Rick Falkvinge's Blog, page 27

The European Parliament (Mostly) Said No To A Porn Ban

Freedom of Speech – Christian Engström: The European parliament’s vote earlier this week on a resolution that asked for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media was not entirely easy to interpret, but the most reasonable political interpretation is to say that the parliament said No to a ban on porn.

But let’s take a closer look at the different articles that the parliament voted on.

First, Article 14:

14. Points out that a policy to eliminate stereotypes in the media will of necessity involve action in the digital field; considers that this requires the launching of initiatives coordinated at EU level with a view to developing a genuine culture of equality on the internet; calls on the Commission to draw up in partnership with the parties concerned a charter to which all internet operators will be invited to adhere;

The parliament rejected this article completely, which is very good. If it had not, it would have called for turning the internet service providers into some kind of private ”porn police”, very much along the same lines as the ACTA treaty that wanted to turn them into a private file sharing police.

The rejection of this article was a clear and very important victory for free speech and information freedom.

Then, Article 19:

19. Calls on the Member States to establish independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls;

This article asked member states to establish regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and a mandate to impose sanctions on companies and individuals. That kind of mechanism has no place in a democratic society.

The rejection of this article as well was another clear victory for freedom of speech.

Finally, Article 17:

17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism

Here, the parliament rejected the second half of the article with the explicit call for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media, but kept the first part with the indirect reference to the resolution from 1997.

This is where it gets tricky and a bit ambiguous.

On the one hand, the parliament rejected the direct call for a ban. So far, so good. The parliament no longer highlights that particular article in the old resolution. If the highlighting had remained, it would have been clear that the parliament did in fact want a ban on porn in media, but since it was taken away,

But on the other hand, Article 5 of the 1997 resolution still contains a call for ”statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media”, and the parliament expressed that it wanted that resolution implemented, without mentioning any exceptions.

So how should we interpret this?

The reasonable political interpretation is that the parliament does not want to ban pornography on the internet or in the media.

If this had been a legislative report, it would have been correct to say that the parliament wanted to ban porn in magazines, TV and DVDs. Legal texts are quite similar to computer code (although courts are quite different from computers), so in that case an indirect reference would be just as strong as a direct mention of the porn ban.

But this is a political resolution where the parliament just expresses an opinion, and then it has to be read in a different way. From a political perspective, the important thing is that the parliament actively removed the wording ”a ban on all forms of pornography in the media” (and remove all the sharp proposals on how to enforce it). If the majority had in fact been in favor of a ban, it would have had no reason to do this. Since it did, the only reasonable conclusion is that the majority of members didn’t want a ban.

This is a victory, and that’s what counts in the political landscape in Brussels.

Thank you, all activists who contributed by sending emails to MEPs or in other ways!

This article was originally published on MEP Engström’s blog.

European Parliament Just Voted To Ban Porn, But Refrains From Extending Scope To Internet Following Protests, And Hides Who Voted For It

Freedom of Speech: The European Parliament has just voted in favor of the much-discussed blanket ban on all forms of pornography. But first, it decided to strike out the much-discussed extension of “media” into the internet, effectively limiting the ban to advertising and some undefined print media. It also struck out the original criminalization of any dissent against the report and the turning of ISPs into thought police. However, Parliament’s decision to filter out its constituents’ protests on the matter and decision to hide how the representatives voted on the report is a loud and clear warning signal.

While this is an “initiative report”, which means it is not the final vote in the legislative process, it is still part of the legislative process. Some people have used the term “non-binding” to describe the report. I would disagree that such recklessness can be excused at any point in the legislative process with the somewhat strange argument that things aren’t finalized; if this lax attitude to quality and workmanship existed elsewhere in society, our cars would be falling apart and our food would be poisonous.

The original report banned sexual text messaging between consenting adults.

The report refers to an earlier report calling for a blanket ban on pornography in advertising, which it refers to as “the media”. But this new report redefines media to include the Internet to an unclarified degree (in point 14) – which can be as broad as making it illegal to send text messages with sexual content over the Internet between married couples.

That is a clear and intolerable violation of the most basic freedoms of speech and expression.

Fortunately, the entire point 14 – which expanded “the media” onto the internet – was deleted in the vote.

The European Parliament responded by deleting the explaining language, but not the legislative effect in bill.

To accommodate the storm of protests that ensued when this was first discovered, the report was amended to remove the explanation of what it did, but not the effect. Specifically, this part was taken out:

17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism;

Do you see what this does? It removes the explanation, but not the referenced report, so it just hides the clarification.

The European Parliament responded by shutting off constituents’ protests.

But the next step was even worse. Some Members of European Parliament (MEPs) had complained to the Parliament’s IT staff about citizens protesting, so protests against this particular report were classified as spam. Meanwhile, hundreds of mails protesting agricultural subsidies kept coming in to the MEPs’ inboxes, so the spam filter was very specifically targeted. (Later tests confirmed that a test had been added that targeted the words “gender stereotypes”, which are in the title of the report).

When some MEPs can use Parliament’s technical infrastructure and staff to prevent the constitutents of Europe to contact their representatives — other representatives than the ones complaining, all representatives, nota bene — then the respect for democracy is on its death bed.

The original report made ISPs into thought police.

The report also called for ISPs to enforce the ban, as originally written (but this point was defeated on the floor). We have seen theses attacks on the messenger immunity under the flag of “self-regulation” from many incumbent interests. But it is not “self-”, because ISPs will be doing it to their customers, and it is not “regulation”, because they don’t get a say on the rules. It is “policing”. We have an institution in society to perform that function and that is indeed the Police. Private interests should never be tasked with law enforcement, and for very good reasons.

When ISPs are policing what you do privately on the internet, that is as close as you can get to a thought police today.

Fortunately, this point – point 14 – was defeated on the floor, along with point 19 below.

The original report criminalized dissent of the ban.

Point 19 of the original report is even more interesting. It reads (my highlights);

19. Calls on the Member States to establish independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualization of girls

This may look good on the surface but is incredibly broad. First, “regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media” is not good from any angle, regardless of how noble the aim may be. Politicians should never, ever, under any circumstance, have a say in what the media may write about them.

But note the second part of the mandate – impose “effective sanctions” (which means anything from fine to jail) on individuals that “promote sexualization of girls”.

Note that it doesn’t say “individuals that sexualize girls”. It says “promote sexualization of girls”. As in, express an idea that puts it in a positive light.

Combined with covering the internet, this goes as far as criminalizing the expression “I like pornography”, expressed by an individual in a private setting. Assuming women were involved, that would be a textbook promotion of such sexualization, and this report originally said that fines or jail should apply to that expressed thought.

Fortunately, this point was defeated (along with point 14) in the vote. But the idea that it could even go as far as the floor is horrifying.

The European Parliament hides who voted how.

Finally, the Parliament didn’t care to do a so-called “roll call vote” – a vote where it shows who voted how. In other words, they decided collectively to disable their consituents from holding them accountable. Thus, the only thing published is how Parliament voted as a whole.

The end result of the initiative report wasn’t as bad as it could have been – it mostly reaffirmed an ages-old and non-enforced ban on all forms of pornography in “the media”, which is still rather undefined. But without the points 14 and 19 defeated, the report would have looked entirely different.

This, along with the arrogance in deleting the explanation of what the report aimed at but not its effect, and the audacity of filtering out communication from constituents on a current affairs topic coming to a legislative vote, is quite damning for the European Parliament.

The process is much more cause for concern than the end product.

If the behavior of the European Parliament on this report is an indicator of the health of the institution of the European Union as a whole, then the federation’s democratic legitimacy is already dead beyond Rigor Mortis, and the institution of the European Union as such is at a dead end.

Meanwhile, we should be proud of ourselves as activists to having made noise on the issue. If we had not raised hell, the horrifying points 14 and 19 above would almost have been sure to pass in silence.

Porn Ban Update: Europarl Responds By Spamfiltering Constituents, Then Deletes Explanation Of Porn Ban But Keeps Effect

Freedom of Speech: The European Parliament has responded to protests against a ban on pornography by spamfiltering its consistuents’ protests, then deleting the explanation of what the bill does from the bill. While this can be typical behavior from the European Parliament (as we saw in the ACTA battle), that doesn’t make it any more excusable. This is, quite frankly, not something that politicians deserve to get away with.

First, some background: a so-called initiative report is coming to a vote next week that seeks to reinforce a previous ban on pornography in advertising and extend it into an undefined scope of internet traffic. As the report is written, it is easy to read its language as including all sexual communication online between consenting adults; the language is very broad and vague in scope.

An initiative report is a way for Parliament to express its opinion to those actually drafting legislation. It has been described as “legally non-binding”, but it is a little more than that – when legislation is drafted, it falls back on the opinions expressed by Parliament. Therefore, it is closer to a request for drafting of legislation on the matter, which would later come to a (binding) vote.

