“That’s just not going to happen,” someone from the lobbyist group is speaking with Bill. He doesn’t know who.

“I thought we had an understanding.” More politics. First the FBI shut him out, then the Japanese became too afraid to continue working with him… now this.

“The lobby has decided it is no longer within our best interests to start this work north of the border.” At least that’s a reason. It’s more than he had expected to get.

“It’s the FBI, isn’t it? They’ve got you on their side!” His contacts at the FBI weren’t even taking his calls anymore. Who knows what they were working on? Not Bill.

“I have no further comments for you.” Whoever the lobby has him on with, it isn’t someone with authority.

He hears a click on the line, aaaaaand they’ve hung up on him.

The lobby court case is over, so maybe they’re unhappy with how that went. They got Bradley to settle. He gave them money and then went away. They’d accepted his offer, though, so why would they be upset about it now?

Bill heads out for a meeting with his superiors. He set this up the moment the FBI fallout happened. He didn’t plan on telling them everything, but he hoped to get some sort of concession out of them. If the data couldn’t be used to get any big fish, maybe they could go back to the way things were before the data stream. Catch the small criminals so that you’re at least doing *something*. With the data streams they could catch more weirdos faster. That’s where they should have started all along.

He’s entering a boardroom of some kind. He’s been here before, of course. There aren’t many people in the room. There don’t need to be. Bill takes a seat. His boss, his boss’ boss, and their assistants. Enough authority to get what he wants done. If he’s careful.

“You wanted to speak with us?” Bill can’t even tell who said it. Someone. It doesn’t really matter who.

“Yes.”

“Then speak.” Was that someone else or the same person as had spoken first?

“As you know, my department has had some recent dealings with the FBI. An information sharing, if you will. The current policies require we go after only the biggest weirdos. That’s not something that stays within our borders.” Is he being formal enough? Maybe not.

“We knew about it, yes.” Now Bill is just creeped out. He’s had meetings with these guys before. Is he going crazy, or is something strange going on? Maybe he’s just not paying enough attention to them. They’re seated across the table from each other and he is at the end. Maybe he just can’t see their faces well enough.

“The FBI have, as of recently, terminated the relationship. They took all the data and work they could from us, used it to nab a jerk, and then cut loose.”

“That’s unfortunate.” “What are you going to do now?”

Ok, he heard two different voices that time. He really should get more sleep. After. After this. No more politics after this. Not today.

“I’d like permission to change my department’s goals. We thought maybe we could change the war on child porn,” Bill says this as though he had agreed with it, “but even with this much data that’s just not easy. What we *can* do is nail every,” Bill pauses, he may not need to be formal, but profanity is not going to help him, “We can nail every small time guy that shows up. Lots of them. Fast.”

“Is that all?”

Bill isn’t sure how well this is going, but he’s made his argument, so, “Yes.”

“We will consider it and get back to you.”

16:01 <nicnus> jjdavis: Sorry to hear that.

16:02 <acklas> Yeah, man, it sucks.

16:04 <jjdavis> Thanks, guys. I haven’t seen her in a week. I tried calling once, but that doesn’t seem the right way to go just now.

16:05 <nicnus> Yeah.

16:05 <acklas> yeah

16:06 <jjdavis> Ok, you guys can go. You don’t need to handle me like I’m a normal. Just because I’m going through a breakup.

16:07 <acklas> I assume you still have no idea what was really upsetting her?

16:07 <nicnus> It obviously wasn’t just that you explained the presidential election system to her.

16:08 <acklas> Yeah. I mean, that might have come off as condescending…

16:08 <nicnus> Were you “Well, actually”-ing? Still, a nitpick can’t be enough.

16:10 <jjdavis> I’ve thought about that. Do you think it could be that I nitpick too often and she just got fed up?

16:11 <nicnus> Had she ever complained about it before?

16:11 <acklas> Normals hate pedantry, but that can’t be the only factor. Did she ever mention it?

16:12 <jjdavis> Maybe sometimes. Not more than most normals.

16:12 <acklas> how mad was she

16:12 <acklas> ?

16:13 <jjdavis> Very mad. Throwing stuff crying mad.

