Baltimore's Aerial Surveillance Program Has Logged 700 Flight Hours, One (1) Arrest

from the if-you're-not-going-to-get-much-band,-might-as-well-use-someone-else's-b dept

The Baltimore PD's eye in the sky program continues. First (inadvertently) introduced to the public in 2016, the camera/Cessna system, made by a company called Persistent Surveillance Systems, flew above the city capturing up to 32-square miles of human and vehicle movements using a 192-million-megapixel camera.

The only upside to the residents of Baltimore not being informed of this development is that they weren't spending their money on it. It was completely funded by a private donor, Arnold Ventures, LLC. The system, known as "Gorgon Stare" when deployed in war zones by the military, is referred to by the city and PD by the friendlier, if clunkier, name "Aerial Investigation Research Pilot Program."

The second run of this program began earlier this year. The latest take on persistent aerial surveillance survived an early legal challenge by the ACLU. A federal court judge said the system did not violate anyone's Fourth Amendment rights, mainly because of its technical limitations. The system is far from "persistent." The planes -- three of them -- are airborne around 11 hours a day at most and they're almost completely useless at night. They're also mostly useless during bad weather and, in especially inclement weather, unable to get up off the ground at all.

So, it may be Constitutional and it may have been run past the public the second time around, but is it actually useful? That's something no one seems to know. The initial run in 2016 didn't add much to the Baltimore law enforcement knowledge base, mainly because it involved Baltimore cops and their apparently shoddy work practices.

[P]oor record-keeping by the police department apparently hindered any real study of the 2016 surveillance effort. According to reporting by the Baltimore Sun two years later, the best anyone call tell is that aerial footage may, or may not have, played a role in closing one of the roughly 100 murder cases during the 2016 flights.

There's no telling what this deployment will do for crime stats. The flights are ongoing but very little of what's captured appears to be useful to investigators.

After more than 700 hours aloft over the city, just one arrest has been made with aid from the program’s imagery data, according to BPD.

Meanwhile, the city continues to see its murder rate climb. Of course, the persistent surveillance can't actually prevent crime. It can only help investigators track suspects as they move away from crime scenes. The planes spend most of the time flying over areas the BPD's other software tells them to fly.

Overall, the police department says, flights are scheduled over areas where BPD data indicates most homicides occur, and the images it records are used after a crime has been committed and an initial investigation determines aerial footage might be helpful.

The planes are also flying over ongoing George Floyd-related protests and, in some cases, wandering outside of the city itself to fly over nearby suburbs. While police officials have stressed they're not surveilling First Amendment activity, they're still recording it, even if they never plan to use that footage. All footage collected remains in the possession of Persistent Surveillance Systems. It turns over images the BPD requests and destroys everything not needed 45 days after it's recorded. It's also forbidden to sell the footage. But it is able to do whatever it wants with these images while they remain in the company's possession during that 45-day time frame.

If this is all residents are getting from this program, it's a good thing a philanthropist from Texas is paying for it. Persistent Surveillance Systems is trying to create a market for its goods, but its test runs with the Baltimore PD haven't been a ringing endorsement of their tech. The Police Commissioner, Michael Harrison, doesn't exactly sound enthused about what he's seen so far.

Harrison… admits the program likely is not worth taxpayers funding the hefty price tag, potentially as high as $8 million annually based on the pilot, after the privately-funded pilot program runs out. “It probably would not be supported publicly, because of the dollar amount and its outcomes thus far.”

Meanwhile, the spy planes keep circling Baltimore. The experiment -- one using Baltimore residents as test subjects -- continues.

Filed Under: baltimore, cost benefit, police, surveillance

In 10 Years Of Existence, The Long-Running French Farce Known As Hadopi Has Imposed Just €87,000 In Fines, But Cost Taxpayers €82 Million

from the shut-it-down dept

The French anti-piracy framework known as Hadopi began as tragedy and soon turned into farce. It was tragic that so much energy was wasted on putting together a system that was designed to throw ordinary users off the Internet -- the infamous "three strikes and you're out" approach -- rather than encouraging better legal offerings. Four years after the Hadopi system was created in 2009, it descended into farce when the French government struck down the signature three strikes punishment because it had failed to bring the promised benefits to the copyright world. Indeed, Hadopi had failed to do anything much: its first and only suspension was suspended, and a detailed study of the three strikes approach showed it was a failure from just about every viewpoint. Nonetheless, Hadopi has staggered on, sending out its largely ignored warnings to people for allegedly downloading unauthorized copies of material, and imposing a few fines on those unlucky enough to get caught repeatedly.

As TorrentFreak reports, Hadopi has published its annual report, which contains some fascinating details of what exactly it has achieved during the ten years of its existence. In 2019, the copyright industry referred 9 million cases to Hadopi for further investigation, down from 14 million the year before. However, referral does not mean a warning was necessarily sent. In fact, since 2010, Hadopi has only sent out 12.7 million warnings in total, which means that most people accused of piracy don't even see a warning.

