Before I begin, I'd like to link to a schematic which can be found here. This way when I mention random parts you can find them and play along!

This first post is about the lower assembly, which is the buttstock, lower receiver (has the hammer, trigger, magazine well, etc). At this point I'd like to note I'm using a great book by Walt Kuleck and Clint McKee, The AR-15 Complete Assembly Guide, its got nice pictures and very very good detail on how you'll screw stuff up if you don't listen. Well worth the $17!

Parts

Lower Receiver
I bought a DPMS stripped lower receiver from a local gun enthusiast, which cost $158.73 after taxes, cable lock fee, etc. On the AR, this stripped lower receiver, meaning it is just the frame, no trigger, hammer, nothing on it, counts on its own as an assault rifle, because it has the serial number on it. So I walked out of there with a piece of metal in a locked dry box with a cable lock through the mag well, to make it 'safe' to transport.

Lower Receiver Bits
I'm not too particular about my trigger yet, so I also picked up a DPMS Lower Receiver Parts Kit for $56.99 (Don't buy anything direct from DPMS by the way, you can always find it cheaper). Some may ask why I didn't just buy a completed lower receiver, but I wanted to understand how everything works, and say I built every inch of this gun.

Buttstock
All that was left was the stock, and I snagged a Command Arms 6-position stock assembly, for $92.99. Its a very nice stock, and am quite happy with the sturdiness of it, as well as the function. It has rails on the right side, and a 4 battery storage area on the left side (can be swapped for more rails) which is more functionality than I'll need for a while. Went on in about 5 minutes, including forgetting to put a detent in, and having to redo it.

Assembly
The assembly was easier than I expected in terms of simplicity (piece X goes in slot Y), but harder in terms of executing it (piece X really does not want to go into slot Y, and X's spring is fighting me too). It took about two hours, including redoing a few steps to make sure it was right, flinging detents all over the room as I learned why they say to do something one way, and searching my house for various tools I thought I already had.

The trigger guard's been the hardest part so far, since its roll pin just did not want to go in, and required a "motivator". After that went in, I put in the magazine catch, so I could mount the gun on a handy little bench I have, and then moved on to the trigger and disconnecter. Somewhere in there the bolt catch went in, and that's where I stopped last night. This morning I got up and put in the hammer, safety, pistol grip, and buttstock. It was very straight forward, but like I said above, there are a few places where you really should get a tool to do the job for ya, like the front take-down pin. Otherwise you're gonna shoot the spring all over the room, and don't even think about finding the darn detent afterwards!

So now I've gotta go order all the upper parts, a receiver, bolt/bolt carrier, barrel, and some hand guards. I'll be getting a scope eventually, but may pick up flip up sights due to cost for this first build, not sure. I have pictures of the whole process, if you know how to get a hold of me in real life I'll pass on the URL.

Background
The controversy starts (ok, the immediate controversy in this issue) when the Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, published 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad about 2 and a half years ago. They were published when an artist writing about the life of Muhammad and the Qu'ran couldn't find an artist to draw the cover of his book (he would eventually find one who worked anonymously). I'll let the cultural editor for the newspaper explain why they were published in his own words (quote taken from wikipedia as the original article has disappeared from the paper's website):

The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context. [...] we are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end. That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him. [...]

The fallout of article was three Dutch embassies being torched, over 100 deaths during riots in Middle Eastern Countries, and many terrorist leaders calling for his death. More riots broke out a few months ago when the cartoons were republished to show what the controversy was. So the Dutch already have a stigma of "Islamaphobia" hanging over their heads.

Geert Wilders/PVV
Geert is the author of this film, and a politician in the Dutch House of Representatives, where he is the leader of the Party for Freedom party. Contrary to the name of the party, this political party doesn't stand for individual freedoms, they stand for freedom from government. Unfortunately that doesn't just mean freedom from such things as socialized health care, they also want to abolish such things as minimum wage.

Of course at the same time of not wanting the government to be involved in individual's lives, they want crackdowns on immigration. Specifically they want to slow down immigration from Middle Eastern Countries. As for Middle Easterners that come to the Netherlands, the PVV wants them to realize that Judeo-Christian culture is predominant, and that the immigrants should adapt. And this from a party with "Freedom" in its name.

Geert himself, is interesting in that he calls himself a "defender of free speech" and "critic of Islam" in almost the same breath. Sure, being a critic fits in nicely with free speech, but his "critique" includes banning the Qu'ran. How can any politician who wants freedom of speech for his own writings take away the freedom of religion for 5.5% of his country's population?

