Technology evolves so fast

2.11.2010 www.kasvi.org 1

Technology evolves so fast Legislation reacts so slow

Jyrki J.J. KasviParliament of Finland, Committee for the Future

9.11.2010 www.kasvi.org

Challenges

Politicians’ ICT literacy and enthusiasm varies greatly– Information society policies are not found politically important nor

interesting by all– Some of the more experienced and influential politicians still live in the

typewriter age Legislative process is way too slow

– e.g. the new Finnish modem hijacking prevention law As ICT becomes ubiquitous, the digital divide evolves into an

activity divide– ICT gives active people more opportunities to be active members of the

society– ICT gives passive people more opportunities to be passive.

Net culture has been overlooked by press and politics– A whole Finnish generation was in Habbo and IRC Gallery before

politicians or mainstream media noticed social media– Over 100.000 Finns played poker in Internet before...


Some acute issues...

Internet and television– IpTV, YLE

Internet and (snail) mail– A withering public service

Infrastructure– Broadband, frequencies, IPv6

Internet governance– Cloud computing– Net neutrality– Content filtering

Social media– Amateur journalism

• Limits to freedom of expression• Source confidentiality

– User generated content• Crowdsourcing

Data protection– Identity theft crimes

Opening public data– Who pays the bills

Internet defence– Stuxnet

Accessibility– Internet and the elderly

Intellectual property rights– Copyright and DRM

Consumer protection– Broadband quality– ”free” services– Unfair EULAs

Digital civil rights– Privacy– Freedom of expression– Identity


IpTV – a searing hot media potato

IpTV turns broadcast television into an on-demand cloud service– Tvkaista and voddler are just a

humble beginning– Finnish legislation very carefully

does not mention ipTV at all Redistributes money and power

– New players replace old ones not agile enough

Existing IPR contracts do not recognise ipTV– Pirates are the most popular

service providers with best selection and service


Social media is as revolutionaryas the printing press– Newspapers– Popular culture

Creates new mediaand new cultureand changes societies– But how?

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(Epä)sosiaalinen media

Unsocial Media

Unsocial Media

Social media brings out the worst in some people– The flame wars of the 1980's usenet – Many politicians have been forced to disable comments in

their blogs and other social media Social capital hasn't developed as fast as social media

– Asymmetric faceless communication is psychologically challenging

– Younger generations have already developed better manners in the web

Anonymity is essential for democracy– But the same laws apply as in any public speech

Resist the demands for tighter control of social media– Limitations to anonymity– Host's responsibility of discussion content

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Memetic civil movements

Go 2 EDSA. Wear Blck

Spontaneus self coordinated memetic civic movements can come and go within days– Viral messaging: An SMS ”Go 2 EDSA. Wear Blck” in 2001

was essential for the resignation of Estrada – Red shirts in support of Myanmar monks– Copyright law demonstrations in Finland

Politicians have trouble to address a leaderless self coordinating ”mob”– ”Who the f*** is machinating this?”

No wonder many governments fear social media– Iran, China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia etc.

• In Iran, twitter, YouTube and blogs have been essential

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No leaders to arrest


Open information society = Open API

In an open information society all public data and metadata are available to all through an open API for free.

– API (Application Programming Interface) provides access to data in a machine readable format

Companies and citizens utilise the data to create their own services

– From usage fees to tax income– Mashups of different data– People know best what they want– Open API facilitates also multidiciplinary

public services

A new relationship between public information and privacy

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9.11.2010 www.kasvi.org 13Wikimedia Commons

Lost IPR business models


Anne’s act 1709

In 1709 the first actual copyright law was enacted in United Kingdom – Defined the three interest groups whose relationships copyright

laws still governs: content provider, publisher and consumer

– Publishers had no right to limit the way consumers use the content they purchase, DRM would have been illegal in 1709.

– It took 300 years from Gutenberg’s invention to get a law

The principles of Anne’s act worked for almost 300 years!– Requires small copying costs and centralised control

– In digital world the copying costs are zero and each and every computer is a potential printing press

– Now the change happens much faster than 300-400 years ago.


