If Michaelangelo had copyrighted angels …
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- I was lambasted back in 96-99 by the underground community for voicing my opinion about the need to obfuscate our dealings, and pointing out the imperative of adopting encryption in our file sharing.
My thoughts on this pretty much fell on deaf ears primarily because the platform of choice was obscure enough to go unnoticed, and secondly, there wasn’t a readily available process that would facilitate such an implementation.
During this same period, while working my way deeper and deeper underground, I found out something similiar to this was already being utilized. A protocol known as FirstClass was being used by a substantial amount of the underground. It was very difficult to use, robust, and offered an option for encrypted packet transfers.
Needless to say, I migrated to this platform in early 2001, begrudgingly accepted by my membership, all for the primary sake of anonymity.
A substantial portion of the underground still uses this platform of choice. However, I found it highly counter-productive to the primary goal — socialization and file sharing.
I’ve noticed that since 2001, just about every single file sharing software application that relies on client/server interaction has a system of encryption built in.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and it’s plainly obvious to me that pressure from the assholes who are anti-file-sharing, regardless of their affiliation, software, books, music, movies, have all introduced the necessity of encryption to obscure their proclivity of enforcing their will upon us.
For me, it began as `kewl`, being able to assess different types of software in order to make an educated decision on what to use moving forward, regardless for professional reasons, or for file sharing reasons.
Initially, I didn`t host a server: I was more interested in the social side of the file sharing community and not so much the files themselves.
Files can be replaced, but people are unique, and can’t. Also, there were significan impediments to sharing large amounts of data: broadband didn’t exist. Nor did Gb size harddrives.
As my file sharing evolved, I met a significant number of incredible people from around the globe. I played chess with a friend in India, I spoke with friend in Japan for research into a college project. I found out how hot the summers are in Australia, on and on and on.
To me it was a cultural explosion. When the fascist mainstream media played down the riots in France, I had a friend who lived on a street in France where the cars were burning and who told a different story.
When the fireworks plant in Holland exploded because the company ignored safety regulations, it wasn`t even on the news in the USA.
Remember the grounded Russian submarine that had nuclear missiles on board and which the media SWORE didn`t have any? Well, a friend in Poland cleared that right up.
After a while, I opened my own server to help those who were like I was before — without contacts.
My ideology was based on this:
Adobe Photoshop was around 600USD in 2001, and I knew many budding artists who had incredible talent but who weren’t able to access this high-priced software package.
Right or wrong, I was idealistic and helped an artist get a copy of Photoshop so he could learn how to use it, and once out of college, he could apply this skill to earn a living, and offer his art to the world.
It cascaded from there.
My point is:
Imagine the world if Michaelangelo could have copyrighted the vision of an angel?
surfer - p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 10th, 2009 at 9:38 am
This dichotomy between sharing being facilitated by openness yet protected by closedness reminds me of something I’m looking forward to see one day: the “I’m Spartacus!” or ‘3 Musketeers’ solidarity assurance scheme.
It would work like this. A community of file-sharers overtly asserts their identities, i.e. their real identities, not their virtual identities or pseudonyms. In this way the community is assured that if any prosecution or litigation for infringement occurs that all are liable for it, and all are readily subject to subpoena. Indeed, all agree that if any are prosecuted all must share any costs.
When the community starts numbering in the thousands then their flagrant ‘civil disobedience’ of file-sharing can’t be addressed by randomly suing a handful. “Sue us all, or sue none” in the vein of “All for one and one for all”.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:39 am
The ingrained behaviour of the ‘underground’ is anonymity. We typically don’t link IRL (In Real Life) information to our online persona’s. I have had the privilege of meeting several ‘pirates’ face-to-face in my years online, but that is atypical. I have other members that I have known online for over 10 years, and have no clue who they are IRL, yet I call them friend. We have even supported one another with equipment and money and still retained our obscurity between each other. I understand that you think outside the box Crosbie, and will think about your idea.
Linking my IRL to my moniker at first thought is internet suicide. I have meticulously filtered information that can be gathered about myself from the internet specifically to inhibit asshats like the MAFIAA from identifying me. To say I am a vicarious file sharer is an understatement. And I could easily calculate that there are thousands of ‘me’(s) doing the same thing. The circles I frequent are incredibly organized, the average intelligence of server admin(s) is very high, and most of us are IT gurus in one form or another. This is primarily the reason the RIAA is suing users on KaZaa and BitTorrent, because they are low hanging fruit.
If they had ANY idea of the complexity of organized file sharing they would have a coronary. Within that organization is 10 foot thick impediments against the MAFIAA intrusive meddling, therefore our IRL is sacred, even among ourselves.
I, myself am a well educated individual, and I use that ability to help others that are not so internet savvy by hosting a very secure file sharing system.
Hence the signature, Share The Wealth. Yes, by definition we put value on the content we share, just not the same value the content cartels do.
I do hope that your investigation in commerce DOES in fact result in a scenario that I don’t have to obscure my identity, if only for the self centered sake of recognition, but also for others to enjoy content as it should be: as far and as wide as technologically possible.
stw
July 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Yes, surfer, don’t get me wrong. I’m not proposing file-sharers become unilateral lone martyrs. I’m suggesting that they could become contingently multilateral martyrs or civilly disobedient crowds. For example, one could create an online system dedicated to a single file where people could openly submit their real world identities with the prospect of sharing that file in the open, however, no sharing actually takes place until the number of participants reaches a pre-agreed number. As soon as it does, the file is shared in the open, and copious evidence is made available to demonstrate each participant’s involvement in that sharing, e.g. “I, Fred Smith, hereby infringe the copyright of John Lennon’s single Imagine by sharing it with the world”.
