There’s been a lot of talk this week about internet security and crime, and with that talk of course comes discussion of hackers and their exploits. But hacking as an activity and hackers subculture predates the personal computer, and even the internet, first becoming popular right around the time that ARPANET was being built.  Of course, computers at that time were exclusively large mainframes in the hands of government agencies, universities and large corporations, so the earliest hackers concerned themselves with the phone system.  The activity at the time was referred to as “phreaking” (phone+freaking) and it’s practioners as “phreaks.”

At that time the phone system was operated by automatic switches introduced in the 1950s, which Wikipedia notes as being when “the general population began, for the first time, to interact with computing power on a large scale.” This system was operated by tone dial, meaning that certain sound frequencies communicated information to the computerized switches.  People later found out that by making a certain sound, they could trick AT&T into giving them free calls.  It was later discovered by one phreak named John Draper that a toy whistle given away with Cap’n Crunch cereal made that particular tone, giving him his phreak pseudonym.  Draper went on to develop the blue box, which was capable of reproducing that tone as well as others, and whole subculture developed around not only making free calls, but seeing how much they could manipulate the telephone network.

A Blue Box constructed and used by Steve Wozniak

After an expose in Esquire magazine in 1971, phreaking became much more widespread, and telephone companies did their best to bring charges against phreaks, with some success.  Many phreaks went own to become involved in the homebrew movement which birthed the PC, including John Draper, who became a mentor and inspiration to Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.  Nowadays, phreaking is largely a thing of the past thanks to the internet, cellular telephony, and an all-digital switching interface.  This Discovery Channel documentary on phreaking and hacking is a fascinatig look at this subculture and its ancestors.

This week I’m using the blog as a space to fully articulate the issues I have with the iPad, and why I think it’s a waste of money and time.  For all of this talk of how revolutionary and spectacular it is, I just don’t see it.  It’s essentially a combination of an eBook reaer, a movie player and an iPod.  There’s an advantage to having those three features in one, I suppose, but is it worth the investment of several hundred dollars? I think not.

Some specific issues include the fact that the iPad lacks the ability to play flash videos, which make up the majority of videos on the internet (Although this might get resolved).  Among other issues, the applications for the iPad are significantly more expensive than their iPod and iPhone equivalents, and what you’re getting are largely the same programs.  Third of all, it has a touch keyboard, and I’ve never had a positive experience with any of those.

Maybe my hostility towards the iPad is borne out of my feelings about smartphones.  I don’t really want constant Facebook and Email updates to my phone.  In all honesty, I don’t want to be that connected all of the time.  Owning an iPad is like carrying a closed-source, semi-functional laptop with you at all times.  I’m not paying $500 or more for that.

(Cracked video feature Hate By Numbers)

The article mostly deals with physical or logistical threats to the internet, like the possibility of trans-oceanic cables being severed or a mass spambot mobilization, but the final two on the list deal much more with the types of things that make people like John Perry Barlow loose sleep at night.

#2 (These are written in reverse order) on the list is entitled “The Internet is Main Street, USA, and Wal-Mart just moved in.”  What is expressed here is a fear that the internet is being taken over by large business interests and internet conglomerates.  This is articulated here:

“What we’re seeing now is a variation of the strip-mall effect as seen in countless small towns in the U.S.  . . .

No one was going to walk from Laura’s Bakery to Smith and Sons Light Bulbs to Barney’s Pantstravaganza when they could get all of their shopping done with one trip to Wal-Mart. So not only were the old stores run out of business, but it became pointless to ever open a new one. The flow of shopper traffic had forever been diverted.

The same thing is happening on the Internet, with sites like Facebook taking up the role of big-box retailers. For instance, in order to make themselves more attractive to advertisers, Facebook put together an initiative called Facebook Connect. It allows users to sign into Hulu, Digg and more with the same ID they use to log into Facebook.

By linking their user accounts together, all of these websites have managed to create a “closed” environment, a one-stop Internet mall that provides them with an endless feedback loop of traffic.”
#1 addresses Net Neutrality, but intriguingly, it stops far short of coming down in favor of it, addresing both sides of the issue, stating the following:

“If you’re not familiar with the subject, basically right now we have net neutrality. ISPs are essentially dumb pipes and they don’t know or care if that data you just downloaded was in the form of historical documents from local university libraries, or an encyclopedic collection of Brazilian fecal fetish pornography. The Internet today is the wonderful, endlessly fascinating place it is in large part due to the fact that it’s been free and open its entire life.

