A new age of IP

Much of the debate around copyright and patents is, at its core, really a debate on monetizing and protecting intellectual property, or IP. IP is not a new concept, but in the age where "property" is more often digital bits-and-bobs than physical goods, the way IP is approached is being radically challenged. As a proponent of open source everything, I see the moves of patent trolls as a desperate attempt by greedy organizations to capitalize on a future they simple don't understand. Likewise, the efforts to protect copyright by gigantic media companies through DRM and slow uptake of digital delivery methods is the result of a bloated industry that is clinging as desperately as possible to the old model. The way content and ideas are being created is changing drastically: it is cheaper, easier, and more collaborative. The process of changing IP will be painful, especially to markets that fail to adapt, but it is necessary and inevitable.

Networks of Trust and Distrust

Clifford Stole's The Cuckoo's Egg left me with a lot to contemplate. Stole's conclusion that hacking in all forms is bad and that trust is sufficient raises the question if this really is a viable option for today's internet. Looking at the recent events with the NSA, the use of private data by corporations, and the massive growth of the internet, I think not. In fact, I believe the scrutiny that hackers apply to the system is crucial to helping ensure that consumers are protected and power is not being abused.

The leaked NSA files by Edward Snowden are still slowly trickling out and each revelation exposes just how deep the intrusion of NSA programs is into the personal lives of both American citizens and non-citizens. From email metadata to tracking people in online games, the NSA has shown that there is little respect for privacy when it comes to internet surveillance. The ability of hackers and info-sec researchers to explore, discover, and even counteract these surveillance mechanism seems like a worthy, perhaps even necessary, practice in the modern age.  Much of the same applies for corporations who may abuse data without knowledge of the consumer. A recent episode that comes to mind is the social network Path who unknowingly uploaded the address book of iPhone users when installing their app. The abuse was discovered by a "hacker", who was trying to reverse engineer their API.

As the internet has grown, it is not enough to just "trust" that the network is safe, secure, or even protected by the organizations that created it. If anything, the government has proven to be the least trustworthy entity through the systematic destruction of privacy on the internet. Certainly, hackers who exist purely to annoy, pester, and scam entities on the internet are a scourge to the system. However, there are many positive aspects to the hacker culture. The pursuit of transparency, knowledge, and discovery have resulted in (arguably) positive results, helping systems become more secure, exposing corruption, and supporting worthy causes.

General Conference on Twitter

It is always funny to see mormons come out in full force around General Conference. There is an odd mixture of normal church goers, spam, and the occasional troll-bait mixed in, but all in all, its a very cool thing to see members of the church profess their faith in a public forum and to get a live pulse on what people are thinking. This isn't the first time I have followed General Conference on Twitter and it won't be the last.

Controlling the uncontrollable

This last week, the FBI triumphantly announced the arrest of Ross Ulbrict (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) in connection with selling illicit drugs through his online marketplace known as The Silk Road. The website, which generated over $1 billion of sales in 3 years of operation, was an anonymous storefront that operated on the Tor network and used Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. These two technologies, Tor and Bitcoin, are incredibly effective and easy in their ability to allow individuals to engage in anonymous communication and exchange, and Ulbricht, who only had moderate technical ability, was able to use them with great success. Stories like this will become more common in years to come as the desire to have a truly free internet is not waning. It will be interesting to see how society reacts. Personally, I support the development of technologies that allow for truly anonymous communication. While it might mean it is harder for the FBI to control the flow of drug-money, it also means it is harder for dictatorships to control their citizens or for organizations to squash whistleblowers.

Finding problems

Whenever I come across a situation where technology looks like it could help, I like to think I am pretty good at coming up with solutions to help alleviate the problems at hand. The more I learn about family history however, the more I realize how little I know about the problem space and the real issues that make the work difficult. Unsurprisingly, I am beginning to realize there are about a thousand other fields where I am helplessly clueless as well. It is stunning to me how brilliant it is that there are technologist that have interests in almost every field. Technology is transformative, but not in and of itself. Problems that people are passionate about is just as essential as the solution. The fact that someone woke up one day and thought that a computer could help people find their ancestors may seem obvious now, but I would put forth that this realization was as original an idea as Facebook. Realizing this, I feel compelled to go discover, go learn, and then go solve some problems that matter.