Those figures are a little abstract; what's important is how effective Hadopi has been, and whether the entire project has been worth all the time and money it has consumed. Figures put together by Next INpact, quoted by TorrentFreak, indicate that during the decade of its existence, Hadopi has imposed the grand sum of €87,000 in fines, but cost French taxpayers nearly a thousand times more -- €82 million. Against that background of staggering inefficiency and inefficacy, the following words in the introduction to Hadopi's annual report (pdf), written by the organization's president, Denis Rapone, ring rather hollow:

Hadopi remains, ten years later and despite the pitfalls in its path in the past, the major player in the protection of copyright, so that creation can flourish unhindered.

Creation could have flourished rather more had those €82 million been spent supporting struggling artists directly, rather than wasting them on the bureaucrats running this pointless joke of an organization. Time to bring the curtain down on the Hadopi farce for good.

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Filed Under: copyright, copyright enforcement, cost benefit, fees, france, hadopi

This Makes No Sense: US To Ban Laptops On All Flights From Europe

from the yes,-but-wait-what? dept

Earlier this year we wrote about the nonsensical move by the Department of Homeland Security to ban laptops and tablets in the cabin on flights from a bunch of cities in the Middle East. The rumored reason was discoveries that terrorists had learned how to make bombs out of laptops. As we noted, this made almost no sense at all when you challenged any of the assumptions. But, never let logic and reason get in the way of a bit of inane security theater. Because now Homeland Security is about to announce that it's now banning laptops in the cabins on all flights from Europe (it's unclear if this will also apply on flights from the US to Europe, but it seems likely that European airports will reciprocate).

While this does answer one of the questions raised by the original ban ("why won't potential terrorists just fly out of other countries?") it still raises a host of other questions. Again: why won't this apply to flights from other countries? Or domestic flights? Or all flights? But, really, that just raises an even larger issue, which is that if you want to protect 100% of all flights 100% of the time from ever having a problem in which people might die, the answer is ground all flights and never let anyone fly anywhere ever. Problem solved. Of course, the cost of such a solution would be horrendous -- which is why we don't do it. But that's the key issue: all of these things involve tradeoffs. All too frequently, it appears that government officials -- especially those on the national security side of things -- don't care at all about the tradeoffs. They just care about blocking any possible attack no matter how unlikely or how remote the chance of such an attack might be, and without any consideration of the costs and inconveniences to everyone else. And, yes, it's reasonable to point out that a single attack would be very, very costly as well. And there's clearly a reason to protect heavily against attacks. But there's still a balance.

And there must be a better solution. If laptops are a risk factor, it's difficult to see how putting them in the cargo hold -- where there's no one to stop a fire -- is a better solution. Hell, most current airline rules require passengers to store all lithium ion batteries in carry-on luggage for exactly that reason. Putting them all in the hold would seem to increase the risk of accidental explosions and fires that might cause just as much, if not more, damage. And, of course, forcing people to give up their laptops has a secondary (but very serious) problem: for anyone traveling with sensitive information (lawyers, doctors, reporters, business execs, public officials, etc.) giving up your laptop is a massive security risk.

In other words, the "cost" of this solution is ridiculously high for a very large number of people, for whom flying to or from Europe has just become a massive inconvenience and tremendously problematic to justify given the personal risk. And for what? Vague and unclear threats about "possible" exploding laptops? I'm sure that no one wants to be on a flight with a laptop that will explode (whether on purpose or not), but there has to be a better way to tackle the problem than doing a blanket ban on laptops in the cabin. And, yes, perhaps this sounds like saying nerd harder back to Homeland Security, but this is a case where there clearly are more reasonable tradeoffs that can and should be explored, well short of inconveniencing everyone and creating a very different (but very serious) kind of security threat by forcing people to give up their laptops.

Filed Under: ban, computers, cost benefit, dhs, europe, homeland security, laptops, terrorism

Australia's Arrogant, Irresponsible Trade Minister Rejects Calls For Cost-Benefit Analysis Of TPP

from the would-anyone-run-a-business-like-this? dept

Mike has just written about the way the US public is being short-changed over the promised "debate" that would follow the completion of the TPP negotiations. That broken promise is just part of the general dishonesty surrounding the whole deal. For example, the public was told that it was not possible for it to make its views known during the negotiations, because they had to be secret -- even though many other trade deals aren't -- but that once everything was agreed there would be ample time for a truly democratic debate. Of course, at that point nothing could be changed, so the debate was little more than a token gesture, but now it seems the US public won't even get that.

It will be cold comfort to learn that US citizens are not the only ones being denied the opportunity to engage in a serious discussion with politicians about the merits or otherwise of TPP. Here's what's happening in Australia, as reported by the Guardian:

The trade minister, Andrew Robb, has rejected calls for an independent cost-benefit analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the World Bank estimated it could lift Australia’s economic output by just 0.7% by 2030.

Robb, who signed the regional trade pact with counterparts from 11 other nations in New Zealand on Thursday, dismissed opponents of the deal as "the usual suspects" who would not be persuaded by a new inquiry.

