Video has become a substantial portion of the traffic across the web due to the [...]]]> There is a certain amount of controversy regarding video standards and support in the upcoming HTML 5 spec for creating and designing websites. This is an important debate in terms of the future and open direction of the web.

Video has become a substantial portion of the traffic across the web due to the vibrancy of our ability to process information in engaging our visual and audio senses at one time. Folks like moving pictures.

One of the bedrock principles of HTML is the open and unencumbered code that is used into creating what we see on the screen in our browsers. To that end video and the new video tag for embedding needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Closed technologies never benefit users over the long run.

Flash by Adobe is the current front runner in video on the web. It is an interesting technology but has become spyware on personal computers. Flash cookies are stored on your personal computer and are not removable with the standard browser privacy controls.

Don’t take my word for it, check for yourself:
Where to find these flash cookies:

* Windows: LSO files are stored typically with a “.SOL” extension, within each user’s Application Data directory, under Macromedia\FlashPlayer\#SharedObjects.
* Mac OS X: For Web sites, ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer. For AIR Applications, ~/Library/Preferences/[package name (ID)of your app] and ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer/macromedia.com/Support/flashplayer/sys
* GNU-Linux: ~/.macromedia
Hattip Wired News: You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again

Read More
Schneier on Security: Flash Cookies

And currently none of the browser makers are addressing this issue. But then Adobe has a history of violating your privacy. An earlier version, Flash Player 6, turned on your Camera and Microphone by default if your computer had them. Flash itself puts blocks between you and your privacy by requiring you to go to Adobe.com to “manage” you privacy settings. There is no other down loadable program that requires this scheme, and cannot be managed on your own computer.

They say that the new version will respect your privacy, but don’t hold your breath.

Adobe is trying hard to keep their grip on the video on the web by a campaign of disinformation as to how open the Flash application is.
However, here is the money shot from Dave McAllister a blogger for Adobe.

The main reason we can’t release Flash Player as open source is because there is technology in the Player that we don’t own, such as the industry standard hi-def video codec, H.264. Adobe pays for that codec so video plays reliably worldwide, across browsers and OS’s. So we make it as open as we can – by releasing the specifications.
Source: Open at Adobe

Moving along from privacy to usability
Kevin Lynch also posted his take on Flash and most revealing are the comments.
Adobe is also saying that Flash doesn’t crash or hang systems, but the comments on this posting at Download Squad tells a different story.
H.264
Interesting is the admission by Adobe of incorporating H.264 to hedge their bets.
H.264 is getting a lot of airtime across the web as a possible successor to supplant Flash as a video standard. As the above quote aptly demonstrates H.264 is not an open standard, but a proprietary codec owned by the MPEG LA group. In a story posted at Beta News, the H.264 Group says that they will not ask for royalties aka payment for use,(until 2015 unless they change their mind) but trust me, just like the UNISYS .gif patent mess they will come calling.

According to Allen Harkness, global licensing director:

“While our Licenses are not concluded by End Users, anyone in the product chain has liability if an end product is unlicensed,” wrote Harkness. “Therefore, a royalty paid for an end product by the end product supplier would render the product licensed in the hands of the End User, but where a royalty has not been paid, such a product remains unlicensed and any downstream users/distributors would have liability. Therefore, we suggest that all End Users deal with products only from licensed suppliers.”

anyone in the product chain has liability if an end product is unlicensedThink YouTube with Invoicing. When the RIAA gets tired of suing everybody, the lawyers can just step into H.264 suits.

Like folks are gonna plumb source code for licensing and or liability. Give me a fucking break! Seriously, most folks on the web think that Copyright is a gift from Microsoft with Right Mouse Click > Save As.

Ogg Theora is currently the frontrunner in open source video, still has some technical limitations, but it has the potential to become a royalty free open video standard.
Encumbering the web with proprietary technologies will kill the web as surely as if you turned off the power to your computer.

