Cutlass Developers' Journal

Today is the day that the patent for blind-signatures, by David Chaum expires. I recently reread Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias, and I’m struck at how far off the dreams of cyberspace as a free haven for transactions are from the reality of today.

We’ve done pretty well at providing an environment where free speech can flourish, not so well at providing an environment where private speech can flourish (although we’re still working on that), but we’ve been completely incompetent at providing an environment where private economic transactions can flourish. And it’s not a technical problem, it’s a legal problem.

Take the classic idealized ecash. Outsiders can’t determine who paid who, and potentially, recipients can’t identify the individual that paid them. You’ve just described a money-laundering machine. And the government currently forbids people to even hook up to a money laundering machine, even if the transactions that take place are as innocent as the purest snow. We won’t have real ecash (anonymous ecash, that protects privacy at least as well as paper cash) until the laws change.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath on that one.

(Cross posted to Perpetual Rambling)

Well, the Grokster ruling from the supreme court is in, and regardless of what I’d hoped, feared, or otherwise, it is what it is. We all have to live with it now. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to change my plans for Cutlass in any major ways.

Essentially, the court ruled that if I intend for you to violate copyright with my software, I am partially liable for your copyright infringement. Now establishing that intent is somewhat sticky, and there will likely be much legal wrangling over where a court can draw that line. (Hopefully the burden of proof will lie with the plaintiff, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that one).

So, here I declare, publically, by all that I hold dear, please don’t use Cutlass for copyright infringement. Seriously. You’re pissed at the RIAA? Get your music somewhere else! I’ve had people in all honesty tell me that:
1: They were pissed that Metallica was going after Napster
2: That P2P actually helped music sales, as awareness of bands contributed to overall band revenues
3: That they were so pissed, that they were going to go download a bunch of Metallica MP3s.

Err, hello? 1 and 2 I agree with, but 3 does not follow. If you really believe that P2P helps bands (as I do), and that you’re pissed off at a band (as I have been), the solution is to go find alternatives, who actually want their music to be heard, and go download their songs, and perhaps even buy an album or see a show.

If you want to know where to go to find Free Culture, Downhill Battle has a good collection of links at the bottom of the page.

The updated slides for the Recon 2005 presentation are now online. It’ll show up on the Recon site as well, shortly, but you got it here, first!

Allrighty, this appears to not quite suck, so I figure now’s a good time to link up. Welcome to the new Cutlass homepage! There’s still a bit of construction dust, so if you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for the old homepage is still available.

Hopefully I can add some whizzy features, like an update of the most recent subversion checkin log.

It is always interesting to post for the first time on a blog. Since this is a blog dedicated to Cutlass and related topics (P2P, file sharing, VoIP, etc), I thought I’d link to a story I say today on the Washington Post.

I didn’t see any indication in the story about who the suspects are. It will definitely be interesting to see what the courts decide for them if they do get caught.

Speaking of the MPAA, I heard an unbelievable story about why Hollywood is what it is. Apparently, Thomas Edison held the original patent on ‘moving pictures’. Back in Edison’s time, California was considered a ‘lawless frontier’. In order to escape the jurisdiction of patent law, movie makers escaped to California so that they would not have to deal with patent infringement. So, that’s why Hollywood is in California, and not in say, New York.

I find it highly amusing that with the movie people (e.g. MPAA), the shoe is on the other foot. What goes around, comes around, I guess.