The Second Generation Internet 276
Yo: This is the first of a series which will alternate between my columns and your responses. The talk will also go on in Threads. The duration of this topic can be as long - or as brief - as you want, entirely up to you. I'll post a column of representative e-mail responses. If you don't want to be quoted or ID'd, please say so in your messages.
For a generation of believers -- hackers, open-source programmers, MP3 and DVD adherents -- the Internet's most central ideology has been promoting a certain kind of freedom.
The Net has never been quite as accessible as many of its most passionate residents would like to believe. Many people can't afford it, others don't have the technological skills to use it well. Still, it is unquestionably freer than any other element of American culture.
In fact, the Net is so free it threatens, even traumatizes, institutions that have long clung to their prerogatives and to political and cultural power - journalism, industry, education, politics, the law, medicine.
This freedom is, to an enormous degree, a matter of accident and architecture rather than politics or ideology. The founders of the Net-a coalition of academics, engineers, early hackers and researchers - designed the Net and its protocols to be equally open to anyone with the right technology.
No medium had ever been designed so generously, casually or freely. In fact, the Net's architecture and protocols, as currently constructed and used, may be the most important model of free speech and equal access to information in history, certainly since the U.S. Constitution was adopted. (As a point of comparison, consider television, a medium intended to be open but quickly commercialized, and almost completely co-opted, by a handful of greedy media moguls, working the full co-operation of federal legislators and regulators.)
There is no Constitution for the Net, no bylaws or widely agreed-upon system or Constitution to protect widely agreed upon system to protect such rights as privacy, openness, and property.
Programmers are no longer technicians working at the margins of society. Like engineers before them, they are now, like it or not, among the principal architects of the world's most ascendant subculture. Issues like the Net's freedom, intellectual property and the flow of information and ideas rest in their hands, rather than in politicians or pundits.? The Net is well into its second generation, and it's changing.
Computing analysts and legal scholars increasingly believe that despite revolutionary advances like OS, the Net is moving away from its founders' vision. Although there's no single unifying architecture for cyberspace, the first-generation Internet more than fulfilled the early hackers insistence that information wants to be free. More information wants to be freer than anybody imagined.
But this has triggered growing political, cultural and economic conflicts, all likely to worsen in the coming years. Government is moving to establish Internet law, as in the Microsoft trial -- something it never bothered to do before. Companies battle to establish digital footholds. Media and cultural institutions - the media, Hollywood, Wall Street, the recording industry - demand legal measures to curb the Net's freedoms, fearing they undermine intellectual property, private content, and the marketing of products, information and culture, and the nature of capitalism itself.
Of course, almost almost everything about the Net, including the recent ascension of open source into a significant economic and cultural phenomenon, challenges the way hierarchical institutions have always operated. It has from the first. In the past few years, though, an entirely new kind of corporatist culture - shaped by behemoths like Microsoft and now AOL/Time-Warner - has come into being with resources, reach and power beyond any corporation before them.
These companies are all targeting the Internet as a primary source of profitability and growth. Not one of them - with the possible partial exception of IBM - has embraced or even flirted seriously with an open source model for doing business.
Microsoft, the inspiration and nearly-universal bete noir of the hacker/open source movement, is a stumbling giant now. But its legacy, Microsoftism, is thriving. It includes proprietary ideas about technology, a desire to dominate markets, a passion for mediocrity, an impulse to stifle individuality and competitive creativity. Call this new space The Corporate Internet, as an e-mailer named Gaeltact suggested.
Many of the architects of this evolving, second generation Internet come not from academe or engineering but from companies. They're beginning to build a different brand of architecture, focused on encryption, tracking software, closed spaces, patents and copyrights, and boundaries around intellectual property. The arrest of a Norwegian teenager for allegedly violating DVD software copyrights two weeks ago was a deliberately much-publicized warning, a symptom of these growing tensions. So are the recording industry's massively-funded efforts to develop powerful encryption technologies to thwart MP3 users and its growing legal confrontations with college and other music-dispensing Web sites. This is just a preview of many more conflicts to come.
Net and legal scholars like Harvard Law's Lawrence Lessig argue that the new architects will build in much greater levels of control. That is, in many cases, their mission. Traditional practices of capitalism and corporations depend on maintaining walls, on clearly-defined notions of content and property. The news on Slashdot, C-Net, Wired News and other techno-media, therefore, is increasingly about lawsuits, about efforts to stop the distribution of so-called intellectual property and block the spread of innovative software, about defining turf and collecting money.
Because so few non-geeks grasped the significance of the Internet early on, government officials, regulators, corporate executives and educators ignored it, allowing its architects and users to experiment and innovate. Now that everyone wants a piece of the action, the portents are troubling.
Education, journalism, business and politics are all highly constricted, not only by legal and economic concerns but by increasingly complex and volatile social pressures: the rise of a politically-correct ethos in public communications, encroachments on depictions of sex and violence. No newspaper will ever challenge the notion of God or challenge the fundamental structure of government and commerce.
In a sense, the architects of the Internet built a structure and space that enjoys a far stronger First Amendment that the framers of the Constitution provided (or that exists in most other countries, since the Net transcends the United States). As Lessig wrote, "Nations wake up to find that their telephone lines are tools of free expression, that e-mail carries news of their repression far beyond their borders, that images are no longer the monopoly of state-run television stations but can be transmitted from a simple modem."
Theoretical anonymity, de-centralized distribution, countless points of access, the sudden irrelevance of geography, sophisticated tools of encryption - these and other features of the Internet protocols made it virtually impossible to control speech on the Internet.
But Lessig adds, "there is no reason to believe that this initial flash of freedom will not be short-lived."
Lessig, along with high-tech journalists like Simson Garfinkel ("Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century," from O'Reilly), argues that new advances in technology, especially software, threaten both free speech and privacy. Marketers, medical institutions and insurers, and individual companies are gathering staggering amounts of data about individuals, students and employees.
This may shape up as one of the bitterest political struggles of the next generation, as an empowered army of technologically - advanced Netizens, programmers, geeks and nerds struggles to preserve privacy and the free nature of the Net, using tools most of us haven't begun to imagine. Some accessible examples of this experimental new architecture are weblogs (www.camworld.com); Slashdot's moderating sytem and Everything, a system (www.everything2.com) in which users can create nodes of information that link to one another -- almost like a neural communications system.
The issue really lies in the hands of the people who frequent sites like this one. Technology is volatile, fluid and inherently unpredictable. It often moves beyond technics and has broader social implications - Linux for example.
So this is an effort to talk about the second generation Internet. The idea, for anyone who wants to participate, is to begin to explore the kinds of ideas, software and hardware - the next generation of Internet architecture - that might preserve the original ideals and free nature of the Net and establish some broadly held rights and values.
This is virgin turf. As Lessig points out, the Net has taken conventional ideas about individual liberty and taken them farther than they've gone before. Some of the best guidelines might come from the recent and not so recent past. The GPL (General Public License: www.GNU.org), the open source programming license, has become a significant public document. This idea could be taken farther, and broadened. We could choose to do business only with sites and companies that subscribed to new understandings about freedom, openness and privacy.
Consider the ideas that predate primitive workstations with early computers. Or go back to the European cities of the eighteenth century. The philosophers of the Enlightenment undertook - without the means to communicate quickly with one another, let alone the rest of the world - a strangely relevant, eerily familiar program of secularism, humanity, and freedom. Their idea of freedom, as outlined by the historian Peter Gay, took a number of different forms: "freedom from arbitary power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom to realize one's talents, freedom of aesthetic response, freedom, in a word, of moral man to make his own way in the world." The Enlightenment took as its motto Emmanuel Kant's at-the-time radical "Sapere Aude" - Dare to Know. It's a shame none of them got to see the Net. Thomas Jefferson wrote passionately about a new kind of democratic culture in which ideas moved freely all over the globe. Ironically, many of these visions have come to life on the Net more powerfully than anywhere else.
This kind of discussion has at least two dimensions: First, what rights and freedoms to people want to preserve? And second, what kind of architecture - software and hardware -can do for this Internet generation what the Net protocols did for the last one?
The boundaries, length and nature of this discussion are up to you. You can take these starting points or reject them, add your own, change course, flame away, or ignore the conversation completely, in which case it will automatically vanish. Part two will be a representative sampling of e-mail, and of course, the conversation continues below on Threads.
To Jon Katz (Score:1)
Please go run into a wall head first.
Thank you.
Next IP needs region coding and ratings bits. (Score:1)
Get on the horn NOW and demand that Kongress/WIPO/Parliment/whatever-it's-called-where -you-live mandate these IP modifications immediately! And get the UN to impose harsh sanctions and air strikes, saturation bombings, etc., against nations that fail to do the right thing and implement these standards!
Tiny point to make about post #3. (Score:1)
Um.. Deaf people are perfectly capable of driving cars.. Deafness does not interfere with one's driving ablity the way being drunk, very old, mentally unstable, and blind does. As a deaf person, I know I drive well, and I know dozens of deaf friends who drive perfectly well..
Just a tiny nitpicker here.
A bit too excited? (Score:3)
I must say though, you did do some good research into the great thinkers of America, but you lack a bit in the Internet history.
----Charlie Benante
Re:Freedom? (Score:1)
Not that I wouldn't move there in a minute, if I could stand cold weather. (Since I can't, I moved to Arizona instead -- anti-education geezers, desert sunshine, and anti-everything Republicans, oh well, one out of three ain't bad!).
-E
Katz&Funny! (Score:1)
As soon as I saw that this article was written by Katz I pressed ^F in my little-tiny IE4 and entered FUNNY. All other comments were skipped
Re:No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:2)
It is the end of anonymity on the 'net. Some of the extra bits will identify you as a particular user, others will be for routing to your location. HTTP cookies would become redundant.
I assure you that by examining ISP logs, it is possable to identify you under IPv4 as well. The answer is anonymizing repeaters. A message goes out encrypted in the public key of the first hop. That message contains instructions to send it on to the next hop, and a message excrypted for the second anonymizing server. Repeat as necessary. All of the servers send logs to /dev/null. What comes out the other end is a message that cannot be traced back to it's source. The final repeater knows who got the message (but not what it said or where it came from). The first repeater knows where it came from (also not what it said and not where it is going).
Re:Freedom & Privacy (Score:2)
I can understand the large corporations of the Record and Film Industry having concerns on where their revenue is going to come from. They spend hundreds of millions creating digital information that can be put on the silver platter of the DVD/CD and find it has been distributed across the fiber to hundreds of thousands of people in minutes. They have found that Proprietary Encryption systems cannot work without seriously affecting the freedoms of their legitimate customers.
