In previous positions I have seen extremely strict policies surrounding internet access at work. To the point that my own manager would freak out because he thought I was using Gmail at work (I was actually using the official company hosted Gmail ). But in other positions I have seen full reign of access. Anything I wanted to access I could… anything!

A wide number of reasons have been used to filter content at the workplace. Everything from security and privacy concerns to “wasting time” on the job. To be honest those are legit concerns. If you are dealing with sensitive information – especially the kind others people/organizations would pay for – then there are concerns about controlling possible avenues to share that information. If you are wasting time, then you are costing a company money (your salary) for low productivity.

I favor an open approach when it comes to such policies, particularly when it comes to changing them mid stream. If you are use to being able to check your hotmail or twitter on breaks or lunch then to suddenly have that taken from you is disconcerting. Did you do something wrong? This was a nice perk of the office, why did you loose it? I do my job, do they think I am wasting time?

But what generally is observed is the application of a technology solution to an HR issue. Instead of blocking something outright, provide avenues to legitimately mentally check out for 5 minutes. If people are time wasters they will find something else if they don’t have their twitter, hotmail, or MSN. They will chat at the water cooler, clean their desks, and chat on the phone. Key is they will find something.

It is more obvious in the technology world but the ability to access twitter, facebook, Slashdot, digg, etc, is often an aid in doing your job. The articles posted by friends and colleagues can lead to new technologies, methods, ideas which aid you in your career. To have these sites blocked makes absolutely no sense considering the wealth of knowledge that can be gleamed from them. Sometimes it is not even a matter of what you can do but what you should not do.

So while I have experienced a vast difference in IT policies I am curious as to your thoughts. Should employers filter content, block it entirely, or deal individually with “distracted” employees?

In casual talks with employers and managers around the city the predominate feeling is that if an employee or potential employee has a blog, facebook, twitter stream, or any other online presence the it is the employers right to know. While no one would admit to actively hunting these resources out the reactions did indicate a certain “right to know” attitude. The reality is that some employers are doing extensive searches of current and potential employees online habits. A recent Deloitte survey found that 30% of employers were informally monitoring social networking sites for employee’s habits. People have even been dismissed for content they have posted online. A quick search for “Fired for blogging” will give you an easy dozen links to choose for with related stories.

Now on the flip side many employees will argue that their online actions are none of their employers business. According to the same Deloitte survey 53% of employees think that their social networking habits are none of their employers business. Even though over 70% understand it is easy to damage their employer’s reputation online. I think the reasons for this is quite obvious and do not warrant an in-depth discussion. Employees do not want to be held accountable at their employment for things they do off the company time. The basic social contract of mutual financial success, that is I perform a set of duties to assist the company in being profitable and am justly paid for those services, is the underlying principal of this. For many people the employee/employer relationship ends there and unless the employees external actions prevent or inhibit that process, what the employee does is their business.
So where do you stand? Where does the employee/employer relationship end? At what point do you feel the employer is overstepping its bounds of intruding into your personal life? Leave your comments below. I would love to hear from employers and employees alike on this.

A hot topic that will have many punches thrown over this session will most likely be the highly debated and controversial copyright reform bill. A bill that would mimic the highly disliked DMCA bill in the USA. The bill that was suppose to be tabled in the fall session but was delayed when sudden and vocal opposition was demonstrated by the very people who would be effected by this proposed law change, the voters!

A lot of the organization behind this opposition comes in the form of a Facebook group. Started by Dr. Michael Geist, law professor and Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, the Facebook group “Fair Copyright for Canada” has attracted the attention of 37000 users and resulted in national news coverage by CBC’s The Hour and The National.

While all that might be old news to some readers, a new development was the creation of local chapters that started quietly over the Christmas break. Just this past week The Fair Copyright for Canada group went public with its announcement of local chapters spanning 13 cities. I was delighted to be asked to start the Halifax Chapter and welcome anyone in the Halifax area to join. You are also encouraged to start your own campus or city chapter if one is not already in existence. Just contact Dr. Geist through the national Facebook group.

