Why I’m against SOPA and PIPA

Posted in Politicson Jan 17, 2012

There are bills underway in the U.S. Senate and House that have very dangerous consequences for the Internet. SOPA and PIPA are meant to protect intellectual property online, but they give far too much enforcement power to the government.

The bills allow the government to immediately shut down entire websites because they didn’t filter user content that might help someone obtain an illegal copy of something. For example, Wikipedia could be shut down immediately and without warning because someone posted an except of a book that they didn’t have permission to post. Facebook could be shut down because someone posted a link to a picture that was copied without permission.

This would be like the government shutting down and entire mall because someone walked through it with a copied CD in their pocket. According to these bills, the mall should have searched people before they entered the mall to make sure they didn’t have any illegal copies of media on them.

These bills go beyond punishing those who illegally copy intellectual property. They will also punish anyone who allows any communication about such piracy. Since the Internet was built on the ideals of allowing people to freely communicate, punishing people who allow free communication will severely hinder the Internet. These bills would mandate censorship of the Internet, punishing people who allow free speech.

On Wednesday, Wikipedia and other web sites are going dark in protest of these bills. I support their protests. While shutting off access to the sites may seem extreme, it is only an example of what could happen to those sites if these bills are allowed to pass.

Cooking on campus

Posted in Funnyon Dec 8, 2011

I saw this from a BYU Police Beat:

Oct. 4 – A woman was reported grilling chicken in the library. She said it was for a project requiring students to break a social norm.

I have to say, that is a little better than the time that I baked bread in the Computer Science T.A. offices in the basement of the Talmage building. I had everything measured out in a bread maker. Brought it all in and plugged in the bread maker, and had bread a couple of hours later.

The ‘From’ email header

Posted in Technicalon Dec 5, 2011

Every email that is ever sent has a set of header fields. These fields keep track of things like the sender, recipient, subject, date, and content type. Normally, these header fields aren’t directly presented, but instead are used by email programs like Gmail or Outlook to properly display information about the email.

Side comment: If you are using Gmail, you can select “Show original” (from the same menu that allows you to reply or forward the email) to see the full email content, including all of the email header fields.

There is a header field called ‘From’ that is particularly important. Like you might expect, it encodes information about who the email is from. The ‘From’ field can contain just an email address like this:
From: spam@squaregalaxy.com
or perhaps like this:
From: <spam@squaregalaxy.com>
The ‘From’ field can be more useful by containing both a name and the email address like this:
From: Sir Spamalot <spam@squaregalaxy.com>

When an email program, like Gmail or Outlook, present the name of the email sender, they often parse the ‘From’ field to display the name of the sender. If the name is not included, then the program displays all or part of the actual email address.

Let me proceed with two examples, one good and one bad.

Bad example: Staples.com sends me an email to confirm my recent order. The ‘From’ field of their email looks like this:
From: <support@orders.staples.com>
When I look at the sender’s name in Gmail, it simply says, “support.” Of course I need support on all sorts of levels, but I don’t know anyone names support.

Good example: LivingSocial.com sends me frequent emails to tell me about discounted deals in Fort Collins. The ‘From’ field of their email looks like this:
From: LivingSocial Deals <deals@livingsocial.com>
When I look at the sender’s name in Gmail, it shows up as “LivingSocial Deals” so I can quickly determine who is telling me about “6 Laser Hair-Removal Treatments.”

When writing a program (or website) which sends emails, it is important that the program include a name along with the required email address. This allows the recipient’s email program to more meaningfully present the name of the email sender. This is especially important in business applications, which need to establish a clear identity for their customers.

Google+ Pages. Singular or plural?

Posted in Funnyon Nov 7, 2011

Dear Google+,

I went to create a page at Google+ Pages and I saw this notice:

I may be a computer geek, but I also appreciate correct grammar, and I’m seeing some inconsistencies in text of the popup notice.

Since the noun “pages” is plural, I would expect it to be used with a plural form of the verb: “are.” Instead, I’m seeing “pages is not” which is certainly incorrect. But I am able to explain it away because you could read it as, “The product offering, Google+ Pages, is not ready for everyone.” In this case, it might make sense to keep the verb in the singular form.

But wait! If you read the explanation text, Google suddenly refers to pages as “them,” which is certainly plural.

So what is it, Google? Is your Google+ Pages offering not ready? Or are you still releasing them to everyone?

