泛道德主義為體,法治精神為用?

陳冠希的事件,真是一筆豐富的社會學資源,無論怎樣寫也寫不盡當中的社會/政治/經濟/心理互動。
其中一件我留意到的是香港似乎抱着「泛道德主義為體,法治精神為用」的精神,在情感上認同泛道德主義,但行為細節就依法治精神來做。因此,一般人都認同裸照中的女星是受害者,因為她們被無禮對待,赤身露體任人評頭品足;另外,奇拿的「俠義行為」亦被視為不道德,屬於不問自取,不禮貌地向公衆展示女星的性交照;陳冠希首先是有婚外性行為,後來因承擔責任而令公衆對他的印象改觀;都是屬於的泛道德主義的範圍。
而法治精神對於香港人以言,是該案例的處理手法是否合乎法治的程序,以及法例是否被濫用,因此是不屬於泛道德主義管理的範圍,所以網民上街遊行抗議社會不公義時,泛道德主義陣營連一句話都說不出。可見在泛道德主義者心中,泛道德主義和社會公義是兩碼事,泛道德主義者談的是人與人之間的道德,卻不是統治者行為的道德,似乎和泛道德主義祖宗的儒家思想的以仁德來治國的政治理想相去甚遠。為什麼不可以用泛道德主義來分析香港統治者行為?為什麼不可以同一思想、同一標準來看待陳冠希、他的性伴侶、香港警方、奇拿、英皇娛樂集團及上下載陳冠希性交照的網民?可見泛道德主義只是在情感上生效,在具體執行時卻和法治精神無關,泛道德主義是不是有道德而無法治?網民是不是有法治而無道德?為什麼網民不可以以政府行為不道德號召泛道德主義者?為什麼泛道德主義不可以用法治精神來捍衛網民的合法權益?

An idea on public boardcasting in Hong Kong

Sat, May 12, 2007 at 4:59 PM

Hong Kong is in the midst of debate on the future of RTHK, what people concern is how to provide and preserve a medium that act as a tool for the interest of public, much like BBC in United Kingdom.
I was thinking why can’t RTHK truly become a public medium by being a medium of medium? Why can’t RTHK become a public foundation that is act as a gateway for various online broadcaster? The only role it play is to facilitate the growth of online radio station by providing it air time, and aid amateur online broadcaster with various resource?

Concerning speedtest of HKBN

Sat, Apr 9, 2005 at 11:16 AM

Hello Sir,
I am a HKBN user, and I have a few comments concerning the
speedtest.com.hk you have.
First, this test is truly INADEQUATE, since the speed of downloading
and uploading varies through out the process, and your speed test does
NOT give me the average, only one value among the process, which is
MISLEADING. I certainly believe HKIX2 could do better than that.
Second, which is what I am really DISAPPOINTED, is your test base
COMPLETELY on Microsoft-Window platform. And your test is NOT
CROSS-PLATFORM. It is quite useless to me as a Linux user. What is the
point of using Java when you are testing it ONLY for Microsoft XP? All
the browser, including Firefox which is cross-platform, CRASH when
uploading. This speak VOLUME about your consideration of user of other
OS.
Third, it appears to me HKIX2 is inexplicitly CONDONING the use of
Microsoft-Window XP as the ideal platform by DISCRIMINATING against
user of other OS, since the making of your website COMPLETELY
DISREGARD a growing number of Linux, FreeBSD and Mac user. I consider
this a CLEAR CASE OF PLATFORM DISCRIMINATION.

Regards
Innovator & Linux user

Dear MSir,

Thank you for your time to let us know your feedback on the service we rendered.

In order to provide users with a precise speedtest result, we use FTP method so that we physically transfer file to reflect the download and upload speed. So, the transfer rate at the begining phase is at its incremental stage and should not be counted until the transfer rate becomes steady. Because of this, we suggest users to record the transfer rate of their speed during the steady phase. If you would like to get the average transfer rate, we suggest you not to use browsers to do the testing. You can conduct the test through command mode. We have illustrated FTP command mode in DOS environment. Please refer to the FAQ for details.

Regarding your comment on supporting the website on different platforms, we thank you for your precious opinion and we will reflect it to our Management for consideration.

Your satisfaction and comments are always the force for our further improvement.