They should do what they have allways done. Go out on the net and try to download their own proprietary content. When successful, file charges against the provider. That's how they have done it since the first bootleg album or tape appeared, and it must work well enough since they are making billions. The whole debacle with CSS and such is about the same as an employee getting a paper cut and then suing when the employer refuses to provide a trip to the emergency room, specialists, and a month paid vacation.
I can understand that nobody wants to be ripped off, but it's time for a reality check. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff. Most people won't go to court unless they loose more than 1% of their actual income to a fraud. MPAA and RIAA apparently are a lot more petty than that. They also have a habit of inflating their damages to epic proportions.
Re:No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:2)
With IPv6, none of this rigamarole would be required. You would always be identified.
Really, it's all a matter of the ISP. If login/password authentication is used, you could probably rotate your MAC around every few minutes with no problems. If they depend on MAC for ID, it requires either the ISP or other user's cooperation to be 'soft' anonymous. For example, they could do NAT in their router and periodically change addresses for you, or you could arrange to cross route some traffic at random with other users of the ISP. Or once a week or so, call up the ISP and tell them your NIC failed and now you'll be using AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF.
One good possability is an expansion of anonymizer services so that you can tunnel to their server and it will do random NAT for you.
Re:No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:2)
Sure, all of this _could_ work. But what if your ISP won't cooperate, or cannot, because Courts view it as "irresponsible" not to embed userid in IP?
Granted, that could be a problem, but if the courts get involved, then it's a political problem rather than a technical one. Otherwise, ISPs will cooperate once enough people learn that they're being tracked online that way. All it will take to get the ball rolling for that is for a prominant and respected political figure to be listed as a frequent visitor to 'www.your-sickest-erotic-fantasies.com' based on the tracking.
A forwarder might not stand out that much at all. Many large networks use a squid proxy now to reduce upstream bandwidth requirements.
Aye, that's the rub... (Score:1)
When corporations and government are in each others' pocket rather than at each others' throats, it's a bad omen for the individuals.
Re:I agree (Score:1)
I'm unimpressed with the hype surrounding what the internet can do for me. I'm more impressed with what a Cable Modem or DSL can do for me. Now just make it a stock utility, like phone and electric service..
Bandwidth.. (Score:2)
Cheap, dependable broadband, and lots of it, everywhere. Wireless, even.
You give me bandwidth, and I can provide you with anything you want. Never mind streaming real video degraded signals down over your 56k modem. I'm talking streaming television, at full resolution. No matter the way you look at it, this requires a pipe to carry the data.
And, that's pretty much what the i2 provides. Bandwidth, and lots of it. Any research about how to use this bandwidth is a definate sidebar to actually getthing gigabit access to *RUN* those applications..
Re:Bandwidth.. (Score:2)
There are even companies providing this very solution. Unfortionatly, this still won;t help real time streaming applications. That still takes a big trunk, and, to do it well, a cheap one. No matter if I'm directly connected to the machine providing the stream, I still can't watch a movie on a 56k modem. Or even a 256k xDSL line, or cable modem.
Re:Bandwidth.. (Score:2)
52 - 1 (Data) - 1 (Extra, lesse voice) = 50.
50 / 2 (HDTV channels) = 25 M/bit each channel.
50 / 3 (Standard TV) = 16.x (Round to 16 and be nice)
I can get 20 HDTV channels on my existing cable.
20 * 25 = 500 M/bit.
I can get 60 "normal" channels.
60 * 16 = 960 M/bit.
Plus data at about the same speed, averaging up and downstream.
1 M/bit
Plus the same 1 for voice I gave you.
1 M/bit.
Wow, 1.4+ Gig/bit line into my house!! I didn't even know..
Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way.. xDSL lines provide higher speed capabilities, but still not a big enough pipe for the things that the future of the internet promise. If the computations above where true, then heck yea, but unfortionatly, it just doesn't work that way..
Re:Yes and no (Score:2)
Ok, let's say that each payed a total of $10 a YEAR, in an Internet tax. That makes $10 billion per year, in taxes.
You can't build a gigantic national fibre-optic grid overnight. Let's say that it takes 10 years to install the cable, hook up the routers, and get the entire system running. That makes a total of $100 billion.
You tell me that you couldn't build a decent national network across the US, linking everyone onto a broadband system, for $100 billion.
If you want, let's throw in some military funding, too. After all, they would value such a network, the same way that they valued and funded the building of the Interstate network in the US. (You =DO= know American history, right?) Say they match the public funding, and throw in $100 billion of their own, over the same timeframe.
You have $200 billion to spend on a mix of optic fibre, gigabit ethernet cable and 100 megabit ethernet cable. Tell me you couldn't do it. Just try telling me you couldn't scrape together that kind of network with that kind of money.
Once the cable is in place, what more money do you need to spend? Optic fibres don't rot that quickly. You don't need to allocate IP addresses - IPv6 takes care of that for you. Same with name allocation. Routers can be fitted with watchdog cards, and reboot themselves. That leaves -- what? Nothing. There is no low-level network service that is not already automatically and routinely handled by software and/or hardware.
Who could possibly have gotten it right in 1969? Anyone with brains. People thrive on knowledge and information. Humanity discovered that with the printing press. Hell, humanity discovered it with the introduction of writing! Repeating 4,000 year old mistakes is kind-of stupid, don't you think?
Even if you neglect such ancient history, look no further than the explosion of interest in radio and then television. Don't even TRY telling me they couldn't have known. They could have, and should have. That they didn't was SHEER NEGLIGENCE and nothing more.
I want broadband, but I want the corporations OUT. I don't care about taxes to Government - I vote for them, so I can kick them out if they misbehave. Ever tried kicking out a dictatorial corporate CEO?
America is -uniquely- founded on freedom?
- Find me a trail that matches, one for one, the freedoms allowed by even the smallest of the British Public Footpaths.
- The "Miranda Rights" have effectively been abolished in America. Name one European country that has been so blase' about civil liberty.
- Protesters at the WTO summit were subjected to beatings, tear-gas and other nice cocktails. Marches ten times that size have passed the length and bredth of Britain without incident.
- ABSOLUTE Freedom of speech is as old as Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. DON'T pretend, through national pride, that America invented the idea. It existed long before the Europeans ever REACHED America.
- Oh, and tell the native American tribes that they're free to go where they will, unhindered, to reclaim ALL their old territories, whilst you're at it. If you can't, your freedom means nothing. It exists only in the minds of those who can afford it.
- You might also want to tell the homeless that there'll be corporate-provided public transport for all. (HA!)
- And, whilst you're at it, tell the schools and other public places that they've total freedom of religious expression, so long as it doesn't interfere or impair others.
You can't, can you. Your freedom is an illusion.Yes and no (Score:4)
If the concept of information freedom had not already existed, it would never have occured to anyone that the Internet provided a medium by which it could be firmly established.
Second, I disagree that the Internet has revolutionised anything. The revolution had already happened. The Internet simply provided a means to deliver. That's all.
Third, I disagree that this is about the cost of connection. There are plenty of public terminals. (Or do Libertarians ignore those, the same way they denigrate and smear other public concepts, such as public transport, public footpaths, etc.) Yes, it's true that having a computer in your own home, with an Internet connection, isn't cheap. But, it's the computer that's the primary cost, not the connection. More people can afford to shell out $8 a month than can afford $1,000 in a single day.
However, publicly-available terminals mean that you don't NEED to have your own computer. You don't NEED to pay the frankly absurd prices in Internet Cafe's. You just go down to your local public computer lab, and connect. NO COST, BESIDES TIME.
Fourth, I agree that broadband access NEEDS to be realised. However, that alone is not enough. The method by which information is conveyed is very inefficient. There NEEDS to be multicasting, IPv6, Quality of Service protocols such as CBQ, RED, ECN and RSVP, automatic babdwidth throttling to prevent processes getting out of control, etc.
Fifth, the Internet does not have a Constitution, that is correct. That is because (much to the disgust of many Americans, who want to invade it), the Internet IS NOT AMERICAN!!! It is multi-national, and owes no allegiance to any flag or government. Until America wakes up to the fact that it is NOT at the centre of the Universe (the MPAA just proves it's industries even believe this patheticly egotistical self-deceit), it will never mature. It may be at the heart of technology, but socially it's never grown up. It's still an infant, wailing whenever anyone takes away it's toys.
Last, but maybe most importantly of all, I believe that the Internet can be a force of good, a constructive environment, and a healthy environment. I believe that this can only happen if the corporate sector is taken totally out of the loop. The Internet must not be run as a business. That's why ICANN can't. It's only when there are no vested interests, that genuine interest is possible.
It is only when the Internet becomes a network of national networks, each of which is a network of regional networks, each of which is a network of local networks, =ALL= of which are run by technically-oriented volunteers who's one objective is to provide a service, can the Internet blossom.
With such a network, geographically aligned but not geographically confined, you don't tie up bandwidth over in Paris or Sydney, when transmitting high-bandwidth streams across the street. At present, badly-wired networks, static or poorly-selected routes, and incompetent admins are all you need to get exactly that kind of nightmare scenario.
How is it a nightmare? Beyond packet loss and lag (which are extreme over those kinds of distances), you also need to consider the taxes many nations are considering on Internet traffic, especially international traffic. As you can't specify a route, at source, (or at least, you shouldn't be able to, for security reasons), you can't decide by what path your data will travel. So, you might end up paying international levies to send the guy next door an e-mail.
Sorry, but that's NOT ok. But it's exactly what a libertarian, free-market version of the Internet has become. It's cheaper to mis-manage, and charge, than to do the job properly in the first place.
In the situation I'm envisaging, such abuses would be impossible. A connection would ALWAYS follow the shortest possible path available to it, which would ALWAYS be a sensible path.
Also, as things stand, the Internet is fault-intolerent. If a router goes down, or a cable is severed, that entire segment of the Internet is kaput.
The Internet was designed with the idea of surviving a full-scale nuclear attack, but it can't even cope with a single workman's shovel?? Something is wrong with this picture. Seriously wrong.
Again, the idea of a multi-tier system of the kind I've proposed above, would involve multiple paths within a node, between any two points, and multiple paths between any two nodes. THIS is where the Internet =SHOULD= be and was =DESIGNED TO BE=. The searching for profit over quality ended that, but if there is to be a future for the Internet, beyond being merely a spam & shopping mall, that ideal has to be restored and the corporate sector ousted. Forever.
Re:Freedom? (Score:1)
Really? Could you tell us where that is, and what the immigration requirements are?
I don't think our Constitution is particularly lacking, but there's no question we're cursed with some of the most arrogant and clueless lawmakers anywhere.
Grrr ... (Score:2)
Yes, that quote's taken straight from Katz. You figure out the grammar.
