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Privacy Censorship

An Interview with Ben Edelman 55

Posted by michael from the internet-is-for-porn dept.
Chuck Talk writes "Orange Crate has an interview with Ben Edelman, a Harvard Law student and PhD candidate in Economics. Ben is noted for his work in studying issues of privacy, spyware, internet content filtering and the global supporters of those actions."
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An Interview with Ben Edelman More

An Interview with Ben Edelman

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  • Summary of linked site: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15, 2005 @09:05AM (#11372601)
    Some guy is a student with opinions about spyware.

    He gets interviewed.

    Article is a bit wordy.

    Not worth reading.

    Sorry.
    • Some guy is a student with opinions about spyware. He gets interviewed. Article is a bit wordy. Not worth reading.

      So, is the article not worth reading because it's wordy, or because the guy is a student?

      Or do you deny bright student the right to express their (more enlightened than yours) opinion about issues they study until they get a degree?

      I found the article interesting enough...
    • Perhaps the /. editor though it was Len Adleman...
  • This has to be one of the best interviews I've read in quite a while. Chuck has certainly done his work and it is easy to see. The best Q/A I've read in it has to be this: Chuck Talk: What types of legal and economic reforms do you think can save this nation from bankrupting itself through massive borrowing and continued massive spending? Do you think we have learned any lessons from the Internet bubble, or have investors simply kept throwing cash at their problems? How can we reverse the destructive tren

  • Yet Another (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Uber Banker ( 655221 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @09:12AM (#11372621)
    Pseudo 'blog' article which offers little other than reshashing old ground.

    1. 'Orange Crate': Another site run on Slashcode/Scoop/Whatever. Look at all the article comments it attracts and groundbreaking insight on its pages.
    2. 'An Interview with Ben Edelman': So I post something in a blog/personal website, post it to a 2-bit unread news site desperate for anything original it can get, with the entire aim of reposting that on a widely read site merely to generate traffic, not for the quality of the article.
    3. 'Ben Edelman': So he's a law student, fine, but you're pushing it with 'PhD Candidate' - remember this means someone who has applied and been accepted to a PhD course, but that's it - so be means of credibility this scores 0.

    And I did RTFA, and while not bad, I fail to see what it added other than another person beating their chest under the supposition they have unique invaluable insight when the items discussed have been mentioned 100s of times in Slashdotters comments before. "Ben is noted for his work in studying issues of privacy, spyware, internet content filtering and the global supporters of those actions...", no, Ben is noted for his self delusion.

    • Re:Yet Another (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I found that the student's site was better written than the article.

      The site has a point: spyware software writers are evil and make spyware hard to uninstall, and the legal claims by spyware companies are different than his findings.

      http://www.benedelman.org/

      • duh... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Thanks Ben.

        The site has a point: spyware software writers are evil and make spyware hard to uninstall, and the legal claims by spyware companies are different than his findings.

        I believe this conclusion was commonly held on Slashdot as far back as 2001, and probably before that.

        In other news, US oil companies (legally) claim global warming is overstated, Japanese fishermen (legally) claim catching whales is OK and McDonalds (legally) claim Latin American cattle rearing doesn't damage the rainfores

      • Indeed (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Uber Banker ( 655221 )
        If you wade around the site, it has the odd interesting point r.e. legal agreements in spyware EULAs and who invests in spyware companies (clickable link) [benedelman.org], topics recently posted to slashdot. The content on the site is hardly partisan, while this fits in with the mindset of the lawyer, I'm curious how it aligns itself with a PhD student (given research should be as unbiased as possible).

    • Re:Yet Another (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In all fairnness I think you are a bit negative here. I don't think this Ben guy is someone hyping himself for fun and profit. Phd candidate or not.

      He has just written some interesting things about spyware in his blog that is based on research and appears to be quite accurate. Since very few folks in academica have done that and since most of the other people writting about this either are industry insiders or AC on some discussion site its natural that he is the guy media calls when they need something ab

      • Yes, as I said in my other post [slashdot.org], his site has some interesting stuff. Perhaps I was too harsh with a knee-jerk reaction against the seemingly endless tirade of self-opinionated mediocrism in 'blogland'. My hostility should fire against 'Orange Crate' rather than Ben himself.

