Amy Schatz talks Net Neutrality on NPR
On May 25 WSJ journalist Amy Schatz appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air to explain the current state of play in Net Neutrality.
Listen here.
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Zittrain on BBC World Service
ISOC Trustee Jonathan Zittrain appeared on the BBC World Service’s Business Daily show “Controlling The Internet’ on Tuesday May 25 2010.
Listen here
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IPsec Configuration – Tonight 5/26 @ Cooper Union
Unigroup’s May 2010 presentation will be on “EZ-VPN”, which is an IPsec Configuration Tool described in the paper “EZ-VPN: Simple IPsec Configuration” by Shreyas Srivatsan and Stephen M. Bellovin. Our speaker, Maritza Johnson, has been working with these individuals on an empirical evaluation of this tool as part of a research project at Columbia University.
The abstract of the EZ-VPN paper says:
The IPsec protocol promised easy, ubiquitous encryption. That has never happened. For the most part, IPsec usage is confined to VPNs for road warriors, largely due to needless configuration complexity and incompatible implementations. We have designed a simple VPN configuration language that hides the unwanted complexities. Virtually no options are necessary or possible. The administrator specifies the absolute minimum of information: the authorized hosts, their operating systems, and a little about the network topology; everything else, including certificate generation, is automatic. Our implementation includes a multi-target compiler, which generates implementation-specific configuration files for two different platforms; others are easy to add.Maritza Johnson intends to do a hands-on demonstration of the EZ-VPN tool, with audience participation regarding downloading and using the tool, then having a subsequent review of the generated IPsec configurations. If you bring a notebook computer with WiFi Internet Access to the Unigroup meeting, we hope to have you participate in downloading and using the EZ-VPN tool. Requirements to participate in the demo: gcc, lex, yacc (bison), openssl. Optional: graphviz to display generated topology
When: WEDNESDAY, May 26th, 2010 6:15pm
Where: The Cooper Union <http://www.cooper.edu>
Topic: Computer Network Security: IPsec Configuration and EZ-VPNMore info: http://www.unigroup.org/
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Future of Music Coalition | DC Policy Day 2010 | Tuesday 5/25
This year has already seen a host of policy developments that will affect the entire music ecosystem – from the FCC’s authority to regulate the internet to international copyright concerns to the impact of health care reform on the music community.
D.C. Policy Day 2010 will bring these issues into focus through informed presentations and panel discussions. A live webcast will bring the conversation to a global audience of artists, academics, industry professionals, journalists, music fans and more.
This year has already seen a host of policy developments that will affect the entire music ecosystem – from the FCC’s authority to regulate the internet to international copyright concerns to the impact of health care reform on the music community.
Topics to be covered include the hotly debated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), efforts to preserve an open internet, and the health insurance landscape for musicians following the passage of historic health care legislation. Policy Day 2010 will also examine how the creative industries are faring under current Washington leadership as we head into a new election cycle.
Webcast available at DC Policy Day 2010
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CopyNight NYC – Tuesday, May 25
CopyNight Venue Change!
The next CopyNight will be on Tuesday, May 25 at 7PM.
We are moving to a new venue with a back room so we can talk and move about more easily.
Please join us at Vig at 12 Spring St. at the corner of Elizabeth in Nolita.
CopyNight is a monthly social gathering of people interested in restoring balance in copyright law. We meet over drinks once a month in many cities to discuss new developments and build social ties between artists, engineers, filmmakers, academics, lawyers, and many others.
Please feel free to pass along the invite, tweet or post.
Your hosts,
Fred Benenson & Laure Parsons
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Live Webcast Tonight: Does the Internet Favor Dictators or Dissenters?
Live Webcast Tonight: Does the Internet Favor Dictators or Dissenters?Friday, May 21, 2010
8:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. PT / 00.30 UTCTune in Friday evening for a discussion with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the State Department’s Alec Ross, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu and The Atlantic Monthly’s James Fallows on political dissent in the Internet age.
Each spring, New America gathers its fellows, senior staff and board members for an extended conference and retreat to discuss the issues and policy challenges that will dominate the months ahead. The retreat is closed to the public, but this discussion warrants sharing with a much wider New America audience.
To watch, go to:
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The Net Neutrality/Open Internet Debate – What’s Next, What’s the End Game?- Webcast 5/27
Austin Schlick, General Counsel of the FCC, will join BroadbandUS TV hosts Jim Baller and Marty Stern to discuss the FCC’s case for reclassification of broadband Internet access as a regulated telecommunications service. Julius Knapp, Chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, who’s heading up the FCC Technical Advisory Panel on the open Internet, will also join us to discuss technical issues surrounding the open Internet debate. WHEN: May 27th, 2010 – 1:00 – 2:30 pm EDT
REGISTER: http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/broadbandpolicy/100527/
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The Future of FCC Broadband Authority – DC 5/27
On May 27 2010 the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania will bring together academics and policy analysts to consider the implications of the recent FCC decision to opt for a “third way” in asserting its jurisdiction to implement policy for broadband service to U.S. homes.
On what basis, if any, does the FCC exercise jurisdiction over broadband access in pursuit of national goals? FCC Chairman Genachowski announced on May 6 that he intended to pursue a “Third Way” between the current “ancillary authority” approach and full imposition of Title II “telecommunications service” obligations on Internet providers. Just what does this approach mean for the future of broadband competition, Internet-based innovation, and the National Broadband Plan? At this non-partisan event, legal experts and former senior policy-makers will analyze how the U.S. arrived at this point, and what steps the FCC and other branches of government should take now.