Bad peelie coupon at Target

Posted in Businesson Nov 7, 2011

I was buying diapers at Target the other day, and I found a peelie coupon on the box of diapers. I peeled the coupon of the box of diapers to reveal that it said, “Save $1 off this box of diapers.” Great! I proceeded to the checkout lanes.

Upon checking out, the cashier told me that the coupon had expired in September and that they wouldn’t be giving me the discount. Dumb. Don’t put coupons on your merchandise that are going to expire before the merchandise sells.

News about Internet companies isn’t Internet news

Posted in Technicalon Nov 4, 2011

Dear Google News (and everyone else who aggregates news articles),

Just because a company primarily conducts is business online, does not mean that news about the company should be in the Sci/Tech/Internet category.

It is 2011, and every big business has a website. It is time that we think about a company for the services that it provides, not the technology and method that it uses to provide those services.

A few examples of articles I found in today’s Sci/Tech/Internet news, that probably should be somewhere else:

The IPO for Groupon (GRPN) probably should be financial news.

Bieber having more than 14 million followers on Twitter should probably be entertainment news.

The crash of WebMD shares should probably be either health or financial news.

That the CIA actively monitors 5 million tweets a day, should be political news.

Directory info for church use only

Posted in Religionon Nov 3, 2011

When you are asked at church to provide contact information, such as a phone number or email address, it is generally expected that the contact information is only to be used for church use, not for political or commercial purposes.

This gets a little fuzzy when “church use” mingles a little bit with political or commercial purposes. Suppose you found a great sale on bibles, and wanted to share the info with other members of the congregation? Or perhaps a church leader wants to remind people to fulfill their civic duties by voting in an upcoming election?

It also gets confusing when other members of the congregation are also personal friends. While it may not be appropriate to approach church members with a commercial or political cause, approaching a personal friend may be acceptable.

To help clarify the confusion with this issue, may I suggest the following guidelines:

Points that may indicate acceptable use:

  • The individual also provided directly to you their contact information.
  • The topic of your conversation is directly related to a recently or frequently taught principle at church.
  • The topic of conversation is directly related to a church sponsored or church encouraged activity.
  • You frequently associate with the individual away from church encouraged activities.
  • The individual has contacted you previously for a commercial or political cause.

Warning signs for unacceptable use:

  • You or someone you directly know would materially benefit from the conversation.
  • A political candidate or political cause (which hasn’t been officially endorsed by the church) would benefit.
  • You have to use a church published directory in order to find the contact information.
  • You are using an email list or a set of email addresses which has been created by a church official or created for church use.
  • You are specifically mentioning the name of a business, the name of a political candidate, or a ballot measure title.

Of course, these guidelines are to clarify the confusion that may occur with “church use” verses “commercial use.”  It leave the topic of “church use” verses “personal use” undiscussed.  Can you use the church email list to invite everyone to your backyard BBQ?  I’ll leave that question unanswered.

To further clarify any remaining confusion, let me give my opinion about a couple of scenarios:

A member of your church congregation wants to have a tupperware party.  If the person intends on selling tupperware at the party, or to create interest in tupperware in order to sell product later, the person should be very careful not to use any contact information that was provided to the church and not to the individual directly.

Amazon.com is having a sale on copies of the Bible. If a person just wants to let you know about the sale, it may be ok for them to send the link to the Amazon.com product page.  If the link includes a referral code such that the person can earn a commission, then it is not appropriate for them to send the link to a church provided contact list.

A member of the congregation is running for political office.  Since sharing accomplishments of members of the congregation isn’t irregular, acknowledgment of the fact that the member is running wouldn’t be inappropriate, unless people were being encouraged to vote for the person.  Stating the candidate’s platform or political views is inappropriate because it is encouraging votes.

There is a ballot issue on a topic addressed frequently at church.  It would be ok to let people know about the ballot issue, especially if it was explained how the ballot issue is connected to topics addressed at church.  It would be ok to encourage people to vote on the issue. Unless church officials have endorsed a particular stance on the issue, it would not be appropriate to tell people to vote a particular way on the issue.

It is important to be very careful when using church provided contact information.  Not only do we need to keep church, political and commercial subjects separate for legal and ethical reasons, but it is important to respect people’s privacy by not misusing contact information they provided for church use only.

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