Internet Vigilantism: Anonymous and Public Shaming

Posted on March 14, 2012 by RhaE

Global peace seemed settled after the entrenchment of democracy and civilization over the world except some particular countries, however, bloodless battles between humans are still continuing in cyber space over the world. In the Internet society, basic norms and rules for communication and interactivity between internet users highly rely on individual consciousness and morality since it is hard to guide every user to behave in a certain way. Such unlimited freedom  leads to an increase in public participation in many fields. On the other hands, it also causes a negative aspect that the Internet is used as a method of drastic protests and an infringement of someone’s privacy in the online community. Internet vigilantism can describe this phenomenon.

Image from Thenewnewinternet.com

Internet vigilantism is the broad phenomenon of acting outside of criminal justice system to carry out vigilante missions through the Internet and/or the means of online applications. It is categorized into several types according to purposes. The most well-known examples are Anonymous, the online international organization for taking actions regarding protests, and public shaming which is to bring disgrace on people who do anti-social behaviors against what general society believes as justice, by publicizing their personal information via online. Although initial intention of these actions is merely warning people for building a better society, many cases go extremely harsh. People easily lose control of what degree of actions they need to take for justice of society under the Internet’s special condition of anonymity. Furthermore, the lack of central power over the World Wide Web plays a role in growing a vigilante reaction against certain behaviors.

Image from Kenny-glenn.net

The members of Anonymous originally focused on fighting for their damaged rights online and warning citizens who behoove inappropriately from the moral and ethical perspective. Anonymous disclosed personal information of targeted victims through the Web. For example, in 2009, a 13-year-old boy Kenny Glenn posted a video recording that he was abusing a cat on YouTube. After a minute, Anonymous found his personal information and let him being investigated for animal abuse in a local police. Now, Anonymous is more likely to cooperate together for protests against anti-piracy campaigns and internet censorship by governments. Also, it is associated with hacktivism and chiefly attacks companies or institutions that oppose to their philosophy.

Public shaming is a more intensified form than the early type of Anonymous by focusing on making targeted people whose behavior was socially irresponsible and immoral embarrassed not only locally but also internationally. It is more frequently and obviously found in Asia than in western countries, because it relates Asian values and norms that place emphasis on social responsibility and politeness inside groups. Particularly, online social networking tools have made dissemination of information on the Internet very rapid and wide and it results in much more serious damages attributed to attacks from anonymous people. Due to its severeness, it is also called as a Cyber terror.

Image from Naver.com

In South Korea, a female university student called short men who are less than 6 feet tall “losers” in the popular TV program. After broadcasting, many people were furious about her comment and internet users searched for her personal information, such as her name, family, school and her blogs. They spread out what they found via SNS and a diversity of Web pages and rebuked her cruelly on her thoughtless remark. Even some users hacked into her school’s homepage to scorn her as well as her school. As a result, the school urged her to take a couple of years off from school. She had to be humiliated online as well as damaged pitilessly offline.

Interestingly, China has a very special tool for the effective accomplishment of public shaming; Human Flesh Search Engine. It is the network made up of massive Chinese internet users to identify and release information on a particular individual or group who deserve blame for acting immorally. Users who contribute to the search engine aim to achieve online vigilante justice by their own hands, punishing people who provoke an outburst of the public anger. Consequently, their action makes them feel shame openly and significantly damage their real life.

Image from Searchengine.tvo.org

In early 2006, a short video was found on the China’s website and showing a middle-aged Chinese woman stomping a small kitten on the pavement with her stilettos until its death. Chinese internet users became seriously mad about her and made her the target for Human Flesh Search. Only six days after the first post about the video on the Mop, which is one of the Chinese Human Flesh Search engines, the kitten killer’s home, her name, her employers and even the cameraman who took the video, were all revealed publicly and they had to leave their hometown in the end.

Human Flesh Search Engine was originally developed for a good cause stimulating sharing a variety of information between humans, creating a search tool by human-powered rather than computer-driven. However, it is now used almost for a way to disclose every kind of private information of the public who deserve to be insulted in front of neighbor due to their undesirable behaviors.

Such examples of internet vigilantism indicate that the Internet could turn into the ruthless method of divulging private information of ordinary people to the world. This is derived from a lack of central control and a distinct characteristic of anonymity on the Internet. Before claiming secure protection for our privacy to Internet Service Providers(ISPs), it seems more important to look back how we have dealt with other people’s privacy, which is significant to them in the same way that we value on our information protection on the Web. Is it really crucial to act as a righteous person online by pointing out how other people behave poorly and rudely?  It is time to consider what is really right for justice in the Internet society. We cannot abuse the value of a liberty of expression.

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WikiRiot

Posted on March 9, 2012 by TharpS

Given our prior talks re: information accuracy and accessibility on the internet (recall our copyright discussions on e-book content and authorship rights, editing practices, open access, etc.) it seems natural that Wikipedia would, at some point, make its way onto our long blog radar.

 

Source: Wikipedia

As both an English professor and future information professional I’ve used, and instructed students on how to intelligently use, Wikipedia. A question that’s frequently posed to teachers by students, as well as to reference librarians by students, is as follows: Can I cite Wikipedia as a resource? The consensus: no. The site’s content is too easily edited, some of its information may be inaccurate, and the judgment of site gatekeepers has frequently been called into question. That said, is the site a good starting point for getting familiar with, and formulating ideas about, an unfamiliar topic? Absolutely. We’ve discussed this issue—one of user-generated content and its pros/cons—in class, and in February 2012 it became a widely discussed topic yet again (at least for a little while).

Enter Megan Erickson’s “Truth or Truthiness? How Wikipedia Decides” via The Big Think. In her post, Erickson presents and considers the story of Timothy Messer-Kruse, a historian (and professor at Bowling Green State University) who’s spent more than a decade researching the Haymarket riot and its subsequent 1886 trial. When Messer-Kruse attempted to correct what he called “a misleading assertion” about Haymarket on Wikipedia, his changes to the Haymarket entry on the encyclopedia were quickly deleted. And when Messer-Kruse looked into why the deletions were occurring, he was informed by a Wikipedia gatekeeper of the site’s undue weight policy, which states “If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.”

