'Unauthorized Bread': A Tale of Jailbreaking Refugees Versus IoT Appliances (arstechnica.com) 32
Science fiction writer, journalist and longtime Slashdot reader, Cory Doctorow, a.k.a. mouthbeef, writes: My novella "Unauthorized Bread" -- originally published last year in Radicalized from Tor Books -- has just been published on Ars Technica: it's an epic tale of jailbreaking refugees versus the disobedient IoT appliances they're forced to use, and it's being turned into a TV show by The Intercept's parent company and a graphic novel by First Second with help from Jennifer Doyle. Making the story open access was in honor of the book being shortlisted for Canada Reads, Canada's national book award. The story builds on the work I've done with EFF to legalize jailbreaking, including our lawsuit to overturn parts of the DMCA. The story is part of a lineage with a long history of /. interest, starting with my 2002 Salon story 0wnz0red, and it only seemed fitting that I let you know about it!
Information wants to be free (Score:3, Funny)
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I strongly agree with the author's point of view on intellectual property. I'll be pirating the book and sending him the donation I think it deserves.
The story is free, read the article.
Re:Information wants to be free (Score:5, Informative)
He has his own web store where you can buy the books DRM-free. Don't be a dunce.
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It would be very amusing if the author put an entry on the web store to pay what you thought it was worth after pirating it. I wonder how many people would use that route?
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Well, you can always just pay and not download the pdf.
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Probably none. But not because they wouldn't want to - it's because there aren't many good micropayment systems around that anyone feels inclined to trust.
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DMCA is defective (Score:3)
To be sure. But on reading that this afternoon, it seems the proposed solution, virtual machines is utterly unworkable. First of all, they're not undetectable - you can argue but it's hard to prove that someone can't break through and discover their environment as has happened many times.
But the real kicker was mentioned by the author, and then ... forgotten? If the company was going to notice via lack of funds coming in, even IF the jailbreaking was undetectable, the lack of funds remains (or nothing was won anyway).
That rates a D'oh to me.
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Thanks Cory (Score:3)
As someone else pointed out, there are a couple of plots holes, but it was still pretty good.
Re:Thanks Cory (Score:5, Insightful)
I loved that story too. The villain is not technology, but letting large companies acquire monopoly power by control over the legal system. The IP mess is a prime example of this effect.
By the same token, if you ask people why they hate GMO products, they won't be able to cite any ill effect they had from apples that are tinkered to not go brown so easily. What they always end up citing are those stories about farmers who were sued for planting their own seeds from Monsanto products.
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I find the precedent more problematic than the well being of some farmer in remote Asia, even if that sounds cold.
Similarly, weird apples putting a growth on my back 30 years from now is less problematic than what their lawyers want to pass.
Lumping evil into a person (or tech) victimizing people is easier writing, but corruption isn't simple and loud, it's subtle and complicated. It's assurances and justifications and moralizations and 15% more revenue which will Trickle Down, Probably. Cyberpunk isn't vill
And there it is (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re: And there it is (Score:1)
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Personally, I appreciated the notice. I don't scour a dozen websites looking for something interesting, I check one or two from time to time. His "self promotion" was a helpful notice of something interesting I might have otherwise missed. It's also an example of /. doing what it's supposed to do.
A crap story (Score:2)
Following the money leads to Re:A crap story (Score:3)
Hardly a constructive criticism. Oh wait. I almost forgot that the economic model of Slashdot is crap and apparently results in more of same.
First I think I need to offer the disclaimer that I sort of met Doctorow. There was a period of a few years when I hung out on a discussion forum and Doctorow was a fairly frequent contributor. Seemed like a nice enough guy. I don't remember him making a big deal of flogging his books and I don't even remember him as one of the extremists in the discussion. At least 10
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Juicero.
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The business model described in the story does exist. Juicero didn't succeed commercially, but it's not at all implausible for others to refine the idea.
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The story did cover that aspect: A landlord company which was legally restricted from raising rent on those apartments instead supplied them fitted with revenue-generating appliances, and prohibited tenants from replacing or modifying them using the lease agreement.
Some of it reminds me of a story from March in the UK which bears some similarity: A residential block in London divided between upmarket, expensive London apartments, and low-income and thus low-profit housing which the developer had no choice b
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It's coming soon I suspect. We have seen the camel's nose in the form of non-optional cloud based facial recognition replacing door keys.
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Keurig's attempt failed, in part, due to people hacking their way around the "authorized" k-cups, just like in the story.
Juiceroo sold a number of unitys until it folded and left the few who actually gave them money with a useless paperweight.
We have seen stories right here over the years of some cloudy IOT or another no longer working because the company either went away or decided it was time for everyone to send in more money.
We've seen time and again, Google sabotaging then abandoning yesterday's shiny
Unauthorized Heat (Score:3, Interesting)
This past week I discovered the concept of unauthorized heat, and hacking.
Three years ago I installed a new HVAC system in my house. It came with a programmable thermostat that also had Internet capabilities, which allow me to control the system from my phone if I so choose.
On Monday this week I came home from work and it was only 62 degrees in the house. My schedule is set to allow the temperature to fall to 64 degrees when I leave for work and bring it back up to 70 when I get home. I keep it at 64 while I am gone because I have 4 dogs and I don't want them to be TOO cold.
Anyway, when I came home Monday it was 62 degrees in the house, and the thermostat was set to 62, and I COULD NOT CHANGE IT. It would not allow me to override the program or change the schedule.
So, I hopped on my computer to look up the numbers for the HVAC company that installed it, thinking the thermostat had malfunctioned and gone to some fail-safe mode. When I logged in, there was an interesting email, "Welcome to Duke Energy Power Manager!"
It looked like Duke Energy (which is not even my electricity provider) decided to take over my thermostat remotely (they apparently have an agreement with Honeywell Total Connect Comfort that allows them access) and enroll me in their power management program without my consent. I called Duke and they were incredibly hostile about it and threatened to turn off my power if I attempted to tamper with the thermostat or defeat their control over it, and they didn't seem to think it mattered that I was not even a customer of theirs. The person on the phone claimed that my power company would have to honor a request by them to turn off my power for "tampering" and that I could go to jail if I tried to defeat it, including by using other types of heat like my vent-free gas fireplace.
I doubt that is true but I am still approaching this carefully. I asked my attorney to find some reasonable basis upon which to sue the pants off of Duke. My power company refuses to talk about it, which means they probably had some level of complicity in it.
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Huh. Be interested in hearing how all this goes down. I wonder what the actual deal consisted of between Duke and your power company and Honeywell.