The Library of Alexandria was a fine facility best known for its fiery disappearance. It lasted for three hundred years and the reasons for its demise are many. Budget cuts , periodic fires, or tea-party hotheads are oft mentioned possibilities.
Whatever happened is history, but history likes to repeat itself.
Blog: Kelvin 506
Our team arrived shortly after midnight. The house was cased well in advance, a big villa at the edge of Vondelpark. Google maps gave the aerial picture and street-view completed the recon. Real estate records provided the layout of the inside. Preparations lasted two weeks, quite long but most of the team members faced final exams. The weather in Amsterdam was nice and favored approaching the target by city bikes: elegant, unorthodox and providing an opportunity to evade multiple surveillance cameras. Cheap night vision monoculars and a bump key completed the setup.
We spent hours debating the pros and cons of the project. On one hand, it involved burglary and extortion, acts that are clearly illegal, even for a noble cause. On the other hand, the access to the entire scientific legacy of Mankind was at stake and our action was supposed to shine bright light on some abominable developments. In our wildest dreams, we were hoping to provide a spark that will revolutionize the entire scientific community; our nightmares involved seeing the world from behind bars. Watching Orange is the New Black through a hijacked Netflix account usually calmed us down a lot.
When we arrived, the house was dark and it was very quiet. We approached from the back, and braced for our first use of the bump key. The instructional youtube videos were quite clear but field ops always have some surprises. So it was a great relief when it turned out that the door was not locked.
The inside was almost completely dark, and we paused to figure out how we could find anything in this maze. The infrared monocular that we tested in the bathroom with the lights off turned out to be less useful in this environment. But Lady Luck was with us again. We heard some rumblings and the target stumbled onto us with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.
Snatch!
Thirty seconds later we were on the street and the ransom note was left by the entrance.
De Telegraaf May 5, 2014 (local crime section)
Last night there was an incident at the house of one of our top publishing executives. The details are sketchy at this hour. Family members interviewed by our reporter confirmed that nothing was missing except for the dog (who may have wandered into Vondelpark). Another family member mentioned a ransom note concerning a mathematical journal, but Amsterdam Politie offered no comments and we were unable to follow this lead.
Politiebureau
As De Telegraaf tries to meet its daily deadline, Detective Harm van Roojinen briefs his team members Anja Bentjees and Theo Hegger. They sit in a circle in a drab office and Harm reads from his field notes. As always he is prone to lofty statements. "Listen up! Late last night the house of an executive from the largest scientific publisher in our country was burglarized by three unknown assailants," he says with morose expression. Anja and Theo do not seem particularly excited.
"The only missing item is a three-year old chihuahua name Molly" he continues. Anja, who is actually a cat-lover perks up. Then comes the boom: "The ransom left at the site promises to return Molly unharmed if all past, present and future issues of the Journal of Functional Analysis will be made freely available to the public." Harm has their full attention now. "Any more info? Fingerprints?" asks Theo incredulously. Harm flips through his notes and mumbles "The MacBike system has a record of users named Banach, Euler and Hypatia renting three bicycles and paying with bitcoins." "You can rent a bike with bitcoins?” wonders Anja. Harm cuts in "What is the Journal of Functional Analysis? And why do they have these funny aliases?” They gather around Harm's laptop and after a brief search Theo, who is the goofiest of them, yells "Mamma mia! You can have "Free convolution operators and free Hall theorem” for $41.95!" "If $41.95 means free then these are slick operators,” Anja deadpans. They are all laughing but then Harm brings up Google hits on Euler, Banach and Hypatia, "these names are not funny, I get over 5 million hits on google for these guys." "We will never sort it out," he adds in a resigned voice. Clearly there is a lot of work ahead and Harm summarizes "I do not know what is this journal of something but it is worth money to some people. Let's do research and check with friends across the pond in the National Security Agency.”
“OK, let's meet here tomorrow at 9," Anja proposes.
Next morning it is raining and the pressure is low. They are all sipping coffee and perusing an NSA brief that came during the night.
It includes full dossiers of all 17 people who downloaded from Journal of Functional Analysis in the past decade and paid the fee. The group consists mostly of professional mathematicians and a handful of graduate students. Most of them are vegetarians and all are animal lovers. Pictures, addresses, Facebook postings, and voluminous phone and e-mail records indicate sympathetic individuals living in an open society with no obvious need of evasion. Experts at NSA advise that they are unaware of cases of scientific extremism and that this could be a clever ruse to disguise a malicious political agenda.
