Ok serious this time. New blog posts coming.
For serious.
I'm just going to throw whatever shit I can think of here to the wall and see what sticks. I'm talking movie/game/music reviews, commenting on articles, general insane ramblings, maybe some short fiction... Its gonna be fun on the bun.
Ready? Lets do this!
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
SOPA, PIPA and you
A friend of mine asked me what the deal with SOPA and PIPA was. So here was my email response (it got a little longer then I wanted it to get.. whoops)
Alright, so the whole ordeal is about two newly proposed bills in the US. SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA - Protect Intellectual Property Act. These two bills are being largely fronted by organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA - Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America - who are wanting better tools to protect their copyrights online.
While the goal is noble, the execution is terrible.
To understand why, there are some things you have to know. First, there already exists legislation to protect copyright owners - its called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Under this Act (which was passed way back in like 2005), a copyright owner can claim infringement by issuing whats called a 'takedown notice' to the host of the infringing content.
For example, lets say I uploaded a song of mine onto youtube. If someone else then reposted that song without my permission, I could enforce my copyright and issue a takedown notice to youtube.
A host who receives a takedown notice has a certain number of days to respond (I think its somewhere in the realm of 30 days) and remove the infringing material. The reason this is so important is that this absolves the host of any liability to what its users post. A user infringes on copyright, the owner of the copyright issues a notice, the host removes it. No harm done. If the host does not comply, then they become liable for the copyright infringement.
The DMCA also allows for what's known as 'Fair Use' - parody/satire, highlighting an issue, and a few others (I would look it up, but Wikipedia is blacked out in protest over SOPA). This means that something is not infringing if it falls under this fair use - the copyright owner has to allow it, as long as the use is not for profit (I think. Fair use is one of the less clear to me parts of the DMCA).
All of this is the current state of affairs: The DMCA is in effect, and millions of copyright infringements have been removed. The way things are right now, a host (for example Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Reddit, etc) has 'Safe Harbor' because of the takedown notices. As long as they comply with any takedown notices, they are in good standing and will not be prosecuted. There are plenty of other nuances to this, such as fraudulent or false takedown notices (which can result in fines for the offender) and some hosts allow you to repost your content if its clearly fair use, but the point is, this is generally the way it has worked for a while now.
The proposed laws change the game in a big way. Now, part of the controversy is that not everyone believes that this is the correct interpretation of the laws, but several copyright lawyers have come out saying 'yeah, this is how it is'. Also, all of this that follows is conjecture and hearsay. But, what the bills are supposedly proposing to do include:
-Changing the 'copyright owner must pursue infringements' way of doing things. A site that hosts infringing content (including user generated content) can be blacklisted, and have its domain name blocked (I'll get to why this is bad in a bit)
-Requiring that search engines remove all links to the offending site
-Requiring that all ad-networks and payment processors (paypal, visa, etc) block the site (similar to what happened to wikileaks)
-Requiring that the site scrub all copyright violations from its entire structure
What this means in a nutshell is that if a user posted a comment on facebook, linking to a picture on imgur of a copyrighted character:
-Facebook would have to scrub that link from all comments, past and future
-Imgur would be subject to blockages from their ad revenues
-Google, Microsoft and Yahoo would have to scrub the picture from their search engines
and if any of them dont do what's required of them, their DNS would be blocked.
Hopefully you understand partially why this is a terrible idea (putting the burden of proof on hosts rather then on copyright holders; requiring programming architecture that would need to be constantly updated and maintained, scrubbing all offending links forever, etc) and this says nothing about the fair use provisions. Even if this didnt severely undermine the security of the entire internet (which, it surely does, as I'll explain in a moment), this would still be overbearing draconian copyright policies.
It would literally be like if the law required a bookstore to make sure that there were no copyright infringements in any of their books, and if they missed any, they would be subject to immediate foreclosure.
But, lets ignore that for now, and get to the real problem: the breakdown in DNS security.
