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Luddite or Illiterate in the Digital Age?

During a reportage about the lawyers’ daily life (in my parallel life I am a photojournalist) I met a lot of colleagues whose age spawned between mid thirties and mid-fifties. During the sessions, many celebrated the fact that I was using a film camera instead of that “modern” digital crap.

Initially this reaction made me think of these people as a Luddites, scared by technology and modernity. And then I realized I was wrong: they’re not Luddites, they just are ignorant (in the Latin meaning of the word: to not know.) Although these people carry on important assignments requiring training, dedication and high-level personal qualities, they’re just powerless toward the digital age because they refuse to understand it.

Of course they’re able to use a computer, surf the Internet and send emails, but that’s all: to them a computer is like a fridge: a tool do perform some task with no particular need of further analysis.

This is why we – as a society – are the loser in the technology evolution race.

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Apple Patent on File Sharing to Infringe EU Copyright Law?

After having obtained a patent on a system to control the sales of “used” digital goods, according to ZDNet.com Apple

has been awarded a patent that would allow users to share music, video, and pictures directly with each other – without having to worry about piracy.

This patent is based on the idea that a user should be allowed to download an encrypted song from a legitimate owner and purchase a less costly license by Apple thus “squaring the circle” of the file-sharing legalization.

This patent, nevertheless, could hardly be enforceable within the EU.

The royalties of copying a digital copyrighted work are covered by the levy imposed on the blank media and storage (including those that aren’t destined to contain copyrighted stuff.) This means that once the user has purchased a USB dongle, a DVD or whatever the support, he has already paid for the right to use the digital content.

By imposing a further, though less costly, license, Apple is saving bandwidth and IT infrastructure costs turning these costs on the ISP’s shoulders and getting paid two times for the very same thing.

True, one can say that as soon as the user agrees with the license there wouldn’t be a problem. Nevertheless it is a fact that this patent clashes with the “first sale” doctrine that leaves to the user the right of re-sell, (legally) copy and (legally) lend a copyrighted work.

 

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How Do Cameron and Obama Are Going to Forbid This?

cipherThis is – the news is as recent as today – what the Italian Polizia di Stato found during a Ndrangheta (organized crime from Calabria) related investigation.

Although the cipher, in this case, is not that hard to handle for an expert codebreaker it shows that “old school” systems still work.

So, following the announced ban of side-to-side encryption application made by US Presidente Obama and UK Prime Minister Cameron (coupled with the statement by Italian Home Affair Ministry) I wonder how they’re going to fight this “new”, dangerous way to exploit the encryption.

Maybe outlawing paper and pencil?

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Does the French Intelligence Actually Have Such Big Gaps?

A significant part of the aftermath of an event is the so called “post mortem”: a thorough analysis of ? what went right, what wrong and why.

While “post-mortem” is a common practice within complex organizations and helps detecting flaws to be fixed or positive actions to be standardized, it must not be confused with the “rolling-barrell” attitude of putting the load of a (ex-post proven wrong) choice on somebody else’s shoulders.

As everybody outside the intelligence’s ? “inner circle” should, I neither claim to own the knowledge nor the expertise to assess the work’s quality and the assumed weakness of the French security system. But what I can say – relying upon my criminal trial lawyer experience – is that is always easier to find an explanation for something that happened once it happened, while it is very hard to “foresee” an event.

This is to say that once you know where to look for, the needle in the haystack is fairly easy to find. Or, put in other words, those who came late always look smarter than those who were there earlier: they already know where not to look at.

Whether the French intelligence services did a mistake or not, then, is of poor importance. Mistakes happens (much too) often and it wouldn’t be a surprise to discover that in the Charlie Hebdo massacre mistakes have been done.

But the best we can do is to learn from it, instead of publicly blaming people in the line of fire just for the sake of looking “smart”.

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The Italian Home Affair Minister To Call For Another Internet Crackdown

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, as a way to improve the “safety” of the citizen, the Italian Home Ministry Affair, Alfano (a right-winger) ? called for:

  • a “registration” of “dangerous” websites,
  • a further enhancement of the ISPs duty to block access to
    (terrorism-related) Internet resources,
  • an exception to the data-protection regulation, to allow the law
    enforcement agencies to easily access “sensitive” data.

This is an exploitation of the recurring rhetorical locus: “enhance safety needs the fundamental rights to be weakened”.
It is easy to answer with an often quoted statement by Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

But this is not the point.

From a “terrorism” fighting point of view, what Alfano is calling for is simply useless.

If the target is to gather as much information as possible to prevent new attacks, blacklisting websites obviously doesn’t help. It neither stops terrorists from talking each-other, nor allows to spot upcoming threats.

If the target is to gather advance information to run “pre-emptive actions”, it is useless to “weaks” the data-protection regulation to ease the law enforcement agencies access to “sensitive” (i.e. political-related) information. Those who need a fast and direct access to such king of information, in fact, are the secret services (whose activities are neither handled nor reported to a magistrate) and not the law enforcement bodies, that can only act, in Italy, AFTER a crime has been committed (having, in this case, full access to everything they need, under the control of the public prosecutor.)

Then, a couple of questions:

  • why does Alfano calls for measures that don’t help fighting terrorism, but allow a crackdown against normal citizens?
  • why the ISPs should be burdened to act as censors and central scrutinizer on behalf of the government?