Yours sincerely,

SpeedTest@HKIX2
www.speedtest.com.hk

Evidence Based Memory

Wed, May 23, 2007 at 6:05 PM

This is just a thought base on the invention by a few Mathematics as reported on Slashdot.
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=77129353-E7F2-99DF-37738629167B4856
http://slashdot.org/index.pl?issue=20070521

Remember long time ago I was writing about an idea that potentially store unlimited information in limited physical medium. (It was more challenging to me of using less to do more, instead of keep using more to do less.)
The problem is that we need an reversible algorithm could allow stored information to embedded the new information without losing neither of them. i.e. 10+2=10. It appears now that their work could be use for this purpose.
Another derivative is to combine that technology with remote storage. Instead of everyone store a copy of something, the whole copy is computed and distributed in many places in the Internet. So when the data is needed, it would be pull from various site to rebuild the whole copy. As usual, reductance is built into the network.

Invention on demand: P2P hosting

Thu, May 31, 2007 at 11:02 PM

In light of recent trend of terrorize small webmaster via obscene and copyright accusation. I think it is necessary to build a technology that can withstand any governmental censorship. My idea is  P2P website hosting, i.e . the website only live in P2P network. The website is hosted in the shared folder of the hoster. It assign its own name, and can only viewed from other peers.

Another idea related to an advance version of this idea: Swap hosting. Break down a website into n components. More than n peers is needed to be resilient for all network conditions. In order to browser a website, a user need access to at least n peers with different components. This is my idea of Cooperating-website. And any update to the website would be immediately update throughout the network. Since the what each peer have is only an interchangable component of a website, therefore each peer doesn’t have any legal responsibility for hosting an ‘illegal’ website.

奧運去政治化及陳冠希事件

中共常說奧運是體育和政治無關,但是和政治無關的事卻是由中共最高權力代表胡書記接奧運聖火,而和政治無關的奧運卻無端端被中共拖進西藏暴動的政治事件,和政治無關的奧運在香港竟由和政府有密切關係的人仕來傳聖火,和政治無關的奧運在中共國內卻引發中共國內的反西方傳媒運動,和政治無關的奧運在中共國統一發稿,和政治無關的奧運在中共國拒絕中共國境內政治立場和中共南轅北轍,在香港的蘋果日報採訪,和政治無關的奧運在中共國底下成了關押異見份子的理由。奧運如果真的和政治無關,反對奧運怎可能成為異見份子癲覆國家政權的罪證?奧運和政治無關而是體育活動,為什麼反對國足貪腐/吹黑哨的人不見中共以同樣罪名拉他們坐牢?奧運和政治無關只是體育活動,為什麼香港的蘋果日報因為政治立場不同而不准入境採訪呢?
本來去政治化只是專制政體剝弱人們不滿的花招,意思大約是,中共國沒有政治,政治就是鬥爭,因中共國的管理永遠只從民生出發,因此中國無政治,人民無政治權利自是理所當然,你要政治權利就是想爭權,就是想搞政治鬥爭。政治因在泛道德主義的思想下成了負面名詞,從而令人民在本質上討厭政治。既然政治就是醜陃,民主化大可不必,其他地方如台灣的民主化成果亦是不值一文,中國只要經濟發展就可以了,中國沒有政治。
中國沒有政治,膚淺、功利及思想底子簿的香港人亦全盤接受,因為在香港心目中,政治的目的無非經濟發展,既然在現實的環境下中共國不喜歡政治發展,亦和它合拍,來過香港版本的去政治化。問題倒來了,如果政治只關經濟、民生非關意識形態,則每年選民用什麼去決定投哪一位侯選人一票?不用意識形態,如何去理解政府每一項經濟、民生的政策背後的理由?如何去理解各政黨的經濟、民生的政策背後的理由是什麼?如何去理解各政黨在每一次立法會會議投票背後的理由是什麼?如何去理解各政黨的投票行為模式?沒有意識形態,要民主選舉來幹什麼?不如每年來過民意調查,最高分數的議員自動留任?
去政治化不單使明明應由意識形態主導的政策討論欠缺深度,或把意識形態隱藏到所謂客觀的研究的假設背後;亦使香港政府無法明正言順以其意識意態去處理任何可以成為公衆關心的焦點事件,例如在陳冠希事件中,警方忘記了其實每一條法例都是政治產物,背後都有意識形態、心理學及經濟上的考量,其客觀效果亦會在不同的政治、經濟下有分別,警方不敢說出每一項行動背後的整體考量是什麼,有什麼目標,和想達到什麼效果,因為涉及其行為理念即意識形態。禁示色情資訊流通其實是右傾保守主義的表現,警方本能地防些社會的權威及道德價值受到衝擊,隱藏的社會秩序受破壞。很簡單,一字以敝之,就是像中共一樣怕社會大亂。誰知它發覺原來公衆對法例的理解和自己不同,又不可以引用意識形態來支持,結果只好由不懂法律背後的政治考量的人去把法例向對其有政治考慮的行動有利的方向解釋,破壞了法例背後的邏緝。因為法例背後的邏緝正是建基於意識形態,為什麼強姦的罪行和殺人不遑多讓?和女性主義的冒起,和英國是由女皇統治有無關係?法例背後的邏緝不能獨立於意識形態,否則單憑邏緝和事實是無法決定法例的內涵,如罪行的輕重就一定涉及價值觀,價值觀當然是由意識形態決定。香港警方想做的事,正是想單用邏緝和事實來臨時決定法例的內涵,這根本在邏緝上是無可能的事,破壞法例的邏緝性是必然的結果。
中共喜歡用去政治化的「純」法治是因這樣看來較文明,較合乎西方法治文化中程序理性,而且可以讓人民以為會有包青天為他們主持公道。既然政治無公平可言,但最少可以有機會在法例面前人人平等。卻忽略了如果立法的過程沒有人民以民主制度方式來參與,即中國無政治,再公平的執法亦不可以防止政府用法例名正言順剝削人民本來的權利。同理,因為香港政府並不是全由民主政治產生,欠缺正當性,在中共國的專政陰影下亦未必有可能發展正常的民主政治,因此唯有借鏡中共的去政治化下的法治,想用去政治化的法治來建立其正當性。它以為香港人一向對本港的法治有信心,因此任何政治的決定只要借法治的名義來行,所有政府官員包括警方只是執行法例,和政治無關,一定是公平公正的。誰說香港人民眼晴雪亮,一下子就理解到執法的公平公正不一定代表法例本身的公平公正,在不完全的民主制度下,怎可能保證法例一定是對各階級都是公平公正的?法治在去政治化變成缺乏邏緝基礎、自相矛盾的特色,在陳冠希案中表露無遺!