The way the internet works is as follows.
You type your favorite site into the search bar, the site loads its contents and you do what you came to do. But to someone who understands what's really happening, it looks much different.
You type your favorite site into the search bar. The browser sends a DNS (Domain Name Server) request of that name to a DNS host. The host searches its records for the registrar of that domain name, finds the most recent IP address, returns it to the browser. The browser makes a request to the given IP address, the server at the IP address responds with the content based on the script at the server. The browser then formats the contents of the files for you, and loads the contents.
What this means is that a site is not dependent on a domain name. The domain name is just there to make it human friendly.
Currently, there exists a type of phishing attack which basically redirects the DNS address to a host you control.
So I set up a server at IP address 123.123.123.123, with a malicious script designed to look like facebook's login site, but really just captures login attempts. I then set up a DNS server and change the IP address of Facebook.com in my DNS tables to my IP (123.123.123.123). If anyone uses my DNS to lookup facebook.com
, they will get the malicious site instead.
Sure, there are protections (ie, DNS servers are pretty rare, and mostly come from trusted sources) right now. But with SOPA's blacklisting, things get much more interesting. In fact, hundreds of leading security experts on the subject (who know far more then I) are saying that even the very idea of blacklisting DNS makes DNS much less secure. Honestly, I'm not even really sure what will happen (because the bills are so vague), but when the security experts are saying 'this is literally going to make the entire internet less safe', I tend to stop and listen.
So there you have it, give or take. A big part of the problem is that all of the wording is very vague and mysterious. In fact, this could easily be a stepping stone to something even worse. All it takes is one line in some future bill saying 'add the line ", or inflammatory/hostile to the US" to the definition of the bill' line buried literally anywhere (scary thing about American Politics - one bill can change any number of other bills, and probably less then half the bills that get passed actually get read on and debated) before we reach 1984 status.
If you want to go even deeper, this is just another example of corporate lobbyists buying legislation - in fact, the recent court case that allowed corporations to give unlimited funds as campaign contributions to elected officials (much of which can be fully untraced and undocumented due to the laws allowing for Super PACs) probably directly prompted this. In 2006 alone, the RIAA and MPAA donated over $200,000 to various congressmen and senators (from both parties). There isnt any recent data because now any donations to Super PACs no longer need to be reported.
Ps - I just remembered the biggest joke of all! All of this is designed to stop online piracy and protect the copyright holder's interests. But ask any hacker how they get their movies/tv/music, and the answer is torrents. Torrents are just a link to peer to peer file transfers. So after all of this (if it passes), downloading will not stop. Or even slow down. The worst they could do would be to block the DNS of a torrent tracking site (isohunt or piratebay) but, and this is key, it doesnt stop the IP address from working. So, I could, if I knew it, go directly to the IP address of any site, bypassing DNS entirely.
So they are literally wasting millions trying to prevent something that this is not going to stop. Its like they found a roach problem in a house, so they decided to burn the house down, but somehow picked the wrong house to burn down. Thats why this is outrageous. It is doing nothing except adding costs and hassles to startups and existing companies, making the current internet less safe, and putting the burden of finding copyright infringement on service providers instead of on the copyright owners, like every other medium of copyright.
Sorry if it seems ranty in areas, it gets me hot under the collar that 65+ year old dudes who's entire knowledge of the internet is 'that blue e where google is', and watching them systematically destroy something so beautiful and unique, because it doesnt fit the business model of a pair of industries, who, have made a habit of resisting every technological advance, and claiming that the sky is falling each time (see: tape cassettes, laserdiscs, VHS, DVR, walkmans, cd players, ipod) is just so infuriating.
Alright, so the whole ordeal is about two newly proposed bills in the US. SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA - Protect Intellectual Property Act. These two bills are being largely fronted by organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA - Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America - who are wanting better tools to protect their copyrights online.
While the goal is noble, the execution is terrible.
