celtichackr
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Hacker, geek, all around technoaddict. Amateur Scientist (well except for those pesky degrees).
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 15, 2013 14:40:45 GMT
I've been thinking about this for some time. Back in 2011, wow has it been that long, PJ handed over Groklaw to Mark Webbink.The first article Mark posted got a number of, I will say, mean-spirited remarks about how he didn't write as good a PJ.But Mark kept it up, and most people were thankful to Mark for his valuable input.
I don't know why PJ didn't pass Groklaw back to Mark, nor if anyone else sought to have PJ pass it to them. Obviously it would need to be passed to a qualified person, a paralegal or lawyer. Those of us here, who are truly interested in continuing the community, ought to seek out someone or several someone's to take on this job of maintaining Groklaw. Once we have a crew who would be willing to take on this responsibility they should try and get PJ to pass Groklaw to them. If she is unwilling, then we should look to move GroktheLaw to a site where we could duplicate the way Groklaw worked. The easiest way to do that would be to again use Geeklog, rather than freeforums.
That means hosting somewhere, and maintenance costs. I am offering to do the legwork, community insight welcomed, to find a suitable host. I could of course sacrifice one of my own servers for this, but I doubt it could handle the kind of load that a Groklaw replacement would require. (I worry about malicious Groklaw haters who might DDOS the machine). I am reluctant to use my own or someone else's server due to the weakness of using just a single server, rather than a large hosting site which has capabilities to deal with the reality of today's Internet.
I am also willing to contribute the initial expense and time, set up the necessary accounts, and get that site up.
However, I'm not willing to do so, until someone comes forward who is capable of and willing to at least take a lead in the site. It will need to be a legal eagle type of person. Not one of us computer geeks who think we know what the law is. It could be one person or a dozen or more. I would welcome a community of article contributors. I liked seeing the articles by PJ and Mark, the different styles were useful, I thought.
We could also talk about ways to make it better than Groklaw. Constructive ways to make it better. I think, clearly making all the court files FOSS is a pre-req. Articles should still be allowed in by others which are not necessarily Creative Commons. After all there might be valuable opinions offered by experts who aren't willing to open source their copyrighted works. It's I think a reality of the dual nature of our world. I prefer FOSS, but I don't write predominately FOSS code. Most of what I write, I do for my company's clients, and contains trade secrets, etc.
Ideas, suggestions?
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Authored by wayneborean on Sept 15, 2013 17:37:00 GMT
Mark was too busy to keep up with the daily stuff. That's why we saw so little of him. As to hosting, I have room and bandwidth on my server. I'm offering it. What might be even better is my server is in Canada. Wayne madhatter.ca
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Anon.
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Authored by Anon. on Sept 15, 2013 22:26:03 GMT
While we would need qualified people to offer opinions, we can begin now, by keeping track of the dockets, so we can see what decisions are made. We do not need a paralegal to obtain the dockets, right?
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celtichackr
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Hacker, geek, all around technoaddict. Amateur Scientist (well except for those pesky degrees).
Posts: 51
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 17, 2013 3:29:10 GMT
Yes, thanks Wayne. That's been my understanding. Groklaw, or any Groklaw 3.0 would be a full-time job for one person to run, as Mark found out. Mark has a full-time job. What is needed is a team. Unfortunately, I would make a good team member, but I'd be willing to help get team up.
Of course Anon, has a good point here. If we could just get people to attend and set up a fund to get the transcripts and such, that would be a huge start. We wouldn't have the analysis and explanation, but we'd at least have the information, and could critique the other reporting, and of course have bantering points. I note we've already done some critiquing of the last news bit.
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Authored by wayneborean on Sept 17, 2013 14:13:19 GMT
Yes, thanks Wayne. That's been my understanding. Groklaw, or any Groklaw 3.0 would be a full-time job for one person to run, as Mark found out. Mark has a full-time job. What is needed is a team. Unfortunately, I would make a good team member, but I'd be willing to help get team up. Of course Anon, has a good point here. If we could just get people to attend and set up a fund to get the transcripts and such, that would be a huge start. We wouldn't have the analysis and explanation, but we'd at least have the information, and could critique the other reporting, and of course have bantering points. I note we've already done some critiquing of the last news bit. Um, while it would take more time than I've got, I'm willing to help as a team member too. I'm not willing to run it (which is far more work than merely hosting). 1) I'm too busy writing Horror stories 2) I'm not a good leader But do we need a leader? So far GrokTheLaw is operating fairly well. A half dozen member team could keep it going. It wouldn't be the original Groklaw. It couldn't be without PJ. But it might just get the job, or enough of it anyway (until the NSA is leashed, and PJ gets back on the net). Wayne madhatter.ca
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celtichackr
Veteran Member
Hacker, geek, all around technoaddict. Amateur Scientist (well except for those pesky degrees).
Posts: 51
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 17, 2013 15:08:02 GMT
A leader or a team, is there really a difference? The Roman Senate worked as a team for a long time, until Caesar came along and really screwed the whole thing up. Of course the problem with teams is the same problem that always happens. But mostly it's from teams that survive beyond one generation. That and factions developing inside teams. I could be a great leader, except for ... squirrel!
