Firewalls

In a wonderful example of crossover between meatspace and cyberspace linguistics, the always excellent Global Guerillas blog by John Robb has a post entitled Nation-state firewalls. Robb lists some of the larger fences, walls and barriers around the world designed to limit and control the transitions of people between the two sides of the barriers in question.

Of course, the ‘firewall’ is a term originally for something in physical space, but in most people’s minds these days I think we consider it a ‘cyberspace’ term. The two have similar functions, of course – namely to limit the transition of stuff like data or people – but it’s interesting to see them being used interchangably here.

Question: just what is the difference people and data, anyway? I think I know people I’ve ‘met’ online but I’ve really only seen the data they produce. There’s certainly more to a person than just their intellectual output (just look at David Beckham) but how much more must vary an awful lot.

Idea explained

I made an animation to try to explain this week’s idea.

Annoyingly, and after a lot of frutrated attempts, it seems I can’t embed quicktime *.mov files or vimeo flash movies on this WordPress blog.

Ahhh well, you can see it here.

I may finally have had an idea

An explanation, and maybe even justification, to follow shortly…

Suburbia’s trying to tell me something…

I know it’s almost entirely imposed by my own subconscious, but the fact that the order in which I was tracing backyard shed layouts just happened to give me this message did at least lighten up my morning slightly. I like to think the inhabitants of this block of Brent have, with their choice of garden furniturte and buildings, been unknowingly contributing to a message just for me all these years.

Sadly there isn’t a Simpsons-esque ‘T’ on the next block to the right…

Bottom-up organisation & bottom-up control

An interesting (and admittedly paraphrased) quote from a post John Robb’s always-interesting blog:

Complexity and Globalization

…In response to globalization, many states have over centralized due to a loss of local control. These centralized efforts haven’t resulted in a single hierarchy, but rather a plethora of overlapping and often conflicting efforts that routinely trump local authority (an example of how complexification in response to environmental stimulus is now providing negative returns on investment). The remoteness, obscurity and opacity of these parallel “authorities” add to the equation…

Organic Security

“Once the legal monopoly of armed force, long claimed by the state, is wrested out of its hands, existing distinctions between war and crime will break down much as is already the case today in . . . Lebanon, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Peru, or Colombia.” Martin van Creveld.

States may not have an option. The catch is that if the national government doesn’t/can’t step in to rectify a decline in local control, forms of organic security… will replace them.

Is he talking about how local societies and built-up groups can inherently have more affect on their neighbourhood than over-beurocratic imposed orders from a national government? Nope – he’s talking about insurgencies and guerrilla warfare. Read his blog (and book when it comes out!) – it’s fascinating stuff.
In all these explorations of how I want neighbourhoods to restore control to themselves and foster bottom-up organisational methods, it’s important to remember that things might not necessarily go smoothly. In fact I’d say they almost certainly won’t. I’m hoping that the starting point (middle class British suburbia) already contains enough respect for order and peace that things wouldn’t shift too badly towards anarchy, but power vacuums are always risky – no matter how small.

Internet access as a right

An article on the BBC News website today covers a story about the Indian President last year outlining his future hopes for free Internet access for everyone in India. Ambitious, non? Not only is the sheer logistical challenge of such a dream almost insurmountable, but any capitalists out there will be turning into enraged beetroots as we speak. Just think of all the lost revenue!

To start, let’s look at the first complaint. Doubters are right to point out the mountains of difficulty anyone attempting such a technological feat wouild encounter. But the Indians have done it before. In 2004 the state of Gujarat announced that they intended to have electricity in all their villages within two years. All the other Indian states had a good laugh at this claim, as did much of the world, but by golly they actually managed it in the end. With electricity now piped to all Gujarati villages, businesses and economic growth has flourished in previously declining rural areas. This growth means an increased likelihood of better health care and living standards, and of course gives the villagers of Gujarat a good reason to be smug.

…But can it be done with internet connections, and is it fair to deprive telecons of a business that some might say is rightly theres? Lawrence Lessig, copyfighter extraordinaire and founder of the Creative Commons, wrote about similar arguments a few years ago in Philadelphia:

“In September, I reported that Philadelphia was considering funding a WiFi service for the city. Sixty percent of the citizens have no access to broadband. The city elders believe that’s no way to enter the 21st century.

But as Public Knowledge now reports, a bill on the Governor’s desk would now make it impossible for Philadelphia to offer such a service, because it “competes” with private businesses offering the same service.

So, let’s see: If I open a private street light company, selling the photons my lights give off, can Philadelphia offer “free” street lights? Or does the fact that Guards To Go offers services in Philadelphia mean we need to disband the Philly police department?”

If governments and councils are there to fundamentally ensure the enrichment of the lives of those people who elect them, how can they not at least consider something so useful as internet access for all? In suburban London, unlike rural India, there are plenty of businesses out there who can supply you with broadband access, but that shouldn’t mean that democratic organisations can’t.

Piracy rampant and blatant in Romania – cheers, Bill!

From this EnGadget article…

Romanian president Traian Basescu has a bigger reason than most to owe the Microsoft founder a debt of gratitude: he claims that rampant software piracy in the Eastern European nation was the single biggest factor in developing a healthy IT industry. Yes, believe it or not, a head-of-state actually stood up in public – at a press conference to celebrate the launch of a Microsoft global technical center – and told Gates face-to-face how illegal copies of Windows “helped the young generation discover computers…set off the development of the IT industry…[and] helped Romanians improve their creative capacity…” Indeed, nearly 70% of all software used in Romania today is pirated, according to some experts (pirates even peddle their wares to legitimate businesses, reportedly), despite the anti-piracy legislation passed some ten years ago. Amusingly, Basescu justified his countrymen’s ridiculous levels of IP theft by claiming that “it was an investment in Romania’s friendship with Microsoft and Bill Gates.”

