A Legitimate Light on BitTorrent

According to Canadian New outlet, The Star, the CBC is recently aired the finale of a popular Canadian reality show Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister – in which participants tried to convince both television and studio audiences of their fitness for a political future.  While the show concept is interesting by itself – what’s even more interesting is that the CBC has decided to release a high quality version of the finale through BitTorrent. a P2P file sharing software package that has – like most P2P clients – an “iffy” reputation due to being commonly used to copyright infringement though sharing of copyrighted files.

Peer-to-Peer file sharing is a perfectly legitimate software function.  What is questionable is WHAT files are shared.  Most people are familiar with the suits of individuals by the music industry for downloading MP3s they did not have a legal right to.   While legal, P2P software has tended to be viewed rather like smoking “paraphernalia” which, while technically legal and  marketed as “for use with tobacco” is more commonly associated in the public mind with smoking illegal substances such as marijuana.

While the media industry has become more open to distributing their products in download or podcast formats  most have used proprietary software to do so, such as iTunes or Amazon Unbox.  The use of BitTorrent – with it’s perceived shady past – says a lot both about the changing attitudes of the media industry, and the PR work companies like BitTorrent have done to appear more legitimate.

Illegal downloads and copyright infringement continue.  The software and media industries continue to develop more secure and complex data protection systems,  and, to some extent, the media is playing along with the changes in how people want to access content.

It’s hard to say what this evolving beast will look like five years down the road.  I think it’s an evolutionary process worth watching.

Comcast’s TCP Resets – Have You Noticed?

I’m a Comcast customer, and a techie to boot, but I haven’t noticed any trouble with my internet traffic. I’ll grant you I don’t use BitTorrent, and do very little p2p file sharing. I also tend to blame any slowdown on “this Blanking Old Machine” But, others have noticed – and the issue continues to heat up.

Depending on which article you read, from which point of view, it seems that there is no doubt that Comcast has been adjusting TCP/IP protocols based on traffic. The questions seem to be

1. Is the practice discriminatory?
2. Against whom?

The answers seem to be (in my opinion)

1. Yes, since Comcast targeted a particular type of application and by association, a particular type of client (one that uses lots of bandwidth, whose users have a reputation, deserved or not, for sharing copyrighted materials.)
2. Against BitTorrent and its users.

People should get the bandwidth they pay for. Yet Comcast does admit to “traffic shaping.” (for a technical, but readable, explanation of exactly what Comcast has been doing, see Susan Crawford’s blog)

However Comcast is dealing with what they see as traffic overload has been questionable enough to get the FCC interested. And, the publicity has them concerned enough to have (according to the AP) hired “seat warmers” at a February 28th hearing hosted by Harvard’s Berkman Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It seems broader legal issues are at stake. If Comcast provides a public utility, like phone service or electricity, then they are obligated to provide the service to any credit-worthy customer. If they are not a public utility, what are they? And, if they have issues with the legal status of the packets transmitted by their service, to what degree are they willing to take responsibility for that and police all of their customers? What does that do to our privacy? Is there any reasonable expectation of privacy when sending information by the Web?

This one is worth watching. However things play out, presidents will be set.

“Leaks” Turn to Heavy Flows

Wikileaks.org – a site that allows users to post information that would otherwise be difficult or impossible for the general public to access, such as

• 2003 operations manual from the prison at Guantanamo Bay
• Information about offshore banking activity (complete with details about companies and person inv0lved.)
• FBI Patriot Act abuse

and more, was brought to court, and the domain name ordered closed by a Federal Judge on February 14, 2008. It’s interesting to note that Wikileaks was not closed down due to it’s general purpose -a vehicle for free speec- but due to the complaints of one bank – Bank Julius Baer – over Wikileaks refusal to remove what Bank Julius Baer considered “sensitive information” concerning on of their wealthier clients. The decision has been described as tantamount to closing down an entire newspaper over a single article.

The order backfired. Not only was Wikileaks infomration still aviable at other domainextentions, but could still be accessed directly through it’s IP address. Wikileaks claims (since upheld) that this order violated the First Amendment and the resulting news coverage made Wikileaks a more high-profile source of non-mainstream news than before.

Public outcry over this clear violation of the First Amendment caused U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White to reverse his order. Wikileaks.org is now accessible through that domain name – with a bright yellow banner at the top protesting their treatment by US Courts.

Officials at Bank Julius Baer claim that it was never their intention to have the site shut down, only to have specific information – which they claim is “cyber-slander”posted by a disgruntled former employee removed.

While I, personally, am on the side of Wikileaks – there is an interesting question here about where the lawn is drawn between free speech and the right to privacy. Wherever that line may be drawn, the fact is that Wikileaks is now more well-known, and quite possibly more powerful, than before. As long as those who access the site understand the nature of a Wiki (it is publicly editable) and make the effort to further investigate information they find there to check its validity – I believe Wikileaks will continue to grow as a valuable resource for information.