But its had me wondering about various facts, googling around to see what data I can dig up, and what opinions I can find. I stumbled across two great quotes tonight I just had to pass on.

The first is Ghandi, in his autobiography:

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." (page 238 according to the site I found it on)

The Act in this case is referring to (I believe) the Indian Arms Act of 1878. This act made it impossible for a non-British citizen to get a weapon unless they could prove they were loyal. Something about making sure British rule (which was in place by force) wasn't overthrown by the legitimate subjects, or some such. So, we can see that Ghandi recognized that even though he preferred non-violent means, a population without arms cannot fight against an oppressor.

The second is another bastion of peacefulness, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso:

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Not at the head, where a fatal wound might result. But at some other body part, such as a leg." (Seattle Times, May 15, 2001)

This was apparently in response to a question about a student turning a gun on another student. I will let go the argument for giving students the right to carry, but just focus on his words. Here we see a (mainly) peaceful man arguing on behalf of the right to use guns in self defense.

Amazing how even those who choose non-violence recognize the inherent need for weapons in our culture.

"Assault Rifles" that were around $600 might now fetch $1200, and a complete package with goodies can easily top $2000. Cheap WWII surplus that may have been picked up sub $100 at a gun show is now being auctioned above $300. A box of 20 rounds of 30-30 has gone up from around $10 to $20, and more, since I started shooting that rifle, and some calibers (such as .50) have gone up as much as 3-5 times the previous cost just 5 years ago. This is due to a number of factors (fear, low supply due to fear, some crazy shenanigans trying to change how ammo is produced as to outlaw guns, and the rising cost of metal in the cases), but the fact remains, its a sucky time to try to get into shooting.

5 months ago I was looking at building a second AR-15 but the cost of the stripped lower receiver had almost doubled in just 7 months (I paid $120ish after tax last summer, and was looking at paying over $200 to $250 for the same receiver in February), and I really couldn't justify my purchases. I wandered into the local Bass Pro Shops just to see what I could get for the same price, on a whim. I asked around about what they might have that I could afford to shoot on a regular basis, specifically looking for a .22 caliber rifle (.22LR rounds currently run around $20 for 500 rounds).

The man helping me said that Ruger had good stuff, and the 10/22 started around $220 (note for those who opened the link... this is cheaper than the website price as dealers always buy under MSRP). I asked about one, was informed they were out of stock, then the guy checked in back and they had one left. Pulled it out, waved it around a bit, and decided "Why not?" So I walked out with it that day, with some ammo, for about $250 total, as opposed to $220 for one piece of one gun.

Took it out to the range, and wasn't immediately impressed, it put rounds down range, but made the tiniest of sounds (its a .22) and was just OK.

Fast forward to the summer. Now I'm going to the range a lot more (once a week), shooting a lot more (few hundred rounds a week, mainly .22 and 9mm), and getting a lot more into it (treating it as 'practice', concentrating on my posture, breathing, control, getting smaller groups). In the last week I've had the 10/22 out three times to the local indoor range, and tossed 800ish rounds through it.

First night was around 250 (of my ammo, more with his) with my roommate, fairly easy (taking our time, not really concentrating). We had two failures to eject the spent case, both with his (cheap) ammo, and I'm attributing it to the ammo being fairly weak (noticeable sound difference between his cheap, and my cheap).

The next night I took it out with another friend, and we proceeded to do a very fast rate of fire, with one of us loading the spare mag as the other emptied the first, maybe a 3 second turn around time in between every 10 shots, just pounding them. Was also staying fairly accurate. After 200 rounds the barrel got too hot to hold, but she was still accurate as we could be. After 340 rounds in 30 minutes we'd had no failures to feed or eject, no problems whatsoever, in fact. It was still accurate by the end, though dirty dirty dirty (told you it was cheap ammo).

After that night, I was very impressed. For a $220 piece of metal, I did not expect it to stand up to that kind of punishment.