So, “stop a pebble before you have to stop a landslide”.

Like all other reports, this one has a single Member of European Parliament who is responsible for it, but up until yesterday, it was a done deal. It would just pass without notice. This morning, a lot of confusion was caused as hundreds and hundreds of people mailed (as per yesterday’s article) to all of Parliament. The issue went from a done deal to open for discussion. This was a huge win in itself, and we should all pat ourselves on the back for that.

What happened next is just dishonorable. The European Parliament’s IT group started classifying mail from its constituents as spam, on the server side, so the Members of European Parliament never saw the protests. Apparently, this happened following requests from individual MEPs. The Pirate Party office in Brussels was practically screaming in French-language emails to explain the dishonor in this behavior, and MEP Christian Engström has more details.

Also, hundreds of protest mails kept pouring in that protested agricultural subsidies, so it was just the protests against the ban on online pornography that was targeted for spam filtering.

The second thing that happened was that a MEP that acted as responsible for the ban on online pornography removed the explanation of that from the report. Removed the explanation, but not the effect. The new report, as written, still extends a previous ban on pornography in advertising into new forms of media, specifically the internet, and still calls for ISP to police that ban. It just carefully hides the fact that it does so:

17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism;

Even with those words taken out, this is still a reference to this report, which still has this wording describing a legislative carpet ban on pornography in “the media”:

5. Calls for statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in advertising and for a ban on advertising for pornographic products and sex tourism

So striking out those words in point 17 of the new report has no other effect than deliberately obscuring the purpose of the new report, following loud objections over it. The key words “the media” in the old report are still redefined in point 14 in the new report to include the Internet, and Internet Service Providers are still called upon to unaccountably police the net:

14. Points out that a policy to eliminate stereotypes in the media will of necessity involve action in the digital field; considers that this requires the launching of initiatives coordinated at EU level with a view to developing a genuine culture of equality on the internet; calls on the Commission to draw up in partnership with the parties concerned a charter to which all internet operators will be invited to adhere

This can feel a bit like wrapping your head against a gentle slice of sweet soft lime, then banging it hard against a brick wall.

When I set up the mail alias yesterday to make it easier to mail the European Parliament, that was my goal – I wanted to lower the wall between elected and electorate. The elected swiftly responded by erecting new walls to not have to bother with their constituents, and that has me seriously annoyed. So instead of using my remailer at europarl-all-mar2013@falkvinge.net, I will supply you with all the addresses so that you can mail them all individually, rather than going through my server.

Therefore, I include the full list of addresses below. It looks quite large. That’s because it is.

The mail that has the best effect to Parliament is always one where you write exactly what you think and feel about an issue. One such mail is worth a hundred copied-and-pasted letters. So while I provide a sample mail below, I would really encourage you to write to the European Parliament from your heart instead. Don’t worry about getting the tone or the formalities right – these people work for you. You pay their salary. It is their job to listen to your concerns.

So send a mail right now:

From: (You)

