[edit]

After having been asked several times: this is a true story, she received her sentence yesterday, she really needs help.

I can't tell her name here, it could endanger her in many ways, if you wish to know more, contact me by email via nojailforflashdisk[at]gmail.com

[/edit]

 

I won't tell her name here. What you need to know is that my sweet Balinese friend, who likes kids and crafts, has been sentenced to a jail time of 18 month for, basically, having used her flashdisk.

She works in Bali, in a small painting and craft shop.
What they do is, they build picture catalogs from examples taken in magazines or on the web, and commission them to painters on customers orders.

Last year, she thought she could start her own business, and built a small website using some of her shop's references.
Keep in mind, these references don't belong to anybody in particular, they are just the result of some image search.
But apparently her boss didn't appreciate, and asked her to close the website.
Which she did. [edit: She never actually used the pics, and cancelled the website's publication]

It wasn't enough. Maybe Mr. Boss smelled good money, and he sued her for unfair competition.
Time passed, and many parties got involved.
It didn't take too long to find out there was no harm done business wise, but hey, you gotta get the money a way or another, so Mr.Boss sued her again, this time for illegal copy of digital material.

That's were things got really wrong.
See, worldwide, the law is already blurry when it comes to digital material... but in Indonesia it's even worse. First of nobody gives a damn, then the law stops at the basic anti-piracy jibber-jabber.

You can consult it online,  and if you speak the language, what you will read there is asinine.
"Any data accessed without explicit permission of the owner is considered accessed Illegally", that's what the law says.
Which is funny since you don't see any definition of "permission" and "ownership".
In Indonesia, it seems, browsing the web is illegal.

I am not a lawyer, but looking at the fact with some common sense you can see that a person not contractually tied by an NDA (or, actually by any kind of work contract) copying from a computer accessible to anybody, not protected by a password or any other means, files that are obtainable everywhere on the web, and using them in a way that was never meant to arm and did not cause any arm should never be legally worried, in any country.

But she... received 18 month jail time.

There is something very wrong behind that sentence, especially since you consider that the murderers of three Ahmadi, in Cikeusik, earlier this year, received between 3 and 6 month of emprisonment.

Please look again.

Using a flash disk: 18 months
Murder: 6 months

As I am writing these lines, I am not sure of what will happen next, my friend had a very tough time, was involved in a pretty heavy bike accident just before being dragged to court and she's at ther very end of her strenght.
She told me once she would rather die than go to jail. In another context, I wouldn't worry, but today she is emotionally exhausted, with not a dime left in her pocket to appeal, and about to be robbed 18 month of her life.I am worried she might attempt to arm herself.

This post is a cry for help. If you are a journalist, a fundation, a lawyer, please spread the news, help her appeal or take her case pro-bono. Help her and undo something very, very wrong.

You can contact me on on any of my social account, or via nojailforflashdisk[at]gmail.com , she needs all the help we can muster.

 

 

This post is an answer to Robert Scobles's post, where he wishes privacy to be dead for good, again, and Facebook to turn full disclosed.

Robert, if you allow me...

First of all, I do think we have something in common. I am popular among my offline friends for the same reason you are famous online: our inflated ego. No that's not a bad thing. But here, in this very case, I think you're pushing it too far.

We're not all celebrities

I might be a star before my friends and a demigod before my girlfriend, there are some things I like to keep for them and them only: the silly faces, the naked pole dancing, some of my pretty disturbing thoughts about gastronomy and babies...
Facebook would go all open, it would be even better for you, more visibility, better way to let your opinions known.
Then again, we are not all celebrities.

We're not all techies/internet marketers

You and I, Robert, have something to say. Me on a much smaller scale (but I'll get you one day don't worry), but still. We know how to crawl for information, we know what to say and when to open our mouth, and before all, we want it to be heard.
That's not the case of my auntie. I wouldn't want people to know my auntie is 75 years old and still single....oops?

Not everybody knows how to use Facebook.

Apparently, tutorial about Facebook are highly demanded. Nearly 10 millions results on Google with "how to facebook".
You have to realize that 400.000.000 people have various levels of knowledge about the site and its features.
The proof? Well, that article, which dates from last April, states that more and more people are bullied online.
They wouldn't if they knew how to use the site, right?

Apparently users are idiots

Well, at least that what I can deduce from the privacy settings policy.
It switched from "It's safe, it's on Facebook" to "OMG it's on Facebook HOW DO I REMOVE IT?" through multiple layouts and rules changes, and yes, obfuscated settings.
If we compare the skyrocketing concern about privacy on Facebook and the plethora of tutorials to the introductory sentence
"It should be easy to find and connect with friends. Your privacy settings should be simple and easy to understand." found on the site's privacy guide, we can only be drawn to one conclusion : users are idiots.
Or Facebook thinks so.
Anyway, idiots tend to publish things they regret later. No?

