Kate’s Topless Photos – So What?

 Media  No Responses »
Sep 152012
 

Some French gossip magazine has published topless photos of Kate Middleton (who is married to someone who may eventually become a notional head of state) taken when she was staying at a private location on holiday. My first reaction: So what?

Who cares if someone famous was topless in private? We’re all naked in private at some time or another … even if it is just getting into the bath or shower. It’s hardly a revelation to learn that the rich and famous can also be found naked (or in this case topless) at some point or another.  This hardly qualifies as news … or frankly even gossip.

But on second thoughts, this is an invasion of privacy – at the same level as some pervert setting up hidden cameras in your bathroom to take photos of you naked … and then gets them published. Sure the royal couple are famous, but unless they’re getting up to something evil or hideous they should be able to expect a reasonable level of privacy when they are in private.

And the fact that Kate can sometimes be found topless isn’t the sort of thing that counts as in the public interest to reveal.

Are Julian Assange’s “Hacktivists” Becoming Mindless Thugs ?

 Computing, Media, Security  No Responses »
Aug 312012
 

There comes a moment in some violent anti-capitalist protests where genuine if illegal protest becomes mindless thuggery; for example turning from daubing slogans on the windows of the nearest bank, to throwing objects through the windows of the small independent shop next door. And you do have to wonder if those “hacktivists” who are supporting Julian Assange’s wish to be given safe passage to Ecuador have reached beyond that point.

First of all, I should point out that whilst I’m a supporter of WikiLeaks – or at least the idea of a website where whistleblowers can responsibly publish leaked material in raw form – I’m no supporter of Julian Assange in his attempt at escaping justice. A mentioned previously, I believe he should go back to Sweden to face the charges that will be made once he arrives.

But neither do I think that Julian Assange’s supporters should be silenced however mistaken they are about the situation. They have a right to protest, and I’m not even opposed to a bit of responsible “hacktivism” – in my private life I’m quite willing to go along with the ideal that sometimes it is ethical to break the law. But I also believe that the current flood of ‘hacktivism” is going just a little bit too far.

Those who have been reading just the mainstream media (and here) may be under the impression that the hacktivists have been attacking just a few places; more relevant media makes it plain that there is something more widespread. The first story mentions Cambridge University; none of the stories mentions that the hacktivists have claimed to have broken into up to 5 universities. The list of victims of this week’s surge seems to include :-

  • Up to 5 UK Universities.
  • One or possibly two UK police forces.
  • A UK recruitment agency (which just so happens to mention a couple of UK government bodies).
  • A Pakistani agency specialising in assisting students to come to the UK, or other English-speaking countries.
  • Plus a few UK government agencies.

And this list looks a little random to me.

It’s not that difficult to break into a website – even I could do it, but the question to ask is just how many websites did they rattle the doorknobs of before they found these low-hanging fruits? And it’s always worth remembering the old classic cartoon by xkcd.com :-

Of course they didn’t just widdle a picture of Julian Assange over the front page of a web site; they also broke into some databases and stole some personal information! That’s a bit more serious. And in the case of the information grabbed from the police, it’s a lot more serious.

But if you look closely at the data stolen from the UK universities involved, it becomes a little less dramatic. It would appear that the hackers have managed to break into a few databases used by various departmental web applications. Web applications often use databases as a convenient place to “stash” stuff including account details, which is what appears to have been leaked here. These account details are normally separate from any other account details (unless of course the owner of the account uses the same password), and give access only to the web application itself.

It does not appear that any core business function data has been exposed by this – i.e. the personal details of all the students for example. If it were not for Julian Assange’s name being attached to the incident, it is very likely that the media would not be interested in the story itself which would make it far less serious for the institutions concerned.

When you come down to it, Julian Assange’s real supporters should probably be a bit dismayed by this mindless thuggery – it doesn’t reflect well on their protests if it appears the best hacktivists that they can get to support them are rather on the low end of the scale. Of course a conspiracy theorist might take this as evidence that the hacktivists here are actually deliberate making the supporters of Julian Assange look bad.

Samsung vs. Apple: Part II

 Computing  No Responses »
Aug 292012
 

Quite an amusing Internet rumour came about today: That Samsung had paid their fine to Apple by sending around 30 trucks filled to the brim with nickles (which is apparently a 5¢ coin). Of course it eventually transpired that this was all an amusing hoax, which makes more sense – after all Samsung is hardly going to pay Apple until after they have tried appealing.

But the popularity of this story may be some small indication that Apple’s victory in the US courts over this patent dispute is not really seen as fair by most.