To dismiss those who want to weigh up the evidence for and against TPP as "the usual suspects" is insulting not just to them, but also to the Australian public, who are effectively being told that if they dare to question the value of TPP, they are just "the usual suspects." This is pretty rich, too:

There’s nothing that they’ve said that convinces me that they’re genuine about this ... I think the community accepts that we've got 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth in Australia, we've got millions of jobs which have come off the back of Australia opening up and participating in these sorts of major agreements around the world with all of our trading partners.

So Robb is saying that those who want a mature debate about TPP must convince him, rather than the other way around. And claiming that Australia's growth is due to trade agreements -- without providing any evidence -- expects people to be naive enough to fall for the old 'correlation implies causation' trick. In any case, it's the details of the deal that are being questioned, many of which are quite antithetical to genuine free trade -- enhanced monopoly protections for copyright and biologics being two examples.

Robb's problem is that the traditional instruments of government persuasion -- econometric models that purport to demonstrate the benefits of signing up to trade agreements -- reveal that TPP is likely to bring Australia vanishingly small economic benefits. As we wrote recently, the World Bank predicts that the annual boost to Australia's GDP thanks to TPP will be around 0.07%. The country's trade minister tries to side-step that awkward fact as follows:

Robb told Sky News there was "a war by modelling" occurring. He pointed to a US Department of Agriculture study that showed Australia's agriculture sector would be the "biggest winner by a country mile".

In other words, don't look at that World Bank study, look at this US Department of Agriculture (USDA) study instead. Techdirt discussed that analysis over a year ago, noting one rather pertinent fact that Robb somehow forgot to mention: the USDA predicted that the total boost to the Australian economy from TPP would be precisely zero, zip, zilch, nada. If Australia's agricultural sector is a big winner from TPP, there must also be some big losers to balance things out.

Those facts probably explains in part why Robb refuses to ask the Australian government's own Productivity Commission for an analysis of TPP, even though its job is precisely to provide "independent research and advice to Government on economic, social and environmental issues affecting the welfare of Australians." The other reason why he won't want them giving an expert opinion is probably because of this comment in the Commission's Trade and Assistance Review 2013-14:

Preferential trade agreements add to the complexity and cost of international trade through substantially different sets of rules of origin, varying coverage of services and potentially costly intellectual property protections and investor-state dispute settlement provisions.

The emerging and growing potential for trade preferences to impose net costs on the community presents a compelling case for the final text of an agreement to be rigorously analysed before signing. Analysis undertaken for the Japan-Australia agreement reveals a wide and concerning gap compared to the Commission's view of rigorous assessment.

Robb's reluctance may be understandable, but it is also unforgivable. The benefits for Australia from TPP are routinely exaggerated, but no account is ever taken of the costs of signing up to the trade agreement -- a situation that is plainly absurd. Any manager that suggested closing an important business deal without carefully weighing up both the benefits and the costs would be rightly dismissed for gross negligence and incompetence. And yet Robb expects 23 million Australians to agree to TPP on precisely that basis, simply because he says it's a good deal. That's not just appallingly arrogant, but also profoundly irresponsible.

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Filed Under: andrew robb, australia, cost benefit, economics, tpp, trade deals

Will Australian Government Use Cost-Benefit Analysis To Kill Off Fair Use Proposal Once And For All?

from the set-up-to-fail dept

Discussions about copyright reform in Australia are now entering their fourth year, and the longer they go on, the worse the proposals become. That's in part because there has been a change of government in the interim, and the present Attorney-General, George Brandis, has made it clear he's firmly on the side of copyright companies, and indifferent to the Australian public's concerns or needs in a digital world.

One big problem for him and his maximalist friends is that a key recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), in its extremely detailed and rigorous analysis of the state of copyright in Australia, was to introduce a new fair use provision. This is absolute anathema for the copyright companies, which seem to hold that the law should only ever be changed in their favor, imposing a kind of copyright ratchet that prevents the public from gaining any substantial new rights. Simply dropping the fair use idea would be too obvious, so a way needs to be found to kill it off without causing an outcry against the Australian government's blatant favoritism. As ZDNet reports, maybe Brandis has found what he is looking for:

The Australian Attorney-General's Department has commissioned a cost-benefit analysis into the recommendation by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) to implement a fair use provision in the amendments that the government is proposing to make to the Copyright Act in order to adapt to the digital world.

The economic analysis, announced on Wednesday, will examine the cost effects that fair use would impose on copyright holders along with copyright user groups.

Although that sounds perfectly reasonable, the ZDNet story adds some important historical context from a year ago that Brandis probably hoped nobody would remember:

Brandis again affirmed his partiality toward content owners, claiming that the recommendation to implement a fair use defence was "a controversial proposal" and would weaken the rights of copyright owners.

"In considering the recommendations, we will be particularly concerned to ensure and we will approach the consideration of the report with the view that no prejudice be caused to the interests of rights holders and creators," he said in February 2014.

Since by its very nature fair use allows the public to use copyright material in various ways without needing to pay a licensing fee, this means there will inevitably be some "prejudice" to the copyright companies, although minor in comparison to the major gains for eveyone else. However impartial and balanced the cost-benefit analysis will be, it is bound to expose the fact that if the public gains any new freedoms there will be a theoretical loss for the copyright holders.

