Property Rights Protection: A Conceptual Problem

好久没有更新博客了。最近因为忙于准备毕业论文和博士入学考试,我也就无暇顾及这片天地了。同时,最近也似乎实在没有什么值得去深究的题目。本打算就林妙可在今年春晚的直播现场不尊重老艺术家,后来想想也算了。俗话说的好,子不教,父之过。恐怕林妙可这个小丫头的所作所为也并非出于其自愿,而更可能是父母的功利心在作祟。考虑到这种现象也属于个案,大多数的中国人还是非常懂得尊老爱幼的,故而我也就就此搁笔了。但是今天早上QQ群里转发的一条消息却让我来了兴趣。如果说林妙可只是个案,那么我们国人当前的羊群行为和对知识产权的不尊重则是到了发指的地步了。

  1. 一条来自QQ群的群发短信

    如下的消息应该是大伙儿都在QQ群啊,BBS上屡见不鲜的。如我今天中午看到的一条:

    用电脑的朋友注意了啊:具体时间是从二十号开始 !!! 如果大家在使用电脑的时候系统提示你所使用的微软产品是盗版软件等等,而且还会在右下角出现蓝色的小星星~~这是因为: 由于美国最近要针对中国上诉WTO知识产权保护问题,微软正在为美国政府搜集相关证据,在最近自序,为了咱中国利益,请大家不要开启自动更新。如果起诉成功,中国将要赔款几百亿.已经开启当提示要你安装“正版增值计划”请别安装!安装后会在任务栏右下角出现一个蓝色五角星符号!这样就会被微软追踪锁定,以向美国政府提供证据! 请大家转到其他群上顺带一个,大家转发,这个直接影响所有中国电脑用户的利益 提醒大家,以后去麦当劳,肯德基一定要记得要发票。麦当劳,肯德基每年在中国因为我们不习惯要发票的原因而掠走将近2亿的税收,把这条信息完好(不加任何修改复制)发至其它群是中国人的就转发一下 累不了你

    说实话,看到这条消息我非常痛心,也非常遗憾。在我指出这条短信的问题后,对方的回复更让我无语:

    行了,我只是尽个中国人的义务而已

    你传就传,不传拉到

    对此,我不得不问:RT此类消息真的是“中国人的义务”?事实上,这是在给我们敬爱的祖国抹黑!俗话说家丑不可外扬,而事实上,我们正在外扬我们的“丑陋”,同时也暴露出了我们教育与经济发展不均衡的一些现象,尽管他们只是暂时的。

  2. 经济发展与基础教育的不对称

    其实这样的无知,从根本上讲,与其他的社会科学所关注的问题一样,都是有着深刻的制度背景的。而这里的制度背景则主要基于教育相对于经济发展而略显滞后的问题。我们这一代其实是处在经济和教育的双轨转型中。这种转型注定了我们的不平凡,也预示着我们会遇到更多的困惑。

    想想几十年前我们父母一辈与命运抗争的历史,我们作为80后无疑是幸运的。相比较他们,我们可以接受更好的教育,我们可以说很好的英语,我们可以阅读国外的英文原版小说,而这些也给予了我们与国际接轨的机会。我们不再受累于意识形态的问题,我们不再受制于“阶级斗争”,我们也不再为了想读书而没书读郁闷。在我们的记忆中,政治因素尽管没有如90后般一无所知,但是却也没有深刻到左右我们的想法和言论了。即使我们在遇到一些隐性限制的时候,我们也有了爬墙的技术。四角的天空不再属于我们,我们正在拥有更广阔的天空。

    但是几十年前的社会变革对我们的影响是深刻的。以前我一直不理解为什么我做的财务研究都要去考虑经济后果,现在我明白了。如果将社会发展看作一个可以无限延伸的时间轴,而将大小的社会事件(Social Events)作为其中的一分子,我们就会发现:一些事件的影响是深远的。在我小时候的影响里,我一直坚持着“无神论者”该有的一切,我坚定的认为“迷信”是不对滴~~。似乎只有那个长得酷似KFC门口的大爷的言论才是真理。同时我也坚定的认为:一切旧思想都是糟粕,唐诗宋词也不必过度关注。然而,随着教育的深入,我发现,我是彻底的错了。宗教是一种人类心灵的寄托,它本身无对错可言。更何况很多宗教都崇尚人性的善良本质。这不是我们需要的么?而至于古典文学知识的缺乏,更是让我羞愧。我真不知道遇到一个比我精通中国文化的老外时我会做何感想。

