CompuBlab

If it's computer related, we'll blab about it!

Category: Legal

SOPA and PIPA – The Battle is Far From Over

Greetings all!

It is hard to believe how much time has passed since I last posted on the blog. A string of illnesses in our family had us all gasping for air (and antibiotics) for a quite a while. Fortunately, we are all back on our feet and up and at’em once more!

During that brief hiatus, two not-so-little bills made their way through the US Senate and the US House of Representatives. You may have heard about them. One was called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) while the other was called PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). Both laws were, on the surface, designed to help law enforcement officials combat piracy of digital products overseas. The problem with these laws was that they were so broad, they could (and would) have been used (more like “abused”) to disrupt sites acting legally within the United States.

There is a lot that can be said about these two laws, but I found the best introduction to the issue was given by the talented folks over at the Khan Academy. I am including that roughly 11 minute video in this post for your viewing pleasure.

The only point I want to make here and now is that as you watch the video, keep in mind that the SOPA/PIPA issue is anything but over. Lawmakers were surprised at the amount of backlash that was generated from those laws and now they will regroup before trying to put such legislation through the system a second time. Since this topic *will* come up again, it behooves you, a consumer of digital and online products, to understand at least in general what the big flap was all about.

Yes, laws to combat the theft of intellectual property are needed, but we must as consumers make certain that the laws that are crafted make sense, and do not go beyond the mark of what they are supposed to do.

Give the video a look, and draw your own conclusions.

Facebook & FTC Settle on Privacy Issues

Some very good news recently regarding Facebook and their long standing issues with violating people’s privacy. The news is reporting that the FTC and Facebook have come to a settlement regarding Facebook’s disregard for people’s private information (see the article referenced here).

If you are a user of Facebook, privacy has always been an issue. For my part, I am amazed at the amount of personal information people post on Facebook. Even information that could help someone steal a person’s identity (your birthdate, for example). Yet even with people being seemingly unaware of how much information they were giving out, Facebook made itself a lot of enemies over the last few years by revamping their privacy settings for users.

In perhaps the most egregious violation of basic information privacy, on more than one occasion Facebook has made changes to the settings screens that relate to privacy of your data. This in and of itself isn’t bad. What *is* bad is that Facebook defaulted your privacy settings to be “let the whole world see this”…even when it involved data you had previously indicated was not to be shared. In addition, Facebook did what so many companies do today…promised they would not share your personal information with advertisers…and then did so anyway. Of course they did…it was all about the money. Your personal information is valuable to marketing companies, more so now that advanced data mining and analysis techniques have become so powerful.

I recall reading a study a few years ago about privacy statements for different companies. A cursory examination showed that the vast majority of companies simply ignore their privacy statements. Your data is shared with whomever will pay for it. Is this a surprise? Not to me. Corporations are not known for their morals and ethics (though there are some notable welcome exceptions).

The settlement includes the promise by Facebook to make any and all changes in privacy settings be “opt-in” on the part of the user. That is, any changes to privacy settings must be approved by the user. This is great, but I am sad that it has taken two years to get Facebook to agree to do that which it should have done from the beginning.

The settlement also provides for Facebook to be audited for the next twenty years regarding privacy issues. Sadly, there was no information in the article I referenced regarding how this auditing was to take place (which is to say, is it “window dressing” or does the auditing provision have any real “teeth” to it).

There is more that the FTC needs to do to crack-down on such flagrant violations of your privacy, but at least this is a start. I *am* disappointed though that no financial penalty was imposed upon Facebook. Seeing as they profited from their unethical actions, I feel a financial penalty would have been in order.

Since that doesn’t seem to be in the cards, we will just have to hope that Facebook lives up to their word (which given their track record, is not something I would bet the farm on)…

Warrantless GPS Tracking Case Goes to Supreme Court

Here at CompuBlab, we often look for stories that show how technology has outpaced the law. Take for instance, the good old Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable search and seizures. Clearly, the framers of our Constitution could not have foreseen the invention of the GPS tracking device.

Reuters is carrying an article about a particular case that is going to the Supreme Court regarding a man convicted of a crime, in part, because police covertly attached a GPS tracking device to the man’s vehicle. Using the tracking data obtained from this act, it helped solidify the case against the accused. Click here to read the original GPS Tracking case story.

Now, without getting into all of the legal mumbo-jumbo, the defendant’s attorney is arguing that placing a GPS tracker on a person’s property (or the person themselves) should be governed by the rules of wire taps: a warrant from a judge who deems there to be probably cause is required. The government, nearest I can figure, simply is arguing that it is an important tool in crime prevention and they should be allowed to use it whenever they want (or, you can say, they want to be able to use GPS trackers “with impunity”).