ISP’s want to change that, mainly because different applications use massively different resources. There’s no comparing the stress that downloading HD movies puts on their network versus, say, reading a Cracked article’s worth of text. So they want to change their infrastructure and how they bill you for it.

The problem is this also would let them slap on all sorts of controls they never could before, such as blocking competing websites, or signing exclusive deals for content. After all, Comcast both provides Internet access to millions and owns NBC, so taking away net neutrality could let them block competing networks and that could turn ugly fast. It’s thus no surprise that a variety of semi-respected sources, including the chief of the FCC, are standing up for net neutrality.”

Nonetheless, the article recognizes another side of the debate:

“The ISPs aren’t just being greedy here. Bandwidth costs a lot of fucking money and usage is growing at a retarded rate. For instance, most of the video game consoles now offer HD movie and TV show streaming, and soon they may give up physical media completely to stream all of the games you buy directly to the system (because it would kill off the used games market that they claim is eating all of their profits). Everybody is quickly replacing their faucets with fire hoses.

If net neutrality stays and the ISP’s can’t offer multiple tiers of service, then they say they will have to use an even more annoying solution: putting an end to unlimited plans completely and making you pay for every gigabyte of that Bittorrent download of every single episode of The Simpsons. And you won’t be able to simply switch ISPs unless you find one run by some eccentric billionaire who feels like giving away his money for the good of the people.

The problem is that what we want out of this situation–cheap, infinitely scalable bandwidth–is the one outcome we can’t have. And while the other threats on this list can maybe be avoided, this is one that will end in the Internet being less free, you paying a lot more or a combination of both.

So enjoy what you have while you can, for these are The Good Old Days.”

While Cracked is far from the world’s most expert or highbrow source on technology and internet debates, it serves a function as type of popular bellwether.  If articles like this are starting to appear on websites that aren’t necessarily marketed towards the tech-savvy, then a serious debate over internet uses, practices and governance is on the horizon.

When Richard Stallman was writing about free software way back in 1992, the internet hadn’t really entered mainstream circles yet.  The World Wide Web had just been invented a little over a  year earlier, and the first Internet Service Providers like Prodigy and CompuServe were still gaining a foothold even after a number of years active.  The main way in which people were exchanging software with one another outside of the auspices of the software industry at large was through copying programs from computers or other disks onto floppy disks, much to the chagrin of big software manufacturers. It’s all outlined here in this disasterous early 1990s PSA:

A good deal of these concerns echo the music industry’s concerns over cassette copying and trading of the 1980s.  As demonstrated in bubblegum, rapid-fire, and somewhat confusing fashion by the Bow Wow Wow (of “I Want Candy” fame) video which opened this post, it was a common practice in the 1980s an 1990s for people to tape songs they liked from the radio, or whole albums from vinyl records, professionally made cassettes or, later, compact discs.  Around this time also began the practice of making Mixtapes, which as the name implies is a series of songs usually copied from a Vinyl record on to a cassette tape. Today the practice lives on in Mix CDs and custom made iTunes playlists.  The concern on the part of the record industry was that people would stop buying records if they could easily copy records from their friends.  This article outlines some of the bizarre means record companies used to combat this trend and maintain sales, including a practice on the part of Island records to put an entire album on one side while leaving the other blank, and a campaign by the British music industry which lead to this image, which you occasionally see on apparel sold at Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters, and served as a logo for late 1990s art punks the VSS:

The original logo

The VSS is a good turning point for the discussion, as we have yet to address what the side of this was that’s analogous to Open Source programmers tinkering with programs to make them better and fix any bugs.  There’s something similar to that impetus in the creation of a good mixtape, one that flows nicely, is of decent sound quality, and introduces something new and different.  Another way in which cassette culture is similar to open source developent is the fact that cassettes are (were?) an easy and cheap way for more underground musicians to get their music out, which is discussed at length critically here.    A third way in which cassettes can be used and aniuplated to express new idas is to be put through modified players and used like a hip-hop, techno or dub DJ spins and mixes records, as seen here:

Oddly enough, Cassettes are starting to make something of a comeback in underground/indie circles, apparently out of a desire for something more authentic and tangible in the digital age. This can be read about in this article from Pitchfork here.  Chances are they won’t make as much as an ipact as they did in a bygone era, but it’s interesting to see that every format has its enthusiasts.

