Not admitting that criminals are humans will lead to a nasty society, admitting it is expensive. Can this be used to create a feedback loop that makes the world a better place? We have discussed punishment mechanisms before on Zygomatica, but in Finnish only (on the stupidity of punishing car drivers for unintentional mistakes,  on substituting soft technology for hard punishment and on why these don’t necessarily work).

While I mostly lurk, I recently took part in a couple of conversation on Google+, about last meals (here) and death penalty (here). In the best spirit of internet discussions my comments were a bit off topic.

I’m too lazy to check what is google’s policy on quoting the discussions, but I’m pretty confident that I can use my own blurts. You’ll have to go through the above links if you want to see the responses.

In the first instance there was some discussion on how expensive it is to keep people in prison vs. executing them. This got me thinking about when and where has capital punishment been used a lot. My feeling is (I’m not an expert on this) that when it has been used a lot it has been either fairly cheap or even profitable. Cheap because of summary executions and profitable through slave labor. This of course only considers the direct costs. I then tried to generalize and came up with this (includes edits to correct spelling):

+G.G exile would be a cheap alternative and would make it easy to get rid of people breaking the law. I’m afraid this would eventually lead to a dystopia, through someone’s utopia. As punishing would now be cheap and easy there would be more punishing for less serious crimes. Because the people thinking differently would be exiled the remaining population would be more extreme and would change the law. Some people would break these new laws and be exiled. It’s called positive feedback and it leads to an unstable system. This is how a dictatorship is created, get rid of the people who think the system should different.

I think it is impossible to create an acceptable definition for crime that would make a clear distinction between political views and actual crimes. Thus there is no way of cramming cheap punishment and pursuit of happiness in one society.

Comments in the other discussion also referred to cost of the prison system, so the same thought came to me and I came up with this:

To keep up the heat up in the discussion I propose that the living conditions of prisoners are made so much better that the associated cost really does hurt the taxpayer. This will give a feedback mechanism that will lower the number of people that need to be imprisoned.

In the other direction, lowering the cost of punishment, lies a society where none of you will want to live.

And after someone appeared interested I continued with this:

+V. M. many (if not most) crimes are intimately connected to the surrounding society. In effect due to the path their lives have taken the criminals don’t have much choice. These people may have made bad decisions which have led to their current situation, but even those choices could have been different had the surroundings been different.

To lower the number of people that end up being punished society, not only the potential criminals need to change. This change will encounter resistance and it will cost money. By increasing the cost of punishment the trade off becomes visible. Take care of the criminals inside the prison or take care of the potential criminals outside of it. The current situation is that the harm (i.e. overcoming the resistance to change and the cost of running a different kind of society) has been externalized to the criminals.

This was immediately debunked as including the “economists mistake”, i.e. that I had assumed a rational actor. It was further claimed that my actor would need fairly advanced reasoning powers and that the evidence shows that this is not the case. To this I commented:

+V. M. “But it already does, and he already doesn’t” this is not true, society is clearly changed by imprisoning a large number of people. Further, it is done specifically because crime hurts the actor. What I am proposing is actually only a different change.

I think the reason behind your argument is not that society is not changed or that the actor is not rational enough. It is that the actor doesn’t care. It is happening to other people elsewhere. This is a valid point.

There however is a trick that has been used before. Grant that the criminals are humans and they cannot be stuffed to small boxes without anything to do. (You can reuse this if you change the word human to “chicken” or “pig” etc.). From this it follows that to lower costs you can either lower the number of criminals by changing society in a way that steers people away from crime or you can use other methods which are usually excluded by admitting humanity. I believe this method has been used in some European countries with a degree of success. Because the admission of humanity can be done at an emotional level less rationality is required.

Basically I tried to show that the evidence does not lead to the conclusion made in the critique and offered an alternate explanation to the observations. I then tried again to sell my idea, which I still think is valid.

In summary: If you increase the cost of punishment it will lead to less of it, if for no other reason then simply because it can not be afforded. I don’t think that the real crux is making the actor act rationally. The difficult part is making her admit that criminals are humans and deserve to be treated as such, regardless of what they have done.

Maailmasta löytyy mielin määrin patentteja, joiden tekijöiden mielenterveyttä tekisi mieli epäillä. Parhaita on listattu esimerkiksi täällä.  Niille on helppo nauraa. Siksi teenkin päinvastoin, ja otan ne haudanvakavasti (ks huomautus kirjoituksen lopussa). Koitan selvittää, onko päättömissäkin patenteissa sittenkin päätä. Usein ei ole, mutta matkan varrella ainakin oppii jotakin. 

Patentti US 4,634,021 vuodelta 1987: kuva vastaa tuhatta sanaa.

“A release mechanism is disclosed for releasing an object such as a ball from a body under the force of gravity. A bimetallic element obstructs or opens an opening in the body for retaining or releasing the object depending upon the temperature of the bimetallic element. The release mechanism may be incorporated into a novelty “brass monkey” for “emasculating” the monkey when the temperature decreases to a predetermined temperature at which the balls in the “brass monkey” are permitted to drop to a base which is designed to produce an audible sound when struck by the balls”.

Pyrin aina antamaan sekä positiivista palautetta että rakentavaa kritiikkiä. Tässä tapauksessa positiivinen palaute on uskoakseni itsestäänselvä. Jos ihmisellä on niin hyvä itsetunto että hän haluaa liittää nimensä pysyvästi tällaiseen kuvaan ja keksintöön, sitä voi yksikäsitteisesti vain ihailla. Yhteiskunta ei kehity, elleivät ihmiset uskalla tehdä asioita eri tavalla.

Kritiikkiäkin löytyy.  Idea on erinomainen: vain harvalle tulisi mieleen käyttää kastroidun apinan kivesten ääntä lämpömittarina. Kuitenkin oletan, että keksijä olisi toisenlaisella IPR-strategialla pystynyt hyötymään merkittävästi enemmän ideastaan.

Pidän melko varmana, että keksijä on patentillaan kertonut kilpailijoilleen liikaa, suojaamatta silti ydinoivallustaan tarpeeksi. Patentti jättää mielestäni liian paljon helppoja keinoja suorittaa sama idea eri keinoilla.

Patentti ei esimerkiksi ilmeisesti kata muita eläimiä kuin apinat. Aasin kuohitseminen ei (ulkopuolisen näkökulmasta) olennaisesti eroa apinan kuohitsemisesta; patentti ei silti estä kuohitsemasta aasia. Ihmisen käyttö apinan sijasta tosin voisi tuoda oikeudessa esiin mielenkiintoisia näkökantoja. Mikäli katsotaan että ihminen voidaan biologisesti katsoa erikoistapaukseksi apinasta, patentti voisi hyvinkin suojata myös ihmisen kuohitsemisen. En kuitenkaan uskalla spekuloida, miten oikeusjutussa lopulta kävisi.