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Authored by wayneborean on Sept 17, 2013 16:28:08 GMT
A leader or a team, is there really a difference? The Roman Senate worked as a team for a long time, until Caesar came along and really screwed the whole thing up. Of course the problem with teams is the same problem that always happens. But mostly it's from teams that survive beyond one generation. That and factions developing inside teams. I could be a great leader, except for ... squirrel! Um, well the Roman Senate was a collection of robber barons, which worked in groups according to their interests. Usually teams work best with a single strong leader, like Linus, or PJ. That said, I know of a bunch of communities which have survived for years (in at least one case nearly a century) with de-centralized decision making (check Science Fiction Fandom out). So I think we could make it work. All we need is four or five people, willing to spend a half hour per day. No one would have any set function - each would do whatever they think needs to be done. In cases where there's a conflict, talk it out in private first. If the conflict is too hard to resolve, them take it public and ask for feedback. As to Anonymous, that's no-win situation. There are people who need to remain below the radar. At the same time there are the trolls, scammers, spammers, etc. Spam/Scam is easy enough to spot. Trolls are often a matter of opinion. I'd leave the Trolls alone, as long as they are polite, and they don't get into character assassination. Wayne madhatter.ca
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celtichackr
Veteran Member
Hacker, geek, all around technoaddict. Amateur Scientist (well except for those pesky degrees).
Posts: 51
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 18, 2013 4:40:23 GMT
Well you can criticize the Roman Senate, but they did manage to build a hugely stable system for over 600 years before Caesar, and it continued to function through the Fall of Rome and for another 140 years spanning a total continuous functioning organization for 1300 years. As to being robber barons, they may have been, but the roads they built still work today. Show me one road built by anyone else that has survived in a usable state without replacement for 1700-2700 years. The concrete structures they built are still standing today, and the aqueducts still work 1000+ years later. Robber barons, perhaps, but the rule under the Romans was far better than under many of the European systems (we'll ignore the really inhuman time of the Industrial Revolution).
But anyway, I digress. I would welcome a leader if one steps forward, but we can survive without one.
I think you are overly optimistic of the time investment. But no matter. I'm willing to chip in, where I can. Don't expect much, I have a company to run and books for several companies to maintain, and a family life, with a child in school, whom I also trying to teach several languages and music and art and science. Not to mention a hobby (outside of the legal affairs of "IP"), an occasional furniture building and house remodelling. Which really makes it sound like I busy as all get out, but generally something's got to give, because it's not humanly possible for *me* to keep all this up. Now I need sleep. One can only survive with so much sleep deprivation, and I'm near that point I think.
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Anon-y-mouse
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Authored by Anon-y-mouse on Sept 18, 2013 8:54:54 GMT
The problem as I now see it is that we contributed to what we, or at least I, believed to be an "open source" documentation project, documenting and mapping the progress of various lawsuits and actions, and learning a lot along the way. I always considered my comments and contributions to be effectively GPL.
I feel somewhat let down now that the project co-ordinator has decided, for reasons I do not agree with, to bring things to a halt. I am concerned that the time and effort I and many other volunteers put in could be lost. What is worse, the project co-ordinator seems unwilling to step aside and let one of the many volunteers take over the role, and also appears to be bitterly opposed to anyone taking a copy or forking the work.
In short, despite the oft mentioned "open source" principles, we seem to have unwittingly contributed to a closed source project, and when the project owner decides to turn out the lights and take their toys home with them, there is not a lot we can do about it.
We must not let this happen again. Groklaw 2.0 must be founded on true open source principles with a CC or GPL documentation license wherever possible.
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Authored by wayneborean on Sept 18, 2013 16:41:07 GMT
So, we make a rule that all posts on this site shall be governed by the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3 License, of whichever country the site ends up being hosted in. Then we inform all posters who made posts before this, that if they don't accept this license, that they are free to delete any or all of their posts. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/That would give us a good, solid, Open Source way to move forward. And if Groklaw does restart, we talk to PJ, about using the same license. Wayne madhatter.ca
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 18, 2013 17:48:53 GMT
Well, I'm not sure, I totally agree there. There are some who may be unable or uncomfortable contributing under that license, but whose input would still be valuable. The problem is finding the right approach. I think we could set the default license to that. We could also set up a section, an area, where contributors could post and not use that license. We could also allow posters to indicate on a post if they were reserving rights and not posting under the CC license, or using a more restrictive CC license, like the one PJ uses. Then establish a rule that anyone using the site agrees not to archive posts where author have not used the CC license. While, I am a true believer in CC-by-sa, and am one of the Grand-High-Priests of the Temple of Imobef (Information Must Only Be Free), I also understand the mindset of those who cannot and/or will not believe that basic Totem (Truth of the Multiverse). I think we should accommodate those heret... err... guests.
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Authored by opensourceftw on Sept 19, 2013 5:14:04 GMT
The original understanding of this site was that it was merely a stopgap.
Ideally we need dedicated hosting, if anyone can provide that.