I am going to add my personal take here. Clearly, there is a great opportunity for GPS information to be misused and abused when it can be collected in this manner. The defendant’s attorney is not saying that GPS data cannot be used…he is arguing that it cannot be gathered indiscriminately.  No one is taking the tool away from law enforcement….they are simply saying that the tool represents such a huge potential for invasion of privacy and abuse that its proper use should be governed by a Judge’s agreement  (a.k.a. a warrant) who can be convinced of probable cause. THAT to me is along the lines of what the Fourth Amendment was trying to protect.

Of course, lawyers will tell me that the law is much more complex than what any mere mortal such as myself could understand. Today’s law? Maybe. But I do know this: I read the Constitution and Bill of Rights multiple times a year…and a lot of it seems pretty straightforward to me. Yes, there  are certainly boundary cases, but I really don’t see this as being one of them. I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that a GPS tracker is like a phone tap, but if you read the Fourth Amendment, it doesn’t mention wire taps either! It is in the spirit of protecting the people from unreasonable and abusive use of power by law enforcement personnel.

I believe most law enforcement officials are upstanding people who deserve our respect. However, there are always a few bad apples in any bushel, as the saying goes, and because of the great potential for abuse, I believe GPS Trackers SHOULD be subject to a judge’s warrant before being used. If law enforcement official feels this is somehow “taking away” a vital tool, then I am already suspicious of what they intend to do with this tool that makes them seek to avoid oversight.

 

Patent Stupidity: You can be Sued Because of Your Wireless Router

If you have read this blog at all you know I have a very dim view of software patents. The system is so horribly broken, and most Americans, unfamiliar with the details of the technology, have no idea just how dangerously out of hand the situation has become.

Now it comes out that a “patent troll” (a company that exists only to acquire patents and then sue people over them…contributing nothing to society and leeching off of those who are truly trying to innovate) has started suing businesses that provide wireless access to their customers (like hotel chains and shops like Panera Bread) claiming that they (the patent troll company) own the patent on wireless networking.

By extension, if you have a wireless router in your house, you could be sued (though it is unlikely).

If you’d like to read more about this utter stupidity, check out this link: http://patentexaminer.org/2011/09/innovatios-infringement-suit-rampage-expands-to-corporate-hotels/

Sad to say, the so-called “America Invents Act,” that lovely bit of legislation passed in the last month that promised to fix the patent system, will do NOTHING for this situation.

Give the above article a read…then give your congressman an earful.

More cheerful posts to come soon…

It Was Only A Matter of Time – Angry Birds Game Hit With Patent Lawsuit

Sadly, another illustration as to all that is wrong with the US Patent system. Today we talk about the story of Patent Trolls.

Once upon a time there was a country who loved to build things. They had manufacturing plants all over the place, with plenty of proud families who for generations worked in the plants. Day after day, these people toiled to produce some of the best products in the land. Sure, they ran into various problems when trying to manufacture new products, but these workers were so skilled and so experienced, nothing could hold them back for long.

Then one day someone in this country got the idea that manufacturing was a job best left for others. It was too hard to try to run manufacturing plants in the United States, and cheap labor could be had abroad. So in a stampede that would have dwarfed any stampede ever seen out west, most manufacturers moved their facilities over seas.

Now, this worked reasonably well for the manufacturers, who no longer had to pay for things such as worker’s benefits, health care, plant safety, livable salaries, etc. If you ignored the fact that they were turning their backs on the workers who had for generations toiled in their plants and made them what they are, and the fact that the owners were  selling their souls to the devil, things would look pretty rosy for the manufacturers.

Once this great country abandoned its ability to make things, a new economics market was necessary. Of course, the old market of:

  • make something
  • sell it to consumers
  • reinvest in your business
  • repeat

had to be replaced, since almost no one had the ability to make things any more.

Well, it took some searching, but then some unnamed group of people decided that since they didn’t want to make money by MAKING stuff, they would look for a way to make money by simply THINKING of stuff. Now the problem became how to get people to pay them for merely THINKING stuff.

Well, an old method that had always worked in the past was to get laws enacted that could FORCE people to pay them for their thoughts. However, after looking around for a while, these “new” entrepreneurs settled on the US Patent system.

You see, the Patent system was originally designed to allow a small-time, simple inventor to take his new inventions to a larger company to partner with in order to bring his ideas to market…without having to worry about that big company simply stealing his idea and doing it themselves.  It was supposed to encourage the independent inventor to go ahead and invent without fear that the big bad corporations would steal all of his hard work. The inventor would obtain a patent, and the US Government would protect that inventor such that no one else could financially benefit from his invention for some amount of time, after which the idea would be released into the public domain.

But this band of lazy men thought that perhaps they could subvert this very patent system to FORCE people to pay them for their ideas. Sadly, they did indeed find a way.

Today we have a totally broken patent system awarding patents on just about any idea…no matter how obvious and no matter how much the idea has been USED in the past.