16:14 <nicnus> Then it can’t just be pedantry. That wouldn’t get any stable person *that* mad.

16:14 <acklas> nicnus: agree.

16:15 <jjdavis> Then what?

16:17 <acklas> Not sure.

16:17 <nicnus> You chose to be in a relationship with a normal. You may never know. The more important thing is how to fix things.

16:18 <acklas> I wouldn’t take that

16:18 <jjdavis> But I want to know!

16:19 <nicnus> Sure, even *I* want to know. That doesn’t mean you get to. Price of this sort thing.

16:20 <jjdavis> … then what

16:21 <nicnus> I’m no expert, but I think if she wants to reconcile she will initiate

16:22 <acklas> Sounds right, but I would continue showing interest. Let her know you’re desperate, but not in words

16:22 <jjdavis> desperate?

16:22 <acklas> Whatever you want to call it, she will call it desperate.

16:23 <nicnus> Go with desperate.

** jjdavis is away: telephone

16:25 <acklas> Maybe that’s her.

16:26 <nicnus> Maybe, but it’s a bit early.

16:26 <acklas> Says the chronically single man

16:27 <nicnus> Doesn’t mean I can’t know things.

16:29 <acklas> You heard about Bradley?

16:30 <nicnus> That he settled? Yeah. Where did he come up with that kind of money? My brother is paying much less off over a long time.

16:31 <acklas> Maybe his family is rich.

16:32 <nicnus> nothing indicated that

** acklas shrugs

Acklas enjoys his job less these days. His division is nearing a product launch and that means more pressure from middle managers. Not that the project is behind by much. There are no more problems than usual. Middle management just likes to feel like they’re doing something useful. Pressuring the team to work faster seems useful to them.

Acklas knows there are several serious security holes in the product. He has brought them up with more than one of the “VP” types running around by his desk, but no one seems to care. He even sent an email to higher-level management. The reply basically said “We can fix stuff after launch”.

Why does he work here again?

16:06 <jjdavis> Ok, you guys can go. You don’t need to handle me like I’m a normal. Just because I’m going through a breakup.

Thinking about jjdavis’ problem seems far more productive than putting in time on a shoddy product with security holes no one wants fixed. The company would ship the product as it was now if today was launch day. It runs. It would sell.

Tomorrow is the general staff meeting. What a waste of time. The higher-level management comes down to outline what the development teams will be working on for the coming months. It all changes six times by the end of the first month anyway. Mandatory attendance.

Acklas needs to look for a job.

16:14 <acklas> nicnus: agree.

Acklas is thinking about Jack’s problem. A bit. This sort of emotional turmoil just gets in the way of productivity. Acklas had a significant other once. Not. Worth. The. Trouble.

Even though they’re in full think-this-out mode, Acklas is not about to just tell jjdavis that he should get over himself. That takes time. For everyone.

16:25 <acklas> Maybe that’s her.

Acklas hopes it isn’t. Jack is not going to do a good job on the phone with his ex right now. Is it right to call her ex? She probably considers herself such. Maybe.

m0rty: RT @bunny22 My puppy is so cute! http://twitpic.com/a_2

fakepm: For my next trick, I shall outlaw privacy!

acklas: RT @doctorow Canadian parliament tables bill to handle police use of data streams …

Nicnus is deep-diving on a technical problem. A client has identified a bug in their encryption product that causes it to run very slow under some conditions, causing the client’s entire Internet connection to freeze up. He hasn’t been able to reproduce the problem yet.

His thoughts are interrupted by an IM from jjdavis. Hadn’t he turned off IM notifications? Normally he does when… Oh. Jack’s girlfriend left. Really left. Ouch.

16:01 <nicnus> jjdavis: Sorry to hear that.

Nicnus stretches and cranks the volume dial on his desk. All his audio is handled digitally, but he installed a manual volume dial at some point because he loves the tactile feedback it gives him. He hits some keys to switch from the bouncy, happy music that had been on to something with a bit more kick.

His system selects some Bon Jovi and shows that it will soon be following that up with other good classic rock. Perfect.

16:11 <acklas> Normals hate pedantry, but that can’t be the only factor. Did she ever mention it?

