Patents vs. Secrecy 219
giampy writes "New Scientist is reporting that the NSA appears to be having its patent applications increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. From the article: 'the fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years.'"
There is not enough data... (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that the Pentagon is more concerned with preserving an edge in weapons technology, than with secrecy-as-secrecy.
The secrecy thing is just a side effect of wanting the edge.
Secrecy (Score:4, Insightful)
===
Having done a smidge of work for the government, I'm happier with secrets "just in case" than creating holes that might not have to have been made.
Does this mean that what is being kept secret *needs* to be? Not always... but it is better safe than sorry.
[obviously there are extremes, making an office supply order confidential for example, but patents are understandable]
What The Post Doesn't Say (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this really that significat??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly now...
Coca-cola is a private company. The government is by definition a public body that we, ideally, control. If Coke invents some new thing and decides to keep it a secret, you can tell them how you feel by not buying any Coke. You have no choice with the government.
They take your taxes, period. I think it is quite reasonable to insist that what the government does/creates with our money be made, if at all possible, public. That's how government is supposed to work.
Re:Geritol. (Score:5, Insightful)
To boil it down to
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have "been in a position handling classified information" -- some of it very classified indeed -- and here's why I think you're wrong:
1) Classification costs insane amounts of money; not just the classification process and the protections classified material requires, but in the case of technology, the potential profit to be realized by releasing the technology for civilian use. A good example of this is what the British government did to their nascent computer industry after WW2. At the end of the war, they had the best computer technology and computer scientists in the world, bar none. No one else, including the US, was even in the running. So, of course, in classic late-stage empire style, they classified everything, destroyed the actual machines, hounded people out of that line of work (and at least one of them to death)
2) Classifying everything is equivalent to classifying nothing. People who work with classified information which they know is bullshit tend to get contemptuous of the rules (I've seen classified documents just sitting around in public areas, no one watching them, with people milling by!) So it increases the chances of genuinely important information getting leaked.
3) We, the people of the United States, pay for that work with our tax dollars. I don't think anyone will argue that everything the government comes up with should be for sale at Radio Shack -- but the government must have an overriding interest in keeping potentially useful technology (and everything else, for that matter) secret from the people who paid for it, and whose interests it is supposed to serve. And no, "this might be useful to someone somewhere sometime who wants to do something bad, better safe than sorry" just doesn't cut it.
So, all secrets are bad then? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but in an over-classified world, how would you know that we were losing the war?
Secret governments fail due to internal decay. The only cure for that disease is the sunshine of open government.
Only in the most extreme cases should information be classified. Once you start creating state secrets "just in case" it is impossible to stop.
Why is the government applying for patents anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does the government do this?
Re:Inventions for Bond Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to the uspto.gov site and looked up a few of them (in particular "rocess of preventing visual access to a semiconductor device by applying an opaque ceramic coating to integrated circuit devices," No. 5,258,334) and the assignee is listed as "The U.S. Government as represented by the Director, National Security."
I wonder if this means that the patented idea is essentially public domain? Other creative works which are products of the Government are automatically public domain in terms of copyright, so is the right to use an idea as well? Or if you want to use one, do you have to go to the NSD and ask for permission / licensing? And if the latter, what do they charge, and who gets the money?
I suspect, judging just by the problems and obvious conflicts-of-interest that you'd get if licensing was required, that they are free to use, in which case having the NSA patent something is much like having one of the Linux associations trademark something; they're never going to actually profit from it, but it potentially prevents someone else from doing so unfairly. And I suspect it also looks really good on the NSA's researchers' resumes and improves morale.
Re:If you think that is paranoid, read this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry, this is self-limiting. After enough of its material becomes non-disseminable, the NSA's ability to innovate will quickly dry up...
Gov't agencies can patent things? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps they're trying to patent ideas in order to make them public and prevent anyone else from obtaining a patent on the same idea, and we're all free to use the idea. But then why not just publish the idea and make sure that the USPTO is aware of it?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, those with broad powers to keep secrets will eventually misuse such power in order to cover up wrongdoing. The temptation is simply too great-you screwed up, badly, you can either:
A: Admit it, or
B: Keep it secret.
While there are exceptions, most will choose to keep it secret. That's an unfortunate reality but a true one.
And in fact, it's been found that classification has quite often been used unnecessarily or even maliciously. It has also been found that information is kept classified far longer then it need be (i.e., it held strategic value 50 years ago, and needed to be classified, it lost its strategic value 40 years ago and could've safely been declassified, but it stayed classified until 2 years ago because it would've embarrassed someone. Coincidentally, of course, that person died 2 years ago.)
A democratic government (or ANY government which claims to serve, rather than rule, the people it represents) must by definition be open. If we cannot get a complete picture of what any given leader or organization is up to, then we cannot make an informed choice as to whether to re-elect that leader. If we do not know a problem exists, we cannot protest it to our Congressmen/Senators. If the press are routinely denied access to critical information on potential wrongdoing, their "freedom of the press" becomes a farce.
We are indeed "better safe then sorry"-and we are safest when we can keep a close, critical eye on our government. Not when they're allowed to keep anything secret they wish with no oversight and no consequences for misuse of that authority.
Re:Secrecy (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA has a supposedly democratically elected government.
Virtually everything that government tries to keep secret somewhat undermines the ability of the people of the USA to judge what their government is doing with their money, and hence undermines their ability to make a good choice on whom to vote for next time.
So, keeping secrets undermines democracy, which to me means that while you need them in specific cases, it is a very good idea to limit that to situations where it is really really needed.
