excellent and discerning, they're also the choir, the convinced, exactly the people least in need of hearing my spiel. It's well past the point of diminishing returns. I'd again be faced with the temptation to go too far up the legal risk curve. And even if I kept low enough down so as not to have to worry, just in terms of PR I'd likely lose much more than I could gain (in the language of probability, I have a large negative expected value).

Recursively, maybe I shouldn't have written this post in the first place. But I'm inured to the sort of criticism I'll get for it. And I do think there's some value to documenting reports which won't be done because of the lack of support.

Lawrence Lessig and "activist's frustration"

Lawrence Lessig reacts unhappily to press coverage. Jon Garfunkel wondered why. This is an opportunity for me to write about net-politics and the press, from the trenches.

There's a particular malady of "activist's frustration". This can happen when someone deeply believes in an idea or cause, spends a large amount of time campaigning for the cause, and then finds their heartfelt efforts reported to a huge audience via at best garbled, confused, impressions in a hurried article by a journalist.

The canons of the craft include an unfortunate practice where it's frowned-upon for the article-writer to actually consult you to check if they got it right. The origins of this procedure are understandable, because for a political investigation, it's just tipping off a target who is likely to be upset. But for an intellectual, who cares passionately about conveying his or her ideas, it's very frustrating to have to suffer someone trying to reduce those often complex concepts to a little squib without even a sanity-check (e.g. "No, I don't really propose eating babies, that part was satire"). Here I don't mean reading back a quote for stenographic accuracy - I mean checking that it conveys what the person was actually trying to say (the Al Gore Internet story is somewhat illustrative, but that was arguably a deliberately malicious misreading).

When the article comes out, people then say "Why are you so upset? What's the problem? It's a reasonable article.". To be fair, it's not always clear whether the activist is overreacting to a merely less than perfect account, or if the other readers simply don't perceive how badly it's been butchered. But this can be another source of annoyance, as the activist is then faced with the task of explaining exactly why the article is so bad, to varying amounts of receptiveness to the concept ("Gee, it said you wanted to eat babies? But how is that different from your well-known concern about infant nutrition? Nutrition is eating, right? Babies are infants, correct?"). And then there's always the comments about how no publicity is bad publicity ("So they called you Mr. Baby-Eater - at least it shows you're important enough to be noticed. Maybe they'll get it right the next time").

There are of course far worse problems in the world. But the human irritation possible in this case should be clear.

Publicizing Achievements, and Reactions

"How could Nixon have won? Everyone I know voted for McGovern." (probably-apocryphal quote)

The reactions to my being nominated as defending freedom of expression have been almost entirely positive. Nonetheless, I've gotten some criticism about publicizing it.

There's two related variants of critics, asceticism and personal. The asceticism position holds that there should be a social taboo against mentioning one's own achievements, to discourage inflation and puffery. While I understand the general reasoning, and there is some validity to it, I think it can be applied far too restrictively and simplisticly. Privileged people have a multitude of ways to get others to promote them, ranging from outright hiring PR agents who launder press-releases, to just being in a position of power to attract sycophants. Those lower down have no such resources or favors to trade. It's not like I can grant somebody a lot of blog-traffic if they write how wonderful I am.

In terms of personal, well, for many years, I worked anonymously, and willingly let others take the credit. As, e.g. James S. Tyre wrote in an earlier nomination:

"All of what Brock [Meeks] and Declan [McCullagh] wrote came from Seth's work. All of the content of the former Censorware Search Engine came from Seth. ... Seth does not mind at all that it is his crack ... that is the basis of Bennett [Haselton]'s program."

Or Jonathan Wallace:

"The research for this article was all done anonymously by Seth Finkelstein; he did all the work and I got the glory for writing it up.

That was only the beginning; Seth did tireless and brilliant work after that to determine what censorware products really blocked. Seth is one of the heroes of Internet free speech; one of those rare people who do the work despite the fact that they know they will receive no credit."

In retrospect, I actually think I made a big mistake in not taking enough credit, and don't ever want to repeat it, but that's a topic for another post. The years of self-abnegation should be a definitive answer to personal criticism (but, sadly, I know that won't count).

Slashdot Reject

The topic of the power of the keepers of the media gates is a good occasion for me to give an update on my "Slashdot Prospect" inquiry of a few weeks ago. This concerned whether the recent "Slashdot Editor Upgrade" boded well for me to submit articles again.