Nicnus plods around his home slowly. He hasn’t moved from his desk in hours. The music is loud enough that it envelops him wherever he walks. Yogurt? Yes. He wants to eat Yogurt. Fridge open. Yogurt out. Bowl? No bowl. Spoon? Sure. Soon he’s easing back into his desk chair. He reads over the conversation with Acklas and Jack and then taps out a response with his left hand, the right one being engaged in conveying yogurt to his mouth.

16:14 <nicnus> Then it can’t just be pedantry. That wouldn’t get any stable person *that* mad.

He savours his yogurt. So Jack’s girl finally dumped him. It was bound to happen. They might fix this, but more likely not. Either way Jack will get over it. Maybe if they stay separated Jack can finally get out of that country. Unless he meets someone else. Yikes.

16:23 <nicnus> Go with desperate.

Do women actually respond to desperate? Who knows. Seems as reasonable as anything else to say. Really, with something like this, Jack is just shooting in the dark. Nicnus is giving advice, but really he’s not got much more information. He’s just in a better frame of mind to say the sort of things that Jack might say were their roles reversed.

Maybe Jack’s Other just got tired of being with a geek. Geeks and normals primarily coexist by pretending the other is “out there”, don’t they? Maybe.

Crap. He’s out of yogurt.

Accused Infringer Disappeared

As you know, the EFF has been closely watching a Canadian court case connected to attempts to criminalise copyright infringement. As of today, the defendant in that case, Doug Bradley, has disappeared. Authorities are working to track him down but have so far been unsuccessful. This does not bode well for the eventual success of the defence, and the plaintiff is already running a media campaign to smear Bradley as a “runner”.

The case has been stalled until Bradley can be located.

Bill is pacing nervously in his office. He may not seem like the nervous type, but he is realising that given the right situation everyone is the nervous type.

Politics.

Bill does not love politics, never has. Politics are something that has to get handled if you want to stop criminals. Someone else’s job. Now that he is head of something, politics has become part of his job.

The Network.

Bill calls his operation “The Network”. This may evidence a misunderstanding of what those words mean, but no one is going to tell him that. He’s been largely frustrated by their slow progress. Now that he has gotten both international parters and a political lobby involved, the whole situation has become more political.

Politics.

The FBI called earlier. They found trace of a child rapist. Emailed his mother. Everyone has a weakness. Everyone leaves fingerprints. Bill has his team working hard to decide what parts of the data stream are likely to contain more of what they need to find and nail this rapist. The FBI are working on the details.

The lobby called earlier. They’re having a bit of trouble with their current court case, want to know if he’ll do them a favour. Who knows what they want. He just wants them to do their thing and let him do what he does best: catch bad guys.

Bill’s phone is in his hand. Did he pick it up? Must have. He hears the sound of the remote end ringing. Did he dial? Must have. The FBI answers. Since he’s got them on the line: how is the search going on their end? They’ve identified a location where the rapist was recently. A team is moving in now. Why didn’t Bill know this? His team can stop for now.

He is going to catch a plane.

Acklas is out running. Again. He never seems to make it far past the old woman’s house. Isn’t exercising supposed to get easier with the doing of it?

“So, what’s up in the world today?” She’s peering at him over her glasses.

Acklas wracks his brain for something interesting to say. He knows there are interesting things going on, but none come to mind.

“Not much.”

“Oh. You always say that.” She doesn’t seem upset.

“Yeah,” he pants, “What’s up with you?”

“Same old.” She pauses for a moment, then remembers something, “Oh! My grandson is coming up soon. You’d like him, he’s into computers.”

Acklas rolls his eyes. “Into computers” usually means “plays video games”.

“I see that,” she clucks, “You young things all think I don’t see it when you think I’m crazy, but I do. I may be old, but I’m not stupid.”

Acklas smiles, “I wouldn’t even dream of calling you stupid.”

“You say that now. They always say that now…” The old woman looks wistful. When it becomes apparent that she has nothing more to say, Acklas runs on.

18:02 <nicnus> We’ve launched the first version of our product. Let me know if you’re interested.

18:04 <nicnus> It’s getting a semi-good response so far. Mostly from geeky small business.