To: anne.delvaux@europarl.europa.eu,jean-luc.dehaene@europarl.europa.eu,ivo.belet@europarl.europa.eu,marianne.thyssen@europarl.europa.eu,mathieu.grosch@europarl.europa.eu,louis.michel@europarl.europa.eu,frederique.ries@europarl.europa.eu,guy.verhofstadt@europarl.europa.eu,philippe.debacker@europarl.europa.eu,annemie.neyts-uyttebroeck@europarl.europa.eu,isabelle.durant@europarl.europa.eu,philippe.lamberts@europarl.europa.eu,bart.staes@europarl.europa.eu,derkjan.eppink@europarl.europa.eu,frank.vanhecke@europarl.europa.eu,frederic.daerden@europarl.europa.eu,veronique.dekeyser@europarl.europa.eu,marc.tarabella@europarl.europa.eu,said.elkhadraoui@europarl.europa.eu,kathleen.vanbrempt@europarl.europa.eu,philip.claeys@europarl.europa.eu,Nadezhda.Neynsky@europarl.europa.eu,svetoslav.malinov@europarl.europa.eu,mariya.nedelcheva@europarl.europa.eu,andrey.kovatchev@europarl.europa.eu,emilstefanov.stoyanov@europarl.europa.eu,iliana.ivanova@europarl.europa.eu,vladimir.urutchev@europarl.europa.eu,metin.kazak@europarl.europa.eu,vladkotodorov.panayotov@europarl.europa.eu,filizhakaeva.hyusmenova@europarl.europa.eu,antonyia.parvanova@europarl.europa.eu,stanimir.ilchev@europarl.europa.eu,ivailo.kalfin@europarl.europa.eu,kristian.vigenin@europarl.europa.eu,ilianamalinova.iotova@europarl.europa.eu,evgeni.kirilov@europarl.europa.eu,slavi.binev@europarl.europa.eu,dimitar.stoyanov@europarl.europa.eu,eleni.theocharous@europarl.europa.eu,ioannis.kasoulides@europarl.europa.eu,takis.hadjigeorgiou@europarl.europa.eu,kyriacos.triantaphyllides@europarl.europa.eu,antigoni.papadopoulou@europarl.europa.eu,kyriakos.mavronikolas@europarl.europa.eu,bendt.bendtsen@europarl.europa.eu,annee.jensen@europarl.europa.eu,jens.rohde@europarl.europa.eu,morten.lokkegaard@europarl.europa.eu,margrete.auken@europarl.europa.eu,emilie.turunen@europarl.europa.eu,sorenbo.sondergaard@europarl.europa.eu,anna.rosbach@europarl.europa.eu,morten.messerschmidt@europarl.europa.eu,britta.thomsen@europarl.europa.eu,dan.jorgensen@europarl.europa.eu,ole.christensen@europarl.europa.eu,christel.schaldemose@europarl.europa.eu,tunne.kelam@europarl.europa.eu,siiri.oviir@europarl.europa.eu,vilja.savisaar-toomast@europarl.europa.eu,kristiina.ojuland@europarl.europa.eu,indrek.tarand@europarl.europa.eu,ivari.padar@europarl.europa.eu,sirpa.pietikainen@europarl.europa.eu,petri.sarvamaa@europarl.europa.eu,eija-riitta.korhola@europarl.europa.eu,sari.essayah@europarl.europa.eu,hannu.takkula@europarl.europa.eu,riikka.manner@europarl.europa.eu,anneli.jaatteenmaki@europarl.europa.eu,tarja.cronberg@europarl.europa.eu,satu.hassi@europarl.europa.eu,sampo.terho@europarl.europa.eu,mitro.repo@europarl.europa.eu,liisa.jaakonsaari@europarl.europa.eu,michele.striffler@europarl.europa.eu,marielle.gallo@europarl.europa.eu,jean-marie.cavada@europarl.europa.eu,sophie.auconie@europarl.europa.eu,dominique.riquet@europarl.europa.eu,francoise.grossetete@europarl.europa.eu,maurice.ponga@europarl.europa.eu,franck.proust@europarl.europa.eu,jean-paul.gauzes@europarl.europa.eu,agnes.lebrun@europarl.europa.eu,arnaud.danjean@europarl.europa.eu,michel.dantin@europarl.europa.eu,rachida.dati@europarl.europa.eu,joseph.daul@europarl.europa.eu,jean.roatta@europarl.europa.eu,constance.legrip@europarl.europa.eu,alain.lamassoure@europarl.europa.eu,christine.deveyrac@europarl.europa.eu,gaston.franco@europarl.europa.eu,alain.cadec@europarl.europa.eu,brice.hortefeux@europarl.europa.eu,dominique.vlasto@europarl.europa.eu,philippe.juvin@europarl.europa.eu,elisabeth.morinchartier@europarl.europa.eu,philippe.boulland@europarl.europa.eu,jean-pierre.audy@europarl.europa.eu,marie-therese.sanchez-schmid@europarl.europa.eu,veronique.mathieu@europarl.europa.eu,tokia.saifi@europarl.europa.eu,corinne.lepage@europarl.europa.eu,sylvie.goulard@europarl.europa.eu,nathalie.griesbeck@europarl.europa.eu,robert.rochefort@europarl.europa.eu,marielle.desarnez@europarl.europa.eu,jean-luc.bennahmias@europarl.europa.eu,jose.bove@europarl.europa.eu,malika.benarab-attou@europarl.europa.eu,eva.joly@europarl.europa.eu,michele.rivasi@europarl.europa.eu,sandrine.belier@europarl.europa.eu,jean-paul.besset@europarl.europa.eu,catherine.greze@europarl.europa.eu,daniel.cohn-bendit@europarl.europa.eu,yves.cochet@europarl.europa.eu,karima.delli@europarl.europa.eu,helene.flautre@europarl.europa.eu,nicole.kiil-nielsen@europarl.europa.eu,yannick.jadot@europarl.europa.eu,francois.alfonsi@europarl.europa.eu,jacky.henin@europarl.europa.eu,marie-christine.vergiat@europarl.europa.eu,patrick.lehyaric@europarl.europa.eu,jean-luc.melenchon@europarl.europa.eu,younous.omarjee@europarl.europa.eu,philippe.devilliers@europarl.europa.eu,henri.weber@europarl.europa.eu,bernadette.vergnaud@europarl.europa.eu,pervenche.beres@europarl.europa.eu,stephane.lefoll@europarl.europa.eu,harlem.desir@europarl.europa.eu,liem.hoangngoc@europarl.europa.eu,catherine.trautmann@europarl.europa.eu,gilles.pargneaux@europarl.europa.eu,francoise.castex@europarl.europa.eu,patrice.tirolien@europarl.europa.eu,sylvie.guillaume@europarl.europa.eu,jean-marie.lepen@europarl.europa.eu,bruno.gollnisch@europarl.europa.eu,marine.lepen@europarl.europa.eu,rodi.kratsa-tsagaropoulou@europarl.europa.eu,georgios.papanikolaou@europarl.europa.eu,georgios.papastamkos@europarl.europa.eu,marietta.giannakou@europarl.europa.eu,konstantinos.poupakis@europarl.europa.eu,georgios.koumoutsakos@europarl.europa.eu,ioannis.tsoukalas@europarl.europa.eu,theodoros.skylakakis@europarl.europa.eu,nikos.chrysogelos@europarl.europa.eu,nikolaos.chountis@europarl.europa.eu,charalampos.angourakis@europarl.europa.eu,georgios.toussas@europarl.europa.eu,niki.tzavela@europarl.europa.eu,nikolaos.salavrakos@europarl.europa.eu,anni.podimata@europarl.europa.eu,chrysoula.paliadeli@europarl.europa.eu,mariaeleni.koppa@europarl.europa.eu,sylvana.rapti@europarl.europa.eu,dimitrios.droutsas@europarl.europa.eu,georgios.stavrakakis@europarl.europa.eu,kriton.arsenis@europarl.europa.eu,spyros.danellis@europarl.europa.eu,sean.kelly@europarl.europa.eu,jim.higgins@europarl.europa.eu,gay.mitchell@europarl.europa.eu,mairead.mcguinness@europarl.europa.eu,marian.harkin@europarl.europa.eu,liam.aylward@europarl.europa.eu,briancrowleymep@eircom.net,patthecope.gallagher@europarl.europa.eu,paul.murphy@europarl.europa.eu,phil.prendergast@europarl.europa.eu,emer.costello@europarl.europa.eu,nessa.childers@europarl.europa.eu,cristiana.muscardini@europarl.europa.eu,salvatore.tatarella@europarl.europa.eu,alfredo.pallone@europarl.europa.eu,paolo.bartolozzi@europarl.europa.eu,iva.zanicchi@europarl.europa.eu,elisabetta.gardini@europarl.europa.eu,barbara.matera@europarl.europa.eu,mario.mauro@europarl.europa.eu,alfredo.antoniozzi@europarl.europa.eu,aldo.patriciello@europarl.europa.eu,lara.comi@europarl.europa.eu,amalia.sartori@europarl.europa.eu,raffaele.baldassarre@europarl.europa.eu,gabriele.albertini@europarl.europa.eu,carlo.fidanza@europarl.europa.eu,giovanni.lavia@europarl.europa.eu,erminia.mazzoni@europarl.europa.eu,sergio.berlato@europarl.europa.eu,salvatore.iacolino@europarl.europa.eu,potito.salatto@europarl.europa.eu,crescenzio.rivellini@europarl.europa.eu,vito.bonsignore@europarl.europa.eu,marco.scurria@europarl.europa.eu,sergio.silvestris@europarl.europa.eu,licia.ronzulli@europarl.europa.eu,antonio.cancian@europarl.europa.eu,roberta.angelilli@europarl.europa.eu,herbert.dorfmann@europarl.europa.eu,tiziano.motti@europarl.europa.eu,luigiciriaco.demita@europarl.europa.eu,giuseppe.gargani@europarl.europa.eu,carlo.casini@europarl.europa.eu,gino.trematerra@europarl.europa.eu,antonello.antinoro@europarl.europa.eu,clemente.mastella@europarl.europa.eu,vincenzo.iovine@europarl.europa.eu,giommaria.uggias@europarl.europa.eu,niccolo.rinaldi@europarl.europa.eu,andrea.zanoni@europarl.europa.eu,sonia.alfano@europarl.europa.eu,gianni.vattimo@europarl.europa.eu,magdicristiano.allam@europarl.europa.eu,matteo.salvini@europarl.europa.eu,fiorello.provera@europarl.europa.eu,oreste.rossi@europarl.europa.eu,mara.bizzotto@europarl.europa.eu,lorenzo.fontana@europarl.europa.eu,mario.borghezio@europarl.europa.eu,claudio.morganti@europarl.europa.eu,giancarlo.scotta@europarl.europa.eu,francescoenrico.speroni@europarl.europa.eu,gianluca.susta@europarl.europa.eu,rita.borsellino@europarl.europa.eu,patrizia.toia@europarl.europa.eu,francesco.deangelis@europarl.europa.eu,roberto.gualtieri@europarl.europa.eu,guido.milana@europarl.europa.eu,leonardo.domenici@europarl.europa.eu,luigi.berlinguer@europarl.europa.eu,paolo.decastro@europarl.europa.eu,debora.serracchiani@europarl.europa.eu,pino.arlacchi@europarl.europa.eu,gianni.pittella@europarl.europa.eu,mario.pirillo@europarl.europa.eu,silvia.costa@europarl.europa.eu,sergio.cofferati@europarl.europa.eu,vittorio.prodi@europarl.europa.eu,francesca.balzani@europarl.europa.eu,david.sassoli@europarl.europa.eu,salvatore.caronna@europarl.europa.eu,pierantonio.panzeri@europarl.europa.eu,andrea.cozzolino@europarl.europa.eu,krisjanis.karins@europarl.europa.eu,inese.vaidere@europarl.europa.eu,karlis.sadurskis@europarl.europa.eu,sandra.kalniete@europarl.europa.eu,ivars.godmanis@europarl.europa.eu,tatjana.zdanoka@europarl.europa.eu,alfreds.rubiks@europarl.europa.eu,roberts.zile@europarl.europa.eu,alexander.mirsky@europarl.europa.eu,laimaliucija.andrikiene@europarl.europa.eu,radvile.morkunaite-mikuleniene@europarl.europa.eu,vytautas.landsbergis@europarl.europa.eu,algirdas.saudargas@europarl.europa.eu,viktor.uspaskich@europarl.europa.eu,leonidas.donskis@europarl.europa.eu,valdemar.tomasevski@europarl.europa.eu,rolandas.paksas@europarl.europa.eu,juozas.imbrasas@europarl.europa.eu,vilija.blinkeviciute@europarl.europa.eu,zigmantas.balcytis@europarl.europa.eu,justas.paleckis@europarl.europa.eu,georges.bach@europarl.europa.eu,frank.engel@europarl.europa.eu,astrid.lulling@europarl.europa.eu,charles.goerens@europarl.europa.eu,claude.turmes@europarl.europa.eu,robert.goebbels@europarl.europa.eu,david.casa@europarl.europa.eu,simon.busuttil@europarl.europa.eu,louis.grech@europarl.europa.eu,joseph.cuschieri@europarl.europa.eu,john.attard-montalto@europarl.europa.eu,edward.scicluna@europarl.europa.eu,lambert.vannistelrooij@europarl.europa.eu,wim.vandecamp@europarl.europa.eu,corien.wortmann@europarl.europa.eu,ria.oomen-ruijten@europarl.europa.eu,esther.delange@europarl.europa.eu,sophie.intveld@europarl.europa.eu,marietje.schaake@europarl.europa.eu,gerben-jan.gerbrandy@europarl.europa.eu,toine.manders@europarl.europa.eu,hans.vanbaalen@europarl.europa.eu,jan.mulder@europarl.europa.eu,marije.cornelissen@europarl.europa.eu,bas.eickhout@europarl.europa.eu,judith.sargentini@europarl.europa.eu,kartikatamara.liotard@europarl.europa.eu,dennis.dejong@europarl.europa.eu,peter.vandalen@europarl.europa.eu,bastiaan.belder@europarl.europa.eu,thijs.berman@europarl.europa.eu,emine.bozkurt@europarl.europa.eu,judith.merkies@europarl.europa.eu,daniel.vanderstoep@europarl.europa.eu,barry.madlener@europarl.europa.eu,lucas.hartong@europarl.europa.eu,auke.zijlstra@europarl.europa.eu,laurence.stassen@europarl.europa.eu,elzbieta.lukacijewska@europarl.europa.eu,rafal.trzaskowski@europarl.europa.eu,jacek.protasiewicz@europarl.europa.eu,joanna.skrzydlewska@europarl.europa.eu,jacek.saryusz-wolski@europarl.europa.eu,jan.kozlowski@europarl.europa.eu,slawomir.nitras@europarl.europa.eu,jan.olbrycht@europarl.europa.eu,jolantaemilia.hibner@europarl.europa.eu,tadeusz.zwiefka@europarl.europa.eu,piotr.borys@europarl.europa.eu,malgorzata.handzlik@europarl.europa.eu,krzysztof.lisek@europarl.europa.eu,roza.thun@europarl.europa.eu,artur.zasada@europarl.europa.eu,filip.kaczmarek@europarl.europa.eu,jaroslaw.walesa@europarl.europa.eu,lena.kolarska-bobinska@europarl.europa.eu,danuta.huebner@europarl.europa.eu,sidonia.jedrzejewska@europarl.europa.eu,jerzy.buzek@europarl.europa.eu,danuta.jazlowiecka@europarl.europa.eu,bogdan.marcinkiewicz@europarl.europa.eu,boguslaw.sonik@europarl.europa.eu,pawel.zalewski@europarl.europa.eu,andrzej.grzyb@europarl.europa.eu,jaroslaw.kalinowski@europarl.europa.eu,czeslaw.siekierski@europarl.europa.eu,arkadiusztomasz.bratkowski@europarl.europa.eu,marekhenryk.migalski@europarl.europa.eu,biuro@pawelkowal.pl,adam.bielan@europarl.europa.eu,michaltomasz.kaminski@europarl.europa.eu,miroslaw.piotrowski@europarl.europa.eu,janusz.wojciechowski@europarl.europa.eu,tomasz.poreba@europarl.europa.eu,ryszardantoni.legutko@europarl.europa.eu,marekjozef.grobarczyk@europarl.europa.eu,konrad.szymanski@europarl.europa.eu,ryszard.czarnecki@europarl.europa.eu,jacek.kurski@europarl.europa.eu,tadeusz.cymanski@europarl.europa.eu,zbigniew.ziobro@europarl.europa.eu,jacekwladyslaw.wlosowicz@europarl.europa.eu,wojciech.olejniczak@europarl.europa.eu,joanna.senyszyn@europarl.europa.eu,marek.siwiec@europarl.europa.eu,boguslaw.liberadzki@europarl.europa.eu,lidiajoanna.geringerdeoedenberg@europarl.europa.eu,janusz.zemke@europarl.europa.eu,adam.gierek@europarl.europa.eu,nuno.melo@europarl.europa.eu,diogo.feio@europarl.europa.eu,paulo.rangel@europarl.europa.eu,mariadagraca.carvalho@europarl.europa.eu,carlos.coelho@europarl.europa.eu,josemanuel.fernandes@europarl.europa.eu,nuno.teixeira@europarl.europa.eu,mariadoceu.patraoneves@europarl.europa.eu,regina.bastos@europarl.europa.eu,mario.david@europarl.europa.eu,rui.tavares@europarl.europa.eu,marisa.matias@europarl.europa.eu,ines.zuber@europarl.europa.eu,joao.ferreira@europarl.europa.eu,antonio.campos@europarl.europa.eu,luispaulo.alves@europarl.europa.eu,vital.moreira@europarl.europa.eu,anamaria.gomes@europarl.europa.eu,elisa.ferreira@europarl.europa.eu,luismanuel.capoulassantos@europarl.europa.eu,edite.estrela@europarl.europa.eu,traian.ungureanu@europarl.europa.eu,theodordumitru.stolojan@europarl.europa.eu,petru.luhan@europarl.europa.eu,marian-jean.marinescu@europarl.europa.eu,oana.antonescu@europarl.europa.eu,rares-lucian.niculescu@europarl.europa.eu,elena.basescu@europarl.europa.eu,sebastianvalentin.bodu@europarl.europa.eu,monica.macovei@europarl.europa.eu,iosif.matula@europarl.europa.eu,cristiandan.preda@europarl.europa.eu,iuliu.winkler@europarl.europa.eu,csaba.sogor@europarl.europa.eu,laszlo.tokes@europarl.europa.eu,norica.nicolai@europarl.europa.eu,adinaioana.valean@europarl.europa.eu,ramonanicole.manescu@europarl.europa.eu,renate.weber@europarl.europa.eu,cristiansilviu.busoi@europarl.europa.eu,catalin-sorin.ivan@europarl.europa.eu,vasilicaviorica.dancila@europarl.europa.eu,victor.bostinaru@europarl.europa.eu,silviaadriana.ticau@europarl.europa.eu,corina.cretu@europarl.europa.eu,dacianaoctavia.sarbu@europarl.europa.eu,rovana.plumb@europarl.europa.eu,ioan.enciu@europarl.europa.eu,claudiuciprian.tanasescu@europarl.europa.eu,ioanmircea.pascu@europarl.europa.eu,georgesabin.cutas@europarl.europa.eu,tudorcorneliu.vadim@europarl.europa.eu,george.becali@europarl.europa.eu,adrian.severin@europarl.europa.eu,miroslav.mikolasik@europarl.europa.eu,anna.zaborska@europarl.europa.eu,peter.stastny@europarl.europa.eu,eduard.kukan@europarl.europa.eu,edit.bauer@europarl.europa.eu,alajos.meszaros@europarl.europa.eu,sergej.k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europa.eu,michaelhenry.nattrass@europarl.europa.eu,nikki.sinclaire@europarl.europa.eu,alf.svensson@europarl.europa.eu,anna.ibrisagic@europarl.europa.eu,christofer.fjellner@europarl.europa.eu,annamaria.corazzabildt@europarl.europa.eu,gunnar.hokmark@europarl.europa.eu,kent.johansson@europarl.europa.eu,olle.schmidt@europarl.europa.eu,marit.paulsen@europarl.europa.eu,cecilia.wikstrom@europarl.europa.eu,carl.schlyter@europarl.europa.eu,isabella.loevin@europarl.europa.eu,christian.engstroem@europarl.europa.eu