And that, presumably, will allow Brandis to refuse to implement the ALRC recommendation on the grounds that he must defend the interests of creators, even though they would be among the greatest benefactors of a fair use provision, which would allow them to use existing works in new and exciting ways. But who cares about art when corporate profits are at stake?

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Filed Under: alrc, australia, copyright, copyright reform, cost benefit, fair use, george brandis

Paper Says Public Doesn't Know How To Keep Score In Privacy Discussion While Glossing Over Government Surveillance

from the noting-the-obvious-while-ignoring-the-elephant-bugging-the-room dept

Lawfare -- a blog primarily devoted defending the practices of spy agencies -- has released a paper authored by Benjamin Wittes and Jodie Liu that theorizes that the public's concern over privacy encroachments are -- if not overblown -- then failing to properly factor in the privacy "gains" they've obtained over the past several years.

The theory is solid, but the paper fails to differentiate between what sort of privacy losses people find acceptable and which ones they don't -- mainly by leaving privacy invasions by government entities almost completely undiscussed. It opens by quoting a scene from an old Woody Allen film in which the protagonist attempts to "hide" his purchase of porn at a magazine stand by purchasing several unrelated (and presumably uninteresting) magazines at the same time. This leads to the conclusion that people's ability to enjoy porn in private has risen with the advent of the internet, while simultaneously opening them up to data harvesters and internet companies less interested in personal privacy than selling users to advertisers.

True enough, but there's a big difference between exposing that information to the Googles of the world, rather than the surveillance agencies of the world. On one hand, Google and its competitors provide something in exchange for the privacy loss -- tailored ads, relevant search results, email, document creation platforms, etc. And there are still those -- a steadily-growing minority -- that realize Google's privacy invasions are often inseparable from the government's privacy invasions (via court orders, subpoenas and NSLs) and work hard to keep their personal information away from both. What the government offers in exchange for access to much of the same info is intangible: "security." While one might recognize the value of the first exchange, it's harder to sell the latter tradeoff, especially since intelligence agencies are much, much better at scooping up information than they are at disseminating it.

A huge amount of technological development follows this basic pattern. Google and Microsoft and Yahoo! enable you to search for information privately—with data collection by the companies and possible retrieval by other actors as a consequence. Amazon lets you buy all sorts of products with nobody the wiser—but with your purchase history stored and mined for patterns.

Your smartphone lets you put all this capability in your pocket and take it with you— and thus also lets you use it more and record your location along the way. That information too is then subject to retrieval. Facebook allows you to identify discrete groups of people with whom you want to share material—yet it stores your actions for processing and retrieval as you go. In our mental tabulation of gain and loss, we tend to count only one side of the ledger, pocketing what we have won as though it were of no privacy value while bemoaning what we have given up.

Even more mischievously, when we do acknowledge the gains, we tend to redefine them as gains in something other than privacy. We define them, most commonly, as mere convenience or efficiency gains—a dismissive description that implies we have won something inconsequential or time-saving while giving up something profound. But the construction leaves us with a distorted and altogether-too-bleak outlook on technology’s impact on our lives. Yes, technology involves gains in convenience and efficiency, but those are not the only gains.

To reiterate, we do not argue here that technology is necessarily privacy-enhancing in the aggregate, or that technology does not erode privacy. Rather, our general point is that the interaction between technology and privacy is less clear-cut than the debate commonly acknowledges, that we don’t keep score well, and that the actual privacy scorecard is a murky one.

The paper does make the solid argument that technology has resulted in greater individual privacy -- provided it's measured on the scale the paper's authors present. In one example, the authors point to a teen's desire to discuss a sexual or health issue as being more "private" because of access to medical websites and forums where information can be obtained with relative anonymity -- something a doctor's office can't completely provide.

But medical records are private information, governed by a specific set of laws. If anything, the online search is less private because these websites are not subject to patient privacy laws. Someone inquiring about a teen's visit to a health clinic would be frozen out, but any number of entities can access web-related information without facing similar statutory roadblocks.

While there are some good points made, the paper is undermined by the authors' insistence that Americans just don't know how to properly balance their privacy concerns. The implication -- given author Benjamin Wittes' frequent defense of government surveillance -- is that if the public can't weigh privacy gains and losses correctly in the context of private corporations, it certainly can't be expected to make informed decisions when it comes to government surveillance. And it's true that most citizens aren't likely to rigorously examine their fears of privacy erosion.

The paper does very little to compare privacy "violations" by internet entities to government surveillance programs, choosing instead to focus almost entirely on the tradeoffs made by people who hand over a certain amount of personal info for the privilege of watching porn or googling STD symptoms without having to involve another living, breathing person. It's presented as being in favor of a "more rigorous balance sheet" when it comes to personal privacy, but then fails to closely examine government surveillance concerns. There's another tradeoff being performed here -- without the input of those surveilled and who receive almost nothing tangible in exchange for the privacy erosion. Because of this, there's little comparison between the Googles and the NSAs of the world.