Keksijä saattoi myös tehdä virheen eläinkeskeisyydellään. Sama idea olisi mahdollista toteuttaa esimerkiksi Ranskan vallankumouksen teeman kautta; kun sää kylmenee, Marie Antoinetten pää koppiin kopahtaa. Tällaista käyttöliittymää patentti ei valitettavasti suojaa.

Patentti on mahdollista ohittaa myös teknisesti. Bi-metallinen termostaatti on tunnettua teknologiaa. Rakenne olisi kuitenkin mahdollista korvata sulkijalihastyppisellä ratkaisulla, jolloin patentti ei enää suojaakaan sitä.

Entä bisnesmalli? On mahdollista, että keksijä on tässä löytänyt ainutlaatuisen markkinaraon. Patenttihaku ei ainakaan paljastanut merkittävää määrää patentteja tällä bisnesalueella.

Google-haku sanalla “novelty thermometer” osoittaa, missä nykyteknologia menee. Alla olevassa teknisessä ratkaisussa on tiettyä samanhenkisyyttä kuin apinapatentissa. Rektaalilämpömittari ankassa on yllättävä tapa mitata kylpyveden lämpötilaa.

Lähde: Kuvankaappaus

Uskon, että mallisuoja olisi ollut kustannustehokkaampi tapa suojata tämä idea. Mallisuoja on huomattavasti halvempi kuin varsinainen patentti, joskin sen suoja on rajatumpi ja suoja-aika lyhyempi. Vaihtoehtoisesti patenttikuvauksen olisi kannattanut olla paljon laajempi. Hinta olisi kuitenkin tällöin noussut ratkaisevasti.

Pahoin pelkään, että keksijä ei ole tällä patentillaan rikastunut. Tämä ei millään tavalla vähennä idean keksinnöllisyyttä; on kaikkea muuta kuin itsestään selvää, että lämpötilaa voi mitata kuuntelemalla kuohitun apinan kivesten kopinaa.

Insinööristyypin ei pitäisi sekaantua estetiikkaan, mutta haluan kuitenkin puhua myös taiteellisista arvoista. Apinan kuvassa on yht’aikaa jotain majesteettista ja inhimillistä. Tämä idea on monumentin arvoinen. Jos olisin itse ollut keksijä — tosin olen ilmeisesti yksin mielipiteeni kanssa, mutta sillä ei ole merkitystä — jos siis olisin itse ollut tämän keksijä, haluaisin tehdä tästä jopa hautakiveni. Miksi ei? Edistys vaatii rohkeutta, ja rohkeutta tulee kunnioittaa jopa sukupolvien yli.

Kaikki Patenttimörökölliraportit: klikkaa tästä.

Huomautus: en käytä nimitystä “patenttimörökölli” sattumalta. Patenttipeikot ovat patenttimaailmassa hankala ja vakavasti otettava tekijä. Minä en ole. Näillä analyyseillä ei ole juurikaan tarkoitusta, eikä ainakaan mitään laillista merkitystä. En ota mitään kantaa varsinaisiin juridisiin väitteisiin. Näissä blogeissa mahdollisesti esiintyviä uusia ideoita ei lain mukaan enää voi patentoida, jos kohta ei kannatakaan.

Every now and then I will take a silly patent and pretend it isn’t silly. I will analyze and defend it in all faux-seriousness (see disclaimer at the end).  Usually I cannot defend it, but learn something in the process anyways.

From 1987, US 4,634,021 (Release mechanism) has a self-explanatory picture.

“A release mechanism is disclosed for releasing an object such as a ball from a body under the force of gravity. A bimetallic element obstructs or opens an opening in the body for retaining or releasing the object depending upon the temperature of the bimetallic element. The release mechanism may be incorporated into a novelty “brass monkey” for “emasculating” the monkey when the temperature decreases to a predetermined temperature at which the balls in the “brass monkey” are permitted to drop to a base which is designed to produce an audible sound when struck by the balls”.

I always try to give positive feedback and constructive criticism. In this particular case, the positive feedback is immediate and obvious. Anyone with the self-confidence to eternally attach his name to a drawing like this deserves our respect. Strength through goofiness.

On the constructive criticism side, there is more to be said. I believe that the inventor did not choose an optimal strategy to protect his excellent idea of using an emasculated monkey as a thermometer.

In my view, by patenting the inventor divulged too much information and gave the competition an unnecessary advantage. He opened his strategy, without really protecting it. Fundamentally, there seem to be too many workarounds around this patent.

For example, this patent most likely does not cover other animals. Castrating a donkey to tell the temperature would almost certainly be possible despite this patent. Using a human being would potentially lead to a court case. The arguments would revolve around whether a human being is biologically simian enough to be considered a special case of a monkey. I hesitate to speculate how that court case would end.

There are also non-testicular extensions of this idea which could have been pursued in the patent. In particular, something like a system with a French Revolution theme could present a similar user experience: when it gets cold, Marie Antoinette’s head is chopped off with a clang. This patent does not prevent such a user interface from being implemented.

There are also technical workarounds.  A bimetallic temperature valve is well-known. However, if the bimetallic valve were to be replaced by a sphincter-like structure, it is probable that the patent would not cover it.

What about the business case?  It is possible that this patent has indeed hit a niche which has not been extensively filled. I did not really find anything in the patent literature that would imply that this is a major technology area.

A Google search for “novelty thermometer” shows examples of today’s state of the art. I believe the figure below has some commonality in spirit with the patent. A rectal thermometer in a duck is used to measure bath water temperature. It is an unexpected combination.

Source: Screen capture.

I believe that a design patent to cover just the monkey implementation could have been more cost-effective.  Design patents are cheap to file and have no maintenance fees; on the other hand, they are only valid for 14 years against a utility patent’s 20 years. Alternatively, the inventor could have tried to broaden his patent significantly to cover other animals and user interfaces. That would, however, have raised the costs.

I strongly suspect that the inventor did not manage to make money from this patent. However, that does not in any way detract from the inventive step of this patent; one would not expect the see a thermometer implemented by using the clangs caused when a brass monkey is neutered and its testicles fall off.

Although an engineer type should never venture into aesthetics, I want to say something about artistic values. I find something poignant yet majestic about the figure of the monkey. This is almost worthy of a monument. If I had been the inventor — though I may be alone in feeling this — but if I had been the inventor, I think this figure would make an excellent gravestone. Why not? What could be a better memento for future generation to remember me by? Strength through goofiness is something to celebrate, throughout the generations.

All Examinations of Silly Patents: click here. 