    一场变革所带给我们的不仅仅是知识的缺乏。更多的其实导致了很多人的道德层面的部分缺失。当然,我这里所指的并不是说“良心”的缺乏,更多的,我需要讨论的是对别人劳动的尊重,对环境的重视以及团队贡献方面的缺乏。而这种观念的缺乏则会导致大量的“愤青”和“五毛”。其实不客气点说,我所指的“愤青”基本可以属于“脑残”级别了。因为他们往往不会去独立思考,会做的只是人云亦云。而“五毛”则在此层面上与“愤青”保持着高度的一致。

  3. 这条消息的背后:盲从与无知 

    我不知道为什么有那么多人会不加思考的去RT这类消息。作为饭后谈资,我们不如来分析一下这段话的逻辑。首先分析关于盗版的一段。

    由于美国最近要针对中国上诉WTO知识产权保护问题,微软正在为美国政府搜集相关证据,在最近自序,为了咱中国利益,请大家不要开启自动更新。如果起诉成功,中国将要赔款几百亿.已经开启当提示要你安装“正版增值计划”请别安装!安装后会在任务栏右下角出现一个蓝色五角星符号!这样就会被微软追踪锁定,以向美国政府提供证据!

    我们可以作出如下逻辑推演:我们使用盗版-微软会检查-微软检测到盗版会起诉-我们就会赔钱-免费使用泡汤。而据此,我们提出一个逆否命题:若要免费,则不可让微软查到盗版,所以我们要阻止微软的搜集证据。大伙儿不觉得这个很可笑?其实这不仅仅是一个冷笑话,更深入的思考我们会发现至少两方面的问题,而这两个问题看起来就不是那么好笑了:

    1. 版权意识缺乏严重

      俗话说,亡羊补牢,为时不晚。其实对于大多数人而言,了解和尊重知识产权并不难。但是可悲的是,在知识产权面前,大多数人集体失言了。而上文则很好的说明了这一点。习惯于逻辑推理的人会很快发现,这段看似逻辑严密的文字底下其实隐藏了一个非常要命的前提,那就是:使用盗版是理所当然的!如果说个人把这个强盗逻辑奉为圣贤尚情有可原,给其套上“国家利益”则是要命的错误了。难道我们的国家利益就是这么掠夺来的?我想没人会这么认为吧。

      事实上,Windows并不是一个开源软件,而是一款商业软件。作为商业软件,我开发,你付费是很符合逻辑的行为。毕竟天文数字般的代码行数背后折射出了巨额的人工和智力方面的投入,而作为一个商业公司,不计回报是不可能的。我们付费使用Microsoft的产品,其实本身也是对广大程序员工作的一种肯定。毕竟不要忘了,微软亚洲研究院是微软产品开发一支非常重要的主力。而其中有为数不少的员工是我们同胞。其实我们无视版权,也大大损害了我们自己的利益。

      价格昂贵永远是一个千年不换,万年不改的借口。不可否认,尽管微软已经在中国地区给予了更低的价格,但是与国民的人均可支配收入而言,还是比较贵的。但是这绝对不是借口。因为对大中型商业公司、科研院所以及高级知识分子们而言,软件价格并非承受不起。而对个人用户而言,其实很多商业软件,甚至操作系统都是可以用开源软件代替的。我曾因为科研工作在Ubuntu下呆了一个礼拜,通过各种方法,我的工作和娱乐都得到了保障,并没有太多的问题。只是大多数人不愿意去钻研罢了。或许这就是“习惯的力量”吧。下图是某网站Win7售价:

    2. 没有隐私保护意识

      之所以说到隐私保护策略,是因为太多愤青认为微软会利用后门程序达到一些“不可告人的目的”,同时提到WGA验证机会是为“美国政府”提供证据,从而建议关闭Windows Update。事实上,我早期也是此说法的坚定拥护者,甚至于我从来不去打补丁。但是结果呢?微软没有提醒我,但是“冲击波”却给当时我们几个人上了一课。自此以后,我就打补丁了。电脑系统出问题可不好玩。

      其实作为一个商业软件,搜集数据是无可厚非的。毕竟相关的数据可以帮助他们更好的开发,但是大量的数据搜集是在用户知晓的情况下进行的。比如最著名的“用户体验改善计划”,就是典型的数据搜集程序。但是需要注意的是,这种数据搜集并不是没有限制的。在微软的说明书和网站提供的隐私保护条款中都明确说明了数据搜集的范围和用途。我知道大多数的国内用户都是不会去看这类长篇说明的。但是你没看到可不代表别人没做啊。

      当然,通过WGA的统计来搜集盗版数量就更正常不过了。俗话说的好:若想人不知,除非己莫为啊!