You don't hand a government the tools of totalitarianism and a long leash and simply assume it will end well. Google, et al may be similarly close-fisted when it comes to producing specifics on the use of personal data, but they also don't bear the same obligation to the American public that the US government does. Even if Google is more intrusive than the NSA, it still is only one of many platform providers and there are options (admittedly not many and not easily achieved) for avoiding its data-gathering efforts. The government provides no such options, other than forgoing the use of phones, the internet, etc.

I think the paper does add to the discussion of privacy gains and losses, but the authors' unwillingness to honestly approach government surveillance efforts in the same context blunts its impact. It quotes privacy advocates like the ACLU and EFF on the subject of data harvesting by private companies, but doesn't address the similar concerns they've raised about the erosion of privacy by government actions.

There's an attempt being made here to paint the government as no worse (and possibly even better) than private companies' data harvesting efforts, albeit by way of omission rather than by comparison. It's disingenuous to depict the public as ignorant of their privacy "gains" against the domestic surveillance backdrop, while omitting any mention of similar privacy erosions at the hand government intelligence agencies. Wittes opens his post on the paper by claiming American and European privacy debates "keep score very badly" and then points to a paper that leaves key parties in the privacy debate almost wholly unmentioned. I'm all for an open discussion about privacy gains and losses, but a paper that focuses solely on interactions with private companies -- while claiming the public can't keep score -- isn't much of an addition to the debate.

Filed Under: ben wittes, cost benefit, privacy, surveillance

Privacy Board Says NSA Doesn't Know How Effective Its Collection Programs Are, Doesn't Much Care Either

from the pay-no-attention-to-the-men-behind-the-haystacks dept

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has just released its assessment [pdf link] of the NSA's ability to follow instructions. One year ago, it assessed the Section 215 bulk records collection. Six months later, it assessed the Section 702 program, which hoovers up email communications. Now, it has followed up on its recommendations and found the NSA surprisingly cooperative.

Overall, the Board has found that the Administration and the Intelligence Community have been responsive to its recommendations. The Administration has accepted virtually all of the recommendations in the Board’s Section 702 report and has begun implementing many of them. It also has accepted many of the recommendations in the Board’s Section 215 report and has supported legislation that would satisfy several more, including the most far-reaching of the Board’s proposals.

BUT:

However, many of the recommendations directed at the Administration have yet to be fully satisfied, with the Administration having taken only partial steps, at most, toward implementing them.

The first recommendation was one of the biggest: end the Section 215 program. The NSA doesn't really want to do this, but has seemed receptive to making some changes. The administration, on the other hand, hasn't offered anything to date other than lip service in support of this recommendation. It's been left up to legislators and, so far, legislation targeting the collection has failed to move forward. As the PCLOB noted in its assessment, the Section 215 program "lacks a viable legal foundation," as well as "posing a serious threat to privacy and civil liberties." And yet, it continues on unabated, with four renewals by the FISA court since the PCLOB's original assessment was delivered.

The PCLOB is now gently nudging the administration towards taking a hands-on approach.

It should be noted that the Administration can end the bulk telephone records program at any time, without congressional involvement.

On the bright side, the NSA has cut back on the number of hops in its contact chaining and has to seek approval from the FISA court to search its stored records, and it must be able to provide proof of "reasonable articulable suspicion" before it can do so.

The same goes for the introduction of an actual adversarial process to FISA court proceedings with the addition of an advocate acting on behalf of Americans' interests. The NSA is in no hurry to see this done and, again, the administration has offered its support of the board's recommendations but has made no movement on its own. It's left to legislation to fix this, and if earlier NSA-targeting bills are any indication, this will most likely add to the growing pile of papery corpses left behind by failed Congressional fixes.

The NSA is also taking hesitant steps to publicly release more information on FISC orders and rulings. We've seen some of this via the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's tumblr blog. (Still a very odd sentence to type…) But, it must be noted that a large majority of what has been "released" so far has actually been propelled out of the ODNI's hands by a handful of FOIA lawsuits. So, this new "openness" is not entirely dissimilar to confessions that take "enhanced interrogation techniques" to acquire.

As for the Section 702 program, the PCLOB has recommended a number of technical changes, most of which are at least partly implemented at this point. What's more worrying is the fact that the NSA still continues to harvest "about" communications, thanks to its ability to talk a hesitant FISA court into a "novel" legal theory while operating under interim legislation back in 2007.

The PCLOB raises several concerns about the Section 702's harvesting of communications based on very tenuous connections.

[T]he permissible scope of targeting in the Section 702 program is broad enough that targets need not themselves be suspected terrorists or other bad actors. Thus, if the email address of a target appears in the body of a communication between two non-targets, it does not necessarily mean that either of the communicants is in touch with a suspected terrorist...

While “about” collection is valued by the government for its unique intelligence benefits, it is, to a large degree, an inevitable byproduct of the way the NSA conducts much of its upstream collection. At least some forms of “about” collection present novel and difficult issues regarding the balance between privacy and national security. But current technological limits make any debate about the proper balance somewhat academic, because it is largely unfeasible to limit “about” collection without also eliminating a substantial portion of upstream’s “to/from” collection, which would more drastically hinder the government’s counterterrorism efforts. We therefore recommend that the NSA work to develop technology that would enable it to identify and distinguish among the 24 types of “about” collection at the acquisition stage, and then selectively limit or modify its “about” collection, as may later be deemed appropriate.

