False Positives

Via Michael Geist comes word that an fable in “Hill Times (a weekly newspaper for Ottawa’s “savvy political and government insider”) written by Michael Eisen (Microsoft Canada’s Chief Legal Officer) misleads in the service of the “Prentice Canadian DMCA” act it wants to get passed so as justify the digital locks (that don’t work) to wants sell.

2 years ago we went through the Sarmite Bulte CopyRight for Sale un-election and yet this continues. Thankfully, opposition grows

Technorati Tags: canada copyright law microsoft

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The title of the Information Week column by Alexander Wolfe is both provocative and misleading. Microsoft has patented (U.S. Patent 7,266,697) “Stealthy audio watermarking”, which Mr Wolfe suggests could lead to “Uncrackable DRM“.

However even reading the patent’s abstract (”The watermark identifies the content producer, providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark is designed to survive all typical kinds of processing and malicious attacks.”) that it would able that it might be, a best, difficult to remove the watermark. And it is significant that watermark survives audio re-recording (i.e. the analog hole). But that’s a far cry from “Uncrackable Watermarking”.

Mr Wolfe assumes a DRM (Digital rights management) system where the “playback system (i.e., the MP3 player or online music store) requires the presence of the watermark before it’ll let you listen to your file”. He seems to be thinking less of Watermarking than of Steganography.

(Leaving aside the questions why I would buy such a system, what happens to all the music I legally bought which is not watermarked, and not playable on such as system, and if he believes that the watermarks are irremovable why not allow the system to play files without any watermarks?)

That suggests that even if you cannot remove the watermark, you could still defeat the DRM by apply a applying a valid watermark to the file I was trying to get it to play, or getting the DRM system to accept a fake watermark signature as valid.

And that reduces, at best, to an issue of keys that need to be unencrypted before being used.

So it now looks a lot less theoretically uncrackable in the case of perfect implementation, let alone what might happen in the real world. Mr Wolfe recently admitted (Aug 1st 2007) that “When you look at the technology, there’s no getting around the fact that DRM is an abject failure“. He would like to suggest that you can now give Microsoft a “win” on this one. He might want to wait till the 16 year olds give it a crack.

That’s not to say the irremovable watermarking might not have real value, say in inserting each copy with the purchaser’s information. If the purchaser makes illegitimate copies, these will contain his name. Having my name, credit card number, email, telephone, and address will make me less likely to share my purchases (but what if someone stole my credit card and used it to by the latest Britney Spears single? The Horror, The shame!) That approach would only require a on line music store (iTunes?) to personally watermark the files when I buy them. That may not yet be practical, but is much more practical then anything else I’ve heard suggested. (patent pending).

for more DRM madness

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• A Behind-The-Scenes Look At How DRM Becomes Law - Cory Doctorow looks at the back room dealing that allowed entertainment companies and electronics companies to craft public policy on digital rights management.

• aideRSS.com - What’s next in RSS - (via the excellent Canadian StartupNorth blog) To help cut down on the noise coming in through your aggregator, the AideRSS guys have come up with what they are calling PostRank a combination of how many links, mentions and conversations there are about a particular post.

I did I bit of hacking last year on my feed list trying to figure out a way to see significance in the list (3 feed items pointed at X and/or 4 feed items used this word or tag ). Display it as a weighted tag cloud, and then I wounder if you could then use a Bayesian type filter to show a subset of words/tags I’m most interested in . Never did anything with it, but this kind of a personal technorati trend watch would be very useful for anyone more than a handful of feeds.

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Boing Boing’s tech godess Xeni Jardin interviews ex-Winamp-er Rob Lord on and about the preview release of the SongBird media player in Songbird, the “open source iTunes killer,” flies today. Lots of interesting stuff there.

Back in November I wrote about The Songbird Media Player, built with XUL, DRM free. and what make its different.

of course everyone going to be comparing it to the 800 pound gorilla “iTunes”

They have come a long way, after a few delays, but it is looking good.

The SongBird nest site is being Slashdot’ed but the Boing Boing article points to some mirrors for getting the download. I hope to post more obsevation and puns when I have a chance and/or more awake.

Update: The Songbird Nest is backup.

Update: The Nest has published a road map which is promising, althought the 0.3 looks like a big and agressive list.

The feedback from the developer forums has been good, interesting and should be useful. For example ErikStaats pitching in the start of a ITunes Playlist Reader. The only worrying issue raised is about support of Unicode & umlauts outside of menus, but its hard to see if this a “uh oh” or a “just not finished yet” problem.

One of the possible very big ideas of Songbird is the plug-in services aspect, that would make it very flexible and dynamic. One thing already asked about is SongBird.(ing) from remote locations, i.e. connecting securely to my mp3 collection over the internet, which is already there in one form via Streampad. very useful and cool. (and will drive the copyright extremists crazy - bonus!)