“If Flash were allowed on the iPhone or the iPad, [...]]]> The best decision made with the iPad is the refusal to to use or enable Adobe Flash. The rest of the iPad is the continuation of the Apple is God control meme. As Mike Copeland at Brainstorm Tech notes, it is all about control and money.

“If Flash were allowed on the iPhone or the iPad, software developers would have free rein to sell apps directly to consumers, bypassing Apple’s shops and Apple’s cut of the sale. If Flash were on the iPhone, you could watch Hulu and play games on Mini-Clip rather than buying movies from iTunes or buying games from the App store.”
Source: Brainstorm Tech

Flash is the most notorious piece of spyware in existence compromising your privacy with every animation or movie played.

Flash is a virus program masquerading as a helper application. It does not just process video for compression and playback but creates a cornucopia of spyware hidden to the standard privacy settings in your browser. Flash cookies are spyware. The animation characteristics of Flash is too small a percentage given the primary usage is video playback. You can clear your text cookies, but Flash Cookies remain and merrily spy and report to every site their are scripted for. Not just first party but third party sites as well.
John Nack who is an Adobe employee brings out the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people argument” in defense of Flash as being blameless.
when he talks about how wonderful Flash is. He goes on to entertain us in how much standard compliance there is with Flash. That being the current save the world H.264 video codec.

H.264 and Standards
The H264 codec is being bandied about as the new open standards video darling, but it really is not. It is encumbered by patents requiring the payment of royalties which does not qualify it as an open standard. The HTML 5 Working group seems to have forgotten open standards in their discussion and or implementation of an open video standard.

I thought that we had the RAND discussion back in 2001. Back then I wrote:

The W3C is currently exploring RAND as a method of allowing commercial entities to incorporate proprietary or closed technology to be adopted into the Recommendations that are known in the web development community as THE STANDARDS.

RAND stands for “reasonable and non-discriminatory”

The Danger with “reasonable and non-discriminatory”

They are neither. They sound good, and seem to be fair, but they are not. Poll Taxes ‘were reasonable and non-discriminatory’.
The theory was that if you couldn’t pay to vote you were a second class citizen. Excluding women from voting was reasonable and non-discriminatory. Same Deal. Times have changed and both of these propositions are no longer reasonable or non-discriminatory.

I see this RAND business as a coercion attempt on the part of private companies to subvert the work of the W3C and to control the web through license intimidation.

This is a preliminary document outlining a mechanism for including intellectual property, patents of questionable validity and proprietary code and software components into the W3C Standards as Recommendations.

The W3C is a world wide resource. If it is to remain the authority that we have made it, we cannot allow it to be blackmailed by private companies looking to bleed every developer, business, and user from Boston to Bangladesh.

The only thing that has changed since I wrote that is time has gone by. And your privacy is at greater risk than at any time ever.

With Apple you know that you are getting screwed, but you know that your partner is clean and have made that decision. Flash is like getting fucked in an alley by a wino with various STD’s.

Robert B. Parker, Mystery Writer, Has Died at 77 – ArtsBeat Blog – NYTimes.com.

The fundamental core of social tools is that the individual comes first: our rights and responsibilities in social tools are not derived from membership in groups (in general), but are unalienable. The baseline [...]]]> Publicy is the latest buzzword to attempt to describe how the internet works. Stowe Boyd posted this, Secrecy, Privacy, Publicy, which he says,

The fundamental core of social tools is that the individual comes first: our rights and responsibilities in social tools are not derived from membership in groups (in general), but are unalienable. The baseline rights are privacy-tinged — what to include in your profile — but in general one’s stream obviates the profile. And then, the major social angle in social tools is deciding who matter: who to follow. That is a public choice, and this is the primary bond that makes a social matrix from individuals.