Fitna, the Movie
And so it was that Fitna was born, brainchild of Geert. He hoped (initial rumors indicated) to show the world what was wrong with Islam. No one knew exactly how that would happen (though as the release date got closer, it was previewed by people who leaked the content), and I for one was quite interested. I was hoping for some good research into Shari'a Law and how it was being applied in Europe, as well as studies about extremism and its causes, to name two ideas for good movies.

The movie was supposed to launch around the 22nd/23rd, but Network Solutions (web host for fitnathemovie.com) took the site down hours before Geert was able to post the video. What remained was a small note saying they were investigating the content of the site to make sure it fit into their Acceptable Use Policy. The applicable section (in the list of prohibited uses) is as follows, emphasis mine:

Transmission, distribution, uploading, posting or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, libelous, unlawful, harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, constitutes an illegal threat, violates export control laws, hate propaganda, fraudulent material or fraudulent activity, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature. You may not transmit, distribute, or store material that contains a virus, "Trojan Horse," corrupted data, or any software or information to promote or utilize software or any of Network Solutions services to deliver unsolicited e-mail. You further agree not to transmit any material that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, gives rise to civil liability or otherwise violates any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation.

Now, I'm not a lawyer for Network Solutions, nor have I talked to one, but the parts I highlighted are the reasons I assume they're looking into the content. I'm sure they got complaints from Muslims that the site was hosting offensive material, more likely to be 'hate propaganda' than 'harassment'. (The movie also contains copyright violations, see below). Many sites get complaints, and I was quite upset at the time to see Network Solutions cave (hey, if I was posting offensive content, I wouldn't have chosen a US host when ThePirateBay is doing so well overseas) to this pressure thinking that they should take a stand for Freedom of Speech.

That is, until I finally saw the video. LiveLeak decided to have a backbone (Internet pun not intended) and host the film, with a note on the front page that they weren't endorsing the content, merely Freedom of Speech. I thought this was a good avenue to go down, especially with a mandatory click through agreeing you want to see offensive materials. Anyone who wanted the see what Geert had to say could, and those that might be offended couldn't accidentally stumble across it. (LiveLeak has since taken the movie down after receiving death threats. They apologized for not standing up for Freedom of Speech, but cite their employees well-being as coming first. I wholeheartedly agree).

Unfortunately what Geert had to say was, well, not much. It was somehow researched at a level below that of even a Michael Moore film, and was just as sensationalist, if not more so. The first 7 minutes is publicly available news footage (aka, no new insight) of various terrorist related activities, juxtaposed with 5 verses from the Qu'ran. Everything from Madrid, to September 11, 2001 in slow motion, to a video I originally mistook to be the Pearl beheading, instead it is Eugene Armstrong, another American in Iraq at the time. An extensive breakdown of the film's "plot" can be found here.

My reaction to this first section was two-fold. First off it, unfortunately, drudged up memories and feelings from those attacks which is clearly what it was designed to do. Second, it made me wonder just how dumb the supporters of this movie have to be to base this entire segment on 5 verses. No context is given for any of them, nor actual analysis other than how extremist Muslims have acted. I won't say that these verses are not used to justify terrorism, what I will say is that most Muslims do not view it as a call to terrorism. But to pull five verses, show these atrocities and leave the unspoken link that all Muslims will behave this way is just uncalled for. Its not journalism, and its not activism, its pure stupidity.

The next section is designed to show the 'threat' of Islam, with quotes of Islam taking over the world. Unfortunately for Geert, these quotes come from places we'd expect them, such as Iran's President and well-known anti-Semites. If he had clips of "domestic terror" defendants this section might have a lot more force.

Finally he had a section on Islam and the Netherlands. This was the "best researched" section, in that he pulled from a lot more news sources for his headlines. He attempts to show that if Shari'a Law is introduced into Europe, Gays and Women will lose a lot of rights, honor killings will start and basically all hell will break loose. He makes some decent points here, with the killer of Theo Van Gogh (another guy who made an anti-Islamic film, though his was a lot better) saying he'd kill him again if he could, and mentioning Ayaan Hrisi Ali. Unfortunately I can't speak for the situation of Islam in the Netherlands, so i have no idea if he's embellishing it, or finally presenting an accurate picture.