  4. 结论与思考

    其实版权意识也好,隐私保护也罢,甚至于缺乏独立思考的能力,都有着深层次的原因,不是我们这里一两句话讲得清楚的,同时有些话也是不能说的。其实对学术界的同僚们而言,我们也希望我们的成果被引用,而不是被直接“参考”;对于广大的博主而言,我们希望我们的文章合法转载而不是被“采集”;对于广大的设计者而言,我们希望我们的创意被肯定,而不是被“山寨威武”。既然如此,我们为什么不从消灭自己电脑里的盗版软件开始呢?

    至于麦当劳的问题,我就不提了。毕竟这个跟我这篇文章主题出入大了点。不过建议愤青们去学习下税法和财务相关知识。中国的税务机关也不是傻瓜。发票是税务机关控制税源的一个重要渠道,但是却不是唯一的渠道。要知道,美国的餐馆也是只给Bills,而不给发票的。难道美国餐馆都免税了?

Snow: Sign of A Prosperous New Year

It is very hard to tell why it happen, but it is becoming the truth that the weather is now becoming quite curious. Taking the recent days of Suzhou as an example, a city can seldom see snow in early spring, is now snowing around the Spring Festival. In fact, rolling back to the days that we have past years, some curious things can also still be reminded, e.g the snow in November of Wuhan. Admittedly, it is the first time that I see the snow at the Spring Festival in Suzhou.

Following are some pictures that I took in my flat through the window at about 2 a.m. It is really a difficult to take a photo with the exposure time of 1.6 seconds. And with a photo on the grass in front my house, you can see it more clearly.

The snow is not stop until the second day, though the snow on the roads has been wrapped, those on the grass and roof remains. In fact, this sight reminds me of the old days when the snow disaster happened in 2007. According to the CNN that the US is also snowing heavily in US this year.

These are two photos that I took the second day. For large pictures, just click on them.

However, there is a Chinese old saying goes that, with the heavy snow, you are expected a prosperous new year. I do wish this saying would promote me of my dream come true this year!

Some Words for The Chinese New Year of 2010

Time has been passed over the 12:00 point and now it is the last day of the 2009 and we are welcoming the first day of the new year, according to the traditional calendar of China. Just like the westerners are caring much on the Christmas and New Year’s day, that the Chinese have paid adequate attention to this festival for thousands of years. However, the Chinese New Year is a bit different from the others. More precisely, I find no feeling that I am welcoming an important festival. Instead, I have received some unexpected gifts for my coming new year.

  1. The poor weather these days

    Such feeling may be partially due to the poor weather that most regions in southern China are suffering. It is curious that the weather of this winter is so abnormal that you can hardly judge whether you are living in spring or winter. The temperature of Suzhou yesterday has been raised to 17 degrees while it drops to 3 today. It is just like that we are drawn back from the spring to winter. So, definitely, it is very hard to keep a good mood in humid days. I am really quite interested in how the Britain overcome such influence from the weather to their moods. You should know that such humid weather is quite normal in England.

  2. Concerns on admission to graduate schools

    The application of graduate schools is also making me feel increasingly anxious. Anyway, a lesson that I learned in this process is quite similar to what Kuan told me before. That is, never try the thing before you are fully prepared and understood. The weakened economic conditions around the world is really a bad news for my application. A special funding for overseas research student has been abandoned. And there is no news now for the schools in Asia.Frankly, comparing to the different systems, for PhD programs in business school. The schools in US and Asia are definitely choices. I can hardly understand why there is no requirement for publications to the PhD students in UK and Australia. While, for candidates, it is quite a good news, since they won’t have to lead a life that is fully composed with paper writing, and they may thus have a excuse to stop reading papers. While, when graduated, I am quite worried about the employment of these students. Concerning the immigrants policy in UK, most graduates may have to come back to China. However, a PhD without papers of high quality may have to face a nightmare when applying for a teaching position.