Disclaimer: these analyses have very little to do with anything, and in particular have nothing to do with legal issues. Most of the patents cited are expired (or should be). I do not touch the “claims” section, which is the legally relevant part. These blogs constitute prior art, so that any new any ideas expressed here can no longer be patented.

Is HPP even vaguely realistic? Patents are powerful, but not all-powerful: the Doha Declaration allows developing countries to bypass existing patents for medicines when public health is threatened. A concept similar to HPP, defensive patent aggregation, exists in the commercial world, but to my knowledge not in a non-profit setting.

Here are some back-of-the-envelope estimates on how the HPP might work.  Bear with me if there are ludicrous errors, and please propose improvements.

The core purpose of the HPP must be to eradicate patent trolls in humanitarian areas. The purpose is not to hinder legitimate players. (This is immediately a controversial goal. Idealists will want to eliminate patents from the humanitarian field altogether. I feel it is sufficient to eliminate just the rabid dogs, and let the healthy ones thrive).

The HPP needs to be a non-profit foundation. It should be international in scope, but it might be sufficient to restrict it to the USA because that is the home of the patent trolls.

The key function of the HPP is to collect ownership of “bad” patents. By “bad” I mean something that is not being used to create anything, but can be used by a troll to stop development. A much more refined definition is obviously needed.

The main category of “bad” patent is one which is too broad and should never have been granted in the first place. Another category are patents for a technical solution which has become obsolete, but which a lawyer can stretch to cover some other technology. Such patents are lethal weapons in the hands of a troll. But they could also be lethal weapons in the hands of the HPP.

There are two key strategies.

1. Containment and decay. Collect patents that are allowed to expire as soon as possible. The purpose here is to prevent trolls from making claims, and to create strong prior art against future spurious patents. These patents should for the most part be collected through donations.
2. Active deterrence. Patents that can and will be used in litigation against trolls. In some cases, the HPP might consider paying for these. The cost of filing a patent is > 10 kEUR, so the HPP might be willing to consider buying them at cost.

The HPP should be aggressive, not defensive. Unless the HPP is willing and happy to go to court against trolls, it will have no deterrence effect.

Since the USA already has a well-oiled machine in the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it would make sense to tie the HPP in very tightly with the EFF, especially its Patent Busting Project.  On the other hands, in terms of funding, the HPP could have wider appeal and hence be independent.

The working principle needs to be absolute transparency. For strategic reasons, if preparing for an attack, the HPP may require secrecy. But even there things need become public when fight is over. As far as I can see, the HPP cannot ever accept secret agreements or settlements.

The focus areas for active deterrence must be chosen very tightly. They should be restricted to those areas in which humanitarian damage can be massive, and in which trolling activity seems to be particularly easy. Catastrophe communications would certainly be one such area.

The budget of the HPP simply cannot be kept small. Even if using only donated patents, there are legal costs associated, even if the patents are allowed to expire immediately. A reasonable minimum estimate is 1 kEUR per patent. Since there must be hundreds to thousands of patents in the pool, this easily results in a budget of hundreds of kEUR per year.

If some key patents are bought with hard money (though at cost), the cost per patent could be 10 kEUR. The number of truly crucial patents will be small — court cases are typically litigated over just a handful of patents — but knowing which ones a critical requires buying more.

The cost of stockpiling and maintaining the patents will easily climb to a million EUR per year. Unlike projects like the EFF’s patent-busting project, there is no meaningful way to crowdsource the idea. It needs hard money.

If the HPP goes to court, the legal costs are unpredictable, but the HPP must be able to handle them. This is where my reasoning becomes completely fuzzy. Could this work on a pro bono principle? If courts find trolls’ patents spurious, might they willing to force the trolls to pay costs? I find this highly problematic.

Is there any way for the HPP to make some profit to recoup all its losses? In principle, yes, by licensing to legitimate businesses. However, trying to make a distinction between non-legitimate and illegitimate players would add costs and make enforcement difficult.

And, more crushingly, the HPP would risk turning into a patent troll of its own. (“He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster”). It is difficult to see any way to make the HPP self-sufficient.

So where would the funding come from, then? I have no real idea. This was as far as I was able to get in one sitting.

So is the HPP idea even vaguely realistic? If not, would be worth developing from some other angle? If not, do we just have to adapt to life with the trolls?

What is today’s IPR about? It is about litigation, and litigation itself is a game of power and strategy. But even those rules are changing.

I believe that Jakke was a bit optimistic when he was looking at patents from their utility aspects. In practice they are much more.

I may be harsh with my statement, but to some degree patents are like weapons. They are everywhere and can be used both for good and evil. But when one is manufactured, you never know whether it will harm someone someday. For gun exports and trade, and ultimately war, we have regulations. But for using and transferring patents, and eventually litigations, not so much. I am not a lawyer, but for a small company or a single entrepreneur the unwritten rules of the game are quite literal.

Let’s take an example that company LetterZ finds out that company SillyNumber is infringing one of its patents. What will LetterZ do? Most probably it does its homework to know their own position and carefully document everything that works for them. And most probably it plans counter measures if SillyNumber has something against them. If SillyNumber is a small company, LetterZ can wait for it to grow. It is not good business to pay lawyers to sue companies that do not have money. Basically it is a time bomb that only company LetterZ knows exists.

Just like in warfare, the company can plan its strategy carefully over time before striking. With SMOS we would have had no idea who we might have been eventually facing. It would be polite to let the one infringing know and give a chance to change their approach, if possible. But as said, this is more about power and influence than being right. It is warfare.

Traditionally biggest headlines have been written about clashing titans. One party will either pay a lot and/or case ends in cross-licensing. During the last 10+ years there has been other, new type of development. Some companies acquire licenses after careful studies that someone (lucrative enough) is infringing exactly those patens. For the most successful suing companies it is enough to threaten the infringing party to keep the case out of courts. Some of such companies, patent trolls, don’t actually produce anything else than money.

Recent tactics has been to move away from the frontline clash of titans towards guerilla wars. Instead of suing the provider, suing e.g. individual hotels and restaurants for 5000 USD each, there is decent money to be made out of hundreds or thousands of cases. The sum has to be small enough that it definitely will not cover litigation and lawyer fees. Many companies may end up paying without putting up a fight, regardless of the actual case details. The threat and uncertainty are much bigger.

As courts may decide the compensation based on the number of devices made or sold that include infringing technology, corporations are separating their manufacturing and patents. Patents are turned into the hands of portfolio companies, who “do not have anything” to do with the originating company. There is only a licensing agreement, but no other relationship what comes to potential damage based on production numbers. Patents are truly becoming intercontinental missiles of the cold war era.

