Dec 20, 2008
Posted by VC on Dec 20, 2008 in The Net, music | 1 comment
It’s one of the default questions you ask someone you’ve just met. “What kind of music do you listen to?”
Underneath you’re really asking: What audible emotion sparks something inside of you? How can I connect with you? Are you really a goth headbanger disguised in American Eagle?
Do you like songs that sound like the feeling of driving in a car on a stretch of empty country road towards a new beginning? The ones that feel like snuggling in the arms of a loved one in front of a crackling fireplace? Or the ones that sound like violently smashing glass on concrete? Knowing gives you a strong insight into the character of that person.
Wanting to reconnect with the emotions of getting to know someone that I felt a few months ago, I searched my inbox this morning for a link to the muxtape he gave me when we first met (a muxtape is an online mix tape). I remember the beats flitting into my ears, tickling my tear ducts, and exiting my mouth with a sigh.
The underlined characters symbolized the time he took to choose the songs, put them somewhere I usually was (online), and share a bit of who he is is with me.
Time is all we ever really have, right?
The little url was in the middle of a thread about watching Donnie Darko with wine and brie. Ahh memories.
I clicked on the link and was redirected not to sounds of Sunz of Man, but to a letter from the Muxtape’s creator Justin Ouelette. On August 15, the site had the servers pulled out from under them.
The Recording Industry Association of America had sent Amazon, the place where Muxtape had stored all its content, a letter telling them that they had infringed on artist’s rights, so they’d better shut it down.
Justin met with record labels to try and save the site, but he didn’t want to sell out. So, Muxtape is no more. It was murdered by Avarice.
You can mourn muxtapes at the play list graveyard. It’s @ http://muxtape.com/remembers/yournamehere.
Bye Bye, Muxtape. I barely had the chance to know you. I know you weren’t the only song-sharing site out there, but you were at the top of my playlist.
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Dec 16, 2008
Posted by VC on Dec 16, 2008 in The Net | 0 comments
In this post, I review a an alarming case that could change digital law and have some evaluating the value of their personal data on Facebook. I also muse about what Facebook has published that is relevant to the case.
In Australia, lawyers delivered reposession papers through a facebook message. The couple had not paid their MKM Capital mortgage bill, so the company began the process of repossessing their home. Lawyer Mark MacCormack couldn’t get in touch with them through conventional methods, so he logged into Facebook.
He searched for the two by their e-mail addresses, then matched the info he had to the info they had published in their profiles. MacCormack convinced a judge to let him deliver the repo papers through a facebook message. To protect the couple’s privacy, the judge stipulated that he should send them through a message, not a wall post. The two have a week to respond to the papers.
This case sets a huge precedent for the legal nature of Facebook communication. What in your inbox can be used against you in a court of law? What repercussions would these two they face if they don’t check their Facebook messages, or ignore them and mark as unread? I’ve never heard of this being done anywhere.
Facebooks lonely privacy policy is worth a read. The relevant portion states:
“We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you. For example:…We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies. “
What are those applicable legal standards? It’s all pretty vague. I delved into the Terms of Use and found:
“Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction
By visiting or using the Site and/or the Service, you agree that the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to principles of conflict of laws, will govern these Terms of Use and any dispute of any sort that might arise between you and the Company or any of our affiliates. With respect to any disputes or claims not subject to arbitration (as set forth below), you agree not to commence or prosecute any action in connection therewith other than in the state and federal courts of California, and you hereby consent to, and waive all defenses of lack of personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens with respect to, venue and jurisdiction in the state and federal courts of California.”
I can’t say I know anyone who reads terms of use and privacy policies. Under what circumstances are Facebook conversation admissible as evidence?
Certainly it is easy to prove that a message has been viewed. However, how will the lawyers prove that the person who owns the Facebook account was the person who actually logged in and viewed it? What if it was someone’s little brother signing in to give their profile a makeover?
Even people who pay their bills on time should pay attention to this case, because now that this case has surfaced, other corporations will start using this platform to send legal documents.
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Oct 23, 2008
Posted by VC on Oct 23, 2008 in Business, Media, Politics, The Net | 0 comments
As I leave the polling place, the little sticker on my hand makes me proud to have made the effort to have my opinion heard in a country that used to disenfranchise Mexican-American women.
The little American flag appears to wave freely in a patriotic breeze. Printed to the right of the flag, the statement “I Voted” encapsulates and simplifies the struggle to participate in the elections that give people the power to make policies which alter the way they live life. It seems so long ago that my grandmother had to pay a poll tax to vote. She’s 90.
I wonder if hindrances to casting ballots are truly a thing of the past, or if they’ve morphed into sneakier ways of denying people’s rights?
I voted on a Hart Intercivic eslate 3000 this morning. I wonder if it accurately cast my ballot?
After watching the documentary Hacking Demoracy , I’m not so sure. It was alarmingly simple to hack the voting machines. After a negative 16,000 vote count was produced on the Diebold voting machines in Volusia County, Florida in 2000, the movie’s protagonist Bev Harris wanted to find out just WTF had happened. Authorities claimed it was faulty memory cards, but no one was allowed to see how the machines work. Not even the California Secretary of State.
Harris went online and downloaded official software and documents from a Diebold ftp site that had been left unsecured. She began to discover how much of a joke the security features are in the software. To bypass a password prompt, Harris accessed the spreadsheet file from which the software pulled the vote totals and wrote different numbers in the fields. Voila! Someone else had officially won the election.
The company that had been hired to certify the machines as acceptable for use (and sale) had not even tested the security features.
Oh, Democracy and Capitalism. Hand in hand you frolic down the side walk in front of a strip mall. What a playful couple of love struck old farts.
The pivotal scene is the one in which a computer scientist writes a few lines of code and uploads it into the memory card that stores the votes. A room full of election officials gasps in astonishment when the votes they had cast emerged from the machine altered. One even cried as she recognized how corrupt the election system had become.
Unfortunately for me and the Austinites who voted at my polling place, the Hart Intercivic eslate 3000 is a machine manufactured by a private company that intends to profit off of lucrative grants from the US government. I am supposed to trust that this equipment was not tampered with by some political zealot. Riiiight.
These are the same machines that disenfranchised voters in Hawaii and tabulated votes wrong in Virginia. In 2004, some Hart machines had a default setting for a vote for Bush. Even when Austinites selected a straight Democratic ticket, their vote went to Bush.
These machines make a mockery out of something that’s supposed to be sacrosanct. In the end, does my vote really count? Is this sticker merely a conversation starter for me to flaunt a status symbol? Oh look at me and how political I am. I can push important buttons. My vote doesn’t really count. But check out the sweet flag on my sticker.
Or is my sticker a badge of hope? Hope that my vote is tallied correctly. Hope that the next few years in the US find our society living healthier and more sustainable lives in all aspects. Hope that Americans begin to respect each other’s ideas and beliefs and lay off the ethnocentrism. As I wear my sticker, I hope that the memory cards haven’t been tainted.
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