  3. Dissertation

    The dissertation is also a terrible experience for me. Though with the skills that I have mastered in the past two years, working as a research assistant, the accomplishment of such a dissertation would not be a problem, it is becoming a problem as well. The most definite reason for this unfortunate is my timing arrangement as well as the concerns on the dissertation itself. Frankly speaking, timing is really a great problem for me, reading books, papers at the same time has been a great job, I have to spare some more time for my writing.The paper is also encountering its own difficulty. Following my research interest in the past few years, the topic of my dissertation is also about the timing patterns of the annual reports. However, to construct a paper with recognized quality, solid foundation on theory and hypothesis development is quite essential, as I have suggested to my colleagues. However, with the theory that I have mastered, considering the behavior via the timing pattern is a too superficial decision that it fails to dig into the nature of contemporary research. Obviously, the essential factor that are affecting the investors’ protection should be the earning information, while the timing patterns is only a behavior that is influenced by the similar root.

  4. My Wish for the New Year

    Anyway, things have to be dealt with regularly no matter how boring and difficult they are. Following the tradition of the Chinese New Year that I should establish my own wish for the coming year, I do wish I can be admitted to a recognized graduate school, or alternatively, be offered an accepted industrial position with average salary that I can consider my house compensation and marriage. This is of great priority.

Online Cheating: A True Story

话说这年头的诈骗行为真是如雨后春笋般层出不穷。我们的智商也在一次次的大浪中接受着考验。在这场攻防战中,诈骗技术和防诈骗技术都在你来我往的交手中大有长进。看来,与高手过招这句话果然是句放之四海而皆准的经典语句啊。而QQ上时不时的“中奖陷阱提示”,MSN上的“不要透露信用卡信息”的警告以及各大报纸上的诈骗故事时时都在提醒我们:社会有风险,领奖需谨慎啊。而我今天要讲的就是我遇到的一个真实的欺诈案例。

  1. 收到垃圾邮件

    具有讽刺意味的是,我今天收到了一封诈骗邮件。如果是平时,我会一删了之。而今天我打算给它“晒晒太阳”。毕竟真的去点击这些网站的人是少数。不过这个邮件多少看着有点山寨。而且Outlook也把这个邮件放到了Junk Mail中,其中的超级链接也被自动disable了。

    email

  2. 垃圾网站历险记

    为了试验这个东西的真假,我直接打开了上述网址。其实这是个冒险行为,万一网站被挂马,说不定哥们的系统就会不幸效忠党国。不过兴趣还是高于一切啊。于是我看到了如下的一个半山寨页面:

    win3 

    是不是觉得这个网站比较山寨?注意用户协议上写的是“雅虎邮箱”,而页面的其他地方都是Google。哎,看来作假的哥们不够细心啊。建议这个哥们雇佣个美女把把关。一般我的经验是,女孩子大多是非常细心的。此乃天性也。为了验证这个系统的真假,我随意输入了一个用户名,结果出来一个提示框:

     win1

    哈哈,看到没,58000的现金和14988元的笔记本哦!超级诱人。不过呢,我从来是相信天上不会掉馅饼,而是宁可相信天将降大任于斯人也,云云。在按下Ok以后,页面显示正常登录。

     win2

    在页面的下方则要求填写领取资料。注意:个人资料搜集开始了。怀着好奇的心情,我又进入了下一个页面:

    win4 

    从这个表单来看,需要的资料还是不少的,尤其注意的是,居然最后还要输入银行帐号和户名。我不知道是不是真的有傻瓜会去填个人资料。不过我想,大千世界无奇不有。被一时的贪念冲昏了头脑的人肯定也不少吧?而我的网站探险也到此结束了,毕竟我可不想让他们真的骚扰。

  3. 基于域名的一番“折腾”

    事情到这里远没有结束。非常感谢Whois系统,我们可以很容易的知道域名的注册信息。而且考虑到域名注册的规定,这些信息我想至少有部分是真实的吧。出于对美国Privacy法律的考虑(我的服务器在美国),我只公布域名基本注册信息,而不包括注册人等信息。有兴趣的童鞋可以去whois查看。

    whois 

    从注册的信息来看,这个域名居然是几天前才注册的。而且呢,网站的服务器也在美国,是Windows主机。Okay,我对这个不熟悉,有专业的访客可以查下比如这个服务器在美国的哪个机房云云。
    注册的联系人信息显示此人在云南昆明,并且还提供了一个手机号码。但是检索发现,此号码是海南号码。呵呵,骗人的就是骗人的,没办法啊。

     tele

  4. 结论和建议

    我的测试到此就结束了。毕竟这只是出于娱乐所做的尝试,而并不是什么正规的法律手段。法律手段还是留给专业级玩家去玩吧。但是关于这个诈骗我有两点要说明:

    1. 现在的诈骗技术是越来越高超了。域名也从早期的info等便宜货过渡到了com上来了。同时,山寨的网站也越做越好了。而越来越好的网站往往意味着更大的杀伤力。比如前阶段沸沸扬扬的假淘宝、假工行、假中国银行等。不知道坑害了多少人。俗话说:害人之心不可有,但是防人之心真的必须有啊!
    2. 其实假冒网站还是很容易发现的,只是我们需要细心和耐性。从上面的这个站点分析我们可以看到,其实这个网站的漏洞非常多。除了自爆的邮箱名不统一以外,我们也可以利用Whois系统甚至我们的直觉来发现这些欲行不轨的家伙。

PS:其实对于做这些网站的人而言,他们不缺技术,而是缺德!

Writing a Mathematical Equation on Your Blog

In fact it is quite rare for a blog writer to put some mathematical models on the blog unless it is an article related to some very professional courses. However, low propability can hardly mean never happen. Taking myself for example, I would like to post some of my notes on econometrics and my feeling of research proposal with the blog readers, though I can write them with a Latex system and then compile it to a PDF document, providing it as an attachment for download. While I don’t think most readers would prefer such behavior. Reading that directly can be a much more pleasant experience, especially when there is not many complicated equations.

Thanks to the flexibility of the WordPress system and its countless expanded plug-ins, the solution for this can be quite simple. The only thing you are willing to do is to be familiar with the LaTex syntax, which, under most occasions, would not be a big problem for most users who are willing to do so. Even though you are unlikely to type the raw code, Mathtype can help you transfer the equation. The only work thus left for you is copy and paste.

Taking a search at WordPress.org, with the keyword of ‘latex’, you are likely to find the following plug-ins.

  1. Some Plug-ins for WordPress

    Among the plug-ins that are available, I made an attempt for the following ones on my blog. Here is a summary about each of them. For details, you can refer to their websites.

    1. WP Latex

      This is an official plug-ins for Latex from WordPress.com, with its default service based on wordpress.com. No cache is needed. You can freely change its style through the css file in settings. The only problem is that its original server ‘s.wordpress.com’ is forbidden in China, you have to change it to ‘wordpress.com’ to make it work. Besides, you can also set up your own service, but I wonder if it can violate the regulation from the host.

    2. Easy Latex

      Comparing to the official plug-ins, this one offer more flexible features. Besides the colors, you can also freely change its size directly through its GUI. Cache option is provided so that the readers can stil read the equations on your blog even when the latex service is out of work.

    3. Youngwhan’s Simple Latex

      This is the simplest plug-ins for use among the three. No other option is presented besides the address of the latex service. The service for this plugin, unlike WP Latex and Easy Latex, is provided by some open source project. Though it is convenient to set up, its flexibility is a question.

  2. My Choice

    I finally choose the official plug-ins with the consideration of the limitation of file numbers on my server. And there is no free CGI support. Which means, I can hardly construct my own system and can hardly bear too many cache files. For those whose server can support CGI, a self-constructed system should be preferred considering its stability.

  3. An Example

    As a final, I shall present an example. This is a measurement of likelihood that is common to see in econometrics.

    [latex size=2]{{R}^{2}}=\frac{SSE}{SST}=\frac{{{\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{\left( {{y}_{i}}-\bar{y} \right)\left( {{{\hat{y}}}_{i}}-\bar{\hat{y}} \right)} \right)}^{2}}}{\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{{{\left( {{y}_{i}}-\bar{y} \right)}^{2}}} \right)\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{{{\left( {{{\hat{y}}}_{i}}-\bar{\hat{y}} \right)}^{2}}} \right)}[/latex]

    Where [latex]y[/latex] stands for the real value and [latex]\hat{y}[/latex] stands for the estimated value from a regression model like:

    [latex]y=\alpha_0+\alpha_1*x_1+\alpha_2*x_2+\alpha_3*x_3+\cdots+\alpha_n*x_n, n\in {{Z}^{+}}[/latex]

    The only problem left here is: how to adjust the alignments? I want them to be centered, but not left-aligned.

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