The problem: Messer-Kruse’s viewpoint wasn’t held by an extremely small minority—it was widely acknowledged to be truth, especially by other historians. Even after providing Wikipedia with reliable sources for his attempted changes, and after his book on the Haymarket riot was published, Messer-Kruse was met with tisk-tisks from the Wiki police.

That's Messer-Kruse--not a Wiki cop. | Source: Bgsu.edu/offices/mc/news/2012/news108238.html

Messer-Kruse’s Wiki plight no doubt raises questions about the site’s accuracy, as well as questions about its policies and governance. Simply put, who’s in charge of the information that’s set forth and allowed through on Wikipedia? And who has final say-so re: what’s considered worthwhile?

Let’s look at the site’s fundamentals. Wikipedia’s principles are called the Five Pillars. Per the site, those pillars are as follows: 1) Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; 2) Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view; 3) Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute; 4) editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner; and 5) Wikipedia does not have firm rules. As noted in Messer’s case, yes, anyone can modify Wikipedia, but that modification might not amount to much (if anything) in the long run. As Wikipedia notes in the text for its third pillar, “…all of your contributions will be mercilessly edited and redistributed.” Messer-Kruse’s were mercilessly edited, though they weren’t live for long. And at a couple junctures in the process, Messer-Kruse’s manners were called into question. Also merciless.

These practices may have something to do with why Wikipedia’s regular contributor numbers have dropped. In The Economist’s “Wikipledia: The promise and perils of crowdsourcing content,” the publication notes that “The number of regular contributors to Wikipedia’s English-language encyclopedia dropped from around 54,000 at its peak in March 2007 to some 35,000 in September 2010.” One of a couple things could be going on here: the drop in regular contributors could be due to the fact that content is slowly but surely being rounded out at Wikipedia. In other words, there’s nothing left to add for many of the entries on Wikipedia. Or, given Messer-Kruse’s struggle, gatekeepers are pulling the undue weight policy card more often.

In “The Wisdom of the Chaperones” Slate’s Chris Wilson writes, “Of course, Wikipedia requires some level of administration…. But that doesn’t explain the kind of territorialism—the authorial domination by 1 percent of contributors—on the site’s pages. Is this a necessary artifact of operating an open-access site? Or is it possible to build a clearinghouse for high-quality, user-generated content without giving too much power to elite users and secret sauces?”

Clearly, Wilson’s 2008 questions and assertions stand in opposition to Messer-Kruse’s later experience with Wikipedia. Rather than “authorial domination by 1 percent of contributors,” it seems Messer-Kruse encountered a situation more along the lines of extreme gatekeeping and stubborn editing practices. Which leads me to ask: how might “undue weight” be framed in different terms?

It seems that asking that type of questions about Wikipedia and the editing of its content may no longer be a good line of inquiry. Or that’s the case according to Rebecca Rosen’s “Does Wikipedia Have An Accuracy Problem?” at the Atlantic. Rosen writes, “We don’t want Wikipedia to be just as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica: We want it to have 55 times as many entries, present contentious debates fairly, and reflect brand new scholarly research, all while being edited and overseen primarily by volunteers.”

In her post, Rosen argues that the process of revising and teaching history is a very slow process—so why should Wikipedia’s editing of history be any different? She also asks, “How is Wikipedia to recognize when the status quo is wrong?” The rub with Rosen’s thinking is that Messer-Kruse’s attempted edits to the Haymarket Wiki entry were attempts to give clarity to history that was already there—the Haymarket entry was huge long before Messer-Kruse saw an error he thought to correct. The fact that his corrections were repeatedly denied because he was “an extremely small minority” puts the neutrality that Wikipedia so often congratulates itself for to shame. Again, Messer-Kruse is an expert in his field, repeatedly sent verifiable resource cites to Wikipedia, and waited years before trying to re-submit his changes.

Wikipedia does have an accuracy problem. Though its fifth pillar clearly states that there are no firm rules behind the site, it seems that there are, indeed, very firm rules in regard to editing. At this point, should subject experts decide to create a better open-access encyclopedia, it would be a welcome addition to the state of our current internet “reference” tools.

For further/future reference and listening, here’s Timothy Messer-Kruse’s February 2012 interview with NPR’s All Things Considered.

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OpenCourseWare: a value-added model?

Posted on March 9, 2012 by cmalin

This week, March 5-10, is Open Education Week! (http://www.openeducationweek.org/)

As we discussed in class on Wednesday, the last decade has seen an international push for open access to research and educational information. The Budapest Open Access Initiative, launched out of an internationally attended meeting in 2001, outlined a collaborative strategy to make research articles free on the Internet. Then, six years later, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration put forth a tall order to make educational resources open and free on the Web. Now in 2012, we have an increasingly visible OpenCourseWare movement and open access policies that are beginning to be legislatively backed and progressively researcher-supported.

But the road from those early wouldn’t-it-be-great initiatives to the reality of a more open access-aware society has been a bumpy one. So it is not surprising that as we celebrate the inaugural Open Education Week this week (March 5-10, 2012), many are asking if such openness can be realistically sustained? And, perhaps of more immediate importance, is it doing what it should – bringing educational resources to the disadvantaged and closing the digital divide?

Here in the U.S., the question of sustainability remains the most prominent. As I outlined in my earlier short blog post, U.S.-based legislation – in particular the 2008 NIH Open Access Policy – that requires a subset of taxpayer-supported research to be made publically available, is constantly threatened and more expansive policies remain in perpetual Congressional debate. The threat of such open-access policies to the current publishing business models has made them a hard sell to the larger, and thus influential, publishers.

But while OpenCourseWare hasn’t faced such openly staunch and vocal opposition, it too has emerged from its initial development phase a costly venture with not easily quantifiable results.

MIT OCW even needs donations to sustain its program (http://ocw.mit.edu/)

Born from their core and outwardly simplistic mission to “advance knowledge and educate students,” MIT has been the leader in the OpenCourseWare movement, launching a pilot program of 50 courses in 2002 that has grown to now include over 2,000 courses and more than 225 mirror sites around the world. Now part of a worldwide OpenCourseWare Consortium, MIT shares the OpenCourseWare stage with Tufts University, Yale, Stanford, and hundreds more higher education institutions worldwide. Yet even MIT who has made this initiative a high priority is facing the real burden of cost of its OpenCourseWare program. According to their Web site (and as a lead in to its page inviting donations), MIT OpenCourseWare states that each course costs about $10,000 to $15,000 to compile and publish. With over 200 courses published each year that is more than a $2 million investment for a service that is offered completely free to the public. While MIT has been able to maintain this cost, other universities not as well endowed may find it more difficult to justify such an expense.