Return of the Repressed in Edison Chen’s scandal

(WARNING: THIS links below contain MATERIAL WHICH MAY OFFEND AND MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED, CIRCULATED, SOLD, HIRED, GIVEN, LENT, SHOWN, PLAYED OR PROJECTED TO A PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18 YEARS 警告: 以下連結內容可能令人反感; 不可將本物品派發、傳閱、出售、出租、交給或出借予年齡未滿18歲的人士或將本物品向該等人士出示、播放或放映。)

(中文版)

It is often amazing to realize how accurate is Freud’s understanding of human psychology. In his book ‘Civilization and Its Discontent’, he talks about the displeasure as the price for modernization of society.
If we could analyze Edison Chen’s scandal, we can analyze the event along the line of Freudian psychology. We all understand that all dictatorship tend to repress the political will of the citizen, therefore it is not surprise that Hong Kong government is doing its best to de-politicalize Hong Kong. The theory is that politics means conflict against the goal of harmony and prosperity confessed by the bless of Beijing, so all government decision is made without regarding the political(partisan) consideration. Then use the remaking of election system to ensure that no political party could dominate the political system. Its disgusting of political party is so great that in 2000 election, political party are prohibited from displaying their name and symbols in the ballot. Moreover, it encourage all media to interpret current event from any perspective that is not containment by local politics. But how is it related to sexual repression?