    • Re:Yet Another (Score:3, Informative)

      by pfafrich ( 647460 )
      OK so not the best interview, but don't diss Ben so much. As a Ph.D sutudent he has probably spent three years full time research on spyware, has copiled some good resources on funding of spyware, has been an expert witness in a legal case against gator. So does maybe know a bit more on this issue than your average slashdotter.

    • Re:Yet Another (Score:4, Informative)

      by cleetus ( 123553 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @10:41AM (#11372860) Homepage
      I've actually met Ben in a professional capacity at the Berkman Center. He is one of the smartest people I've come across; he has a rare depth of understanding of both the technical and legal sides of the internet (and is able to do it through the fairly objective filter of microeconomics).

      Most importantly, he has been an expert witness is several important software cases (see here [benedelman.org], last paragraph). Take my subjective opinions above for what they're worth, but people with much at stake trust his opinions. What he thinks matters: judges and lawyers hear his views, not slashdot's.

      cleetus

  • Cut the kid some slack (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MLopat ( 848735 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @09:48AM (#11372706) Homepage
    In all fairness, this is not such a bad article. Just because everyone that reads Slashdot has the oppurtunity to be well informed about these issues, doesn't make his interview any less valid for the millions of non-slashdot readers that are not so well informed. Slashdot readers just assume that when they open up a new story, they're going to read something groundbreaking, and that just wasn't the case this time.

    Sure he's just a student. But he's a phD student, which means he's been accepted into a program where his life will consist of academically monitored research in this ares.

    Cut the kid some slack; he's the closest thing there is to an expert in his field.
    • He's not a 'kid'.

      He's a Harvard Law student. Please, please try to understand how much of a prick you have to be before you can make it into that school (this isn't blatant Ivy bashing... I came out of one myself).

      The signs are all there: long words, over inflated sense of self (whoever heard of a PHd candidate giving interviews?) and shallowness of content.

      No slack. This guy deserves to be cut down.
      • Yeah I was accepted there, what's your point?
        • The point is this: the guy says nothing of substance and expects us to applaud.

          As for millions of non-slashdotters out there who are uninformed, I think they're better off getting their information from someone who's been further than law school... and possibly had a decent amount of experience countering/dealing with spyware. Seen the trenches and what not.

          I'll go ahead and maintain that this is irresponsible journalism-- if you want your writing to be taken seriously, you should at least be using credib
    • In all fairness, this is not such a bad article. Just because everyone that reads Slashdot has the oppurtunity to be well informed about these issues, doesn't make his interview any less valid for the millions of non-slashdot readers that are not so well informed.

      What makes you think that Slashdotters are so well informed? In a earlier thread covering OpenBSD acitvism to get Intel (among others) to have free distribution of binary firmware for wireless chipsets, I was surprised that so many did not kno

  • Tell me again how a half completed law degree from Harvard translates to "intelligent" commentary on privacy . One of the first things they teach you in any freshman college writing class is to use *credible* sources in your writing... this guy has part of a degree. And all of a sudden he's a usable source? Amazing. My first post on /.!!! (i've been reading for a long time... figured it would be good to get involved).
    • Maybe you should have learned by senior year that a University degree doesn't prove anything besides your endurance. Degree or no degree, that doesn't change one's credibility as an expert in any given field.
    • Jesus man, it's not an interview on string theory. This guy has done a lot of excellent work on the legal aspects of spyware, he's a fellow at the Berkman Center, and that's all more important than the fact that he apparently keeps trying to add more degrees before he's finished the last one.

      Lord, some people get so nasty just because somebody goes to Harvard.

    • Not Really (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Uber Banker ( 655221 )
      Sure people can have many backgrounds, and a fresh-faced enthuastic, perhaps naive one approach is fantastic. It would be a disaster if everyone had this approach, but here we have someone clearly enthusiastic (check out his site), clearly intersted, and very establishment ('Harvard Expert' gets a lot of cred r.e. 'professional journalism'). So what if he's just starting out (cut your teeth somewhere, would you prefer it if he kept his mouth shut and had no feedback about his approach until graduation?!).
  • "Why is some malicious software called a virus and removed by my anti-virus software and other malware called "spyware" and left there. The answer suggested here is that the difference is that the virus didn't trick you into clicking a User agreement. (not that all spyware does) But in fact I still don't see a lot of difference between what is classed spyware and what is classed virus. Is this a case of my being on the wrong side of that "fine line between clever and stupid".
  • Zee orange... it burns zee eyes!!!!