Sadly, my query seems to have to been treated to a big fat Minus-One (i.e., ignored). So I'm assuming nothing has changed for me. And don't plan to pursue the question further.

But if I'm such an important accomplished DMCA-winning net-freedom-fighter, how come I can't get a little respect here?

[More reasoning in extended entry]

There's an old joke, that if a therapy patient is late for an appointment, he's hostile, if he is early, he's anxious, if he is exactly on time, he's compulsive. That sums up my Is-it-safe-to-go-back-to-Slashdot? dilemma these days - whatever I do is likely going to be used to attack me. My choice is just a matter of which personal attack should it be:

1) Not trying hard enough - too defeatist, didn't even make the effort, whiner.

2) Trying too hard - wasn't good enough, didn't do it right, submit-spammer.

Let us ponder the various merits and demerits of each case. Now, in theory, option #2 could lead to success of getting submitted articles accepted. In theory. But I believe it's an extremely reasonable position to take that, given the history associated with unfortunate events, prudence dictates some caution. Moreover, it's a tar baby. I'll always be criticized that whatever material I submit is not good enough (after all, there's much competition). Which leads to temptation to push the legal envelope in terms of investigations, in order to show the critics (who will never be satisfied anyway). In my view, the argument for theoretical success is more than outweighed by those extremely high negatives.

In contrast, option #1 is notable for what it's not, as in, not a lot of work. I won't be forever dealing with a swamp of fault-finding. I think I have a pretty good simple reply to the attackers, that certainly satisfies me in my own mind. It's very clean and straightforward - if I can't even get a reply of "It's OK now", I can't be expected to assume it's OK now (and such a reply would be minimal common courtesy).

Note I'm not 100.0% banned from having mentions appear in Slashdot, the problem isn't quite so extreme. But I've never been able to figure out the exact politics of it all. And frankly, I've stopped trying. It's definitely not the simple flame of do-something-newsworthy, because the coverage black-out (till the very end) of my DMCA saga was outright based on grudge-holding (and I bitterly resent it).

The marginalization has significant implications. It shows, objectively, unarguably, just how little my work has been valued overall (note not to the tiny fan audience which is reading this, thanks, but *overall*).

Slashdot Prospect

I finally wrote what turned out to be a long message to someone at Slashdot, regarding a possible sea change in the wake of the recent "Editor Upgrade". This isn't really an "open letter", but I figured I should blog it (below) for those interested, for reasons of transparency and self-protection.

Likely nothing will come of it. But I don't think I'll reasonably lose, while there is a very small chance that I could gain. The global significance is again the sheer lunatic absurdity of the idea that an ordinary person's blog compares against the "Short Head" of sites at the top of the attention curve. The chasm between me and Slashdot is around three orders of magnitude. That's about the gulf between a man and a mouse. A small mouse.

[Update: I should clarify that my overall thinking is that if things are OK now, I'd get a reply that they're OK now, and if not, not. That seems sensible to me.]

[The links aren't in the original]

Dear [redacted]

I'm directing the following inquiry to you as [identifying detail omitted]. Please excuse the length, I think context is important.

Now that the dust has settled a bit about Slashdot's recent, err, editorial change, I'd like to inquire as to what is Slashdot's policy about people repeatedly submitting articles, and, frankly, whether my name on a submission is still any sort of risk or not.

Previously, I had a major disincentive to submit anything, (though I'm grateful a handful of items submitted by others were accepted). It should not be debatable that Michael often acted maliciously with his editorial position. I think it's objectively true that he was Slashdot's most abusive editor in its entire history. So, I was in the position that if I submitted an article, I'd have to worry about him using it to flame me on the front page of Slashdot. Moreover, I wouldn't be able to tell if an article rejection was honest, or the product of his personal vendetta (obviously if someone hijacks and destroys a group's whole website, they're clearly entirely capable of lesser maliciousness). And then if I resubmitted a rejected article, for the slender hope at a chance at fairer treatment from someone else, I was risking having that portrayed as trolling or spamming (and again, given that I was accused of many things I simply did not do, this is a well-grounded concern). So I just didn't want to play that game.