Media industry is facing a productivity leap corresponding to the revolution of the banking industry in the 1980/90's

Is Spotify going to be the ATM of media industry?Productivity leap for media:

Only those who jump farther than the others survive.

Is Spotify media's ATM?

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Challenge and opportunity

Printing press created the basis for copyright system1. Making of new copies of content is cheap2. It is possible to centrally supervise and control copying

Newspapers and popular culture were born as a result– But the profession of scribes was wiped out

Digital technology requires new rules1. It costs nothing to copy, edit and distribute content2. It is impossible to centrally supervise or control copying

What new cultural phenomena digital technology makes possible?– Social media, crowdsourcing, …– Rip-n-mix & mash-up– ???


Goals for a new copyright system

Of these we probably have a wide consensus2. To maximise production and use of content – the

expansion of culture– E.g. the original goal of the patent system was to maximise the

distribution and use of new innovations – expansion of economy

3. To secure livelihood of content makers– What about benefits of media industry shareholders?– Production and marketing services used by content makers are

also under threat

4. To facilitate new forms of content, expression and culture– Crowdsourcing, mash-ups etc. vs. copyright

Of means to achieve these goals we still need to discuss


Cloud computing politics

Content, applications and computing are becoming on-demand cloud services– Optimises the use of computing resources

• E.g. The U.K. G-Cloud is estimated to save £3.2 billion a year Kindle, iPad etc. are doing the same to books and

newspapers as Spotify did to music– TV channels may die but IP television services grow

The cloud does not respect national borders, but borders do matter!– When the client, the service provider and the server

farm are on different countries, whose laws apply in whose court?

– Data havens are already spawning


Me myself and I

• Identity theft is not a crime in Finland – Personal data of millions of people are missing around the world– In U.S., identity theft caused estimated €34 billion worth of

damages in 2007.

• Identification technology used has to be solid– 1:1.000.000 reliability is not enough if you identify millions of

people every day.

• Biometric identification data has to be kept safe– With biometric data you can pretend to be anybody– It is impossible to get a new fingerprint or DNA – Biometric passports spread our biometrics to every border station

• Identity protection should become a new civil right!– We need a global agreement on data security


U.S. Air Force photo

New asymmetric warfare

A U.S. Air Force drone providing intel for Taleban insurgents in Aftanistan.


Asymmetric warfare

Asymmetric values, crises and conflicts– Global network cultures vs. Nation states

• WWF Rainbow Warrior vs. French secret service• Al Qaida vs. Western world

– Local conflicts spread around the world in the web Asymmetric costs of cyber warfare

– Attack is cheap, defense is expensive– A limitless number of targets to defend while a single

security lapse is enough for the attacker– Even identification of the attacker may be impossible


New targets

Military information systems– U.S. 1997: The Eligible Receiver military exercise– Irak 2003: ”If we run out of batteries, we are screwed”– Afganistan 2008: Taleban tapping on Predator video feeds

Internet infrastructure– Estonia 2007: Web War One

• What if they had had an Internet election at the time?

Industrial infrastucture and defence industry– Iran 2010: Stuxnet

Data and information– Manipulation and destruction of public and corporate databases– Weakening the capability to make decisions and to act on them

Values and attitudes– Influencing people’s motivation and attitude


New enemies

Originally teenage hackers– For fun and prestige (pranks, “accidents”)– Easy due to good-for-nothing security of the systems

Now it is well paid professional crackers– Orgnised crime (extortion, fraud, phishing, ...)– Activist movements (sabotage, information manipulation)– Nation states (development of Stuxnet cost millions of euros)

Terrorist organisations– Al Qaida has its own Internet forces creating and distributing tools for propaganda

and recruitment, intelligence gathering, encryption and steganography and Internet attacks

Global corporations (industrial espionage)– Espcially defence industry has ties to national intelligence organisations

Military forces and national intelligence organisations– PLA of China (and Finnish army) have their reasons to use Linux

Crowdsourcing hacktivists– A major role in the 2007 attack on Estonia


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Discussion

U.S. Army Photo

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Technology evolves so fast