It is the justification of these programs in relation to their great costs that has many people now looking critically at the overall OpenCourseWare model. While little opposition has emerged as to the overall concept of OpenCourseWare, debate on its value has manifested around three points.

1. Visitation doesn’t equate to education. Since OpenCourseWare launched, many have speculated that such courses would be rarely digested in their entirety, lowering the value of posting such an extensive amount of material when consumers are only truly looking for a sampling. With the release of MIT’s OpenCourseWare World impact report in 2006, this argument gained some weight. As Mark Guzdial, a professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, broke it down, 50% of all the visits to that institution’s OpenCourseWare site were single-page views and 70% of visitors only visited the site once. This hardly equates to in-depth consumption, which was, and still is, the desire of the MIT flagship program.

2. Does OpenCourseWare just give the already privileged additional opportunities to leap ahead? Perhaps more devastating in the MIT report, according to Guzdial in his 2010 assessment, was the lack of visitors from the developing world. Those visitors that did log on from the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa were again in-and-out visitors, utilizing the resources like they would Wikipedia to look up specific answers. Here the goal of closing the digital divide through OpenCourseWare seemed to be missing its mark.

Berkman Center Fellow and Harvard Graduate School of Education Ph.D. candidate, Justin Reich, takes this thought to the next level, basing three years of research thus far on answering the question of whether open education resources (OER) such as OpenCourseWare do in fact “disproportionately benefit disadvantaged students” as they have set out to do. His initial findings suggest that his “great fear” that already affluent students are in a better position to take advantage of these resources and thus will enlarge that gap between them and the less advantaged students is a valid concern. Digitally disadvantaged students, in his view, may end up perpetually playing catch up. See this video for a brief overview of his work in digital equity.

Reich’s fear, when you consider the popularity of OERs among the societally privileged, gains even more momentum. And it also raises the question of does OpenCourseWare make the traditional academic institution obsolete?

The edupunk movement, originally coined by Jim Groom, has evolved to include OpenCourseWare credentialing. (image linked from http://en.wikipedia.org/)

3. What matters: the instructor or the institution? The rise of the “edupunks”. Take the example of a handful of Stanford University professors, not acting under the formal Stanford OpenCourseWare offerings, that took the concept of OpenCourseWare to a new level this fall when they offered a trio of computer science courses that not only allowed participants to view lectures and course materials, but actually take quizzes, submit homework, and meet in virtual office hours. An astonishing 23,000 students took one of the course’s midterm exams via proctored satellite locations throughout the world. While none of these students will receive college credit, they are part of a growing group collectively called “edupunks”, those seeking coveted courses through the back door rather than through the gates of Ivy-league institutions. In an Inside Higher Ed blog post in January, Steve Kolowich posed the logical next question of who adds credibility to your education: an instructor well-respected in the field or the institution from which he happens to collect a paycheck? In this case, participants are betting on the instructors.

These questions, particularly around the digital divide and institution devaluation had me reassessing my own take on OpenCourseWare and university education in the digital age. My own higher education has spanned lectures on overhead transparencies to the emergence of PowerPoint to now course books and lectures delivered entirely online. When I first learned of MIT’s OpenCourseWare (~2003), it seemed like a wonderful offering for the disadvantaged (albeit still Internet-connected). OpenCourseWare was a skeleton of materials, hardly a fleshed out course. But now, with my own educational resources looking striking similar to the OpenCourseWare materials, I am now wondering what makes my paid-for education different than that of the freely offered OpenCourseWare options?

The answer is very little. But that means that OpenCourseWare now also has a certain expectation of prior educational experience in a format that may be familiar to those of us who have worked towards a degree or two, but it would be insurmountably foreign to the disadvantaged would-be participants. In this, I agree with Reich in his justifiable fear of an increased digital divide.

Dept of Education is co-sponsoring current open education initiatives

The U.S. Department of Education, however, does not share this pessimistic view of OpenCourseWare. They, like the OpenCourseWare Consortium, still see the potential in these open education initiatives to fill a gap that traditional mechanisms have been unable to address. They see the biggest hurdle as recruiting participants and have not yet considered the implications of the current model regarding the digital divide.

And that brings us to this week, Open Education Week, a co-sponsored event with the OpenCourseWare Initiative that aims to raise awareness about the good aspects of what OERs have to offer. It also signals the launch of the “Why Open Education Matters” video competition that invites submissions of videos that “explains the benefits and promise of Open Educational Resources for teachers, students and schools everywhere” and offers cash prizes. As we learned from an earlier post, the current administration has been working hard to promote transparency of information across multiple levels (from its own intelligence gathering to now this more benign push for open and accessible education).

While I do not dismiss such efforts – I continue to support information accessibility wholeheartedly – I think it is important to critically assess any method’s degree of success often and with the willingness to accept when things need to be adjusted. With a solid decade of OpenCourseWare behind us, now is the time to collect and study the data (Who has really used it? What tangible benefits can be observed? Where do these products fall short?) lest our technology once again leads us to incite separation rather than inclusion.

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Anonymous Arrests to Halt Hacktivism? Not Likely.

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Sara

Anonymous members in masks protesting Scientology. Credit: http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/anonymous-vs-Scientology-masked_protests.htm

Last week, members of the Lulz Security (LulzSec) faction of the Anonymous collective (a computer hacker group widely associated with acts of international “hacktivism”) were arrested and charged with hacking-related offenses.  The LulzSec group has claimed responsibility for several high-profile digital attacks, and the arrested members are currently accused of hijacking email accounts and stealing “information—including passwords,” from Fox Broadcasting, PBS, and global intelligence firm Stratfor.

Though Interpol’s arrest of 25 members is news in and of itself, the real revelation in the story came when it was discovered that the leader of LulzSec, Hector Xavier Monsegur, known by the username Sabu, collaborated with the FBI and was instrumental in facilitating the mass arrest. Though members have expressed shock and distress at Sabu’s actions, it is questionable whether these feelings will leave them down for the count.

