Terraforming Mars
Some people are dedicating their lives to
colonizing Mars (www.marssociety.org),
and they're gaining ground. Mission plans are being planned
(spaceflight.nasa.gov/mars/),
business proposals are being proposed (www.thinkmars.net), and
blockbusters are blockbusting ( Mission to Mars and
soon Red Planet). The new century truly seems ripe
for a permanent human colony on Mars.
Yet Mars isn't a place to go ``to
get some fresh air.'' Temperatures average well below
freezing, and the atmosphere is only one one-hundredth as
dense as Earth's. Dangerous solar radiation easily penetrates
this atmosphere, which is essentially void of oxygen and
nitrogen. Mars is a little like a cold rocky desert, except
with way too much radiation and no air. So when the first
colonists stare at their red lawns, I presume they'll daydream
primarily in blues and greens--of Earth.
But what if we could transform Mars
from a red planet into a blue and green one? Well, we can;
it's called ``terraforming'' (terra being the Latin root for
Earth). Terraforming Mars will enable us, among other
arguably more important pursuits, to play soccer on the
Martian surface (on real grass, not astroturf). To do so,
however, will require major changes to the Martian climate.
The thermostat must be turned up to above freezing (so players
can run) and there needs to exist oxygen and nitrogen in
Earth-like concentrations (so players can breathe). And
radiation levels need to be reduced (so players don't mutate).
I admit that at first such
``terraforming'' seems rather like science fiction, but it's
not. After all, we believe Mars had a rich atmosphere and
flowing oceans a few billion years ago. Last week NASA
strengthened these claims with evidence of extensive canals
below the Martian surface, most likely caused by liquid
erosion. No one knows for sure why Mars has become barren and
dry, but Earth-like remnants still exist. Most importantly to
us, we believe that as Mars dried up, some atmospheric carbon
dioxide dissolved in the oceans, forming carbonate rocks.
These rocks are presumably scattered about the Martian
surface, still loosely holding on to carbon dioxide. Now
remember the greenhouse effect, filling an atmosphere with
special ``greenhouse gases'' (e.g. carbon dioxide) to trap
sunlight and heat up a planet? Well this effect could both
heat up Mars and make its atmosphere denser at the same time!
Actually, there might be so much
easily available carbon dioxide that we could trigger a
runaway greenhouse effect: as Mars heats up, the heat causes
more carbon dioxide to release from the rocks, which causes
Mars to heat up more and so on until Mars reaches a stable
equilibrium with a warmer, denser atmosphere. Scientists
estimate that if we could increase the temperature between
five and twenty degrees, then we might be able to trigger this
effect. Regardless, the first step to terraforming Mars will
be increasing the temperature to above freezing (so liquid
water can exist) and beefing up the atmosphere (so Earth life
can exist on its own). Consequently, there have been many
proposals suggesting ways to do so.
We could place a mirror
strategically behind Mars and warm its surface by reflecting
additional sun light on it. We could impact Mars with
asteroids rich in greenhouse gases, such as ammonia. We could
release man-made greenhouse gases, like aerosols. We could
release cyanobacteria, organisms that dissolve carbonate
rocks. We could cover Mars' white polar caps with dust and
rock to make them darker, so that they absorb more heat. We
could design little robots to dissolve the rocks. We could
even blow whatever is loosely held to the Martian surface
right into the atmosphere, nuclear style.
These proposals are all technically
feasible and not mutually exclusive (although some are more
far-fetched than others). Energy calculations indicate that
within a century we could equip Mars with a denser atmosphere,
although still dry, and relatively cold (yet above freezing).
Colonists would still have to wear oxygen masks and radiation
suits. But increasing the temperature and atmosphere is just
the beginning. Doing so enables Earth life to survive on its
own. The next step is to create Mars ecosystems. And all the
things we need--liquid water, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,
oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur--are available (in some
quantity) on Mars. This is a job for genetic engineers. Job
description: construct organisms that can survive Mars while
doing something useful, like making oxygen.
On the other side of terraforming
are Mars ``purists,'' those that believe terraforming Mars
will somehow taint its beauty. They assert we should leave
nature alone, let Mars run its natural course. Their most
compelling argument is that terraforming Mars will kill
organisms living there already--like slashing and burning the
rain forest. Yet evidence (NASA's Viking missions) leads most
scientists to believe there is no life currently on Mars, and
certainly no intelligent life (despite what Hollywood
indicates). In an ethical sense, the issue will be in one way
like abortion, animal experiments, and soon cloning: there
will be an ethical debate while people actually commit the
act.