The closing seconds show a hand on a Qu'ran, then fade to black as you hear a ripping sound. This is controversial as (Muslim's believe) you shouldn't defile the Qu'ran by ripping pages out. Then a message floats up saying that it was actually a phone book, and that it was up to Muslims to rip out the hateful parts of the Qu'ran. This is the one part of the movie I agree with, and I'm not even in completel agreement here. It is on Muslims to get extremism under control, whether that be through the reforms Christianity did (remember, Islam is between the ages of the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition for Christian history) or through more rigorous policing of their imams and religions leaders I don't know. What I disagree with is that they must rewrite the Qu'ran to do so. To rewrite it would be to deny that the Qu'ran (as it is now) is the word of Allah, and introduce more "Satanic Verses". Instead, they should look at other meanings of jihad, meaning "To strive for", and listen to the moderates that have fled the Middle East.

Fallout
I actually had to stumble across a link to the movie the night it was released, because there was relatively no fallout. There was more news on Network Solutions taking down his other site than there was about Fitna coming out. I'll always remember a headline I saw the next day: "Dozens protest in Pakistan over Movie." Yes, you read that right, dozens, not hundreds, not thousands, dozens. And not a single death. In other words, Geert has failed to do what I think his goal was, incite more violence to convince the Netherlands Islam needs to be dealt with. If mobs had crowded the street, or if he'd been killed, his party could further its agenda and work towards banning the Qu'ran, but nothing happened. Muslims went to their prayers on Friday peacefully, realizing that to do anything violent would be playing into Geert's hands. Of course, there has been more protests since then in the Middle East and the Netherlands, and the Dutch Envoy in Iran has been summoned to speak for what happened, but even before the movie was release the Dutch government was smart and condemned the movie. While they weren't going to censor Free Speech, they were going to make sure that Muslims understand this is the work of one man, not a country, and not a nationality. Oh, if only Geert understood the same for extremists, that they don't speak for their religion or nationality as a whole.

As for additional fallout from the movie, Geert is being sued by Kurt Westergaard, the author of the cartoon depicting Muhammad in a turban with a bomb, for using the cartoon without his permission, a violation of copyright. He also might be sued by Salah Edin, an Arab rapper who Geert mistook for the killer of Van Gogh, Muhammad Bouyeri.

And, ironically, Omar Bakri, an Islamic extremist, actually liked the film, saying that if you removed the drawin of Muhammad with a bomb, it could be used as an Al-Qaida recruitment video. Geert's desire to show the horror of Islam might actually be used to recruit for Jihad, a fact which further supports my claim that he only released it to incite more attacks.

Conclusion
In the end, I support Geert's right to Free Speech. I applaud him for the bravery to stand up for what he believes in, even in the face of death threats, and I wish him well. However I think this movie is nothing more than sensationalist drivel, aimed at provoking more violence in the same way that Ann Coulter and Michael Moore throw barbs back and forth in our country. The only difference is that Moore targeted McDonald's and Geert singled out a religion with at least 1.1 billion followers (of which on 20% are in 'Arab' countries where most of the extremism is found). To release such a video that is entirely negative and clearly designed to provoke violence is reckless and wrong.

Anyway, I finally figured out that its all about control. We all want control of our lives, of our money, of ourselves, and that's natural. But Apple wants complete control over their products, even after you buy them, and that's wrong. What am I referring to? The "awesome" press conference today where Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone SDK plan.

Quick recap of the plan: Developers pay $99 a year (or more for an enterprise license) to use the SDK. Once they have something, it must be distributed through the Apple App Store. To get into the App Store, each must be vetted by Apple to make sure it conforms to their policies.

Now you know my feelings on DRM. I hate it. If I buy something, I expect the rights to do with it as I please. Steve Jobs feels the same way, or so he says. I've long argued that he doesn't really mean that, but now I kind of think he does. See he specifically says DRM on music is wrong. He also points out that they don't own the music anyway, so they can't control it. What Steve Jobs wants is for everything Apple owns to be DRM'd and everything else to be free! Don't believe me?

- Apple computers (I'm talking 90's era when America and the world were getting in good with computers) were sealed with Torx screws. So what? Well at the time, and still, an average human being has no clue what that is (they've never had to crack an XBox to mod it) nor do they have Torx screw drivers to open it.

- FairPlay, the DRM created by Apple, is supposed to be a good system. Yet Steve Jobs, in the article I quoted earlier, claims that to release it worldwide would be to have someone reverse engineer it, and break it. Clearly a few things are going on here. First off they're banking on some form of security by obscurity which any good security professional would laugh at. Second they're betting that people can't break FairPlay if they don't have the source, which is wrong also. And third they're trying to protect their handy little algorithm from the rest of the world. Why was iTunes never released on Linux when it originated on the Mac (a Unix core)? My guess is because Apple is afraid someone would reverse engineer it and they had to protect their secrets.