Finally yesterday I took her out and blew through the rest of my 200ish rounds, taking my time and focusing on accuracy. She actually had some nice groups when I worked at it, much better than I expected from a bottom of the line .22 rifle.

I highly recommend this rifle. The 10/22 family consists of (currently) 35 models, so there's something for everyone. Bottom of the line is a wood stock, simply open sights, nothing to speak of. Goes up to some serious marksmanship pieces, good platforms for amateur shooting, as well as pretty pink models to get the girls interested. The prices are rock bottom (for this economy) and its an American company (made in the USA as well).

I like it so much when I was looking for a .22 pistol I just picked up a Ruger Mark 3, as I know I can trust the manufacturing and quality.

So if anyone's looking for something small, something to try out shooting with minimal investment and easy shooting (girlfriends that are scared of big bangs will even like them [although I prefer the ones who don't mind tossing an AR around]), look no further than the Ruger 10/22.

Finland

First I want to address the Finland shooting. Finland is third in the world in terms of gun ownership per capita, behind the US, and Yemen. This is because hunting is huge in Finnish culture, as one person puts it, "the national sport". And yet more people are killed by knives than guns (according to that article). The youth are raised around weapons, they can legally own a firearm at 15 with parental permission, and for handguns they must be a member of a gun club. Yet until 12 months ago, they'd never had a tragedy like this.

The conclusion we should be able to come to, is its not the gun's fault, its the human's. You have a person capable of cold-blooded, calculated murder, and no amount of laws will stop them from carrying out what they want to do. It requires human intervention: Parents who care, friends who realize when someone's hurting inside, kids that are strong enough in their self-image that they can get through school without bullying. As many are so fond of criticizing the War on Terror, its more than just people with guns, its a social problem that requires compassion, and understanding. However, if those fail, you had better be prepared to fight for what you love, because when a person reaches the utter mental darkness these killers were in, there's going to be no reasoning.

Its worth pointing out that in this most recent case the killer had homemade bombs with him, as did the Columbine shooters, if they had no access to guns, they would have still been able to kill.

But that brings us to Gun Control.

Gun Control

Gun Control: At its heart, the idea is fairly basic, to control the guns that are in public circulation so that bad people can't get them. While I know people who would argue against any limitation on weapons, I think most will agree that there are people out there who shouldn't own firearms, just like there are people who shouldn't be able to drive, people who shouldn't be allowed to practice law, and people who shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine. One obvious answer here is felons, if you're convicted of a violent crime, you forfeit your right to bear arms.

Unfortunately, in recent years gun 'control' goes way beyond 'control'. Now people want a gun ban in the name of gun control in some places, such as the District of Columbia (recently overturned), and Britain. Yes, this will keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, unfortunately we have to remember that these guys who shot up their schools were not law-abiding. They committed many acts of cold-blooded murder, and no gun ban would have prevented that. Now, it would have made it harder to get the gun, but as we can see from Britain, it would by no means have stopped them from getting guns. There violence went up once private citizens lost the right to bear handguns. I've heard first hand accounts from friends that if they ever did something wrong, and the bobbies wanted to stop them, they'd simply run, since the worst they had to face is a night stick, and they could out run the cops.

Piracy

Now, I'm going to play to my (intended) audience for a while. You know I'm not just some crazy gun nut, I also fancy myself a (white hat) hacker, and know most of the arguments for and against music|software piracy. What does that have to do with gun control? Lets examine DRM, or "music piracy control". DRM is a system whereby a company can have "absolute" control over their intellectual property, in this case lets say music. If I went to any hacker, and said that Congress passed a law requiring DRM on every digital music download, to prevent piracy, do you think they'd be put out at all? No, they'd laugh, and explain how in 3 minutes or less they'd be able to bypass the DRM (I'll refrain to linking to those news stories... I value my freedom). I know, I know, this is completely unrelated! Or is it?

