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• Neutral net or neutered

  4 juin 2013, par Mans — Law and liberty

  In recent weeks, a number of high-profile events, in the UK and elsewhere, have been quickly seized upon to promote a variety of schemes for monitoring or filtering Internet access. These proposals, despite their good intentions of protecting children or fighting terrorism, pose a serious threat to fundamental liberties. Although at a glance the ideas may seem like a reasonable price to pay for the prevention of some truly hideous crimes, there is more than first meets the eye. Internet regulation in any form whatsoever is the thin end of a wedge at whose other end we find severely restricted freedom of expression of the kind usually associated with oppressive dictatorships. Where the Internet was once a novelty, it now forms an integrated part of modern society ; regulating the Internet means regulating our lives.

  Terrorism

  Following the brutal murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, attempts were made in the UK to revive the controversial Communications Data Bill, also dubbed the snooper’s charter. The bill would give police and security services unfettered access to details (excluding content) of all digital communication in the UK without needing so much as a warrant.

  The powers afforded by the snooper’s charter would, the argument goes, enable police to prevent crimes such as the one witnessed in Woolwich. True or not, the proposal would, if implemented, also bring about infrastructure for snooping on anyone at any time for any purpose. Once available, the temptation may become strong to extend, little by little, the legal use of these abilities to cover ever more everyday activities, all in the name of crime prevention, of course.

  In the emotional aftermath of a gruesome act, anything with the promise of preventing it happening again may seem like a good idea. At times like these it is important, more than ever, to remain rational and carefully consider all the potential consequences of legislation, not only the intended ones.

  Hate speech

  Hand in hand with terrorism goes hate speech, preachings designed to inspire violence against people of some singled-out nation, race, or other group. Naturally, hate speech is often to be found on the Internet, where it can reach large audiences while the author remains relatively protected. Naturally, we would prefer for it not to exist.

  To fulfil the utopian desire of a clean Internet, some advocate mandatory filtering by Internet service providers and search engines to remove this unwanted content. Exactly how such censoring might be implemented is however rarely dwelt upon, much less the consequences inadvertent blocking of innocent material might have.

  Pornography

  Another common target of calls for filtering is pornography. While few object to the blocking of child pornography, at least in principle, the debate runs hotter when it comes to the legal variety. Pornography, it is claimed, promotes violence towards women and is immoral or generally offensive. As such it ought to be blocked in the name of the greater good.

  The conviction last week of paedophile Mark Bridger for the abduction and murder of five-year-old April Jones renewed the debate about filtering of pornography in the UK ; his laptop was found to contain child pornography. John Carr of the UK government’s Council on Child Internet Safety went so far as suggesting a default blocking of all pornography, access being granted to an Internet user only once he or she had registered with some unspecified entity. Registering people wishing only to access perfectly legal material is not something we do in a democracy.

  The reality is that Google and other major search engines already remove illegal images from search results and report them to the appropriate authorities. In the UK, the Internet Watch Foundation, a non-government organisation, maintains a blacklist of what it deems ‘potentially criminal’ content, and many Internet service providers block access based on this list.

  While well-intentioned, the IWF and its blacklist should raise some concerns. Firstly, a vigilante organisation operating in secret and with no government oversight acting as the nation’s morality police has serious implications for freedom of speech. Secondly, the blocks imposed are sometimes more far-reaching than intended. In one incident, an attempt to block the cover image of the Scorpions album Virgin Killer hosted by Wikipedia (in itself a dubious decision) rendered the entire related article inaccessible as well as interfered with editing.

  Net neutrality

  Content filtering, or more precisely the lack thereof, is central to the concept of net neutrality. Usually discussed in the context of Internet service providers, this is the principle that the user should have equal, unfiltered access to all content. As a consequence, ISPs should not be held responsible for the content they deliver. Compare this to how the postal system works.

  The current debate shows that the principle of net neutrality is important not only at the ISP level, but should also include providers of essential services on the Internet. This means search engines should not be responsible for or be required to filter results, email hosts should not be required to scan users’ messages, and so on. No mandatory censoring can be effective without infringing the essential liberties of freedom of speech and press.