There's been a few notable times in my life where, after a long-time attacker of me has done something spectacularly abusive to their associates, those people have stopped applying "moral equivalence" to the attacks on me, and realized I'd in fact been treated quite poorly. Ironically, one of those cases was when Michael proceeded to do unto the rest of CensorwareProject as he had been doing unto me for a long time (note, the final meltdown was not him versus me, for the searing reason that I'd been explicitly sacrificed at that point - it was him vs. everyone else). But, I'm speculating as to if he eventually did unto Slashdot as he did unto CensorwareProject. Not to the same extent, obviously. However, there's a chance that, let us say, there might now be some understanding borne of experience.

On the other hand, there's many more times in my life where people have not reconsidered their position, and mud slung at me has simply stuck. I think there's at least one person involved with Slashdot who is still convinced of some outright lies, because I was never able to get the necessary consideration to show the falsity (and I know if I press it, I'll just be told that condemns me).

Anyway, my question here is not about the details of the "Editor Upgrade". But rather, if there's been a concomitant reflection and re-assessment that would be helpful to me. I can't see myself ever going back to censorware decryption research. That damage is done. But it would be nice, e.g., to be able to try to get recognition related to my being an important expert witness in an Internet censorship law Federal court case.

I think, under the circumstances, this is an extremely reasonable query for me to make. I'm putting forth about as much rapprochement as I can manage (though I'm aware that what I can manage is often not at all the same as what would be required). Let me know, thanks.

[Sigh. This feels like begging. I tried.]

Details Why Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" Doesn't Revive My Censorware Research

"The evil that men do lives after them"

When I started writing a blog, I took a deliberate, considered, approach that I would try to combine the local - "personal voice" aspect being touted - with the global, accounts of my successes and failures in fighting for net freedom. I thought that was a workable blend of having something reasonably interesting to say, yet about more general subject matter. This arose from a mistaken belief in the practices of BlogGods (one mistake was that, for local celebrities, many people care about the celebrity's online diary - but as a general rule, people do not care about your online diary, there's only so much celebrity to go around, and it's exponentially distributed).

Anyway, in that vein, I hope it'll be useful to go over in more detail why the recent, err, Slashdot editor departure doesn't revive my censored censorware research.

I can feel it in my bones, part of the aftermath is going to be in essence that I'll hear, about free-speech activism:

"Oh, you're always complaining" - nothing satisfies you (as the saying goes, all I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy), what more do you want (gushing publicity, a team of lawyers, $110/hour expert fees - or at least two out of three), IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT (how convenient a belief).

Now, a particular malicious person can do a great deal of damage. and it doesn't necessarily go away when they do (there are grudges which still remain against me, that simply will never be given up, it just won't happen).

But the key is to realize that those are specific examples of a general problem, of power imbalances, of how the system is set up. Is the flaw with monarchy having any particular "bad apple" as a king, or that overall, absolute monarchy is system which leads to bad governance?

I think of the outcomes of fighting against the DMCA and Internet censorship as a kind of probability-weighted mathematical sum of all the good things than can happen versus all the bad things that can happen. This sum is of course difficult and unclear to determine, but judgments have to be made on best efforts at estimation, despite a lack of Platonic certainty. Today, for me, the expected value of this sum is a bit less negative than it was e.g. a month ago. But "a bit less negative" is a far cry from "positive". And in absolute terms, negative is still negative. As I call it, the "three P's" - pay, press, (legal) protection, all remain solid obstacles.

It's not "Nothing's changed". Rather, it's "Too little has changed".

New Year's Resolutions 2005

What a drag it is getting old.

[Notice: This is not a cheery post ]

Happy New Year. Let me do a personal post looking back and forward.

To recap some recent turning points, in 2003 I was driven to quit censorware decryption research and then abandon major net freedom-fighting efforts (update: despite almost single-handledly winning a DMCA exemption) . I have a huge amount of censored censorware research which was destroyed or I can't publish - either nobody will hear it and/or I'll be sued. I still did some writing. But I think in 2004 I got yet another message that politics just isn't for me. I enjoyed attending the Berkman Center iLaw event, but ultimately it didn't change anything. Much worse, the Mike Godwin / Greplaw attack was another major turning point (I still should do an aftermath follow-up post on it all). My law/policy prospects never were all that great. But despite wishful thinking to the contrary, it matters to be targetted by a mean lawyer (who teamed-up with a domain hijacker).

