Digital thoughts

I really wanted to give you a nice, rich, optimistic issue at the six-month mark of Digital Week, but real life is conspiring against me. We'll have a whole bunch of bad news and some tough love instead.

Let's start in Sweden, where there's still fallout after the Pirate Bay trial. Turns out, the judge's alleged bias was investigated by an equally biased judge. I'm not surprised; after all I live in a former Communist country. Still, it's good to know there are countries where such informations not only become public fast, but are even acted upon.

Next, something I would have expected to read on Techdirt, not the Creative Commons blog. A certain Mark Helprin has accused the aforementioned organization of the most ridiculous things: being anti-copyright (CC licenses rely on copyright law), being a movement that writes "free ware" programs (CC does publish some free software, a.k.a. open source, but it's only a secondary activity), and being financed by Microsoft, whom CC supposedly strikes at through their (ahem) "free ware". Just to clear up the mess for the less informed readers, there is not such thing. There is something called freeware and something very different called free software. Neither has much to do with Creative Commons... or Microsoft for that matter. Enjoy Lawrence Lessig tearing the book apart.

And now for this issue's main headline. As proof that one abuse leads to another, France wants to turn its Internet into a Panopticon. The recently instated German Great Firewall blocks a Linux distro website and a related blog, and hosting a file-sharing website in Luxembourg has just become very, very unsafe. What is it with European countries recently? Compared to the latest developments, it seems almost harmless that across the Atlantic the FCC can nowadays search any house without a warrant. Amazingly enough, this one is not an intentional abuse but simply an obsolete law.

And now let's see what the real people (you know, those who actually create value) really want. In the Netherlands, a whopping 93% of young people use file-sharing. In Lithuania, the figure is closer to 99%, and they'll bomb your car if you don't like it. A condemnable thing, but it shows just how strongly people feel about this. And it's not the only issue young people feel strongly about. In the UK (yes, the same UK that's cheerfully building a police state), kids keep libraries of books banned by their school (which begs the question, why would a school ban certain books?) and even walk out of lessons in protest against Big Brother cameras.

Okay, you're going to say, kids are kids. What does all of this have to to with me? Well, all the benefits you're reaping from the Internet nowadays are due to the network being designed for freedom at all levels. As the old institutions grow increasingly inadequate, this individual freedom may well become the only thing that keeps civilization afloat. But freedom is power, and power is responsibility. I submit that if you care about the digital side of you life, there are a few things you ought to do.

1. Learn the basics of programming. Think of it this way: you're using the computer all the time, yet you don't know how to talk to it. Note the emphasis: a GUI restricts you to the equivalent of pointing and grunting. You owe it to yourself to do better than that. And don't feel intimidated, the aura of mystique that seems to surround programming nowadays is purely an illusion.
2. Learn the languages of the Web. Similarly, you surf the Web day in and day out, but can you make a simple Web page if the need arises? Because if you don't, you'll always be dependent on third parties for your continued sharing in the world-wide conversation.
3. Use a free, open source operating system. Isn't it enough that you barely have control over your hardware? Do you really need someone named Steve to tell you how you're supposed to use your own machine, what software to run and when to upgrade? Do I even need to ask you that?

To end in a positive note, here's proof that even a big traditional company can grasp the advantages of openness: Nokia Makes Unused Patents Available to All. But if you think they're altruistic, think again. They've simply realized that, in the long term, if Finland prospers they will prosper along. Which is really the most we can ask for. But will others follow Nokia's example? Here's to hope.

Digital Week #26: Abuses by Felix Pleşoianu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.