Terraforming will be no different.
Permanent colonists will not want to raise families in a red
desert, and corporations will demand terraforming as soon as
it's economically viable. Don't forget that here on Earth we
have problems like overpopulation and limited
resources--problems to which Mars has solutions. We're
entering the age of private space exploration. Several
companies have already announced upcoming missions and
non-trivial investments. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
author says it best: ``When deep space exploration ramps up,
it will be corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar
Sphere. The Philip Morris Galaxy. Planet Starbucks.'' When
the economy says we're ready, then terraforming is going to
happen. And it's about time. Fast forward one hundred years
from now--do you see a colony on Mars making a livable
environment for themselves?
SETI
What we know about extra-terrestrial
intelligence is simple: the universe is big, we are small, and
somewhere out there aliens might be trying to contact us.
That's about it.
Hence the Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)--listening for signals
sent through outer space by aliens. You could even argue (as
Carl Sagan would) that the first alien contact would make the
top ten major events in history. Hollywood and sci-fi buffs
sure seem to think so...
Yet some view the search as
frivolous and even wasteful. Congress won't fund it (since
1993) and academia lends only minimal support (< 5 SETI
academic research groups). Scientists are even going out of
their way to show that it's futile. A new book Rare
Earth by Dr. Peter D. Ward and Dr. Donald C. Brownlee of
the University of Washington is receiving extreme media
attention by purporting that we are probably all alone in the
universe.
All alone? I find it extremely
hard to believe that these scientists somehow know we're all
alone in the universe. They definitely haven't scoured the
realms of space with a magnifying glass; so what's going on
here?
Their arguments center around one
core assumption: that we are special. Common examples are
that liquid water is required for life; that life requires
organic chemicals; and that life requires an Earth-like
planet. These claims are of course true for terrestrial life.
But we're supposed to be searching for
extra-terrestrial life. Just because life is one way
down here on Earth doesn't mean it's this way out there in
space. I think their whole premise is flawed.
Perhaps their arguments would seem
more convincing if we knew the details about the origin of
life and intelligence. Or even if we could define life
and intelligence. But we can't. We don't even understand
ourselves. The only reason to suspect extra-terrestrial
intelligence to be like us is that we're the only example.
Now if you have read any science
fiction (or seen the movies), then you know that
extra-terrestrial intelligence could exist (or are the Men In
Black just that good?). After all, thousands of scientists
are in the business of creating intelligence on
computers--with silicon and electrons, not with blood and
amino acids. And thousands more scientists are in the
business of discovering new aspects of chemistry and physics,
which may lead to new possibilities for life and new ways to
contact and travel to other parts of the universe.
Really all we know today is that
outer space is huge (e.g. the Hubble deep
field--oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/41/a.html), and that
most of its detail remains yet undiscovered by us. Outer
space may be the home of zero, one, hundreds, millions, or
trillions of other intelligent species. And so we continue
the search because the search will never be over. In the
spirit of Copernicus, there's nothing necessarily special
about us or Earth--no terrestrial arguments can rule out
extra-terrestrial intelligence. And besides, wouldn't
it just be ``an awful waste of space.''
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How to Get
Motion Picture Corporations
to Sue You
An Infomercial
Have you ever wanted to take a stand against "the man?" Have
you ever wished major corporations would sue you? Or have you
ever desired to be a "hacker?"
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you're
in luck today. I have the pleasure of giving you an
irrefusable offer.
In just four short steps you can be interviewed by the
press; timelessly documented in court records; even heralded
by the tech community. You can use your PC to get sued by
major motion picture corporations. And for free!
How? Just follow these simple steps:
- Get DeCSS (pronounced dee-see-ess-ess), a free computer
program.
- Put DeCSS on the Internet.
- Inform the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
that you are distributing DeCSS.
- Casually disregard all threatening letters from the MPAA,
except your court order, which is your diploma.
Yes, in only minutes, you can be poised to get sued by
motion picture corporations. But don't take my word for it.
Ask Shawn Reimerdes, Eric Corley, and Emmmanuel Goldstein, who
were sued in January by Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Tristar Pictures, Columbia
Pictures, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, and
the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All of them, at
once.
How did they do it? They're all associated with web sites
that distributed DeCSS. Now it's your turn. Join my program,
and I'll see you in court.