The FBI claims that the arrested members were vital to LulzSec operation, but Anonymous downplays the effect the arrests will have on the collective. “People get arrested from Anonymous all the time,” says one member to CNET. However, Cole Stryker, an author who writes about Anonymous, asserts that “it will be difficult for Anons to work collaboratively now that their ranks are undoubtedly infiltrated by feds.”

I doubt that either Anonymous or LulzSec will lay dormant to lick its wounds, and the fact that members of Anonymous have already come together to hack Spanish security firm Panda Labs in protest of the arrests further supports Anonymous’ claim that it remains unaffected. Anonymous is simply so large and amorphous that even large-scale arrests fail to have a concrete effect on the group’s actions. Like it or hate it, hacktivism is here to stay.

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Employers and Schools Request Log-in Information (An Matter of Privacy)

Posted on March 9, 2012 by JocsonA
mw 630 reddit sportztawk job application

"Do you have any webpage accounts... If so, list username and password here." Application for clerical job at NC Police Dept. Image from tecca.com

In class we’ve discussed employers and law enforcement checking out social networking profiles to screen for unsavory behavior. Facial recognition technology can help police officers identify individuals in pictures (remember Nicola’s class presentation?), and hiring managers can use a “Facebook Score” to predict how successful someone would be at a job. Stories like this might influence someone to alter his or her online profiles to look more professional or to make use of privacy settings (however complicated those may be).

Here’s another thing to worry about:

Some organizations are taking pre-screening a step further, wanting full access to those profiles. Earlier this week, MSNBC.com posted an article, “Govt. agencies, colleges, demand applicants’ Facebook passwords”, reporting that employers–including government agencies–are requesting that applicants provide their log-in information for online accounts including Facebook, Twitter, and personal email.

Robert Collins

Robert Collins. Image from Switched.com

One cited offender is Maryland’s Department of Corrections, whose practice of having applicants fill out their application with personal log-in information was stopped after a complaint by ACLU last year. An employee, Robert Collins, who had been on leave returned to work only to be told that he could not come back without disclosing his Facebook and email usernames and passwords (Listen/watch him speak about his story). ACLU picked up his case and is currently backing legislation to ban future instances like this one. The MD Department of Corrections has since resorted to “shoulder-surfing”, asking the applicants to log in onto their Facebook accounts during the job interview. Complying with request is voluntary, but job seekers often agree to the Facebook review hoping for a better chance of being hired.

Also mentioned in the MSNBC article are college athletes because, at some schools, they don’t have a choice about giving full access to their personal accounts. For example, the University of North Carolina requires student-athletes to name one coach or administrator who is given full access to and regularly monitors their social networking sites. If not, they don’t get to play.

I acknowledge that potential employers or recruiters can discover a lot of information about someone by checking out his or her Facebook, possibly finding that a candidate might be engaging in questionable activities. I also concede that if an individual has not implemented privacy settings that limit public access to a Facebook profile, that public information is fair game to be Googled, if another decided to conduct an online search.

However, asking for one’s password and full access is clearly crossing a line. Asking someone to log into his or her personal account during an interview is also intrusive. It was difficult for me to find any authorities with statements defending these actions, which might be making a point. The MD Department of Corrections has been mostly quiet since ACLU’s first complaint and subsequent legal action, and athletic departments practicing strict social media policies are also choosing not to comment (see MSNBC article). Some reasoning was initially offered to defend themselves. In the case of the MD Dept of Corrections, these were precautions supposedly to prevent the hiring of local gang members. University of North Carolina’s policy was put in place in response to student Marvin Austin, whose tweets suggested he was taking advantage of extra perks from agents and marketing representatives.

Requesting or requiring full access of personal online accounts is an invasion of privacy and also an encroachment on free speech. I see this as abuse of position of authority. What happened to state and federal background checks being enough to alert employers of shady behavior? Wouldn’t full access to someone’s personal accounts lead to potential discrimination based on information that may not have been disclosed otherwise, such as religion, sexual orientation, and political views? Having full access to a personal account goes way beyond which information would be shared in a traditional interview. It would be like going to someone’s house, reading their diary and mail, and listening in on conversations with their friends.

It’s obvious this is problematic.

Additionally, I find it troublesome that individuals are conceding to giving their log-in information. Even when something important is at stake—a job, a spot on the team—questioning the legal and ethical aspects of an intake process should come into play when someone is asking for your password. Perhaps our constantly connected culture and post-9/11 policies have created an environment in which people feel like they can and should share all of the personal details of their lives.

A couple states are introducing bills to ban behavior like that of the MD Department of Corrections. And with the attention that this issue is getting in the media in recent weeks, I expect that this will find itself in the federal courts in due time.

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Experts Claim that Open WiFi Threatens our Constitutional Right to Privacy—But Does It Really?

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Sara

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure by requiring that law enforcement agencies obtain a judicially sanctioned warrant supported by probable cause before conducting a search and seizure operation. However, there are instances in which it is lawful to search without a warrant, including in cases where the citizen has no reasonable expectation of privacy.  But how far does our right to privacy extend into the digital realm? Is it possible that when we connect to open WiFi networks, we may be tacitly agreeing to give up our constitutional right to privacy?

As early as 1890, Brandeis and Warren asserted that advances in technology must change our concept of “privacy,” and in his article “Rethinking Reasonable Expectations of Privacy in Online Social Networks,” Newell addresses the need to reflect on our reasonable expectation of privacy in online social networks. “Despite what many feel are reasonable expectations to the contrary,” Newell writes, “current privacy rulings have allowed personal information to be freely ‘proclaimed from the house-tops’.” Indeed, several court rulings have reflected that privacy protection does not apply to information posted in online social networks. While it may be relatively intuitive (at least, for the “digital native”) to assume that it is unreasonable to believe that information willingly posted to a semi-public forum qualifies as “private,” the topic of one’s constitutional right to privacy becomes less so when dealing with data mined from one’s home computer through an open wireless network.