In August 2011 US Patent Office granted its 8 millionth patent. Two days ago, May 1st 2012, patent number 8 170 000 was granted. That is in the USA alone since the 18th century. There the growth of granted patents has been exponential since the early 1900s. It is a fact that nobody can tell what exactly has been patented and what other prior art exists around all those ideas. In principle all inventions are equal, big and small. We as people have just built and ended up with this kind of a system we face today. It probably is better than anarchy, but can it survive? Is it ultimately so that elephants have the right of way in traffic what ever the highway code says?

There are some efforts to change the status quo, for example https://www.eff.org/patent-busting, but there is much more to patents than corporations and litigation. It still is a possibility for the tiny to have their rights protected. Just as humans as a species have decided. To our knowledge ants do not have proprietary rights for certain lifting techniques, but people may have.

For an individual company patents may be crucial when seeking investments or selling the business. But should the system be reviewed and changed accordingly and be more than a weapon of distraction/destruction?

Do we need a common database of free ideas that are exempt from official patents that may be used for humanitarian purposes and collectively against patent trolls? Yes, I know I am reinventing patenting process just as labor exchanging communities are reinventing money.

But if data wants to be free, could some inventions be agreed to be free as well? It is for our own benefit after all.

The idea of combining humanitarian technology and intellectual property sounds uncomfortable. After all, humanitarian activities are supposed to be humanitarian. Nevertheless, there were perfectly valid reasons to consider IPR issues with SMOS.
1. Protect the idea in order to make at least a minimal living from it.
2. Prevent others from destroying or profiting extortionately from the idea.
3. Improving interoperability with telecommunications providers by playing with the same rules (rather than adopting a “hacker mentality”).

I am a deep skeptic about IPR, but do not consider it fundamentally “evil” — it may have its place.  However, I am coming  to the conclusion that for the specific case of crisis communications, IPR is the kiss of death.

The numbers

Since we pursued the possibility of patenting quite heavily, I learned some ballpark figures.

• To file and get a Finnish patent: 6000-8000 EUR. Most of this goes to the patent agency handling the application. There is no practical way to survive without a patent agency.
• In Finland, a decision is usually rendered within a year. There may be interim decisions which require using a patent attorney, pushing up the price.
• After being granted, the annual cost of maintaining a patent is small for the first three years, but starts rising rapidly after that.
• To file and get a European patent, the cost is approximately twice of a Finnish patent. Maintenance costs are also roughly double.
• A US patent requires using a patent attorney in the US. Overall cost is comparable to a European patent. In the US, a decision can take 5-10 years.
• I have no idea what the costs would be in countries such as China or India.
• A figure of 20,000 USD (or EUR) per patent is often used a lifetime cost, at least within a single country. However, for a catastrophe communications system, protection would be needed in multiple countries, some without an advanced IPR culture.
• → If I had to give a single number, it would be 50,000 EUR per patent.

Realize, however, that a single patent has no practical value. To protect an idea in any significant sense, a dozen or more patents may be needed. If the IPR route is chosen, a cost of half a million just to file patents is realistic.

Note also that filing patents does not in itself guarantee anything. Anyone can infringe on a patent, and it is up to the patent owner to sue. Even minor court cases can eat up six-digit sums of money, and can be decided on the basis of a comma in the wrong place, even if the most expensive lawyers are used. Going the litigation route means risking millions on what is in effect a roll of the dice.

Even worse, in this particular case litigation is a no-win situation. If the other side is a local company in a developing country, it can (and most likely will, and perhaps should) take the role of a victim being bullied by large Western IPR interests and inhibited from trying to save lives. There is no real way to protect one’s public integrity in such a case.

We had one major rationale for the IPR route: we felt that by making hardware along commercial lines, it would be easier to arrange interoperability with operators. I am now highly skeptical about this. Interoperability would simply cause operators to view SMOS as a potential competition. It would take a major player 15 minutes to dig up enough patents from its patent thicket to make our life impossible. Whether those patents are relevant is completely irrelevant. The threat is enough.

The implications

I draw a harsh conclusion: any whiff of IPR will cause a humanitarian crisis communications project to crash and burn.

On the other hand, proceeding without a thought for IPR is troublesome for funding, since venture capitalists want to recoup their investments within a few years. Without IPR, there is less to recoup.

In the traditional way of thinking, having no IPR protection would be unthinkable because of the competitive issues. However, I believe I have demonstrated above that IPR does not actually give any benefit in this specific technology case.

What to do about this then? I am certainly not saying that crisis communications hardware projects are hopeless. However, it would be wise to pursue such projects with the (perhaps unwritten) attitude that IPR is the enemy.

An open-source approach seems appealing, and has been done successfully with software (for example Sahana). But hardware?  It is only possible to go so far with a “hacker mentality”; if there is a desire to use cellular telecom interfaces, then there is a need to cooperate with commercial providers as a commercial entity.

One of the few ways to actively defend a project of this type against patent trolls is to have a strategy of defensive publishing. In other words, publish all ideas as soon as someone blurts them out, ideally in the form of a permanent Creative Commons-licensed blog. This means that the blog becomes prior art, and the ideas can no longer be patented by anyone.

Other than that? Perhaps the best advice I can give is to look at the material on the SMOS project page, study what we tried to do in SMOS, and then try to not do that.

See the previous posting to see where that simple question took us. (The post is long but entertaining).   Kalle Pietilä asked the question  in early 2011. Answering that question became an off-time project that occupied four of us (Timo Tokkonen, Jakke Mäkelä, Niko Porjo, and Kalle Pietilä) for many evenings and weekends in 2011-2012. The previous posting described the process; this posting summarizes the idea. See the SMOS project web page for technical information.

We pursued this as a potentially realistic commercial project, in our off-time and under the radar. We developed sales material, technology concepts, use cases, and business calculations, pitched the idea to various places, and looked for funding sources.  By early 2012, it became clear that no traditional start-up business case existed. We decided to abandon the project (at least for the foreseeable future) due to reasons described in the previous posting.

We are releasing the relevant material under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY), which means that others may use the findings freely (including commercial use).

Project web page: Click here.

Since we had discussions with some commercial partners, some information needs to be redacted because of confidentiality and trust reasons. Also, we are still a little behind on  cleaning up some of the technical material,  but we will get there in a week or two.

Just as we were putting the finishing touches here, we heard of a new startup called Tethr, which is trying to do very similar things. Please read the BBC article on them, and do join their mailing list. We have great hopes for them.

Below is the text of the one-pager  (pdf: SMOS 1 One-pager) that we used to open discussions on the idea. No real solutions are proposed here, just questions.

THE “SMOS” SOLUTION: ONE-PAGER

After any natural or man-made catastrophe, the first few hours and days are crucial. Before real recovery efforts can begin, it is necessary to set up a communications system to coordinate the efforts. Disaster communication systems exist for emergency officials and aid workers.