Last but not least: It's people's right...why, it's their life after all....

That the easiest argument of all, the one that makes the most sense.
Controlling our lives and deciding what we should expose and to whom is our right.
It should be easy. It should not be an option.

Bonus: your naked picture (from flickr), it's probably everywhere. Mine coming soon.

I just wanted to update my phone.
Nokia boasts about the terrific connectivity of their last N series, I got tempted, and got myself a N97.
I wanted to get these bashing new email functions as well as this rad Ovi Contacts thingy that could allow me, for 5 bucks a month, to chat and email at will.
No unlimited data plans here in Indonesia (RIM gets loaded over that, just saying), that offer was more than tempting.

I bought the phone (second hand), and, in order to access these latest features, I went to their websites to look for a firmware update. There it began.

Limited OS support.

That is, Mac (and Linux) users can go sit on it, that's apparently not going to change. I work on a MacBook Pro.
No problem, I went to the Nokia service center, not too far from my place, and after an hour of waiting in line...

Incompetent customer service

"Oh by the way you'll lose all your data in the process". - That's after an hour of waiting and filling in the blanks.
"You mean you can't back it up?"
"No we can't"
"You are a customer care center and you can't back up a phone's data?"
"Nope"
"Thanks for telling me earlier..."

Hideously unfriendly "PC Suite"

Ok, after all I'm a geek. It's seriously an overkill to bootcamp a copy of Windows XP (install it in parallel with MacOS)  just to update the phone, but no other solution.
Once done, I proceed to download, install, backup...
The software is slow and unpractical, I remember now why I never used such things for my previous phones.
Backup done, update.. failed.
Turned out that I somehow had to remove my XP theme first. Weird, but at that point not so surprising.
Upgrade, then. Good.
Restore the backup....oh, wait.

Broken backup system

After the backup restored, I notice that some of my old apps shouldn't be there, since the upgrade hard-resets the phone and cleans it all.
No problem. I'll remove them.
Not.
Impossible to either remove or install an application after the backup restored. Nice. Hard reset again.

Second upgrade

Yes. It's not enough to have gone that far. Now there are other updates to download, this time from the phone.
Lucky I could access a wlan , because my data plan would have died of shame and exhaustion.

Memory leaks

Nokia isn't very smart. The N97 has 32GB of flash memory and... 100MB of phone memory.
Of course half the updates install themselves in the phone memory as well as, by default, are stored all the emails, sms, mms, notes, temporary files...
The only benefit I got from the hard-reset is wasted by a dodgy design choice, 26 MB free after all the updates are installed.

Unfinished apps

Now I finally can access the new Messaging and Ovi contact, I launch them for a test run.

Mail: Nothing to see there, my old LG Viewty had the same interface.

Ovi Contacts: Nothing to see there either, I have to use a long and not very reliable workaround if I want to add my messenger's contact.
Yes, you can only use Ovi Contacts it with other OVI members.

Sorry, Nokia, you are not RIM. I can use any java app to chat with my other contacts and use my email through Opera. That will do.

Cherry on the cake?

All these efforts for nothing, no price deal for me, and to top it the nice fade-out/fade-in effect for the landscape/portrait mode transition is gone.

Get real, Nokia!

You can't possibly make me believe that one of your flagship phone is a memory-hog, under maintained, inefficient BlackBerry wannabe.
You've just been slacking, your customer service is the proof of it. And I will not buy another device from you unless you pay me to use it (and even so, I still wonder...)

What now?

Well, I'm stuck with the phone anyway, and there is no way I use either an iPhone or a Blackberry, so... I am SO going to hack the bejesus out of that device, I don't care if I brick it in the process. At least if it's not functional, I'll be fun. Plus, it takes nice pictures.

Enough.

I swore to myself I wouldn't touch politics, but after having read "Congress slams China and Microsoft, praises Google" I feel that's too much. I must rant.
I declare that in my world, Google leaving China is nothing but a dangerous farce.
And here is why.

Corporation VS Goverment - Sorry, governments should prevail. Abide or leave.

Big corporations controlling citizen's lives and lobbying governments? Sadly it doesn't happen only in books. Weapons and Tobacco industries have already been under the spotlight, locally or internationally (Europe and US alike are shifty on these issues). Governments are not always wise -to say the least, but corporations have little in common with humanitarian help either, they target profit, as a fact. Which is not a problem per-se, but a government has laws, and these laws are to be respected with no exception.

On what ground? Morals? Dangerous game.

We are now witnessing a debate summed up by "My moral against yours". China is "Evil". China censors search results. It's understandable to disagree. I disagree deeply, I am against any kind of censorship of the internet, freedom of thoughts is most precious to mankind.

But this is my opinion,  this.is.not.my.business! The cherry on the cake, US government applauding. I remember a time, not so long ago when a big country assaulted a smaller country on the pretense that it would liberate its citizens. Iraq, yes.