The 2010 case U.S. v. Ahrndt is the first instance of a court ruling regarding reasonable expectation of privacy in an unprotected wireless network. It dates back to 2007, when the defendant’s neighbor accessed his wireless account and found child pornography in his unsecured iTunes shared folder. The defendant’s lawyers argued that the warrant that enabled the subsequent search of his computer was enabled by evidence provided by his neighbor’s intrusion, and that this intrusion violated his Fourth Amendment right to privacy. The judge agreed that the salient issue in the case was whether or not one does have a Fourth Amendment “expectation of privacy in the contents of a shared iTunes library on a personal computer connected to an unsecured home wireless network.”

The court ruled against the defendant, holding that though “as a general matter an individual has an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his personal computer,” because the files were located in a shared folder that was accessed via an unsecured wireless network, Ahrndt did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and thus he had no constitutionally protected privacy right. However, the legal brief clearly states that the fact that the wireless network was unsecured “does not alone eliminate defendant’s right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment [emphasis mine].” Despite this statement, some bloggers still continue to misrepresent the court’s ruling, minimizing the fact that the files were located in a shared folder and claiming that it sets a tone that implies that users of open wireless networks give up their Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

Thomas O’Toole from the E-Commerce and Tech Law Blog is one legal analyst that implies that this ruling sets the precedent that our right to privacy is not constitutionally protected when we fail to password-protect our home wireless network. He titles one related blog post “Court Finds Constitutional Significance in Defendant’s Failure to Password-Protect Home Wireless Network,” again emphasizing the unprotected wireless network over the fact that Ahrndt’s files were in his iTunes shared folder. He further tells readers, “the failure to password-protect a wireless network can diminish the extent to which the Fourth Amendment protects computers and information on that network from government searches.”

O’Toole cites the somewhat similar case of U.S. v. Ganoe, in which law enforcement accessed the defendant’s LimeWire account to access child pornography on his computer. The court found that the defendant’s constitutional right to privacy had not been violated, though the defendant claimed that his sharing was unintentional. However, the issue salient in Ganoe’s case is, as stated in the legal brief, that “Ganoe ‘knew or should have known that the software might allow others to access his computer’… [and] was explicitly warned before completing the installation that the folder into which files are downloaded would be shared with other users in the peer-to-peer network [emphasis mine].” The issue was not, then, the open wireless network, but that Ganoe installed software that, again, “explicitly warned” the user that his files would be shared on a peer-to-peer network.

Similarly, in U.S. v. Ahrndt, the salient issue was not only the open wireless network, but also the fact that the files were in a folder designed for peer-to-peer sharing. Furthermore, in 2007, both iTunes and Mac OS X required users to actively take steps to share the iTunes library. This is illustrated in the images seen below.

In both cases, it is reasonable to argue that the defendants were or should have been aware that they were publicly sharing their files.

Though O’Toole wisely points out in his blog post that “an open [wireless] network is an invitation for piggy-backers and data thieves,” it is not reasonable to assume that connecting to an unprotected wireless network transforms one’s computer into a public place where members of the general public can freely access our private data. Connecting to an unsecured wireless network usually only requires one click, and some computer operating systems (like Mac OS X) do not warn users that files may be unsecure. This is vastly different from the voluntary file sharing that Ganoe and Ahrndt participated in, which, respectively, warned the user that files would be shared or required the user to take steps to enable file sharing. On the contrary, as Bradley Mitchell points out, it is relatively easy to set up an unsecured network, and “configuring [a network’s] security features can be time-consuming and non-intuitive.”

Mike Masnick of Techdirt agrees that “most users have no idea [open wireless networks] are less secure” and “wonder[s] why the type of network used should really determine the level of Fourth Amendment protections.” One commenter likens an intrusion into one’s computer over an open wireless network to an intrusion into one’s house and asks, “If I have my front door unlocked but shut, do you have the legal right of entry?” Unless one explicitly opens one’s house to the public,  “everyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their home.”

Currently, users should retain their constitutional right to privacy on open wireless networks. As Judge King pointed out, “as a general matter an individual has an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his personal computer,” and in the cases outlined above, the fact that the defendants used open wireless networks was not enough to eliminate the right to privacy. Unless a user explicitly agrees to open his computer to the public, one’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy should not be jeopardized.

Certainly, reasonable expectation of privacy is held in question in the event that the user’s computer operating system warns users of security risks when connecting to unsecured networks. Windows OS, for instance, warns users when connecting to unsecured wireless networks that security may be compromised, and asks users to agree to “connect anyway.” In instances such as those, because of the explicit agreement to “connect anyway,” the user’s reasonable expectation of privacy is diminished. However, the fact that some operating systems warn users that the connection may be unsecure does not diminish all users’ expectation of privacy.

Though society’s perception may yet change, currently the general public does not have a realistic grasp of online security best practices and thus may not fully understand the security risks of connecting to an unsecured wireless network. Therefore, we cannot assume that society recognizes a lower expectation of privacy on an open wireless network. Unless the user explicitly agrees to access an unsecured wireless network even when warned of the risks, reasonable expectation of privacy is not diminished.

Though court rulings have set the precedent that there is no expectation of privacy in the contents of shared folders, this is far from abolishing our constitutional right to privacy on open wireless networks. Courts have thus far held that reasonable expectation of privacy is diminished when connected to an open wireless network, but there is no current precedent that eradicates the right to privacy. However, we must always be aware that expectations of privacy change over time, and it is certainly possible—even likely—that, eventually, it will not be reasonable to expect our data to be private when connected to unprotected wireless networks.

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When to care about privacy

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Eli

When we had Snowmageddon 2012 here in Seattle back in January, I spent one of the days when I ordinarily would have been in class blissfully reading a trashy romance novel.  (What can I say? Sometimes I just get a craving for an overwrought melodrama full of sexist stereotypes and heaving bosoms.) I’m not exactly ashamed of my taste in reading material, but it’s also not something that I want widely known about me, particularly, say, by folks who don’t know me well enough to understand the critical feminist gaze that I bring to my reading. it was really very engaging.At any rate, I posted on Facebook about my afternoon of furtive reading for the  amusement of my friends, who duly poked fun at me, and that was the end of it.  

 

Nick Bergus recently found that one of his humorous Facebook updates—in this case, sharing a link to an enormous container of personal lubricant— had been turned into a sponsored link by Facebook.