Subject: Disappointed and concerned regarding handling of pornography ban

Dear MEP,

(Write your own here. Below provided as sample. Do not use.)

I have a problem with three recent events in the European Parliament, and I would ask you to listen to my concerns.

Yesterday, there was a legitimate protest against an extension on a ban against pornography in advertising to cover the Internet in the report “Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in the EU”. The language is so vague and broad that it can easily be read to include a ban on sexual communication against consenting adults, and as such, passing this report would be incompatible with fundamental rights and freedoms in a democratic society.

This report is my first problem. The response to the legitimate objections are the two others.

The European Parliament responded by deleting the explanation (but not the legal meaning) of this report, deliberately obscuring the legal meaning that led to the protests, and by classifying mail from its own constituents as spam, filtering out voters who tried to reach their representatives – essentially throwing letters from voters in the trash.

While the first can be seen as an understandable mistake that is intended to be caught by democratic checks and balances, the other two of these actions are unprofessional and unworthy of the European Union as the world’s largest democracy. We elect you every five years and expect you to be proud of your work when presenting it in full to the electorate for re-election. This is not something I would be proud of in such a situation.

In summary, I urge you to reject the initiative report mentioned above, and consider the fact that we do put a value on being in touch with our elected representatives.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

[Your country]

Mail something like this to the European Parliament right now and tell them exactly how you feel about this display of disrespect and unprofessionalism.

Artists: We’re Not Salespeople, We’re Street Performers

Reflections – Zacqary Adam Green: My fellow artists, we need to talk. We’re all starving, our fans are starving, and life just sucks for all of us. The only way we’re going to make a living as entertainers is to sit back, cool our jets, and take a reality check. We are, and always have been, buskers.

I know it doesn’t seem like we’re on a street corner, guitar case propped open, ready to accept money from passers-by. We’re on the Internet. We’re selling albums, and movies, and games, and books, and all sorts of products. Right? And when people download our stuff without paying us, that’s theft. Of our products. Which we’re selling in our stores.

Except that’s a lie. We’ve had holes poked in the argument that we’re selling things, or that making a copy is theft, but it was a lie even before everything went digital. Even when our songs, our films, our novels, our software only came on physical media, we were never salespeople. We were never manufacturers. Those vinyl discs and hardback books were nice collectables, sure, but they were never more than packaging. Without the music, the story, the experience inside, who would want to buy those random knick-knacks we sold?

No, it’s never been about selling. Or pushing a product. The big distributors and publishers sure made us think that it was, but come on, artists. We’ve always known it was about the art.

We never stopped busking, guys.