The momentum of this group continues to grow with coverage on Computer World Magazine’s site and on local newscasts across the country. This is an important step in bringing the concerns of the public to the MP’s who will eventually vote on this issue. Any stakeholders, who have a desire to see a balanced copyright reform bill put before the House of Commons, or an unbalanced bill defeated, are asked to get involved and ensure that your concerns are heard. Through these Facebook groups we will be making available the necessary information about who to contact, how to get involved, any rallies, and most importantly how this will effect you.

This development is also notable for demonstrating the impact that social networking sites can have on an organization. Although that is another topic. So please get involved, learn how this can affect you, and most importantly stand up for your rights.

Since then a new security risk has been discovered that exposes all you photographs to potential viewer though simple website address manipulation. Thanks to the work of Computer Engineering Graduate student Dave Churchill this simple exploit can allow anyone to view the full album of someone who is not on his or her friends list.

The conditions for doing this are quite simple. First, you need the address of a photograph in an album that belongs to someone who is not in your friends list. The easiest way to obtain this address is by viewing a photograph that has been tagged by someone you know. Make sure that photograph belongs in an album of someone you do not know and in an album you cannot view through standard navigation. This is necessary as it provides all the information necessary to make the hack easy and demonstrates that it indeed works.

At this point, the simple removal of a parameter in the address bar will expose all the photographs in that album. In this case the “&subj=123456789” portion of the address. If you remove that piece of data and hit enter and you now can view all the photographs in that album.

If this was an album of someone you did not know and as such would not be able to view otherwise, you have just bypassed Facebook’s lacking security with the preverbal Mac truck. I have tested this and found I was easily able to view full albums I otherwise would not have access to view.

This simple oversight in the development of the Facebook code is alarming. If this very trivial hack can be applied to albums what other hacks can be applied to expose further data. Since Facebook relies on cookies to track if you are logged in or not, this URL and many others are essentially open to the pubic.

How much longer will Facebook’s lack of security and questionable content policy be accepted? From the blanket user agreement that anything users post on Facebook is free for Facebook to reuse and even sell to others, to their substandard security. Facebook is facing mounting pressure to answer questions to how they use users information and how they protect that.

It is starting to look increasingly like Facebook is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

See Dave’s original document here

There has been a fairly loud laugh and a collective head shaking as intelligent people attempt to understand how a U.S. firm feels that not only is the content of their site the property of the owner – and it is – but the HTML code that allows your browser to view it is also property of the owner. Not only is it their property but you are forbid from viewing it [the HTML]. In addition, this firm attempts to prevent you from linking to them, or referring to them, without permission. The firm Inventor-Link is represented by the law firm Dozier Internet Law – and I assume advised by them – who have recently attempted to prevent another site from posting one of their take down letters, citing it as intellectual property. A letter from a firm who think that is possible is likely neither intellectual nor property but most likely, a document filled with such verbose legalese that it only attempts to scare and confuse the target into submission.

All these two firms are demonstrating is a general misunderstanding of internet technology and I hate to point it out, the law.

To the first point I will simply state that in order view a web page a browser must make a temporary copy [cache] of the information in order to display it to the viewer (if you are uncomfortable with this do not post anything online as this is simply how it works). If viewing the HTML is violation then certainly copying is as well. To the second point I will remind everyone that it is a long standing legal precedent that you are free to link to, cite appropriately, and criticize properly, any site you wish. Such as I am now. How either firm figures this is helping them is beyond me.

As they are written now the Facebook terms state

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

This agreement gives Facebook a blanket license to use, reuse, and even sell your creative work to third parties, use in advertising, and many other possible uses.

I contacted Facebook regarding these terms and was responded to by they very helpful Zack. In his correspondence with me he stated

While it is highly unlikely that Facebook will ever use material you upload to site, this previous clause states that Facebook retains license to do so. This license does not affect ownership or copyright privileges for material uploaded to the site.

While he never states that Facebook will not use my or your content and this is just a legal protection, he suggests it is quite possible they could use my content, it is just unlikely. However, he is right. Their terms do not negate your rights to your material. It just gives them free reign to use it as they will, without having to obtain your permission.