Jaysus Christo! “The fundamental core of social tools is that the individual comes first” What planet is this happening on? Every ’social’ tool on the planet has its core in page views and tracking. Privacy tinged? WTF! There is no privacy on the web, robot.txt or no. If it is on the web, it is in somebodies database, being sliced, diced, and served up to anybody with a checkbook.
Take anyone of the large social networks like My Space, Ning, or my personal favorite Facebook. There is nothing on any of these services that promote privacy longer than 20 seconds after you post. Even needing to be on Facebook to see profiles and interact has been kicked to the curb with the drive toward profitability. With data mining tools, even obscurity through crowds like 350 million usernames is no longer any figleaf.

Being on the web allows you to share with everyone else here. There is no club, group or address that allows you privacy out here. Secrecy? Yes you Can. Two folks can keep a secret, if one of them is dead. Three folks is a social network.

There is a countervailing trend away from privacy and secrecy and toward openness and transparency, both in the corporate and government sectors. And on the web, we have had several major steps forward in social tools that suggest at least the outlines of a complement, or opposite, to privacy and secrecy: publicy.

The problem with this argument is that we already have an open internet. We already have privacy and secrecy in omission. Don’t post it, and you can keep it close. The trend toward openness and transparency on the part of corporate and government sectors should be a no brainer, but look at the flip side. Companies and governments have made lots of money by keeping folks in the dark and feeding us bullshit.
However even if you are not an active participant, blogger, member of a social network, tweeter or email list member, the mere act of viewing web pages begins the tracking process that will dump you into some marketeers database and even though you may not be an active participant, you will be sliced, diced and served ads. With geo location and smart phones not only will you be tracked in time, but also in space. Because at the end of the day, it is all about the Benjamins. Getting a text two blocks from a store with a money saving coupon, or posting your latest purchase on your social network site. Getting tweets while you are walking through the grocery store, asking you to buy the latest new product?

A little more publicy than I want. Your mileage may vary.

Monopolies have no incentive to work hard for you. Think I am wrong? [...]]]> Copyright is the entity allowing creative artists to make a living from their work. Distributors/Publishers are the middlemen that can help or hinder you in making money from your work. Assigning all your rights to a single entity is a recipe for suicide.

Monopolies have no incentive to work hard for you. Think I am wrong? Just ask your cell phone company.
Nina Paley writes this at Techdirt:

Middlemen will only have monopolies if artists keep granting them. They’re not going to give them up on their own. It falls on us artists to simply refuse to grant these monopolies in the first place. A copyleft license sends a clear, simple, and non-negotiable message to middlemen that they need to innovate and compete to profit from the work. Only we artists can supply the incentives they need to do their jobs well; and we can only do that by refusing monopolies.
The Problem Isn’t Middlemen, It’s Monopolies | Techdirt.

If a middleman says they need exclusivity, run away.

Golf is stunned. The biggest problem is theory that Infidelity will cut strokes off your game and make you a [...]]]> The Tiger Situation has me laughing so hard I really should only read the news on the toilet to avoid accidents.
OMG! Tiger is dipping his Wick!!!
Golf becomes Flaccid!
Sponsors running for Cover!
Yet another clueless wife!

Golf is stunned. The biggest problem is theory that Infidelity will cut strokes off your game and make you a Better Golfer. Tiger gets strange, he wins championships. Based on the evidence this is true. Sponsors are fucked, because their products are associated with a guy whose private life has sex in it.

Our Balls make it easier for you to Pick Up Chicks!
Our Shirts are cut wide to get You into the Action!
Our Clubs will not Tire You Out!

Yeah, crude but pointed into what advertisers think will splash them because a guy has sex when he is not hitting balls, wearing shirts or carrying clubs.
Advertisers have their heads so far up their asses that they think that Tiger’s infidelity will infect their products causing mass sex orgies, by association. You are sponsoring his golf, not his life without a club.
The funniest part about Golf’s Stand is that the Last Bad Boy of the greens, John Daly is the only one who is pointing out that Tiger is the reason the rest of them are making so much money.

A Typical Story. Public Figure gets caught having an affair. Wife Clueless. The stories and responses are so fucking boring and predictable that major media probably has a template for them.