Blogging doesn't work for me. The irony there this year, was when it was evident that I'd get far more reputation-points, far more easily, by inveighing against the Blizzard v. Bnetd court decision, than I personally could gain by actually co-writing a friend-of-the-court ("amicus") brief supporting reverse-engineering rights. In retrospect, it was absolutely the right thing, on a personal level, that I did not do that bit of fighting for net freedom, in terms of what would have been the cost to me. But I look back on it as a very sad commentary overall as to what gets rewarded. Drink the blog Kool-Aid, and you get attention and echoes and links. Don't, and you'll be talking to the crickets (but perhaps you like talking to the crickets, perhaps they make a pleasant sound, and anyway, who is to say that the crickets are not a worthy audience ...).

It was laudable that I was an expert witness in the Internet censorship / "community standards" case of Nitke v. Ashcroft (which was a pre-existing activism commitment). But, in terms of it being a reputation-builder for me, the lack of publicity was disappointing. Eventually there was an EFF newsletter mention, thanks, but that was the maximum (e.g. no Slashdot). I rate this, again for me, as another example of "I tried it that way, and it didn't work".

Overall in 2004 I passed another milestone in terms of giving up fighting to keep the net free. As a programmer, nobody is trying to tear me down (much less succeeding!), and it's an occupation both profitable and sustainable.

So for 2005, I resolve to maximize paid work, maybe more Google investigation again (Google doesn't sue!), and work on further avoiding the horrible negative that free speech activism has been for my life.

[PS: Of course, there's always people worse off than me, e.g. who need Tsunami Aid]

PR Flacking / Reputation-Credit II

Final arguments were scheduled to have been filed in the Nitke v. Ashcroft US court case, concerning issues of US censorship law, the Internet, and community standards (recall, I'm an expert witness for the civil-liberties side). So it's time for another round of flackery. I'm actually slightly optimistic this round, since I did get an expression of interest. So it's not all bad.

But again, I am not cut out for this sort of thing. I agonize over whether to make another (likely futile) try at working around Slashdot's shame of an abusive editor who has obvious, blatant, personal grudges. In general, I have to risk perhaps annoying people who ignored me in the first round. I'm not good at glad-handing. Even with better prospects, it's still a time-sink and draining. Oh, glory be the blogolution (link omitted there out of self-preservation) versus gatekeepers.

To the tune of Matchmaker, Matchmaker:

Gatekeeper, gatekeeper, give me a link.
blog to my blog, track me a back.
Gatekeeper, gatekeeper, read through your feed
And give me a traffic link.

[Update: Sigh, it doesn't seem as if there's much of a hook for a press story. There were a few schedule changes. If anyone cares:
The free-speech side post-trial brief was submitted on November 27. The government is filing its post-trial reply brief on December 23. The free-speech side rebuttal then will be filed on December 30. After the holidays, some of this material may get posted on the website of lead lawyer John Wirenius. ]

No friend-of-the-court ("amicus") brief reverse-engineering activism for me

I've finished discussing with a civil-liberties lawyer if we were going to respond to EFF's call for friend-of-the-court ("amicus") legal briefs to make arguments to try to reverse the atrocious anti-fair-use, anti-reverse-engineering, pro-DMCA, outcome of the Blizzard v. BNETD decision.

Note, in contrast to the subject matter of my last few posts, this wasn't an issue of my possibly being sued (well, not directly anyway). Rather, it was whether we were both going to volunteer to do supplemental work in the case. The possible collaboration idea was that, as a lawyer, he'd do the necessary formatting, structuring the argument in proper form, take care of the procedural details, and I'd handle as much of the draft writing as a nonlawyer could do, and possibly whatever technical factual research was needed.

Much went into discussion, about various possible angles and certain confidential matters. But before anyone reads wrongly between the lines, we didn't have any "personality conflict" (it helps that, e.g. we have a similar regard about some other people ...). But sadly, I eventually decided I didn't want to take on the effort.

I could have done it in theory. It would have been a lot of work, writing and doing supporting research. But almost certainly, I would get virtually no points, no "whuffie", no reputation-credit, for co-writing that amicus brief. At best, I'd have to run around with my poor contacts asking "Will you please echo this? Kindly report this? A-lister, I beg from you the boon which is notice of me. ...".

Frankly, I'd rather not go through it. This is another specific instance where I'd decided to stop fighting for freedom of the Internet. On a personal level, it's not worth it.

This post is not a pleasant one, and I'll probably get some flack for writing it. But in terms of activism, I think it's important to document how the attacks, the lack of recognition, the marginalization, have a destructive effect.