Harm, Anja and Theo all sit a bit confused. "It is still unclear what it all means, and why the Journal of Functional Analysis is worthy of disturbing peaceful burgers of Amsterdam in the middle of the night," concludes Theo.
Blog: Kelvin 506
I must say that Molly is delightful! Hypatia cannot stop playing with her and constantly cooks her delicious morsels. Banach is also not immune, although he tries to hide it. For a while he had his eyes on Hypatia and now the presence of Molly enabled him to show his emotional side. But he might be simply jealous of Molly, who knows?
Whereas a week ago we were talking about Open Access, the freedom of scientific publications, and the criminality of the publishing barons who surrepticiously acquired rights to most of the scientific output, now we are discussing Molly’s moods, appetite, and attitude. Suddenly I started having doubts about the project. Not only we are not on safe ground and have not accomplished our goals but I fear that Banach and Hypatia will not want to give Molly back. Once a while I say something like “It looks like Molly misses her home”, but then Hypatia gives her a truffle or piece of sirloin and Molly perks up and seems content.
De Telegraaf May 7, 2014 (newsflash on page 3)
Our newspaper was flooded by requests for information about last night's break-in to the publishing house representative. The perps are still at large and Molly has not been recovered. Our reporting staff is working hard collecting background information on the incident and trying to understand the linkage between an obscure math journal and antisocial behavior. Here is what we know:
Throughout most of the XX century academic publishers requested that authors sign so-called copyright agreements. This agreement preserved the intellectual rights of the author but ceded the rights to distribute, copy, republish, etc to the publisher, and also gave them most of the financial proceeds if there were any. The system worked well, because all published work existed in a paper form that needed assembling, storage and distribution.
It all changed by the end of the XX century, when in the space of a decade publishing became digital. Suddenly, authors gained the ability to market and distribute their work without the assistance of a publisher. With the loss of the physical medium, the forgotten copyright agreement became the bloodline of the publishing industry, as copyright become the only marketable component of a digital product. Through acquisition, often at fire-sale prices, several publishing houses gained control of most scientific publications, and they are currently attempting to turn it into a billion dollar industry.
Politiebureau
It is midday at the police station and Harm, Anja and Theo are running out of ideas. But then Harm's laptop says in a wooden voice "Je hebt mail" and Harm yells loudly "Hey guys, a new NSA brief has just landed. Check it out!” They print three copies and start quietly reading what friendly NSA spooks have dug up on the topic of scientific publishing. The document is nearly 20 years old and it appears to be a transcript of a recording from a meeting that took place in their hometown! One glance at the address reveals a noble company that has been a pride of their country.
Publishers Summit 1994 (confidential)
Location: SCIF at Radarweg 29, Amsterdam
The meeting had four participants hiding under aliases: Hendrik, Friedrich, Evan and John.
Hendrik: Colleagues, welcome! Glad you could make it! (audible sounds of kissing and hugging) Please report on the progress of our plan.
John: Let me report on the legacy acquisitions. We created an online entity called JSTOR in which we all have an equal stake. It will come online in a year and once fully operational it will own all scientific records that are more than five years old. We will charge for access on a yearly basis: from $200 (individual) to $50,000 (university). We instructed fellow librarians to burn paper copies of books and journals to channel the demand. We anticipate that in 20 years we may have to make some of the less desirable publications available for free (audible gagging sounds), but it is not certain.
Hendrik: Excellent, excellent. Any signs of suspicion from the scientific community?
John: None at all, they are like lemmings. It was enough to tell them that they do not have to walk to the library anymore!
Evan: We are still experimenting with the government option and the signs are promising. It may take some time but we may succeed in the government footing the entire bill! We are setting up the system of page charges paid from the government grants. In time the fee for one journal page will pay for storage space that can hold an entire library! Not even a Colombian drug cartel has such profit margins, and this is all legal! (high fives are heard around the room)
Hendrik: Is it working?
Evan: Excellently. Due to our lobbying efforts, governments will not interfere with the page-charge structure, but rather, will tell these drones to publish less if there is a sequestration.
Friedrich: Together with John we are working on smoke-screen actions that will allow us to hide profits and launder the money, At the moment the most promising are the review services. We will have scientists write mini-reviews of the journal articles, for free of course, and bundle them in an online bibliographical database for which we will charge a hefty fee (clapping is heard). It boosts their morale to read something once a while and for tax purposes we can claim losses on the whole business.
