long form

• Rethinking copyright: Techniques of collusion and alienation

  I will suggest that given the unlikeliness of capitalism disappearing, alienation can be reduced through radical copyright reform. Specifically, I suggest that a very broadly construed fair dealings exception would revitalize the user and his relationship to property, and therefore reduce alienation. Even with broadly construed fair dealings, however, the copyright regime is still a power institution bent on accumulating capital for the purpose of aggrandizing power. ... MORE / PDF

• [DRAFT] Power and sabotage in the time of Media Defender: Deconstructing theories of capitalism for an ethic of power

  In the summer of 2007 the thuggish practices of Hollywood "Big Media" were exposed when it was discovered that through secret dealings Big Media hired a lean and mean 'anti-piracy' company called Media Defender. Through a series of technical mistakes and illegal hacks against Media Defender the tale of Big Media's anti-piracy unravelled, and left hitherto unanalysed source documents in the public. By analysing these primary sources I have identified anti-piracy techniques used by Big Media, but rather than couching the analysis in a narrative of antagonistic pirates against protagonist Hollywood (or vice versa), I discard dominant discourses about the functioning of capitalism. Drawing heavily on Nitzan and Bichler's work in political economy I reject the idea that Media Defender's actions are unusual or unprecedented, instead, they are one of many examples of aggrandizing power in capitalism. Tracing a genealogy of theoretical challenges to the dominant and subsumed neoclassical narrative, I argue that an ethical vacuum eventually birthed an alternative conception of answering economic questions (such as piracy of copyrighted material). This turn to explanation devoid of ethics, crudely described as "market forces", is a consistent but unpersuasive description of the Media Defender situation, which stands as a case study of common practices. Instead, I develop a material theory of information that relies on the sort of strategic sabotage perpetuated by Media Defender. In this way, information ethics is reinvigorated and populated by capitalist techniques which can be evaluated in an ethical framework of information and economics. PDF

• Using metadata and taxonomies: An assessment for Enterprise Content Management

  I will demonstrate that controlled vocabularies ought to be used in combination with free or full text searching. The decision to use controlled or free indexing is not one of either/or—instead, because "representational predictability" is very low for general concepts, whereas individual concepts maintain high lexicality and require quick updating and precision—the choice should be to use both indexing methods. ... MORE

• Privacy in the network society: a juri–normative case for “public privacy”

  With the advent of rapid telecommunications, new collection and aggregation technologies, and a hyper–capitalist economy seemingly based on only advertising dollars personal privacy can no longer be understood as being “left alone” or without “intrusion”. These pervasive communication technologies have been coupled with robust databases and push the envelope of privacy into a new realm. This new realm, at its worst, seeks “personal” information in exchange for goods and services—and consumers appear to be only too happy to provide this information. Yet, enabled by the technology and the economy in what Manual Castells’ called the “network society”, the decentralized space of flows, privacy is being both diminished and invaded at an alarming rate. The mainstream philosophical theories of privacy are unable to deal with the qualitative shift in privacy issues. Normative theories do little to slow or stop these privacy concerns, but as vanguard theories for law they can establish the categories and limits of acceptable privacy policies and laws. The analytical independence of jurisprudence can look to the philosophers who point out the pitfalls in some conceptual thinking, which may help the judges articulate a cogent legal framework for privacy protection. The alternative is a technological fix, but while privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) tend to be effective technologically, they have historically done very little to protect privacy, and conceptually are unable to protect the most valuable category of privacy. ... MORE

• The E–Passport and Identity

  Suppose you are on vacation. On your return home you are stopped by an immigration agent, and being a year in the future, you hand over your new electronic passport (e–passport) for inspection. The immigration agent passes your e–passport through a specially designed reader, and seconds later your identity is flashed up on the agent's screen. Lo, it turns out there there is a mistake somewhere: the data on the immigration agent's screen is different than the biometric readings he is taking from you (perhaps your fingerprint or iris). Next, you are barred entry to your own country. You are no longer a citizen; a nomad without identity. What has happened here? Perhaps your identity was stolen—not by a malicious thief, but by an electronic doppelgänger, your new e–passport? ... MORE

• Ciphertext in a Bottle:
  Exploring Privacy in a Network Society

  Privacy is closely associated yet distinct from the powers of liberty, freedom, and autonomy. The network society affects these powers in interesting ways, often causing public worry. Indeed, more people worry about the invasion of privacy online than in any other medium [Tavani, 1999,12]. When online we are told to accept and purchase privacy enhancing technologies ( PETs) in attempt to ensure privacy. What sort of privacy is afforded by these technologies? Can the world wide web be a private sphere? Is a private sphere necessary? ... MORE