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Congratulations Canada!

Voter turnout is up again after a record low turn out of 60% in 2004, with 64.9 per cent of eligible voters having cast ballots.

My riding of Parkdale - High Park has elected the NDP’s Peggy Nash as our repersentive, defeating Sam “CopyRight” Bulte. In response “Pro-User Zealot’s” throughout the Riding are singing out “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, the Dead is Dead!“, as well as Hollywood’s MP loses the election — hit the road, Sam!, and Sayonara, Sam.

Question : Any bets on when Sam Bulte turns up as a registered lobbyist for the CopyRight industry? I mean a non elected one

We may still have a new version of the flawed Bill C-60 to deal with - make it more consumer & artist friendly rather than leaning so far towards big industry interests - , and some milder concerns about a the next Minister of Culture (whether that’s Bea Oda or not), but at least we (a whole host of bloggers) managed to make some impact. Maybe not large, but enough to make a difference.

Update : Michael Geist has an excellent summary in :Lessons Learned, what happen, and what’s next. Northworthy: Blogs Don’t Get the Credit They Deserve? notes that turnout in Parkdale/High Park was up higher than the National average of 64.9 with a 72.3% turnout. and CopyrightWatch.ca has Food for Thought in Parkdale/High Park, where as Rob Hyndman wonders about More on the Growing Influence of Blogs in Politics

Now that the Conservative and Liberals have swamped swapped seat counts, with a gain for the NDP, we have an interesting minority government situation, with a block of progressive parties sitting in opposition. I expect that the they will be able to spin out some pro provincial action with the support of BQ. Also most parties might support some action along the lines of reducing the influence of lobbyist, improving accountability, and – a big maybe – electoral reform along the lines of Fair Vote Canada’s proposal for 100 additional seats in the House of Commons to be elected on a proportional bases*. Otherwise the Tories have an opportunity to show how they want to strengthen Canada – how about that 1% of the GST distributed to municipalities on a per capita basis? – Or not. Show us you are worth our vote. (’cause we will be back again in around 2 years! or 9 minutes as per Diesel Sweeties)

*I’ve inculded the Percent of Seats in the House of Commons to highlight the problem with the First Past the Post system. There is a saying in Canada : “40% of the Votes, 60% of the Seats and 100% of the Power”. The current systems under counts Conservative’s in Toronto, Liberal’s in Alberta, and all other national third parties (like the NDP and the Greens). It also tends to over count regional parties. (which may or may not be a bad thing)

Past posting related to “2006 Election Night in Canada” : Celebrating CopyRight Bulte! and Parkdale / High Park All Candidates debate

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Parkdale/High Park incumbent MP, Sarmite (Sam) Bulte, is still holding a fundraiser hosted by various lobbyists: Doug Frith (President of Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association - CMPDA), Graham Henderson (President of Canadian Recording Industry Association CRIA ), Jackie Hushion (Executive Director of the Canadian Publishers Council), Danielle LaBossiere (Executive Director of the Entertainment Software Alliance ESA) & Stephen Stohn (DeGrassi producer, who spoke to the Copyright Board of Canada) on Jan 19th, four days before a general Federal Election.

She has been critized for the optics of this, but has refused to consider that there might be a problem, or the perception of a conflict of interest.

Via Michael Geist I’m hearing that she is now claiming :

“They are not hosting a fundraiser for me. It’s a celebration of my support for the arts community.”

Yeah, Right. This was reported in the Toronto Star and happened at the yesterday’s - January 16th- All Candidates Debate. (also mentioned on Boing Boing : Hollywood’s Member of Parliament makes national news ).

Like Joey says : Sorry, Sam, But Your $250-a-plate Party IS a Fundraiser. contributions go to her, with a tax receipt for political contributions. Keep on “spinning”, Sam. It still looks and smells the same.

Steve Stinson was the brave and well organized soul who asked, on January 11th, the candidates if they would take the Copyright Pledge. You can watch video of Sam Bulte’s lack of response, as well as the raw video of all the reponses. (She was the only one not to say ‘yes’). Thank you Steve!

Online Rights Canada is holding a Balanced Meal to counter Sam’s Copyright Cartel’s big banquet, same day (January 19th), Time and Place (at the Drake Hotels Corner Cafe, the relaxed coffee house and juice bar on the west side). Cory is now mentioning this on Boing Boing : Skip $250/plate dinner for dirty MP, eat with copyfighters

Canadian News Magazine Macleans mentions it a side bar story in their current Issue in Wrath of the bloggers Toronto Liberal MP candidate Sarmite Bulte lands in hot water over a fundraiser hosted by beneficiaries of her proposed copyright reforms. which gives a nod to Joey aka Accordion Guy and Boing Boing (see : Canadian MP imports US’s worst copyright AND dirty campaign financing

Mark Evans has also written on this in his column in the Financial Post: Sam Bulte’s Bad Optics.