To understand why, there are some things you have to know. First, there already exists legislation to protect copyright owners - its called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Under this Act (which was passed way back in like 2005), a copyright owner can claim infringement by issuing whats called a 'takedown notice' to the host of the infringing content.
For example, lets say I uploaded a song of mine onto youtube. If someone else then reposted that song without my permission, I could enforce my copyright and issue a takedown notice to youtube.
A host who receives a takedown notice has a certain number of days to respond (I think its somewhere in the realm of 30 days) and remove the infringing material. The reason this is so important is that this absolves the host of any liability to what its users post. A user infringes on copyright, the owner of the copyright issues a notice, the host removes it. No harm done. If the host does not comply, then they become liable for the copyright infringement.
The DMCA also allows for what's known as 'Fair Use' - parody/satire, highlighting an issue, and a few others (I would look it up, but Wikipedia is blacked out in protest over SOPA). This means that something is not infringing if it falls under this fair use - the copyright owner has to allow it, as long as the use is not for profit (I think. Fair use is one of the less clear to me parts of the DMCA).
All of this is the current state of affairs: The DMCA is in effect, and millions of copyright infringements have been removed. The way things are right now, a host (for example Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Reddit, etc) has 'Safe Harbor' because of the takedown notices. As long as they comply with any takedown notices, they are in good standing and will not be prosecuted. There are plenty of other nuances to this, such as fraudulent or false takedown notices (which can result in fines for the offender) and some hosts allow you to repost your content if its clearly fair use, but the point is, this is generally the way it has worked for a while now.
The proposed laws change the game in a big way. Now, part of the controversy is that not everyone believes that this is the correct interpretation of the laws, but several copyright lawyers have come out saying 'yeah, this is how it is'. Also, all of this that follows is conjecture and hearsay. But, what the bills are supposedly proposing to do include:
-Changing the 'copyright owner must pursue infringements' way of doing things. A site that hosts infringing content (including user generated content) can be blacklisted, and have its domain name blocked (I'll get to why this is bad in a bit)
-Requiring that search engines remove all links to the offending site
-Requiring that all ad-networks and payment processors (paypal, visa, etc) block the site (similar to what happened to wikileaks)
-Requiring that the site scrub all copyright violations from its entire structure
What this means in a nutshell is that if a user posted a comment on facebook, linking to a picture on imgur of a copyrighted character:
-Facebook would have to scrub that link from all comments, past and future
-Imgur would be subject to blockages from their ad revenues
-Google, Microsoft and Yahoo would have to scrub the picture from their search engines
and if any of them dont do what's required of them, their DNS would be blocked.
Hopefully you understand partially why this is a terrible idea (putting the burden of proof on hosts rather then on copyright holders; requiring programming architecture that would need to be constantly updated and maintained, scrubbing all offending links forever, etc) and this says nothing about the fair use provisions. Even if this didnt severely undermine the security of the entire internet (which, it surely does, as I'll explain in a moment), this would still be overbearing draconian copyright policies.
It would literally be like if the law required a bookstore to make sure that there were no copyright infringements in any of their books, and if they missed any, they would be subject to immediate foreclosure.
But, lets ignore that for now, and get to the real problem: the breakdown in DNS security.
The way the internet works is as follows.
You type your favorite site into the search bar, the site loads its contents and you do what you came to do. But to someone who understands what's really happening, it looks much different.
You type your favorite site into the search bar. The browser sends a DNS (Domain Name Server) request of that name to a DNS host. The host searches its records for the registrar of that domain name, finds the most recent IP address, returns it to the browser. The browser makes a request to the given IP address, the server at the IP address responds with the content based on the script at the server. The browser then formats the contents of the files for you, and loads the contents.
What this means is that a site is not dependent on a domain name. The domain name is just there to make it human friendly.
Currently, there exists a type of phishing attack which basically redirects the DNS address to a host you control.