The Prosecution's Side
Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) may look like Compact Discs,
but they can hold a lot more stuff, even full-length movies.
DVD movies are higher quality than VHS movies, and are easily
playable on personal computers.
Every major motion picture company has identified DVDs as a
significant revenue source. They believe we'll all get DVD
players and start buying movies. I'm doing my part since my
new computer has a DVD drive and player. I bought my first
movie this week-10 Things I Hate About You.
What's the catch? Piracy. The MPAA says that losses
incurred from pirated VHS movies are over three billion
dollars a year. So motion picture corporations were wary of
investing in easily piratable DVD technology.
Unlike VHS tapes, in which each copy degrades in quality,
DVD copies suffer no degradation. Why? A DVD movie is just a
long series of grooves on a disc, whereas a VHS movie is just
a long piece of magnetic tape. When you copy a VHS tape, the
copy is different from the original because your VCR cannot
magnetize the copy's tape exactly the same way the original is
magnetized. That's because magnetizing is not an exact
process. Every part of the tape magnetizes slightly
differently because magnetic tape is not perfectly uniform in
thickness and molecular makeup. Thus the original tape
magnetizes slightly differently than the copy, resulting in
quality loss.
On the other hand, every section of a DVD either has a
groove, or not. It is as if a DVD was a magnetic tape divided
into small sections each of which is magnetized a lot (a
groove) or hardly at all (no groove). DVD copies are exact
replicas of the original because every grove is exactly
duplicated.
Whoa. Just think of the potential piracy. If each copy is
exactly the same, then you can start with just one DVD and
produce as many copies as you want without any loss of
quality! And since your computer can read DVDs, you can copy
the movie to your computer, and then send it over the Internet
to your closest 100 million friends.
No one knows this potential piracy better than the
recording industry (except for maybe college students). Every
day millions of songs are pirated using the Internet. You can
take your CDs and turn them into computer files called mp3s,
and then play them back on mp3 players. You can then enter
your mp3s into public databases, giving you access to
literally tens of thousands of distinct songs. In other
words, you can easily get pirated copies of the songs of your
choice and then play them back on a portable mp3 player,
thereby bypassing the recording industry's major revenue
streams. The Recording Industry of America says mp3 piracy is
costing 4.5 billion dollars annually, a number that can only
be increasing.
When motion picture corporations considered investing in
DVD, they were well aware of the recording industry's piracy
debacle. They weren't going to offer films in any medium that
could be effortlessly pirated. So a great deal of money went
into developing extensive copy protection for DVD movies,
resulting in the Content Scrambling System (CSS).
Store-bought DVD movies are protected with CSS. The order
of grooves on a DVD is literally scrambled up using the CSS
trade secret method and keys. It is like taking a book and
scrambling up all its letters a certain way-say substituting
every letter for a different letter. The method in this
analogy is substitution, and a key is a certain set of
substitutions (a for z, b for d, and so on). The CSS method
works in such a way that you can scramble using a number of
keys and later descramble using just one of them. So to
unlock a movie, you have to use one of the keys and run the
scrambling method in reverse. You have to descramble CSS.
There are 400 keys. Every company that sells DVD players
bought a CSS license, the right to one of them. Their players
use this key to descramble movies and interpret the resulting
descrambled series of grooves as video and sound. In other
words, without CSS and one of its keys, your DVDs are forever
locked in a gobbledygook state. The actual grooves appear
random.
So why 400 keys? The idea was that if one of the keys fell
into the wrong hands, all future DVDs would not be scrambled
with that key. Any DVD players that used this key to
descramble movies would then no longer function properly-they
wouldn't play new DVDs. Thus each company that owns a CSS
license had a huge incentive not to leak the trade secret CSS
method and key.
Can you guess what "DeCSS" does? It Descrambles the
Content Scrambling System. Given any CSS scrambled DVD, DeCSS
can descramble it. Wait a minute here; what happened to all
that copy protection? Well as you would expect from any
personal interaction with Murphy's Law, chaos theory, or
computer gurus, any scrambling system is bound to be
compromised. CSS was no exception. MPAA president Jack
Valenti himself testified that it was "only a matter of time."
Yet it still seems like a formidable task; after all,
neither the secret method nor keys were leaked. Instead, some
DVD players were "reverse engineered," literally examined
until the method they used to descramble DVDs was
unambiguously determined.
