http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=471742&CFID=301055&CFTOKEN=47471685 The Economist 11 Jan 2001 The Internet was supposed to be all about freedom. That is why governments want to regulate it. It is far from certain whether freedom, or government control, will win the day. ..... "Both filtering and IP-address tracking are far from perfect. Filters generally block too muchand too little. And surfers can block IP-address tracking by using services such as Zero Knowledges Freedom or anonymizer.com. In any case, knowing where a user is is only part of the solution. In the case of Yahoo!, the firm would still have to work out which auctions to block. But do these shortcomings matter? Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at the University of Chicago, argues that the real world is full of imperfect filtering and identification techniques: criminals crack safes, 15-year-olds visit bars with fake IDs, secret information is leaked to the press. To Mr Goldsmith, there is little doubt that filtering and identification technologies will help to make cyberspace more regulated, because they will allow governments to raise the cost of getting certain information." ..... Save that in the real world, I can't write and instantly distribute a program which will let anyone easily crack safes or accomplish other tasks that government may seek to block. As we've seen, BTW, I *can* distribute fake ID's and fake ID technology easily and swiftly over the Net these days. Since even the most casual Net surfer is using an incredibly complex suite of software and electronic communications protocols, we've established that complexity, alone, is not enough to block the use of technology. Adding a new software/protocol layer designed to defeat new government control attempts is no more complex than what we are using already. If motivated by the ability to acquire "free" content or "forbidden" content, people have already shown themselves willing to download and install software. They will in the future. ..... "The holy grail for e-commerce, however, would be a system in which users had permanent digital certificates on their computers containing details of age, citizenship, sex, professional credentials, and so on. Such technology would not only allow websites to aim their services at individuals, but would let governments reclaim their authority. These solutions to Internet regulation are far off, if they fly at all. But Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford University, warns that e-commerce firms will push for such certificates and that governments may one day require them." ..... Require them, for what? In the US, licensing of speech and the press is specifically prohibited, and anyone on earth can effectively become a US person by opening a telecoms account here. Before the Internet "broke wide", we developed an international store-and-forward network (Fidonet) using the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). The Internet is not one network but thousands. If individuals choose to communicate, it is hard to stop them in the modern age. And that is what we have, a choice. Legally, the Net is a series of Virtual Private Networks (VPN's). If one aspect of the Net becomes too restrictive, it is trivial to deploy a new VPN with the liberated character that users may prefer. That is what the various peer-to-peer networks are. ..... "On the Internet, the struggle between freedom and state control will rage for some time. But if recent trends in online regulation prove anything, it is that technology is being used by both sides in this battle and that freedom is by no means certain to win. The Internet could indeed become the most liberating technology since the printing press but only if governments let it." ..... Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468) http://www.slip.net/~graphion/guten.html The printing press was not liberating because governments decided to let it be liberating. They didn't have a choice. The technology made the communication of ideas easier and so it was easier. The Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, etc. followed. The printing press worked these changes not because it was impossible for governments to censor printing or even to jail printers. It worked these changes because the technology let millions of individuals preserve and spread their ideas easily and cheaply. In spite of controls. It took from circa 1455 to 1776 for the changes allowed by printing to come to fruition. It will be a bit faster for the Net. The Net makes the communication of zeros and ones even easier than printing. In addition, we have developed so many ephemeral goods and services since 1455 (money, video, audio, etc.) that in addition to mere ideas, the net can transfer actual value. Trade. This has obvious implications for attempts by states to control the economy. It turns out that, in the case of communications technology, the ease of use and the wideness of its adoption are more important than the control desires of censors. The reason that this is so is obvious. If millions of people can easily do something, it is hard to stop them. Governments can stop a few but that leaves thousands or millions of people still doing the forbidden thing. Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll proved that long ago. In the case of the Nets, governments are faced with the problem of how to stop millions (soon billions) from hitting the Enter<--' key on their keyboards. Big challenge. Since totalitarianism turns out to be a non-stable state when individuals have physical power in the world, things continue to look difficult for the authorities. DCF ---- "They believe that the Government is the problem and that what everyone needs is to be told, 'You're on your own; go out there into the tender mercies of the global economy; have a great time in cyberspace, and we'll get out of your way.'" -- William Jefferson Blythe Clinton in a speech to the AFSCME in Chicago June 21, 1996.