The PCLOB also urges the release of information concerning the NSA, FBI and CIA's minimization procedures and stats on how often the NSA acquires and uses the communications of US persons -- both of which are in the "being considered" to "being implemented" stages.

Most importantly, the PCLOB recommends the NSA cough up some evidence that these collections actually have any value. Unsurprisingly, this falls under the "not implemented" heading. And the ODNI/NSA's stalling only makes it look as though these programs are all show, but little substance.

Determining the efficacy and value of particular counterterrorism programs is critical. Without such determinations, policymakers and courts cannot effectively weigh the interests of the government in conducting a program against the intrusions on privacy and civil liberties that it may cause.

Those on the surveillance side always remind us that there needs to be a balance between national security and civil liberties, but the agencies they defend have never bothered to examine the security/privacy ledger. And they're in no hurry to do so. The Section 215 program's effectiveness is highly dubious, and as for the Section 702 program, we (including the PCLOB) don't have enough information to even begin weighing its comparative value. For all the forced transparency, there simply hasn't been much forthcoming on the program itself, much less how useful it is in terms of counterterrorism.

If the NSA wishes to continue its plundering of privacy in pursuit of security, it needs to provide some hard data to back up its assertions that these programs are essential to the safety of the nation. It won't make the plundering OK, but at least it will give the public some idea where their rights stand in the NSA's eyes.

Filed Under: cost benefit, nsa, oversight, pclob, surveillance

To Catch A Meaningless Leaker, Microsoft Made It Clear It Has No Concern For Your Privacy

from the cost-benefit dept

Yesterday, we wrote about the bizarre decision by Microsoft to search through a reporter's Microsoft Hotmail email account, in an attempt to catch the Microsoft employee who had leaked that reporter a copy of Windows 8. While most of the initial stories about this had focused on the arrest of the employee, Alex Kibkalo, and had pushed the email snooping issue to the bottom of the story, it appears that the email snooping is quickly becoming the story. After all, the leak itself was basically meaningless. Some early screenshots of Windows 8 were never a big deal, and Microsoft has struggled to get adoption of Windows 8 not because of any leak, but because a variety of other issues. So capturing the leaker does little of benefit for Microsoft.

However, at the same time, revealing that the company has no problem snooping through users' email accounts if it feels it is beneficial to Microsoft is hugely damaging to the company. People need to trust their email providers. A well-known venture capitalist I know has spoken repeatedly about how so many people use Gmail, even when doing things like negotiating deals with Google (or competitors!) because they actually trust Google not to abuse their privacy and snoop on those emails. In part, they do this because they know if Google was exposed for snooping on emails that way there would be a mass exodus from Gmail to alternative providers. Yet, Microsoft doesn't seem to have considered just how astoundingly damaging it is to violate its own users privacy -- whether permitted by Microsoft's terms of service or not.

On a basic cost-benefit analysis it's difficult to see how anyone at Microsoft thought this was a wise move. Absolutely wipe out any possible trust and privacy for all email users to track down one meaningless leaker? Instead, what this shows is how "piracy obsession" blinds companies. They seem to forget all about cost-benefit analysis and assume that "something must be done" at all costs, even if it basically destroys an entire business line for the company.

Microsoft is now desperately trying to minimize the damage as it's realizing just how it's wiped out all of its bogus talk about protecting your privacy. They've announced new policies concerning how and when they'll violate your privacy, but this seems quite clearly to be a case of too little, too late.

Filed Under: copyright, cost benefit, email, leaks, overreaction, privacy, trust
Companies: microsoft

Indie Film Distributor Spends Half Her Profits Sending DMCA Takedowns, But Is It Worth It?

from the a-deleted-link-does-NOT-equal-a-'gained-sale' dept

An interesting bit of information was uncovered and pointed out by Baldaur Regis and an AC in the comments of Mike's post detailing the not-so-crafty work of an industry shill who posted three comments as three different people from the same IP address.

The original Wall Street Journal article quoted Kathy Wolfe, a filmmaker and head of Wolfe Video, who said she spent a surprising amount of money battling piracy.

Last year, Kathy Wolfe, who owns a small independent U.S. film-distribution company, Wolfe Video, found more than 903,000 links to unauthorized versions of her films, which she sells around the world for $3.99 per download. She estimates that she lost over $3 million in revenue in 2012 as a result of stolen content from her top 15 titles. On top of that, she spends over $30,000 a year—about half her profit—just to send out takedown notices for her titles.

$30,000 is a lot to spend fighting anything, much less something as nebulous as piracy. The fact that it was "half" of her profits was even more surprising, leading this AC to point out an easy way she could double her money.

Wait. You mean she could double her profit by just doing *nothing* ? That's actually a riot.