Since it was obvious this was their stance and they were not moving from it I considered their potential over-reaching of their terms of use. With these blanket rights a writer like myself looses all value and control over their work to a blanket license transfer. It’s akin to making a movie, releasing it, but giving permission to theaters to hand out free DVD’s of that movie regardless of a ticket purchase.

Given this I also investigated other opinions and in a recent CNet podcast the Buzz Out Loud crew stated that this is typical of all online sites such as MySpace, Friendster, etc. Thanks to the investigations of Matthew Gillard I come to find out that the Blogger – arguably the largest blogging site – terms of service state

Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services.

This forward thinking usage agreement helps users retain full control over their content and retains any value it might have.

So what why should you care. Well if you are a creative type, you feel that the pictures you take, video’s you edit, stories you write, have potential value then you could be at risk of having your content reused without your permission or remuneration. This is how the current terms work within Facebook and I for one am not comfortable with it. This is something we all have to consider when posting any content to sites like Facebook. What are implications of uploading? Who has access to see? Who is my content being shared with? Is someone else using my content for direct or indirect profit?

Something for you to consider, as such I have removed my blog content from Facebook. Readers can view it at www.christophermercer.net

BTW that earlier comment about Facebook selling user data. I have found no basis for that accusation, fact is that personal data is protected under the same terms of use.

The thing they were posting about was a number and in this case a simple 16 bit hexadecimal number. So what is this magic number that would have hundreds of thousands of people posting stories to digg.com, Slashdot.org, and other social networking sites like facebook? The number is actually a key and a very important key at that. In the realm of DVD’s and HD-DVD’s having this key is like being given the master key to every house in your town. The key is the processing key for HD-DVD and in the hands of a talented programmer would allow HD-DVD movies to be played or copied to any computer, or device. Copies that could be uploaded and shared online but at 20Gb a file it is unlikely you will see that happen any time soon.

Most readers are likely thinking “so what?” and wondering why this is so noteworthy. Well it relates to the use of the DMCA to take down blogs, postings to social networking sites, and any other reproduction of that number. The Movie Producers Association of America (MPAA) have been handing out take down notices like they were candy to prevent this number from becoming available. They view it as a part of their intellectual property and thus subject to copyright. It is a part of their digital rights management (DRM) strategy, which restricts playback of HD-DVD’s to approved devices. If you are a Linux computer user, or a home theater hobbyist who wants to build their own media server, you would be prevented from have HD-DVD functionality so since these are not approved devices. E.g. there is no Linux (or Mac I believe) HD-DVD players.

So what about this revolt? About a month or so ago this key was discovered and posted on websites, subsequently the MPAA started a campaign to have those postings removed. The removals – most notably from digg.com itself – quickly became seen as attempts to censor users to protect corporate economic interests and the users were reposting the number, and links to other sites with the number faster than they could be taken down. Eventually the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, bowed to the will of his user base and said they would stop removing postings and deal with any consequences that might result. In his words “if we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.”

This is a perfect example of both DRM and the DMCA at its worst. It is a tenant of copyright law that words and numbers cannot be copyrighted, they could be trademarked, but not copyrighted. It is exactly these kinds of draconian laws that the US is pressuring on other countries, and exactly the kinds of laws the current government is considering introducing as part of its copyright reform. If you reverse engineer, find a security hole, or discover a way to break encryption that is applied to copyrighted material you can be prevented form sharing that information with laws like the DMCA. This is exactly what has happened with the HD-DVD processing key and many other products such as the DeCSS code that allows DVD playback. It leaves a chilling effect on those who wish to build a better lock by understanding how to break the current one, a process often pursued in academics.

I recently attended the local theater to catch a flick where I was given a promotion card for 3 free music downloads from the Purtracks store. This is combined promotion from Hershey’s Chocolate, Coke, Empire Theaters, and Puretracks. The cards contain a serial number and a PIN number that you can use to redeem for the three songs. The problems started when I attempted to scratch the coating that is over the PIN number (much like a scratch and win ticket). As you can see in the image the coating did not remove easily and I ended up scratching the ink off the card, rendering the card useless. Not wanting to give up I decided to register for an account and see if I could decipher the numbers so I can get my 3 free songs.