It strike me as odd that why Hong Kong government would repress both sexuality of its citizen and expression of political will at the same time, while China has only sex as taboo. In Freudian theory, the political energy stream essentially from sexual energy of all citizen. Therefore, China’s decision made sense when they permitted expression of political energy of citizen in sexual arena. Hong Kong government’s policy is thus against the basic human Psychology. It is asking for trouble if Freud’s understanding if accurate. There are few ways to understand that.
It maybe that Hong Kong government’s political power require the support of organized religion, Christian being one of the most powerful force. Moreover, Hong Kong is a cross-breed between East and West, thus West would be best represented by Christian. The natural tendency for Christian to meet China is to find their common ground, which unfortunately that is sexual repression. Pan-Moralist from Beijing see sex as evil because of its relationship with political will, Christian see sex as evil because of doctrine from Bible. Therefore this hypothesis suggested this is just a historical coincidence sexual repression is becoming the norm in Hong Kong.
Another theory is stressing Hong Kong government’s active part in creating an environment to repress both expression of political will and sexuality of the mass. Hong Kong government try to imitate China’s cultural and political style out of both necessity and its influence-by-proximity. In a sense, Hong Kong government try to prove its ‘cultural heritage’ by outdoing China. So China repress only the political will of the people; and Hong Kong has to go one step further than China, because it is afraid that ‘excessive’ sexual energy of the mass would eventually seek outlet in political arena. Therefore, it try curb the root cause of all political-’unrest’: sexual energy. However, it doesn’t have enough resource nor understanding of Freudian psychology to diverted the repressed sexual energy of the mass from sex and politics to creative industry, therefore make the society as a whole a living bomb.

Liken complex in human psyche, this bomb would resolution whatever it sense the opportunity. Aggression against the rich/powerful/famous in the Internet has done much to reduce the explosiveness of this bomb. Therefore, Hong Kong government’s attempt to shutoff this ’safe’ outlet of aggression thus ultimately set off this bomb. Then as we observe in this social movement, the rebellion against sexual repression then going back to the root cause: Repression of political development in Hong Kong. One repressed object thus aligned itself of another repressed object in their quest to be acknowledged.
To Freud, all this is predicted by Freudian Psychology. Hong Kong government, along with China government, is keeping the lid tight on the political will of the mass; thus digging its own grave. Since when the pressure is suddenly drop of in the lid, explosion is what we expected!

An idea on protecting the intergity of information

In computer science, it is vital to protect the integrity of information stored in file against alternation in storage, as well as file transferred in the Internet. Currently, we have various methods like MD5 at software level to ensure the integrity of data contained in file. However, if the interceptor has some knowledge of how data integrity is going to be checked, as well as some computational resource, then it is always possible to alter the information in such a way that it can pass the test of integrity.

One solution is to build a method that is harder to crack, which probably require increased of computation resource in the owner’s hand. Another direction of thinking is to re-use existing methods in such a way that is difficult to crack.

My suggestions here is to use multiple method at various overlapping portion of the file. Since each methods has its strength and weakness, a combination of them would reduce the probability that all of them are cracked at the same time. Moreover, the chemistry of different methods at the different portion would increase the difficulty of the task of the interrupter exponentially. So someone could use this technology with an outdated 80386 CPU while defeating the interrupter with Pentium Dual Core running at 3Gz even if the interrupter know the methods for checking integrity and the criteria for choose each portion, and what method it has applied on each method. Thus we have the advantage from this inherent unsymmetrical method.

A simple version of this software could do a clear cut, for instance ten of 6400k per method for 6M of data. A more complex implementation is each method taking data of a specific distance of bit from the 6M data. For instance, Method A took bits of a distance of bit, Method B took bits of a distance

The flow is like that:

A. Randomly choose n methods out of ten existing methods.

B. Randomly divide the file into m portions that has some overlapping area.

C. Randomly choose the method of checking in each portion.

D. Do the calculation.

E. Record A-D in file header or any ’safe’ place.

When the file is opened/accessed next time, it would do the calculation and check against A-D.

Anyone would like to test this idea?

從陳冠希案去再思考版權法

(WARNING: THIS links below contain MATERIAL WHICH MAY OFFEND AND MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED, CIRCULATED, SOLD, HIRED, GIVEN, LENT, SHOWN, PLAYED OR PROJECTED TO A PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18 YEARS 警告: 以下連結內容可能令人反感; 不可將本物品派發、傳閱、出售、出租、交給或出借予年齡未滿18歲的人士或將本物品向該等人士出示、播放或放映。)

