Elegant Chaos

A couple of weeks ago I went along to a meeting of the Open Rights Group.

Cory Doctrow gave an interesting talk about some of the issues surrounding the debate over digital riglts management, in which he pointed out, amongst other things, the futility of trying to prevent the copying of bits - it is something that will only get easier with time. Cory is a good speaker, and it was an interesting talk, although as is so often the case with these events, there seemed to be a large element of preaching to the converted.

The second talk was on the campaign against identity cards, an issue that I think is more controversial. One of things that worries me about ORG is that it will attract people with certain views, and an orthodoxy will emerge to the exclusion of others - I suspect that the ID card debate might be a case in point.

It’s not that I’m particularly in favour of the government’s scheme, it’s just that i think that most of the debate about identity - tracking of information, dna databases, identity theft, civil liberties - is the wrong way round.

There are good analogies with the DRM debate. Just as it is futile to attempt to prevent the copying of digital information, it seems equally unrealistic to believe that we can prevent the storage and tracking of personal information.

UK Judge: Who needs software patents?

EU Software Patent Argument to Reopen?

Talking to Kevin about the Open Rights Group, I realised that one of the things that concerns me is that they might be too focussed on the media.

One of the stated objectives is to connect journalists with experts and activists, which is all well and good. I want people to understand our technical and philosophical objections to certain ideas.

However, I think that ORG should also see a key part of their role as explaining the legal technicalities and the implications of things like EU directives and proposed legislation to concerned technical people like me.

I also think that there is a danger of the people running the group coming across as a small clique, very much wrapped up in their own agenda, rehearsing the same arguments to other members of the inner circle - in effect preaching to the converted.

There are a lot of intelligent, educated people out in the real world who agree with their aims instinctively, without necessarily having a deep understanding of all the issues. We (placing myself immodestly in that category for a moment) need help with this stuff - we need someone to be our agent, sifting and selecting the important news for us - just as much as we need someone explaining it to the media.