It related news : France softens copyright bill : French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin issued the order to change the bill to enshrine the right of consumers to make private copies of music and film disks... Even the French are pro-user zealots. Mon Dieu!

It also well worth reading an insider’s look inside the media industry in Canada by Matthew Good, one of those the artistic creators that Mrs. Bulte claims to support, a well know Canadian musician out of beautiful - if wet -Vancouver, BC.

previously on FP: Parkdale / High Park All Candidates debate, Sam Bulte : What’s That Smell and is it Cause or Effect, and Sarmite Bulte : Is Canadian CopyRight for Sale?.

Jan 19th update :

For those of you who missed the all candidates meeting held on Monday the 17th are available as MP3 files (or Podcasts) thanks to the Parkdale Residents Association.

Michael Geist, in The Sam Bulte Podcast, has listened to these and found three claims that Sam Bulte makes in about 30 seconds that are all subject to challenge:

“I am not taking money from special interest groups. As you know, you can look at my returns. All of my election returns are noted, they are transparent. Ninety percent of my donations came from individuals. Ten percent came from organizations or corporations. They are not hosting a fundraiser for me. A fundraiser is being held. Individuals are invited. Everyone is invited. It is self-funding. And yes, there will be artists there. It will be a celebation of my support for the arts community.”

Today’s Globe and Mail has a long piece on : Liberal MP’s fundraiser causes controversy

Irony Alert: The Sam Bulte fundraiser at the Drake Hotel will feature a performance by Margo Timmins (who is married to Graham Henderson ,President of Canadian Recording Industry Association CRIA ), who is best known as a member of “The Cowboy Junkies”. In a lovely work of analysis Joey de Villa concludes that she owes her success to copying, the very thing that Sam Bulte and her anti-user Industry friends are trying to stop, in The Cowboy Junkies, “Piracy”, and How it Made Them Big.

Jan 20th update

Balanced Meal Review covers the non fundraiser. Still looking for comments on Sam “Anti-User” Bulte’s Fundraiser and farewell dinner, although this G&M story : Muckraking — with other people’s muck is amusing :

On Monday, the eyes of the Internet will be on the Toronto riding of Parkdale/High Park. The rest of the election is a sideshow. Will the Liberals be reduced to two seats? Will the door of cosmic justice hit Belinda Stronach on the way out? Who cares? Everyone’s watching Sarmite Bulte.

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I was at tonight’s “All Candidates debate” at Runnymede United Church (432 Runnymede Road, just north of Ardagh ,south of Annette), presented by the Bloor West Village Residents’ Association.

We had six candidates out this evening: Sarmite Sam Bulte, Liberal Party of Canada; Lorne Gershuny Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada; Jurij Klufas, Conservative Party of Canada; Peggy Nash New Democratic Party; Terry Parker, Marijuana Party; Robert L. Rishchynski, Green Party of Canada.

We also had a packed hall with standing room only! Amongst the crowd was Joey deVilla, representing the accordion vote, who made may more notes than I and video recorded some of the proceedings. (He has now put up: All-Candidates Meeting: Opening Statements, and Sam Bulte and the Copyright Pledge.)

After an introductory statement by each candidates, locals lined up to ask questions. This is where it paid to come before 7:30 and get a seat next to where the line quickly formed. Questions asked ranged from closing down Toronto Island Airport and the Toronto Port Authority, psychotropic drugs and children, Education, Guns and crime, Senior’s Health Care, and the Environment.

Oh, yes this CopyRight Thing came up. Three Times!

We had the one person asking if they would take the Copyright Pledge. Sam Bulte avoided answering the question; Peggy Nash and Conservative Jurij Klufas said “Yes”, as did the other candidates.

Joey has video! Sam Bulte and the Copyright Pledge.

A few questions later Sam Bulte was asked about getting a donation for The Stratford Festival (she claimed this in her non answer mentioned above, and on air on CBC radio Ontario Today on January 10th see the archive and listen to part 1 and part 2 (part 2 isn’t working for me. anyone?) and whether she though it was appropriate. She clearly she no problem with it. I think Jurij Klufas made a quip about “when did we go from politicians supporting the arts, to the arts support politicians”.

And the last question of the evening was about Sam Bulte, Jan 19th fund raiser hosted by various lobbyists: Doug Frith (President of Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association - CMPDA), Graham Henderson (President of Canadian Recording Industry Association CRIA ), Jackie Hushion (Executive Director of the Canadian Publishers Council), Danielle LaBossiere (Executive Director of the Entertainment Software Alliance ESA) & Stephen Stohn (DeGrassi producer, who spoke to the Copyright Board of Canada) on Jan 19th, four days before a general Federal Election. Again, Sam Bulte sees no problems, it’s all transparent, and so what is all the fuss about?