Anyway, it's this type of thinking that completely pisses me off. There are laws on the Internet and they're the same laws that you live by every day. If someone hacks into your system, that's a federal law. If someone takes GPL source, modifies it, and distributes it binary-only without source, that's a violation of the license. If someone slanders me on the 'Net, I can take that information and proceed to court. The people who set up the Internet weren't thinking about laws and rules. They were thinking about systems and data. To say that the 'Net is without laws or protections is naive. It's governed by the same rules that the 'real world' is. Why? Because it's part of the real world. If you break a law on the 'Net, you are breaking a law period. You're not any different because you're on your computer rather than on the street. You do not become a different kind of person because you sit in front of a monitor.
<rant type="petty">
Maybe Katz should try actually saying something insightful rather than repeating the rhetoric of paranoids and brats. He might actually get published in a magazine where he doesn't have to rely on his readers to make it worth something (that is a compliment of Slashdot and its readers, not a criticism).
</rant>
The 'net HAS a Constitution of sorts... (Score:2)
This is not entirely accurate. RFCs define 'bylaws' of communications protocols and necessary prerequisites of 'membership' in the Internet, and even define privacy rights (here [isi.edu], here [isi.edu], and here [isi.edu], among others) and openness (SMTP [isi.edu] being the first and most common that springs to mind). The concept of property is hotly debated, but will at some point probably be covered by a mechanism defined by an RFC.
You might rebut that these concepts are merely the definition of mechanisms by which discourse on the 'net is defined and regulated. But I ask you, is the Constitution not itself merely a document which defines mechanisms for human discourse (by laying the groundwork for the definition of law and administration of government)? I would go so far as to say that app-layer RFCs are to laws as TCP/IP is to the Constitution...
Your Working Boy,
Re:Community rights .... (Score:1)
You appear to have bought into the MPAA tautology!
Hamish
Yo!! (Score:1)
Yo! Jon! Respect! Yo! My man!
Jesus H. Christ... What is this? A Jewish version of Father Trendy?
Re:A correction (Score:1)
> for mediocrity."
Heh, heh. Would this mean that people who use MS software also have a passion for mediocrity? Sure seems like it. Er, JK, perhaps you could explain what exactly are those `?'s that keep appearing in strange places in your articles? It couldn't be that the software you're using is from... no, no, forget it, that's too obviously absurd even to contemplate... I mean, the great antiMS icon JK couldn't be using... no, he couldn't... could he?
No leader (Score:1)
I don't ever see a leader of the Net, or a leader of geeks..Incompatible, I think..But that doesn't mean people can't gather on some broad principles..And no, absolutely not..OS is a choice, not a religion.
Writing software (Score:1)
I don't think there are any set of rules that could run the Net..But some understandings..the OS license, for example..do have impact. And people who write software are going, like it or not, to determine how the Net is used. I don't think it's matter of issuing rules. I think it's writing software with a particular purpose and consciousness, just as the people who designed the Net in the lst place did. Don't underestimate yourself. As a programmer you can do things someone like me can't even imagine.
I think it does (Score:1)
The head of the Justice Department's MS legal team said in several interviews that he believes the trial will begin setting Internet law regarding corporate practices. I disagree. I think the government and the judiciary are definitely and quite openly moving to set some Net law, as seems inevitable.
Wow.. (Score:1)
\
I thought this was a great, clear and powerful post.
Sure.. (Score:1)
The U.S. congress, which has passed not one but two decency acts..RIAA which has filed scores of lawsuits to shut down college music sites...MPA, which is looking for geeks to lock up for using DVD source code, the ABA, suing to shut down websites that provide legal info for free that lawyers charged thousands for..I could go on for quite awhile.
Pretty powerful... (Score:1)
...and insightful, too
Uh...hello (Score:1)
Anybody but me heard of Jonathan Postel and the Internet Society and all the work they did designing the Net protocols to keep them open and free? E-mail me, I can steer you to lots of books and articles.
This is the stuff that needs to get out.. (Score:1)
Dummies like me don't know this, and it's essential that this kind of info get out, I think. This was incredibly helpful to me, and useful, and thanks for it, Jurgen.
An ideology and a tool (Score:1)
I think this is a great and interesting post, though I don't completely agree with it. The Net is a tool that makes a number of different ideologies possible. Standing on a street corner ranting isn't the same as going online and having access to all sorts of people all over the world. That's the ideological part of the Net and has been from the first. But the technology is definitely a tool.
Re:It doesn't have to be technically complex! (Score:1)
Some good ideas in above post (Score:2)
This might be an interesting cryptographic challenge: To create a kind of encrypted database that can be read by everyone, but which has all records encrypted based on many records so nothing, once added, can be removed without permanently damaging everything.
A mimimal anonymous network thats off limits to anyone but individuals...no companies allowed (and hence no advertising)...that also runs encapsulated on the global internet. Something like what fidonet used to be.
Running your (well, our) own TLD (like
Re:Who's the librarian? (Score:1)
Re:A bit too excited? (Score:3)
Out of context - Partially right. Assuming the context used - plain wrong. The actual relationship is: information is a prerequisite to freedom. no information = no freedom
Ok, but lets review principles of governtment Mr. Katz. For a democracy to exist, there must be a leader. As it stands, the net is far far far from a democracy. It is, at best, anarchy in action.
Three points:
Who told you that democracy requires a leader in first place.
In second place I will quote the founder of anarchy: "Anarchy is the best form of government, though hardly achievable". So what is so bad about the presumed anarchy (it is only presumed, see below)?
Who told you that the net is anarchy at all. It looks like anarchy from a "clueless luser" point of view. From a designer/engineer/mathematician point of view:
Re:To Jon Katz (Score:1)
Bad Mojo
Re:Da NET (Score:1)
Re:Wants in a new ISP (Score:2)
Hmmm (Score:2)
How to route around those who'd control the Net (Score:2)
Somehow we need to get the spontanaity of routing back to a point where the Net is an amorphous, uncontrollable thing which routes around the damage of censorship and control. If my ISP starts to filter packets which contain information of which the government doesn't approve, I need to be able to use an underground backup network, to get the packets to my buddies. Now with straight IPv4 this isn't possible because to implement the routing to make this happen I would need an ASN and talk BGP to my ISP and the underground Net... and my ISP isn't going to let me talk BGP to them unless I buy a lot more bandwith than individuals can afford.
It may be that IPv6 offers some new possibilities here (btw., ignore the people who cry about the 128bit IP numbers costing you privcacy, they don't know what they're talking about) but this is far from clear yet.
Another possibility is a meta-net... a virtual network on top of IP which implements an underground network. This would work the same way that the MBONE and 6-BONE (the test networks for multicasting and IPv6) worked. If fully encrypted the carriers couldn't do much about it unless they prohibited all encrypted traffic. This wouldn't be very efficient because the "routers" for this virtual net would often be behind several slow hops of the underlying real net, but we may be forced to go that route.
Other options, some of which have been in use for quite a while, are various application-level networks: anonymous remailers, peer-to-peer networking on top of IRC, Netnews, etc. Some of these need to be overhauled for the zips (the first decade of the 2000s).
The Man can never win completely... the question is will those of use who want to be beyond control by the Man be forced to some highly marginal underground, or will there be a huge vibrant culture which cannot be reigned in? The choice, I think, is ours, but we need to stay a step ahead...
- Jürgen
There is more that can be said about this.
Give it up... (Score:2)
But even with things like "The GNU public license, the open source license", Katz reveals that he's a buzzword junkie, not a part of this community, not a person who cares about this community.
I don't think everyone has to be a techie. But I do think we need to expect pundits to have a basic understanding of what they're talking about.
Katz, spend a while thinking about what you want to say. Come up with a thesis statement. Come up with support for it. Then come back.
All Data All The Time (Score:1)
So you can track the minute-by-minute value of my stock portfolio and I can track the minute-by-minute value of your blood pressure.
OK? If not, where/how do we draw a line?
Or, we decide that this is coming, like it or not. Now what?
Who do you want online with you? (Score:2)
As a matter of fact, I do want those people on the net. Unlike the drunk driver on the highway, the drunk on the net can't hurt me. Script kiddies grow up, and may even become valued contributors to the net (don't ask me how I know this). If they were denied access, they might well become bitter, resentful and far more dangerous.
I just haven't decided whether I want ConHugeCo and their lawyers on the net. But then that decision isn't mine to make.
In an ideal world... (Score:2)
In an ideal world that would be true. But humans don't always act ideally. The way it really works is more like the following:
If individuals are their own librarians, they will stock and lead themselves to what they want to know.
It's still far preferable to letting government or corporations determine what information people have access to, but it's important to remember that what people want to know and what they need to know are not necessarily the same thing.
Re:Ford PC's (Score:1)
OS: Windows 98
Who owns the PC: The employee
Fee: $5 per month for the Internet Access.
Ability of the company to access the home PC: none AFAIK.
It looks as if those numbskulls at Ford are giving away 300,000+ PC's
The article I read cited a bunch of reasons for this including attempts to enhance computer literacy, part of the UAW negotiations, and enhancement of their public image. Hmm...good PR, more computer savvy employees, better labor relations, (perhaps less wasted computer time at work?). No, no...they must want to spy on their employees...it's the only logical explanation!
shutup yourself..... [idiot] (Score:1)
not my fault you suffer from autism and cannot grasp the difference between first and third person.
Freedom & Privacy (Score:2)
Does information have it's own intrinsic value? Should an equivalent value be transferred from the information receiver to the information provider to balance the transaction? These are issues that should remain the decision of the Information Provider, whether they make a sound decision or not depends on their marketing strategy.
There are many issues. Valuable information can be "freely" distributed. But for the information provider they must feel there is something in it for them. Be it Corporate Marketing in order to sell another product, OpenSource "Payback". Whatever their motivation it will almost always be quite rational.
I can understand the large corporations of the Record and Film Industry having concerns on where their revenue is going to come from. They spend hundreds of millions creating digital information that can be put on the silver platter of the DVD/CD and find it has been distributed across the fiber to hundreds of thousands of people in minutes. They have found that Proprietary Encryption systems cannot work without seriously affecting the freedoms of their legitimate customers. Copy Protecting / Copy Cracking is now an age old problem that we all know will never go away. Every system has an effective loophole as there has to be someway that the legitimate user can use the information provided. The only hope is to keep on changing the system and try to stay in front of the crackers.
The success of Open Source has shown the two-way benefits from not assigning a $ value to information. By continuing in it's success Open Source will either prove itself to be the benchmark that others should follow or it will fizzle out and become insignificant.