Gaze upon thy works, ye mighty, and despair (Unfortunately this isn't my collection).

Like I said in my first post about art punk, it would only be a matter of time before retrogaming came into play. Well kids, lo and behold here we are.  Referring back to the discussion we had about the Zittrain reading in class this past Tuesday, I figured I’d take this opportunity to explain myself better when I mentioned how his ideas about generativity and teathered devices came into play.

The Atari Video Computer System (later renamed and today more popularly known as the Atari 2600) was introduced in 1977.  It was not the first video game system with a microprocessor and interchangable media (e.g., cartridges, today replaced by disks), that honor belongs to Fairchild’s Channel F, however, it was the first popular system to do so.  Development was a heavy strain on Atari, so much so that founder Nolan Bushnell decided to sell the company to Warner Communications, a decision he later came to regret.  With Warner came a massive shift in Atari’s corporate culture, in the early to mid 1970s hippie-like “Innovative Leisure” philosophy, to more traditionally business oriented.  Unfortunately for Atari’s talented game designers, programmers and engineers, this also  meant a reduced role in making business and creative decisions, as well as less pay.  Some of Atari’s most talented game makers left to form Activision, specifically to make games for the 2600 outside of the auspices of Atari itself.  Indeed some of the best games for the system, including Pitfall and Starmaster, were Activision products.

As one might expect, Atari sued Activision with the court finding in favor of the latter, which opened the floodgates for just about anyone to program for the Atari, including Coleco and Mattel, manufacturers of the significantly more powerful Colecovision and Intellivision systems, respectively, and vice versa.  This resulted in a flood of video games of all types, and unfortunately, a good many of them were of low quality, a major contributing factor to the Video Game Crash, which brought an end to the initial wave of home video games.

The Nintendo Entertainment System, which I’d imagine a great number of us played and owned as children, is generally credited with reviving the home video game market.  One of the crucial factors of its success was a powerful lockout chip which prevented just anyone from putting a game out on the NES.  If a third party wanted to release a game on the system, they had to go through Nintendo.  What this traces is the video game’s movement from a more generative device (albiet rather by chance than intention) to a tethered device.  In this case, video games becoming more tethered saved the industry and gave large video game companies means of quality control, although one could argue that independent gamemakers, or even the possibility of independent game makers.  It’s really only recently that any kind of indie game scene has developed, whether it’s browser based games, iPhone apps, homebrew games for older systems, or web-based services like WiiWare or X-Box Live Arcade.  The AV Club’s Sawbuck Gamer column is a pretty good guide to this burgeoning scene.

For further reading on Atari, check out Video Game criticism site Gamasutra’s feature articles on Atari’s founding and pre-buyout years and Golden Age, as well as the online Atari Museum, which despite some maintenance issues is an interesting glimpse into Atari’s ambition and futures that never were. This video is a pretty good overview on the video game crash in a more general sense:

Do people out there still use it? I haven’t in years, and really, I wish I still did.  The Zittrain reading certainly got me thinking about it again. I had some of the deepest, most fascinating and informative conversations of my entire life via that software, thanks in no small part to that software’s many features.

AIM was the first chat program I ever really used, and I became fond of the ability to communicate instantaneously and yet have enough time and space to express one’s self fully, thanks to AIM’s generous character limit.  It combined the best of telephone or face to face conversation with that of written correspondence.  Addidtionally, AIM offered many options for formatting one’s text, as well as the ability to hyperlink portions of text to webpages.  One could even embed images in their conversations, and AIM’s file transfer feature allowed for a clandestine and easy exchnage of all manners of documents, software, and yes, MP3s.

As this relates to Zittrain, he expresses concerns that even as the internet has become more accessible, and Web 2.0 apps storm its usership, we’ve lost some control over it.  Looking at what we use for internet communication today, I can’t deny that he’s right.  Compare AIM to Facebook chat; In contrast to the expressive power provided by AIM, Facebook chat doesn’t even allow for one to put their text in bold or italics.  One can theoretically link up pages, but only by putting the whole URL into the conversation, which looks and feels awkward, and forget about any file transfer capabilities.  We lost a lot of what we could do with the internet when we left instant messaging for social networking, and it’s something I, for one, lament.