- The iPhone. Gosh, where to start. Sell a locked phone, on only one network, that you get kickbacks from... Why not allow any service to use it? (I've heard from an Apple employee its because some services need specialized packages by the provider. That's all fine, but its not that other networks were given the chance to implement those packages, its that the phone was locked, period).

- This SDK. Now, its not uncommon to pay to use someone's SDK. I've got no problem with that, you spend money to make money as my brother just pointed out. My problem comes with the fact that they have to go through the app store. I'm sure this is done in the name of "security", 'cause iTunes has never been infected before. Oh wait, it has. Why can't an independant coder such as myself offer a download from his mobile phone equipped website? Why must I use their store? (Oh, and you can post free apps, at least they're not forcing you to charge).

- The store. The reason you have to go through the store is so Apple can vette your product, and make sure you're not bypassing their locks! What a wonderful little software depot they run here, so long as all the developers drink the Koolade. I can understand trying to make sure people don't get past a few boundaries, they point out VoIP over the cellular network to get past minutes plans. I'd like to point out my cheap little Razr can do that to bypass the minutes plans (a quick google search turned up this link, but I remember thinking about setting up my desktop to handle calls last summer from a website I was reading at the time, so I know there's more home-grown solutions).Oh yea, and the store takes a 30% cut.

How does any of the above not point to Apple controlling its products? Sure, companies do that, they control their products. But few companies give me such a shiver when I hear of each new ploy than Apple does. And the worst part is, all the coverage I've seen of this plan has been good, not a single piece has questioned Apples need to vette every developer's contribution, or for them to take 30% for doing nothing.

For once, and I shudder to say this, I have to like Facebook's model better. Put the API out there, let the public go crazy, and keep it free! You get just as much content, you get a much wider variety (unlike the few whack biscuits I saw who said this would "spur creativity" within the iPhone community), and you get community interaction. What's more to love? With this plan you'll get the people who planned on writing for the iPhone anyways, along with businesses who just want to replace their Blackberries. Of course, those are the people who wouldn't try to do something shocking and free with their phone, so maybe that's why Apple wants only them. Forget the hackers that might do something cool, lets go the safe and greedy route.

So here's to you Steve Jobs! If you truly believed what you said in your article on music, you'd think twice about this plan. Every year Apple turns more and more into what they always thought they were fighting, the mindless overlords bent on controlling their populace.

Remember the 'equipment malfunction' during the Super Bowl a few years back? How it was a severe understatement, as well as a stupid excuse for a dumb plan? The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has just made a digital version. They traditionally blame college students for all manner of atrocities, everything from wanting to watch legal DVDs on their Linux machine to downloading movies. A wee bit ago (2005) they announced shocking statistics that proved college students were responsible for 40% of all illegal movies downloaded. This led to a campaign of terror at many big-name schools, as well as lobbying to force Congress to add in stipulations for cracking down on file sharing in new higher education funding. It turns out, they were wrong. Taken from their statement:

While in the process of recently updating that study with current data, we discovered there
had been an isolated error in the LEK process two years ago that resulted in an inflated
number for piracy by college students. The 2005 study had incorrectly concluded that 44
percent of the motion picture industry’s domestic losses were attributable to piracy by
college students. The 2007 study will report that number to be approximately 15 percent...

That's right, they had a little math error, and inflated the number by 3 times its value. That's a nice sized oops. Of course they're very apologetic, but that doesn't really change the fact that after the 2005 study MPAA increased its lobbying in Congress to punish college students. This increase resulted in two bills now going before Congress, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, which will require schools to crack down on filesharing or lose all federal financial aid, and the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property, which will increase fines and create a new federal agency devoted to tracking down 'large-scale' infringers. Thankfully both of these bills haven't been passed yet, there's still time to call your representatives and tell them to vote it down! Do you want your kid's college losing financial aid because they haven't devoted enough resources to tracking down music downloaders instead of teaching your kid? Do we really need a new Agency (your tax dollars at work!) to protect the money of MPAA or RIAA?