Re:Bandwidth.. (Score:2)
Community rights .... (Score:2)
<B>The right to choose
<B>The right to improve
<B>The right to exclude
I keep thinking of the old Star Trek Prime Directive not to interfere. In our (OK some obnoxious greedy sods) rush to create new markets for new toys in the name of first-mover advantage, first-post bragging rights, etc
LL
Re:It doesn't have to be technically complex! (Score:1)
Some things I've done:
1. Support organizations, like EFF, who are already organizing along these lines - sometimes concentrating efforts can have more effect than diffuse resistance.
2. Write letters to and support traditional consumer/free-speech advocacy organizations and start getting some of them on board. These organizations have provided some measure of balance in the past dealing with more traditional types of corporate agression, and many of them have a lot of resources which could be brought to bear once they see the danger and realize that this is a long-term fight.
Re:discussion (Score:1)
Internet is about Capitalism, and Porn, and Fanboys and Spam and invasion of privacy.
Capitalism is about Money, and property and rights and responsibilities and supporting our need for new shiny things.
Responsibility is only a bad thing if you are unwiling to accept it.
<i>IS THERE ANY ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FORMATION AFTER CAPITALISM OR IS THERE ONLY BETTER AND BETTER CAPITALIM?</i>
[Government Markets][Command Economy]
[Black Markets][Response to Command]
[Grey Markets][Response to Regulation]
[Capitalism][Demand Economy]
For the most part we in US are capitalists. However, government regulation has drawn us to Grey markets for things like toilets, and the dubious practice of purchasing SUVs via loopholes. We use black markets to get Drugs and other sundry things. In few places we have command economy in place. Rent control is a good example of a command economy. While you are free to rent anywhere under a certain ceiling in rent control areas, landlords are restricted. Somebody lost some economic freedom in the deal.
<i>are we in the end of history?</i>
We always are at the end of history. We just happen to be at the front end.
<i>now I am reading
http://www.cato.org/pubs/books/simplerules.html
Looks like an interesting book. I shall check it out.
Re:discussion (Score:1)
Glory Glory Halleigh-boo-ya (Score:2)
I can see the second internet going down the tubes to more of the same crass commercialization Internet.1 is all about. We have brought it from from a research medium to an entertainment medium in a period of 4 years.
When I started out in 92, I was dialing up into a shell account on a Sun Solaris system. A local company was gracious enough to allow an account for about 9 or so students in my local high school. This was my first experience with the Internet and UNIX.
At first, I had no idea what this was all about (my experience to this point was ATARI and DOS computers) and I couldn't get past trying for a directory listing (they hadn't aliased ls to dir) so I gave up for a few months. I was about 16 or so at the time, and didn't know my way around UNIX yet. To make a long story short, I learned eventually, and figured out nn and trn and lurked for a while. I switched to a commercial ISP and dialed direct to a shell, while still using dos until about 1996 when I bought a more powerful computer.
Then things started running downhill for both the internet and BBSing. My friend's computer, with which ran the bbs went with him to CMU. People were really dissapointed and we delivered a
The net was starting to pick up at this point, and I finally got a more modern system (slightly at 33mhz
The big problem (and I see this when I play with Iniquity or Renegade or Aciddraw) is that the web has made computers bloated. The interface of PPP through a Browser to a user has killed a few things. Mostly, it killed the personality of a lean Unix shell. Lynx still does it right. KISS principal in action, at least until recent versions.
Usenet is dying, replaced by online forums in html format. Shell accounts are rare, and I'm on one of the last ones in the area still hanging on in thi sarea. The www has become a big bloated, dead-linked spam-ridden pig.
These days, I keep up with things on about 4 sites, otherwise I overload. Slashdot, Freshmeat, Ars, and C|Net News.com. I picked these sites because they are simple, light, and get you information ASAP. That is interface design at its best. Because features are out there, doesn't mean you should use them.
I predict THAT is the reason Internet 2 will be more of the same.
Ford Motor Co using What OS in its Cheap PCs? (Score:1)
What kind of hardware and PC will be provided? Choices on the part of employees?
What work/home boundaries may be violated?
What information might FoMoCo choose to block from its corporate subscribers?
Beware taking gifts from the Devil.
The Internet and copyright (Score:1)
One way to avoid this would be to create a new internet that would be uberencrypted and possible to break only by users, and even then only in the procesing of transmissions which they are allowed to see (so, if one is going through the correct protocals, then one can see sites on this internet and if one sends and receives mail, one can only see mail that they send or were sent). In this way, the status quo ante could be restored by keeping those who would enforce copyrights from being able to. The main limitation here is in breaking from the current standards or using the old ones and graphing new ones on to form a new network or one on top of the currently existing one. Either way, such a change produces a major shift that will likely take time to adjust to.
The Internet is much like the West in the 1800s, that by the 1900s was begining to become civilized. While government supports like to romaticize the idea that the gold strike towns and life on the open range were wild, savage, and violent with no respect for property (as corporate America trys to tell us that the Internet is a crazy place with all sorts of bad stuff happening on it), the reality was that spontanious order came out of the anarchy and offered far Westerners the opertunity to live a free life and to settle probelms for themselves. Not until the Internet has another place and time existed where so much freedom existed. Whether the Internet goes the way of the West or blazes new trails depends on how effectively its supporters can defend it and the liberty it offers.
i.e., Microsoftism (Score:3)
Rant about your sig (Score:2)
We are slashdot. I am slashdot. <b>You are slashdot.</b>
I suppose you make that statement beleiving that we are open source zealots that see every propietary program as evil. You are one of us, though. Oh, wait! You mean everyone but you? Er? That doesn't make sense either, does it? So you mean the vocal majority, or is that the vocal minority? Then what about the unvocal majority?
I don't care about who the majority is. I don't represent slashdot anymore than you do. I believe what I believe and I am very secure in my beliefs.
Now about the open source critism. For about 20 years users have used propietary software. Why do you think they used propietary software? Because they didn't know about source code and they didn't know how much power that source code held. They still don't. Now users are controlled by large companies like AOL and Corel. The latest version of AOL, I've heard, disconnects you from other ISPs and causes their computers to crash. And because AOL are the only one's with the source code, they are in control and are the only one's with the power to fix it. If they choose to.
What about Corel? I don't know if they harm their customers the way AOL has but still, Corel has locked up the source also. You can't change Word Perfect. An administrator can't get someone to fix a flaw in Word Perfect or fix it in house. And if Linux was under the X license and GNU was under the X license, do you really think Corel Linux would be free software?
So us closed-minded zealots have two things to protect us: the GPL copyleft and our community. The copyleft and our community demands that the software does not become propietary, both legally and socially. For years we have used propietary software without knowing how we were being controlled. I don't think you are aware how you are being controlled. You see the technology and how it benefits you but you fail to look beyond the technology. Beyond the technology lies users, the future, and who serves who in the software market. Where are we going to be tommorrow? Ask Microsoft, ask Apple, ask Corel. But for God's sake don't ask me or you or Joe User. We do not have any say. This is what the Free Software Movement is all about. Freedom for users. Everyone.
These are not the words of a closed mind. These are the words of someone who is secure in his beleifs. You have confused to the two.
Re:Rant about your sig (Score:2)
<i>Next time you feel the need to "defend"
Did you read my post? a) and b) are in there.
I agree (Score:2)
Re:No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:3)
This is the most absurd nonsense I have heard in many years!
IPv6 is meant to solve a very big problem, namely a close run-out of vacant IP numbers. As it is now, several things have been done to delay the run-out: The old A-classes are being reclaimed, since no organisation may sit on 16 million IP numbers when the third world is starving (on IP's too). The C-classes are neither handed out anymore without a prove or demonstrated likeliness of the need -- you don't get it, just by asking.
The new protocol will make it possible to give IP's freely without a lack or smallness. It is so that 48 bits alone is set aside for a MAC number, which in itself should be unique. This still yields 80 (or 76 if you are nitty-gritty) bits left for routing -- more than the double number of bits in IPv4, meaning that there could be a whole internet behind each IP number of IPv4 and we still talk about addresses on the routing level.
This combined with the other features (dynamic allocation/routing, bigger packets, multi-/any-casting etc.) should convince us, that the sooner we get IPv6 in action the better.
That said, we still want our anonymity. First of all, we don't want intruders into our systems. This kind of privacy is not affected by the big migration, except maybe for the fact that the masquerating system often is the the firewall, per se.
Secondly, we don't want meenies to catalog us, from the crude kind we know from spamming to the subtile kind in registrating our IP numbers, when we just surf around. As you see it, this is easlier done, when we all have separate IP numbers. But the IP number will be of very shortlived value. Most IP numbers will change as the net reorganises itself and be of very little value after that. Secondly, nothing hinders your organisation from hidding the host part (48 bits earlier mentioned) and do a secret one-to-one match network address translation.
Thirdly, we may at times want to further disguise our doings on the net. We may want to send anonymous letters, browse pages that don't concern others etc. This may be done by relay application placed on the net for the same purpose and here lays a work to be done by freedom fighters. Just remember: as it is the right to be anonymous, it is too the right of other people not response to anonymous requests. So the freedom goes both ways.
The point here is: IPv6 is a stronger tool for an increasingly larger Internet. It may be used or abused like everything else, but it is not in it self designed to be pro control. Think axe here: bigger axe do better job, smaller axe cuts less fingers.
We are ON the second generation internet. (Score:2)
TCP didn't replace NCP until the 1st of January 1983, about 14 years after the first packets flowed.
hmm.. (Score:2)
[a] A way to transmit data and store it in a publically accessible way anonymously on an anonymous network of servers or equivalent in multiple countries...with no control over the servers contents by their owners (i.e. theyre not responsible for whats on the servers and cant remove the data on them..mostly text of course)
[b] An anonymous way to distribute files across the net in a secure manner (crypto protected)..something like the eternity server concept.
[c] A mimimal anonymous network thats off limits to anyone but individuals...no companies allowed (and hence no advertising)...that also runs encapsulated on the global internet. Something like what fidonet used to be.
This is probably wishful thinking but with everyone going DSL and 24/7 should be possible..
Freedom for most is the freedom to be left alone. (Score:3)
Personally I'm not very concerned with the privacy issues raised by Katz.
Why?
Because by the death of DIVX and by the current popular attitudes towards the DVD lawsuits and the rejection by the general public of technologies which are not "easy to use" (translation: which technologically blocks fair use), I suspect the technology controls that corporations are trying to put in place to block the general public from using intellectual properties they paid for will wither and die on the vine.
Personally if given the choice of buying copy-protected music on the net which (a) only can be played on my computer and not in my car, and (b) could be lost if my hard disk crashes, or buying a CD, I'll buy a CD. That's because a CD is more convenient. MP3s are only taking off in the way they are because they are more convenient than a CD--in particular you can burn a CD-ROM with your music and protect them in case of a hard disk crash, and you can copy them into a portable player or archive them in one location.