Session 1: The History and Context of the Debate
- Moderator Kevin Werbach (The Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania)
- John Nakahata (Partner, Wiltshire & Grannis; former Chief of Staff, FCC)
- Jessica Rosenworcel (Sr. Counsel, Senate Commerce Committee)
- John Windhausen (Telopoly; former Sr. Counsel, Senate Commerce Committee)
Session 2: The Third Way – What Happens Next?
- Moderator Kevin Werbach (The Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania)
- Yochai Benkler (Harvard Law School)
- Susan Crawford (Univ. of Michigan Law School)
- James Speta (Northwestern University Law School)
-Jon Nuechterlein (WilmerHale)
- More info: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2010/05/broadband
- Susan Crawford’s notes
- Steve Schultze’s notes
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Google / Mozilla launch WebM project to bring open video to web
WebM is an open, royalty-free, media file format designed for the web.WebM defines the file container structure, video and audio formats. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska container.
Benefits of WebM
*Openness and innovation. A key factor in the web’s success is that its core technologies such as HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP are open for anyone to implement and improve. With video being core to the web experience, a high-quality, open video format choice is needed. WebM is 100% free, and open-sourced under a BSD-style license.
*Optimized for the web. Serving video on the web is different from traditional broadcast and offline mediums. Existing video formats were designed to serve the needs of these mediums and do it very well. WebM is focused on addressing the unique needs of serving video on the web.
o Low computational footprint to enable playback on any device, including low-power netbooks, handhelds, tablets, etc.
o Simple container format
o Highest quality real-time video delivery
o Click and encode. Minimal codec profiles, sub-options; when possible, let the encoder make the tough choices.For more information about WebM, see http://www.webmproject.org/
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Joly MacFie
Some detailed analysis is on http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377
Google’s choice of container and audio format for HTML5
Google has chosen Matroska for their container format. This isn’t particularly surprising: Matroska is one of the most widely used “modern” container formats and is in many ways best-suited to the task. MP4 (aka ISOmedia) is probably a better-designed format, but is not very flexible; while in theory it can stick anything in a private stream, a standardization process is technically necessary to “officially” support any new video or audio formats. Patents are probably a non-issue; the MP4 patent pool was recently disbanded, largely because nobody used any of the features that were patented.
Another advantage of Matroska is that it can be used for streaming video: while it isn’t typically, the spec allows it. Note that I do not mean progressive download (a’la Youtube), but rather actual streaming, where the encoder is working in real-time. The only way to do this with MP4 is by sending “segments” of video, a very hacky approach in which one is effectively sending a bunch of small MP4 files in sequence. This approach is used by Microsoft’s Silverlight “Smooth Streaming”. Not only is this an ugly hack, but it’s unsuitable for low-latency video. This kind of hack is unnecessary for Matroska. One possible problem is that since almost nobody currently uses Matroska for live streaming purposes, very few existing Matroska implementations support what is necessary to play streamed Matroska files.
I’m not quite sure why Google chose to rebrand Matroska; “WebM” is a stupid name.
The choice of Vorbis for audio is practically a no-brainer. Even ignoring the issue of patents, libvorbis is still the best general-purpose open source audio encoder. While AAC is generally better at very low bitrates, there aren’t any good open source AAC encoders: faac is worse than LAME and ffmpeg’s AAC encoder is even worse. Furthermore, faac is not free software; it contains code from the non-free reference encoder. Combined with the patent issue, nobody expected Google to pick anything else.
Summary for the lazy
VP8, as a spec, should be a bit better than H.264 Baseline Profile and VC-1. It’s not even close to competitive with H.264 Main or High Profile. If Google is willing to revise the spec, this can probably be improved.
VP8, as an encoder, is somewhere between Xvid and Microsoft’s VC-1 in terms of visual quality. This can definitely be improved a lot, but not via conventional means.
VP8, as a decoder, decodes even slower than ffmpeg’s H.264. This probably can’t be improved that much.
With regard to patents, VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free.
VP8 is definitely better compression-wise than Theora and Dirac, so if its claim to being patent-free does stand up, it’s an upgrade with regard to patent-free video formats.
VP8 is not ready for prime-time; the spec is a pile of copy-pasted C code and the encoder’s interface is lacking in features and buggy. They aren’t even ready to finalize the bitstream format, let alone switch the world over to VP8.
With the lack of a real spec, the VP8 software basically is the spec–and with the spec being “final”, any bugs are now set in stone. Such bugs have already been found and Google has rejected fixes
Google made the right decision to pick Matroska and Vorbis for its HTML5 video proposal.
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Google Has A Problem: VP8 Is Not As Good As H.264
“Based on test results from two different codec experts, Jan Ozer (test results link to come shortly) and Jason Garrett-Glaser (test results), they both came to the conclusions that the VP8 codec provides similar quality to H.264, but in most cases, H.264 is still better quality wise than VP8. Both also stated that most won’t notice the difference between VP8 and H.264, but that’s not what VP8 was suppose to be about. VP8 was touted as the video codec that was suppose to replace H.264 because it could offer better quality at half the bandwidth, something both reviewers said is not possible.”
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Nonprofits, Gaming & Virtual Worlds Brainstorm Bash – 5/23
Nonprofits, Gaming & Virtual Worlds Brainstorm Bash
Our goal is to bridge the divide between nonprofits, virtual
worlds & game enthusiasts. There are superheroes in each realm,
& we plan on bringing them together for a world-class
brainstorm bash. Building on the community that Games for
Change has created, we hope to organize a collaborative working
group that mashes up gaming with nonprofits & virtual world
producers, & we’re exploring a collaborative game design
challenge that would be great to have your input on.When: Sunday, May 23, 3-6pm
Where: Green Spaces, 394 Broadway 5th Fl (btwn Walker/White)
More info/RSVP at http://bit.ly/npcbrain
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