Recently Professor Lawrence Lessig famously declared the last ten years of his career a closed book. And stated that he intended to shift from working on free culture and matters pertaining to copyright and software patents, to the next major challenge he believes that technology must solve: Corruption 2.0. And so we were fortunate at the Society of Computers & Law’s lecture last week to be given a skilfully crafted introduction to this challenge by the engaging and entertaining Prof. Lessig himself.
He started by outlining a framework and asserting that computer code and legal code are very similar, both serve to either constrain or enable and often have an effect on each other. Together with society’s norms these three instruments come together to effect social control and dictate what we can and can’t do.
Next up we were treated to three stories, two of which originated from Jonathan Zittrain who has in a sense carried on where Prof. Lessig left off. One about privacy and copyright and how technology has destroyed control where it once enabled it. E.g. a traditional wiretap was expensive whereas a tap on Internet traffic is much cheaper, and vinyl LPs were expensive to duplicate but now the cost of music duplication is literally zero. The second Zittrain story was taken from his book The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It. And suggested that because the modern personal computer will perform almost any task and the Internet will take us anywhere this leads to both good and bad outcomes. E.g. for $50K you can hire a botnet to attack an opponent’s online presence. With one possible method for mitigating the negative effects of generativity being the taxing of innovation, vendor control and dumbing down of devices E.g. Tivoization. The third story started out in praise of geeks and their desire to make the impossible possible, E.g. “arguing with God” as they advance the state of the art in semiconductor fabrication. And then went on to describe an experience when visiting Microsoft where he suggested to a room full of geeks that law may have a place in combating spam, alongside lines of computer code. A suggestion for which he was apparently ridiculed.
Following the three stories we were presented with a pathology, and Prof. Lessig explained how Corruption 1.0 was driven by interest. E.g. a US politician was once advised to “lean to the green”, that is to say go where the money is. And how when setting nutritional guidelines for sugar consumption the US administration set a level of 25% of total daily calorific intake, despite the World Health Organisation recommending a maximum of 10%. The former figure being preferred by the sugar industry, who apparently threatened to withdraw funding of certain activities if the administration went with the less industry friendly WHO figure.
Prof. Lessig also detailed the shift from what he termed a read-only (R/O) culture to a read-write (R/W) culture. So where we once consumed we now also create, and to be specific remix. We are no longer satiated as simply consumers, the media and the tools are within reach of most if not all and we want to express our creativity. Enter DJ Danger Mouse and the Grey Album and Johan Soderberg and his Bush/Blair love duet, to cite but two examples. Of course this rarely sits well with copyright laws, and goes as far as a woman receiving a cease and desist from Universal Music for posting on Youtube a video of her toddler dancing. Why? Because Prince was playing on the stereo in the background.
To get to the crux of the matter Prof. Lessig stated that whereas Corruption 1.0 was fueled by interest Corruption 2.0 is driven by ignorance. Suggesting for example that copyright laws just don’t work in the modern world he used their application to music, videos and other online content to support this assertion. And I must say that this resonated and I wholeheartedly share this view. The situation as it stands with copyright law and definitions of fair use is just not tenable moving forward. And to bring things back on track let us note that their application came about through ignorance. These are not instruments of the 21st century designed for the purposes to which they are being put. But rather instead antiquated and somewhat inflexible instruments which should be laid to rest rather than clumsily applied to digital media.
The interaction between technology and law, and the rapid pace of development of the former compared to the latter, is leading to outcomes that are unforeseen and in a great many cases far from ideal. For example the R/W culture should not be illegal. And whilst it is there will be much confusion, fear and a divide between those who feel empowered else worry not about repercussions, and those who are less informed, err on the side of caution else are simply a victim of the application of legislation that is not fit for purpose. And rather worrying is the fact that this divide may become most pronounced on an international level, between nations who choose to take significantly different approaches or with contrasting interpretations. There will be those who benefit from continued freedom and those who have been put at a disadvantage by ill-informed legislation.
Of course the bad news doesn’t end there and for fantastic examples in the UK of ignorance-driven legislation you only have to look to the proposed schemes for national ID cards and e-Voting. Where it is obvious to anyone who understands the technology that such things have the potential to lead to unspeakably bad outcomes. And I’m not just talking about the fear of a shift toward a police state, but the potential for our national security to be compromised and our democratic system put at risk.
That is not to say that all such legislation is driven purely by ignorance, and Prof. Lessig asked us to consider how it is the Patriot Act managed to come about so quickly after 9/11. Going on to suggest that it lay in waiting for such an event, and this is not hard to believe. On asking Richard Clarke if something similar might lay in waiting for an i9/11 Lessig was apparently informed that of course there is and “Vint Cerf won’t like it”. From which we can safely assume that this would mean the Internet losing it’s generativity/net-neutrality. Yes, it could be that the current Internet and the freedom it affords will some day soon be a thing of the past - a much reminisced Utopian vision of what was.
Thankfully we are not there yet and Lessig suggested how we might avert this and other digital disasters. This took the form of a call to the geeks to engage with those making legislation, and to inform them such that ignorance is not enacted in policy. Tackling some of these issues in the US there are organisations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and in the UK we have the Open Rights Group. But it is obvious that a greater and more diverse effort is required. For example consider that in the UK a huge slice of radio spectrum is going to be freed up with the move from analogue to digital terrestrial TV. And that with the generativity afforded by modern computing + the Internet this precious resource becomes even more relevant to our every day lives. With good legislation it could for example enable a high-speed almost zero operating cost network that has the interests of the individual at it’s core, and supports community, arts and commerce. Whereas bad legislation here has the potential to at best enable business models that line the pockets of shareholders, and a worst case scenario would be a waste of a most scarce resource that doesn’t bear thinking about.
The policy making means have been expanded due to technology and so the checks in place must also be expanded. And the time has come for the geeks to take a stand and to inform those in possession of a dangerous imbalance of power to legislate vs. technical facts.
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As a youth I had a fairly respectable - for an amateur - electronic test equipment rig, and used to have all kinds of fun tinkering with radio and the like. But sadly as I grew older this gave way to make space for things erm, more grown up, such as records and computers. However for the last few years I’ve been pining to get some kit together again so that I can experiment and play once more, and this has been driven in part by an interest in GNU Radio. To this end I finally started to collect together bits of old test equipment, and recently spotted a HP RF signal generator on eBay. But before placing a bid I did a little research and came across a mildly humorous post in connection with failed attempts at repairing that model. I shouldn’t take pleasure in Ancient_Hacker’s pain, but I’ve had similar experiences in the past with other 70s/80s produced RF kit that is built like a tank and that is as temperamental as it is complex. I’ve been there, and appreciate what it feels like to spend hour upon hour working on fiddly perplexing equipment that leads you in circles and often brings about delirium.
I’ve always been fascinated with radio and it’s many applications: from 