PR Flacking / Reputation-Credit Blues

I've written the following sentiments before, but I'll do it again: The blog-blather hyping no-barriers is misleading and downright cruel.

In the last few days, I've been trying to flack the previously-mentioned CDA trial press release. Besides the free-speech merits of fighting to keep the Internet uncensored, I'm told there's a personal reputation-building opportunity.

So, I want to be heard by more than the itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny fan audience. Note there's a connection here between the general very limited influence of non-A-list bloggers, and the specific lack of success I have in getting reputation-credit: It doesn't help much to repeat things to the same people who already have their opinions (positive or negative ...).

But the moment one goes beyond writing a public diary, and chatting with friends, to wanting to reach people outside the immediate social circle, the existence of gatekeepers is manifest. A small blogger trying to get an echo from a BigBlog is almost exactly a freelance writer trying to get an article accepted by an editor of a publication. Sure, you have the option of vanity publishing it yourself, cheaply nowadays. But to a very good approximation, barring the extremely rare lighting-strikes event, then nobody will read it.

To me, flacking is tiring, stressful, and not very successful. Some notes:

I asked someone at Slashdot if there was any policy at all about abusive editors who have obvious, blatant, personal grudges. No reply, but then, I didn't expect one.

I can't trust Greplaw anymore :-(.

I did manage to get gatekept into Dave Faber's IP mailing list, which is about the best I've achieved so far.

While maybe I haven't exhausted all options, I've nearly exhausted all I can manage :-(.

Press coverage

Today I was quoted in The Register (accurately!), about the email surveillance case US v. Councilman:

"Extending the court's disturbing approach, an entire surveillance system wouldn't be considered interception if it were built into local mail processing," internet researcher Seth Finkelstein told us.

Thanks!

I also should have mentioned earlier the latest issue of Walt Crawford's always-excellent library 'zine (not blog), "Cites & Insights". In the October 2004 issue, it's got an extensive recent copyright issues overview, which I am undoubtably biased in recommending because the coverage includes me (for the post Copyright Is Broken And Nobody Knows How To Fix It).

So I'm not at absolute zero with regard to notice. Just practically so, with regard to where I'd need to be in order to have much of an effect.

The fact that I don't write with a smiley-face () might be the difference between 300 and 400 readers. But I doubt it's the difference between 300 and 3,000. Press notice matters. Now, I don't mean to imply it's as simplistic as getting mentions, it's a complex process. I should be grateful for what I have. But, honestly, unedited voice, it also rubs my nose in what I can't have.

Blogiversary

I should have noted my second blogiversary earlier. Sadly, though, there wasn't much to note. I'm up to a readership of, I estimate ... 300/per day.

Not 6500/day. Not 2000/day.

300.

Whoopie. My reader-fortune is made.

Whatever connections or credentials or appeal or luck are needed to have high readership, I apparently lack them. Yes, bloggers are starving in Africa (or enslaved in Sudan). That's not a reason for me to keep banging my head against the wall.

I've slowed down on blogging before. But e.g. an A-lister spike, or some other reasons, were marginally encouraging.

However, the Greplaw attack was another, major, turning point for me in terms of being driven out of net freedom fighting. And I'm obviously not too successful at "citizen journalism".

Some people compare writing to doing exercise. They're moving their fingers on the keyboard, like taking a walk is moving one's legs just for the sake of moving one's legs. That's fine, if you want to do it. Whatever makes you happy. At the same time, I wish there would be more respect for an opposing belief that the destination matters, not the journey. The outcome, not the process. Sometimes, it's not the thought which counts (but the effect, or absence thereof).

Fair notice: Some future upcoming postings (possibly Banned Books Week related, maybe a Greplaw follow-up) are likely to be gloomy.

[Update: For those interested, the 300 breaks down into roughly 100 for Bloglines, 100 from the website feed, and 100 directly from the page. Now, there's some variation, and these numbers might be off by a factor of 2 - but they aren't off by a factor of 10].

Update on Greplaw Interview, changes and some aftermath

Peter Junger has a long post, More on the Greplaw Case, describing the latest updates, and how he approaches the whole topic:

.... the Greplaw Archive was again redacted to remove both Seth Finkelstein's explanation of what the Censorware Project was, and what happened to it, and the editorial insertions that were made in response to what [Mike] Godwin now calls ``moral suasion.'' The following statement has been inserted in the Greplaw archive in place of the removed material:

[This interview has been altered from its original format. Two paragraphs in the original interview have been redacted as of September 5, 2004.]