There is an upside to all this, believe it or not. Amazon is releasing its MP3 service now. It sells MP3's (no issues with having to change format for iTunes, Windows Media Player, or any other player) that are DRM free! Plus it has songs from the four big labels, the first DRM free site to do so. And, though it may vary by song, the songs are cheaper than Apple's DRM'd music (I saw hot new singles at 89 cents each). This is a huge win win situation. Not only are the songs relevant (3.3 million and counting), and cheap, but DRM free and supported by a major company! I'll be supporting this site for sure, if more people use Amazon as opposed to your other favorite (lets say iTunes, remembering that all Amazon songs can be put into your iTunes library as well) hopefully the industry will get the idea that DRM is bad.

Dear IU Student:

All of us at Indiana University have been excited to welcome you this fall semester 2007, and we share your optimism for your success here. It is in this spirit that we are writing to alert you to a significant risk having to do with how you may use the Internet. It is VERY important that you read the contents of this letter.

Briefly, for the past year or so, music companies have been suing college students for thousands of dollars, because they claim those students have used "peer to peer" software like BitTorrent and Limewire to share songs with other people on the Internet without the permission of the people who own that music. Lawsuits were filed against 19 Indiana University students in May 2007. In October 2007 we received another round of "early settlement" letters, which typically have preceded lawsuits which may be filed if students don't settle the claims before the case goes to trial. The music companies are demanding between $3,000 and $4,000 to settle their claims; several IU students have paid $4,000 in settlement. If the lawsuits were to go to trial and the music companies are then able to prove their claims of copyright infringement, students could face substantially higher penalties under the law, not to mention significant legal fees. The settlement amounts that IU students have paid this past summer have been financially devastating for some families, requiring at least one student to withdraw from school, and others to consider filing bankruptcy.

Many do not realize that it is generally illegal to share copyrighted music, videos, games, and software files over the Internet without the permission of the people who own those works. In some cases there can be criminal penalties, even if students are not exchanging money as part of their file sharing. It is critical that you understand the following:

- if you share copyrighted music, movies and software files over the Internet using peer-to-peer file sharing programs, you are most likely breaking the law -- and, based on recent cases, that's true even if you do not know you are sharing files;
- it is relatively simple for the copyright owners or their agents to identify computers on the Internet from which sharing is taking place, and then use a subpoena to compel IU to identify the owner of that computer;
- they may then file a lawsuit against you, seeking thousands of dollars;
- illegal sharing using Internet access provided by IU also violates IU policy; and
- if IU receives a valid notice that you have used the IU network to engage in unlawful file sharing, the University will impose appropriate disciplinary sanctions and, beginning January 1, 2008, will apply an administrative charge of $50 to your bursar bill to cover the costs of processing the notice.

The University has been educating students for several years about the problems of sharing copyrighted materials over the Internet without permission of the copyright holders, and the serious risks that it poses to students and their families. Our experience has been that students do not always understand the seriousness of this issue. Therefore we are writing to urge you to help minimize the risks of unlawful file sharing by educating yourself and carefully considering these very real penalties.

For more information about the legal and policy issues surrounding file sharing and how to avoid becoming a target of a lawsuit, please see our website, http://filesharing.iu.edu.

This is not the sort of letter that we enjoy sending, but we hope you will understand that it is out of concern for IU students and families that we are taking the very unusual step of writing to you. Again, we wish you all the best and sincerely welcome you as members of the Indiana University community this year.

Sincerely,

Mark S. Bruhn
Associate Vice President for Information and Infrastructure Assurance
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology and CIO

Hopefully you can see why I'm concerned, not only is IU turning students over to RIAA, but they're then charging them extra money! And all this in a year when two schools (William and Mary and University of New Mexico) have stood up to RIAA and federal judges have knocked down ex parte motions to allow for John Doe lawsuits. This means they would need to identify the guilty parties before filing suit, rather than identifying them as "John Doe" and then issuing subpoenas to the university to get their identity. This means it is possible for a school to defend their students in a court of law, if they so choose, there is precedence for it.

The Claims
Now lets look at Indiana University's policy. Rather than defend their students, from a school that defended Alfred Kinsey and all his research, IU says that RIAA will 'compel [us] to identify the owner of that computer' and 'they may then file a lawsuit against you, seeking thousands of dollars.' This is what we call FUD (Fear, uncertainty, and doubt), not a good policy. In addition, if they 'have' to give your name up, they then charge you $50! When they have students withdrawing due to the costs of the case, why do they feel the need to add insult to injury and tack on more money? I was under the impression that they had cheap representation for students, if they couldn't afford a real lawyer. If that's the case, and you're not actually going to fight the claim, why not just have their interns write the damning response, giving up a fellow student?