For normal citizens, mobile phone networks are becoming an increasingly useful way of communicating, as well as being a potential information source for rescue efforts. Just knowing the number of active mobile phones can allow the authorities to focus rescue efforts. Even developing countries have high mobile phone penetration, and thus the number of phones is a reasonable proxy for the number of victims. Although the batteries of mobile phones will be depleted, for the first few days the majority will still be active.

However, even mobile phone networks can be destroyed or overloaded when the catastrophe is severe enough. The SMOS Initiative is proposing a solution to enable partial mobile phone connectivity even when the normal infrastructure is not working. More specifically, it is simpler to restore text messaging (SMS) services than full voice service. An SMS service would allow victims to communicate with their families. At least as importantly, it would allow emergency organizations to receive and send information straight to the victims.

If it is accepted that the temporary network only transmits SMS traffic, then the required hardware could be simplified and miniaturized compared to normal cellular telephone base stations. The target of the SMOS Initiative is to define a “base station” small and rugged enough to be aerially deployed, so that one volunteer with a private pilot’s license and a small airplane could quickly restore telecommunications over a huge area. Even if aerial dropping is not possible, the small size means that they are easily portable by other means.

Once the base stations are dropped, they automatically form a network for mobile phones to transmit and receive SMS traffic. The base stations are powered by batteries that give the station a lifetime of about a week (after which normal wireless infrastructure is assumed to be in place).

The proposal still has multiple open technical issues, and the economic, logistical, and political challenges are also formidable. The idea is therefore presented as a discussion paper, aiming to open debate on whether such a system could in fact be practical and useful.

Note (April 2012): The project has been discontinued in its present form, as no commercially feasible way of implementing it has been found.

In short the idea is to make cheap, interconnected telecommunication boxes that can be deployed very fast to areas that have lost cellular connections for example due to earthquakes, flooding and the like. This way people in the area can get connected when their mobile phones still have battery power. It also provides secondary information for rescue teams to know where and what type of help is needed from the early hours of a catastrophe. [Edit: For latest details, please see blog The SMOS Project].

We, a core team of five persons, have decades of experience in communications, mobile devices, innovation and cutting edge technology. We have been better prepared compared to many inventors about what can and should be done when trying to promote an idea and starting a business. Still we found some elements that left us thinking whether something should be changed or different.

We are not saying this just because we did not get funded. We sadly have other evidence to prove our experiences.

We are asking questions about how we want to act as a society in the future.

WHAT WE DID AND WHAT WE DID NOT DO

It all started as a hobby and ended as a hobby. All of us had our daily jobs, families, house mortgages and the like that help in making decisions. Each of us defined the maximum sum of money we were willing to lose if everything goes badly. Risk for it was known to be high, regardless how good we were or how well we did our part. You could not buy a Ferrari with the sum, but at least a decent used car would have been possible.

We (over) analyzed our focus, needed technology, starting a business and everything we knew and basically could imagine. We also listed where we could get support when needed. After the first three months we were ready. We knew the idea and technology were feasible and even pessimistically calculated numbers showed we were onto something. Lesson number one: Do your homework.

We had internal discussions whether and when to start a company. Remember that most of us had and still have daily jobs, we never dreamed of getting rich fast. We had a three-day preparedness to have a company up and running when ever we would have needed one. When working with a small budget, a startup company would have created costs right away eating away our development budget and the like. Eventually we did not start a company, which was exactly the right decision then and now.

Person close to the project published a blog about start-ups and Finnish legislation, whether it makes sense to start a company and asked why it is seen as such a big thing. This kicked off a high-level academic blog debate that start-ups are a great thing for the future and we are just too scared to make that jump.

Lesson number two: People think there is always money in startups, and you get money when you start a company. It is irrelevant whether you actually know what you are doing. Right now big corporations in Finland are letting people go and are kick-starting startups. It is not a bad thing as such. But if you have no customers and do not know what you will be doing, it is a lottery.

A bad analogy could be borrowed where a man is on a burning platform and is given a lollipop to aid his situation before jumping. This results in a sea filled with startups holding their lollipops.

For us the lollipop was not the aim. We wanted to create something that works. We had no misconceptions about IPR and patents. That was one of the strongest assets we had in the team. We knew their role and that we were not a major player in the area. But we knew where to get help. The Foundation for Finnish Inventions was among the very best things we came across during the whole process. Two persons were especially helpful. You two do not even know how good a job you did and are doing and why your approach and attitude are exactly what is needed in this business. More often we have seen the opposite approach and attitude.

With the help from FFI we were able to get resources to verify our internal sanity checks. The results were favorable to us; patenting was a possibility. And we did not have to spend our own money to get to this stage! The next thing was to focus more on the business side and sharpen the business plans as the need and the technical solution were already covered. We had already received comments “this is needed”, “why this doesn’t exist already” and the like. We continued with our work.

We verified with patent companies that in order to protect the idea well, we’d need a small global patent portfolio. One patent covering the idea would not help in today’s world of litigation. Opening everything under creative commons license would be more effective than having a single patent. CC-license actually was our original fallback plan. By the way, a decent patent portfolio would have cost as much as a late model BMW. Lesson number three: Patents are crucial, but not everything.

From early days of the project we had a big open question and we worked hard to answer it. Where does the money come in and who is the paying customer? We spoke with experts who have potential to run and support a system we were building and providing. We had conservative numbers to estimate how many lives could be saved and/or other damages minimized with a solution like ours. We had no break-through answers for a constant cash flow. We tried to device a secondary business case that would support the main business. Every time we realized that we would be a small dog eating from a big dog’s bowl. The big dogs would eat us and finish the meal with our business plan.

We knew that not only we needed a customer, we needed a big customer. To achieve that we had to prove our point first by building a working system. Then we could talk about becoming a supplier. This all of course requires money. Our calculations had shown all along that our small used car budget was not enough to get everything done. In the first phase we would need one BMW and later closer to production two Ferraris.

Our case was handled in the FFI Business board. They were the number one candidate for helping us out financially. First we wanted to protect the idea, so that nobody could stop us from helping people with our system. And more importantly we needed to finish the system prototype instead of just individual components that prove the thing to us but not to anyone else. That was the plan how to get the customer, demonstrate a system that works and later productize the technology.

We later heard the discussion had been very lively with two different views. The first one saw this as a great idea to help save lives. The second one saw it as a competing idea to what telecom operators were doing. Operators would have shared interest and that’s why they would crush and eat us like the big dog would. Eventually the second opinion won and we were not given funding.