But this only outlines a larger battle: the battle between security and ease-of-use. Already you can read newspaper articles about various CIA employees who circumvent their secure home workstations in order to copy highly secret data to insecure home PCs because they want to get their work done. Popular are technologies which circumvent security precautions, such as cookies in lew of password-protected security on shopping sites, and the Macintosh's Key Chain and similar Windows technologies which remember passwords for you.
People want ease of use as much as they want security. And when the security is not in their own personal best interest (such as protecting the intellectual property of the music conglomerates), they tend to say "screw security, I want to play my Madonna music files in my car."
I think the corporations have an uphill battle on their hands. And I think eventually they'll lose--unless they can come up with a technology that is easy to use as a CD and doesn't invade their lives, people will simply resort to older technologies.
For most, freedom is the freedom to be left alone. Forcing people to remember arcane passwords, techniques and telling them "you can't play your music in the car unless you pay me twice" isn't leaving them alone: it's invading their lives in ways that most folks could do without.
Re:Freedom and the Internet (Score:2)
And if you want to go independent of an ISP's possible content restrictons, a DSL line isn't out of reach for middle income Americans. I'm going to be moving my personal site, and starting a few new sites, on a home network of cheap used PCs with a 192k SDSL line; costs me $137 a month, plus a couple bucks for the electricity. I wouldn't spend that much just for kicks, I do expect to eventually make a few bucks off web services - but, some people do spend that much on cellphone or long distance bills. You can get a few folks together and split the cost, or find someone (like me) with a DSL line who will let you put stuff on their server for a few bucks.
So, publish away. If you've got something to say and a reasonable amount of tech-savvy, there's no reason not to say it on the web. The only real barriers are those of knowledge and comfort with the technology. Censorship looms as a possible future problem, but for now seems limited to things like the DeCSS harassment - which, while very serious, only affects a small portion of net communication.
Technology vs. Freedom (Score:2)
The solution, of course, is that we can never have the right to pursue technological knowledge taken out of the hands of the people. Once it becomes illegal to learn how things work unless you are an authorized person, you've basically made a certain level of technological illiteracy mandatory. Illiterate people are not as effective at opposing injustive as literate people, and this goes for the technological realm as well as any other.
I believe that the small battles (and they are small. Nasty though the battle against the MPAA is, it is no where near as nasty as future battles will be if this precedent is set) we are fighting now will determine what kind of future we are going to have. In the past, governments were more limited in what they could do, but technology is changing that. The crime rate is falling not because people are better now than they had been, but because it has become far easier for the state to track you down if you oppose it. New technologies are going to increase the power of the state by a huge factor. If we want we can make a future in which even the most minor and mild infraction of any law will take an infinitesmal amount of resources to stop, the only price we will pay is the freedom to live without state interference.
It occurs to me that we need certain rights encoded (or rather re-encoded) firmly into law, because things are happening now that didn't use to be possible. In the past, the only thing people had to fear from books, movies and music was persecution for consuming content that was on the censor's hit list. But now corporations are trying to change "you bought the book" to "you've bought the right to read our book." If this becomes truth, then it will be a fundemental change to human life, and a bad one.
No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:2)
I see user-selected anonymity as a cornerstone of the phenomenal growth of the 'net. When you want to read or write something that you fear would subject you meddling or critisism from busybodies, you can currently do so anonymously easily. Dial-up accounts and dynamic IP addresses make user tracing difficult.
Of course, there are always those control-addicts who will mention that anonymity assists criminals, and others who do things they don't like. That is the price of freedom. No-one ever said freedom was free, or even cheap. Unfortunately, control-addicts do not value freedom for others. By piercing anonymity, you stifle many activies.
Re:A bit too excited? (Score:2)
He didn't say that. He said there isn't an organized conspiracy, which is a little bit different. Remember Hanlon's Razor: do not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Not everyone in media is stupid, but there's enough Not Seeing The Big Picture that everyone's little bit o' spin accumulates (gomi's Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum for Media).
A lot of news-media stories either (a) come straight from AP or (b) someone's press release. Sure. That doesn't automagically imply there's some Evil Konspirakii arm-twisting the Media into Keeping the People Down.
Easy availability of alternate data on the net, however, makes getting different angles on a story not only easy but nigh-inevitable. Humans have bias, inevitably -- we're not perfectly rational creatures. But it behooves every consumer of data to filter it and pass judgement on its quality, and to seek out other data if that quality is lacking.
gomi
Economics (Score:2)
I think there are a couple of things I can disagree with in this. For one, I think that you are underestimating the economic disparity that is keeping the poor off the net right now. Sure, Netzero can get some people online, but can it buy them a computer and a 56k modem? Current schemes for getting a free computer (unless you live in CA and managed to defraud Microsoft in the MSN deal) involve paying out decent sums of money over a very long term, something that the working poor don't need more of. There are computers available through civic centers and that sort of thing, but these are few, far between, and frequently in pretty poor shape unless you are really fortunate.
The Internet disparity is very real. A lot of people are touting the internet as the medium of the future for universal free expression, but at the moment it is restricted to the middle and upper classes. Another aspect of this is that the less money you have, the less opportunity you have to aquire the technical know-how to operate succesfully on the Internet. This situation is being helped by simpler software interfaces, but you still have to get that software in order to learn.
I think it is a little rash to compare people who are too poor to own computers or pay for internet services as the electronic equivalent of blind people on the highway or child molesters. I agree that I would just as soon not be beset by script kiddies and kiddie porn on the net, but frankly I haven't had too much trouble with either of them. They might form some of the noise in the background, but it's no worse than the "undesirables" at the local shopping mall. I think the point is that if the internet is really going to be a medium for the real exchange of new ideas we have to have everyone online. The internet is about communication and the exchange of ideas, or at least that was the origonal idea (yes, it was designed to be a communication medium in the event of a nuclear war. But it was also designed to allow universities to exchange information about research in the meantime). If we are really going to give everyone in the country a voice, we have to get more people computer literate and online. This means especially the poor, who have just as big a stake in the world around them as anyone else. And while the Internet is more than just someone's idea of a nifty Jeffersonian politicol forum, it is also more than a platform for programmers to pat themselves on the back or to exchange cracked copies of Quake over FTP. The Internet is a huge information resource, something you understand very quickly once you've had a fast 24/7 connection for a while. Every person can contribute something to that body of knowledge if we let them, and certainly every person can benefit from it. If we lump the poor with other undesirables, we are depriving everyone of the benefit of their knowledge, and we're making the Internet one more old boy network for those in the know.
freedom by accident? (Score:2)
As the internet grew and stopped being purely in the realms of universities, it had to change to fit demands.
Crackers forced the use of passwords and firewalls.
Goverments forced the creation of civil liberites groups such as the EFF.
Parts of the changes are in the way it connects together, part of the changes affect the outside world.
Privacy is important, freedom of speech is important.
The Internet gives people a platform to be heard and to appeal to like minded people.
This is the freedom that needs to be maintained in the future. We don't want to be able to trace a single voice, or to be sued if we feel we are doing the right thing in the face of an opressive system. We want to be able to speak our minds.
Re:No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:2)
Sure, you may use the same host all the time, but I bet your ISP will still use DHCP to give you a random-ish address.
Besides, most hacker-type people (like myself) are more interested in getting a stable IP for hosting with
Earthweb, an excellent book (Score:2)
For Marc and Baen, if you are reading this, a sequel would be welcome. The story left that possibility open while not desparately screaming for it like far too many books these days.
Dammit, someone keeps changing history. (Score:2)
--
vocabulary (Score:2)
This new network is often referred to as the next generation Internet. You might want to be a bit more cautious in the vocabulary your using in this article. Some of it already has some well defined connotations in the industry.
I disagree (Score:2)
I really would like to know what kind of information you are refering. I think that the protocols themselves that just basically allow you to talk to Aunt Edna isn't exactly real information. We don't have total information. Now maybe in your little world information dosn't make you free however I am one to disagree. You see if I have enough information about things I can get untimate freedom.
Suppose I can predict the future and say can anticipate exactly how anyone could kill me, how I could get into any sort of accident, or get any disease. Now I can prepare for all these things and with unlimited information I can even cure these things.
Granted this is not ultimately how it totally works however it is how most of the information in the world approaches. The internet because it has information make us all free and allows us to survive. It used to be that the only people who knew how to truely read in Europe were people in the Church back in the Middle ages. Eventually kings figured it out but until Gutenberg made that little gaget called the printing press we didn't have anything. We were all slaves to others. When people began to read we eventually had developments like the US Constitution.
The same can be said that many people can't afford a car and that many don't have the skills to drive a car. What makes the net so different though is that many companies provide a "free-ride" (ie NetZero) and software is getting
dumbed down. But is this what we want? Do you really want everyone online. Just as you don't want drunk-drivers, mentally ustable, extremley elderly, or blind/deaf people on you highways, do you want child molesters, script
kiddies, etc on the net? Be carfeul what you wish for...
Ohhh big deal. Did your new bently get mashed up by some 16 year old drunk? I don't think you understand the principal here. As I have argued and argued and argued here on slashdot you cannot turn what is supposed to be an openforum or an open system of protocols and exclude the people *you* don't like.
We grew out of this largely because of all the gentleman's club type atnosphere of times like the late 1800's and early 1900's. Most likely if you lived in America (and not everyone does or did) you were the parents of immigrants. Those groups were constantly excluded by calling them all sorts of titles that made them look really bad and shifty. I can't say that I can blame some people for trying to get revenge for what their forefathers had done unto them however I cannot say that I like your attitude of exclusion I really can't say that I savor closing the internet just so you boss can get his daily dose of porn'n'quotes for the day or so that you can play quake III arena in peace each and every night.
What I truely care about is access. Figuratively that homeless bum or that stupid kid in that leather jacket or that kid who smashed your bently last week has/had just as much right to be there as you. People who want to exclude come one step closer to being like good ol' Adolf a day at a time.
No, it is getting closer. The original idea was for information to travel cross-country in case of a nuclear war. And I would say it has accomplished that.
God do people always have to specifically say what they indent nowadays. He meant in the traditional sence with the development of the http protocol and adoption of things such as web browsers and such. Maybe going to the BBS days of the 80's but that's a stretch. You must understand that when people say internet in popular usage mean that recent developments.
Now seriously do you really think that in the event that H bombs go flying around and large city centers are actually hit that anyone let alone the government could reasonably expect to communicate and would it do them any good? Not really.
Getting back to your problem is that we are seeing a partial fultilment of the kind of widespread use and adoption in some areas and a bit of information is ther however we can't really see the forest for the trees and quality has gone downhill with shiny new bells and whistles.