18:04 <nicnus> Which makes sense.

19:01 <nicnus> We’ve just had a request come in to build a module that will work properly on a Ham packet radio system.

19:01 <nicnus> … wonder who is running packet radio still

Jack is not responding. He’s seen the messages, but he doesn’t really feel like responding.

He isn’t depressed, per se. Emotional turmoil does not have to be depression. This feels more like a deep-seated confusion with a garnish of hurt. He goes over the events that lead to this in his mind, trying to determine what happened. Then he shuts his mind off, allowing the music from his computer to draw his mind away from reality. Repeat.

She left. Would she be back? She had indicated that she would not be. Was he to take this indication at face value, or was he meant to interpret it in some way?

…

Nicnus had to deal with something like this recently. That situation had sounded like there may be a maturity problem, though. Jack is pretty sure that is not the case here. He had offended her deeply. How?

…

Why?

…

It wouldn’t make sense for this to be a sudden decision. He hadn’t done a single big thing to offend her. Such a huge reaction to a single event would definitely be a maturity problem. Maybe. Usually, anyway. There must have been something he consistently sucked at. A driven wedge that slowly crawled deeper as he continued to fail at…

…

at…

…

…

19:55 <nicnus> What do you think about Bradley? It seems strange that he would just disappear like that.

Jack’s girlfriend is not sitting alone. She is not puzzling out her life. She’s doing what she always does when she is upset: talking it out with her best friend.

She’s frustrated, upset, angry. Her sentences barely make sense as they come tumbling out of her head. An emotional gush with the sort of force normally reserved for blind rage.

Her friend is surprisingly calm. All that raw emotion blasting her with an otherwise withering power does not seem to be a problem for her. The rush of incomprehensible babble that simply cannot be made sense of rushes past with decreasing coherence. Calm. Consoling.

Her friend is not a geek, nor is she a moron. This emotional display is not an attempt to communicate information, nor is it intended to seem nearly so directed at her. This is a release, and as a good friend she needs to be here to acknowledge the release. She makes comforting sounds, and periodically hugs her friend. That is all. That is exactly what is needed. Thoughts come later. Thoughts will be important in recovering this relationship. Actions will be essential to eventual repair. Not now. Right now the torrent of emotion is all that matters.

Jack’s girlfriend is not aware of any of this. She would be, if she were on the receiving end. Right now she is barely aware at all. She rides the path from raging anger to weeping sorrow over and over again. This is Jack’s fault, and yet he probably doesn’t even know what is going on. He’s probably sitting in his cave trying to puzzle it out. What a jerk. Why had she put up with him for so long?

The tears stop. The babbling slows. Her friend hands her tissues. She’s a mess. Time to clean up. No thoughts yet. Time for rest now. Thoughts tomorrow. Maybe.

“It’s not in your jurisdiction, the man was caught on US soil,” the FBI man seems to think this is obvious.

“My team was part of catching him! I just want to know about his activities in Canada. You know he had some.” Bill is standing in an office in DC. Normally, this would not be the way. There is a process. This is not it.

“There is a process. This is not it.” The FBI man seems to be reading his thoughts, “If we get any information relevant to your investigations, we’ll inform you.”

“Come on, just let me talk to him,” Bill really wants to be in on this. Desk work and data mining is all well and good, but only when it produces these kind of results. This is the real thing.

“I’m sorry, Bill, there are rules—”

Bill hisses, “Since when did we care about rules?”

The FBI man looks shocked. No, he doesn’t. It’s very clearly fake. He looks mock-shocked. His throat produces a mock-shocked voice. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bill can’t believe this. The Network. His baby. He always thinks of it as his. It was his idea. He got it rolling. Now, with some real results, he’s being shut out by process. This is why he had been so willing to take advantage of the data mining opportunity when he had seen it. Process. Process is ever the enemy of the lawman. Bill likes freedom and justice as much as anyone, but when the checks designed to protect those ideals prevent him from defending those ideals, well, then, he has no use for those checks anymore.

