zomgpwn!

Weekend at Glickman's

Normally we don't jump on stories that have already achieved interdork levels of ubiquity but when the lion's share of outlets miss the real uptake on one, we feel compelled to voice our own irrelevant opinions on the matter so we can all read them back to each other and nod seriously while we go "Mmm hmmm... you are totally right about that, man.  I'm gonna ping Technorati right now."

So, OK!  Either the MPAA couldn't pass a pre-Algebra class or they have been deliberately inflating the percentage of their content being passed around CollegeNets.  Whatevs, homey!  Like we didn't know that crap already.  Now M$M is ROFL and having a good old time reporting this as if they are somehow not part of the problem. 

But dig this. (Actually if you could Twitter it or something that might be better.)  Whether this was actually 'human error' or deliberate obfuscation on the part of the MPAA matters little now.  If they can be THIS wrong about THIS statistic then WHAT THE HELL ELSE ARE THEY 29% WRONG ABOUT?  Ummm... wdk..  EVERYTHING?  When you're talking 'billions' of $ then 29% matters, a lot.

Also there seems to be a curious lack of interest or care on the part of the blogiverse regarding the inverse conclusion to be drawn here.  Where is that missing % actually coming from?  Broadband growth might be slowing a tad on the global scale, but only because it was blowing doors for a couple of years.  Plus, guess which market bucks the overall trend and just keeps on booming.  Thaaat's right, noodlenose.  The good old North American one.  *brushes own shoulder off*  Yanks + Canucks + Fat Pipes = <3.

Additionally, the concept that it's only or mostly students utilizing p2p is antiquated.  Especially when you look at the issue in 'internet time.'  Of COURSE it's still present on most campuses, but the massive smackdown that most network managers/administrators have been engaged in for quite sometime, combined with the uptick in malware attacks means that a significant portion of the student population has found other ways to share what they want to share.  (Our lips are sealed.)  While the MPAA and RIAA have been busily sighting up this relatively easy target, everyone who ISN'T rocking an .edu address has been busily and increasingly enjoying their content for free.

So while it feels good to point the finger at the MPAA and laugh at their, now exposed and naked, ridiculous claims.  Let's all take a moment to point the finger up our own silly asses and regroup here.

The RIAA is lying to you.  Music labels and distribution companies are lying to you.  Game publishers/sites, media conglomerates and 'news' outlets... all tell you that they're wearing protection.  But trust your own instincts.  They actually blew right by the drug store on their way over without even slowing down.  The simple reason is they CAN'T WAIT TO SCREW YOU and they don't care what they have to say or do to get your face in the pillow.  Their very real attitude is 'bend over, shut up and take it.'

When any massive corporation begins to sue individual users of its content, regardless of the details involved, that means one thing and one thing only.  The global chief of that corporation just realized that he can't buy the private island he wanted to give to his mistress for her birthday, so he had to settle for buying her a yacht instead.  Think we're exaggerating?  That's OK.  It IS hard to imagine it, even for us sometimes.  But we've seen it with our own eyes, and it is NOT pretty.

The issues of 'piracy' and or 'illegal content' should be decided by each individual based on their own moral compass, not the supposedly shrinking coffers of Interglobal Recordz & Moviefilms Inc.

We realize there's a large segment of the consumer population out there that would take this as an extreme or borderline conspiratorial statement.  Hey... whaddaya gonna do?  It's analogous to that friend you had at one time who was dating someone that was ssoooo wrong for them.  You know... the kind that's not even subjective.  Like when your friend was banging that 62 year old Philosophy prof. for a better grade, and he got inside her head and convinced her she was in love with him?  You couldn't change her mind with a sledgehammer so you just had to let her figure it out for herself.  Then she showed up at your place in the middle of the night sobbing about how he pushed her out of his car in front of Food Lion and sped away without saying a word.  It's like that.  Exactly.

She wasn't stupid. She just bought into an attractive lie so she could pretend she was 'making love' instead of getting used like plastic or paper ma'am.

It's time to force that old prick into retirement, or at LEAST get some incriminating shots of him while he's drunk at a frat party and post them on Facebook.

The next time you see some 'report' put out by the RIAA, assume it's a lie.... because it is.  The old business models are dead.  They have been for quite some time.  We're living through their echo... the sounds of their death throes are still bouncing around the canyon walls but the corpse is already stinking.  If the MPAA and RIAA want to slap sunglasses on it and drag it around to try and collect its Social Security checks for a little while longer then that's what they're gonna do.

Just don't let them get into your head with threats and/or false information.   Remember that YOU have the choice to pay for what you feel has value and to NOT pay for what you feel doesn't.   Support new business models, especially the ones who favor cutting out the traditional middle man tier and instead increase the profit share for the people who are creating the art.

Society will be rewarded when it nurtures talent and genuine prolificacy over executive salaries and profit margins.  We love making money and the free market economy as much as the next schmo with a rent payment due.  What we don't love is a manipulated and pre-formed assembly line system of 'approved entertainment'.  You don't need someone to tell you what music, movies or tv shows are 'good' or 'bad'.  You can and should decide that on your own.

The E.U. pwns Google. You own your IP address. PWN!

Is the E.U. trying to fake us out?  Are they REALLY coming down this firmly on the side of the individual when it comes to online privacy?  If you believe everything you read on Teh Netz, they are.

