Pre-class Discussion for Jan 10

There's an interesting episode of the "Cranky Geeks" (great name!) webcast, hosted by PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak, that features Whit Diffie of public key encryption fame. It's a half-hour long, but it covers a wide range of the topics considered today and in this class as a whole. It is also fairly entertaining. At the end of the interview Diffie said he's proposing a goal of strict product liability for software in 10 years. See ref [1] --Tseiver 20:35, 9 January 2008 (EST)

• One interesting topic discussed on this clip was whether or not encryption systems have a backdoor in which hackers can access the protected information. Dan Farmer suggested that it is extremely difficult to understand and figure out the mathematics behind the encryption system and only a few would be able to hack into the system. Regardless, this should be a concern for publishers who want to use encryption programs to secure their copyright works. It will only be a matter of time before hackers discover the backdoor into the encryption. I found one article from 2000 discussing DVD encryption hackers posting the de-encryption code on the Internet (the same decision discussed in "Cyber Law Journal: Assessing Linking Liability") DVD Hackers. My understanding is that the few are the ones we should be concerned about in these hacking situations. Generally, most computer users are not the ones developing software or decrypting codes to hack into systems, but it is the few who make the de-encryption codes available to others.KStanfield 21:47, 9 January 2008 (EST)

• Harkening back to our discussions about defamation, the NY Times has an article today claiming that LA federal attorneys have filed a subpoena against MySpace relating to the suicide of the teenage girl in Missouri. The investigation is to determine whether setting up a false identiy online for the purpose of harassment can be defined as Internet fraud under federal statutes. See ref supoena article --Tseiver 08:00, 10 January 2008 (EST)

• Here's two other short NY Times articles directly related to trusted systems technologies. The first regarding an open source authentication program being sponsored by Yahoo! See ref Yahoo! OpenID The other reports on a panel discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show of ISPs and telcos regarding network-level packet filtering. See ref ISP filtering --Tseiver 08:12, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Zittrain: Technological Complements to Copyright

• Mark Stefik’s “Trusted Systems (I)”

In this article Stefik argues that usage-rights language is “essential to electronic commerce: and the range of things that people can or cannot do must be made explicit so that buyers and sellers can negotiate and come to agreements.” While I agree that it is important for end-users to understand the fees and conditions for any particular trusted system they may want to connect with, is there really a negotiation though? I think this has an interesting tie-in to Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet” which states that how generativity allows for a variety of software to be built and content exchanged without anticipating what the market wants and is concerned that the harm that arises from generativity will create a lockdown. However, I wonder if the opposite could be true as well: if end-users are unable to negotiate the terms of trusted systems, and trusted systems continue to lock-down their products into very specific-single use machines, then perhaps even more generativity will result. More and more unsatisfied end-users that are unable participate in deciding the terms of their lock-downed machine may be incentivized to think of alternative software or generative platforms to run their programs (or perhaps as we’ve seen in many cases if chances of being caught for legal liability under 1201 of the DCMA are slim, users that create codes circumventing trusted systems lockdowns). Cseif 08:25, 10 January 2008 (EST) Cseif

Zittrain: FOI/Web 2.0

I think this article makes a good point about the dependence that Web 2.0 spawns, even if it untethers us from the physical boxes we used to rely on. Looking over the Facebook terms of service provided, it's obvious the lack of recourse users have if their data is lost or the service discontinued. I've recently started doing some productivity-type tasks online with Google Documents and their TOS (which I just looked up!) are just as harrowing, if not more. "You acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. ... You acknowledge and agree that if Google disables access to your account, you may be prevented from accessing the Services, your account details or any files or other content which is contained in your account." In essence, the only guarantee I have that Google won't ruin all my stuff and delete my documents is their reputation. I may start doing more frequent exports of what I post there. Jendawson 09:48, 10 January 2008 (EST)