He leaves. No use in staying, the FBI man is not going to come around. Bill needs to step up efforts with the lobbyists. Maybe if he can help them out with their court case…

Our protagonist is very happy. His company is selling devices that he helped design; devices that he thinks are useful. The newest version of MusicBox came out today. It changed all the mechanisms used for spying on the user in an attempt to get around his “good virus”. Within hours, teams of people were working on determining the new ways that the product worked. Nicnus had not been involved at all. In fact, he had only found out about it much later in the day. By the time he knew there was a problem to be worked on, he had emails in his inbox with the code that would be needed to make it all work again. He merged all the changes into the codebase and redeployed the “virus”. By this time tomorrow, most computers around the world would be inoculated again.

He spends some time thinking about Doug Bradley. The court case may be slowed by this event, but it would not go away. This would just hurt the defence, which is not good when losing means copyright “criminals” going to jail.

19:55 <nicnus> What do you think about Bradley? It seems strange that he would just disappear like that.

Jack isn’t responding just now, but he’ll get the message later. Nicnus wonders what would have happened if his brother had gone to jail instead of being faced with a giant fee to pay. What about the hundreds of others who had been sued?

Then again, maybe such lunacy would be enough to wake up the society around him.

Acklas is out running. This may seem strange to you, but it’s a habit he’s been trying to form recently. He’s realized that being in mildly good physical condition could be useful if he were ever forced to leave his cave for an extended period.

Though, that doesn’t make him good at it.

He stops for breath a few short blocks from his house. He always runs out of breath after about this far. There’s an old woman who lives here, and she always seems to be out on her porch.

“Having a nice run again, eh?” She peers down at him.

Acklas shakes his head, “I’m not sure ‘nice’ is the word I would use to describe it.”

She chuckles. “So how come I never see you running past here with a pretty girl?”

She’s starting to sound like his mother, but he has a better quip here, “Do you really think I’d want a pretty girl laughing at me every time I run out of breath?”

That seems to have satisfied her. He doesn’t mind this old woman. He likes that someone nice lives on his street. It’s very strange of her to just talk to some random guy who runs past her house. Probably not safe. He likes it, though.

Soon he’s off again, but quickly decides to head for home. Enough beating up the body for one day. He stumbles in through his door and makes it to his room. New messages. From Nicnus. The encryption device is ready for outside beta testing, it seems. Acklas will get in contact with him about helping out with that later. Right now he needs to head into work.

Acklas mutters something under his breath about how lucky Nicnus is to work for a small company that lets him work from home. His office is much less… nice. Still, it’s a living, and it’s not boring.

Bill is on the phone, but he does not like what he’s hearing, “What do you mean, your consultants are telling you most of the data gathering is only theoretical? Either it’s possible or it’s not. Either way, we’re talking about lobbying for legislation. If the implementation is possible, we need to be allowed to implement it.”

Someone walks in and hands Bill a printed email. He scans it quickly and then swears into the phone. “I have to deal with something. We’ll talk later, OK?”

He hangs up and calls his FBI contact. Apparently the FBI man thinks that Bill has leaked the information about what they’re doing. Bill denies it.

“Look, you,” The FBI man says slowly, “You didn’t think we who are running the world’s most sophisticated wiretap system would fail to notice you communicating with a political lobby group.”

Bill is at a loss for words. “You’ve been spying on me?”

“No, Bill. We have been spying on the whole world.”

Bill’s face flushes in momentary anger, “To catch rapists, not to follow my personal dealings.”

The FBI man does not seem phased, “I’m going to quote from one of your recent emails. You said, ‘Privacy is dead. Law enforcement needs access to information in order to get the job done. If the government will let us cull the data available on the Internet, then we can stop all kinds of problems before they even start.'”

Now Bill knows they’ve been spying on him, “So?”

“So, that email was not to one of us. You’ve been talking about data harvesting with a major political group, and don’t even pretend you haven’t been because I have the emails and phone transcripts right here.”

“How did you get phone—” Bill’s bewilderment is cut short by the FBI man’s derisive laughter.

“Does it even matter? The point is, I have it. If the wrong people find out about our network, we could be shut down. What are you thinking?”

Bill’s bewilderment quickly turns defencive, “Well excuse me. I’m trying to work on making what we do more legal so that more people can benefit from it.”

