Look before you leak

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This morning’s Observer column.

In the annals of the net, one of the sacred texts is John Gilmore’s aphorism that “the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”. Mr Gilmore is a celebrated engineer, entrepreneur and libertarian activist, who is regarded by the US Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and men in suits everywhere as a pain in the ass. He was the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, which meant that he made a lot of money early in life, and he has devoted the rest of his time to spending it on a variety of excellent causes. These include: creating the ‘alt’ (for alternative) hierarchy in the Usenet discussion fora; open-source software; drugs law reform; philanthropy; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (which last week won a notable concession from the Library of Congress to legalise the “jailbreaking” of one’s iPhone – ie liberating it from Apple’s technical shackles).

The aphorism came up a lot last week following publication by the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel of extensive reports based on the stash of classified US military reports published on the WikiLeaks website. And of course in one sense this latest publishing coup does appear to confirm Gilmore’s original insight. But at the same time it grossly underestimates the amount of determination and technical ingenuity needed to make sure that the aphorism continues to hold good…

Google AdNonsense

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Years ago, I signed up to Google’s AdSense program to see if it would be possible to reverse-engineer its logic. The results continue to amuse (but, alas, not to make money). I write quite a lot about intellectual property, generally from a standpoint that’s highly critical of the content industries. When I do that, Google invariably comes up with ads for firms that will help me protect my intellectual property — despite the Creative Commons licence at the foot of the page.

I’m in Provence at the moment, and now it’s even doing it in French. Sigh.

WikiLeaks and mainstream media

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Anne Applebaum has set up an engaging straw man in Slate Magazine.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Julian Assange has now done it: By releasing 92,000 documents full of Afghanistan intelligence onto the laptops of an unsuspecting public, the founder of Wikileaks has finally made an ironclad case for the mainstream media. If you were under the impression that we don’t need news organizations, editors, or reporters with more than 10 minutes’ experience anymore, then think again. The notion that the Internet can replace traditional news-gathering has just been revealed to be a myth.

To see what I mean, try reading this: “At 1850Z, TF 2-2 using PREDATOR (UAV) PID insurgents emplacing IEDs at 41R PR 9243 0202, 2.7km NW of FOB Hutal, Kandahar. TF 2-2 using PREDATOR engaged with 1x Hellfire missile resulting in 1x INS KIA and 1x INS WIA. ISAF tracking #12-374.”

Did you get that? I didn’t and would be the first to admit it. I do understand it somewhat better now, however, because the New York Times helpfully explains on its Web site that this excerpt, from one of the WikiLeaks documents, describes a Predator drone firing a missile at men suspected of planting roadside bombs.

Hmmm… I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think that professional reporting is useful and necessary. This was also obvious after the (redacted) ‘official’ version of the MPs’ expenses file was published. Suddenly, one realised how much journalistic slogging went into the Telegraph‘s publication of the details. The truth is that the Web and professional journalism have a symbiotic relationship and feed on one another. Without WikiLeaks, there would have been no Afghan War Log story. And without the interpretation of the raw data, we’d be less the wiser.

The UK Parliamentary expenses scandal also suggests another angle on the Wikileaks story, namely the question of whether the Big Bang release of a torrent of data is the best way to get the public’s attention. What the Daily Telegraph did was to drip-feed the public, day after day, with selected excerpts from their data trove. This kept the story in the headlines for weeks, and undoubtedly magnified the impact of the revelations. Slate writer Jack Shafer thinks that the Big Bang release of the Wikileaks data may have, paradoxically, weakened its impact:

The speed with which the press and the politicians have normalized the material as “nothing new” indicates that WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange may have miscalculated in his desire to get the biggest media bang. He’s been meditating aloud for some time on how to maximize publicity for his material, complaining that media organizations have routinely ignored WikiLeaks postings because nobody gets exclusives on the released material. None would do a document dive for a story if that meant competing with other news organizations.

Could Assange have milked the material to better effect? Shafer thinks that he could have.

To begin with, and I’m repeating myself here, there was too much material for the newspapers and magazines to swallow on such a short deadline. The publications felt that way, too. As Hendler reports, they asked for and got a week extension on the original Assange embargo date. Perhaps he should have given the three publications—which shared notes about the material but not copy— another month. Lesson learned: Too much is sometimes worse than not enough.

By inundating readers with Assange’s trove, the three news organization broke one of the sacred rules of journalism: If you have a big story—especially one based on a leak like this one—drip, drip, drip it out to your audience rather than showering them with it. The reader can absorb drips better than torrents. Leave the reader wanting more and then deliver the next day. Besides, a drip strategy requires the publication to determine what’s most important in the story. Without looking, can you remember what the most significant part of the Afghanistan story is? The surface-to-air missile report? The stuff about Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence? I’m still dazed by it all. By pouring out the material so quickly, the press caused a flash flood that has already cleared. Lesson learned: Drip irrigation works better than a monsoon.

In a comment on the Shafer piece, Tom Ricks thinks that it’s more complicated than that. He makes a useful comparison between the Wikileaks data and Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers, which were essentially a compendium of Administration thinking about the Vietnam war:

“The reason Wikileaks’ [Assange] did a data dump the way he did, I suspect, is that there really is no there there. That is, he probably knew there was no way to drip this out. These report are similar to what you hear as an embedded reporter sitting around a tactical operations center in the middle of the night. They are the beginning of reporting, not the end. You hear something and say, Is it true? How could I determine that? If it is true, is is significant? Does it mean anything? The Pentagon Papers had all that. This stuff doesn’t.”