I’m on a street corner playing my guitar, singing my heart out, and some jackass freeloader walks on by without even throwing a coin in my guitar case. What a scumbag! “Get back here, you ungrateful pirate!” I shout. “Stop, you thief!” And then the police come running, and look at me like I’m crazy.

That’s what we’re doing when we get mad at people who pirate our work. Except the police don’t always think we’re crazy. Maybe they ought to.

It sucks when someone enjoys your work and can’t help you put food on your table, I know. A lot of the time they’d like to help and just can’t afford it. But I’ve had people flat-out tell me, “That was great, but I don’t think I’ll be donating,” and of course it stings a little bit. You know what, though? That’s life. Wait for the ones who will pay.

And you know, maybe it sucks too that we don’t get to think of what we do as selling a product. Maybe it’d be easier if we weren’t glorified buskers. But I say it’s easier to embrace that. Do we really want it to be our job to sell products and move units? Hell no! We’re artists, man! Our job is to move people, to make people laugh, cry, and feel things they’ve never felt before. Our job is to connect with people. And the more people you connect with, the more likely it is that one of them can spare some cash for you.

I don’t know about you, but I never wanted to be a salesman anyway.

Next Tuesday, The European Parliament Votes To Ban All Your Porn. Yes, Really. Take Immediate Action.

Freedom of Speech: Next Tuesday, the European Parliament will vote yes to a report calling for a legislative ban on all pornography in any kind of media. This “any media” is written to include the net, and even includes photos you take of yourself and send to friends, as well as simple text messaging. This horrendous attack on our fundamental freedoms of speech and expression needs action now.

The deceptively-named report is titled Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU, which sounds good and something you’d give your approval on first glance, right? We’ve seen this kind of deception before, with bills named things like “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA), and the “Patriot Act”, that were all named to trigger a “yes” vote, but which were really about tearing down the most fundamental of our rights and liberties.

The current state of affairs in the European Parliament is a clear majority in favor of this report, much because of its title and a belief that there’s nothing odd about it.

Next week’s vote, which will probably be on Tuesday, isn’t really on legislation as such – rather, it is about requesting legislation to be drafted on the matter, and final legislation will come back to a vote. Thus, this isn’t the final vote in the legislative process; rather, it’s the first vote in the legislative sausage machine (“what goes in, must come out”). This is a so-called initiative report. Still, it is important to send a very clear message that this is unacceptable at first opportunity, or it will become a legislative proposal which is much harder to fight.

As part of this report, we find a call to enforce a carpet ban on pornography, across “the media”. This is a hair-raising attack on freedom of speech and freedom of expression that should never have made it past the first cursory review (my highlighting):

17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism;

This refers to an earlier decision, which is just as horrendous and that neither can nor should be enforced:

Freedoms of speech and expression most definitely include sending erotic material – text, images, sound – between consenting adults. This is a political invasion of people’s bedrooms that is unacceptable and intolerable.

But “the media” is kind of vague in point 17 above – could it be referring only to commercial, for-profit media? Not really. If we look closer, we see that the Internet is most definitely included – and also that the European Parliament is trying to abdicate political responsibility for this decision, by pushing responsibility onto Internet Service Providers for policing the morals of a total carpet ban on anything remotely pornographic (my highlighting):

14. Points out that a policy to eliminate stereotypes in the media will of necessity involve action in the digital field; considers that this requires the launching of initiatives coordinated at EU level with a view to developing a genuine culture of equality on the internet; calls on the Commission to draw up in partnership with the parties concerned a charter to which all internet operators will be invited to adhere

So yes, the European Parliament is really voting to ban any kind of sexual communication between consenting adults over the internet, and using unaccountable Internet Service Providers to do their policing for them. This is as unacceptable as it gets, but make no mistake – the Members of European Parliament are going to vote yes to this report come Tuesday, unless they hear from us very loudly and clearly. In other words, it is therefore time to mail the European Parliament with our opinions.

You may remember how we did that in the anti-ACTA campaign. I have set up a mail alias that resolves to every Member of European Parliament (all some 750 of them); the mail alias is europarl-all-mar2013@falkvinge.net. Mail them right now, regardless of whether you are an EU citizen or not. Write a mail with just whatever you feel about this issue from a personal standpoint, maybe picking inspiration from one of these sample letters, mixing and matching them, or rolling your own entirely:

From: (You)

To: europarl-all-mar2013@falkvinge.net

Subject: Please REJECT the report “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU”.

Next week, the European Parliament will vote on an initiative report called “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU”. While this report may look beneficial and uncontroversial on the surface, it includes provisions to ban all kinds of pornographic material, across “the media”.

We can also read in the report that “the media” includes the Internet, and that Internet Service Providers are encouraged to do this policing in an unaccountable

manner.

This is an unacceptable political invasion of people’s bedrooms. Fundamental freedoms of speech and expression most definitely include the ability to send erotic material between consenting adults in any manner they so choose and wish.

While there may be good parts in the report, as a whole, this report is not compatible with fundamental rights and freedoms in a democratic society. I therefore

urge you to reject it.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[Your Country]

From: (You)

To: europarl-all-mar2013@falkvinge.net

Subject: Next week’s report on “eliminating gender stereotypes” must be rejected.

There is a report on “eliminating gender stereotypes” coming to a vote next week. This is a deceptive title; the report hides legislative language that is not compatible with fundamental rights and freedoms in a democratic society.

The report seeks an enforcement of a ban on every form of pornography, across all forms of media, including the internet (points 14 and 17). Further, it calls on Internet Service Providers to enforce this ban, outside of legislative accountability.

This is a political invasion of adult people’s bedrooms that is neither acceptable nor tolerable. Politicians have no say in what consenting adults communicate between one another, and yet, this report seeks to impose an extrajudicial censorship of such communication in the most unaccountable of ways. I find this despicable and a completely unacceptable attack on the most basic of freedoms of speech and expression.

Therefore, I urge you to decisively REJECT this report, and also to tell your colleagues of its deceptive title compared to its actual contents.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[Your Country]

From: (You)

To: europarl-all-mar2013@falkvinge.net

Subject: Next week’s report “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU” is deceptive. Please reject it.

There is an initiative report coming to a vote next week titled “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU”. This title is deceptive and hides an unacceptable attack on fundamental rights and freedoms – one that is not compatible with a democratic society.

Looking at points 14 and 17 in the report, it calls for a complete ban on all forms of pornography in media, and makes it clear that this includes anything on the Internet. In other words, it applies to any kind of erotic material – text, images, sound – and not just the commercial kind. This is a political invasion of adult people’s bedrooms – adult VOTERS’ bedrooms – that goes far beyond the tolerable. If consenting adults choose to share erotic material with one another, this is not a matter that politicians have any kind of say about.

While there may be good parts in the report, as a whole, this report is not compatible with fundamental rights and freedoms in a democratic society. I therefore

urge you to reject it and to inform your colleagues of this attempted deception.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[Your Country]

See also Christian Engström, MEP who goes more in-depth in his analysis of the report.

The Target Value For Bitcoin Is Not Some $50 Or $100. It Is $100,000 To $1,000,000.

Swarm Economy: Bitcoin’s value is at an all-time high again. Following the hype peak and crash in 2011, many seemed to have thought it was just another dotcom fluke. But bitcoin was much more than that, and it has returned with a vengeance – its market cap is now twice what it was in the 2011 peak, and it is nowhere near its potential, which is four orders of magnitude above today’s value.

In this, a lot of people are confused at the fact that bitcoin has climbed 200% since the start of this year alone, and wonder what to make of it. It is currently at $41.50 and climbing fast, and I see a lot of people just looking at the numbers and guessing from charts how things will pan out.

I am seeing guesses of $50, $100, $150, even $1,000. These numbers seem pulled out of thin air from just looking at the charts – nobody seems to have done due diligence from the other direction, from the most fundamental observation of all:

Bitcoin is a transactional currency. As such, it is competing for market share on the transactional currency market.

Talking about bitcoin value is not about happily watching numbers go up and down while having popcorn. This is about identifying a global market, looking at its size and estimating a target market share based on the strengths and weaknesses of the competing product or service under analysis.

When you know the size of the target market, and have an estimate for your projected market share, you can estimate the value of your product or service as a percentage of the value of the total market. I haven’t seen anybody do that for bitcoin.

The total size of the transactional currency market is hard to estimate, but has been pegged at about $60 trillion (the amount of money in circulation worldwide). Seeing how this number is roughly on par with the world’s GDP, it is a reasonable enough number to be in the right ballpark. Based on my four earlier estimates (one, two, three, four), I think it is reasonable that bitcoin captures a 1% to 10% market share of this market.

The low end of 1% would be if it captures international and internet trade. The 10% would be if bitcoin also manages to capture some brick-and-mortar retail trade, which we are already seeing strong signs that it might – operations provide a 3% to 5% extra profit margin on sales when you can cut out the credit card processors, so the incentive to switch is immense: those 3% to 5% cost savings translate to 50% to 100% increased profits, as margins are typically very slim in retail.

