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June 28, 2004
Regeringens maskeringsförbud hotar yttrandefriheten
Waldemar Ingdahl och Nicklas Lundblad, doktorand vid Göteborgs universitet, kritiserar regeringens förslag till ett generellt maskeringsförbud vid demonstrationer.
Artikeln har publicerats i Norrtelje Tidning (29/6), Skånska Dagbladet (1/7), Sundsvalls Tidning (10/7), Tidningen Ångermanland (10/7), Ljusnan (12/7), Motala & Vadstena Tidning (12/7), Bergslagsposten (14/7), Blekinge Läns Tidning (14/7), Västerbottens-Kuriren (15/7), Upsala Nya Tidning (16/7) och Göteborgs Tidningen (24/7).
Posted by Eudoxa at 03:39 PM
June 23, 2004
Cheap medical sensors
In his The Pulse article Screen them all, let the government sort it out of June 23rd, Anders Sandberg discusses the Bush administration's new mental health initiative and the proliferation of cheap medical sensors.
Posted by Waldemar at 12:57 AM
June 20, 2004
Faran med risker
Anders Sandberg skriver i Västerviks-Tidningen, den 21 juni, om att det finns ett ord som nästan försvunnit ur vårt språk: "ohälsosam". I dag beskrivs saker som "farliga". Men har världen verkligen blivit farligare, eller är det bara våra riskbedömningar som förskjutits?
Posted by Waldemar at 11:27 PM
June 18, 2004
Disaster for top-ridden Europe opens up for new visions of democracy
In his Tech Central Station Europe article Vox Europa of June 18th, Waldemar Ingdahl thinks that EU parliamentary elections show what's wrong with the proposed EU constitution. Hopefully, this also opens up for new ideas.
Posted by Waldemar at 12:52 AM
June 17, 2004
RFID in the euro notes?
By Waldemar Ingdahl
This article has previously been published in The Sprout, June 2004
Will radio tags the size of a grain of sand be embed in the euro notes? At least it has been discussed as an option by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the €200 and €500 notes in the year 2005. But for it to work, argues Waldemar Ingdahl, we would all have to install tiny transceivers in our wallets…
The ECB is deeply concerned about counterfeiting and money laundering. Counterfeiting of euro notes has been a problem in Greece already and there have been cases in the new member countries too. Money laundering is also an issue of increasing concern, and that is probably one of the reasons that the higher denominations are considered for tagging. The €200 and €500 notes are the ones that are the most popular for more "informal" transactions.
Among the current security features in the current euro are threads visible under ultraviolet light. But businesses and stores often find it hard to judge a note's authenticity, as current equipment seldom can tell the difference between false currency and old notes with worn-out security marks.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are small microchips that listen for a radio query and respond by transmitting their unique ID code. Besides acting as a sort of digital watermark, they could be used to speed up routine processes such as counting. A stack of notes could be passed through a reader and counted immediately.
Hitachi, a Japanese electronics firm, says it has successfully operated the world's smallest non-contact chip, only one-third of a millimetre across. In a euro note the number could contain a serial code as well as details such as place of origin and denomination. Data can only be written on the chip during production, and not after it is out in circulation. The ECB has reportedly started talks with Hitachi, and so has the The Bank of Japan, that is considering RFID tags for its 10,000-yen bank notes.
Will this be feasible? Probably. But not in the year 2005 already, and the actual implementation of the tagging might encounter serious problems.
First of all there is the matter of cost, it's not just about putting the tags in the currency but also installing the new systems for scanning them, and the tag chip technology is still a bit too undeveloped. Even Hitachi's present non-contact chip would be difficult to fit into a bill.
There is also the issue of trust. Putting RFID tags in currency would be seen as a breach of privacy, as there would be a temptation to use it to track purchases and transactions in order to trace banknotes for fiscal reasons. Would the users confide in the ECB not tracking their transactions?
Tracking euro notes could prove to be exceedingly difficult, simply because many transactions are informal in their nature, and the change of ownership of individual notes is not recorded between for instance friends, relatives, and spouses. Many transactions inside companies are also more informal in nature, and do not have to involve any foul play, and even if it was mandated by law that all companies put tag readers in their cash registers to track the bills, this would not be very hard to get around.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is looking to integrate RFID technology in its inventory system. Jim Crawford, an analyst at Retail Forward, calculated that if Wal-Mart stored every RFID read of every item on every shelf, it would generate nearly 8 terabytes of data per day. Now, Wal-Mart does not have to store every read since most reads will simply tell that the good is still on its shelf. But in order to track cash transactions for everyone using euro notes, it would be necessary to record every time a bill changed hands. The tracing would thus involve immense amounts of rather complex data to store and analyse.
In order to make the tracing of bills work we would all have to buy wireless RFID readers and put them in our wallets. That way, the database could be updated every time we take a bill out of our wallet or put in a new one. But if this was implemented it would be far easier to get rid of cash altogether and create an RFID payment card system. This change in our monetary system would be highly improbable in the near future, particularly because of the lag in society to changing to digital currency and the major security issues involved.