Note, again, I've mirrored it, and so has he (though I "accepted" the above official change).

Myself, I'm more focused on what I think of as the mathematics, which can be seen in this portion:

Shortly thereafter I found myself in correspondence with the director of the Berkman center and finally we spoke by telephone about this matter. It was clear throughout this correspondence and conversation that the director of the Berkman center felt that Greplaw and the Berkman center had been threatened with litigation, and not only by my comments about the possibility of Seth suing them.

Naturally, being caught in the middle of a dispute to which he was not a party, he regretted that the matter had arisen and also regretted the particular procedures that had been adopted in the case. It was also quite clear that he regretted the unfair way that Seth had been treated.

I view this as basically an example of "only have to be lucky once". Since there's no reputation-cost to making the threats, such a lawyer can keep attacking until one hits (and to add insult to injury, the outcome will be deemed my fault, or at the very best, a moral equivalence). Again, I appreciate the support messages. But, remember, lucky once ...

I'll probably never be able to fully convey to people that it's not about a flame-war. Rather, the problem is being under-powered and over-matched and hence being driven to quit. It's sad, unpleasant, and depressing to write. But this situation overall has been another turning-point for me.

John Young cypherpunk poetry (about Greplaw Interview discussion)

John Young, the cypherpunk poet wrote a poem (posted to a mailing list) about the fallout and arguments from Mike Godwin's actions and my Greplaw Interview. I found it amusing enough to repost, with a rough English translation of the poetry (what other blogs have, not merely cypherpunk poetry, but annotated cypherpunk poetry?)

The basic idea of the poem is John Young saying he enjoys a good flame-war, so people calling on me and Mike Godwin to be nice to each other should just shut-up, as flames are much more laudable (note the poetry often acts to obscure an idea which would be very debatable if stated in clear prose).

Greplaw Interview follow-up

The Greplaw Interview's situation has brought me some more supporters. I'll just do some links.

Peter Junger also mirrored it and wrote of a similar experience, and posted Another Reaction to Greplaw's Antics (written by Jonathan Wallace).

Derek Slater wrote of SethF, and a Gripe with Greplaw

Greplaw of course is not going to talk about specifics of what happened, but one can make a good guess.

Thanks much to all.

Seth Finkelstein Greplaw Interview

Seth Finkelstein Greplaw Interview
http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php

[Now mirrored on my site. For explanation as to why, see:]

Peter Junger: Redoing What's Done
http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/blog/archive3/Redoing_What_s_Done.html

A to my mind horrible example--perhaps only because I have a couple of degrees from Harvard and like to believe that it would not condone such unfairness and stupidity, or at least not condone such stupidity--is the recent antics of the editors of a publication, or, as it says in its masthead, ``production,'' of the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, called, in an apparent effort to repel anyone who might not be familiar with the names of Unix utilities, Greplaw.com.

...

When Seth complained to the editors of Greplaw and to the authorities at the Berkman center he was met with the ``Who me?'' and the `There Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens'' defenses. ...

[Note my chance of ever having a Harvard Berkman Center Fellowship is likely now zero. :-(. So, please, no more "advice" suggesting that.]

Internet Archive, DMCA Exemptions, and Press Echo Chamber

Last week, the Internet Archive got some press for DMCA exemptions. That's last week, not last year. Being that the DMCA exemptions were announced last October, this puzzled me. As a DMCA exemption winner myself, with much grief, the topic is very dear to my heart.

It turned into a minor case study of echoing.

We start with the base article, from The Inquirer:

Internet Archive has copyright problems
DMCA exempt for now

By Nick Farrell: Wednesday 11 August 2004, 07:17
[TheInquirer]
The US Internet Archive, which makes archival copies of software and data, said it was technically impossible to do its job because of the Act which forbids copying software. ...

This week the group announced on its site here that the Copyright Office has ordered a temporary exemption for the group's work.

This article is not quite correct, as once more, the exemption were announced in October 2003. And the Archive announcements page shows the particular page was posted on January 08, 2004.

But now the fun begins.

Echo - broadbandreports

Echo - FARK

Echo - LawMeme

Echo - LISNews

Echo - CD Freaks

Echo - Techdirt (but points for at least wondering about the age of the story)