So in reality I think that we have strayed from the founders (the true founders unless you think that 5 star generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the NSA actually does all the internet startups or created geocities).
Is that bad? Everything doesn't have to be OPENSOURCE, GPL, LINUX, etc. And companies other than IBM have tried opensource models (ie OpenDK, OpenBSD).
I take it your haven't exactly had to make ecconomic choices in your life? You haven't had shitty software before? You really haven't had a need that wasn't fulfilled. Major companies don't give a shit that dosn't mean that we shouldn't care. Yeah I don't *expect* it to happen I do however *care* if it was and *want* it to happen. Sure people have to make money but does that mean that have to make so *much* money.
Ok, but lets review principles of governtment Mr. Katz. For a democracy to exist, there must be a leader. As it stands, the net is far far far from a democracy. It is, at best, anarchy in action.
No it is not anarchy! Think clearly. Even if you get to the point where there is at least one warlord or one group of savages who are huddled around a fire or if there is one woman/man traveling with their spouce you do not have anarchy. Maybe we are in the stage of fudalism and such because each person has to go through an ISP. The ISP is almost like a small emerging nation state. Unless everyone has a free and unregulated dedicated connection to the net and can access everything there are people who are in charge. And right now I compare Microsoft to Spain in the 16th century. Ever seen the movie (can't remeber the name) where some king or general of Spain looks at the map of the know world and says something like "and all this is spain"? Well we do have leaders just not all powerful ones.
I must say though, you did do some good research into the great thinkers of America, but you lack a bit in the Internet history.
The internet hasn't anything in common with the early days of the 60's-70's. I doubt you can find many similarities at all in almost anything. Everything has changed and nothing remains the same. What really characterizes the net has been the use and application of the average man the people not the generals, scientists, and people like Andrew P. Carnigie-esq.
Re:No leader (Score:2)
Well it's not a religion however it is a major philosophy of thinking because it employs programming and various app specifications it makes for some rather religious ways of thinking. When any given system gets more complex to the point of becomming incomphrensible to the common man he assigns various quasispiritual aspects to it. For example you could say that without having to knowledge of how a compiler works that making those things you write down in a text file and haveing a machine tranlate them into something a machine could understand "magic" or a "work of god".
Re:Helping to Keep Freedom Alive (Score:2)
corporate web sites. They'll have links to other corporate web sites. She'll follow those links. She might type in addresses she sees in corporations' advertisements. She won't go to individuals' sites, because noone she trusts (i.e. no
companies or governments) will point her at them. The freely flowing information of the underground community will be there on the Internet, but who will be listening to it except those who are already part of that community?
Search engines allow you to look at almost any content that you want. Just for kicks and giggles look up these key words on you favorite search engine(s):
sex
porn
warez
hacking
phreaking
carding
serials
These should return many, many, many hits to millions of sites that specialize in various "underground" things. And you can also look up various things like strange religious rituals and other things.
Re:Helping to Keep Freedom Alive (Score:2)
corporate web sites. They'll have links to other corporate web sites. She'll follow those links. She might type in addresses she sees in corporations' advertisements. She won't go to individuals' sites, because noone she trusts (i.e. no
companies or governments) will point her at them. The freely flowing information of the underground community will be there on the Internet, but who will be listening to it except those who are already part of that community?
You can always lie or at worst just get a connection which then given you an IP and then get something like lynx of netscape through them. Porblem solved. Question for anyone do these free services work through wine? Could you just install them in windows and then run them in wine through Linux?
Re:Govt. Officials and Educators (Score:2)
By a small core group of them. That's like saying that the security guard at a post office actually knows all and is part of the NSA's massive spy network right? Just because some people in a group have done something dosn't mean that the group as a whole can do those things.
Re:Bandwidth.. (Score:2)
Not unless the last mile problem is solved secussfully.
Freedom and the Internet (Score:3)
have a PC or Internet access (barring public terminals, libraries, etc). I beleive once more people start to get a PC and get onto the Internet, they will begin to realize what is out there for them (on the Internet) and how they will be
able to find almost anything they could ever dream of. There are some folks (governments in particular) which wish to limit the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet, and the more people who get on the Internet and find
out the limitless amount of ideas, information and content available to them, the more new Internet users (hopefuly) will pay attention to what they have to lose when laws and "innovations" (such as SDMI or UCITA) are introduced.
Well maybe you caught me in a philosophical mood today but I think that the data on the internet is absolutely not limiteless. You have lots of data in categories that is sensationally popular however those obscure things are usually not to be found anywhere. Some of my greatest discoveries were almost made by chance and not something that I could have easily searched for. What we really have to do is to allow for more dedicated bandwidth for each household in America.
Now why would I say this? Simple. Check out all of the stuff at freshmeat.net. A disturbing fact you will quickly find out is that a great deal of the "interesting" tasks have been for network access and the control of a machine that can deliver content of one sort or another. Now I know all you sysadmins out there have all the access you want but quite frankly I don't give a rat's ass about any of you. I actually care about the average person who dosn't have that little ol' OC-48 line into his/her house and the ability to do whatever you want.
Think of all the possibilities if the net were truely something you could really access and publish content on? As it stands now all the telephone gives me now is just bad news or telemarketers in general. If I could scrap my telephone line and as standard could just have a dedicated line like a T-1 then I would be happy. I could run anything that I wanted and publish information and content that I truely think that the world would benefit from. Having to constantly need to pay for anything and everything to get my message out with all the fancy tools is not something that I can do. Microsoft hasn't done this no matter how much that they claim to the contrary wise.
Really just being able to passively look at the internet and all those big shiny windows with all their fascinating stuff isn't something that I like to do. I want to truely create. I want to run an IRC server a MUD server an http server and several others. I want to run the slash code. I want to have a web site that is something that I can truely be proud of and to make sure I feel a sence of accomplishment out of. I can't do that now. I can't actually get much out of any "free" access to such resources (most of them are just jokes).
The net may be "free" but the printing presses are all under control of insidious minions of orthodoxy.
The software which will help ensure freedom in the "second Internet generation" would be, of course, OSS solutions. Along with my theme of low cost PCs, free, readily available and reliable operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) are
available at the present. Combine Linux with a low cost PC and Internet access, and consumers could be on the Internet with a $300 PC and $10/month Internet access (or $400 for 3 years of Internet access and a PC from some offers
I've seen). $400 is a price I realistically feel many consumers can afford, as opposed to 2 or 3 years ago when consumers would have to spend at least $1500 for a PC with a modem and $25/month for Internet access.
Big deal. I have said before does it really help me? I have a 2400bps modem and I don't have any way to get my home machine connected. From a technological standpoint I can't really see what is so hard in just saying to the modem:
Ok look I don't want 56k of bandwidth I just want 2400bps. Yes I know you are capable of that but I just want to use this much.
That really isn't so hard. Yes I am cheap and until I actually want to shell out cash for a better one I would sure be appreciative of actually seeing some miraculous technology fixing the problem that I may have. What is rapidly happening is that linux and it's apps are getting resource heavy. I am constantly being bombarded with reasons that people upgrade PCs.
It seems that what happens is that you are slowly driven mad with crappy things. Lousy programs freezing the X server, hogging disk space, RAM. Have you ever seen any of those themes for various WMs out there? Well I have at least 256 colors and do you know what I see? Well all the niftly little effects such as transparency and something that dosn't look grainy can't happen. I am betrayed by the technology that is to set me free. What will only happen is that the people who write the code run monster machines. They buy more monster machines and then develop to fit this profile. Result? Machines that don't have all the bells and whistles don't get supported or are just broken or just ruined. Until software is streamlined again we cannot expect to be anything but slaves.
Damn it seems like $2,000 is't worth your sanity.
Another thing apps are still in the phase that makes them not totally acurate in the features that they have. Things like GNOME will probably be useful maybe in 2 years. Others in more time than that. Combined with betrayal of app makers this makes for a dismal affair.
My second answer to the "software" question would be free Intenet access. At the present, most free acess providers are limited in the OSes they support (Windows NT or 9x). However, if free service providers supply Linux clients,
not only do they increase their customer base, but help more people discover what this whole "Intenet" thing they've been missing is. If you have a Windows PC and and no Internet access (how are you reading this?!), there are
plenty of free access providers available (a good list can be seen here on Yahoo!). Personally, I would rather pay for Inernet access since I can't stand advertising, but if you live with some banners on your screen, it's a splendid deal.
They don't care about linux users anyway. What they care about are people who are idiots. They care about windows people. They don't have to target linux users because linux users are by and far loaded with cash because of their ritzy little programming jobs (which I am sure even though I am a CS major I will be cheated out of) can buy their own satellite relay system.
The protocols which will help the second generation Internet thrive will be IP v6. Not only is it an open protocol available for all OSes, vendors and individuals to use, but it also comes with other features such as built in encryption
which helps to keep what someone wants to be private, well, private.
Ohhh wow encryption! Well that makes a world of difference to me *sticks finger in mouth and makes gagging sounds*. And IPv4 isn't a protocol that can use encryption and isn't open? Last I checked you can use encryption programs for all those people who have all their buddies who use encryption or who are scared out of their whitts by government officials trying to determine their location of their militia group's tent in Montana. Dosn't mean that I really care. I can't use encryption for anything for two major factors:
1. Never have any real communication with known individuals who actually support it.
2. No access to an IP address from home machine making the use of things like pgp almost a waste of time. (Well yeah I could just encrypt the thing ahead of time and then go a distance and include in in the text and do the reverse to decrypt however I can't say that such an idea appeals to me).
One problem with my ideas is that history has shown that the majority of people don't keep up on proposed and new laws, nor do they research what they buy before it's too late. I quick and easy example of this would be the low
voter turnout each year.
Well maybe for the lack of ability to actually do all the fancy content and have true editorial control of said content they don't feel that they actually care. I for one can't say that I almost care any more. All the rich son't and daughters of lawyers/doctors/sowftware tycoons have all their life problems worked out but some do not.
Using these factors and the fact that a lot of the content that is out there is changing and becomming cheasy and network dependent (meaning that the data must be kept on the network medium that once held it or it becomes useless or not a useful; This would be like a database or a listing of information that constantly changes or perhaps something that is HTML formatted or that works well with only some things like javascript or shockwave)
The other issue is that, as much as we hate to admit it, Linux has a ways to go for usability. I've seen the "My grandma can use Linux!" discussion many times before here on Slashdot, but I feel installation, configuration, GUIs and
easy ways to update the OS (to add new features and patch bugs) need to be improved before Linux will be the OS of choice for first time PC users.