Now there are two kinds of DVD players-hardware and
software. Hardware players function like VCRs; you put the
DVD in the player and it outputs to a TV. Reverse engineering
hardware players is an extremely difficult task because the
method and key is hidden within circuit boards and computer
chips at a microscopic level.
Software players are just computer programs. They function
like software CD players; you put the DVD in the computer DVD
drive and then the software player interprets the grooves as
video and sound just like a hardware player. Yet reverse
engineering software is relatively easy because you can find
out exactly what software is doing at any given time-you can
actually see what it tells the computer to do.
So why aren't computer DVD drivers like hardware DVD
players; why do you need software players at all? If DVD
drives were also players, then they would descramble DVDs and
send the unscrambled series of grooves to computers. But this
unscrambled series could then be easily made into a computer
file and pirated. So instead, the descrambling happens within
software. The scrambled series is sent from the drive to the
computer, where the software player descrambles it and plays
the associated movie. Arguably the MPAA should have never
allowed software DVD players.
The CSS method was apparently acquired through reverse
engineering software DVD players as early as 1997. Yet
responsible parties did not publish their findings, worried
that they would cripple the nascent DVD format. Since then,
many groups and individuals have claimed knowledge of the
trade secret method and keys, but until January, actual
computer instructions to descramble CSS were not widely
available.
These instructions-DeCSS-were posted on the Internet by
16-year-old Jon Johansen (pronounced Yon) of Norway. Johansen
is a proclaimed member of Masters of Reverse Engineering
(MoRE), a group of computer gurus who apparently get a kick
out of reverse engineering stuff. They claim to have
exploited Real Network's software XingDVD (pronounced zing)
player to discover the innards of CSS and Real Network's
secret key.
They then knew the CSS method and one of its keys; but they
still didn't have any other keys. If they went public with
just the one key, it could be revoked and their DeCSS code
would be useless for descrambling future DVDs. But if they
could acquire all the keys then DeCSS would be forever useful
because who's going to revoke all the keys? Too much money
has been invested into CSS to scrap it and start over. So
MoRE worked to figure out the rest of the keys.
Conceptually the simplest way to find a certain key is to
try all possible keys until you find it. Normally this method
doesn't work so well because there are just too many possible
keys. Conversely, if you want to make a key that is hard to
find then you make the size of your key really long so that no
one could try all possible keys in any reasonable amount of
time. It's like choosing a really long password. If you
choose a three letter password out of the 26 lowercase
letters, then there are only 263, 17576, possible passwords.
But if you choose a 10 letter password, there are over 100
trillion possible passwords. Yet the US government doesn't
allow things that are scrambled using methods with really long
keys to be exported. And since DVD is a global technology,
CSS has to abide by these laws. Consequently CSS keys are
relatively short, enabling MoRE to discover all the keys using
modest personal computers over a period of one weekend.
So from just the XingDVD player, MoRE acquired the trade
secret CSS method and all its keys. Although their resulting
DeCSS code takes less than 1 minute to download, it can
descramble any CSS scrambled DVD. You could easily use this
technology to pirate DVDs over the Internet.
Such piracy is obviously a major threat to motion picture
revenue, and so the MPAA wants to eliminate the distribution
of DeCSS. On January 24th, shortly after the code was widely
available, Johansen was called in for questioning by Norwegian
police. That day he wrote the following announcement to
Slashdot, an online bulletin board:
The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of
Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway raided my home
today and seized my Linux box, FreeBSD/Win2k box and Nokia
cellphone. Not only I, but also my father has been indicted,
since he owns the mmadb.no domain (webhotel) where my
homepage(s) have been located. They also took me in for
questioning which lasted 6-7 hours. It's 2 am CET now (I just
got back), I haven't eaten, and someone's definitely going to
pay for this. I have shut down my old email account and I'm
now using linuxdvd@mmadb.no - More information coming
tomorrow, once I've talked to my lawyer. Did someone whisper
countersuit?
Valenti (MPAA president) said, "this was an effort
undertaken by the law enforcement authorities in Norway…I
wholeheartedly endorse what they did." As for the US, he
threatens, "if we have to file a thousand lawsuits a day,
we'll do it." Hence the suit against Reimerdes, Corley, and
Goldstein claiming violation under section 1201(a)(2) of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which "prohibits
unauthorized offering of products that circumvent
technological measures that effectively control access to
copyrighted works." Distributing DeCSS on the Internet is
surely an offering of a technological measure to circumvent
CSS. Hence my guarantee of getting sued by motion picture
corporations by joining my program.
