Quick take – Dell tries to patent “Cloud Computing”

In the WTF news story of the day, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected an application by Dell to trademark the term “cloud computing.”

As noted on eweek.com,

In rejecting Dell’s applications this time, the patent and trademark office wrote that the term “cloud computing” is generic and could apply to any number of services and products that are being developed for IT infrastructures.

What drives companies to such heights of madness?

Mobile phone ringtones for activism and awareness raising

 

Photo courtesy BBC World Service Trust

A post on Lirneasia’s site points an interesting story on the use of a ring tone in India to break down the social taboo of using condoms. Created by the BBC World Service Trust, I can’t say I like the ring tone but perhaps it appeals to an Indian audience. 

You can listen to it and download it to your phone from this website (which is entirely Flash based and slow to load). 

At a broader level, this example highlights the use of ringtones for social and political activism. Though there’s not a single example from Sri Lanka yet, ringtones (and mobiles in general) have been used in political and social activism around the world. As Ethan Zuckerman flags,

When Arroyo found herself embroiled in a corruption scandal involving tape recordings of phone calls to voting commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, one of the tools activists used to spread information was a ringtone. The ringtone featured a snippet of dialog between Arroyo and Garcillano and rapidly became one of the world’s most downloaded ringtones and spawning over a dozen remixed versions.”

An article published on the Boston Globe in April concurs and highlights the use of ringtones in the US,

A Mexican wolf’s eerie howl does double duty as a ringtone and a reminder of habitat destruction. Barack Obama’s campaign offers text message updates, wallpaper, and ringtones with sound bites like “What I do oppose is a dumb war” over a hip-hop beat. A local community support group has turned volunteers with an hour or two between tasks into a network of translators.

As the Mosquito ringtone also demonstrates, it’s interesting (and inevitable) how social, cultural and political differentiation find increasing expression through and in mobile devices. Sadly, many civil society organisations in Sri Lanka haven’t yet fully woken up to the potential of using these innovative new ways to build and strengthen communities of practice on shared goals and ideals, such a democratic governance, peace through peaceful means, sustainable development, human rights and the opposition to all forms of violence.

India to hack into Blackberry communications?

India seems to be taking a page from Sri Lanka’s own misguided notions of national security and telecommunications. Back in May I wrote about the contest between RIM and the Indian Home Ministry to gain access to the encrypted communications conducted via Blackberry’s.

Now there’s news that the Home Ministry may actually hack into RIM’s communications if it isn’t granted access. As Information Week reports,

An Indian government official said his country may use third-party tools to crack the encryption used by Research In Motion’s BlackBerrys if the company doesn’t open up its network. “If they fail to come up with any satisfactory solution, we will invoke other options. We have been approached by other companies with solutions to decrypt the data passed over the BlackBerry network,” said Telecom Minister A Raja during a presentation to the country’s Department of Telecommunications.

Several interesting points arise from this announcement.

RIM hasn’t commented on the possibility of its Blackberry encryption and security being compromised. Since the argument used by the Indian Home Ministry is based on the assumption that Blackberry’s are used by terrorists, RIM’s counter-argument that there are several other (encrypted) mobile e-mail systems, far more widely available that aren’t being targeted for data interception by the Home Ministry is an interesting one. I know of no other case where a government has openly called for third party tools to crack encrypted commercial communications. I guess one can applaud the Indian Government’s openness and just wonder how many other repressive regimes are doing the same thing covertly?

The Sri Lankan Government has also in the past openly called for hackers to disrupt what it perceives to be networks and websites partial to or run by terrorists. There have been allegations by independent web media of Orwellian government surveillence.

If both the Indian and Sri Lankan Government are hell bent on cracking down on Blackberry’s, either for their GPS capabilities or their “secure” communications, it would be pertinent to ask them, inter alia, just how they are addressing the fact that Gmail / Google Apps can now operate over most mobiles using SSL can be used to communicate in much the same way as Blackberry’s or the availability of services like drop.io that can be used to coordinate anything from a birthday party to something more sinister.

In Terrorists also use Google: So what? I end up noting that,

The general argument is that just because the terrorist use technology for their own parochial ends, it does not mean that the technology itself should be banned, or restricted to a wider population. We do not ban printing because the terrorists print their propaganda, and in Sri Lanka, we continue to consume State media in spite of the fact that they are obnoxious mouthpieces of any incumbent government (and in many occasions in the past, used to foment, exacerbate and otherwise promote State terrorism).

The media, not the medium is the problem and as I’ve stated in the past, the best way to address the appropriation of the interweb by miscreants and terrorists is to use the same technology against them and in defense of the principles of liberty, equality and democracy.