如果不是陳冠希一案,版權法和知識產權的慨念問題,在香港恐怕一百年也不會有人提起。
版權法和知識產權的法例的原意是:假設只要保護原創人的權利若干年,即剝削一般人的知情權若干年,以確保原創者可以由此賺取一定的利潤。因為收入有國家公器的保障,所以原創者會因此有強烈動機來生產受版權法和知識產權的產品,社會整體因此而得益。
問題當然是這個假設是否合乎事實:即版權法和知識產權的產品生產者的心理學,以及在法例操作的實際過達不達到法例的原意呢?是不是所有喜歡寫文章的人都會因為他/她寫的文章可以有機會去賺錢,所以更努力去寫文章?貝多芬是不是因為作曲可以賺錢就作曲?愛迪生因為發明有專利保障才去發明呢?另外,是不是所有受歡迎歌曲的作曲作詞人都收入豐厚?是不是所有在全港最高收視率的無線電視台為最受歡迎節目的編劇都因此而富有?是不是所有在全港最受歡迎電影的編劇都因此而富有?由此可見,一是法例在本質未必有作用,另外是法例在實質執行時未必達到法例理論上想達到的效果。
拿陳冠希一案來說,他根本不想發表這些相片,法例為什麼要去保障他不雅物品的版權呢?難道香港社會因他的相片而整體得益,所以要豉勵他更努力去為我們拍更類似的相片?剝削一般人對相片的知情權是如何傷害了陳冠希的商業利益呢?我不見香港政府如南韓政府去盡力改善創意工業的發展,想辨法令香港的文化產品風行世界,卻用盡心機去維護一個富家子有傷風化的知識產權!荒天下之大謬!
再想深一層,其實知識產權及版權是借用了實物經濟的「物以罕為貴」的公式來思考,但是一般物理實物生產及複製都要不低的成本,受知識產權及版權保障的產物生產成本說不定,作一流傳萬世的故事可能只是某人一杯雪糕,花重金禮騁的重頭劇卻可能叫好不叫座;此外,受知識產權及版權保障的產物在本質是一個念頭,如何去保護一個思想呢?如何去確保世上其他人都不可以同時有同一個思法呢?而且複製一個受知識產權及版權保障的產物卻是十分便宜,因此不會「物以罕為貴」。而且兩者的市場性質亦不同,戲可以百看不厭,但就算再富人的人都不會買一百部一模一樣的電腦吧?再拿陳冠希來做例子,到底他的不雅相片的「市場價值」是隨着產品的氾濫而增加,還是「物以罕為貴」?他是如何計算他的「經濟損失」呢?

A reflection of the idea of copyright in Edison Chen’s scandal

(WARNING: THIS links below contain MATERIAL WHICH MAY OFFEND AND MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED, CIRCULATED, SOLD, HIRED, GIVEN, LENT, SHOWN, PLAYED OR PROJECTED TO A PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18 YEARS 警告: 以下連結內容可能令人反感; 不可將本物品派發、傳閱、出售、出租、交給或出借予年齡未滿18歲的人士或將本物品向該等人士出示、播放或放映。)

(中文版)

If not Edison Chen’s scandal, very few of us in Hong Kong would care about the issue of copyright. Many have taken for granted that it is self-evident that we can extent the concept of legal regulation of the physical goods to the realm of thought and ideas (Intellectual Property). Only after Edison Chen has made a mocking of the copyright law then we realize how shaky is the foundation of copyright law in Hong Kong.
Follow the analogy in ‘The symbolic meaning of Edison Chen’s case‘, any clever reader would discover that there are something uncanny when using cheese to represent Edison Chen’s indecent photos. Because cheese is a finite physical object that is limited in its nature, while his photos could be replaced easily and cheaply at will. So the analogy break down there. My point being, he has a case when we could use cheese as analogy, his case is broken when the analogy is broken. Therefore,logically, he shouldn’t have any case at all. However, only because the legal system is illogical then he has a case.
The purpose of copyright law is to encourage the production of non-physical product that is beneficial for the progressive of humanity. The theory is that the society would scarify the right to know of many of a limited period, and using the legal resource to protect against their right; while preserve the right of those making these product so they can make a decent living. Thus, the society as a whole benefit from this considerations. However, both the theory and in practice are broken.
The rationale against the theory is very simple: The theory make the wrong assumption when applying the economic consideration of physical goods to non-physical goods, since the reproduction cost of former is much higher than later. Cultural product clearly doesn’t subject to the law of scarcity as physical goods. Instead, the more popular is a song, the higher is its demand; thus any movie producer would rather his movie to be pirated then to be ignored. Moreover, the motivation behind the production of cultural goods are not necessarily money, so giving them cash incentive may not has the intended effect.
Applying the logic back to Edison Chen’s case, certainly the society doesn’t want to reward Edison for indirectly making available these photos. Let alone to protect his right for owning these photos until copyright expired. During the period when these photos is circulating in the Internet, the demand of it increased but not decreased; and businessperson are selling related video like hotcakes.