So I set up a server at IP address 123.123.123.123, with a malicious script designed to look like facebook's login site, but really just captures login attempts. I then set up a DNS server and change the IP address of Facebook.com in my DNS tables to my IP (123.123.123.123). If anyone uses my DNS to lookup facebook.com
, they will get the malicious site instead.
Sure, there are protections (ie, DNS servers are pretty rare, and mostly come from trusted sources) right now. But with SOPA's blacklisting, things get much more interesting. In fact, hundreds of leading security experts on the subject (who know far more then I) are saying that even the very idea of blacklisting DNS makes DNS much less secure. Honestly, I'm not even really sure what will happen (because the bills are so vague), but when the security experts are saying 'this is literally going to make the entire internet less safe', I tend to stop and listen.
So there you have it, give or take. A big part of the problem is that all of the wording is very vague and mysterious. In fact, this could easily be a stepping stone to something even worse. All it takes is one line in some future bill saying 'add the line ", or inflammatory/hostile to the US" to the definition of the bill' line buried literally anywhere (scary thing about American Politics - one bill can change any number of other bills, and probably less then half the bills that get passed actually get read on and debated) before we reach 1984 status.
If you want to go even deeper, this is just another example of corporate lobbyists buying legislation - in fact, the recent court case that allowed corporations to give unlimited funds as campaign contributions to elected officials (much of which can be fully untraced and undocumented due to the laws allowing for Super PACs) probably directly prompted this. In 2006 alone, the RIAA and MPAA donated over $200,000 to various congressmen and senators (from both parties). There isnt any recent data because now any donations to Super PACs no longer need to be reported.
Ps - I just remembered the biggest joke of all! All of this is designed to stop online piracy and protect the copyright holder's interests. But ask any hacker how they get their movies/tv/music, and the answer is torrents. Torrents are just a link to peer to peer file transfers. So after all of this (if it passes), downloading will not stop. Or even slow down. The worst they could do would be to block the DNS of a torrent tracking site (isohunt or piratebay) but, and this is key, it doesnt stop the IP address from working. So, I could, if I knew it, go directly to the IP address of any site, bypassing DNS entirely.
So they are literally wasting millions trying to prevent something that this is not going to stop. Its like they found a roach problem in a house, so they decided to burn the house down, but somehow picked the wrong house to burn down. Thats why this is outrageous. It is doing nothing except adding costs and hassles to startups and existing companies, making the current internet less safe, and putting the burden of finding copyright infringement on service providers instead of on the copyright owners, like every other medium of copyright.
Sorry if it seems ranty in areas, it gets me hot under the collar that 65+ year old dudes who's entire knowledge of the internet is 'that blue e where google is', and watching them systematically destroy something so beautiful and unique, because it doesnt fit the business model of a pair of industries, who, have made a habit of resisting every technological advance, and claiming that the sky is falling each time (see: tape cassettes, laserdiscs, VHS, DVR, walkmans, cd players, ipod) is just so infuriating.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Brevity: The Soul of Wit
As someone who loves writing, humor, and humorous writing, words captivate me.
There is so much power in a thought, which becomes an idea, crystallized through a word. It has the power to heal or kill; to comfort or distress; to make you smile or cry. Some people use them on blogs with very few readers to try and generate a laugh.
Some people.
Brevity is the soul of wit. I have heard this quote used often in discussions about humor.
Brevity is certainly not my strong suit. I am known for rambling, going off on tangents and just generally talking to hear the sound of my own voice, yet, somewhere the reader finds humor (not here though, this is serious business).
This is what fascinates me: when correctly applied and considered, words can be the strongest tool for humor. When careless about them, unneeded words are an anchor tied around the neck of a joke.
Anyways, I was just thinking about how funny it is that the quote is the way it is, when 'Brevity: the soul of wit' is so much... punchier.
...I apologize for nothing.
There is so much power in a thought, which becomes an idea, crystallized through a word. It has the power to heal or kill; to comfort or distress; to make you smile or cry. Some people use them on blogs with very few readers to try and generate a laugh.
