DotMasters Have a Master Plan

So, I was watching Current TV last night – yes, I’m the one – and caught this “pod” about a loosely associated group of graffiti artists who call themselves the DotMasters.

If you watch the video you won’t get what’s cool until about halfway through.  The art itself is pretty Bansky-esque (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but the way the artists have decided to extend their work is the hook.

The idea is that each place they leave their graffiti they also leave a little plaque with a code.  The first person to text in the code gets a copy of the work for free.  The next person pays $1, and it continues to go up.

It’s art. It’s a game. It’s genius.

China’s Fight to Contain the Internet

This morning, while I was trying to find something to watch other than Easter Sunday services I found myself over at CurrentTV watching a report on Chinese bloggers and the “Great Firewall of China.”  In the “pod” reporter Laura Ling showed how she could completely circumvent the system by using a piece of software from the company UltraReach.

“Founded by a group of successful entrepreneurs and renowned professionals in computer and Internet who dedicated to providing technologies and service for people to exchange information on Internet freely and safely, UltraReach is the first company with a mission that offers Internet technology and service immune to the national Internet censorship in China and other censor countries. ”

This all sounds pretty interesting and highlights the challenges faced by any government attempting to block or restrict access to the internet.

However, The Atlantic has some rather sobering reporting about just how far China is willing to go:

“Taken together, the components of the control system share several traits. They’re constantly evolving and changing in their emphasis, as new surveillance techniques become practical and as words go on and off the sensitive list. They leave the Chinese Internet public unsure about where the off-limits line will be drawn on any given day. Andrew Lih points out that other countries that also censor Internet content—Singapore, for instance, or the United Arab Emirates—provide explanations whenever they do so. Someone who clicks on a pornographic or “anti-Islamic” site in the U.A.E. gets the following message, in Arabic and English: “We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.” In China, the connection just times out. Is it your computer’s problem? The firewall? Or maybe your local Internet provider, which has decided to do some filtering on its own? You don’t know. “The unpredictability of the firewall actually makes it more effective,” another Chinese software engineer told me. “It becomes much harder to know what the system is looking for, and you always have to be on guard.”

I find it hard to believe that anyone will be able to completely control access but this shows that control can often be attained psychologically when it cannot be done so technologically.

More on Current

Joseph Weisenthal has some more detail on the CurrentTV IPO over at the essential PaidConnent

A Current affair

So, I just read that Al Gore’s CurrentTV is going public. I have wanted to like Current since its inception a few years ago, in much the same way I wanted to embrace Al Gore in 2000. Unfortunately, like the man who brought it to life, Current has never been able to get me excited or passionately involved…just vaguely interested.

I’m guessing that announcement of the impending IPO will draw many to revisit CurrentTV and I am sad to say they will see that little has changed. It still looks and feels like something you “should” like more than something you simple “do” like. Like it was created by high school teachers. From the set to the canned dialogue of the VJ’s to the eager earnest way they want to let you know it is all about “you” it just doesn’t work. It feels forced.

Even worse, most people I speak with have never even heard of the channel at all! And this includes lots of people who claim to be in the media biz. According to the AP, Current is still losing money annually and I’m just not surprised.

I’m far more curious to find out who is going to invest in this super-longshot.