Doing one of these questions She lost her cool for a moment and lashed out at “Michael Geist, the EFF and their extremist friends” or something like that.

The crowd was very well behaved, save for a couple of Liberal supporters in the back who acted up a couple of times.

See my past postings Sam Bulte : What’s That Smell and is it Cause or Effect, and Sarmite Bulte : Is Canadian CopyRight for Sale?.

Also OnLine Rights Canada’s Money in Politics, Conflicts for Copyright has an online petition calling on Canadian politicians to take the Copyright Pledge, and on Boing Boing : Hollywood’s Canadian politico lies about her approach to lawmaking about the above mentioned radio program.

Update: I fixed the ugly HTML. This is happens when you post at the end of a long day. Sorry. Now I find out that after another long day that I’m getting mucho hits from Melanie McBride : Bulte’s last stand ; Liam O’donnell : Bulte Loses Cool at “pro-user zealots”, Joey deVilla site The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century - who did an amazing job! -, and Michael Geist’s The Bulte Video analysis. All good reading! Many Thanks!

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The Globe and Mail story Globetechnology: Chinese ban on Wikipedia prevents research, users say

Wikipedia, which offers more than 2.2 million articles in 100 languages, has emerged as an important source of scholarly knowledge in China and many other countries. But its stubborn neutrality and independence on political issues such as Tibet and Taiwan has repeatedly drawn the wrath of the Communist authorities.

The latest blocking of the website, the third shutdown of the site in China in the past two years, has now continued for more than 10 weeks without any explanation and without any indication whether the ban is temporary or permanent.

Can someone confirm this? (The shanghaiist posted about this on Oct 20th, and The Wikipedia itself says)

I’m not in the “Wikipedia can do no wrong” camp but, it is a valuable, fast moving (updating and error correcting), reasonable accurate source, that is complementary to and confuses tradiation media, with resonable key policies, and which will continue to evolve as it passes it 5th birthday.

The Wikipedia currently has 910,469 english articles, and - as of Oct 2004 - the database was ~ 170 GB (excluding images and multimedia) and - as of September 2005 - a compressed full database dump (text only) english only is about 40GB., so my Dream of “Wikipedia on a Stick” i.e. Wikipedia on a USB flash drive (see Barenaked on a Stick) is still a couple of years off. Although having local mirror version is not.

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More followup on Sarmite Bulte : Is Canadian CopyRight for Sale?.

Michael Geist asks “Cause or Effect“, and wonders about her inability to comprehend why so many Canadians are troubled by her January 19th fundraiser and her history of accepting copyright-backed cash while simultaneously playing a leading role on Canadian copyright policy.

On Boing Boing we have : Hollywood’s Canadian politician: history of a sellout , where in to is easy to concludes that while the Member of Parliament claims that funding doesn’t influence her politicking, it wasn’t until the campaign contributions began to roll in that she took any interest in copyright law.

And Joey has Today’s Two Minutes Hate for Sam Bulte, with a couple of modified Sam Bulte graphics for you use.

More links at p2pnet, and on CopyrightWatch.ca we have The Bulte Scandal: A “Transparent” Conflict of Interest.

I’ll be at the “All Candidates debate” planned for Wednesday, January 11 at 7:30pm - Bloor West Village Residents’ Association, Runnymede United Church (432 Runnymede Road, just north of Ardagh ,south of Annette). Too See and Hear, and hopefully ask a question (working on that) or 3.

Update : and this from itbusiness.ca Liberal fundraiser stirs up copyright controversy:Critics say a dinner hosted by MP Sam Bulte but sponsored by CRIA and others could spark an unhealthy trend in lobbying. Experts discuss the conflict of interest issues. Plus: Bulte’s side of the story

Bulte said that she is prepared to debate Geist on copyright issues in a public forum. When asked, Geist said, “I would love that. I would welcome the opportunity.”

That I’d like to see, and Jan 19th would be perfect!

Update: Joey is on a roll and has a press release from another voice in the debate, the artistic creators that Mrs. Bulte claims to support, in Indie Musicians Against Sam Bulte, plus a revised graphic for “The CopyRight Candidate”

And Fading Ways Records has a Jan 9 press release to protest the shameless sell out of a Canadian politician and potential Minister of Canadian Heritage to multi-national corporations’ lobbying interests in extremist copyright laws.

Brent Lambs advices: Run Away! Run Away!, although I like his suggetion of Steve Paikin as the next Prime Minister of Canada!

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