Library of Congress gets it right

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The LoC is the official rulemaker on legal exceptions to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which makes it a crime to circumvent DRM measures designed to protect intellectual property). It’s just issued some really good new rules — one of which loosens Apple’s iron grip on iPhones, while another permits non-commercial remixing of commercial video. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which pressed for the rule changes, reports it thus:

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the DMCA anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections for consumers who modify their cell phones and artists who remix videos — people who, until now, could have been sued for their non-infringing or fair use activities.

“By granting all of EFF’s applications, the Copyright Office and Librarian of Congress have taken three important steps today to mitigate some of the harms caused by the DMCA,” said Jennifer Granick, EFF’s Civil Liberties Director. “We are thrilled to have helped free jailbreakers, unlockers and vidders from this law’s overbroad reach.”

The exemptions were granted as part of a statutorily prescribed rulemaking process, conducted every three years to mitigate the danger the DMCA poses to legitimate, non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials. The DMCA prohibits “circumventing” digital rights management (DRM) and “other technical protection measures” used to control access to copyrighted works. While the DMCA still chills competition, free speech, and fair use, today’s exemptions take unprecedented new strides towards protecting more consumers and artists from its extensive reach.

The first of EFF’s three successful requests clarifies the legality of cell phone “jailbreaking” — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker. More than a million iPhone owners are said to have “jailbroken” their handsets in order to change wireless providers or use applications obtained from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes “App Store,” and many more have expressed a desire to do so. But the threat of DMCA liability had previously endangered these customers and alternate applications stores.

In its reasoning in favor of EFF’s jailbreaking exemption, the Copyright Office rejected Apple’s claim that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones: “When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses.”

“Copyright law has long held that making programs interoperable is fair use,” confirmed Corynne McSherry, EFF’s Senior Staff Attorney. “It’s gratifying that the Copyright Office acknowledges this right and agrees that the anticircumvention laws should not interfere with interoperability.”

EFF also won a groundbreaking new protection for video remix artists currently thriving on Internet sites like YouTube. The new rule holds that amateur creators do not violate the DMCA when they use short excerpts from DVDs in order to create new, noncommercial works for purposes of criticism or comment if they believe that circumvention is necessary to fulfill that purpose. Hollywood has historically taken the view that “ripping” DVDs is always a violation of the DMCA, no matter the purpose.

“Noncommercial videos are a powerful art form online, and many use short clips from popular movies. Finally the creative people that make those videos won’t have to worry that they are breaking the law in the process, even though their works are clearly fair uses. That benefits everyone — from the artists themselves to those of us who enjoy watching the amazing works they create,” added McSherry.

So presumeably, the Downfall meme is safe.

Advertising: our newest sunset industry?

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Some of my best friends work in advertising. Or used to. It was a great business once. It won’t be so great ten years from now, because it was an industry based on a media ecosystem that is rapidly eroding. Two interesting pieces on the Web today provide insights on this.

The first is a long blog post by Eric Clemons, who is Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In it, he argues that the Internet shatters all forms of advertising. “The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message, and the fact that it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed,” he writes. The nub of his argument is contained in four propositions:

* People don’t trust ads. There is a vast literature to support this. Is it all wrong?

* People don’t want ads. Again, there is a vast literature to support this. Think about your own behavior, you own channel surfing and fast forwarding and the timing of when you leave the TV to get a snack. Is it during the content or the commercials?

* People don’t need ads. There is a vast amount of trusted content on the net. Again, there is literature on this. But think about how you form your opinion of a product, from online ads or online reviews?

* There is no shortage of places to put ads. Competition among them will be brutal. Prices will be driven lower and lower, for everyone but Google.

The second piece is by Frédéric Filloux, who with Jean-Louis Gassée, writes Monday Note, one of the most thoughtful essay-blogs on the Web. In this week’s edition, he writes about a fascinating, detailed study of the 18-24 generation conducted by the French polling institute BVA. According to Frédéric’s summary, these people do not rely for information on a single group but on several, each with a different degree of trust.

The three concentric circles are : close friends and family as the core, a group of 20 to 30 pals whom they trust, and the “Facebook friends” of 200 or so, which acts as an echo chamber. Beyond these groups, behaviors such as elusiveness, temptation to trick and circumvent the social system will prevail.

How do they get the news? No wonder why the group is crucial to the Digital Native getting his information. First of all, the fastest is the best. Forget about long form journalism. Quick TV newscasts, free commuter newspapers, bursts of news bulletins on the radio are more than enough. The group will do the rest: it will organize the importance, the hierarchy of news elements, it will set the news cycle’s pace.

More chilling: the group’s belief in its power to decide what’s credible and what’s not. Truth – at least perceived truth – seems to emerge from an implicit group vote, in total disregard for actual facts. If the group believes it, chances are it is “true”. When something flares up, if it turns out to be a groundless rumor, it’s fine since it won’t last (which is little consolation for the victim of a baseless rumor); and the news cycle waves are so compressed that old-fashioned notions such as reliability or trustfulness become secondary. Anyway, because they are systematically manipulated, the Digital Natives don’t trust the media (when they themselves are not the manipulators).

Consequently, resources can only be group-related or collectively-driven. The perfect example is Wikipedia: because it is crowd-powered and carries an image of neutrality, it is embraced as trustworthy. In addition, Wikipedia is accessible, straightforward and well structured. As a result, many Digital Natives acknowledge turning to Wikipedia to check facts, or to get a good digest of the class there where given.

Note that advertising figures nowhere in this.