Apple, Samsung, Intellectual Property Rights, and That Trial

 Computing  No Responses »
Aug 252012
 

So apparently a US court with a US jury found against a Korean company and in favour of a US company. Well that is a surprise! Who would imagine?

There are several aspects of this trial that should require closer inspection before making any judgments :-

  1. The jury only spent 48 hours deliberating when the available evidence amounted to “hundreds of questions, 109 pages of jury instruction and the most complex muddle of law on the planet”. Given the mind boggling complexity of this case, I would not be at all surprised if the jury colluded in coming up with a snap judgment that at least gets them out of jury service rather than a properly considered verdict.
  2. The judge kept advising the two companies to come to a negotiated settlement but obviously Apple and Samsung ignored this.
  3. This is just one legal battle; Apple and Samsung are fighting tooth and nail in many cases: As of December 2011, Apple and Samsung are fighting more than 20 cases in 10 countries. It would seem that it would be better by far if someone were to band the respective CEOs heads together and force both companies to make a negotiated settlement.

It is easy for an observer who does not pay close attention to technical matters to consider Apple to be a radical innovator in the smartphone arena; certainly at the very least the iPhone was a game changer. But not because itself was a dramatic innovation in technological terms, but because it brought previous technical innovations together into a well designed and easy to use product. And frankly a comparatively limited one – much smartphone functionality present in the original iPhone’s competitors was missing from the original iPhone.

If you look at the list of patents that Samsung supposedly infringed, you will come across numerous examples that someone in the technical field will wonder if it should really be a patent. Or maybe at most should be a ‘half-patent’ (if there were such a thing). Some of the features that Samsung supposedly infringed :-

  1. The “rubber band” effect that occur when you scroll a list by touch and hit the end of the list. This to a limited extent falls foul of the “obviousness” test – if you had used a scroll by touch interface without the equivalent of this, you would think “Hey! Someone ought to come up with something that tells me when the end of the list is”.
  2. The gestures “pinch to zoom” and “twist to rotate”. I’m sorry but these really are too obvious to patent. Certainly “twist to rotate” is merely aping what we do in the real world to rotate – ever “twisted” a plate to rotate it so that the food you are going to dive into next is closer? And similarly “pinch to zoom” is effectively a touch-screen equivalent of dragging out a box onscreen using a mouse to zoom in on that particular area.
  3. Touch to drag a document? Ever used drag and drop with a mouse?
  4. The other elements in the list are in relation to physical design of the handset, but is a rectangle with rounded corners really so radical ? I’m pretty sure almost all of my phones have been rectangular with rounded corners since well before the original iPhone.

The trouble with this judgement is that whilst it may protect innovation to a tiny degree, it will also have the effect of limiting choice to the consumer in the US. Because Apple is going to look to ban imports of Samsung devices as soon as it can wheel a lawyer into court. Wouldn’t it be better by far for the court to decide that yes Samsung has infringed the pinch to zoom function, so they should pay for a license for that patent at a rate of 10¢ per device? Rather than insist on Apple being paid a ridiculous amount of damages and allowing Apple to set a ridiculous license cost for use of the patent.

The whole issue of intellectual property rights is a complete mess, and I’m not sure that even the judge in this case would disagree. Patents were originally developed to protect inventors from companies simply stealing their ideas and going ahead and making money whilst the inventor gets nothing. They were not designed to stop competitors from using the ideas of an inventor – they would simply have to pay a fair price for the idea. And patents were not supposed to be blindingly obvious either.

It is also worth pointing out that Apple have already lost pretty much the same legal battle in the UK, Germany, and South Korea. So we have the ridiculous situation where Samsung “stole” ideas as decided by a US jury, but also didn’t as decided by court victories elsewhere in the world. Who is right? Who knows?

Intellectual property rights are long overdue for a radical overhaul :-

  1. Make the UN the deciding body for patent infringements. This will eliminate all the conflicting decisions that go on around the world, and reduce to a minimum conscious or unconscious bias that a US jury (or a US judge) might weigh against a South Korean company.
  2. Review each patent rigorously to examine whether they are too obvious to patent.
  3. Use an independent party to decide licensing fees, and make licensing fees a percentage of the final purchase price of the product. Want to make a Rolex replica exact in every way ? Well, the panel might decide you can do so … as long as you pay Rolex 100% of the purchase price. Want to use “pinch to zoom” on your device ? Expect to pay Apple a tiny amount like 0.5% of the purchase price.

Of course none of this is likely to happen. Intellectual property rights are too much of a cash cow for IP trolls and IP lawyers for any big changes.

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