The Defense's Side
Valenti makes out Reimerdes, Corley, and Goldstein as
criminals who distributed DeCSS to pirate away motion picture
revenue. But that's not what they say. They say they
distributed it so that people could watch rightfully paid-for
movies. But why would you need DeCSS to watch your movies;
why wouldn't you just use an authorized DVD player?
Well suppose you have a computer with a DVD drive that runs
the Linux (pronounced lynn-ix) operating system (opposed to
Windows or Mac OS). You also have The Graduate on DVD and you
want to watch it on the computer. So you put it in the drive,
mentally ready yourself to identify with Dustin Hoffman, but
then, lo and behold, you can't play the movie! Why? There
are no authorized DVD players for Linux. Why? There were,
until recently (April), no CSS licenses offered for Linux.
CSS licenses were only available for Windows and Mac OS.
People running other operating systems were just out of luck,
among them the 16 million Linux users. Now arguably no
licenses were offered since there was no demand for them
because Linux users don't pay for software. Yet you can rest
assured they wanted to play DVDs on their computers.
If you're not familiar with Linux, then this arrangement
may seem a little odd. If no one pays for Linux software
(including Linux itself), then how does any software ever get
written? Unbelievably, people collaboratively write it for
free in their spare time.
To see how this actually works, let's take an example.
Suppose you're editing an email and you get an idea for some
really useful Linux software, a spell checker. Since none is
freely available, you write one yourself. It's not very good,
but you put its code on the Internet anyway. I download it,
use it, and get several ideas of how to improve it. So I do.
I actually add code to your code, and then put the improved
code on the Internet. Several iterations produce a much
better spell checker. Different parts of the software are
written and improved by different people and are all
integrated into an evolving program. And it's free!
As you can imagine, as soon as you could get computer DVD
drives, people began writing a DVD player for Linux. Since no
authorized player was available, they had to start completely
from scratch. And they had millions of dollars in scrambling
technology-CSS-stacked against them. But they prevailed.
With the help of DeCSS technology, a fully functional Linux
DVD player is now available. And it's free!
In this light, DeCSS is not an attempt at piracy but an
integral component to a software DVD player desired by
millions of people yet not provided for by any CSS license.
In Johansen's Slashdot post, he noted that his new email
address was linuxdvd@mmadb.no; that is, "linuxdvd," not
"piratedvd" or "down_with_the_MPAA." Johansen does not intend
to pirate DVDs-he just wants to help provide a Linux DVD
player.
Actually you don't even need DeCSS to pirate DVDs. There
was DVD piracy way before DeCSS. I can copy any DVD to my
computer and put it on the Internet in minutes-such
functionality came with my standard DELL computer. With some
more equipment, I could even tangibly pirate DVDs, copying
store bought movies groove for groove onto blank discs. There
is no indication that the distribution of DeCSS has changed
piracy levels. DeCSS is really used to watch rightfully owned
movies.
Of course descrambling scrambling systems is perfectly
legal in the first place. In fact, the intricacies of
descrambling CSS have been published in scientific journals.
What is being proclaimed illegal here is the distribution of
DeCSS as a tool to circumvent copy protection. But what is
being distributed is software code, human writing.
Doesn't the First Amendment protect human writing? Not
necessarily. The courts have not decided whether software
code constitutes "speech" under the First Amendment.
And this particular code directly violates section
1201(a)(2) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Yet
another section of the Copyright Act includes the "fair use"
policy, whereby you can legally copy things for non-commercial
use. This policy allows you to use xerox excerpts of Hilary
Clinton's book in the political science class you teach and to
make mix tapes of your CDs to play in your car.
Doesn't playing your own DVDs in your own DVD drive on your
own computer seem like "fair use?" Not to the MPAA. They'll
sue you for distributing the technology to do so.
Closing Arguments
So you're deciding whether to get sued by motion picture
corporations. To help you do so, I have decided to expand my
offer to include a chance to win your impending case, and in
only one additional step!
5. Hire lawyers, good ones.
The MPAA is backed by the entire motion picture industry,
which is court speak for "good lawyers." And if you've
learned anything from watching television all these years, it
is that good lawyers are everything.
Well it has been my pleasure. Thank you for hearing out my
offer, and remember, I'll see you in court.
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