  • One of the Good Guys (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dynamoo ( 527749 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @10:42AM (#11372866) Homepage
    Ben Edelman is one of the good guys in the fight against cruft that installs on your computer without your knowledge. The work he does is both comprehensive and shocking.. if you haven't checked out his site [benedelman.org] do so now. Particularly, look at some of the videos and documentary evidence at what actually happens, despite the claims otherwise of the scumware publishers themseves.

    There are a handful of other people I can think of who've done a similar amount of work. Merijin Bellekom [spywareinfo.com], Patrick Kolla [kolla.de] and Andrew Clover [doxdesk.com] spring to mind, although there are others.

  • Ben Edelman says: I think that's crazy -- no one reads the EULAs, and no one would agree to their terms even if they did read them. But courts and lawyers take these things very seriously -- tending to defer to the fiction that users really did agree to the software, and to all its terms and requirements, when users pressed "accept."

    He's talking about spyware here, but by his logic all EULAs in software and on the web are BS because the user didn't "really" agree to them. (How many times have you actuall
    • How many times have you actually read the full EULA?

      frequently

    • They have all the legal protection that the laws already offer. For example, things like "copying this piece of software without our permission" go without saying - you don't need an EULA for that.

      And, FWIW, one could argue that these things are enough, too. I don't sign an EULA or a similar document when I buy a new car, so why would it be an absolute necessity when I install a new piece of software that probably cost less than 1% of what my new car cost?

      Yes, one might argue that cars and software are di
    • For a Harvard law student, his idea of the EULA as the end-all as far as lawyers are concerned is flawed. In fact, courts recognize now more than ever that people who accept licenses DO NOT read them.

      What does this mean? Yes, if you accepted the contract the court still imposes a "duty to read" upon you, but is still able to bar clauses which are unconscionable. You have rights under the UCC and common law.

      (1L at George Mason University School of Law)

  • Why not get visual (Score:3, Insightful)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Saturday January 15, 2005 @11:33AM (#11373074) Homepage
    This guy obviously has some brains. Read just part of that, and you realize that.

    IMHO here's what he should be researching and perfecting:

    Visual EULA's

    Just like creative commons has iconic easy to read licenses [creativecommons.org] (link goes to LGPL sample).

    Why? Because they are easy to read, use, analyze.

    The US would benefit so much if we required electronic licenses to follow such a format. EULA's, TOS, AUP's, SA's, etc.

    A standard of icons, and formatting.

    So anyone, can have the option of viewing in that format, or the legal jargon.

    Some more useful additions to the Creative Commons icons:
    - Monitors Traffic or Usage
    - Commercial Mailing
    - Advertising Included

    You get the idea.

    Every program, with the option to view the license in an easy to read visual format.

    Then everyone knew what they were installing or signing up for.

    Would be much better than the "canned spam act", or "anti-spyware" bills in progress.
  • Just noticed this thread -- was offline most of the day.

    The interview was a nice little piece -- but as several comments above mentioned, it really was just a little email discussion I had with the Orange Crate admins. Personally, I wouldn't have thought it worthy of the honor of a Slashdot thread all its own... But then again sometimes the things I think are important still don't get Slashdot threads...

    Meanwhile, here's something that almost everyone will agree is important: Spyware companies getting e
  • Boy, some sour grapes on Slashdot over the weekend - Ben is doing the Internet community a service by collating this data and making it available. And for those folks that say it's soooo easy, I look forward to see your work!

    The spyware guys are like cockroaches - they scurry into corners when lights are shined on 'em, and Ben is doing a darn fine job of that - ummmmm ... I may have insulted cockroaches with that last sentance! ;-)

    Ben's analysis/comments on 180solutions [benedelman.org] is now posted - good reading!

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