“Do we even need that? We can just feed as much information as we want into any agency we want. They don’t have to care where it comes from. Why endanger the project?”

“Because,” Bill’s voice has a sense of finality to it, “this is bigger than us. This is about stopping criminals. We can’t just run it as a secret project forever because we can’t do anything forever. These guys are the best. They know their facts, and the politicians do not. They can make anything seem like a good idea, and no one is going to stand up against us. The populace want to be safe and they will beg us to read their emails if it means one less weirdo on the streets. Trust me; this will work out fine.”

17:01 <nicnus> You ready?

17:01 <acklas> Sure.

Acklas unplugs his Internet and hooks it up through the demo unit that Nicnus had shipped to his office. He waits a few moments as his computer tries to get back on the Internet. Soon it says it is on and he returns to the chat.

17:05 <acklas> So, this is encrypted now?

17:06 <nicnus> Well… No. You still have a normal connection to the Internet, no getting around that. The device will let us set up a very simple encrypted connection between just us. Then we could chat across that.

17:08 <acklas> … sounds complicated.

17:08 <nicnus> Not if we ship the devices with file sharing and IM clients and whatnot that automatically use this.

17:09 <acklas> I guess.

17:10 <nicnus> You’re sure it’s OK for you to be testing this at work?

17:11 <acklas> No one pays any attention to what I do here. Besides, it’s lunch.

An email arrives in Acklas’ inbox.

17:11 <acklas> Isn’t this a very insecure way to send me the key? You just email it?

17:12 <nicnus> Sure. For real security you’d want to set up the key in a secure manner.

17:12 <acklas> Ok, I guess this is fine for a test.

Acklas opens the file with a bit of software Nicnus had sent him earlier. The software starts talking to the device on the back of his system and soon reports success. Acklas looks at his networks and sees a connection that he assumes goes to Nicnus.

17:13 <acklas> Ok. Got it.

17:13 <nicnus> Now just connect to the chat server on my system.

Acklas does this and opens up a new chat using that server.

17:15 <acklas> HAI THAR

17:16 <nicnus> WE R SO ENCRYPTED

17:16 <acklas> SECRET1, SECRET2, NO CAN HAZ SECRET3

17:17 <nicnus> READ THIZ, H4CK3RS!

17:17 <acklas> Is mixing LOLspeak and 1337 really kosher?

I would record for the reader what comes next, but while it would show some of the geekiest text I could place in this account, it would also have almost no meaning to the reader. In short, their dialogue does not need to be encrypted: no one can understand it anyway. Of course, the existence of the technology they are testing is really the only thing that is a secret. Unfortunately, that is the only thing they are not trying to keep a secret.

Case to Criminalize Infringement Continues

The EFF has been closely watching a court case that is developing in Canada. If this case goes badly, it could set a precedent that would leak down into the United States. How? The lobby group responsible is a US-based group that has significant holdings north of the border as well. Rest assured that a victory there will mean they bring their power to bear down here as well.

The case hinges on the fact that the accused infringer, Doug Bradley, is in possession of unlocked versions of content that is only distributed on digitally locked medium (like DVDs). The argument is that by possessing these copies, Bradley is actively circumventing the digital locks, which is a criminal offence in many countries, including the United States. If convicted, this could be broadly applied to any infringement of content that is distributed in locked format.

Luckily, it seems that if any distribution of the content has been without DRM, then the infringement cannot fall under this concept. No matter where this case goes, it is for exactly these reasons that consumers need to actively fight against digital locks (or DRM or TPMs, whatever you call it) on their content.

Nicnus is alone with his brother’s girlfriend. Actually, wait, she may not be his girlfriend anymore. It’s all so complicated. Nicnus doesn’t really care, but that doesn’t keep his curious mind from wondering.

How did he get here? He’s here on behalf of his brother. If his brother had to send him, then she can’t be his significant other, can she? Or perhaps they’re just having a protracted fight but still consider the relationship active? Nicnus’ head is spinning. He decides to focus on the reason he is here. The reason… There is a reason. Oh, yes! His brother—

“Are you just going to stand there?” She seems impatient.

