You have email account x@y.com, which is your main email. You have the password XYZ, which you use for everything. You register at paypal with your email address x@y.com and use your normal password. You then register at some obscure webforum using your normal email and password.
Obscure webforum keeps new member details in plain text on their site. Hacker hits obscure webforum and takes thousands of email addresses and site passwords. Hacker then feeds these emails and passwords into paypal, a good proportion of which will actually work.
If you don’t know Auto-Tune the News, it’s a series of comedy remix videos by The Gregory Brothers. Most recently, they remixed this local news clip of Antoine Dodson, speaking out about his sister’s sexual assault:
into the viral hit “Bed Intruder Song”:
Now, they’re selling the song on iTunes, and it’s flying off the virtual shelves. According to Wired.com, The Gregory Brothers sold 10,571 copies of “Bed Intruder Song” on iTunes in the first two days. What’s more, the tune has made it onto the Billboard Hot 100. In a classy move, The Gregory Brothers split the profits 50/50 with Antoine Dodson:
We’re really breaking “unintentional singing” ground, so we’re trying to set precedents by making it so that Antoine, or whoever that artist might be in the future, has a stake not only as an artist but as a co-author of the song. It’s like you said: He wrote the lyrics, he’s the one who put it out there. What we’re doing on iTunes and on any other sales, we’re splitting the revenue after it gets through Apple down the middle. And that [also applies] if we ever license the song for TV or a movie. Whatever happens to the song, he has a 50 percent writing credit.
Though this is an American example, I think this story is particularly interesting to Canadians, in light of new proposed copyright legislation, which includes a “YouTube clause that allows people to mash up media under certain circumstances, as long as it’s not for commercial gain.” From Bill C-32:
It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to use an existing work or other subject-matter … in the creation of a new work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists … if the use of, or the authorization to disseminate, the new work or other subject-matter is done solely for non-commercial purposes
So, C-32 would make it OK for me to remix a local news report, so long as the remix was non-commercial (or covered by C-32′s parody or satire exceptions). But what does “non-commercial” even mean? At what point would a Canadian version of the The Gregory Brothers’ videos become commercial? Would it be after they get millions of views on YouTube? After they start selling the songs on iTunes? And what about the advertising that YouTube runs against “non-commercial” videos? Non-commercial means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Just read Creative Commons: Defining Noncommercial.
And when it comes to ownership, it’s incredibly muddy to me. My non-commercial remix may be a new work, and I may hold the copyright to it, but am I suddenly infringing copyright if my remix becomes a YouTube hit and the cheques start rolling in? In that situation, what becomes of the Antoine Dodsons of the world? The Gregory Brothers are splitting their piece of the pie with him, but do they have to? Should they have to?
Memetics and remix culture are the lifeblood of the web, and are constantly evolving. The first Auto-Tune the News video showed up 16 months ago. 16 months ago! Can legislation ever catch up with such a wildly moving target?
If you have opinions or (fingers crossed) pointers to some clarification around remixes and ownership under C-32, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
This morning, Facebook rolled out Places, their location-based service that lets users “check in” to places in the real world. Think Foursquare, Gowalla, et al, but on a much larger scale. Places is only available in the US right now, but still, that’s 131 million users.
Here’s what I find particularly scary about this announcement: Facebook Place Tagging. From Jolie O’Dell at Mashable (emphasis mine):
You can add places, check in to places that already exist, and tag people who are with you. If you’re checking in for a group, make sure you tag your friends before you checkin, yourself. For example, I added my house and checked in there. I then opened the Places page for a nearby sushi restaurant, tagged my boyfriend, and checked us both in there.
Wait a minute! Other people can check me in? Yup. According to Facebook’s FAQ:
You can tag your friends who are with you at any given location as long as you are checked-in and they have set their privacy settings so they can be tagged.
It’s not hard to imagine how this could become incredibly problematic. Personally, I don’t want anyone but me to have the power to share my location. Remember what happened to Plazes CEO Felix Peterson? Or just consider any number of potentially embarrassing Foursquare check-ins. Now, consider that all of your Facebook friends have the ability to create those awkward location-based snafus for you.
Two predictions:
It’s only be a matter of time before we see a blog dedicated to “embarrassing third-party Facebook Place check-ins”
The alibi fabrication industry is about to blow right up
“Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate,” said Mr [Richard] Boyd, “and as GPU power continues to go up every year, the threat will increase.”