While it isn't quite as simple as that, there is some truth to that assertion. This piqued my curiosity. If someone was spending half their profits having links taken down, they must have seen something that justified this expenditure. A business doesn't just throw half their profits in a hole unless that same hole is throwing money back. I assumed there must be a corresponding sales increase, and a noticeable one at that. So I emailed Kathy Wolfe to get some details on her anti-piracy efforts.

I'm Tim Cushing and I write for techdirt.com. I was wondering if you might be able to answer a couple of questions about your ongoing fight against piracy. What really got my attention was the fact that you're spending nearly $30,000/yr. sending takedown notices. (via WSJ and Digital Music News)

While I understand your interest in preventing your films from being distributed in this fashion, I'm having trouble believing that this expense is generating a worthwhile return on investment. I was wondering if you could shed some light on that area.

Are you seeing a positive return in terms of sales increases?

Is it enough of an increase to offset the $30,000/yr. in expenses?

If it ISN'T generating the additional sales needed to justify the expense, what is the rationale for continuing this effort?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. I'm looking to put together an article addressing the expense of your anti-piracy efforts, so if there's anything you'd rather withhold (exact sales figures, etc.), I can understand. What I'd really like to hear before I write this post is your take on this very expensive anti-piracy venture, especially any benefits you've seen, financial or otherwise, since you began this pursuit.

Her first response was blunt and anything but informative.

Hi Timothy,

I would be happy to discuss with you. Basically, without the take down effort I would be out of business. I have over 100 films to protect.

Kathy

On one hand, she said she'd be happy to discuss this. On the other hand, the middle sentence sounded like the conclusions had already been drawn and the door three-quarters shut. I sent an email back pressing for more details.

Thanks for responding.

What I'm actually wondering is whether this effort has any correlating effect on sales. I imagine the discussion shifts into "rhetorical" at this point. You're spending $30,000/yr. on this. If you dialed it back and spent $15,000, do you feel sales would drop to half their previous level?

What had you noticed before you decided to pursue these anti-piracy efforts? As you say, without issuing takedowns you would be out of business, so there was obviously a very noticeable sales drop. Did you start with a smaller effort and see no improvement and then decide to scale up? Or did you put as much as you could (financially) into this effort from the beginning?

Again, I'm very curious as to whether there's a noticeable increase in sales. To ditch the takedowns altogether would put you out of business according to you, but would scaling it back reduce your sales? Have you ever scaled back efforts temporarily and observed any increases or decreases in sales?

At this point, Kathy became suspicious and asked me to explain who I was and what I was going to do with the information (pretty much exactly in those words). So, I explained myself again, breaking it down further.

What I'm trying to do is get your perspective on this issue. You obviously feel that spending $30,000/yr. on anti-piracy efforts is a worthwhile investment.I'm assuming you have put together some data over the years that shows that this expenditure is paying off.

I'm putting together an article dealing with anti-piracy efforts. I'd like to have your input before I write this post because I'd actually like to hear your view from the inside. All I can do at the moment is speculate. I've rarely seen anyone come out and quote an exact figure on anti-piracy expenditures, so this potentially makes for a very interesting article. We all hear that major studios spend "millions" fighting piracy, but numbers are rarely provided as to what effect those efforts are having on sales. If anything is provided, it's an equally vague aggregate.

I don't have any interest in tearing down your efforts. You're the rights holder and you're doing what seems best for your business. But as a business owner, I have to believe that you've adjusted this plan over the years in order to see the highest return on your investment -- and those are the numbers I'm interested in.

I'm also curious as to how you arrived at the "$3 million lost" in 2012 via piracy (as quoted in the Digital Music News article about your efforts), but that's of secondary interest.

So, if you think I'm after this information to belittle, demean or otherwise harm you, nothing could be further from the truth. As I said, I'm on the outside and can only speculate on the rationale and sales fluctuations driving this business decision.

Once again, thank you for your time.

That was eleven days ago. I fired off a quick message to bring me back to the top of her inbox, but received no response. That's a shame, because I'd like to believe that, as a business owner, she's weighed the cost of her efforts against the return on that investment. But she seems unwilling to discuss anything other than the amount she pays out ($30,000) and the amount she's "lost" to piracy ($3 million).

First things first, Kathy Wolfe and Wolfe Video has been around for 28 years, long enough to have witnessed large-scale changes in film making and distribution. Staying in this business as an indie filmmaker, who deals almost exclusively with a limited market, is impressive.

Also impressive is the fact that Wolfe Video isn't limiting itself to just a few large outlets. Wolfe is distributing her films through pay-per-view markets such as Comcast, as well as other major internet players such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and, just last year, Wolfe Video's own platform, Wolfe On Demand, which allows customers to rent or buy directly from Wolfe. Wolfe on Demand is a worldwide service, allowing these films to reach otherwise underserved audiences around the globe.

Wolfe Video seems to have explored a variety of markets and seems interested in making the most of the web's positive aspects. Now the question turns to the anti-piracy efforts. Does exchanging half your profit for DMCA takedown notices really make sense?