For better or worse, we already have our answer, thanks to the trend of middle aged and older people joining Facebook in droves.  Not a year and a half ago the idea of your parents or grandparents on Facebook would have been inconceivable, despite the fact that Facebook opened itself up to anyone over the age of 13 in September 2006, around the same time as the whole Newsfeed debacle, which is something I’d like to address in a post of its own.

Facebook before your parents joined.

What happened here was a major break in a serious web barrier. Before this trend, Facebook was largely understood as exclusively the domain of students, a sort of Neverland or Sugar Mountain for teens and twentysomethings.  Now, people are more careful about what they say and do on Facebook, lest they reap the consequences wrought by disapproving elders.  One could see this as part of a larger trend towards the collapse of Facebook’s once airtight privacy policy, but what matters for this discussion is that Facebook, once the domain of a large albeit fairly specific demographic (college students with internet access)  is now the domain of all over 13, and that’s something us original inhabitants of Facebook are going to have to contend with, like it or not.  This frustration over this elder, supposedly watchful and judging demographic flooding Facebook gets manifested in humorous things like Failbooking and the numerous FML entries detailing social networking indiscretions and their consequences.

I suppose that in the fact that my parents haven’t joined Facebook yet, I’m one of the lucky ones.  Most of the iddle aged and older people I’m friends with on Facebook are aunts and uncles. I have to admit that while it’s nice to have an easy way to contact one’s relatives, I feel I can’t engage with Facebook in the same way that I once did.  It’s no personal fault of theirs; they want to be connected and social as much as we do, and they really have every right to be.  What I lament is the loss of an online space where our generation could develop its own social groups and communication protocols, separate from those of our parents and grandparents.

I probably know more about art punk than anything else there is, quite frankly.  There’s a good 35+ year history to this music, which is basically exactly what the name sounds like, avant-garde ideas applied to spare, loud and energetic rock music.  I consider myself pretty knowledgable about the subject, and I host a weekly radio show more or less devoted to it.  Probably the only thing that even comes close to my knowledge of art punk is my knowledge of old video games, but that’s a different topic for another day.

Part of what keeps me knowledgeable about it, and has really honed my interest in it, is Web 2.0 applications.  Around my Freshman year of high school when my family finally got broadband internet access, I encountered the first important one of these in the form of Yahoo! Music, called LAUNCHcast as Yahoo! had not taken it over yet.   The way it worked, back around 2002 or 2003 anyway,  was one would watch a stream of either music videos or listen to a stream of audio, and with each song or video that would come on, one would rate it one to five stars, sort of like Netflix.  Through this system, LAUNCHcast honed in on music that I was guaranteed to like, which mostly consisted of bands like Mission of Burma, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Joy Division and Sonic Youth.  It also introduced e to many other music styles and bands I love, including all sorts of heavy metal, electro, more straightforward indie rock and more traditional sounding punk.

Sometimes the importance of Web 2.0 gets a bit overstated.  LAUNCHcast was far from the only factor in my becoing a fan of this music.  Other contributing factors included a 1983 edition of the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll I found, my own guitar playing starting at age 13 really provoking my interest in music in a more general sense, and the immense success of The Strokes in the early aughts, who, although accessible and poppy, were nonetheless highly indebted to art punk.  The Strokes and their contemporaries (Interpol, TV On The Radio, the aforementioned Yeah Yeah Yeahs) also had the distinct honor of being the first band that wasn’t my parents music that I really loved and gravitated towards.   Geography might also have something to do with it.  I was born and raised in Baltimore, only about an hour from Washington DC, home to art punk and hardcore powerhouse Dischord records , and since around 2006 itself home to bands like Double Dagger, Videohippos and Ponytail.

I now use Last.fm for my Web 2.0 aided music discovery. Last.fm “scrobbles” your iPod and iTunes plays to determine what you are listening to and how often you are listening to it, and makes recommendations based upon those.  It is a highly interactive website, and I’ve authored the Last.fm wiki for the art punk tag as it currently stands.  The trouble is, sometimes I wind up taking art punk for granted.  I get used to its genre conventions and lyrical themes, and forget how wonderful it can be.  All it really takes is a dip into the world of say, the Black Eyed Peas to reaffirm me of art punk’s power, invention and passion, and how glad I am to have found it.