We were back at the used car lot. We had been presented with two questions that could turn the decision over to our favor: prove the point that our claimed 72-hour window of opportunity exists and there is a customer. First one was as easy as said. You just need to have 20 years of experience and a world-wide network to get connected to world-class experts. Just email some the of your friends, and they will reply. And actually they did! Top experts of their areas spent days to go through our material and questions. FOR FREE! We got our proof that such a 72-hour window exists, there really was a need for our solution. The next phase of proof would be to actually deliver the system. Lesson number four: It is good to have a network or to have money, but even better to have both.

By this time we had been thinking about the customers and secondary and tertiary business plans for more than six months. We picked all the brains we could to come up with fresh ideas. We ended up having the same 5-15 ideas and questions presented. At one point we were told it would be better to make games for mobile devices. It might somehow save lives, but I guess people hit by an earthquake don’t find games to be their first priority and a new way to kill their phones’ battery. We had to come up with something else.

What do you do if you don’t have money to buy a Ferrari or even a BMW? You tune what you have. Luckily we had an engineering and design company up in our sleeve. They not only had experience building (actual) folkrace cars, but also Linux-based and other embedded systems. We made a gentleman’s pact: they’ll check if they can pimp our ride for free to compete with the Ferraris. Very big thanks to Offcode, please pimp our ride! Depending on the result we then of course would have compensated them by turning them into millionaires, if possible.

Unluckily Finland is a cold place in January and not all results are heart warming. We got the assessment that it is possible to build our idea. However, a key part of the code was proprietary. Owned by the big dogs. Everything else could have been probably bypassed, but not this part. The cost for the missing piece of software would have been a BMW and a set of wheel covers.

But the cost itself was not the main obstacle. The first one was related to available persons and competencies. The second one was related to an open-source activity bypassing the proprietary code. It would be finished at the same time or slightly later compared to our implementation. Best option would be to wait for a year. Or two or three, at that point the code would probably be available for free. But even small dogs have to eat several times a year. Lesson number five: Be lucky with your timing.

We had visited the used car lot, and knew we could not compete with the Ferraris this way. It was time regroup once more and think about the original fallback plan. We just did not want to give up without trying remaining options that would match our budget. What do you do if you don’t have enough money for a car and you want it badly? You ask your parents. In our case we did not do that literally, but we went again to the Foundation for Finnish Inventions. They had promised that if we can provide the needed facts, they can help us. All for us left to do was to show there was a customer. Lesson number six: Do not give up.

There was and is a customer. It is huge, in the same league with United Nations. We have verified several times from their internal and cooperating sources that they don’t buy powerpoints or vaporware. They buy proven solutions. We just need to prove our point to negotiate further. Daddy, will you give us money? FFI had its hands tied, we had answered most of the questions but not all. They were still there for us, but we needed to prove there was a real customer to match the proposal. Lesson number seven: You will be continuously asked about your customer and business plan, know your main facts and numbers.

We had been hit by a brick wall months earlier and while leaning against the old wall, there was another brick wall about to squash us. But we didn’t give in easily. We piled everything we could as a last effort to stop the crushing wall and pleaded for help to climb over the wall. This would be our last stand.

We approached several companies and institutions for starting very deep cooperation and building the thing with them for free. We could have let them own and control the patents. So we continued with the discussions with everyone we could, right up to the last minute. This had been a professional, coordinated effort and would end as a professional, coordinated effort. During some of these negotiations we were attacked for not having a customer, but that was a fact we already knew. We also knew that customer alone was not enough, contrary to some beliefs. But we acted professionally. Lesson number eight: Act professionally and you will be treated professionally.

It looks like there is a Catch-22 here. To get the money to build a demonstrator, you have to show the demonstrator. And to show the demonstrator, you need the money to build it. And for the big customer you need more than just a demonstrator. That money is not in the used car league. It is in the BMW league and then some. That money we do not have. So, sorry, we have made the decision that we will not risk two BMWs or half a house and fly around the world knocking on doors on the off-chance of finding a customer. This was based on our early decision of acceptable losses. Lesson number nine: Define your boundaries and risk taking capabilities early and compare against them later.

So we have now made a decision to fold. We have learned a lot, now we try to share that information. This decision to quit turned out in the end to be rather easy mentally, because during the way we made a sad finding and a fact. During our last attempts to both prove our point and remove all hindsight, we came across some scientific and newspaper articles. Those made us really sad, if a bit relieved, but also angry. All at the same time. It was not actually anger about what happened to us. There was something deeper.

For us, the proof was in an article in Finnish (Immonen, Rantanen 2011). It studies ICT business potential in crisis management. The main conclusion is that disaster communications is a severely fragmented field, with too many players and too much politics. This was beginning to be our hunch also, but seeing it on paper gave us some closure.

But there was other proof as well. In discussions we received first hand evidence from (struggling) startup companies in the disaster prevention and management area – they are not doing well and are not getting funded. It is seen as a task for the government, but the government does not have the capability to do it. We had also identified potential companies in different countries to partner with our technology. Despite their nominal success and lives saved, most have ceased their operations.

We also learned there is a term used in business to describe work like ours – according to Thomas Landauer (The Trouble With Computers 1995). Welfare benefit is used to describe a thing that is good for society but not for a company. To a small degree we, together with our findings, are a living proof of the phenomenon. Which begs to ask a totally different question.

WHAT NEXT

But what next? All our checks for other types of cooperation and next step funding have failed. We have only one question without an answer, just like we did 11 months ago. We have had some very positive negotiations during the last months. But in large organizations there are other shorter term considerations that have worked against us, once again. It is certainly true that we have not approached absolutely everyone and have not turned every stone. However, we have now totaled one car – gone past the budget we had set for ourselves – and now is the time to stop. We are not bitter, but of course another outcome would have been better. Lesson number ten: Know when to stop.

We beg to differ that economics is the only viable way to look at things. We acknowledge that numbers are important, but many successful companies have proven otherwise by being stubborn and playing their game. We know that many have failed. We are very stubborn, but we also pick our fights. We know that some of the other ideas we have may have better business potential. Last lesson: Be stubborn but be flexible.

Could there be other ways to promote ideas that are for the common good? Are we too much engineers and scientists that we just cannot think in business terms? Do you always need to have a proven business case before you start? If so, is it too obvious or known already? Based on this and other similar cases, I wrote a half-serious article on “Innovation lottery” (which I will translate into English eventually). Something totally different like that just might be the best chance for crisis prevention ICT companies to get funded.

Or should we as a society think what is ultimately more important – making money or saving lives?

So Aaron Huslage, you were not alone (Tethr: Getting online in a crisis). But are you alone soon?

P.S. Our member’s 4-year old daughter started her own online business 10 months ago selling jewelry that she designed. She has gathered more revenue and profit than we have. Well done Maija! Perhaps she will hire us.