The Problems
We've already seen that these ex parte motions do not stand up in a court of law, so this whole business of being compelled to bend over to the subpoenas is utter nonsense. If IU bothered to fight, they would probably win. Especially since RIAA has been forced to cover lawyer fees in at least one big "win" for itself, to the tune of almost $65,000 dollars.

They say 'if you share copyrighted music, movies and software files over the Internet using peer-to-peer file sharing programs, you are most likely breaking the law' yet that doesn't matter because in this country you are innocent until proven guilty. That means that because there are circumstances (why they said most likely instead of you are) where you are not breaking the law, IU cannot simply assume you are. In the description paragraph they add to this saying students are sued because music companies 'claim those students have used "peer to peer" software'... That's all a claim. No mention of actual proof at all! And later 'If the lawsuits were to go to trial and the music companies are then able to prove their claims of copyright infringement...' shows that they've done nothing to prove it yet, but IU would rather turn their students over than try to fight on their behalf.

They say 'it is relatively simple for the copyright owners or their agents to identify computers on the Internet from which sharing is taking place, and then use a subpoena to compel IU to identify the owner of that computer' but that claim is false on one count, and legally unsound on the other. It may be 'simple' to see that a file is coming from a certain IP, but thanks to wonderful programs like TOR, simple proxies, and the fact that rootkits can do anything (including install a proxy for file sharing) with your computer there's no real knowledge that that computer was in fact the guilty one unless you check it for any of the above programs. In fact it gets more complicated because of IP and MAC address spoofing that would allow someone to masquerade as another student on the school network. That leads in to the second claim that IU can turn over the owner of that computer. Sure, some judges have actually found that even if you don't know it and accidentally share files you're guilty, but that's not who they're turning over. If you know IU's network policy, you know that you have to register your MAC address. This is how they 'know' the owner of the computer, not magic. It is trivial to spoof a MAC address to appear as another computer. So that means it is trivial to share files as another student with no repercussions upon yourself.

How can anyone with a background in computer security, as Mark Bruhn has, ignore the fact that it is so easy to spoof your identity, and believe RIAA when it says it can identify the correct IP? This is blatantly false!

The Joke
Here's where it gets surreal, their anti-file-sharing campaign. I checked out http://filesharing.iu.edu and couldn't believe my eyes! Their campaign is 'Are you legal?' which on a college campus is more likely to be taken as a pick up line than a statement about online legality. They even offer free shirts with this slogan and handcuffs on it (which I promptly ordered for my graduation party)! All jokes aside, this website is great FUD. From the fonts used (horror themed), to the news posted (all pro-RIAA news, no mention of the wins against RIAA), to the request that students turn in websites they find suspicious this site is designed to scare students into compliance.

This is just a sad day for the 38,000 students at Indiana University, to have their school sell them out so readily, and then tack more money on! Anyone who feels this is as despicable as I do should be tempted to go ahead and write Mark Bruhn or perhaps the new President, who used to be the CIO, and tell him how you feel. Maybe if the students say something, encourage their friends not to come, or stand up for their freedoms IU will stop its rampant policy changes. I'd note that this is in addition to a campus wide smoking ban that comes into effect the same day (January 1st, 2008) which prohibits anyone from smoking at any place on the entire campus. Now I don't smoke cigarettes, nor have I lived on a college campus in the past two years, but its absurd that a student would have to choose between quitting smoking and walking all the way off campus to smoke if they go to a major state school. Wouldn't it be better to set up designated smoking areas around major academic centers and residence halls? Maybe encourage people, rather than discourage them? Its time like these that make me glad to be getting out of college in a month and 8 days.

Nothing's left for me to do
They say that I'm to be abhorred.
Unless they realize its untrue
I'm stuck here tappin on my keyboard.

Tap-tap-tappin' on my keyboard
Writing down my last request
Tap-tap-tappin' on my keyboard
Til they come for my arrest

Nothing's left for me to say
When people want me in the ward.
Now all my rights have gone away
I'm stuck here tappin on my keyboard.

Tap-tap-tappin' on my keyboard
Writing down my last request
Tap-tap-tappin' on my keyboard
Til they come for my arrest

Meaning
The original song (lyrics found here) was from the movie "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid", and used in the death scene of Slim Pickins. My version is written from the standpoint of a hacker who faces criminal charges thanks to a wonderful society where hackers are assumed evil and never have good motives (not unlike the plight of Christopher Soghoian last fall, in fact his case is what I was thinking of while writing this).