The 'better be safe then sorry' should be applied to this in an entirely different way then you did, better be safe and not undermine the voters then be sorry that you lost democracy.
Re:If you can't patent it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I believe their numbers are dwindling, as corporate sponsorship (what else can you call the necessity of corporate "campaign contributions") continues to become more necessary for one to be elected.
Hypothetical question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
So here is the hypothetical question, suppose I invented a new method to decrypt information VERY fast (i.e polynomial time). If I did not apply for a patent here, but either patented it in europe, or just published it, would that be illegal?
As far as I can tell there are no requirements that you must try to patent an invention, nor any requirement that a u.s. inventor patent an invention in the US first.
Thoughts?
Re:Hypothetical question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Compensation? (Score:1, Insightful)
Not just the military. Anyone with more power than you. At a job that I had a few years back, higher ups in management wanted us to provided an outline of what we did as a part of our duties. I pleaded with my co-workers to give them what they asked for, "An Outline", but they went ahead and provided step, by step instructions to do what we did. Three months later, our jobs were given to another division and we were all demoted. Same pay, but the jobs weren't as good.
Fortunately I succeeded in planting a poison pill in the instructions. We left out a step. As a result, the people that got our jobs didn't know that they were missing a step so they went ahead and cost the company tens of thousands of dollars.
The point I'm making is this. Your father was right to hold back to goodies. It was his only leverage to keep from getting screwed. If someone has proven themselves willing and able to screw you, the only recourse you have is to protect yourself via whatever means you must employ.
LK
"Ought" vs "Is" (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice that if I'm going to be investing $50000 in parts and equipment (say because I've just figured out to make a Farnsworth generator actually produce power), another $10000 for a patent makes a lot more sense. It is software patents that have such a ridiculous discrepancy between the cost of invention and the cost of a patent. That is why "people on /." (and Groklaw.net) are against *software* patents, not patents in general.
It is also software patents for which the Patent Office seems to have the most trouble distinguishing real inventions from the trivial. But even if that problem (USPTO ignorance of software technology) is fixed, there is simply no need for patent protection of software, because there is no hard cost of invention. It "only" costs time to write and debug code - and that debugged and working code is already protected by copyright. Software patents are purely a tool of oppression.
Re:Hypothetical question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
"So here is the hypothetical question, suppose I invented a new method to decrypt information VERY fast (i.e polynomial time). If I did not apply for a patent here, but either patented it in europe, or just published it, would that be illegal?"
Release the information anonymously, and enjoy being the catalyst that begins the post-crypto world.
If you came up with such a discovery, would you *really* let any government have it?
It doesn't matter what the intention is. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may be right.
...But you may not. That's kind of the point. When everything is a secret whether there's a valid reason or not, none of us knows what kinds of motivations are at work behind the scenes.
Even if I give the people in charge now the benefit of a doubt and pretend like all they're doing is covering their ass, it doesn't change the fact that now that the precedent is set and government secrecy is the rule, not the exception, there's nothing to stop someone who is truly evil from taking power and wreaking havoc the likes of which this planet has never seen.
Imagine a modern-day Hitler. (No, I'm not comparing him to George Bush, I'm talking about a hypothetical person who's litierally—word used correctly—much more evil.) Does anyone remember that he was Time Magazine's Man of the Year [about.com] of 1938? As he was working his way into power, people loved him, because he seemed like an average working-class guy who wanted to do right by the German people. They had no clue what future atrocities were to come. It's not too hard for me to imagine someone like that being elected in this country. Now imagine if this modern-day Hitler managed to get in charge of the one and only world superpower, and that once he started doing things like, well, Hitler did, there was no way to hold him accountable. No one knew because all of his actions were classified as national security secrets. Hey, wait, isn't that pretty much exactly what happened back then?
Again, I'm not saying that that is what's going on right now, but who knows? Maybe it is. But even if it's not, if we allow a political environment in which it can happen, there's nothing to stop it from happening in 2008. Or 2012. Or 2016. Because it can, it's just a matter of time before it does. Such is the nature of absolute power.
Is this what we really want?
I'm sorry, but whether they're covering their asses or trying to take over the world doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is evil, and it literally—word used correctly—has the potential to destroy any semblance of freedom in this country and maybe even the whole world.
And to the parent post, that was an excellent point about the government not letting us keep any secrets from them. I've never really thought about it before, but it's really a scary thought. Every intimate detail of my life is open to Uncle Sam, but when I ask stupid questions to try to make sure Uncle Sam's not evil, well, it's a totally different story.
People are so wrapped up in how Uncle Sam will protect us from the terrorists that they forget to ask the question that's much more important: Who will protect us from Uncle Sam?
Re:Not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is something that I will remember in about a year. Hopefully, so will most voters.
So What (Score:3, Insightful)
But we are dealing with the government, the U.S. government. While we (the citizens of the U.S.) have many rights (like the freedom of speech) we no longer have control of our government. It will do what it damned well wants to. It has been that way since WWII with only a couple of notable exceptions. The truth is they will spend what they need to in order to accomplish what they want. Their lawyers will obstruficate enough laws and outspend anyone who tries to get in their way ten to one, making it impossible for even the wealthiest people or corporations to be little more then a speed-bump on the agenda.
I'm not anti-government. We need government and we need the laws that protect us. But face it, what we have created is something that lives and operates behind closed doors and establishes its own rules. Nothing, or nobody is big enough to change it. That hardly means don't try. As citizens we need to demand accountability because it is we who they represent. The article was good from that standpoint. It uses our freedom to challenge the government to explain itself. Unfortunately, we already know the answer will be a stoney wall of silence.