Maybe this is just a detail of Vice's way to sell their articles, but how is providing free services to people who could otherwise not afford them 'colonialism'?
Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
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Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#12Kindle 3g was used similar way. This stuff is on youtube, even on github etc... I dont think it should be framed as a problem specific only to poor countries.
I'm still a bit angry that my internet was suddenly cut off :/ not like they ever notified me of it either.
You should be able to fix it by installing the latest updates.
http://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-kindle-update-march-22/
But yeah, they should have let us known beforehand. I only read an article about it by accident.
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#13How hard can it really be to stop this technically?
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#14How hard can it really be to stop this technically?
The pirates (arrr!) are essentially using steganography when they hide videos in jpeg images or pdf files. Steganography can (sometimes, depending on the algorithm used) be detected, but in the end it's an arms race between one side using more sophisticated steganography and the other side using more sophisticated detection mechanisms.
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#15Maybe this is just a detail of Vice's way to sell their articles, but how is providing free services to people who could otherwise not afford them 'colonialism'?
The colonialism is attempting to enforce Western mores and laws about copyright on the Angolan population. As well as Wikipedia's own culture which is pretty Western itself.
While Wikipedia may be attempting to colonize Angola with some of its community conduct values, the population there has another view of Wikipedia's purpose which might be equally valid.
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#16Just read about ICMP and DNS tunnels, is that an option on these systems?
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#17Maybe this is just a detail of Vice's way to sell their articles, but how is providing free services to people who could otherwise not afford them 'colonialism'?
It's training users to only use their products, and by the time access becomes cheaper, those products will be able to crowd out any competitors. It also means that any local competitors don't get fair treatment, and will automatically lose to these services provided by the 'colonials'.
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#18The author puts encyclopedic knowledge and movies in the same category ("information") and seems to be arguing that they both should be freely available.
I'm not saying that current copyright system isn't completely screwed up and in need of reform, but I don't think disregarding content creators is an optimal solution.
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#19Maybe this is just a detail of Vice's way to sell their articles, but how is providing free services to people who could otherwise not afford them 'colonialism'?
It's training users to only use their products, and by the time access becomes cheaper, those products will be able to crowd out any competitors. It also means that any local competitors don't get fair treatment, and will automatically lose to these services provided by the 'colonials'.
Is that an argument that makes any sense in the context of Wikipedia? Where users actually form the content itself, and where access and content are free anyway everywhere?
Re: Angola’s Wikipedia Pirates Are Exposing the Problems with Digital Colonialism
#20Maybe this is just a detail of Vice's way to sell their articles, but how is providing free services to people who could otherwise not afford them 'colonialism'?
The colonialism is attempting to enforce Western mores and laws about copyright on the Angolan population. As well as Wikipedia's own culture which is pretty Western itself. While Wikipedia may be attempting to colonize Angola with some of its community conduct values, the population there has another view of Wikipedia's purpose which might be equally valid.
Maybe I missed the part of the article where it said that people in Angola are being forced to use Wikipedia.