  As he points out, this is an amusing, annoying, but not terribly surprising, breach of his privacy, which it turns out he had agreed to allow by using Facebook. I’m glad that my taste in trashy novels wasn’t noticed by Amazon so that they could start using my endorsement to peddle a romance novel backlist on Facebook, but until I read about Nick’s unfortunate newfound infamy, I didn’t fully realize that they could. This is the problem with privacy policies and terms of service: without an explicit connection to real consequences, in a world where sharing information online is the overwhelming norm, it can be hard to understand what happens to the private information that we post so blithely.

 As we’ve discussed all quarter, privacy is a complex issue that we struggle with as reasonable expectations of privacy are changing rapidly. Sure, we happily hand over our personal information to the websites that we live our lives through, but we as consumers don’t always think through the implications of those privacy breaches.  Often, handing over our personal information isn’t a big deal until something shocking happens to jolt us out of it, and we’re not always very good at looking at the big picture when it comes to privacy.

Cory Doctorow, in one of his latest columns for the Guardian lays out some insights into why online privacy isn’t taken as seriously as it ought to be. He points out that privacy breaches rarely produce instantaneous ramifications. Rather, it can take time for the slow accumulation of data to add up to the serious erosion of privacy that can cause obvious problems, by which point many users have become quite desensitized to privacy disclosures.  He makes a strong case that privacy needs to be treated as a public health concern; something that the government ought to address through infrastructure to support the learning of good online practices, something which I wholeheartedly support.

 We need regulations and advocacy to help us navigate the confusing and conflicting world of online privacy, and what to get concerned about and what not to. An interesting article in Time magazine last year made the distinction between data mining and breaches of online privacy: it’s about control: “Many data-mining companies made this argument to me: How can I complain about having my Houston trip data-mined when I’m posting photos of myself with a giant mullet and a gold chain on Facebook and writing columns about how I want a second kid and my wife doesn’t? Because, unlike when my data is secretly mined, I get to control what I share. Even narcissists want privacy.”

Exactly. I don’t mind sharing my embarassing romance novel habit with my friends, but I sure as heck don’t want friends-of-friends or professional connections on Facebook seeing it. Most of us do care about our privacy, and care deeply, despite some who claim that “normal people don’t care about privacy.”  “Normal” is not an identity that I claim with any regularity, and I guess by virtue of writing this post I could be considered both a blogger AND a privacy zealot, I am deeply offended and troubled by Rosoff’s sneeringly dismissive article. His claim that the privacy infringements of various companies (such as Path, as we heard about earlier) just aren’t that bad is both patronizing and short sighted.

 Some folks make an argument that, as privacy is rapidly being made obsolete by changing technology and privacy norms, we should instead embrace and be comforted by the idea of transparency: if nothing is private, than privacy doesn’t matter, and so it doesn’t matter if you’re watching me, because a) I know that you’re watching me, and b) I’m watching you right back. While it’s true that conceptions of what is and is not possible to keep private are changing (for one thing, the amount of data that third parties are capable of gathering about is us staggering, and increasing all the time), transparency is not the answer.

Bruce Schneier’s dissection of the “transparency” solution rightly points out the critical role that power imbalances play in this discussion… another element that Rosoff ignores. By ‘normal people’, Rosoff really means ‘privileged people,’ people who don’t have as much to fear about privacy breaches. Our class discussions about the responsibilities of making available sensitive personal data, such as domestic partnership registries, speak to this: if you aren’t gay, of course you don’t have to worry about personal information about your sexual orientation being revealed without your knowledge. As Schneier goes on to point out, mutual transparency isn’t an effective solution when there is a power imbalance discrepancy between the parties.

As we have been reading for class, privacy policies on the web are a vast, mostly unregulated thicket of imposing legal jargon that are created through market pressures rather than systematic legal regulation. To the common user (or “normal people,” I should say!), these policies are unnoticed or vaguely understood, and as Nehf writes, “until privacy becomes a salient attribute influencing consumer choice, Web site operators will continue to take and share more personal information than consumers would choose to provide in a more transparent exchange.” In other words, until we as consumer start understanding exactly what is going on with our data, and start paying more attention in large numbers, folks like Rosoff will be able to make the claim that privacy doesn’t matter.

Transparency isn’t enough, here. I know what Facebook is doing with my data (or I know at least some of what they could be doing), but because I’m not explicitly presented with the knowledge of how my personal data can be used, it’s entirely too easy for me to forget about how it can be used against me.  I agree with Nehf and Doctorow’s arguments, and think that there is a moral imperative for governmental regulation of privacy policy. For all of my righteous indignation at Rosoff’s description of normal people as not caring about privacy, there is an element of uncomfortable truth there. I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t care about their privacy, but I think it’s true that many of us are not as actively engaged as we could be.

I’ll leave you with this short video of Cory Doctorow, who argues passionately for many of the points I’m making here. He describes how social media sites encourage the hemorrhaging of personal information, and the need to be aware of how one’s information is  being used.

Doctorow on Privacy

As he puts it, the most powerful weapon for securing the privacy of individuals is to get those individuals—normal and abnormal a like—to care about our privacy. Exactly.

 

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The Stricter Law than DMCA: Three Strikes Law makes ISPs Surveillant

Posted on March 9, 2012 by RhaE

During this quarter, we have covered a variety of social issues related to our class topics. The most impressive event to me was a 24 hour blackout by major websites against U.S.’s anti-piracy legislation; SOPA and PIPA. Fortunately, SOPA and PIPA are hibernating now thanks to a massive protest, but the argument will be continuing unless online piracy entirely disappears. Actually, South Korea, which I already presented its small part of the internet surveillance system, has the law just like SOPA, so-called Three Strikes Law which can deny copyright infringers access to the Internet.

Since the basic principle of the Internet is sharing information by transmitting and duplicating contents, it is easy to violate online content’s copyright regardless of whether or not it was intended. So, many countries have implemented a law to prevent such copyright infringement and the most famous examples are Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA) in the United States, and another stronger law is Three Strikes law in some other countries, including Korea.