Furthermore, some people will undoubtedly invest in bitcoin and keep their portion of bitcoin away from the transactional pool, like all people tend to hoard money if they are able. This decreases the amount of bitcoin that must fulfill the market share, further driving up value for each individual bitcoin. As a rough estimate, let’s assume that only one in four bitcoins is actually used in transactions, and the rest are in some kind of savings or investment plans.

This leads us to a target market cap of 600 billion to 6 trillion USD, to be fulfilled by about 6 million bitcoin, which makes for easy calculations. That means that each bitcoin would be worth $100,000 at the low market cap and $1,000,000 at the high market cap.

In the light of this, present-day projections of $100 that present themselves as “daring and optimistic” actually come across as rather shortsighted and almost dealing with peanuts.

So is the projected market share realistic? Bitcoin certainly has hurdles to overcome – scalability and usability being two of them – but it has done remarkably well in maturing in the two years since I started looking at it. My prediction of a mainstream breakthrough around the year 2019 remains, and it still depends on getting mainstream usability; a target market cap may be reached about a decade after that happens, as a technology typically takes ten years from mainstream breakthrough to maturity.

Now, there are definitely uncertainties in this projection and its assumptions – but it does indicate what kind of ballpark we are talking about.

DISCLOSURE

The author has a significant investment in bitcoin. Specifically, he went all-in two years ago after having run these very numbers.

Evidence The Pirate Bay Move To North Korea Was A Prank, In Understandable Terms

Infrastructure: Yesterday’s big story was definitely about The Pirate Bay having moved to North Korea. If you asked the Internet’s infrastructure, the net itself would tell you about the move, and The Pirate Bay issued a press release confirming the story. But reports surfaced that it could have been an elaborate hoax, and closer inspection proves that.

The problem with verifying the story or its debunking was the technical level of expertise required to understand the reports. When you started talking about “traceroutes” and “whois lookups”, you would lose 99.9% of the audience, who would be incapable of independently verifying what you said. When you added in the reports claiming to debunk the story, but which were instead about “Border Gateway Protocol” (BGP) and “Autonomous Systems” (AS) numbers, you lost another 99.9% – including me.

I can’t verify or disprove the report based on BGP and AS numbers. But there’s something else I can use. The laws of physics.

I’m going to focus on the traceroute quoted below. You can think of it in terms of a telephone line trace. It is a list of the way the signals go from your computer to The Pirate Bay. To illustrate, the first hop in the chain from my workstation is my firewall (named firewall.internal.falkvinge.net), and my ISP alltele is visible as a next step in hop #4. The crucial evidence here is in the timings: my firewall is 379 microseconds away from me, and my ISP is 3.3 milliseconds away from me.

You, too, can run this trace from where you are. Open a prompt (in Windows, it’s Windows+R, then cmd and Enter, on a Mac, you run Terminal, and on any flavor of GNU/Linux, you hit Ctrl-Alt-T) and run traceroute thepiratebay.se – on some systems, the command is just tracert thepiratebay.se. It should produce a document similar to the one below.

rick@battlestation:~$ traceroute thepiratebay.se
traceroute to thepiratebay.se (194.71.107.15), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 firewall.internal.falkvinge.net (192.168.80.1) 0.379 ms
2 * * * (unknown hop)
3 * * * (unknown hop)
4 h88-129-128-10.static.se.alltele.net (88.129.128.10) 3.327 ms
5 te0-7-0-7.ccr21.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.6.168.49) 3.992 ms
6 te0-3-0-4.ccr22.sto03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.60.21) 19.605 ms
7 te0-3-0-2.ccr22.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.73.65) 22.574 ms
8 te0-3-0-6.ccr22.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.49.213) 28.316 ms
9 francetelecom.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.14.178) 35.297 ms
10 xe-3-2.r00.dsdfge02.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.61) 31.762 ms
11 213.198.77.122 (213.198.77.122) 31.516 ms
12 * * * (unknown hop)
13 xe-0-1-0-3.r02.frnkge03.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.62) 38.855 ms
14 xe-0.level3.frnkge03.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.8.202) 38.566 ms
15 vlan90.csw4.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.154.254) 118.681 ms
16 ae-82-82.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.25) 122.293 ms
17 ae-61-61.csw1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.134.66) 130.630 ms
18 ae-21-70.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.155.67) 132.708 ms
19 INTELSAT-IN.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.156.82.14) 135.094 ms
20 209.159.170.215 (209.159.170.215) 202.517 ms
21 202.72.96.6 (202.72.96.6) 703.997 ms
22 175.45.177.217 (175.45.177.217) 707.161 ms

So we see 22 hops in the trace, where the last one was famously in North Korea, almost a full second from where we are sitting, 700 milliseconds out. But let’s not look at that for a moment, let’s look instead at hops #16 to #17. Hop #16 is in Frankfurt and hop #17 is in New York or Kansas City. Let’s assume New York; that’s where the transatlantic cables land. Yet, in the trace, they are eight milliseconds apart.

Let’s focus on this. The distance from Frankfurt to New York (measured in Internet signalling time) is reported to be just over twice the distance from my firewall to my ISP. This sets us thinking. What is the physical distance from Frankfurt to New York?

The distance from Frankfurt to New York is 6,195 kilometers.

The physical distance that hop #17 has to cover is 6,195 kilometers. It covers this hop in eight milliseconds. Here, let’s take a look at the laws of physics. What is the speed of light? What is the limit, as told by the laws of physics, to how fast the signals in a fiberoptic cable can cover this distance?

The speed of light is exactly 299,792,458 meters per second. To cover 6,195,000 meters, light needs 0.020 seconds, or 20 milliseconds. But we just saw that the traceroute reported eight milliseconds for this jump. That’s troubling. More precisely, this violates the laws of physics. The traceroute claims that internet signals travel at more than twice the speed of light.

This hop in the traceroute violates the laws of physics. And with that one hop in the traceroute proven to be impossible, the whole traceroute is shown to be an elaborate hoax.

Just to double-check, I am getting ping times of 30-ish milliseconds to the Frankfurt address from Stockholm, Sweden, and ping times of 110 milliseconds to the New York address. Differences of 80-ish milliseconds seem much more reasonable than the eight milliseconds claimed in the traceroute.

So how do you fake a traceroute to this degree? You meddle with the deepest routing logic of the Internet, that’s how. That kind of wizardry goes beyond my horizon. But after observing that the traceroute violates the laws of physics, I can tell with certainty that it is faked.

As Anna Troberg, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, wrote yesterday; “The joke’s on you. The Pirate Bay is enormously skilled at two things: keeping their site online and lulzing the establishment.”

So with this evidence in hand, where in the world is The Pirate Bay? San Diego? Austria? Cambodia? Still in Oslo? Nobody knows at the moment. Hacking the internet to this degree is deep wizardry far beyond my ability to untangle it.

UPDATE: Some have pointed at the fact that Level3 is a U.S. provider, and that they could name their U.S. routers “Frankfurt”, and that the transatlantic hop actually happened between hops #14 and #15, a hop of 80 milliseconds. This is plausible on first thought. Then again, a geographic lookup places hop #16 in Frankfurt, and I have a ping to hop #16 of 30ms, and to hop #17 of 110, as stated in the article. As usual, there’s no authoritative source for anything and we have to add all the data together to see what we believe or not. Personally, I don’t think the trace hits Level3 at all, I think that entire part is faked. Above all, I don’t think anymore that The Pirate Bay is in North Korea.

UPDATE 2: One way to tell a fake traceroute is to trace it from multiple locations around the globe. In this case, another telltale sign is a traceroute from within Level3, which is a big internet service provider. You will notice the trace starts in Dallas at Level3, moves to Amsterdam, from there to Dresden and Frankfurt, then back to Level3 and then the rest of the route. Anything starting out at Level3, jumping to a different continent, and then going back to Level3 is faked with near-damn-certainty. So everything after Frankfurt is faked; the route above never hits Level3 at all. Is Frankfurt fake too? Well, who knows. But Level3 almost certainly is.

After Being Cut From Norway, The Pirate Bay Returns From North Korea

Freedom of Speech: The Pirate Bay is back online. Its new provider turned out to be none less than one in North Korea. This has all sorts of interesting geopolitical consequences.

People using The Pirate Bay right now will observe that it’s slightly slower than usual. Earlier today, the Norwegian Pirate Party sent a press release that they no longer supplied bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, as the party’s uplink had caved to threats from the copyright industry about kicking out The Pirate Bay. (This remains a concern in itself.)

Ten minutes after that article was posted, The Pirate Bay came back online with a new provider that was as-yet unidentified. The swarm has worked and discovered the origins of the new provider: North Korea.