Today it was discovered [insert name] has been having an affair. [insert name] a [insert job title here], was discovered by [insert source here], who is a [insert deprecating description here], whose revelations pointed to a relationship lasting blah, blah, blah…
[insert wife's name] was reported to be shocked and totally clueless unaware of the affair.

The bullshit surrounding these affairs is astounding. The man is always straying. True. Why isn’t he getting it at home? Was sex used as a tool to rope the guy into marriage? Is there somewhere in the vows that states that Marriage is the Death of Sex? It certainly looks like it from the outside.

Where do all these clueless wives come from?

These guys are not being caught in leather bars, chicken ranches or sheep farms, but are being found out having probably missionary position sex with maybe a blow job added. Here is a tip. If your man is getting it at home, he is not gonna look elsewhere. Unless it isn’t any good.

For some reason the media continually gives these women a free pass. Tiger’s wife is probably as close to a trophy wife as possible whose only previously experience was being a checkout clerk, model, and nanny for a golfer.
Really. The last half dozen women in these marriages have no clue? Especially these women, whose spouses are famous in either Business, Sports or Public Service. When you look at the CV’s of these women, you see educated, connected, and allegedly intelligent women. But they haven’t quite figured out that sex is part of the deal.
Marriage is not the Death of Sex
If you think so, call a fucking attorney and get a divorce. Sports are suffering, Sponsors are suffering, and your sexual problems or intimacy issues need a therapist and not a headline.

Think about it for just a moment. You are reading this because you pay for an internet [...]]]> There is no privacy on the internet. You post it, it becomes fair game and part of someone’s database by the time you finish reading this sentence. Social Networks have never been about privacy. N E V E R.

Think about it for just a moment. You are reading this because you pay for an internet connection. Lord only knows how you ended up here. Somebody offers you a place to post information about yourself, photos, and text, for Free. Do you really believe that there is a web fairy footing the bill to allow you to share this information to only a small group of ‘friends’?
There are no privacy controls that will ever work on any computer that is publicly accessible on the Internet. Not for long.

Facebook’s latest foray into privacy controls has created an entire cottage industry of explanations and step by step guides to actually afford you a virtual fig leaf. Good Luck with that. That may last until the next brain fart from Facebook Central.

Facebook is the poster child for OPM Other People’s Money and Other People’s Material A sort of New Math for the Advertising Targeting Complex.
Facebook uses Other People’s Material (yours) to populate their site. You lost control of your material and privacy as soon as you set up an account.
Exhibit 1.

Sharing Your Content and Information

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
Source Facebook Terms

First they say that you own your material, then they tell you that you have given them a ‘royalty free world wide license’ to use any of it in anyway they want.

They use Other People’s Money to support themselves until they get enough advertisers to sign up to pay the bills. In order to get advertisers to buy in, they need to use Other Peoples Material to chum the waters. At the end of the day you and your material are bait for advertisers, to try to sell you shit.

There is no Privacy in Social Networks.
Social Networks are not about privacy. They are Social as in Pregnancy. There is no ‘a little bit pregnant’. This is why I laugh my ass off when I read postings like this,Facebook’s Privacy Move Violates Contract With Users
What bullshit! As I mentioned above, you have no privacy, nor do you have any control over the shifting sands of this weeks privacy rights to the material that you post there.  The author goes on about the dangers of this network and makes a leap that there is some contract about your use of their service giving you any privacy. Privacy settings are a Virtual Figleaf so you are not Socially Nude. And only show up in your browser, while in the back room, all your data is being collated, strained, prioritized, and shoveled into the sweaty hands of advertisers. Facebook makes no money by keeping things private.
Facebook, like the rest of the Social Networks are using Advertisers who should have more sense, building the Internet version of magazines. Having the ability to corral ‘users’ into smaller and smaller boxes to shoot ads at, is the electronic Midway Carnaval, and you are all rubes.
Social Networks and Privacy is an Oxymoron
Regardless of what sort of pixie dust you are snorting, Eric Schmidt of Google is right in telling you, If you want to keep things private, keep them off the internet.