BitTorrent doesn't violate copyright laws, people do

In the November 1984 Ensign David B. Haight said, "New technologies that can bless our lives in so many positive ways are also being used to spread pornographic corruption." Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have taught that Satan tries to use things that can have a positive influence in our lives in order to do evil. Even though there is the potential that technology can be misused I do not believe that should be a reason to keep people from using it. In a recent article on Ars Technica, Tennessee legislation would turn schools into copyright cops, it talks about how schools have had to put restrictions on network traffic to keep students from violating copyright law. In order to fulfill these network restrictions some schools have implemented filters that block all BitTorrent traffic. I believe that this is not a wise move because the people that are violating copyright law will find a way around the filters and the people who are using BitTorrent to make legitimate downloads will suffer. Don't punish those who are using technology the right way for the actions of the few that would use it for evil.

Thoughts after reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll

In our day it is common to hear people say things like, "It's okay for me to download music using bit torrent programs as long as I don't sell it and make a profit from it" or "I just downloaded that movie to see if it's worth buying." As I read The Cuckoo's Egg my mind kept coming back to thoughts about software, music, and video piracy and the it occurred to me that people don't realize the impact of their actions on the Internet. It seems that many people fail to make a connection between the virtual world and the real world and it causes them to live by different moral laws when they are on the Internet than when they interact with people in real life. Below I have listed three things that we can do to keep our morality monitors in check as we enter the digital world.

Make the connection between the digital world and the real world.
In The Cuckoo's Egg Cliff Stoll compares networked computers to neighborhoods and he talks about how the hacker is simply trying each door to see if it is locked on all the houses in the neighborhood. This metaphor brings the hacker's actions from the digital world into the real world. A similar metaphor could be used to compare copying music from a friend's computer to stealing a CD from the store. Most people wouldn't steal a CD from a store, but thousands of songs are pirated by those same people who would "never steal." Comparing our actions online to real life events will help us make better decisions.

Look at piracy from a different point of view.
A friend of mine, we'll call her Jane, designs digital scrapbook kits that she sells online. Recently somebody broke into the online store, downloaded her scrapbook kits, and started posting them on forums so anyone could download them for free. Jane was furious because hours of her hard work was being distributed to thousands of people for free. In discussions with Jane prior to this incident she had talked about all the free songs she had downloaded from the Internet and how it was so cool that she could get them for nothing. I don't know if Jane has made the connection, but it is very clear to me that we need to realize that people have put a lot of work into their music, videos, software or whatever else they are selling and it is wrong to give out copies to the world.

Do what we know is right.
Laws governing technology will always be insufficient, but that does not mean we should abuse them. It took a long time to get laws in place that made it illegal to break in to other people's computers, but that did not change the fact that before the law was passed it was wrong to break into other people's computers. As technology continues to advance I hope that we will start living by what we know to be right even when we find situations where laws have not yet been passed.

Online gaming for children?

Online gaming addiction is a plague that is sweeping the world and our children are it's next target. In a recent article from Ars Technica entitled Disney wants your child online: MMOs for tweens (and below) it says that "[Disney] has thrown significant resources behind the creation of online, kid-friendly places." The article talks about making online games with a safe and friendly environment for kids but fails to address what Disney is doing to prevent children from becoming addicted. Play time restrictions, parental controls and other ways of informing parents of their children's online play need to be implemented so parents can help their children avoid an addiction that could ruin their lives.

Technology and Family History Work

I believe technology is a tool the Lord has blessed us with that enables us to accomplish the commandment to do family history work. There is so much work that needs to be done to find genealogical data for the entire human family that it would be impossible to finish before the end of the Millennium, so the Lord has inspired men to develop the technology that we have today. The use of computers has allowed members of the church to do genealogy work much more efficiently than ever before. Instead of spending hours reading through microfilms genealogists can search through thousands of records with the click of a mouse. The Internet allows people from all over the world to work collectively instead of duplicating their efforts. By providing these advances in technology the Lord is literally fulfilling the promise He made when He said, "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" (1 Nephi 3:7, The Book of Mormon).