The registration process was easy, simply provide the typical information; first name, last name, email, postal code, password, and a few check boxes for news letters. Once logged in to the music store I found that just about all the albums were available in WMA format only, and few were available in mp3 format. Knowing that WMA does not play well with Mac OS or any Linux/BDS variant this limits the customer base greatly. I would assume that any store would want the widest breadth of consumers possible.

Having surfed around and found 4 songs I like – I received a free song with registration – and added them to my cart and proceeded to the checkout. Attempting to decipher what numbers were I was ultimately unable to figure it out after several attempts. Having felt enough frustration in finding MP3 songs, knowing I could never use the service at home since I am a Mac user (you can not even view the website from a Mac), and the inability to redeem a coupon due to low quality printing, I decided to deactivate the account. Feeling that I would never likely return to the service as it does not fit my needs I clicked the “My Account” button. Searching high and low I could not find the deactivate account option. So now I am stuck with this Purtracks account, meaning they have my name and email with the potential to spam me in the future.

Once again I feel Purtracks has totally missed the boat on providing a quality service to its users. Using WMA, and the DRM contained within, limits the playability of the songs, restricting the access to even surf the store to Windows computers is unlikely to attract any attention from Mac or Linux users who might choose to use them. Finally, the inability to remove your information from their site is one of the largest privacy concerns I can think of and could be a violation of PIPIDA (Canada’s privacy laws). They can do much better.

I went through this when I read a recent story about CTV journalist David Akin who was notified that a video he posted to Googles YouTube site infringed on someone’s copyright. The posting, according to Akin, was a 30 second grainy video of Vimy Ridge he had taken with his digital still camera while on a recent trip to the World War I (edit for Metal Tim) memorial. The notice was served to Google from Holland & Hart LLP who according to a quick search is a construction law firm.

Now first off what is a construction law firm doing serving notices on of intellectual property? I do not understand what their particular interest is in this video. Secondly, this was a video of a public place – a piece of Canadian sovereign land – which was taken by the person who posted it online. There is no copyright being in infringed upon, except that of David Akin.

This is one of the many dangers of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a key piece of copyright legislation that protects the rights of copyright owners in the USA. Currently the Government of Canada is considering DMCA like provisions for copyright reform, and if approved such legal actions could be legally enforceable in Canada. This is called the notice-takedown system where an apparent copyright owner serves notice to a hosting company like YouTube who subsequently take down the content.

However, current Canadian law advocates a notice-notice system where an accused copyright violator is given notice that the ISP (or other hosting company such as YouTube, blogger, etc) has been given notice of copyright infringement. It is then up to the user to act accordingly and remove the violating content or defend a false accusation directly against the accuser.

Since YouTube is US company with US servers the use of this aspect of the DMCA is hard to defend against. So where does that leave international users who post content legally but someone objects? In theory I could use the DMCA to take down material I object to based on a false claim of copyright infringement. The ability to do this is in how these provisions are written, there is no need for a judicial review to ascertain the infringement.

While it is not always apparent how copyright can effect the regular person on the street, but if this situation with David Akin is any indication there are far reaching consequences to such reforms. You, or I, could find ourselves wondering what happened to our blog entry, video, or photo we posted online one day.

Anyway, back to the point. Ming-Jen Wang of LSI Logic Corporation has filed for and been awarded a patent for linked lists. Now I do not claim to be an expert in the field of software patents. Especially when it comes down to how software is constructed, but something as common as a linked list is akin to patenting the paragraph. It does not make sense that he would win the award, and it makes less sense considering this form of programming has been around for quite some time. There is significant proof of prior art in regards to practices like linked lists or any other data structure. I have several programs from a Computer Science course I did in 2003 as examples.

Why are we even entertaining the idea of software patents? Eventually everything would be patented and it would cost to much to write an application than it would worth.