Instead, Boyd recommends “a 12-character combination of upper and lower case letters, symbols and digits.”
Personally, I use 1Password1 to generate and manage strong passwords, and I love it. I have to say, there’s a special warm, fuzzy, geeky feeling that goes along with knowing you’re using good passwords. It’s not unlike the feeling I get when I know my family photos are redundantly backed up.
My next CBC tech column (Tuesday on CBC R1 afternoon shows across Canada) is all about generating good passwords. It’s good advice to hear anytime, but if you use the same password for more than one site, seriously, change it now.
There are many other tools that do this. See: RoboForm, KeePass, MyPasswordSafe, Password Agent, Password Safe, Sxipper, Passpack, TurboPasswords, etc. ↩
CourseSmart has been alloverthe tech blogs today, with its new iPad app and claims that its catalog contains 90% of “core textbooks.” I definitely understand the appeal of storing and using textbooks on a tablet device: no books to carry around or forget at home. Everything’s there on one device, complete with bookmarks and annotations.
But here’s what I’m really wondering: aside from legit textbook sources like CourseSmart, how will the new breed of tablet computers affect ebook piracy? There’s certainly no shortage of textbooks on Bittorrent sites, Usenet indexes, and Gigapedia.
Earlier this week, I posted about the CRTC’s open consultation on basic phone and internet service, which asks: “[W]hat role, if any, should the CRTC play in ensuring that all Canadians have access to broadband Internet service at comparable rates?”
Stateside yesterday, the Pew Internet & American Life Project published a new report on home broadband, with some surprising results:
By a 53%-41% margin, Americans say they do not believe that the spread of affordable broadband should be a major government priority. Contrary to what some might suspect, non-internet users are less likely than current users to say the government should place a high priority on the spread of high-speed connections.
It’s been a summer of mobile phone announcements. The Droid X. The iPhone 4. The Blackberry 9800 is expected to be announced on Tuesday. And there’s been a lot of talk: “Should I upgrade to the new iPhone 4?” “Should I switch to an Android?”
Strangely, there’s little talk of downgrading to a “dumbphone.” You know, a plain old cell phone that makes calls, sends texts, and not much else.
About six weeks ago, I sold my used iPhone 3G, and I’ve been living with just such a dumbphone: a Motorola L7. As it turns out, I’m not the only one living life without a data plan and full QWERTY keyboard. Only 15-17% of the world’s cell phones are classified as “smartphones,” which means the vast majority of cell phones are not smart.
Still, the smarties get all the press.
So, what’s life like with a dummy? After the initial shaking, tears, and denial, I was surprised at how easy it was to shed my data plan. And there have been noticeable benefits:
I’m way less compulsive about checking email/Twitter/random trivia
I’m way more observant about the world around me. I pay more attention, because I’m less distracted.
My dumbphone is way cheaper to operate. My Fido bill for July was $15.63, compared to $80-85/month with the iPhone
For my CBC tech column this week, I’m talking about the virtues of the dumbphone: why regular old cell phones aren’t necessarily sexy, but are still a good choice for many people.
Do you have a dumbphone? Do you love it? I’d love to know why. Leave a comment or shoot me an email: dan@misener.org
A big congratulations to Nora Young and the whole team who put together her new show Spark. According to the show blog, the half-hour show was just approved, will starts in the fall, and will be
a magazine of smart and irreverent trend-watching. It explores stories in technology, trends, and new ideas that register high on listeners’ personal radars, but often slip between the cracks of traditional News and Current Affairs. Neither ‘gee whiz’ nor cynical about the future, Spark is inspired by unconventional wisdom, by genuinely surprising takes on technologically-driven change.
The Spark pilot team is made up of the same people who bring you the excellent language show And Sometime Y. I’ve heard both of the pilots they produced, and they’re really great.
There’s a huge spectrum of technology journalism out there. On one side is the dumbed-down, let’s -explain-FaceBook-to-Ma-and-Pa-Saskatoon-months-after-everyone’s-already-on-it school, and on the other side, there’s the ooh-ooh-gadgets-flashy-new-web2.0 tech journalism for the sake of tech journalism. I think (and hope) that Spark will live somewhere in the middle, where there are many interesting and intelligent conversations waiting.
This is exactly the kind of show CBC should be doing now.