Liikenteen hyvyyttä arvioitaessa kaksi pääkategoriaa tulevat ensimmäisenä mieleen, turvallisuus ja sujuvuus. Kommenttini korostavat pääosin juuri näitä.

Kuvittelen jatkossa liikennevalopuomit käytössä. Toimiakseen hyvin, kaiken liikenteen tulee aina kulkea määriteltyjä ajokaistoja pitkin, muuthan on suljettu käytöstä puomeilla. Puomijärjestelmä koneistoineen on toteutettava jollain tavalla, olipa se sivulta laskeutuva perinteinen puomi, kadusta nouseva tai ylhäältä alas laskettava. Tukipisteen (tai useamman) on kuitenkin oltava jossain ja puomin tultava paikalleen jossain diskreetissä ajassa joka säässä.

Vastaväiteet: kyseessä on yksi ylimääräinen liikkuva härveli, joka maksaa, tarvitsee tilaa, huoltoa ja lienee häiriöherkempi paljon enemmän käytettynä kuin esim. rautatietasoristeyksissä. Itse olen ollut pari-kolme kertaa puomin takana jumissa ja ensimmäisellä kerralla lopulta nostin härpäkkeen ylös käsin Helsingin keskustan parkkihallissa. Muilla kerroilla Oulun lentokentän parkkipaikan puomit ovat olleet jumissa. Voimankäyttö on siellä estetty, mutta liikennekaaoskin oli sen mukainen sinivalkoisen siipien palauttaessa liikematkustajat kotiin. Pikajuoksu ilmoittamaan ongelmasta virkailijalle purki suman kymmenessä minuutissa. Tavallinen liikenneristeys ei kestäisi vastaavaa odotusta.

Vuoden-parin aikana Oulun lentokentällä oli enemmänkin ongelmia puomien kanssa ja muutamaan otteeseen ne jätettiin ylös ja annettiin ilmainen parkkeeraus. Pakkanen ja jää ovat merkittäviä häiriötekijöitä. Kaiken kaikkiaan liikennevaloihin tulee yksi potentiaalisesti rikkoutuva komponentti lisää, joka alas jumiin jäädessään tukkii liikenteen. Jos laite puolestaan ei tuki liikennettä, ei se luultavimmin vastaa Porjon perusehdotukseen. Tai sitten laitetaan mekaaninen puomi koulutettuine hoitajineen (ja lomantuuraajineen) nostamaan ja laskemaan sitä käsin.

Puomin sijoittaminen ja laskeutumisnopeus ovat isompiakin kysymysmerkkejä, ettei vain kolahda (minkään) ajoneuvon kattoon. Risteyksissä tulee usein tukoksia mm. risteävän kadun jalankulkijoiden takia ja autot jonottavat vähän aikaa risteysalueella voidakseen jatkaa turvallisesti yli. Joskus risteys tyhjentyy keltaisilla valoilla, huonoimmillaan vasta kummankin suunnan punaisten palaessa. Tällaisessa tapauksessa osittain risteyksessä oleva saattaa saada puomin niskaansa. Tai risteävän liikenteen lähdettyä jo liikkeelle jää mottiin puomin väärälle puolelle. Liikennevaloissa normaalein punaisia päin ajaminen tapahtuu yleensä juuri valojen vaihtuessa, ei niinkään valojen vaihduttua jo kauan aikaisemmin. Patologiset punaisia päin ajavat rajaan heti pois, niiden lukumäärä ei liene prosentuaalisesti iso ja vain heitä varten tehdyt puomit eivät puolusta kustannuksia. Moiset rikkomukset eivät ole enää vahinkoja.

Hälytysajoneuvot ajavat joskus risteysten läpi valo-ohjatusti, joissain tapauksissa puomit pitäisi erikseen pystyä ohjaamaan pois käytöstä, jolloin on taas yksi osa lisää kokonaisuuteen. Samoin erityisesti rekkaliikenne joutuu ajoittain koukkaamaan liikennevaloissa oman kaistansa ulko- tai sisäpuolelta saadakseen pitkän ja kenties normaalia leveämmän kuljetuksen mahtumaan risteyksen läpi. Jos itse näen risteyksessä kääntyvän rekan, jättäydyn tarpeen mukaan kauemmas valoista, jotta rekka saa lisää tilaa kääntymiselleen. Näissä tapauksissa puomit ovat joko heti haittana tai sitten niitä tulee siirtää taaksepäin kutistamaan tilaa pois autoilta huonoimman tapauksen mukaiseksi. Tällaiset kuljetukset eivät todellakaan ole erikoiskuljetuksia vaan ihan normaaleja rekkoja kaupunkien kaduilla. Muitakin syitä väärän kaistan käyttämiseen voi syntyä elävässä elämässä.

Joskus on tapauksia, että risteyksessä ollessa on/olisi syytä siirtyä tai antaa tilaa punaisten valojenkin palaessa. Aiemmin mainitut hälytysajoneuvot ovat yksi esimerkki, mutta taustapeilistä näkyvä kohta peräpeiliin törmäävä auto voisi olla vältettävissä muuten tyhjän risteyksen läpi ajamalla. Sinälläänhän se on kiellettyä, mutta tässäkin hätä ja laki voivat päästä hetkelliseen sopimukseen. Muitakin tilanteita voi tulla vastaan, joissa joustavakin puomi vähintään lisää reaktioaikaa ajaa pois alta. Esimerkkeinä voivat toimia YouTubesta löytyvät liukkaalla liukuvat ja tanssahtelevat autot, jotka kimpoilevat kadun reunuksista kuin keilapallot. Puomi risteyksessä ei helpottaisi kaaosta. Tai sitten pitäisi olla niin järeät rakenteet, että todella pysäyttäisi moiset luistelijat.

Autoilijat eivät aina huomaa risteystä lähestyessään valojen vaihtumista tai muusta syystä ajavat eri kohtaan kuin tiemerkinnät ohjaavat. Näitä kaikkia tapauksia ei voi ennustaa miksi kuljettaja, kenties turisti, tekee jotain poikkeavaa. Ehkä jonkun polkupyörä on jäänyt risteyksessä auton alle ja ajoneuvojen kuljettajat selvittelevät tapahtunutta, samalla kun puomi hakkaa valojen mukaan konepeltiä lyttyyn. Jos ei hakkaa, sitten pitää olla taas puomissa lisää älyä estämään se. Ja samalla laitteelle tulee lisää hintaa ja yksi vaurioitumisaltis sensori mukaan kokonaisuuteen.