  Social networks operate in a less well-defined space. They are clearly not part of the essential Internet infrastructure, and they require that users sign up and agree to their terms and conditions. Because of this, they can include restrictions that would be unacceptable for the Internet as a whole. At the same time, social networks are growing in importance as means of communication between people, and as such they have a moral obligation to act fairly and apply their rules in a transparent manner.

  Facebook was recently under fire, accused of not taking sufficient measures to curb ‘hate speech,’ particularly against women. Eventually they pledged to review their policies and methods, and reducing the proliferation of such content will surely make the web a better place. Nevertheless, one must ask how Facebook (or another social network) might react to similar pressure from, say, a religious group demanding removal of ‘blasphemous’ content. What about demands from a foreign government ? Only yesterday, the Turkish prime minister Erdogan branded Twitter ‘a plague’ in a TV interview.

  Rather than impose upon Internet companies the burden of law enforcement, we should provide them the latitude to set their own policies as well as the legal confidence to stand firm in the face of unreasonable demands. The usual market forces will promote those acting responsibly.

  Further reading

  • Tory-Labour pact could save data bill, says Lord Howard
  • Internet companies warn May over ‘snooper’s charter’
  • Snooper’s charter ‘should be replaced by strengthening of existing powers’
  • Exclusive : ‘Snooper’s charter’ would not have prevented Woolwich attack, says MI5
  • Search engines urged to block more online porn sites
  • Why technology must be the solution to child abuse material online
  • Google must take more action to police explicit content, says Vince Cable
  • Facebook bows to campaign groups over ‘hate speech’
  • Facebook sexism campaign attracts thousands online
  • Türkischer Ministerpräsident : Twitter ist eine Plage
  • Valls : « La traque sur Internet doit être une priorité pour nous »
  • La Cnil, futur juge d’Internet
  • “National security matter” : Third agency caught unilaterally blocking web sites

• Bad quality output with FFmpeg, bitrate specified [closed]

  28 septembre 2012, par Darkman2412

  I have a static background image where I add 2 videos on top of it using FFmpeg CLI. The output file (test.avi in this case), is very bad quality.

  ffmpeg -loop 1 -i outro.png
  
        -vf "movie='intro.mov' [last], [last]scale=512:288[scaled1], [in][scaled1] overlay=290:396 [tmp];
  
             movie='intro2.mov' [featured], [featured]scale=512:288[scaled2], [tmp][scaled2] overlay=1118:396 [out]" -b 512k -t 10 -r 30 -y test.avi

  The first image is the first frame of test.avi.
  The second one is what it should be.

  

  

  Edit : my question is why it's such bad quality.

  Edit2 : Console output :

  ffmpeg version N-44601-gcb3591e Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers
  
    built on Sep 19 2012 16:31:43 with gcc 4.7.1 (GCC)
  
    configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-avisynth --enable-bzlib --enable-frei0r --enable-libass --enable-libcelt --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libutvideo --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --enable-zlib
  
    libavutil      51. 73.101 / 51. 73.101
  
    libavcodec     54. 56.100 / 54. 56.100
  
    libavformat    54. 27.101 / 54. 27.101
  
    libavdevice    54.  2.100 / 54.  2.100
  
    libavfilter     3. 16.104 /  3. 16.104
  
    libswscale      2.  1.101 /  2.  1.101
  
    libswresample   0. 15.100 /  0. 15.100
  
    libpostproc    52.  0.100 / 52.  0.100
  
  [image2 @ 0000000001f4fa40] Stream #0: not enough frames to estimate rate; consider increasing probesize
  
  Input #0, image2, from 'outro.png':
  
    Duration: 00:00:00.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
  
      Stream #0:0: Video: png, rgba64be, 1920x1080, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
  
  Please use -q:a or -q:v, -qscale is ambiguous
  
  Output #0, avi, to 'test.avi':
  
    Metadata:
  
      ISFT            : Lavf54.27.101
  
      Stream #0:0: Video: mpeg4 (FMP4 / 0x34504D46), yuv420p, 1920x1080, q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 30 tbn, 30 tbc
  
  Stream mapping:
  
    Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (png -> mpeg4)
  
  Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
  
  frame=    6 fps=0.0 q=2.0 size=      72kB time=00:00:00.23 bitrate=2527.9kbits/s    
  
  frame=   12 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     115kB time=00:00:00.46 bitrate=2013.6kbits/s    
  
  frame=   18 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     190kB time=00:00:00.70 bitrate=2223.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=   24 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     235kB time=00:00:00.96 bitrate=1987.4kbits/s    
  
  frame=   30 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     314kB time=00:00:01.20 bitrate=2142.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=   36 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     368kB time=00:00:01.43 bitrate=2102.2kbits/s    
  
  frame=   42 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     457kB time=00:00:01.66 bitrate=2247.6kbits/s    
  
  frame=   48 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     510kB time=00:00:01.90 bitrate=2199.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=   54 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     596kB time=00:00:02.16 bitrate=2253.9kbits/s    
  
  frame=   60 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     649kB time=00:00:02.40 bitrate=2216.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=   66 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     718kB time=00:00:02.63 bitrate=2232.9kbits/s    
  
  frame=   72 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     779kB time=00:00:02.86 bitrate=2226.4kbits/s    
  
  frame=   78 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     868kB time=00:00:03.10 bitrate=2293.0kbits/s    
  
  frame=   84 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=     956kB time=00:00:03.36 bitrate=2325.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=   90 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=    1049kB time=00:00:03.60 bitrate=2386.2kbits/s    
  
  frame=   96 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=    1143kB time=00:00:03.83 bitrate=2442.9kbits/s    
  
  frame=  101 fps= 11 q=2.0 size=    1224kB time=00:00:04.03 bitrate=2485.2kbits/s    
  
  frame=  106 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1259kB time=00:00:04.23 bitrate=2436.7kbits/s    
  
  frame=  111 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1326kB time=00:00:04.43 bitrate=2449.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=  116 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1355kB time=00:00:04.63 bitrate=2396.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=  121 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1409kB time=00:00:04.83 bitrate=2388.1kbits/s    
  
  frame=  127 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1424kB time=00:00:05.06 bitrate=2302.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=  133 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1480kB time=00:00:05.30 bitrate=2286.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=  139 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1497kB time=00:00:05.56 bitrate=2203.7kbits/s    
  
  frame=  145 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1552kB time=00:00:05.80 bitrate=2191.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=  151 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1567kB time=00:00:06.03 bitrate=2127.6kbits/s    
  
  frame=  157 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1621kB time=00:00:06.26 bitrate=2119.2kbits/s    
  
  frame=  163 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1641kB time=00:00:06.50 bitrate=2068.1kbits/s    
  
  frame=  169 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1710kB time=00:00:06.76 bitrate=2070.3kbits/s    
  
  frame=  175 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1750kB time=00:00:07.00 bitrate=2047.9kbits/s    
  
  frame=  181 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1834kB time=00:00:07.23 bitrate=2077.6kbits/s    
  
  frame=  187 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1876kB time=00:00:07.46 bitrate=2058.4kbits/s    
  
  frame=  193 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    1962kB time=00:00:07.70 bitrate=2087.7kbits/s    
  
  frame=  199 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2005kB time=00:00:07.96 bitrate=2061.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=  205 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2088kB time=00:00:08.20 bitrate=2086.1kbits/s    
  
  frame=  211 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2126kB time=00:00:08.43 bitrate=2065.0kbits/s    
  
  frame=  217 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2201kB time=00:00:08.66 bitrate=2080.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=  223 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2230kB time=00:00:08.90 bitrate=2052.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=  229 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2293kB time=00:00:09.16 bitrate=2049.5kbits/s    
  
  frame=  235 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2307kB time=00:00:09.40 bitrate=2010.4kbits/s    
  
  frame=  241 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2366kB time=00:00:09.63 bitrate=2011.8kbits/s    
  
  frame=  247 fps= 10 q=2.0 size=    2409kB time=00:00:09.86 bitrate=2000.1kbits/s    
  
  frame=  250 fps= 10 q=2.0 Lsize=    2438kB time=00:00:10.00 bitrate=1997.2kbits/s    
  
  
  
  video:2425kB audio:0kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.523809%

• Pouvoir intégrer du code Embeb pour l’intégrer dans Médiaspip

  3 juin 2013

  Issu du pad de la communauté, proposé en amont de la réunion du 16 mai 2013