Information Wants to Be Free*

Last week after my Material Science lecture on Friday, me, Jinjin and Amalin went to a rather popular Chinese restaurant in the U area, the Village Wok I think the name was, to treat ourselves a much needed lunch. "For a good weekend ahead! Yamseng!" - cheered us boisterously as we banged our tea cups in the air in the appreciative spirit for good food. We ate and we talked and then we ate some more and then finally, we talked. I don't quite remember the details of the things that we talked about all afternoon long, since it was not me who talked most of the time, but I do remember clearly being asked why I put up the picture of four freshwomen (i.e. 1st year girl students) as my laptop wallpaper. At first, I was taken aback by the question, that is not to say that I was not prepared to provide an answer for my actions, but rather at the reason it why should be a question in the first place.

"Kau suka kat Sheeda eh, Lat?"
"Siapa?"
"Bukan? Habis... Siti?"
"Yang tu nombor berapa dari kanan?"
"Aih... takkan kau tahu nama diaorang lagi?"
"Tak."
"Tiap-tiap hari kau tatap muka-muka sekor-sekor..."
"Aku tak pernah ambik kisah nak tahu nama pun."
"Habis, kenapa kau letak jadi wallpaper?"
"Kena ada sebab ke?"
"Habis, kau saja-saja je letak?"
"Haah."
"Tipu... kau tipu ni... mesti ada sebabnya."
"Betul, takde sebab."
"Orang kalau buat something, mesti ada sebabnya dia buat benda tu."
"Betul, takde sebab."
"Alah, Lat, semua orang dah tahu hal kau dengan gambar tu, it's okay."
"Hah? Semua orang?"
"Takpelah, Lat, kalau kau tak nak cakap, takpe, aku paham kau segan."
"Ye, dol, takde sebab."
"It's okay, Lat, I understand, I understand."
"Ye, takde sebab. Dulu masa Ed keluar MN Daily pun aku buat wallpaper jugak."
"So, ni bukan first time ah?"
"Last year, gambar sapa-sapa ntah kat Sampaikan Salam Aidilfitri Utusan pun aku buat gak."
"Oh, ye ke? Hobi?"
"Kalau aku jumpa gambar sesapa kat internet, aku ambik."
"Oh...pervert lah ni."

In truth, this 'hobby' of mine is not that much of a perversion in nature - it is in fact a legal exercise and justification of my rights as an internet user. You see, I strongly believe in the prophetic words of Stewart Brand* (Hackers' Conference 1984) that "...information should be free, [and] by 'free' I am not referring to price, but rather to the freedom to adapt it to one's own uses". These same words later on became one of the main elements that created the famous principles known as the Hacker Ethics (read Steven Levy's Hackers) and are also used by the P2P (peer-to-peer file sharing like Kazaa and Audiogalaxy) developers and users as their war chants. By this same mantra, I strongly believe that if a file is put up on the internet -may it be a picture, an article, a diary entry or a personal biodata- then it is meant to be shared, read, looked at and ultimately used. Frankly, with regards to the above mentioned photo as my wallpaper, I see no strong reason to not admire such a beautiful picture.

So, you girls there sitting pretty, have I done anything wrong?