A revolution must come from the inside, sorry.

Just say it, you're pissed to have been hacked.

What an awesome PR move now! How many comments pouncing on China and their oppressive government (no, won't quote, go read, it depresses me), how dignified and brave of Google to stick with their policy and give the middle finger to the Chinese censorship. But...Big G broke the rules first, got an angry backlash and is now slamming the door, screaming about not liking the host anyway (is that my fault if they sold their shares of Baidu in 2006?).

What you may not know

• Google has also invested some shares in the P2P service Xunlei. I wonder what they will do about it?

• Google is suspending the search service. Do they make money out of it?  Ads. Wait...

• This news on the Chinese Google blog is not that old, it seems that they will still run AdSense after all
• Google censors in several other countries including Turkey, France, Thailand, and more, see the list here.

How is that for downright hypocrisy? I'd give it a good 9/10.

Don't get me wrong. Freedom of press yes, freedom of information, yes. Regulatory organism and pressuring non-profit organizations to defend it, yes.
BUT here we are talking about a company with a market cap approaching 200$ billions (tops the GDP of 134 countries, just saying), taking on a foreign country about a moral problem. Now applauded by its home government...

Extreme corporate bullshit can be hilarious, given the right timing. This time, though, it is not funny.

The fingers are supposed to represent the users. The thumb represent yourself, as the 'central user'.

Facebook:

Your friends, their friends and you in the middle

Twitter:

Follower following a follower who follows you. Plus, it kind of looks like a bird, isn't that rad?

Google Buzz:

Nothing special. Just a bloody mess.

Yes, I did have five minutes to lose.

Just to prove my point: social is in the people, media is in everything.

The news fell in recently, Twitter will share your location on a tweet per tweet basis, Facebook will follow, sharing your location in your News Feed®.

Privacy Nightmare:

First, about twitter. Do you know how many people follow you? Do you know them personally?
I'm asking because you're going to reveal important data.
To people you don't know.
Sometimes you won't even know they're following you.
Nice. Hope you can turn it off.

Then about Facebook, and that's where I'd advise you to be VERY careful if you don't want your position to leak out.
I remarked two weeks ago that you can actually see news about people  with your friend request still pending, that is, who haven't added you.
They also have rendered the un-friending process pretty difficult, burrying the link at the bottom left of the user profile.
Upon this knowledge, I carefully revised my privacy settings. But who does that except me and terribly hot looking chicks?
And I bet it will be on by default, thus allowing people you don't even want to be friend with to follow your moves.

Stalker Enabled Sites: For the sake of your data

You might ask yourself why the SNS giants are so found of adding geo-tagging features, when their popularity is still rising day by day?

Is that because they love you?
Is that because they get deals when you check in in some outlets?
Is that because they need to ride the geo-tagging wave?

Nope.They are after your footprints. The real ones.

Take a look a these stats, I quote:

"
Some 25.1 million people are accessing Facebook via a mobile Web browser, a growth of 112 percent from January 2009, according to new research from comScore. Twitter use via a mobile browser grew 347 percent to 4.7 million users. MySpace lured 11.4 million users. In total, some 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010.
"

And you know what can be triangulated precisely enough to give you transit pattern, real-life-crowd-behavior-data?
Bingo. A cellphone. And the mobile web will soon outgrow the desk/laptop one.
So yeah, Facebook and Twitter love you, but really they love your habits more.

I don't say we're all doomed to be the puppets of the capitalist mercantile pigs though. The 'setting' link is still there, top-right corner ;)

I'm not pretending to be a genius. I follow hunches and sometimes I'm right.
And sometimes, even hunches and feelings are so palpable that I can't stand reading and re-reading the obvious n times over.

When Aulia writes a post about people confusing Facebook Connect and actual Facebook login, I'm amused, a discussion ensues.
When I read all over the web people debating about whether or not Google Buzz will be the new black, I'm interested, nobody really know what will happen.
When I keep on reading over-long reports about how it's difficult to make money from ads on SNS, I get angry, because it's OBVIOUS!

SNS are communication and sharing tool. Communication and sharing tool. Communication and sharing tool. I write it three times because some people seem to have trouble getting it.
For the same reason I don't wear t-shirts with a detergent's logo on it, even if it's free, I am not interested in clicking on the monkey flash banner while uploading my status.
I do not want people erupting in the middle of my conversations and try to sell me things (the leaflet guy, his job is hard because he's one hell of an intrusive disturbance), I do not want the same thing happening in the middle of an online exchange.
And no, sorry even if it's really targeted, I still do not want to make the effort to move my mouse over your link and click it. Bad for my tennis-elbow.

No I'm not alone on this one, and yes please you can stop developing about how you're disappointed your multifunction screwdriver is not doing that well on Facebook.

We are now back to talking to each other, you advertisers have to face the reality about it and remember what sells in a world where people are not hooked behind a one way media like TV : good products.