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celtichackr
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Hacker, geek, all around technoaddict. Amateur Scientist (well except for those pesky degrees).
Posts: 51
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 19, 2013 14:53:55 GMT
As, I stated, I'd be willing to set up a host, but any host I set up would not have the kind of resiliency that going to a hosting company could provide. My servers are constantly under attack by crackers. I haven't had a successful intrusion in a decade. That one single intrusion was actually a test on my part to see how long it would take for an unpatched system to get hacked. But, I'm not under any illusions my currents systems are invulnerable, and a DDOS against either of my server would certainly bring them to a standstill. The large hosting companies have ways to deal with that. Not that they are all equally good at it.
I think Wayne has also offered up a hosting spot. I've offered to do the work and cost of an initial set up, on some hoster. But I'm not ready to solely cover the cost of maintaining one indefinitely.
Now, on the plus side of using one of my servers. It's my box. My rules. I could install TOR, modify the default encryption (I'm not really there yet on being able to do that, more on the need for that later in this post), install high level encryption, etc.
[This part is going off on a tangent off-topic topic, but somewhat relevant here] I'll probably put this in a new thread at some point, just wanted to get it down] Now, I mentioned changing the default encryption. It is highly suspected that: A) Intel's hardware random number generator may be compromised, and I've been saying for some time that it could not be trusted to be the only source of randomness in Linux. Linus has been poo-pooing that idea. B) The criteria for some of the encryption process has been proposed the NSA. There is some speculation that the algorithms chosen to support the calculations for key generation are weak in some respect and NSA has ways to defeat and crack any key generated from such calculations (elliptic curve cryptography). There are other methods that could be employed, It's a large space (maths wise that is). It may be that NSA has figured out a method of reducing the complexity of attacks on elliptic curve cryptography. Although jacking up the key length *may* be a viable way around that. However changing the algorithm from elliptic curve to something else would require any users of the system to also use the new method. Once I'm there with a new protocol. I'll post the source. Right now, I'm studying algorithms. It may be 3 months before I'm up to speed to write my own variant.
Of course the net result of all this is we would jump up pretty high on the NSA's watch list. Not sure, what else we could do *IF* we want to make a port of Groklaw that deals with PJs whole issue of protecting leakers and what have you. Of course, whether PJ realizes it or not, by switching her mail provider she heightened NSA's awareness of her, and made herself a more monitored person.
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Authored by opensourceftw on Sept 19, 2013 16:29:05 GMT
I think it is best to not go too overboard with encryption, as this will have the opposite result that we intend. We insist on our privacy, but we are not going to bite our nose to spite our face and lock it down under mountains of keys.
However, there are three components to a Groklaw 2.0 (I would consider this a Groklaw 1.5): hosting, software, and leadership.
The first two won't be terribly difficult, but the third is the hardest part. We need someone (or multiple people likely) to cover at least two aspects: analysis of law (and ability to write well), and understanding of law so we don't get ourselves in trouble.
This requires great amounts of time, dedication, and skill.
I stepped down from the temporary leadership role not only due to lack of time, but due to the fact that I am merely a programmer. What I know of law I learned mostly from PJ's excellent writing and insight. I just wanted to launch a place for us to continue our discussions while we still could correspond, and it appears to have been a success. I don't have the knowledge necessary to a) do analysis and b) make sure we don't get in trouble.
If anyone wants to set up a team to do this, that would be great.
The suggestions about licensing sound good to me, and it would obviously best to use open source software.
Are we going to go back to a geeklog-type site or continue to use forums?
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celtichackr
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Hacker, geek, all around technoaddict. Amateur Scientist (well except for those pesky degrees).
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 19, 2013 19:42:49 GMT
My vote would be for a geeklog-type site. If being able to write well is a requirement, that leaves me out. But alas, I am like you, not enough time, a code hacker, and PJ has taught me most of what I know about the law. Although, I have some other sources of law learning. As far as getting into trouble. I don't see how that can really be an issue. We are merely stating opinions and our understandings. We aren't offering legal advice, and that needs to be made abundantly clear. The worst we can do is come out as wrong as FM but in the other direction. But I think we are all better at analyzing these cases than he is. Because he's being paid to twist it. we won't twist it intentionally, I hope. To me, the case reporting is one of the biggest parts, and the newspicks relevant to these topics. If we can revive the case reporting, the patent prior art searching (which can be done here and elsewhere) and the legal docs repository, we'll have accomplished much. If we have all that we ought to be able to draw in some analysts, and we can invite analysts to do a guest post here and there. Posting the reporting and the legal docs for us to dig into to search for things which are making incorrect statements is useful. We may not understand the law, but we can correct tall tales in relation to the tech and who,when and where the antagonists in cases are telling multiple conflicting stories. Apple and MS are definitely guilty of this. Telling one court one story and another story in a different court. These are the kinds of things we were helpful in doing for PJ. We just won't have her guidance. But we know some of what to look for now. As far as a leader if one steps up, that's great, but if not we can continue as we are. We're programmers mostly, and used to independently working or as a team.
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