Image from Savedazzle.com

In the United States, the government encourages Online Service Providers(OSPs) in self-regulation and cooperation between copyright holders and OSPs, instead of giving them obligation for a heavy responsibility for copyright. As we covered in class, Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA) exempts the group of OSPs from any copyright infringement liability as long as they follow certain requirements according to DMCA Safe Harbor. If an OSP complies with rules and notification procedures, it will be exempted from legal liability to its own customers’ any violation. On the contrary, Three strikes law is a much stricter rule than DMCA, by burdening Internet Service Providers(ISPs) with controlling customers about their illegal content uses. It is also called as ‘Graduated response’, which basically imposes a series of penalties on copyright infringers that could lead to disconnection of Internet service. France, New Zealand, Ireland, South Korea, and Australia have already implemented the law now and United Kingdom passed the law in 2010 and it will take effect next year.

Image from Biladi.fr

France set the Three strikes law, also known as HADOPI law, in 2009. President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed the toughest crackdown on people who are accused of copying music, movies or other content illegally on the Internet. It regulates Internet access based on the compliance with copyright laws. It gives users who shares files illegally three chances before disconnecting the Internet or imposing fines. After three times warning, ISPs have to suspend user’s internet connection for a certain period time, from two months to one year. In the past two years, 822,000 email warnings were sent to suspected offenders and 68,000 second warnings were followed through registered mail. Now, 165 cases are in the third stage with possibility of fines amount to $2,000 each as well as disconnection of their Internet for a month.

The United Kingdom, where world’s most diverse and successful music industry is found, has passed the Digital Economy Act that is aiming to stop internet users from sharing content illegally. It allows ISPs to tackle file-sharing for protecting copyright holders. Ofcom, the government-approved authority, will enforce ISPs to police their users’ internet uses by monitoring IP addresses and send notifications if any violation is found on a website. The process is similar to France’s law; warning letters will be sent to internet users whose IP addresses are associated with illegal downloading. Anyone who receives three letters in 12 months could be sued by the copyright owner. Even though it has been challenging by ISPs, TalkTalk and BT retail, UK recently took the extra step to the Three strikes policy.

Korea’s government is exerting more powers to control both ISPs and general users than any other countries. South Korea is the first country to enforce a system that terminates the Internet connections of people accused of copyright infringement up to six months. ISPs will be asked to shut down their websites or suspend services after a third notice over copyright infringement, regardless of whether or not the copyright holders complained about it. The administration has an authority to order the closing of online message boards or suspending Internet accounts from ISPs. This is notable distinction from other countries in that the government can force ISPs to stop a certain service, such as free message boards. Consequently, ISPs have to censor all contents uploaded on their websites.

According to the recent report, Three Strike law has influenced decrease in the number of copyright infringement cases. File sharing has dropped significantly in France during the past two years and sales and revenues of digital product market are growing as well. In addition, the law has led to a 22.5 percent increase in purchases from Apple’s iTunes. There is an opinion that since the number of people who got mails under the law is low, compared to the actual number of piracy, it is merely an effective tool to protect online copyright. A previous post “ACTA: The SOPA/PIPA Heard Round The World” also introduces the group supporting a stronger law, such as SOPA and PIPA, for securing a market.

I understand that the law could decrease online piracy and prevent illegal uses by threatening people in the name of law. However, I am still worried about the worst scenario of the law, negatively affects each group; general users, a government, copyright holders, and ISPs, respectively. Some people voice that the law infringes basic human right of Internet access. UN expressed their concerns on their report that Internet disconnection is a violation of human rights because it restricts the type of media that individuals are allowed to use to express themselves. In addition to users’ perspective, I am also thinking about the possibility of a government not only having arbitrary power that could be used to shake ISPs’ business but also misusing the law as a method of censoring the Internet. Copyright holders, who mainly need to work for creating content, would turn into a watch dog for illegal uses of their contents on the Web.

The most serious problem seems related to Internet Service Providers. ISPs play a role in creating an online market place and developing business as a content holder. But under the Three strike law, they are required to monitor their service users. The law burdens them with the high cost for implementation and gives them a chance to manage a surveillance program to obey the rule. Compared to DMCA, the Three strikes law imposes an excessive responsibility on ISPs about copyright issues and it makes them waste their time and money, by watching for every illegal distribution. Eventually, it will fail to accomplish the initial goal that diminishes filesharing of illegal content and promotes legal creative activites.

Image from Digitaltrends.com

It is always difficult to satisfy every single party involved in an issue when it comes to the enactment of laws. However, the most important thing to keep in mind is to maintain an original goal of the law. In the case of Three strikes law, its primary purpose is to build a safe environment for all kinds of creators to represent their works on the Internet, not to censor every internet use. Due to heavy liability on ISPs, users can be  more threatened by internet surveillance from ISPs. I would say that such intimidation will end up limiting the range of sharing arts so users become afraid of freely participating in web-based cultural activities. That will cause regression of online cultural development, which seems to me more serious than copyright infringement. Although SOPA and PIPA legislation is now being reconsidered, understanding how Three Strikes law has affected each country will be helpful in preparing for further protests or closure of the war in America.

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Genderist Advertising and Privacy

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Nichole

We have all heard about and been ranted to about the evils of “Big Brother” watching all of us from some far-off location but Techdirt writer Michael Ho pointed out how advertisers are getting in on the “Big Brother” action in a non-Internet way: via targeted ads on billboards in large metropolitan areas. He alludes to 1984, (which is what first caught my attention since the class discussion of Apple’s commercial) and others have referred to the ads from the movie Minority Report that respond to the viewers present in front of ads bearing cameras.

Here in America, these targeted ad billboards are attributed to Immersive Labs. Sarah Kessler of Mashable.com reports that the smart billboard technology was introduced at TechStars’ Demo Day 2011 in New York. She describes the software as combining “video analytics with environmental factors and Twitter and Forsquare information” to choose target optimized advertisements. She continues, listing locations in the U.S. where these boards have been tested including a Prana store in Boulder, St. Louis Rams stadium and JFK International. The program is able to analyze its success and adapt to improve its targeting over time.

The creepiness isn’t just here in the U.S. though, Techdirt’s article points to a new £30k billboard on Oxford Street in London with an ad that responds to the viewers’ gender. According to The Drum, “Women will be treated to a 40 sec plug for children’s charity Plan UK which is promoting its ‘Because I’m a Girl’ campaign to ensure girls in the developing world receive an education. Men on the other hand will be directed to the organisations website in an attempt to show them what it means to be stripped of ‘basic choices’.” (note: the video is not the 40 second version).

