food fo thought

[georgemw at speakeasy.net]

On 14 Aug 2001, at 17:34, Gabriel Rocha wrote:


> Taming the Web 
> By Charles C. Mann September 2001  
>    
> "Information wants to be free." "The Internet can't be controlled."
> We've heard it so often that we sometimes take for granted that it's
> true. But THE INTERNET CAN BE CONTROLLED, and those who argue otherwise
> are hastening the day when it will be controlled too much, by the wrong
> people, and for the wrong reasons. 
> 
I think we've all seen this type of argument before.
Interestingly enough,  the article offers no support whatsoever for
any part of this other than the "the internet can be controlled" part.
What dire consequences will come from circumventing bad laws
is never addressed in this type of article,  at least not in
any that I've read.  And with good reason: congress has already 
conclusively demenostrated that they do not have the wisdom and 
knowledge to make good laws for cyberspace,  no way,  no how.

So let's just take a look at the arguments for the assertion that
"the internet can be controlled". 

The form argument
seems to be listing "myths" followed by "refutation by anecdote".  I
find this a particularly unpersuasive form of argument.  I'll go into a 
little more dtail,  probably more than is actually merited.

"Myth #1: The internet is too international to be controlled".
Refuting anecdote: Swapnet is allegedly based in St. Kitts and 
Nevis,  non-signatories to the WIPO.  However,  because of limited 
bandwidth going to the carribean island,  their big servers  are 
actually situated in Virginia. 

I'm unimpressed.  as the article points out,  access to the islands is
being upgraded,  and besides, even a relatively slow connection to
an uncensorable site can be extremely useful.  For example, you 
could have your legally secure slow connection have pointers
to the location of files rather than the files themselves.

"Myth #2: The Net is too Interconnected to Control"
Refuting Anectdote: Gnutella doesn't scale well,  with Bearshare
the "peers" aren't really equal,  and Freenet is unsearchable.

The "point" here is that the majority of lusers still have dialup
connections,  and are in no position to offer useful services,
even if they were willing to.

First off,  the number of people with persistent,  higher speed 
connections is rapidly increasing and second,  this ain't a 
democracy.  It may be true that you would "only" have to shut 
down 5-10% or so of Bearshare's clients to make the remaining
network virtually useless,  but I think that's still an enormous 
number of machines.

"Myth #3: The net is too filled with Hackers to control"
Refuting Assertion: You can build controls into the hardware,
and that can't be hacked.

Well,  maybe,  but that requires people to go out and buy
their own straightjackets. 

Also,  it's importnat to remember that information isn't hardware,  
it's bits.  It just takes one person to post a "cracked" file 
somewhere,
and then it doesn't matter whether the attempts to restrict
copying are implemented in hardware or software,  because the
file is no longer recognized as being copy protected. 
  
I could rant on,  but all this is really only addressing what I 
consider to be the minor assertion,  which is that "you'e going
to lose sooner or later,  so you might as well give up."

The more important assertiion (IMO) is that "the sooner you give 
up,  the better it'll go for you".  I haven't seen any support at all
offered for this position,  and I think the only appropriate reply
to it is,  "Bullshit".

George  

 
> -- 
> "It's not brave, if you're not scared."