"Plaintiffs' motion and accompanying brief neglect to mention that Congress provided a framework for subpoenas to identify internet infringers in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 'DMCA'), specifically 17 U.S.C. § 512(h)," wrote the judge. "Section 512 of the DMCA establishes safe harbor provisions for four categories of internet service providers ('ISP') based on the function which the ISP performs with respect to the infringing material—'transmitting it per § 512(a), caching it per § 512(b), hosting it per § 512(c), or locating it per § 512(d).'"

And in English....

In order for a subpoena to be issued under the DMCA, according to Judge Kelley, the record labels must first issue a DMCA takedown notice to the ISP: in this case, William and Mary. However, since the college did not host, cache, or transmit the music in question, there's no place for a takedown notice... and no room for a subpoena to be issued.

What does this mean? It means William and Mary is safe for students. I'm not condoning piracy, but this means that if, for instance, your computer was trojaned, and used to download media which is entirely possible, the students wouldn't be out on their own!

Of course, any good dark net would try to recruit a student or two on that campus to be their go to person for new music, or just install proxies on some select computers, but that is neither here, nor there.

Just before America started the Revolutionary War, many colonists took up the slogan "No Taxation without Representation" because the American colonies were being taxed by Britain, yet given no say in the British Parliament. The British claimed a 'virtual [funny they should use that word] representation' by British representatives across the ocean. James Otis is recorded as having said "Taxation without representation is tyranny." What he meant by that is if some power can take a group's money, and yet give them no way to express themselves, they are no better than slaves under a dictator. Most Americans, would agree what was happening was unjust, and our fighting against those policies was justified.

Now imagine that RIAA is Britain back in 1765, and the colonists are music lovers. Don't quite see the comparison? Try this. The 'Taxation' that we're speaking of is the price of buying music, or movies in any format, hard or soft copy. Obviously it is necessary to pay for these, otherwise there'd be no music out there. However, the 'Representation' is the customer's rights. In our current society they don't exist. Hence we have a case where the consumer is being taxed ($12 for a CD), but then getting no representation (No rights to copy that CD for themselves, and if things go as RIAA plans something like a one CD per one player could happen). Wow, all of a sudden our outlook changes. Now its not tyranny, but necessary for our country. Congress even took time our of their busy schedule to write 15 major American universities to pressure them to expel more students for downloading.

I know exactly what will be said at this point. "Aha! You said downloading, it is illegal and therefore your whole argument is invalid!" That's interesting, as a major event in our (American) history would be the Boston Tea Party, where 90,000 lbs of tea (worth 10,000 pounds) were dumped into the harbor. 8,000 soon-to-be Americans cheered when they saw this. It is important to note this took place on the night of the biggest protest they had held against the British, it wasn't just 5 guys in Indian costumes acting on their own. Yet we are proud of that moment, many see it as one of the sparks for the American Revolution!

Lets jump back to today. We have millions of music lovers oppressed by crappy DRM schemes, the DMCA, and RIAA's lawyers who go so far as to set up fake music sites to catch and sue people. Yet we now accept that as the norm, and absolutely warranted to protect the sacred intellectual property. I put forth that something must be done to end this tyranny, as something was done over 200 years ago. With a big enough outcry the RIAA will be forced to recognize that what they're doing won't fly. With enough calls to your representatives they will understand that to keep signing things such as the DMCA, and writing letters asking for good students to be expelled for downloading one song will mean the end of their time in public service. The government is in place to serve the people, not the lawyers or the greedy, and it is time for RIAA's tyranny to end. I am not advocating any illegal action, obviously the choice to download music is your own to make, but it did take illegal actions for our country to be free, so I won't limit my call by criminalizing downloading either.

So tell me, how do you feel? If you were back 200 years ago, would you have cheered when they dumped that tea overboard? Or would you have said that property is sacred, and the rights of those being oppressed should take a back seat to the law?

EDIT: Ideas for how to get this 'revolution' to work. Boycott major labels that institute the worst DRM. Call your congress representatives. Refuse to buy music online unless it comes DRM free (While Apple supports this now, I'm boycotting their service as they make you pay a higher premium to get your rights). Encourage friends of yours that are in a band to look up the Creative Commons license for their work. Petition your favorite band to write their label and express discomfort at the scare tactics RIAA is using now. IF you download illegally, do it in such a way that you can't be caught, the more RIAA catches people the stronger they become (Yes, it is entirely possible to acquire DRM free music undetectably. No, I won't tell you how).