I see a different problem with usability. I see a problem with actually getting the damn thing not to waste my resources like a drunken band of pirates on some tropical island. I can't believe that people can't make something work better. Hell these people are supposedly extremely bright and have so much knowledge and yet they almost force people to upgrade unless you want to turn you machine into a new jukebox for the sound of an hd grinding away (sure is cool however after several minutes of this happening it gets a little irritating).
So, in summary, PCs, OSes and Internet access which are at low or no cost will help more people to get onto the Internet, see all of the wonders it has to offer, and hopefuly realize what we all have to lose in the future if we do not
protect the freedoms we have now.
Ohh boo hoo hoo I will grieve for a total of about 10 seconds for all those little rich people who are cheated from having all their fun. I see no reason to actually care about their plight or the fact that the multi-million dollar website at http://www.mycheasysitethatcostalotof$$$.com or something (creaps have the audacity to charge for something that is supposed to be an open protocol). I have seen decreasing utility of what is out there and a general lousy attempt to make thousands of $$ off of it. Could someone really tell me why in my present state of technology (or more precisely lack thereof I should actually care about all those people getting their toys taken away?). In the grand scheme of things I haven't actually written anything more complicated that some program that did a calculation about some simple physics problem with a single for loop. If I have to upgrade my PC anyway what would be the harm of using windows if linux is just going to just start taking more and more resources like that aforementioned band of rum drunken pirates. I can't say I like Billg however linux is betraying me royally. If you wish please take my message and de-moderate it for your vicarious feeling of triumph of squashing me with your fist I just wanted someone to see it (you have to look at it to moderate it).
In conclusion I say that in fact the internet is a medium that was designed with the sole purpose of allowing elites to communicate (military, DoD, Echelon, university departments and such), connects computers via extremely expensive bandwidth (ever try to actually afford one of those nifty dedicated connections which actually allow you to have a life with linux and friends), host expensive web sites (hell I can't think of anyone who would be impressed with even the best geoshitties pages no matter who you are) since they require the big $$$, or connecting computers which could dub as the next replacement for the NSA (something that the wonderful new world of consumerism has created) it is something that the average person who has average to ambitious goals cannot hope to attain because of laziness, sloth, and the general lack of touch with what I term the forgotten man of the world. To quote Roland in Steven King's "Gunslinger" series "The world has moved on"; and in this case it has moved on to be more repressive and unequal in nature than at any other time. Please if you want to drive you catellacs please don't drive them near me ok?
Re:A bit too excited? (Score:3)
Even biases information can lead to freedom. Parents tell children all sorts of lies so that they can elleviate their fears of "scary things". This means that you can't tell your children that mass murderers have been and will be around. You tell them that Mr. Bear will protect them.
This makes the person free in their mind and free with their actions because they do not have the constraint of fear.
There is no lack of information in the US, or anywhere in the first world. Propeganda is information too, though it hardly helps the cause of freedom, indeed it works in the opposite direction. I think things would be a *bit* different
in the US if the news were truly unbiased and factual.
Like I have said many, many, many time as well there is not a conspiracy in the news media. I really wish I had access to the book that I read it out of for an exact quote. Basically it was summed up by saying that in the news media there were many competing interests and that these interests were not under strict or hardly any control by and one person. Please get facts. The whole world isn't out to get you just because someone dosn't want to look bad. If you listen to enough of the news stories you will eventually get a compelte picture of what is going on.
Re:Individual Action Is Not Enough! (Score:2)
I guess that is what I was saying. That and the fact I just don't see a way to get through to the Sixpacks...
It is sad really. Our best hope is that Junior Sixpack and his siblings are open to the message. Perhaps we need to create some cool games with these kind of issues as a subtext? (I am only partly joking, propaganda is in the eye of the beholder.)
Jack
Re:Writing software (Score:2)
That is a valid point. But my problem is finding a way create software with that 'purpose and consciousness' that won't put me on the receiving end of a lawsuit or leave me with a search warrant in my hand while the FBI carts off my computers.
Perhaps the best way is to disguise our intentions, in another post I mentioned the possibility of writing cool games which also acted as pro-freenet propaganda. Another good route is to continue writing open infrastructure pieces that can be used for anything. I imagine the people who wrote IRC were horrified to find some jerks were trading kiddie porn with it, but the people at fault there are clearly the ones engaging in the illegal and reprehensible conduct. Not the creators of the technology.
Jack
It doesn't have to be technically complex! (Score:4)
We don't need complex 'rules' built into the architecture and infrastructure of the Internet to insure freedom. All we need is the same kinds of simple protocols we already use. Given those protocols, programmers like myself can always create something that rides on top to do whatever is needed. (Can anyone say 'Napster'?)
No, what we need has nothing to do with technical matters. The greatest danger to free speech and freedom of usage on the Internet is an external one: Laws and Lawsuits. For example; suppose I create a program that allows anyone to communicate any information anonymously, with strong encryption so no-one else can tell what is being communicated. What happens next? The answer is easy -- I get sued by every organization charged with protecting Intellectual Property Rights and investigated by the government for exporting munitions!
This is a very real scenario. In fact variations of it are happening all the time. (Lets all say 'Napster' again.) It doesn't matter if the software is Open Source or closed. It doesn't even matter if it is very good, so long as it works.
The thing is, I know how to write software. I don't know how to manipulate the masses into calling for guarentees of freedom from their governments. I don't know how to make judges understand the issues the way I do. I don't know how to get the governments of the world to agree to keep their hands off what is easly the most transforming piece of technology on the planet. I just know that the more oppressive a government is, the more the Internet should scare them!
Jack
Individual Action Is Not Enough! (Score:5)
True. And there will always be exceptions. But so long as there are onerous legal consequences most of us will not be willing to suffer them.
That isn't entirely true. Try going to China and handing out disks with PGP software for example. Besides, as I have already pointed out -- most of us are too chicken. The chilling effect of negative consequences is too great to overcome without some hope that our efforts will actually amount to something.
As a citizen of the United States of America, I am the heir of a great tradition of Freedom. One fought for by some very great men over two hundred years ago. The quote "The tree of freedom must be fed from time to time with the blood of patriots." is as appropo today as it was then.
But, sadly, this great tradition is paleing into insigificance even here. We Americans have traded our freedom for safety many times already, and are prepared to trade more in the future:
Why should programmers be different than anyone else? The problem isn't one of individual action. It is societal. If I act in some significant way on my own, at best I will be considered a nut and at worst a terrorist. Our biggest problem isn't a lack of will, but rather an inability to educate the masses, to reach out beyond /. and the other geek enclaves. Until Joe Sixpack agrees with us, no amount of revolutionary rhetoric will tilt the scales in favor of Freedom.
Jack
Re:A bit too excited? (Score:2)
You forgot one thing. It should read like this:
Factual information is a prerequisite to freedom.
There is no lack of information in the US, or anywhere in the first world. Propeganda is information too, though it hardly helps the cause of freedom, indeed it works in the opposite direction. I think things would be a *bit* different in the US if the news were truly unbiased and factual.
Re:A bit too excited? (Score:2)
Look at the WTO "riot" coverage...how fair was that? The general media interest is for the rich, if you deny this, you're ignoring the facts yourself.
The media tends to go with what the government wants as well. Not always, of course. In matters of international relations, however, they almost always go with government opinion. Iraq, Kosovo, you almost never hear any dissidents on these two situations.
One example is Indonesia and East Timor. This is a case of ignoring what is going on. The mainstream press didn't cover this until early last year. However, the massacre has been going on since 1975. The country that was holding East Timor (Portugal I think?) pulled out (government and military) in 1975, leaving the country defenseless. Indonesia invaded. The US knew about this, in fact they contacted secratary of state Henry Kissinger at the time, and told him they were going to occupy east timor. He didn't care. Last I read 25% of the population had been killed.
So why didn't we hear about this? Indonesia has a decent army, but the main reason is their natural resources. The US wants to maintain good relations with them so that we can have access to their resources. If that means turing our back on atrocities, the US will do it. With their leader Suharto, the US had someone in power who would allow US corporations access to resources and near-slave labor. So the media says nothing, anything that we don't hear about can't hurt us, I guess.
Suharto lost power, however, because of popular pressure, and the power structure there is still unsettled. So while the situation is unstable, our government doesn't care if the media reports on what is really going on, it won't hurn anything. Therefore, because their interests are the same, the media doesn't care either. Plus the situation was getting out of control, you can only ignore an event for so long before word gets out. East Timor was voting on independance and the killings/intimidation were reaching all time highs.
We've been in the old Yugoslavia for several years now, and we've always heard reports on the situation there. The US has no benefit in keeping things the way they are there, there aren't many natural resources and labor costs aren't as low. It's more a form of intimidation, they prefer to call it a "humanitarian mission", which somehow involves destroying civilian infrastructure and lives.
The government doesn't tell the media what to do, but those who control the media realize it is in their best interest to agree with them, because the government is protecting the same interests as those of the corporations.
Freedom is not to be taken for granted (Score:2)
The next generation, however, will grow up with the Internet, as we did with tv. They will not respect the freedom it provides them with and in essence will take the Internet for granted, along with all the aforementioned advantages.
I consider it the responsibility of the current Net-community, as well as common sense, to educate this new generation on the ideas the Internet has been built on. This in order to safeguard against a generation that could grow up considering the Internet as a commodity to be exploited, constricted and generally changed into a 'Corporate Internet' (Gaeltact).
This forum provides an excellent opportunity to do so. However, it's not enough. We should try to get this message across mouth-to-mouth.
With respect to the question what rights and freedoms people want to preserve. How about the freedom of speech. To be able to say whatever you want, whenever you want to say it.
And accordingly, the freedom to research other people's opinions/information, in whatever form presented
The right to be anonymous.
The right to have privacy.
The list goes on. One thing is certain. The Internet is constantly changing. Some changes we can see coming, some take us by surprise. However, if we want it to change for the better then nothing is served with us standing on the sidelines. Because we'll only end up acting surprised and disgruntled. And we'll feel stupid.
omni
an open mind: the essence of intellect.
Some disagreement here (Score:3)
Theoretical anonymity, de-centralized distribution, countless points of access, the sudden irrelevance of geography, sophisticated tools of encryption - these and other features of the Internet protocols made it virtually impossible to control speech on the Internet.
Ha ha, that's funny. These things all make it inconvenient to control speech, which is a far different thing from impossible. Given the will to impose ridiculous, draconian laws then the Net can be as controlled as you wish - look at the current situation in China as a shining example of the way foward (note the sarcasm there). Yes, countries in the west are unlikely ever to go quite that far but you'd be suprised at what can be done given the right spin by the government. Go and look at the Prevention of Terrorism Act that was passed over here in the UK some years back for an example of a law which was passed based on the public fear of terrorists. The same thing happened in America back in the halycon days of the Cold War. Never underestimate the ability of the government and the media to whip people up into a frenzy against 'evil group X'.