Näiden esimerkkien valossa en löydä syitä kasvattaa kustannuksia ja toteuttaa puomeja yhdenkään vastariskin kustannuksella. Se, voisiko liikennevaloille ja risteyksille tehdä jotain turvallisuuden parantamiseksi on kokonaan toinen kysymys – aivan varmasti. Liikenneympyrät (tai uussuomeksi kiertoliittymät) voisivat olla monessa paikassa ratkaisu valojen ja puomien tilalle. Niiden lisäksi uusia ajatuksia ja teknologioita voidaan keksiä vapaasti.

Sama “jotain pitäisi tehdä” koskee myös liikennesääntöjen rikkomista tahallaan tai vahingossa sekä yleensäkin liikennekulttuurin muokkaamista yhteispelin suuntaan. Itse idea sujuvuuden ja itsekontrollin lisäämisestä liikenteessä ja elämässä yleensäkin on erittäin kannatettava. Yhteispeliin tarvitaan yhteiset säännöt ja valssiin sama tahti.

Mutta tällä kertaa en pyrkinyt vastaamaan asenteisiin, vain puomeihin liikennevaloissa.

Niko Porjon eilisen kirjoituksen innostamana havahduin miettimään autoiluasiaa tarkemmin. Kirjoitus on provosoiva, mutta lukemisen arvoinen.  Porjo kysyy: miksi vahinkojen pitäisi autoilussa olla rangaistavia? Vahingot ovat vahinkoja, niitä tapahtuu aina kun ihminen jotain tekee. Miksi niitä silti autoilussa kohdellaan kuin rikoksia? Porjo tiivistää asian omalla tyylillään: “Pidän koko ajatusta liikenteen toimimisesta rangaistuksen uhan voimalla kuvottavana.”

En taida lopultakaan faktoista olla Porjon kanssa samaa mieltä, mutta kirjoitus sai ajattelemaan. Siinä on jotain ideaa.  Samalla tajusin, että juuri autoilusta on vaikea keskustella järkevästi.  Autoilu on asia, johon Suomalainen Mies suhtautuu tunteella. Se on miehuuden ytimessä. Vapauden. Suomalaisen elämänmuodon. Omakotitaolasumisen. Kesämökkien. Eikä toisaalta pidä unohtaa, että autoilussa on aina pelko mukana.

Siksi yritän löytää sovellusalueen, jossa olisi helpompi pysyä rationaalisena.

Ymmärrän pohjimmaisen argumentin näin: Porjo ei väitä, että rangaistukset pitäisi poistaa.
Sen sijaan liikennejärjestelmiä tulisi kehittää niin, että tahattomat virheet olisivat (lähes) mahdottomia. Porjo esittää yhden teknisen idean — puomit valoristeyksissä — joka on selkeästi keskeneräinen, mutta antaa konkreettista tuntumaa ajattelutapaan. Keskikaiteet ohituskaistojen kohdalla ovat selkeämpi esimerkki; vaarallisia ohituksia ei pääse tapahtumaan, koska ne on fyysisesti estetty.

On makukysymys pitääkö tätä realistisena vai ei; itse en pidä, koska se vaatisi liian massiivisia muutoksia koko kaupunki-infrastruktuuriin. En kuitenkaan avaa  autoilukysymystä sen enempää, vaan sovellan ajatusta toiselle alueelle: plagiointiin (J. Järveläiselle kiitos ideasta).  Plagiointi on todellinen ongelma yliopistoissa, ja kouluissa, ja tätä vauhtia kai pian päiväkodeissakin.

Perinteisesti ajatellaan rankaisua: käytetään erilaisia tunnistusohjelmia (täällä, täällä, täällä, ja ympäri Internettiä) löytämään plagiaatit, ja isketään sanktioita kun joku jää kiinni. Euroopassa jää säännöllisin väliajoin joku poliitikko kiinni väitöskirjansa plagioinnista; heidät erotetaan ja heitä nöyryyttää koko maa (sivumennen sanoen, aina kun kuulen tuollaista, käyn halaamassa omaa väitöskirjaani ja toivon ettei kukaan koskaan huomaa kaivella sitä tarkemmin. Mutta jos joku haluaa kokeilla, väitöskirja löytyy täältä).

Mutta miksi? Aidosti tahaton plagiointi on uskomattoman helppoa nykyisillä tekstinkäsittelyohjelmilla. Leikkaan tekstiä toisesta artikkelista, tarkoituksena muokata se myöhemmin; joku soittaa; muokkaaminen unohtuu. Sitä vain kerta kaikkiaan tapahtuu. Tai lukiolainen kirjoittaa esseetä, eikä yläkoulun nukuttuaan ole vieläkään sisäistänyt millä tavalla Wikipediaa voi lainata.

Lukiolaisen tapauksessa  nelonen kyllä sisäistää asian tehokkaasti ja kerralla.  Mutta miksi sisäistämisen pitäisi tapahtua nimenomaan nöyryytyksen kautta? Miksei plagioinnintunnistus voisi vaikkapa olla osana tekstinkäsittelyohjelmaa, samalla tavalla kuin nyt on automaattisia spellcheckereitä? Tällainen automaattinen tarkastus poistaisi (periaatteessa) tahattoman plagioinnin mahdollisuuden.

Tämä on kaikkea muuta kuin pitkälle pureskeltu idea, ja mm käyttöliittymä ei ole todellakaan helppo. Miten ohjelman pitäisi plagioinnista varoittaa? Miten ilmoituksen voi ohittaa? Miten kirjoittaja voi todistaa, että on käyttänyt ohjelmaa oikein? Miten toimitaan tapauksissa, joissa “plagiointi” voi olla jopa sallittua, esimerkiksi väitöskirjojen tiivistelmissä? Paras ratkaisu on ehkä triviaalimpi: vaaditaan opiskelijoita itse ajamaan kirjoituksensa plagicheckerin läpi ennen jättämistä. Mutta olennaista on se, että ongelma on hyvin rajattu, ja  teknologia on jo olemassa.

Jos ohjelma on tehty oikein, plagiointi on mahdollista vain jos kirjoittaja tekee sen tietoisesti. Tällöin, ja vain tällöin, sanktiot ovatkin paikallaan.  Uskoakseni filosofia on samantyyppinen kuin Porjon. Miksi käyttää nöyryytystä, jos pehmeämmätkin keinot ovat teknisesti mahdollisia? Vähennetään tahattomien virheiden mahdollisuus lähes nollaan, jolloin lainvartijoiden panokset voidaan laittaa oikeaan paikkaan: törkeiden tekojen tutkintaan.

En ole vielä miettinyt läpi, kuinka laajasti tätä ajattelutapaa voisi soveltaa. Se sotii hiukan suomalaista brutaalia perusluonnetta vastaan. Mutta tässä voisi hyvin ottaa oppia aasialaisesta kulttuurista. Jos asiat voi teknologialla hoitaa niin että kaikkien kasvot säilyvät, niin miksi ihmeessä ei hoidettaisi?