Reading 10 Response

Net Neutrality, or open Internet, is the idea that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should not favor or block certain content sources by charging content providers for access to digital “fast lanes” or deliberately slowing down content from sources that may be competing with the ISPs in some way.  All of this is meant ensure that the Internet remains a free and open platform where users are able to use their bandwidth however they want, barring illegal activity of course.

Proponents of Net Neutrality argue that Internet access should be treated as a utility, like water or electricity, where all users have the same level of access.  Not enforcing Net Neutrality would also give ISPs too much power that could potentially be abused, creating situations where ISPs block traffic from competing content providers or limit traffic from popular services in order to make a profit.  These abuses would in turn limit the ability of smaller websites or services to compete with larger content providers capable of paying off the ISPs for bandwidth, stifling innovation as a whole.

Opponents of Net Neutrality argue that pro-Net Neutrality legislation actually impairs innovation on the ISP level and that ISPs actually have the right to distribute their networks across different services, similar to how people can pay for different levels of cable service or, in some areas in California at least, pay a lower electric bill in exchange for reducing power consumption during peak hours.  Opponents also argue that charging content providers for increased bandwidth may actually be necessary, such as Comcast’s argument that Netflix should pay for the necessary updates to the ISPs infrastructure needed to handle the increased traffic caused by the service.

It should be noted that both opponents of Net Neutrality as well as some proponents of the principle argue that the government’s relatively heavy-handed method of enforcing net neutrality may actually end up hurting the free market and American innovation in the long run.  Some argue that users in a world without Net Neutrality will ultimately gravitate towards the ISPs who provide them with the cheapest access to all of their desired content while others argue that establishing a set of brittle rules which lawyers can now comb over to find loopholes and exceptions to (as opposed to a set of flexible standards) may actually result in an Internet that is even less neutral than it is today.

I personally am in favor of Net Neutrality and am in favor of this method of enforcing it:  create a set of standards and a dedicated team of FCC investigators to handle complaints from users who feel that their ISPs have violated their standards.  This not only limits government regulation except in cases that actually warrant investigation, but would also force ISPs to self-regulate and innovate in order to keep their customers happy with truly neutral access.

I do believe that the Internet is a public service and should be treated like any other utility.  The Information Age pretty much requires that those who want to innovate and move humanity forward be connected.  Even just having to entire sum of human knowledge just a few clicks away is incredibly empowering/enlightening to any average user.  Having fair access offers such huge advantages to a user that it should be considered a fundamental right.  However, I do believe that what constitutes fair access should be solidified before we go ahead and officially declare my right to surf to my heart’s content a right.

Project 03 Response

This is a response to this post.

Is encryption a fundamental right?  Should US citizens have access to technology capable of completely locking out law enforcement, to the point where government officials are asking tech companies to build back-doors to bypass encryption and security measures?  I certainly believe so, albeit to an extent.

The 4th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”  In other words, so long as there is no warrant we as citizens have a right to privacy and can take measures to protect that privacy.  Adding encryption to a device is similar to adding locks to your doors or placing valuable physical documents in a safe.  Yes these measures may frustrate law enforcement in the fact that they can’t complete their job at a faster pace, but they also frustrate the bad guys who may have more malicious intents than throwing you in jail for a few nights.   Would the same people who say they “have nothing to hide” and therefore argue that encryption methods should not be necessary/be easily bypassed in the name of national security also advocate leaving their doors unlocked or leaving their valuable documents out on the living room coffee table?  Hopefully not.  As we mentioned in the project, these people with supposedly no secrets probably do not realize just how pervasive encryption really is to modern society as well as how powerful the bad guys can be if they get your sensitive information.

The encryption/data privacy issue is one that is very important to me after having worked with the information security team at my last internship as well as coming from a family with a military/government background.  I’ve been able to see both sides of the argument and really has shaped my views about government, technology, and human rights.  I believe that technology that has not caused any serious harm should not be banned because it is not fully understood (or, perhaps in our government’s case, because their agents aren’t smart enough to actually crack the encryption or find other creative solutions for gaining intel besides spying on US citizens).  It is our duty as informed voters to learn all we can about emerging technologies in order to keep up with scientific and technological innovation, which will ultimately bring even more issues and debates to light.  It is also our duty to support those candidates and officials who do the same as opposed to spreading rhetoric of fear and control from “the man.”

The encryption debate will ultimately be resolved by the balance that we as a society strike between national security and privacy.  The way I see it, the balance will continue to shift towards national security so long as people continue to be controlled by fear and terror.  I’m not sure what good I can do on my own, but I will still fight to make sure people are educated about technology, their rights to privacy, and of the dangerous precedents that could be set by allowing the government to intentionally weaken digital security.