In both cases we have an arbitrary control system, X, designed to stop the user from doing Y. In the case of gun control, X is "legal ramifications" and Y is "buying guns", and in the case of DRM, X is "DRM", and Y is "copying the music". In both cases it is the honest people that suffer here from a lack of freedom and security. In the case of guns its physical security and the freedom to defend yourself, and in the case of DRM its the lack of freedom to use what you've bought and the security that if your computer dies you can have a backup. So why is it that one of these is a perfectly smart move, and the other will never work?

As a security professional I know that there's no such thing as a secure system, I don't believe that for a computer with limited physical access and a decent firewall. So why would I believe that any country, or even any city, could pull off a complete gun ban, eliminating the ability for criminals to get their hands on them? Now, in the case of my computer, I plan for Bad Things to happen. I keep backups, I make sure there's spare hardware around just in case, and I look at my security logs to make sure. But how do we plan for Bad Things to happen when the gun ban falls through? Should we sit around, and pray the cops come quicker than the 5 minute average? I've had my car trashed before, had two friends of the criminal take their time, and walk away right past the cops who took 10 minutes to get to my call. Do I have faith that they'll be that much quicker when I call and say someone's held me up at gun point? Or that Someone's broken in and has a gun? Of course not! I'm not saying citizens should take the law into their own hands, just be given a chance to defend themselves until the cops can show up.

Deal with the Problem
For the sake of the argument, I'll say we have a completely 100% secure gun ban in effect in America. This won't stop violence, as Britain has shown us, there must be another cause. In the end, crime is a human (not social, humans created society, therefore its a human problem at its root) problem, and will be around as long as humanity is. What we, as a society and a race, need to do is recognize those human problems, and combat them, not the weapons used. When guns are banned, knives will be used. When knives are banned, shanks will be made (look at prison), when all sharp objects are eliminated from our society, ropes will be used to strangle (again, look at prison). There's no end to violence, the best we can hope to do is recognize what causes humans to become killers, and fix it.

The most obvious period, is during childhood. There's a recurring pattern of these school shootings where the kids doing the shooting were "outcasts" in their school, or were ridiculed, or bullied. Those are by no means reasons for murder, not even for retaliation! But, those killers should stand out to school counselors as people who need extra concern (not pills, actual human care), and stand out to the students as people who need their compassion. We're a society who wants to do away with moral and personal responsibility, when what we should be doing is recognizing that a successful society will care for each other.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I feel that the true control needed in our society, is that of controlling ourselves. Guns are regulated enough, we need to turn ourselves now to the people next to us in society, that man on the bus who's always looking sad, that driver who just cut you off, the quiet kid in your class that you all think is just a bit odd. Take it upon yourself to say hi, or not flick off the driver, or ask him to sit with you at lunch. Not because this may prevent a shooting, or a suicide, or an incident of road rage, just because they're humans too, and we all know the dark places a human mind can go to when depressed. I guarantee you, if we spent as much time and focus on helping those next to us in society (I don't mean hand outs, socialized health care, or any of that, I mean honest to goodness one citizen helping another kindness) then violence will go down in a way we'll never know through straight gun control.

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.

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.

Here's the video

Watch that through, then think about this. Elephants can't obtain credit cards, so that must have been the trainer's card. Not one clerk ever thought to get a signature for their sales. The elephant spent $40 without ever having an ID checked or even needing to know a PIN.

To quote Mastercard's offer: "Signature is not required for purchases under $25 at participating locations. PIN may be required for debit transactions," so this would be fairly limited in the US, aside from doing a bunch of small purchases stealing groceries or small items.

But this card is valid in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Lebanon, Malaysia, Australia, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Africa. Some of those places are hardly known for being safe to not have your credit cards stolen, and I'm sure shop keepers would be fairly lax regarding getting signatures for large purchases.

Anyways, I just found it really funny that Mastercard touts this great new service, when in reality its showing how easy it is to use their service to steal!

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).