Adapting RFID tags in currency already in the year 2005 is in any case most probably a bit too premature, even if that adoption could make euro notes harder to counterfeit. When an emerging technology first enters the public consciousness its potential benefits and drawbacks are often exaggerated, and its final mature form is a matter of societal negotiations between producers and consumers. The ECB would do well to consider this when examining the options for introducing RFID tags in its currency.
Posted by Waldemar at 12:48 AM
June 14, 2004
Ny upphovsrättslag missgynnar konsumenten
Av Marcus Sjöberg
Artikeln har publicerats i Barometern (15/6).
Regeringen har lagt ett förslag om ny upphovsrättslag. I den finns två problem. Ett stopp för program som kan kringgå kopieringsskydd och kassettersättningsavgiften.
Det blir olagligt att författa, sprida och inneha program som kan användas för att kringgå kopieringskydd, men det finns inte en vettig specifikation på vad som utgör ett kopieringskydd. Då kan ett företag genom att lansera ett nytt kopieringsskydd, och hur enkelt det än är, göra vanliga program olagliga över natten.
Lagen lägger hinder för forskning om kryptografi, vilket har stora inverkningar på hur betaltjänster används i framtiden. Det finns undantag, men det är inte klart definierat för vem undantag ges. Om man på en hemsida talar om hur en viss teknik fungerar, räknas det då som att man sprider informationen och bryter mot lagen? Folk kommer att sluta påpeka brister i säkerhetssystem då det kan leda till åtal.
Kopiering för privat bruk blir förbjudet, något man tidigare gjorde undantag för. En extra avgift på blankmedia t.ex. VHS-band, CD-skivor och kassetter togs ut som en eftergift till upphovsrättsinnehavarna: kassettersättningsavgiften. Avgiften låg förut på 2 öre per inspelningsbar minut men högst 6 kronor per anordning.
Men nu höjs skatten till 2,5 öre per inspelad minut utan maxavgift om man spelar in analogt! På digitala media man kan spela in flera gånger på (CD-rw, DVD-rw) så blir den nya skatten 0,7 öre per megabyte. För digitala engångsinspelningsmedia (CD-r, DVD-r) så blir den nya skatten 0,25 öre per megabyte. Det kan röra sig om att vanliga media blir dubbelt så dyra!
Trots att den kopiering som skatten ska kompensera förbjuds, så höjs skatten ordentligt. Vilka drabbas? Den vanlige konsumenten givetvis, men även mindre företag och nya artister. Den skatt som tas in hamnar i en pott som ges ut till en "organisation som representerar flera ersättningsberättigade upphovsmän eller innehavare av närstående rättigheter på området". Det finns bara en branschorganisation: Copyswede.
Varför ska en vanlig konsument betala skatt för att hon vill skicka en CD med sina foton till sin släkt? Varför ska staten agera indrivare för stora mediaföretag? Ska man få göra en backup av den musik-CD man köpt? Ska man få se på sin DVD på en icke standarddator? Skatten överför pengar från folk som gör backup av sin egen data, egna foton eller gör sin egen demo-CD till redan etablerade mediaproducenter. Är det verkligen rättvist?
Lagförslaget tar bort rättigheter från konsumenten som samtidigt tvingas att betala pengar till musiker, fotografer och journalister för att få reproducera sina egna verk. Dessutom så kan vem som helst bli lagbrytare då ett nytt kopieringsskydd kommer ut, oavsett hur vekt detta är konstruerat. Allt detta hindrar innovation, motverkar utveckling av nya säkrare tjänster och cementerar gamla betalningsstrukturer.
Posted by Waldemar at 01:39 PM
June 08, 2004
E-health
In his The Pulse article E-Health for E-urope? of June 8th, Anders Sandberg discusses the European Commission's new plan for integrating IT and health care.
Posted by Waldemar at 12:44 AM
June 07, 2004
Nanoetikdebatt
Den 7 juni inbjöds tankesmedjan Eudoxa till Vetenskapsrådets konferens "Etiska aspekter på nanoteknik" där vi framlade vår syn på det nya området nanoetik.
På konferensen fanns även representater för forskningen, förvaltningen, näringslivet och media. Nanoetiken diskuterar hur applikationer av nanotekniken skall användas och effekterna för den personliga integriteten och samhället.
Posted by Waldemar at 12:41 AM
June 04, 2004
Health care shot from the hip
In his Tech Central Station Europe article His Hip, Hooray! of June 4th, Waldemar Ingdahl discusses Swedish health care. The Swedish prime minister waits in line like everybody else for medical care, maybe that's the problem.
Posted by Waldemar at 12:36 AM
June 01, 2004
Useful bacteria
In his The Pulse article Pro Probiotics of June 1st, Anders Sandberg discusses useful bacteria.
Posted by Waldemar at 06:31 PM
Eudoxa Signs New Contract
Eudoxa have signed an agreement with The Centre for the New Europe, a Brussels based think-tank. Our science director, Dr. Anders Sandberg will contribute with a weekly column on healthcare, health and medical technology in their blog The Pulse.
Posted by Eudoxa at 04:46 PM