So now we have patents for things like:

  1. On a computer screen, putting a box around an input field
  2. On a check-out screen for a website, have a single click complete the transaction
  3. Using a computer system for generating messages electronically instead of physically
  4. Using a computer to print out a report
  5. Using a digital method of delivering music (think mp3 downloads)

So now we have all of these patents floating around…and along comes the Patent Troll (sorry it took me so long to finally get to this point)!

The Patent Troll is a new breed of business…though in my opinion it is not a business…it is a blight on business. You see, a Patent Troll produces NOTHING of value to the community. They don’t “make” anything (indeed, “making” something would be a liability for a patent troll…but that is a tale for another time). They simply scour the earth looking for patents that other people have registered and are looking to sell. These could be the most SILLY patents in creation. The only thing the Patent Troll cares about is whether or not they can sue someone with it.

Oh! I forgot! I hadn’t told you the other side to the broken patent system! You see, it can cost between $1 million and $5 million dollars to legally defend yourself against the most stupid/silly/asinine patent. Therefore, a lot of people who get sued over patent issues simply settle out of court because in the end it is a lot cheaper than battling it. In effect, what we now have in the US Patent system is a government sponsored extortion racket.

So why are my hackles up on patents right now? You may not have known it, but those <sarcasm> shifty, greedy folks that made the popular game Angry Birds (which I proudly state I have NEVER played)</sarcasm> have just been sued by a “patent troll.” Yes, you got that right. Apparently the folks that made Angry Birds infringed on someone’s “invention,” and now the Patent Troll is coming to try and get his “cut” (click here to read the original article that inspired this post).

Oh…but the story gets ohhhhhh so much better…

You see, this particular lawsuit opens up a HUGE can of worms because Lodsys, the Patent Troll…errrr…the company filing the suit…is claiming that they hold a patent that was violated in Apple’s Software Development Kit (SDK) that it gives to software developers to use to create programs such as Angry Birds. Now you need to know that Apple “bit the bullet” and signed a licensing agreement with Lodsys over this for the expressed purpose of protecting developers that use Apple’s SDK. Apparently Lodsys was just waiting for a few big-revenue games to be released so that they could assert that Apple’s license agreement DOES NOT protect user’s of the SDK (click here to read the other article that inspired this post).

Anyway, you now get a taste of why it is that I am so against patents in software, and with a lot of other technology fields. I believe that patents have their place, but that the system has been so incredibly perverted, especially in the area of software patents, that it is now used primarily by large corporations to prevent smaller organizations from encroaching on their markets. The solution to this problem certainly IS NOT to ram 1.2 million patent applications through an already broken system, which would only compound the problems.

Supressed Study that Shows That Movie Piracy Can Actually IMPROVE Movie Sales?

As you probably know, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), with their HUGE lobbying power in DC, has for years been telling us about the billions (or was that trillions?) of dollars lost each year due to piracy. Even with the inflated numbers, these two organizations have been pushing congress for years to enact legislation such as the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to give power to law enforcement officials to crack down on music and movie piracy.

Never mind that the legal power they seem to be garnering against copyright infringement is getting to be downright frightening (think about the RIAA suing grandmothers, 11-year olds, and the estates of people who have died just because someone…not necessarily them…downloaded a music or video file from their house), and never mind that they are having to come up with a “cutesie” name for their legislation so that you don’t realize exactly what it is that they are doing (think “The Patriot Act”…a piece of legislation that stripped more rights from Americans than…well…I digress…). Never mind all of that…and ponder this: Research shows that those who pirate a movie are MORE likely to buy a movie than those who don’t!

Yep! That’s right! All this time when the MPAA has been complaining about the lawlessness of the standard human being who would steal from a fine organization such as the MPAA by downloading movies illegally…they’ve really been talking about some of their best customers!

It turns out that a study performed by one of the largest research companies in the world (click here to read the original article that inspired this post) concluded that those who pirate movies are MORE likely to buy DVDs and MORE likely to attend the release of a new movie at the theater (when the ticket prices are the highest).

Man, I’d LOVE to read such a study…wouldn’t you? Too bad, we won’t be able to. It seems that the un-named person or persons who requested and funded the study decided to “bury” the study…because they found the results to be “unpleasant.”

Well then, I wonder why the MPAA continues to lobby for even more powerful (some might say “outlandish”) powers to be given to law enforcement officials to be used…apparently…against some of their best customers?

Bloggers Note: When you get past the tongue-and-cheek style of my writing for this article, I hope you’ll remember that despite all the antics of the MPAA and the RIAA, downloading movies and recordings illegally is still exactly that…illegal! Please don’t sell your personal integrity for such a small price. More specifically, please do not sell your personal integrity at all. If you want to stick it to the MPAA and RIAA…do it legally. Vote with your dollars! Don’t buy their stuff! Contrary to popular belief, not downloading the latest recording of your favorite artist, or not downloading the latest movie of your favorite actor will NOT immediately turn you into dust! Just some food for thought…

Laptop Rental Company Takes Secret Pictures via the Web Cam

A somewhat sobering article appeared over on TechGoblin (click here to see the original story) regarding a Laptop Rental Company that installed software to take pictures using the computer’s built-in webcam and to transmit them back to the rental company. Of course, they never DISCLOSED this minor detail to their customers.

Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that such behavior is well outside of what one would consider proper conduct with respect to a customer’s privacy. Apparently, a lot of customers agreed with my opinion as they opened up a class-action lawsuit against the company.

Well, the surprising part of this little story is that the judge recently decided not to issue an injunction against the laptop rental company (that is, the judge did not order them to stop). You’ll have to read the article yourself  (see the link to the original article I listed previously) to try to understand why it is the judge decided the way he did. I for one seem to have too much common sense to be able to understand the twisted nature of our legal system.

The best that I can come up with is that the judge did not necessarily disagree with the plaintiffs that what this laptop rental company was going was despicable, but that he was saying that the WAY the plaintiff’s attorney was trying to argue the case was not going to be very strong.

No matter what the reason, apparently the judge did not feel it necessary to put an end to this invasion of privacy.

Warrantless GPS Tracking

Is it legal for law enforcement officers to track your location via GPS without a court order? By agreeing to hear the case of Antoine Jones, a man from Washington who was convicted on drug-related charges in 2008, that is precisely the question that the US Supreme Court has will most likely have to answer.

You see, a lot of the case against Antoine Jones traces back to GPS tracking information that was obtained by placing a GPS tracker on Jone’s vehicle. Jone’s lawyer is claiming “foul” in that he asserts that attaching a GPS tracker to a suspect’s vehicle is much like tapping a suspect’s phone…and phone taps require a warrant from a judge. This is a perfect case of technology progressing beyond what the framers of the US Constitution ever imagined.

As you may know, the Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unlawful search and seizure. One instance of this protection is seen in  “phone taps” or “wire taps,” which require a warrant from a judge before they may be performed. A judge’s job is to ensure that law enforcement officers are requesting the phone tap because they have a reasonable suspicion of wrong doing…and not for any other reason (well, the REAL definition of this is a bit more specific, but I am generalizing here for the sake of brevity).

Well, Jone’s lawyer is asserting that GPS information tracking should be held in the same regard as phone conversations. Namely, that such information is private, and that only by the granting of a judge’s warrant should such tracking be allowed under the Fourth Amendment.

How the court rules on this issue is likely to impact all of us. At stake is personal privacy versus the ability of Law Enforcement Officials  to be able to gather evidence against suspects.

My personal take (which is to say, my opinion only):

I personally believe that GPS tracking SHOULD require a judge’s warrant. I don’t believe that anyone should be allowed to “track” anyone else without their knowledge unless a judge has been convinced that there is probable cause of wrong doing. To me, the “secret” tracking of someone via a GPS tracker is akin to “stalking” a person…an action for which there are laws already in place for the public’s protection.

I should also point out that while this is my opinion, I also think that there is a problem with our legal system regarding the improper gathering of evidence. For example, if an officer gathers evidence in a manner where the authenticity of the evidence is not in question, but the legality of the evidence IS in question, then I think that the evidence should stand (that is, I think it should be able to be used against the defendant). An example would be where an office discovers a dead body in a suspect’s closet moments before a search warrant arrives. There is no disputing that there is a dead body on the suspect’s closet. Unless there is some question of somehow the body being planted in the closet, I think the evidence should stand and that the officer should receive appropriate consequences for his or her actions.

Again, just my two cents…

So keep an eye on this issue in the news. I certainly will be watching it.

References:

Bill to Legalize Online Poker

With an economy crumbling, wars and rumors of wars all around us, terrorism running rampant, and troops in harm’s way on foreign soil, where do some of our elected officials get the time to propose bills to legalize online gambling? But that’s just where Rep Joe Barton (Texas) has been spending some of his time (Click here for full article).

How sad that with the nearly limitless possibilities of good that could be accomplished by applying technology to modern day problems, some of our elected congressmen are more worried about how technology gets applied to gambling than to how it gets applied to educating the many people in this country who cannot read. Even though I oppose gambling on many grounds, I do subscribe to the idea that people need to be allowed to make choices for themselves. But even so, there needs to be a sense of priority here…and I truly cannot fathom how Mr. Barton can justify spending his time in such a pursuit with the myriad of critical issues before our current congress.

Technology introduces a number of “gray areas” and “new interpretations” into our legal system whose laws were never designed to take into account some of what technology provides us today. Posts in this category will be designed to help inform you as to what some of those issues are so that you can have more information to help you make your own decisions.

I’ll post more on this subject at a later time…l

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