The story gets better. This poor man, literally, is charged with stealing $10,000 worth of software. There is a good chance he makes as little as $100 a month (judging by comments I've seen from people living in Russia) which shows just how ridiculous Microsoft prices are. This man works for the school, and bought a few computers assuming they were legal. In return, he might spend 5 years in the Gulag (might be an exaggeration, might now be) for trying to help his school.

Ok, and now for the part that really blew my mind. A former world leader begging Bill Gates not to punish this man. How sad is that when a software company gets pleas like this from such (former) powerful men? To this Microsoft supporters who say its not too powerful, please think again. Gorbachev didn't think to go inside his own country to the prosecutors involved, no he went to where the real threat was, Redmond, Washington. Of course Microsoft ducked this plea for help by saying they didn't file civil charges, and this was all Russia's doing. Right, and I'm sure this had nothing to do with it? Filing a bunch of law suits worldwide... and then when one guy wasn't specifically charged you claim you didn't do it. Also, when there's surveys claiming Russia to be the second worst offender of piracy, I find it hard to believe Microsoft wouldn't want in on that.

Hey, I just thought of a solution... everyone chip in, and lets mail a box of Linux distros (some are specifically geared towards education) to Russia, and let them decide which way to go. Spend more than a teachers yearly salary on software, or take this free route and avoid dealing with the evil that is Microsoft.

As for there's more virii out there for PCs, I say wait a few years. Virus writers concentrate on the easiest game, which right now is Windows, same reasoning as to why there's more games for WIndows. However some people were also pissed off by the Mac is better commercials and have decided to go break OS X a bunch. Ok, so it happens that "PC" is synonymous with Windows right now, which is a shame, but do not blame a system for its weak software. This does not mean there's more virii for PCs, merely for Windows machines. Hey, don't believe me? Go read a Mac magazine say that Macs have "no more inherent security" than PCs. Sure there's not a lot of virii out there yet, but just wait. The larger the market share, the more virii you'll get. But please, don't say all PCs are more susceptible, because I've got three here that'll prove you wrong.

So, here's how the commercial should go:

PC: Hi! I'm a PC.
Mac: Hi! I'm a Mac.
PC: I'm running Windows XP! Gotta love the DRM and license issues.
Mac: Sure do! I come with my own DRM and licenses!
PC: I'm glad we agree on something Mac.
Mac: Me too, but its not the only thing we agree on.
PC: Its not?
Mac: No, you see it appears I'm compatible with you.
*Mac moves his mouse over to PCs keyboard*
PC: Mac... what are you doing?
Mac: I'm installing myself on your hardware, don't you like it?
PC: Yea, the dual-boot does seem a bit nice. Is that a snug fit?
Mac: Nah, you've got a huge disc!
*Small penguin walks in*
Tux: What the?! What are you two doing?!
PC: We're just... uh... dual-booting!
Mac: *mutters* I was gonna bootstrap you later*
Tux: Don't you see? You're both alike! You run on the same hardware, and are both encumbered by, well, the obvious licensing issues.
PC: Encumbered?! I was told it was better, who do you think you are?!
Mac: Yea! I'm the better one here! I'm impervious to all viruses!
Tux: *mutters* Keep that line up... I know some people that like to release code to break you.
Tux: My name is Linux. And if you don't like who I am you can grab one of hundreds of others like me. If you still don't like it, you can change me however you want.
PC: That's... that's not a good license. How will you make any money?
Tux: If you'd forget about money you'd realize that both PC's with windows and Mac's with OS X give up your freedom! THINK! GO take what digital rights you can before you lose them !!
*Tux grabs a broadsword and hefts it over his head*
Tux: FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOM *cuts PC and Mac in two*

Yea, believe it or not this is one of the things going through my head as I walk on campus. If anyone wants to make this dream come true, let me know and I'll skip a few days of class to shoot it.

When we take this to the basic argument, you have intentional confusing (which, I suppose is what good marketting is). You have Apple trying to convince the population that "Windows" == "PC" and that Mac == "Mac OS X". Also that there's such a huge difference between the two of them. Really, there's not. Both are just pieces of hardware that you, as a human, can make do your bidding. If you want to use the OS that comes with it, go ahead. If you want to throw more open software on there, go ahead. If you want to put Windows on a Mac, or OS X on a PC go ahead. See? These ads are nothing but propaganda!