Wolfe feels this is effort is necessary to protect her business, as can be seen in her first reply to my emails. But is this outlay recovered with increased sales? That's a harder question to answer without any data to examine, but there are a few inferences we can draw. Despite her massive anti-piracy expenditures (and wealth of distribution options), her business is suffering.

"It's changed us," Wolfe said, while pointing to drastic company chops and cutbacks. That includes the trimming of 11 employees, a 50 percent reduction in Wolfe's marketing budget, and a major impact on new projects. Wolfe has even stopped paying herself a salary.

There are three possibilities here:

1. $30,000 is what's needed to sustain Wolfe Video at its current pace. Not great, but better than going out of business. This assumes the deterrent efforts generate enough sales to keep Wolfe Video (barely) in the black. If this theory is correct, one would expect $50,000 worth of deterrent to increase income by a comparable amount.

2. $30,000 is not enough, but it's all Wolfe can afford. If so, then Wolfe Video is on the way out. Escalating the amount spent would likely not generate enough revenue to offset the expense, or at best, keep the company barely in the black and decrease profitability.

3. $30,000 isn't showing any noticeable impact, one way or another.

Of the three possibilities, the third seems most likely. This may seem like a broadsided slam against Wolfe's efforts, but she does make a few statements that lead me to believe this effort is mainly "faith-based" and hasn't been measured in terms of correlation to increased sales.

One of the indications is Wolfe's estimate of income lost to piracy. She states Wolfe Video lost nearly $3 million last year because of file sharing. How does she arrive at this number? I can't say for sure, but multiplying 903,000 links by $3.99/movie (Wolfe's quoted price per download) gives us $3,602,970. Perhaps realizing that not every link equates to a lost sale, the number was revised down a bit to the nearest round number. (Only most links equate to lost sales, apparently...)

Another indication is her blunt response to my first inquiry: "Basically, without the take down effort I would be out of business." This sounds like someone who has already decided that piracy can only be fought, and only with a ton of time, effort and money. What this doesn't sound like, however, is someone who's considered taking a more targeted approach, or backing off completely and measuring any corresponding sales fluctuations.

Then there's this quote (from a pro-SOPA editorial Wolfe wrote for the Huffington Post) which describes the futility of her efforts, while simultaneously making the claim that she's "forced" to send out thousands of DMCA notices.

As a distributor, I've been forced to devote resources to searching for and removing pirated copies of our films online (by sending DMCA notices). It is a time-consuming and expensive process. On one recent weekend, we removed over 300 links to a newly released title from a U.S. based cyber locker (each link can represent 1000s of downloads). The next day another 180 new links for the same film appeared on the same cyber locker. We found another 100 links to the film on a gay movie blog (a site which features free download links for more than 2,000 titles). This is just in the U.S., where sites are required under current law to take down links when they receive infringement notices. Multiplying that problem by a factor of 10 would not begin to cover the volume available via offshore sites, which are currently out of the reach of U.S. law.

The implication seems to be that if she doesn't keep emptying this ocean with her $30,000/year teacup, no one (or hardly anyone) will purchase her company's films and support her business. This can't possibly be true. Piracy is an option for nearly everyone connected to the internet, and yet musicians, filmmakers, video game developers, etc. are all selling their output every day.

Removing links may generate a few sales, but certainly not enough to offset an effort of this magnitude. Some file sharers will never purchase anything, and if they can't pirate a Wolfe film, they'll simply find something else to download. Others will purchase something after an illicit "preview." Taking away the link they might have utilized simply sends them looking for other links... or other movies. Generally speaking, a failed search for a "free" movie rarely results in the sale of the same movie.

Wolfe Video is doing the right thing by diversifying its distribution across multiple services and, even better, by running its own in-house digital rental/download platform. These efforts will do more to increase sales (and profits) than $30,000 worth of takedown notices. It's hard not to view illegal downloads as "lost sales," but entertaining that notion results in deterrence efforts that far outweigh the benefits.

The fact is that removing illegal options won't generate sales. Removing a negative ("lost sale via illegal download") doesn't create a positive ("gained[?] sale"). It simply levels off at $0. Positive efforts will tilt that scale back towards the creators. Negative efforts max out at $0, at best.

As I stated in my email to Kathy Wolfe, I have no desire to paint her as someone who tilts at windmills to the tune of $30,000/year. She strongly feels this effort needs to be made in order to protect a business she's run for over 25 years. I can completely understand that. My concern is that this effort is over-funded and a long, hard look should be taken at any connection between the takedown effort and corresponding sales fluctuations.

Could the same be accomplished at half the price? How about $10,000 per year? Or $0? I think some experimentation is called for. Back all enforcement efforts off for a few months and watch for any signs of a sales decline. If the drop is precipitous, scale the efforts up and see if the numbers respond. But rather than intensify the efforts, slowly escalate until you find a balance between deterrence and sales that works out best financially.

Kathy Wolfe has obviously worked hard to keep Wolfe Films running for more than a quarter-decade quarter-century. She deserves a salary and I hate to see that money flowing into an effort that's not paying off.

Filed Under: cost benefit, dmca, expense, kathy wolfe, takedowns
Companies: wolfe video