He is standing on her porch. Or her parents’ porch? How old would she be? Does she live on her own? When do people tend to move out on their own these days?

“Are you staring at my breasts!” Now she seems horrified.

Nicnus forces his eyes to refocus. Crap. What’s the culturally accepted out in this circumstance? Can he explain that his eyes were not even aware of what was before them? That seems likely to be awkward. Awkward is the opposite of socially acceptable. On the other hand, it seems socially acceptable for men to joke about women’s breasts. Perhaps pretending that he was distracted by them is a good strategy for this situation? No. His best bet is to just ignore everything and move forward.

“My brother sent me.” That statement falls sort of flat. It seemed like a good way to begin the conversation, but now he’s not so sure.

“Obviously.” She’s tapping her foot. That’s impatience, right?

How long has he been standing here? Too long. Not as long as it may seem to the reader, but longer than is good. This is officially awkward now. Why couldn’t his brother just talk to his own girlfriend? Or write her a letter. Or something.

His brother wanted him to convey apologies, or something of that like. Nicnus is a tad fuzzy on the details. They didn’t really make sense to him. He doesn’t have time to run simulations in his head, but nor should he just blurt the first thing that comes to mind. He never should have agreed to this assignment.

“I assume he sent you to grovel.” Nicnus does not like her tone. She does not seem nice.

Finally, Nicnus decides that this is just silly. He’s frustrated with the whole situation, and lets that manifest as anger. Or passion. One of those.

“Yes, yes he did. But I’m not going to convey that. You and my brother have a strong chemical bond — that much is obvious by the fact that you continue to repair your relationship after this long together. Based on your expectation that he will come to repair the relationship, it seems to me that you’ve started to take him for granted.” Yes. This seems like a good tactic, she is noticeably shocked. “If you want to have a lasting or meaningful relationship with anyone, you’re going to need to move past riding the crest of some chemical wave and start really working together.”

She has opened her mouth to say something. Nicnus is used to geek fights. If you want to get into this conversation, you had better think that what you have to say is more useful than what is currently being said. You had better believe it enough to force your way in. He can tell by the look in her eye that her resolve is not that strong, so he continues.

“If you want a relationship with my brother, you know where to find him. I don’t care what he did or what childishness is going on here, all I know is that if you can’t get over yourself and work on a solution — a solution that you obviously know he is amenable to — then you don’t deserve to be with anyone.”

He sizes her up with his eye. She’s no pushover. She has her rebuttal ready. She’s visibly upset, and that’s good. That means he’s right about this. If she stews on this for awhile her mind will finally give in to her brain. Good.

He draws himself and utters one last word. “Goodbye.”

He leaves abruptly.

Now Nicnus is sitting just out of sight of the house at a bus stop. Good thing she had not thought to follow him; he doesn’t really have a better escape route planned.

“Last time I get involved in relationships,” he mutters to himself.

His phone vibrates in his pockets. Inbound microblog posts.

piratepartyca: Canadian court case to decide if infringement should become criminal: prtpty.ca/1a

jjdavis: Early estimates on the spread of the MusicBox antivirus: http://is.gd/jjzQg

m0rty: Oh, man! Hundreds of emails! #longdaytoday

He taps out a post of his own:

Do not get involved in other people’s relationships, no matter how much they beg.

Moments later, he has a few replies:

jjdavis: @nicnus speaking from exp?

acklas: @nicnus your brother again?

m0rty: @nicnus not if you care about your relationship with any party.

jjdavis: @m0rty not fair. You’re assuming @nicnus did harm.

The bus pulls up. Nicnus pockets the phone and boards the bus. Once seated, he taps out another post:

Don’t know if I did harm or good. Still not a fun time. People fight over the dumbest things.

An IM comes in:

16:00 <jjdavis> Your brother sent you out to his girlfriend on his behalf? Awkward.

16:02 <nicnus> Very.

More from the microblogs:

acklas: @nicnus Yeah, that sucks. People are dumb, unfortunately.

fakepm: If I had any real power I’d force this case. Of course they’re criminals! prtpty.ca/1a

acklas: RT @doctorow The MusicBox “anti-virus” spreads: http://is.gd/jjzQg

Nicnus remembers to look up. Where is he? Ok, not at his stop yet. Must remember to look so that he doesn’t miss it.