This has all sorts of interesting geopolitical consequences.

(For the technically interested, the last link in the traceroute chain is 175.45.177.217. A whois lookup will tell you that this is an ISP based in North Korea.)

North Korea may have the one government on this planet which takes pride in asking Hollywood and United States interests to take a hike in the most public way imaginable. Many more governments could do well to learn that particular idea, even if they don’t need to pick up the other things that the NK government is up to.

The world’s most resilient site for safeguarding freedom of expression, going against the political interests of the United States’ elite cronyists, is now run from North Korea. Imagine that.

This is going to be really fun to watch. The local convenience store may run out of popcorn when this becomes known.

UPDATE: The operators of The Pirate Bay confirm the story in a press release with comments: “This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.”

UPDATE 2: Some reports are coming in that the traces to North Korea look funny, and suggest that they are an elaborate fake, and that the actual location of The Pirate Bay would be Phnom Penh, Cambodia. One report in particular looks credible, but goes beyond my technical ability to verify its claims.

The Pirate Bay Offline: Norway’s Pirate Party Cuts Rope Following Threats

Repression: The Pirate Bay is currently offline. The Norwegian Pirate Party has sent a press release saying that threats from the copyright industry has closed The Pirate Bay’s internet access in Norway. In a comment, party leader Geir Aaslid says it’s regrettable that the Pirate Party doesn’t have the economic muscle necessary to fight for freedom of expression on their own.

(UPDATE: Well, that was quick. The Pirate Bay is already back online at its usual address, as of 17:35 CET, with a new provider. No big surprises there. Still, the threats to the Norwegian Pirate Party remain very relevant and strong cause for concern.)

(UPDATE 2: Well, that’s a surprise. Their new provider is North Korea.)

Earlier this week, The Pirate Bay went from being supplied bandwidth by the Swedish Pirate Party to being supplied by the Norwegian and Catalan pirate parties. This move was made official on February 26. Regrettably, it took less than a week for our Norwegian brothers and sisters to be threatened with devastation by copyright monopolists, regardless of the letter and spirit of the actual law. Meanwhile, the Catalan Pirate Party hasn’t yet started supplying The Pirate Bay with bandwidth.

While precise details on what happened in Norway are scarce, it would appear that The Pirate Party’s uplink and not the party itself had been threatened by the copyright industry. In terms of safeguarding democratic checks and balances, is quite remarkable that an entertainment industry has the power to force a political party offline if it doesn’t have favorable policies.

There are several more Pirate Parties standing in line to supply The Pirate Bay with bandwidth. Doubtlessly, the operators also have other options available, and are rerouting as this article is being written. It remains to be seen where The Pirate Bay will pop up next, but few doubt that it will – the worst strike against The Pirate Bay so far, when all its servers were seized on May 31, 2006, resulted in a mere three days of downtime. A week ago, the operators had promised big changes with regards to the site’s resilience that would have been finished about now.

Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay keeps being effortlessly available on the anonymous I2P darknet, as well as on the TOR darknet. Sooner or later, this witch hunt from the copyright industry is going to cause a mass adoption of darknet technology.

(If you really can’t wait for The Pirate Bay to come back online, you can still access The Pirate Bay through the bridges of the TOR anonymizing network at this untraceable address, but be aware that it’s quite slow – TOR was not built for high-volume traffic.)

UPDATE: Well, that was quick. The Pirate Bay is already back online at its usual address (as of 17:35 CET), ten minutes after this article was posted. Still, the threats to the Norwegian Pirate Party remain very relevant and strong cause for concern.

Swarmwise – The Tactical Manual To Changing The World. Chapter Two.

Swarm Management: Launching a swarm is an intense event, where you can get hundreds or thousands of new colleagues in less than a day. You have a very short window for appreciating their interest, or they will take it elsewhere.

[Chapter one of the book is here. Chapter two picks up after having done due diligence whether the numbers work out to create a swarm.]

Ok, so you have a provocative idea. You’ve done the math. Everything appears good to go. How do you gather a swarm around the idea?

A traditional method would be to go about an advertising campaign to generate interest. Working swarmwise, though, two words about the idea of an advertising campaign: forget it. If your idea doesn’t generate enthusiasm on its own, no amount of whitewashing is going to create the grassroots activism that you need to form a swarm.

On the other hand, a swarm will form as long as you present a compelling enough idea that people feel that they can be part of. You don’t need to spend ten million on an advertising campaign. It can be enough to mention the idea just once in passing in a semi-obscure chat channel.

To traditional economists, this sounds ridiculous. But that’s what I did to kickstart a brand that’s now well known in the IT sector worldwide and has local presence in fifty-plus countries.

When I started the Pirate Party in Sweden, I took its website online, and wrote two lines in a file sharing hub’s lobby chat. This was on January 1, 2006, at 20:30 CET.

Hey look, the Pirate Party has its website up after New Year’s.
http://www.piratpartiet.se/

The site had a manifesto which was rough, unpolished, but which came across as credible, tangible, inclusive, and world-changing. The site itself was just as rough and unpolished – which is the typical swarm way of trial and error, of putting a stake in the ground and evolving from there:

The first website of the Pirate Party, translated for reference. It is no overstatement that it was rough and unpolished.

And that’s it. Those two lines announcing the rough-looking site are all the advertising I ever did. The next two days, the site got three million hits. (Sweden has nine million people.) Media caught on quickly too. Worldwide. On the third day, my photo was in a Pakistani paper.

My point here is, if you’re thinking hard about how to gather a swarm for your idea:

Don’t worry about advertising.

Word of mouth is much more efficient than any campaign can ever be, but that requires that your idea – or rather, your presentation of it – meets four criteria: Tangible, Credible, Inclusive, and Epic.

Tangible: You need to post an outline of the goals you intend to meet, when, and how.
Credible: After having presented your daring goal, you need to present it as totally doable. Bonus points if nobody has done it before.
Inclusive: There must be room for participation by every spectator who finds it interesting, and they need to realize this on hearing about the project.
Epic: Finally, you must set out to change the entire world for the better – or at least make a major improvement for a lot of people.

If these four steps are good, then the swarm will form by itself. Quite rapidly, in the twenty-odd cases I have observed firsthand. Very rapidly. On the other hand, if these four components are not good enough, no amount of advertising or whitewashing is going to create the volunteer activist power that you want.

Let’s take a look at sample project plans. I’ve seen many examples of all of these three types.

A BAD EXAMPLE OF A PROJECT PLAN

Oh boy I am so starting a new project t0talli for Das Lulz!!11!!!oneone!!six!!11 lololol

I wonder what I will put in it?

ANOTHER EQUALLY BAD EXAMPLE

We are seeking a synergy between results-oriented actitivies related to dynamic business intelligence and competitive social media. Particularly, we are pursuing a path of cost-efficient achievements in quality predictability and static client satisfaction, measured by coupons used and referrals given. The means of achieving synergy is to strive for interaction with consumer focus groups in the field of cross-brand social communication and with student specialist groups in a study of networking revenue potential. The goal of the project is to raise the quarterly operating profits by up to two per cent.

A BETTER EXAMPLE

We will dropkick the politicians’ worldwide war against online anonymity by deploying one million anonymizing TOR exit nodes and get the corresponding TOR client into the default-install codebase of at least 25% of browsers used worldwide by user count.

We will do this in seven stages, increasing the number of TOR exit nodes by a factor of five every 60 days. One stage of installed exit nodes will commit to recruiting five of their friends for the next stage of exit nodes to change the world in this manner. We will provide worldwide network recognition for the best contributors.

Halfway through the project, in stage four, we get the Mozilla and Chrome developers to sign up on including the TOR client by default in the code base. If completed for deployment by stage five, everybody who wants to can be completely anonymous ever after.

We are going to change the world for the better and make it impossible for the stone age politicians to put the cat back in the bag. Want to be onboard for first stage of signups? Sign up HERE (link).

Now, we need to go back to our goals here. We want to gather tens of thousands of energized activists around an idea to change the world. Having an idea is not enough; the idea and its plan must energize people.

So don’t worry about advertising. Mention your idea and plan in a couple of places where your intended activists would typically hang out. That’s enough. If it’s good, people will pick it up and talk to their friends in turn. It snowballs very quickly from there. If it doesn’t energize, no advertising is going to change that.

If your idea is good and people can contribute, change the world, and see how it can be done, then you will have the first wave of hundreds of volunteers in less than a day. You will see hundreds of people holding out their hands, palms up, at you and say, “here, use my hands! I want to be a part of this! Give me something to do!” in the electronic channels where you announce your presence.

The idea doesn’t need to be polished. The important thing is to put that stake in the ground, start attracting people, and start working your way to the goal. In this, too much effort spent polishing the appearance of the idea rather than its own merits can even be counterproductive, as people can perceive it as glossed-over corporate whitewash.