Project 03

Project submission:  Encryption Letter

Group Members:  Dinh Do, Chris Ray, Nathan Vahrenberg

Yo Ho Yo Ho(Reading 09 Response)

The DMCA handles digital piracy through its “safe-harbor” provisions, which protect service providers form monetary liability due to the activity of infringing 3rd parties.  Specifically, the provisions require service providers to comply with their conditions, including performing a “notice and takedown” of allegedly infringing content, if they want this protection.  However, the provisions also allow for users whose content has been taken down to challenge the ruling.  The logic behind the “safe-harbor” provisions is that by giving copyright holders a quick and easy way to take down allegedly infringing (read that as “pirated”) content, the provisions are actually allowing online intermediaries like YouTube to continue providing services without fear of liability while maintaining the rights held by copyright owners.  Some would even view this as “essential to the growth of the Internet as an engine for innovation and free expression.”  This sounds all well and good, but does the average Internet user really care about digital piracy?  Is digital piracy ethical in the average user’s eye?  Is piracy even an issue in light of services like Netflix and Spotify?

I think the best response to the question of the ethics of digital piracy ironically comes in the form of this clip from South Park.  While pirating content is unethical in the sense that it prevents creators from collecting their just dues/royalties for their work, people should realize that the creators who have the resources to legal action against pirates (or at least the ones that have received the most media attention) have more than enough to not be seriously hurt from those lost profits.  Look at Mettallica v. Napster, Inc. or Kanye seeking legal action against The Pirate Bay.  These aren’t your starving musicians barely making enough to survive, they’re multimillion dollar artists whose names have a global reach.  Even if their music gets pirated, they’re still going to make money off live performances, merchandise, corporate sponsorships, and even good old fashioned people legitimately buying their content because they are dedicated fans.  Lets not forget that at the end of the day, a creator whose work has been pirated is still having their work viewed/appreciated by an audience who, if they become dedicated fans, may switch over to actually purchasing content.

I am one of the many Internet users who have shared pirated content, typically in the form of movies and music.  I’ve never done it because I couldn’t pay up or out of some need to hoard information.  I did it to be able to view content that I normally do not have access to (like shows from the BBC) or download music from smaller bands whose material is not available through conventional means.  Being able to view content that you are normally aren’t able to access, whether through geographic location, time, money, etc., is what I think drives most people towards online piracy.  However, with the advent of services like Netflix and Spotify, these barriers are slowly disappearing and piracy is on the decline.  I wouldn’t call these services solutions to piracy, since there are still movies, shows, songs, etc not available through these services that people will resort to pirating to obtain.  Until the day when streaming services are able to offer up every bit of desired content to every user on the Internet, online pirates will continue to sail their digital seas.  Are they a problem?  Ethically yes.  Are they a problem worth dedicating a lot of resources to?  Probably not, so long as artists and creators continue to have dedicated fans and supporters.

 

The Troll Toll (Reading 08 Response)

According to the WIPO’s Document What is Intellectual Property?, a patent is an exclusive right granted to products or processes that provide new ways for doing things or provide new technical solutions for problems.  Patents provide owners with protections by giving owners the ability to limit who can make, use, or sell their product or process for a limited amount of time (usually 20 years), after which point the invention enters the public domain.  Patents are meant to provide incentives for inventors to disclose the details of the work in exchange for protection and possible material reward, thereby encouraging innovation and benefitting society as a whole by increasing the total body of technical knowledge.

For the most part, patents have been beneficial for society an industry.  An example of this was mentioned in the “When Patents Attack!” episode of This American Life, which explains how if Eli Whitney had decided to keep the cotton gin to himself, American industry and innovation as a whole would have been stifled.  Current patent laws for the most part work as intended when dealing with physical/tangible artifacts.  Unfortunately, software ironically introduces some bugs to these laws.  This is because, in general, developing software does now take as much time or resources as developing something physical like a new type of engine.  In addition, a piece of software is in essence an implementation of an algorithm, which courts have historically ruled as not patentable.

Should patents even be granted to software?  The short answer is yes.  The long answer comes from an example from our good friends in the CBE department.  You cannot patent the actual science and chemistry behind a reaction, but you can patent a unique process or unique equipment used in that process.  By extension, while you should not be able to patent the algorithm the underlies a piece of software, you should definitely be able to patent your unique implementation of that algorithm.

Some may point to the rise of patent trolls as well as Elon Musk’s decision to relinquish control over all of Tesla’s patents to the public domain in an attempt to stimulate the industry as signs of how the current system is broken and actually hinders innovation.  And I agree with them, to an extent.  It seems as though the current trend, at least within the software industry, is to try and patent very broad processes that encompass a wide variety of common practices in today’s Internet-centered world, such as the ability to update software through the Internet or the ability to conduct in-app purchases.  This, as well as the fact that the courts are limited in their technical knowledge, does in fact point to a system in need or repair that is currently hurting the industry.  However, just as a programmer doesn’t completely scrap a piece of software because of a bug, we should not completely do away with the patent system.  We should instead work to establish a legal precedent of evaluating software on how it implements its underlying algorithm as opposed to the algorithm itself.