His phone is vibrating again. A different vibrate. SMS? Yes, it seems to be a text message, must be from his brother. He opens it and is surprised to find that it is not. It’s from his father.

Can u come by. Want ur opinion no this program.

Nicnus shakes his head and taps out a reply:

What program? For what?

Another IM:

16:06 <jjdavis> Sometimes I have a hard time dealing with my own significant other. Dealing with someone else’s.. not a good scene.

Nicnus is about to reply when another SMS comes in from his father:

Photo manager.

Nicnus replies to the IM first:

16:07 <nicnus> Yeah. Notice that I have no SO. Much easier.

Then the SMS:

I have no opinion about those. I don’t take or have or look at photos. How could I be useful?

Crap! Nicnus looks up just in time to see his stop just coming up. He pockets the phone and pulls the cord. The bus squeals to a stop, and he hurries off and back to his cave. His IM and microblog messages are just as accessible on his PC.

16:07 <jjdavis> Thought you might say that. There are advantages.

16:10 <nicnus> But do those advantages outweight the issues

16:10 <nicnus> obviously you think they do

He doesn’t have compatibility for SMS set up in a good way yet. That’s still coming in on his phone:

Well sorry for valuing your opinion.

Nicnus sighs.

16:11 <nicnus> today is not my day for relationships. now my dad is mad at me

16:12 <jjdavis> Oh?

16:12 <nicnus> He wants me to go physically to his house to help him evaluate a piece of software I have no knowledge about.

16:13 <jjdavis> You can’t just evaluate it on your own PC?

16:13 <nicnus> Well, not just that. It’s photo management software.

16:14 <jjdavis> Oh, I see. Yeah, you can’t really usefully evaluate that.

Nicnus posts to his microblog:

#LazyWeb Good photo management software? For my dad.

Soon he has replies. Picasa and Shotwell seem popular. Some people just use some online photo sharing sites as managers as well. That seems shifty. He sends his Dad another message.

Don’t know what you’re looking at, but the Internet says Picasa and Shotwell are good. Shotwell is free.

Soon he has a reply:

Picasa free too, looks like.

Nicnus groans:

Free as in freedom, Dad. Whatever. I guess either would work for you.

Bill is in a meeting with a copyright lobby group. The same one that is pushing to make all copyright infringement a criminal offence in court.

“I was pretty pleased with the way your litigators argued their case,” Bill smiles, “I never would have thought of claiming that all infringement is actually a circumvention of the protection measures.”

The primary lobby representative laughs, “That’s why we pay them so much money. They come up with stuff like that.”

An awkward pause, then the lobbyist continues, “So, I understand you have something you think would be beneficial to us both. Something which could benefit from the power our group wields?”

Bill nods slowly. “The MusicBox project has had a good run, but it may be closing in on the end of its usefulness.”

The flabbiest cocks his head, “Are you referring to the so-called anti-virus? We are not concerned about that.”

Bill chuckles, “Of course you’re not. You can only get certain kinds of data from certain kinds of people, though. Really you need to be going after the uploaders not the downloaders. The uploaders being far more cautious.”

Now the lobbyist is interested, “You have a proposal?”

Bill nods again, “It was brought to my attention some time ago that most Internet transactions are not secured at all.”

The lobbyist is still only intrigued, “Yes. Our technical consultants tell us that most emails and web transactions, among other things, can be intercepted or even read from where they are stored.”

“So,” Bill waves his hand in a do-you-get-it-now sort of gesture.

“Digital wiretaps?”

Good. This lobbyist has got it. “I said no such thing. I’m just saying, the data we need to trace almost all online activity is right out there. The ISPs have it, the web hosts have it, the email hosts have it. We can trace uploads to their source.”

“By using wiretaps.”

Bill shakes his head, “Wiretaps? No. We’re not spying on known criminals. We’re just going through information that might as well be considered public anyway. Doing a public service by stopping would-be criminals. Like preventative medicine.”

Now the lobbyist has really got it. “Of course. If you have anything to hide, then you’re suspicious.”