(09/09/97; 12:00 p.m. EDT) By Douglas Hayward, TechWire
GENEVA -- Internet taxes are inevitable, according to the man dubbed the "Father of the Net." The only way to avoid global chaos is to create an international agreement on how to do it, added Vint Cerf at a meeting of the Internet Society here. Cerf co-developed the TCP/IP[LINK] protocol on which all Web and Net transaction depend.
Jeez. I'm glad I sold all my Cerf shares at www.roguemarket.com
...Taxation of the Internet, also called "bit taxes," must be well planned, Cerf said. "And it must also be thought through on a global scale -- not parochially," he said. In the United States. alone, there are 30,000 taxing authorities that might be interested in taxing transactions on the Internet, said Cerf, adding that right now, there is no way to determine which of those authorities should have jurisdiction over a particular transaction.
Its amazing that Cerf doesn't even understand the implications of the network that he designed. Or maybe he does understand and just doesn't like the fact that big bro is getting cut out of his future utopia.
..."If something is becoming an infrastructure that is important for people's daily lives, then governments will have the right to be concerned about the public's safety and well-being," Cerf said.
Yes and they've done such a good job protecting the public's safety and well-being. I don't remember the constitution spelling out anything about "governments rights". Just the feds and states limited powers. If paranoia was on the agenda, someone would be shouting New World Order at this point. ;-)
Jim Burnes Engineer, Western Security, SSDS Inc jim.burnes@ssds.com ---- When the world is running down Make the best of what's still around - Sting