What a wally. Nevertheless, it’s a clear- if far from shining – example of how sharing things is great for growth. Just maybe not the growth of Microsoft. I wonder what the future president of Freenation might say if he ever gets to meet Gates…

Liberating WiFi access

This is such a neat idea.

A gadget which plugs into your computer and re-broadcasts for free the WiFi account that you’re paying to use. Now I know a lot of enraged suburbanites who would gawp at this kind of anarchistic generosity, but when you think about it, the guys who invented this device do rather have a point…

Goals

The ultimate goal with the Wifi Liberator project is through Open Source distribution, to eventually reach a high enough usage and penetration rate that all pay-per-use wireless networks will begin to free their access to everyone. Since the monetary amounts associated with providing wireless access is inexpensive as the techology becomes more ubiquitous, the need to “charge” for this access is becoming less important and cost effective. Although we are still charged for basic utilities such as water, electricity, gas, and others, the amounts associated with providing internet access are dropping at an exponential rate. This project aims to make this low cost apparent as well as the increasing tensions of keeping people “out” of these networks.

Of course, most paid WiFi access tends to be in large public buildings like hotels or airport lounges, or perhaps in the smaller urban social spaces of coffee houses and bars. Not really a suburban issue, perhaps? Well, it’s an interesting project nonetheless, and I do like the idea of encouraging the sharing of your bandwidth wealth, rather than encouraging fear of your neighbours and what they might do with your precious info-pipes.

Peter Barber lecture notes

Great lecture / presentation by Peter Barber at uni today about his housing projects in various urban sites around the UK. For this years project I’m focussing more on suburban conditions, but it was interesting to hear his view of what housing needs and what’s wrong with so much of the building industry in Britain these days. I’m probably missing some of the nuances of his presentation, but it’s probably fair to say that these were his main beefs:

01 – There needs to be more ownership. People take better care of their houses when they belong to them, rather than renting or leasing. It’s also easier to design effectively for end users rather than businessmen.

2 – A need for smaller housing associations. They’re getting bigger and bigger, and as housing developments get bigger, design care and individuality is reduced. It would be particularly good to see housing co-ops made up of end users, rather than single organistions who become increasingly goliath-proportioned. Something like 60% of housing in Paraguay (Or was it Uraguay?) is funded in this way – why not here?

3 – A major change in mortgage practices. It’s easy to buy a shite house in a boring suburb from a faceless sbuilding society. It’s very hard to get a mortgage for building your own house, but considering the care and love that self-builders bring to their neighbourhoods, surely this situation is ludicrous?

4 – A shake up of the real estate sytem in the UK. There’s a lot of corruption, and not much possibility for people to do their own thing. Why? No reason, it’s just turned out that way. A similar shake-up is required in the world of post-construction management, particularly again where housing associations are concerened – too often landscaping is not allowed to be maintained by tennants, meaning that little of quality is produced and little civic pride amongst residents is resulting.

Peter has a lovely collection of designs for clear, simple modernist architecture, but the interests and dreams which feed his designs are particularly interesting to me. He preaches the values of bottom-up heirarchies in neighbourhoods, personal ownership and expression, a ‘loose-handed’ approach to architectural and social structuring, enabling a more collective and collaborative society to show through its architectural boundaries. He believes that people are inherently likely to take part in such schemes, if only given the chance.

Well I’d agree, and I’d wish to point out further that the effectiveness and enthusiasm with which people get ahold of such methods of expression and organisation are already well established in the world of online societies and cultures. The whole web2.0 phenomenon is entirely focussed on user-generated content and swarms of people who organise themselves. As this kind of practice becomes second nature to us in our online lives, similar freedoms will surely be demanded from our physical lives – perhaps Pete’s hopes are closer to a near-future reality than he thought.

No more physical sales of digital artefacts?

From the Observer…

A ban has been imposed by eBay on auctions of virtual items from online games such as EverQuest. For years, players have sold virtual items that can give an edge. On eBay last week a pair of EverQuest game accounts had a first bid of $200 before they were removed.

‘Our standpoint is that everything in our games is the property of Sony Online Entertainment,’ said Greg Short, director of web development at Sony, which publishes EverQuest. ‘We can’t say definitely if it’s illegal,’ said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy. ‘It’s complex. And when something is complex like this, we have a history of disallowing the items.’

It’s interesting that ‘virtual’ items can be so highly valued in ‘real-world’ monetary terms, but of course this is nothing new. Work on RPG characters has been advertised in geek-mags between players for years and years, but with World Of Warcraft and Second Life growing so enormous, the practices are certainly more noticable.

…Particularly to the companies who own these worlds. Note that Ebay is not cancelling these auctions because they’re ridiculous (I don’t think they’re ridiculous, but admit it – you know lots of people who would) but because the owners of the world concerned regard all objects in those world as their own and not for sale. So, if you pay to use a workshop out here in the physical world, are the things you make there your belongings, or do they have to stay in the workshop when you leave? Tricky. I think most people’s initial reaction would be that they belong to you – you paid fairly for the time and the use of tools, and the workshop owners didn’t make the artefacts, did they?

On the other side of the coin, there are plenty of examples where just the opposite is true. All my design work for my university degrees, for instance, does not belong to me. The university retains intellectual property over all of my work, and it’s olnly through an understanding of fairness that I’m allowed to even put a portfolio together at the end of my years of blood, sweat, tears and poverty.

‘Ownership’ and ‘property’ are ideas which are much more complex than we realise, and I think most of us believe we own much more than we really do. I, like many, think IP law is in dire need of re-assessment. Expect to see more about this.