John: We are buying scientific journals at a rate of five to ten per month. For the most part the editorial boards are very happy that they no longer have to deal with print shops, distribution and subscriptions. All they care about is that they remain editors and the name of the journal does not change. In most cases they would pay us to take over (roaring laughter).
Hendrik: I see that all is well. (pause) Colleagues, let me reiterate - this is a twenty year plan and there are hardships on the way. We have to acquire literally thousands of scientific journals and keep publishing them. This is a burden, but it is no different than our Russian colleagues who bought all of the oil reserves in their entire country - the product has to keep coming, and profits are just around the corner. In our case, the digital era is coming shortly and I can assure you that in twenty years all that we will have to do is to protect our investment. Typesetting, editing, publishing will be entirely done by scientists themselves and their colleagues will be paying us (he screams like a Hitlerite) for access to it! (sounds of bewilderment are heard).
Evan: Will it all work?
Hendrik: Yes it will (he says firmly). You see, scientists are very keen on their intellectual abilities and view them as something precious, special and rare. Ever since Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake they stuck their noses in their books and toe the line. Just losing one of their kind in a fairly unpleasant manner was enough. Since then they gave us dynamite, nuclear weapons, nerve gas and enhanced interrogation techniques! They will love to have a better library!
(the brief ends)
They sit in silence for a while until Anja interrupts "Unbelievable! Is it authentic? It reminds me of stories about Congo and Leopold II, King of Belgians."
"Let's not go there,” says Theo scratching his head, “these intellectual robber barons tried to bury what has been publicly accessible for decades, and profit from throttling the access. Amazing!” Suddenly Anja jumps up “Wait a moment” she cries. “This document is twenty years old. Is it possible that this diabolical plan has already succeeded?” They both look at Harm who seem to be weighting the options. "Perhaps scientists are not as bright as we think they are,” he says finally.
De Telegraaf May 9, 2014 (cover page)
Molly is back!
This morning an email message of unknown origin directed us to a back alley in Vondelpark where a properly ventilated pink cardboard box revealed Molly anxiously awaiting to go back home. Soon afterwards the entire case of what we suspected to be the first case of scientific terrorism disintegrated in a mysterious fashion. First of all, the burglary did not happen, as the door was never locked. Moreover, it appears that Molly might have wandered to the park alone and was picked up by good Samaritans who just fell in love with her. The ransom note cannot be located and is a hoax as well. The renowned publisher assures us that the Journal of Functional Analysis was always available for free to the mathematics-loving public. Price of $41.95 per download was just a publicity stunt aimed as raising the prestige and popularity of the journal and nobody was ever charged for the download.
Blog: Kelvin 506
It looks like we won! Today’s email from the publisher promises immunity in return for Molly. Surprisingly they claim that the Journal of Functional Analysis was always freely available for download. This is clearly not true but who is there to contradict them? What idiot would pay and admit it?
Well, suddenly Banach got very red on the face and Hypatia quickly changed the subject. Perhaps this is a bit more subtle. Since they moved to the spare bedroom, a change clearly catalyzed by Molly, they became very protective of one another.
We had a meeting today while Molly was jumping around and barking excitedly. We concluded that we got what we wanted and we are not in jail. This is a big deal. On the other hand nobody knows what we have done and the scientific community is blissfully unaware of our existence. It seems that our emails are still untraceable. We use an old Atari 800 XL, a computer that predates the internet, so it appears online as a ghost. Hypatia wrote some simple e-mail software that accesses the internet through the serial port and we are safe for now.
So this looks more like the end than the beginning. On the other hand, the Journal of Functional Analysis is an Open Access journal now and Hypatia is Banach's girlfriend, and this is great. We will drop Molly in Vondelpark, and I have an algebraic geometry exam later today. In this instance I wish I really was Euler.
Politiebureau
Harm, Anja and Theo sit in the office in silence. The table is covered with printouts of news clippings about Aaron Schwartz, LulzSec, and Anonymouse. On the top there is a picture of three laughing students walking through a park carrying a pink box. “So, what should we do?” asks Anja. After a long pause Harm says “What is the harm?”
They all laugh at the pun, and Theo takes a lighter and burns the photograph.
“Do you know that articles in the Journal of Combinatorial Theory still cost $35.95 a pop?” Anja says mischievously. Theo gets up and stretches, “OK guys," he says "our work is cut out for us.”
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