Some people.
Brevity is the soul of wit. I have heard this quote used often in discussions about humor.
Brevity is certainly not my strong suit. I am known for rambling, going off on tangents and just generally talking to hear the sound of my own voice, yet, somewhere the reader finds humor (not here though, this is serious business).
This is what fascinates me: when correctly applied and considered, words can be the strongest tool for humor. When careless about them, unneeded words are an anchor tied around the neck of a joke.
Anyways, I was just thinking about how funny it is that the quote is the way it is, when 'Brevity: the soul of wit' is so much... punchier.
...I apologize for nothing.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Oh God, How Did I Forget To Come Up With A Title
This whole blog situation could quite easily be titled 'Tracking how much free time psolms has: An in depth look at his employment situations by blog post dates". Needless to say, looking for work as a freelance web developer is terribad.
As an aside, Freelancer is a word that sounds like it should mean something so much cooler than it does.
Last weekend, I had a blast from the past as I cruised through my old music (check it out here if you really like me) and I got pretty inspired to create more, so hopefully I'll have some new music to display in a short time.
My digital footprint is so fractured: I can count on one hand the number of friends on facebook who follow me on twitter (and on one finger the number who also read this blog). If I planned to be committed to blogging in any capacity, I might consider cross-pollination, but I just so much doubt the level of interest from people I know.
I really love coming up with the tags for these posts, but I think pretty much every post I have made has had the 'word vomit' tag... I'm not sure what that means. If you're reading this, do you find my disjointed style of puking words interesting, or infuriating? Let me know in the comments! (haha see what I did there with the call to action)
As an aside, Freelancer is a word that sounds like it should mean something so much cooler than it does.
Last weekend, I had a blast from the past as I cruised through my old music (check it out here if you really like me) and I got pretty inspired to create more, so hopefully I'll have some new music to display in a short time.
My digital footprint is so fractured: I can count on one hand the number of friends on facebook who follow me on twitter (and on one finger the number who also read this blog). If I planned to be committed to blogging in any capacity, I might consider cross-pollination, but I just so much doubt the level of interest from people I know.
I really love coming up with the tags for these posts, but I think pretty much every post I have made has had the 'word vomit' tag... I'm not sure what that means. If you're reading this, do you find my disjointed style of puking words interesting, or infuriating? Let me know in the comments! (haha see what I did there with the call to action)
Monday, July 11, 2011
Linkstorm: Twenty Oh Eleven
So for quite a while (between my 2nd last post and my last post) I've been unsure as to the purpose of this blog. Is it for comedy? A personal platform for political persuasions? An awesome auditorium for alliteration?
Man, I dont need your labels. This is whatever I want. I'm not a part of your system.
So anyways, for a while, I was gathering links to stories and articles that had some political element to them. A lot (Alot) of these are about some recent election thingy in this cold land that I live (Canada). So, here are some links, with a bit of commentary on each. Share and enjoy!
Speaking of which - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of text adventure games: "As good a way to waste time as surfing in the Acid Pools of Agthrellion 6, text adventure games are exactly as productive. Also, in most such games, one wrong move spells disaster."
Fun sound board - This is a sweet synthesizer, and seriously, every time I rediscover this bookmark, I waste another 20 minutes making sweet digital music.
The untold story of the 2011 election - A fascinating read about how the conservatives had a better PR machine, how the liberals shot themselves in the foot, and how the NDP was the real winner in the election.
Perhaps a bit alarmist - but a good lesson on why having people who know nothing about technology try and regulate it is a very silly idea.
Evidence about how broken our election system currently is - and what the results should have looked like.
Warrant-less Online Tracking - seriously, is there no better alternative to technologically inept legislators passing legislation on technology?
We could have the ISPs do it... - that's not better.
Well the ISP's have to be involved... - just... just stop. Please.
This kitty has a rifle. Better? - Much better.