Remember Grey Tuesday?
I’m thinking of something like a flashmob (a bunch of people doing something that no individual would otherwise do in public), but for file-sharing.
It’s just the seed of an idea, but the sharing of mankind’s art and knowledge is something that should happen in public by people proud to do it, not in secret as if it’s shameful. It’s a tragedy that so many think it is.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Well, that ideology was brainwashed into the sheeple by incessant demonization of file sharing by the cartels FUD machine and army of lawyers inflicting as much sorrow and bankruptcy has inhumanly possible.
I have said before, the content cartels are the single most effective recruiting system ever envisioned, As Mike Masnick on Techdirt constantly points out, every effort to suppress information on the internet has the opposite effect. For every single lawsuit the RIAA files, literally thousands of sheeple open their eyes and realize they can get content from alternate sources.
There is an ongoing movement supporting file sharing, in many forms. And yes, I do remember Grey Tuesday, I wish there were more of them occurring without the onus of being sued off the planet. Honestly, at some point there will be a rebellion, and I don’t mean like Grey Tuesday, at some point this whole scenario is going to blow up in the RIAA’s face with disastrous results, potentially lethal in nature.
If Jammie and Joel can finally win, I can only hope this will be the death knell to the content criminals. Then I can wear the moniker of pirate with pride.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Yup.
Cheers!
July 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
The 80s and 90s were the golden years for the Scene. That was before the FBI infiltration and massive busts in the early 2000s led to a state of distrust among fellow members bordering on paranoia, that resulted in a much more closed, segmented community.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Here’s another idea as to how it could work. Think of BitTorrent but in slow motion. 10,000 bloggers create a blog article with an embargo date some point in the future, say 4th July. This blog article contains a 100 byte fragment of the 1 megabyte mp3 file to be shared (suitably marked up in XML) and any peer information (links to other participating bloggers) – with redundant fragments. In advance of publication a GPL client program is made available that can download and assemble all these fragments into a single file – via HTTP!
Now, is the copyright holder going to sue all 10,000 bloggers for publishing a fragment (with a fair-use defense possible, although unlikely to withstand your typical judge’s lack of humour), or will they sue a random selection, say of 100?
To address the latter possibility (which might not be viable anyway) what you could do is encrypt all the fragments such that only the download program can decrypt them once it has them all. No individual fragment can be related to any fragment of the original file (even with the key). What this means is that should it go to court it will be clear that each participant was one of at least 10,000, i.e. all 10,000 will necessarily be culpable and the prosecution can’t pretend they could only locate 100, because all their identities are publicly known (listed in the download program say). The law can’t actually elect only to punish a few members of a conspiracy if it knows all of them and they are all equally culpable.
The other bonus is that the download program and downloaders are all perfectly legal. The unauthorised copy has already been manufactured, to be simultaneously published (copied again) by each blogger.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
‘The 80s and 90s were the golden years for the Scene. That was before the FBI infiltration and massive busts in the early 2000s led to a state of distrust among fellow members bordering on paranoia, that resulted in a much more closed, segmented community.’
spot on.. definitely coming from someone ‘in the know’., especially the paranoia part…
@Crosbie Fitch
VERY interesting idea…. Let me mull that a bit…
stw
July 16th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
VERY intriguing indeed… I intend to do some mulling as well.
As of late I myself have been weighing the pros and cons of walking-the-walk as fully as I talk-the-talk, undecided between “playing it safe” and truly owning all of my eclectic electric identities. I must say though, this idea tips the scales enough that my first response was very nearly: “I’m in. Where do we start?” but the foil-hat wearing part of my brain is suggesting that I instead do a few early verses of “The Hokey-Pokey” before putting my whole self in to be shaken all about. However, I also realize that following my head has more often left me in uncomfortable circumstances than following my heart – particularly when I am afraid. That’s when my brain has a slight tendency to lie to me. And many a spirit driven risk has ended better than well for me while some of the poorest advice I have ever given myself has been to take the path of inaction.
I find myself muttering obscenities and shaking my head at the foolishness that has become the modus operandi of the I.A.(ssociated)A.(ssholes)’s on a daily basis, but my cpu monitor is indifferent to my screaming at it and my suffering. As I read the daily blogs and try to gauge the progress of forward/freedom-thinking, I fear that if the silent majority is not actually heard, we will be presumed non-existent and end up in a difficult position to defend. I have been feeling more and more that it is time to take the fight to Them before we unintentionally forfeit. Isn’t there some proverb about silence implying consent? I DO remember something about evil being made possible by good people standing around doing nothing.
For all the bellyaching and frustration I see on the community boards I frequent, brainstorming of viable solution-oriented countermeasures beyond embarrassing website hacks is lacking. A call to action such as this is a much more respectable line of thinkingI am sick of simply feeling sick over it and would like to really change the world, but I haven’t the legal or financial expertise. Although I suspect I could gain the IT expertise if necessary, I’d prefer it not be a CYA motivated experience. It simply hadn’t occured to me to recruit a team (or a gang, for that matter) and with the type of mental mettle evidenced by the posts on this site alone I think the IAA’s Legion of Doom would be little match for a unified effort of P2P Superfriends.
My friends yearbook page bore these words: “A three-fold cord is not easily broken.” I share your vision, Surfer, and I see a new possibility of safety in numbers, but as Crosbie points out the numbers must also be names in order to have any real clout. I’m useless as a financial target anyway, but I haven’t a strategy to boldy rush in and implement on my own or I would likely have already done so. So let’s say I put my right hand in. .
Would further thoughts on this be appropriate for submission here?
July 16th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
“Would further thoughts on this be appropriate for submission here?”
They would indeed.
Cheers!