Deutschland's data protection commissioner (Do we have one of those yet?) Peter Scharr is gearing up to smack Yahoogle and Macrosoft across their red white & blue faces, in preparation for more online regulation within the borders of our new favorite country - Europa.   We've already emailed Herr Scharr and offered to crouch silently behind them, while he pushed them from the front.  We await his reply.. but we DO realize that he's a little busy right now.

So what exactly IS all the hubbub about?  Well for one, people should think seriously about using the word 'hubbub'.  There's no way that's gonna make it through the English > German translator without sounding super naughty.

Traurige, deutsche Freunde! Wir entschuldigen uns für unseren freien Mangel an kultureller Empfindlichkeit und bitten Sie, dieses Paar reale amerikanische bluejeans als Friedensantrag anzunehmen. Wir wissen, daß die hart, hinter ' der Wand ' zu erhalten sind. Erklären Sie Bob Geldof, das wir denken, daß er VIEL besser ohne Augenbrauen schaut.

There.  NOW where were we?  Oh yes.  Scharr seems to think that an IP address can and should be 'generally regarded' as 'personal information'.  Whoa... whoa there big guy.  While we certainly applaud your commitment to making Schmidtey cough soy milk out of his nose, have you actually thought this one through?   Our minds are positively swimming with questions!

Did you mean assigned IPs?  My DHCP is hurt and confused.. and it don't know what to do. Or maybe you were just referring to the host address?  I'll trade you five network addresses and a VG-NM `86 Bonds Fleer card for it!  What about my fax machine's IP?  Did our printers just gain individual rights?  The things are already finicky enough.  If I have to start providing them health insurance and lunch breaks there's gonna be a problem.  Have you ever even hosted a LAN PARTY dude?  You're freaking us out!

OK, deep breath.  We're not total rubes.  More like half rube, half amazing.  *posterizes you*  So we can grasp the concept that an IP identified with a human being accessing information online would be the basic place to start for 'ownership' of an IP address.  The way Google sees this is that the IP only identifies a LOCATION.  Most people use the same computer consistently for accessing the netz so that's a toss up.... really a matter of opinion.  We'd go so far as to say that an IP address exists as combination of location and personal identification that shifts regularly depending on the behavior of the individual attached to the address.  (Yes you can quote us.)

Fer instance..  who 'owns' your street address?  You?  Or does everyone who lives at your address own it?  Just the street number or the unit number too?  What about your landlord or your mortgage company?  Are you merely leasing or renting that address from them?  Or do you 'own' it as long as you pay them a set fee every month?  Even leaving analogies aside, what about PCs in internet cafes, or your office computer?  What kind of sick content is that cleaning crew streaming on your workstation after hours.. and why does your office chair always smell so musky?

Clearly these are heady questions that must be worked out to the satisfaction of all economically vested entities, but we're sure glad we don't have to think about it after we hit the submit button.  So why bother even thinking about it at all?  Because it's most likely going to affect you personally, whether you know it or not. 

Companies like M.S. and Googs collect your data and use it in all kinds of clever ways.  One of those data pieces they keep track of and store is your IP address.  This does indeed help them to regionally customize the information you are given when making a request.  If someone in Dublin, VA types 'cricket' into GoogSearch, they get one set of results.  When someone in Dublin, Ireland types in 'cricket' it's a whole different ballgame.  They also use this kind of stuff to prevent click fraud on Adsense and just generally make sure they keep the clever exploits and workarounds to a minimum.  Nothing wrong with that at all.  What many people raise an eyebrow at is the way Privacy Policies are kept in a perpetual state of elevated complexity, effectively preventing many if not most people who live under their influence in the dark.

Granted, it can be a daunting task to try and communicate such a variegated set of regulations to a general public who, quite honestly, don't really care too much about their own online privacy.  In a world where people still assume their IM conversations are private and that most music, film and game reviews aren't bought and paid for - replacing your site logo with a Privacy Policy link might not even do the trick.  Peeps don't wanna read about consent and opt-ins and cookies.  (Mmmm... cookies.)  Nobody reads the tag on their mattress before they go to sleep at night.  Not unless they have some major OCD kickin' upstairs.

Even though we love to make predictions here, we're not gonna touch this one.  Honestly we can see both sides of this issue and just hope that the E.U. can use their increasing influence to add some weight to the side of the users when it comes to protecting their personal information.

In the end, MicroYahoogle will just end up buying the European Union with stock options to shut them up and use your data however they want, but at least we get to watch a good fight in the meantime... until IPv6 gets here anyway.

Google's 'Privacy FAQ'
MS's 'Privacy Statement'
Y! Privacy Policy

Openhuman.org - Opening humans since 2006

Terminal geek-ocity reached entirely new heights today as OpenHuman.org landed in the zomgpwn inbox and resulted in a collective sentiment of "Ooohhh no...  REALLY?"

While we give Emre points for A. The idea and B. The Followthrough - gotta point out here that there really IS such a thing as too much information.  This becomes exponentially more true when one is dealing with the personal life of Turkish Linux devotee.

Provide an example, you say?  We'd be delighted to!

Exhibit A: Emre's personal OpenHuman profile page.

Exhibit B: This gem from said profile: "I have no girl friend for almost 2 years.. Because I don't have time to search! Waiting for Google to crawl girls :)"

Yeah, well...   ah it's too easy.  We'll let that one stand on its own merits of dorkiliciousness.  Good luck with all that d00d.  I don't even want your Zune playlist in my personverse, much less the knowledge that you liked to lick batteries as a small child.

*signs up for an OpenHuman account just in case it becomes TNBT so I can brag that it's old news to me*