This brings us to the next problem: taking care of these hundreds of people while they’re still interested. For they all turn to you, personally, and there’s just no way you would be physically able to give them all instructions on an one-to-one basis.

Surviving The Initial Impact

When your initiative hits the ground, and it is interesting enough to create a splash, then that splash will be unlike anything you have seen before. It can happen in many ways — it can be entirely word of mouth, it can become a major story in oldmedia, or most commonly, it can hit the front page on one of many social news sites (or several of them at the same time).

When that happens, you will go from having been alone to suddenly having hundreds of people who want nothing more than to help you out on your project in their spare time. But their attention span is short; you need to respond. If you don’t, they’ll shrug and your initiative will wane out of memory in less than 24 hours.

In order to retain these hundreds of people, you also need a focal point for their interest – something as simple as a signup page or a forum. Of course, that focal point needs to be ready and functional when the impact of the idea hits, or the activists will be lost.

With the focal point active and the idea launched, it’s said that one of the hardest steps you can take in a business is going from one person to two, as you recruit your first employee. When we’re dealing with a swarm, everything is on a different scale. Here, we go from one person — you, the founder — to three hundred or more in the first instant.

It goes without saying that it can be a bit tricky, and you have at most 24 hours to sort out the situation or lose the initiative to form a swarm around this idea. What’s worse, you can’t really do it yourself. There is no way you can give individual and meaningful instructions to 300 people in the attention span you have been given.

But the swarm can do it for you, it you let it. And you must.

The swarm’s very first task will be to self-organize, and it excels at such tasks. But it is you who must set the structure and explicitly give the swarm the task to self-organize.

This is where traditional organizational theory kicks in to some degree.

Initially, you will be able to coordinate at most 30 groups, so create a discussion forum with at most that number of subgroups. You’ll likely want to have people in streets and squares campaigning for the swarm’s cause before long, so subdividing your hatchling swarm by geography works well here – and when subdividing, create at most 30 subdivisions geographically. (Most countries have administrative divisions into counties, states, etc. that vary in number between 15 and 30 units. If you’re gunning for a Europe-wide movement, you can easily observe that the size of the EU plus a few hangaround countries fits the 30-state limit well, and so on. The United States with its 50 states would be trickier, as would North America. Just pick a way to divide it into at most 30 units.)

Your discussion forum can take many forms. It can be a traditional web forum, it can be a wiki, it can be an etherpad, it can be any kind of collaborative space where people can go uninvited and just start working with others. I prefer the traditional forum because of its well-recognized form.

You’ll need to make a judgment call on the approximate resulting group sizes, based on how many hands are at your disposal. Try to pick your geographical division so that the typical size is about 7 members, and that no subgroup has more than 30 members. Don’t announce this intent, as doing so would cause a distracting discussion about that action: just create the subgroups in a way that will cause this division to happen.

If you have more than a thousand people at your disposal in this initial splash, which can happen, then 30 subgroups of 30 people each will not be enough: that structure has a maximum of 30×30=900 people. In this rare case, you may need to exceed the 30-people-per-group limit and have as many as 150 people each in 30 subgroups. This is a rare case, though, and you are not likely to encounter this.

(The magic numbers 7, 30, and 150 are deeply integrated parts of the human social psyche – part of how we are wired. We’ll return to how people behave in groups of those sizes in the next chapter.)

Having set the initial structure, you need to tell everybody to go to the appropriate subgroup and meet with other people who go there. Tell everybody to introduce themselves to one another, and to select a leader between them for the subgroup. At this point, you can safely refrain from giving instructions as to how that leader should be selected; the subgroups will come up with different ways that each have legitimacy in their respective group, and that’s all that matters at this point.

As leaders get picked by the subgroups, contact those leaders in person – at least a voice or video call, preferably over beer or coffee if you live nearby – and introduce yourself, and get to know them more personally. You’ll be working closely with them in the near future, so you’ll want to get a feel for them as people and colleagues, and to allow them to get a feel for who you are as a person and colleague.

You’ll also want to set up a subforum where these subgroup leaders can discuss between themselves and with you. Make sure that other people can read it. Don’t keep secrets; rather, let everybody see the ongoing growth of your swarm.

This process takes a couple of days, but it kickstarts the swarm on all levels. You will have energized small subgroups of people who live reasonably close to each other, and they will have legitimate leaders – legitimate to themselves, anyway. The 30 leaders and you form an initial management team pyramid in the swarm’s scaffolding of officers, the swarm’s go-to people. Taken together, your subgroups form a comprehensive coverage of all the ground you intend to cover.

(A couple of weeks from this point, you will realize that you’ll need an intermediate layer of officers in-between you and these 30 – a few of them will have lost interest and gone radio silent, and you won’t have noticed, because 30 people are too many to keep track of to that level if they don’t contact you. Therefore, you will want an intermediate layer of five or six people between you and these 30 as the swarm grows. But don’t worry about that at this stage – that’s for the next chapter, and a couple of weeks out.)

The Swarm’s First Task

As the swarm organizes into these subgroups by geography, it needs to be given a task immediately that allows it to jell properly. If you just tell people to go to a forum, they will lose interest in a week if nothing more happens. These are people who wanted to help the swarm succeed with the work of their own hands, remember?

So in order to make this organization set and settle, there needs to be something to be done right away. In the case of the Swedish Pirate Party, that task was to collect 2,000 signatures from the public to support the party’s registration with the Election Authority. It needs to be a task that looks challenging but is doable for some hundred people, it needs to be a task where you can provide for internal competition between the 30-or-so geographic subdivisions that you have created, and it needs to be a task where everybody can see the clear benefit to the swarm on its completion. In the case of a political party, registering it with the Election Authority was an obvious benefit that everybody realized; you’ll need to have a similar task at hand that leads to such a goal.

What this does is cause the swarm to learn how to work together over the first four weeks or so of its existence, as this task is being carried out in a decentralized fashion. You should update the overall progress of the goal at least daily.

A swarm organization isn’t first and foremost reporting lines between boxes on an orgchart. A swarm organization is people who know other people and who choose to work together. Therefore, getting people to know other people should be an overarching goal of your activities at this point.

Do encourage people to meet, and be very clear that they should not make it formal. Do not meet in a protocolized formal meeting under any circumstance, but meet instead over beer, pizza, and laughs. Focus on creating opportunities for people to get to know people, and for new people to feel welcome to the group.

Once such meetings become regular, it becomes even more important to make sure that newcomers feel welcome. One method of accomplishing this can be to start every meeting with an introductory round where people present themselves briefly along with some piece of trivia, such as the latest thing they downloaded or shared: “Hi, I’m Rick, 40. I’m mostly known here for setting up an ugly website. The most recent thing I downloaded was an Ubuntu Linux release.” Seeing everybody present themselves helps newcomers immensely, and it provides for a convenient framing for the newcomers to introduce themselves, as well as for the regulars to learn the names of them. Also, the local leaders will need to pay particular attention to the newcomers in every meeting, personally welcoming them back to the next meeting.

The organization consists only of relations between people. For every new relation that is created, the organization grows.

Dealing With Attention Junkies

As the swarm has its initial successes, a very small amount of people will strive to join not because they sympathize with the swarm’s goals, but because they crave and demand attention to their person, and the visibility of the swarm seems to be able to provide this to them.

As the swarm is open, you cannot and should not try to keep these people out – but you can deny them the space and spotlights they crave. It can be hard to detect them, but one telltale sign is that these people will demand attention from you personally rather than trying to build the overall swarm with people who aren’t as visible yet. You will also notice that they think very much in terms of rank and hierarchy, whereas other people will think in terms of getting stuff done and changing the world.

A few particularly tricky people will work for the swarm’s goals very hard for the first couple of weeks, and then use the built-up credibility to cash in on attention. As this happens, the transparency of the swarm is the best conceivable antidote, as such people typically depend on other people not comparing the different versions of the story they’re being told.

This part of building a swarm is inevitable, it is tough to deal with, but you can rest assured that as long as you keep the swarm open and transparent, this kind of people won’t be able to hijack it for their own, personal visibility. They will eventually flush themselves out, sometimes in quite a bit of disruption.

 

This is the second chapter of Swarmwise, a book arriving this summer. Did you like it? It’s going to be free to share (it, like this excerpt, is CC-BY-NC), but you can also buy it hardcover. The first chapter is here.

 

EXCERPT FROM UPCOMING BOOK

This is a part of the upcoming book Swarmwise, due in the summer of 2013. It is an instruction manual for recruiting and leading tens of thousands of activists on a mission to change the world for the better, without having access to money, resources, or fame. The book is based on Falkvinge’s experiences in leading the Swedish Pirate Party into the European Parliament, starting from nothing, and covers all aspects of leading a swarm of activists into mainstream success.