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• Refactored Angular module.

  13 juin 2013, par blueimp

  Refactored Angular module.
  Renamed fileupload directive to fileUpload (file-upload in templates)
  
  for consistency with the service and controllers.
  
  Preview and Progress directives now use "file-upload-" as prefix as a
  
  sort of namespace.
  
  The formatFileSizeFilter now accepts suffix and prefix for the units.
  
  This allows better localizing for languages which put the unit label
  
  first.
  

• 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

• Hung out to dry

  31 mai 2013, par Mans — Law and liberty

  Outrage was the general reaction when Google recently announced their dropping of XMPP server-to-server federation from Hangouts, as the search giant’s revamped instant messaging platform is henceforth to be known. This outrage is, however, largely unjustified ; Google’s decision is merely a rational response to issues of a more fundamental nature. To see why, we need to step back and look at the broader instant messaging landscape.

  A brief history of IM

  The term instant messaging (IM) gained popularity in the mid-1990s along with the rise of chat clients such as ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, and later MSN Messenger. These all had one thing in common : they were closed systems. Although global in the sense of allowing access from anywhere on the Internet, communication was possible only within each network, and only using the officially sanctioned client software. Contrast this with email, where users are free to choose any service provider as well as client software, inter-server communication over open protocols delivering messages to their proper destinations.

  The email picture has, however, not always been so rosy. During the 1970s and 80s a multitude of incompatible email systems (e.g. UUCP and X.400) were in more or less widespread use on various networks. As these networks gave way to the ARPANET/Internet, so did their mail systems to the SMTP email we all use today. A similar consolidation has yet to occur in the area of instant messaging.

  Over the years, a few efforts towards a cross-domain instant messaging have been undertaken. One early example is the Zephyr system created as part of Project Athena at MIT in the late 1980s. While it never saw significant uptake, it is still in use at a few universities. A more successful story is that of XMPP. Conceived under the name Jabber in the late 1990s, XMPP is an open standard specified in a set of IETF RFCs. In addition to being open, a distinguishing feature of XMPP compared to other contemporary IM systems is its decentralised nature, server-to-server connections allowing communication between users with accounts on different systems. Just like email.

  The social network

  A more recent emergence on the Internet is the social network. Although not the first of its kind, Facebook was the first to achieve its level of penetration, both geographically and across social groups. A range of messaging options, including email-style as well as instant messaging (chat), are available, all within the same web interface. What it does not allow is communication outside the Facebook network. Other social networks operate in the same spirit.

  The popularity of social networks, to the extent that they for many constitute the primary means of communication, has in a sense brought back fragmented networks of the 1980s. Even though they share infrastructure, up to and including the browser application, the social networks create walled-off regions of the Internet between which little or no exchange is possible.

  The house that Google built

  In 2005, Google launched Talk, an XMPP-based instant messaging service allowing users to connect using either Google’s official client application or any third-party XMPP client. Soon after, server-to-server federation was activated, enabling anyone with a Google account to exchange instant messages with users of any other federated XMPP service. An in-browser chat interface was also added to Gmail.

  It was arguably only with the 2011 introduction of Google+ that Google, despite its previous endeavours with Orkut and Buzz, had a viable contender in the social networking space. Since its inception, Google+ has gone through a number of changes where features have been added or reworked. Instant messaging within Google+ was until recently available only in mobile clients. On the desktop, the sole messaging option was Hangouts which, although featuring text chat, cannot be considered instant messaging in the usual sense.

  With a sprawling collection of messaging systems (Talk, Google+ Messenger, Hangouts), some action to consolidate them was a logical step. What we got was a unification under the Hangouts name. A redesigned Google+ now sports in-browser instant messaging similar the the Talk interface already present in Gmail. At the same time, the standalone desktop Talk client is discontinued, as is the Messenger feature in mobile Google+. All together, the changes make for a much less confusing user experience.

  The sky is falling down

  Along with the changes to the messaging platform, one announcement stoked anger on the Internet : Google’s intent to discontinue XMPP federation (as of this writing, it is still operational). Google, the (self-described) champions of openness on the Internet were seen to be closing their doors to the outside world. The effects of the change are, however, not quite so earth-shattering. Of the other major messaging networks to offer XMPP at all (Facebook, Skype, and the defunct Microsoft Messenger), none support federation ; a Google user has never been able to chat with a Facebook user.

  XMPP federation appears to be in use mainly by non-profit organisations or individuals running their own servers. The number of users on these systems is hard to assess, though it seems fair to assume it is dwarfed by the hundreds of millions using Google or Facebook. As such, the overall impact of cutting off communication with the federated servers is relatively minor, albeit annoying for those affected.

  A fragmented world

  Rather than chastising Google for making a low-impact, presumably founded, business decision, we should be asking ourselves why instant messaging is still so fragmented in the first place, whereas email is not. The answer can be found by examining the nature of entities providing these services.

  Ever since the commercialisation of the Internet started in the 1990s, email has been largely seen as being part of the Internet. Access to email was a major selling point for Internet service providers ; indeed, many still use the email facilities of their ISP. Instant messaging, by contrast, has never come as part of the basic offering, rather being a third-party service running on top of the Internet.

  Users wishing to engage in instant messaging have always had to seek out and sign up with a provider of such a service. As the IM networks were isolated, most would choose whichever service their friends were already using, and a small number of networks, each with a sustainable number of users, came to dominate. In the early days, dedicated IM services such as ICQ were popular. Today, social networks have taken their place with Facebook currently in the dominant position. With the new Hangouts, Google offers its users the service they want in the way they have come to expect.

  Follow the money

  We now have all the pieces necessary to see why inter-domain instant messaging has never taken off, and the answer is simple : the major players have no commercial incentive to open access to their IM networks. In fact, they have good reason to keep the networks closed. Ensuring that a person leaving the network loses contact with his or her friends, increases user retention by raising the cost of switching to another service. Monetising users is also better facilitated if they are forced to remain on, say, Facebook’s web pages while using its services rather than accessing them indirectly, perhaps even through a competing (Google, say) frontend. The users do not generally care much, since all their friends are already on the same network as themselves.

  While Google Talk was a standalone service, only loosely coupled to other Google products, these aspects were of lesser importance. After all, Google still had access to all the messages passing through the system and could analyse them for advert targeting purposes. Now that messaging is an integrated part of Google+, and thus serves as a direct competitor to the likes of Facebook, the situation has changed. All the reasons for Facebook not to open its network now apply equally to Google as well.