Monthly Archives::
June 2009
I wrote my latest Guardian column after hearing security experts lament, for the nth time, that sensitive systems like MRI machines, defense-contractor computers, and so on should never be connected to the Internet, and when these are compromised by spies, malware or worms, it’s the fault of bad network policy.
I realized that this lament was like the one you hear from people who bemoan kids having sex and getting pregnant or catching diseases, “If they’d just abstain…”
Abstinence programs don’t work — not in IT, and not for teens’ sex:
Every time a state secret disappears from an internet-connected PC, every time a hospital computer reboots itself in the middle of a surgical procedure because it has just downloaded the latest patch, every time an MRI machine gets infected with an internet worm, I hear security experts declaiming, “Those computers should never be connected to the internet!” and shaking their heads at the foolish users and the foolish IT department that gave rise to a situation where sensitive functions were being executed on a computer connected to the seething, malware-haunted public internet.
But no amount of head-shaking is going to change the fact that computers, by and large, get connected. It’s what they’re designed to do. You might connect to the internet without even meaning to (for example, if your computer knows that it’s allowed to connect to a BT Wi-Fi access point, it will connect and disconnect from hundreds of them if you carry it with you through the streets of London).
Operating systems are getting more promiscuous about net connections, not less: expect operating systems to start seeking out Bluetooth-enabled 3G phones and using them to reach out to the net when nothing else is available.
All evidence suggests that keeping computers off the internet is a losing battle. And even if you think you can discipline your workers into staying offline, wouldn’t it be lovely if you had a security solution that worked even if someone broke the rules? “You shouldn’t be having net at your age, but if you do, you should at least practice safe hex.”
The folks are Robot Comics have completed their conversion of the comics in my CC-licensed graphic novel Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now, which adapts six of my stories for comic form.
The Robot Comics editions are free and run on your Android phone and (sometimes) on the iPhone (Apple rejected the adaptation of the award-winning story Anda’s Game because the scene in which a video-game orc is beheaded was “objectionable”). Many have also been translated to Spanish — they’re planning on doing the whole lot. It’s all free, non-commercial, and CC licensed, natch!
Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now reaches 30,000 downloads
Previously:
Holy crow do I *ever* love the cover art for the US (top) and UK (bottom) editions of Makers, my next novel, coming from Tor and HarperCollins respectively in Oct/Nov.
Here’s part twenty-five of my reading of my 2005 novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.
I’m one of the keynoters at next week’s EuroPython convention in Birmingham, England — looks like a hell of a show, with further keynotes by Bruce Eckel and Professor Sir Tony Hoare and a whack of great talks and tutorials.
Being a Community Conference means that EuroPython is run entirely by volunteers, that means us the participants. Many of the things that have to be done to run a successful conference can be carried out remotely, and every year Pythonistas from all over Europe help…
EuroPython aims to provide inspirational talks and a friendly atmosphere, designed to help people build contacts and learn from each other’s experiences. EuroPython 2009 offers a talks programme oriented around the following themes:
* Python Language (featuring Python 3, Python implementations (IronPython/Jython/PyPy) and Python packaging)
* Python in Action (Python projects and deployments in government, industry and beyond)
* Mobile Computing (Python in mobile and embedded devices)
* Large Scale Python (Python in research, distributed computing, scientific computing)
* Web Programming (Python on the Web: Zope 3, Django and everything else)
* Database Programming (object-relational mappers and data management techniques)
* User Interfaces (across or beyond the Web, the desktop and the device)
* Games (featuring pygame, pyglet and other game-making technologies)
I’ve got a new feature up on Internet Evolution today, a piece called “Internet ©rapshoot: How Internet Gatekeepers Stifle Progress,” about how everybody wants to be a gatekeeper — the studios and publishers, the bookstores and online retailers and theaters, the “creators rights’ groups” and how that ends up screwing everyone:
So, how do you use copyright to ensure that the future is more competitive and thus more favorable to creators and copyright industries?
It’s pretty easy, really: Use your copyrights to lower the cost of entering the market instead of raising it.
What if the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had started out by offering MP3 licenses on fair terms to any wholesaler who wanted to open a retailer (online or offline), so that the cost of starting a Web music store was a known quantity, rather than a potentially limitless litigation quagmire?
What if the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the North American Broadcasters Association made their streams available to anyone who paid a portion of their advertising revenue (with a guaranteed minimum), allowing 10 million video-on-demand systems to spring up from every garage in the world?
What if the Authors Guild had offered to stop suing Google for notional copyright violations in exchange for Google contributing its scans to a common pool of indexable books available to all search-engines, ensuring that book search was as competitive as Web search?
Copyright is a powerful weapon, and it grows more powerful every day, as lawmakers extend its reach and strength. Funny thing about powerful weapons, though: Unless you know how to use them, they make lousy equalizers. As they say in self-defense courses, “Any weapon you don’t know how to use belongs to your opponent.”
Recording artists get an extra 45 years of copyright, and it’s promptly taken from them by the all-powerful record labels, who then use it to strengthen their power by extending their grasp over distribution channels. Authors are given the right to control indexing of their works, and it’s promptly scooped up by Google, who can use it to prevent competitors from giving authors a better deal.
Internet ©rapshoot: How Internet Gatekeepers Stifle Progress
I’ve been waiting to announce this for months now, while the paperwork went back and forth and now I finally can! Don Murphy, producer of such films as Natural Born Killers and From Hell, has bought a film option on Little Brother. I’ve talked it over with Don and feel confident that if he makes the movie that he’ll do it justice — I’m guaranteed a spot as a consultant to ensure that it all comes out right, too!
For the uninitiated, a film option gives a producer the exclusive right to try to sell the film to a studio, signing up actors, a director and writer, and so on. For every film produced, many are optioned. But all that said, every film that gets made starts out as an option deal. Bottom line: a Little Brother movie isn’t a lock, but it’s a lot more likely than it was yesterday.
I’ve been waiting to announce this for months now, while the paperwork went back and forth and now I finally can! Don Murphy, producer of such films as Natural Born Killers and From Hell, has bought a film option on Little Brother. I’ve talked it over with Don and feel confident that if he makes the movie that he’ll do it justice — I’m guaranteed a spot as a consultant to ensure that it all comes out right, too!
For the uninitiated, a film option gives a producer the exclusive right to try to sell the film to a studio, signing up actors, a director and writer, and so on. For every film produced, many are optioned. But all that said, every film that gets made starts out as an option deal. Bottom line: a Little Brother movie isn’t a lock, but it’s a lot more likely than it was yesterday.