Plan UK advertisement at London bus stop billboard

Appropriated from: The Star http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1136586–a-plan-uk-billboard-in-london-that-knows-your-gender-and-age-creepy-or-cool

Regarding the general creepiness factor, Megan Garber of the Atlantic makes a very important point: “we tend to talk about interactive billboards—and ‘augmented reality,’ and all the other euphemisms we’ve come up with to describe the creepy-cool collision between the physical and the digital—in the conditional sense. That would be cool. That would be creepy.” I have caught myself thinking of these kinds of things in the conditional, the only reason it has caught up and become real to me now is the blaring presence of an obscene amount of traffic and facial-recognition cameras near my home.

While many of the comments to articles covering these new ads contain the usual fool who is posting merely to vent or stir up malcontent seemingly for their own amusement, one person (yvonn 75574) made an interesting  point concerning transsexuals. The facial recognition and programming for these camera-sporting billboards go by the spacing of a person’s facial features with reportedly, up to 90% accuracy and cannot account for women with harder features or men who appear more effeminate—“and it doesn’t apologize for its mistakes.”

Transgender injusticeAppropriated from: http://jezebel.com/trans-people/

While a person’s gender seems a pretty innocuous trait to exploit for targeted ads, I can see this becoming problematic for a person who has changed their gender and wishes to maintain their true identity as the new gender. It could potentially be emotionally upsetting to receive the “wrong” ad, to both the viewer it is “targeted” for and for those looking-on. Perhaps this is extreme just yet since the technology is only 90% effective, but this smacks of Warren and Brandeis’ argument for the right to be let alone.

A surface covered with gender-specific advertising

Appropriated from: http://www.genderads.com/

In a previous post, “The Right to be Anonymous(ly tracked): A Case Study of Carrier IQ,” the video clip of Ron Swanson and the Computer reflects similar dissatisfaction with targeted advertising over the Internet using cookies. It seems there really is no hiding from any of these Big Brothers.

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Socially awkward Penguin [publishing group], or why libraries and e-book publishers need a new system.

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Rachael

In early February, it was announced that Penguin would no longer be selling e-books through OverDrive, Inc. With the number of libraries that use OverDrive as their e-book privider, in effect, this means that Penguin will no longer be selling e-books to libraries. This move, by the publisher numerous bestsellers such as Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, came as a bit of a surprise, but it was by no means unprecedented.

A real socially awkward penguin. Source: making the rounds on the internet.

In the flack between Penguin, OverDrive, and Amazon really is really between the three companies and libraries just happen to be an unfortunate casualty. However, there are other examples in recent news that indicate that publishers truly are fearful of making e-books available for free checkout in libraries. The fears of publishers are complex, numerous, and varied across the industry, but they ultimately come down to the issue of “friction”. This term has been used a lot recently in discussion of e-books and libraries, so I think it is important to take a moment to understand the concept.

In a nutshell, when publishers talk about friction they are talking about the degree of difficulty in checking out library books. For example, when a library patron wants a to check out a paper copy of the latest bestseller, they must travel to the library, check it out (or more likely be added to the hold list), read it in a set amount of time, and travel back to the library to return it. According to a Simon & Schuster executive interviewed for a New York Times article this is “the reason publishers didn’t worry about lost sales from library lending of print books is that buying a book is easier — no return trip is needed to the bookstore — and the buyer has a physical collectible after reading it.”

Publishers are also concerned with longevity of an e-book compared to a physical copy. This fear is that when a library purchases an e-book (or technically the license to an e-book) it will never wear out and need to be replaced, therefore publishers, and in turn authors, will lose money over the life of the book, which theoretically could be forever. This fear has led some publishers, Harper Collins for example, to institute caps on the number times an e-book may be checked out, or, as with Random House, to increase the cost for library e-books in exchange for unlimited check-outs.

Source: Marin Independent Journal via: http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/05/hcsrpl.html

I feel, along with many librarians, that the fears of publishers regarding e-books in libraries may be unfounded. I have long believed that publishers need not view libraries as competitors for sales, and new findings support this. As described in a presentation of the statistics related to “power patrons”, those cardholders who visit the library weekly and drive most circulation, findings show that 40% of these patrons purchased a book they previously borrowed, and more that 60% of these users purchased other titles by an author they discovered at the library. Also, 80% of these patrons read books in multiple formats. (A video of this fascinating presentation is available here.) In light of these findings, publishers really need not worry about loss of sales to libraries, and I believe they should even embrace this “power patron” demographic as a potential untapped market. And in fact a move to more friction in e-book lending may have a detrimental effect on the sales to library patrons. Michael Kelly put this very well in a post on the Library Journal’s Digital Shift blog:

The desire to increase this friction may lead the recalcitrant publishers to demand a business model in which they will only make their ebooks available to public libraries if they are used in the library or if a patron is required to bring their device to the library and load the title onto the device in the library, then bring it home. (Read the full post here.)

Likewise, while HarperCollins’ 26-loan cap has gained some acceptance, especially in light of Penguin’s recent move, I do not believe that the reasoning behind such policies is sound. Most bound books are not likely to be worn out enough to be removed from a collection after so few checkouts. At the Durango Public Library in Durango, Colorado, where I worked for the last three years six copies of the first book in the Harry Potter series have between 40 and 100 checkouts each (with requisite mending every so often to extend their usability). In an April 2011 interview with the blog No Shelf Required, Joseph Sanchez the director of the Red Rocks Community College in Colorado, mentioned this as well. He noted that libraries tend to mend books for as long as they can and really only get rid of items in their collection when they are no longer read. (The full interview is available here.)

It is time for all stakeholders to get together and really develop a better model for e-books. This can be done. In 2011, the Douglas County Libraries in Colorado entered into agreements with three publishers to purchase e-books outright. The library now has much better management of the e-books. (Read a Library Journal article on the agreement here.) This arrangement is an attempt to replicate the way in which libraries purchase and control printed books. While I was unable to find any data on how this arrangement is working now, it may be too soon in the pilot program to tell, it is a remarkable example of libraries and publishers setting aside their difference in order to get content to the patrons, which ultimately is everyone’s goal.

I think it is time for big publishers to stop being so fearful of libraries, and I think is time for librarians to take a more proactive role in the crafting innovative and equitable models for e-book lending, because when publishers and libraries fight, really everyone loses.

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