Well that came off as a bit rant-y. Next time: comedy!
Man, I dont need your labels. This is whatever I want. I'm not a part of your system.
So anyways, for a while, I was gathering links to stories and articles that had some political element to them. A lot (Alot) of these are about some recent election thingy in this cold land that I live (Canada). So, here are some links, with a bit of commentary on each. Share and enjoy!
Speaking of which - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of text adventure games: "As good a way to waste time as surfing in the Acid Pools of Agthrellion 6, text adventure games are exactly as productive. Also, in most such games, one wrong move spells disaster."
Fun sound board - This is a sweet synthesizer, and seriously, every time I rediscover this bookmark, I waste another 20 minutes making sweet digital music.
The untold story of the 2011 election - A fascinating read about how the conservatives had a better PR machine, how the liberals shot themselves in the foot, and how the NDP was the real winner in the election.
Perhaps a bit alarmist - but a good lesson on why having people who know nothing about technology try and regulate it is a very silly idea.
Evidence about how broken our election system currently is - and what the results should have looked like.
Warrant-less Online Tracking - seriously, is there no better alternative to technologically inept legislators passing legislation on technology?
We could have the ISPs do it... - that's not better.
Well the ISP's have to be involved... - just... just stop. Please.
This kitty has a rifle. Better? - Much better.
Well that came off as a bit rant-y. Next time: comedy!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
This will be short and sweet...
It's been a while, and I've been wanting to get back to blogging. Apparently you can do this from your phone now? We are living in the future!
Ps. Yes, I wrote this post from my phone, just because I could.
Ps. Yes, I wrote this post from my phone, just because I could.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Blog 2: Electric Blogaloo
It is a struggle to find the right balance for a piece of writing - how serious or humorous; how personal or anonymous; how down to earth or whimsical. My first post was filled with outrageous shenanigans, so today, I will bounce away from the humorous and whimsical to a more serious and personal tone.
I want to murder a lot of people.
I feel that I can safely blame it on (the rain... yeah yeah... - shout out to Milly Vanilly fans) this cold. And when I say 'cold', I mean 'the sickness wherein my body attempts to separate itself by means of coughing and hacking parts of me through my throat and sinuses; to say nothing of the headaches and fatigue that this creates'. While spending the last few days as a quarantined shut-in has been super, I felt like I needed to get some supplies today.
Mustering up every ounce of strength and sanity I had left, I promptly... got a ride with my mom to the local Safeway. Shut up; I'm sick. The actual shopping part was not so bad, as the aisles are nearly empty during the day proper. The real challenge came at checkout time.
Naturally, there were exactly 3 aisles (of 12) open. Scratch the express lane, and I had to make a choice between seemingly similar lines. I chose... poorly.
For whatever reason, the people in front of me had their 11 or so items (why they didn't go to the express lane boggles my mind slightly) spread across the entirety of the conveyor belt. Which shouldn't be a problem, except that the cashier wasn't using the belt. He was just reaching out to grab stuff. Until my realization, I was upset at the couple in front of me. Then I discovered the nature of my true enemy: Register Jockey Stretch Armstrong.
In my dazed state, I decided not to say anything for fear of it sounding like the ramblings of a mad man. Hence the blog post.
So, I hand Mr. Armstrong my reusable bags; not because I care about the environment, but because they are easier to carry on the bus and whatnot; and he goes to work. Slowly. S l o w l y . Maybe it was some combination of the symptoms, but it felt like it took him half an hour to bag 2 bags. Reaching over the belt to pick up the next random item he decides belongs in next. Two or three tries to scan it. Slowly placing it in the bag. Side note- in what universe do you put bananas in the bag at the near bottom?
Anyways, all of this is to say that I finally have some NyQuill (and DayQuil). Capital N, little y, big fuckin Q.
This was slightly longer (and more boring) than I had hoped it would be. Here's a picture of a bear to compensate:
Side note 2: Which bear is best?
Share and enjoy!
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