Sorry to repeat an old cliche, but information is power, and this will again become increasingly apparant in the future. If you don't want any of your information to exist outside of your home then live like a hermit, because unfortunately it's getting to the point where anything you do that can be attributed to you is being monitored and logged in the name of 'targetted advertising' or whatever. Anonymity is probably easier on the Net than off of it - at least at the moment - but there are still times when your actions are being logged - the time I spend here on /. is logged somewhere and I'm sure they could build up a profile of my interests from what stories I read here. You just have to accept that it's going to happen sometimes and try and avoid it the rest of the time.
The issue really lies in the hands of the people who frequent sites like this one. Technology is volatile, fluid and inherently unpredictable. It often moves beyond technics and has broader social implications - Linux for example.
Ah yes. The obligatory Jon Katz pat on the back for the /. and Linux community. What does this paragraph mean? What implications does it raise? It's just filler.
Ah that nice word again (rant warning) (Score:3)
Once we get over the first speech/beer issue there still is one unique definition of freedom for each and every one of us.
- Someone wants a ad-free web
- Someone else wants to be free to put their banners on their pages.
- Somebody wants to free the computer world from a monopoly.
- Microsoft wants to be free from government regulation.
- Let us be free from porn and spam
- Don't regulate the net, save our freedom
- Somebody wants to be free to view a DVD in any manner they like
- Somebody wants to be free to use a closed format business model
- Free the prisoners
- Free the streets from criminals
I could go on and on.Point being: Everybody wants freedom. Everybody uses the word "freedom" to describe their vision.
Enormous amounts of bandwidth has been wasted, preaching that "freedom is good".
Is it not time to be precize?
Is it not time to realize that your freedom might be someone elses encumberance?
Nobody wants to give up his own freedom for security. However reducing other peoples freedom for the same goal is suddenly OK.
Most peope on /. claim their freedom to influence politicians and courts in order to get the laws they like. Can you complain when the megacorps do the same?
If so, when do you lose your right to do politics?
May Redhat lobby? May I lobby if I happen to have a small garage business?
You give some, you take some. It is called society. Global scale does not make a difference.
Oh, and feel free to criticize...
Helping to Keep Freedom Alive (Score:2)
I beleive the hardware which will encourage freedom in the "second Internet generation" has to be by far free or very low cost PCs. At the present, there are many people with PCs and Internet access, but still the majority does not have a PC or Internet access (barring public terminals, libraries, etc). I beleive once more people start to get a PC and get onto the Internet, they will begin to realize what is out there for them (on the Internet) and how they will be able to find almost anything they could ever dream of. There are some folks (governments in particular) which wish to limit the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet, and the more people who get on the Internet and find out the limitless amount of ideas, information and content available to them, the more new Internet users (hopefuly) will pay attention to what they have to lose when laws and "innovations" (such as SDMI [slashdot.org] or UCITA [linuxtoday.com]) are introduced.
The software which will help ensure freedom in the "second Internet generation" would be, of course, OSS solutions. Along with my theme of low cost PCs, free, readily available and reliable operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) are available at the present. Combine Linux with a low cost PC and Internet access, and consumers could be on the Internet with a $300 PC and $10/month Internet access (or $400 for 3 years of Internet access and a PC from some offers I've seen). $400 is a price I realistically feel many consumers can afford, as opposed to 2 or 3 years ago when consumers would have to spend at least $1500 for a PC with a modem and $25/month for Internet access.
My second answer to the "software" question would be free Intenet access. At the present, most free acess providers are limited in the OSes they support (Windows NT or 9x). However, if free service providers supply Linux clients, not only do they increase their customer base, but help more people discover what this whole "Intenet" thing they've been missing is. If you have a Windows PC and and no Internet access (how are you reading this?!), there are plenty of free access providers available (a good list can be seen here [yahoo.com] on Yahoo! [yahoo.com]). Personally, I would rather pay for Inernet access since I can't stand advertising, but if you live with some banners on your screen, it's a splendid deal.
The protocols which will help the second generation Internet thrive will be IP v6 [ipv6.org]. Not only is it an open protocol available for all OSes, vendors and individuals to use, but it also comes with other features such as built in encryption which helps to keep what someone wants to be private, well, private.
One problem with my ideas is that history has shown that the majority of people don't keep up on proposed and new laws, nor do they research what they buy before it's too late. I quick and easy example of this would be the low voter turnout each year.
The other issue is that, as much as we hate to admit it, Linux has a ways to go for usability. I've seen the "My grandma can use Linux!" discussion many times before here on Slashdot [slashdot.org], but I feel installation, configuration, GUIs and easy ways to update the OS (to add new features and patch bugs) need to be improved before Linux will be the OS of choice for first time PC users.
So, in summary, PCs, OSes and Internet access which are at low or no cost will help more people to get onto the Internet, see all of the wonders it has to offer, and hopefuly realize what we all have to lose in the future if we do not protect the freedoms we have now.
Re:No freedom with IPv6 ! (Score:2)
As for the statement about "Some of the extra bits will identify you as a particular user", I assume you mean "Some of the extra bits will identify which machine you are coming from". If I recall correctly, the MAC address is part of the IPv6 address, but I don't see how each "user" on a machine could have their own IP.
You feel IPv6 is going to be "the end" of being anonymous? It's too late. Give me a server with any kind of half way decent logging turned on, and I'll find ya.
I do agree with you that being anonymous is very, very important as well. I certianly enjoy the right to have my opinion posted without fear of tracking me down or retribution. However, I don't feel most "normal" users or users who have yet to come online are concerned with this, but they should be.
Oh yes, and one last thing. Your comment is very well written and thought out. I especially like the sentence "No-one ever said freedom was free, or even cheap." Nicely done!
Who's the librarian? (Score:3)
If governments are the librarians, they will stock and lead us to propaganda.
If corporations are the librarians, they will stock and lead us to advertisements and products.
If individuals are their own librarians, however, they will stock and lead themselves to what they need to know.
Whatever else happens in boardrooms and courtrooms, the most essential capabilities of a free internet are those that allow us to be our own librarians, and to make unfettered use of the library:
the ability of anyone to publish (this requires global reach, uncontrolled hosting tools, and anonymity);
the ability of anyone to read (requiring global access, uncontrolled viewing tools, and anonymity);
the ability of anyone to guide others to the information you wish them to see (requiring global reach of indexes, uncontrolled indexing tools, and anonymity); and
the ability of anyone to be guided to information without bias (requiring access to global indexes, uncontrolled browsing and searching tools, and anonymity).
Governments and corporations can pass laws and make pitches about the internet, but whether the laws are obeyed and the sales are made depends on whether or not the abilities described above are maintained and improved.
The basic concept, however has changed. (Score:2)
That has changed now. The current court decisions revolving around eToys and DeCSS are all based off of commercial gains and losses. The DMCA is designed around pofitability, not around technology or the good of the country or it's citizens. There are people who question if Linux will remain "the people's software" or if it will eventually fall into the hands of those who see to profit from it, rather than improve it.
The Internet used to be based on the Bucky Fuller theory of economics, where we all got richer by giving things away for free. But so many people now view the internet as a way for them to get richer by selling what is freely available to them. (This was pioneered by AOL who convinced it's customers that many free internet services were actually part of the service they were paying for.)
The worst case of all has to be Network Solutions and it's parent organization ICANN. Their stanglehold on DNS is secure. There is no longer a difference between a .com, a .org, and a .net. They can follow their own domain name resolution policy, or, as in the case of eToys, completely ignore it. Meanwhile, their actions have done nothing to discourage cybersquatting. The actions by the Trademark Office on the other hand have made a dent, especially since the U.S. courts seem to have a belief that a trademark entitles you to a dotcom, dotorg, and dotnet of that name. (What RFC was that in?)
A system that was largely built upon the kindness of stangers has been turned over to corporate powers. Regardless of what protocols we create, we will have a hard time ever gaining back the freedom we once had.
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Freedom? (Score:3)
Sorry Jon, I don't know specific numbers, but like myself; most people here on /. are not subject to the limitations and flaws of the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution of my country provides for many more and broad freedoms than that of the U.S. , and as such it is nearly impossible to get a wire tap for a private citizen. An Internet tap is equally as difficult.
I'm not naive in assuming it doesn't happen, however (especially when I'm connected to a U.S. based server :-O ). The answer is vigilance. If the Internet 2.0 will not allow for freedom, boycott it faster than cookies from doubleclick.com! If no one uses it, they'll soon get the picture.
Hollywood/Wall Street/Big Business go where the money is. The money is where the people are. They'll realize that and change their ways.
Gopher is dead. Usenet is dying. Perhaps the Web will return to what it once was, a place to exchange ideas freely, without the commercial content.
Of course, my anti-U.S. Constitution comments will get me moderated down and ignored, but I expect that in a place where free expression is subject to the opinions of others.
Re:Helping to Keep Freedom Alive (Score:2)
I can see the day coming when you'll have to sign up with something like PornoPass to get to an uncensored search engine.
Re:Ah that nice word again (rant warning) (Score:2)
I apologize, but it had to be said.
Three parties. (Score:2)
- Government
- Big Business
- Individuals
I am treating my audience as members of the third group. Based on the DCMA and its application (so far) to the DeCSS case, it would appear that Big Business (having a monetary advantage) has bought out Government. This places Individuals in a precarious position.If we are going to be more than defeated worker-consumer-units, we are going to have to find a way to break up the unholy alliance between Big Business and Government.
View from the second generation (Score:2)
The printing press allowed people to send information all over the world, and save that information for all time. A great leap in the ability to share ideas and information. The internet is the modern printing press. It allows us to instintanously communicate ideas and information all around the world. When the printing press came around those with power feared it, because if they can not control information they can not use it to manipulate it the people. The same is true for the internet, those who oppose it do so because they fear it. Religously minded political orginizations fear the internet because it is a forum of reason, and much of it goes against their morals based on blind faith. Corporations fear the internet. As it was only people with the money to pay for it could gather great minds to work together to produce products. Now with the internet it is easier than ever for people to gather and share ideas, work, thus breaking the big buisness' monopoly. Since these minds can, and do, produce competing products, often times equal or superior to commercial products, the corporations are afraid. However a few people stood up for printed works, fought hard to protect the right to own books and printed material no matter their content. Today any country is frowned upon for regulating books. Now is the time we must speak up, and secure the rights on the internet, that we have for printed materials. Wether the enemy to free speach be an outdated government or companies who fear losing their market share, they must be stopped from controling the internet just as they where stopped from controlling the printing press.
--Hephaestus_Lee
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