We refer to TechDirt a lot here on TLF because of the good information and analysis there, and the engagement of its writers on policy issues. I want to throw props to another Tech[Something] blog, though – TechCrunch.
I’ve been reading it for a while now. TechCrunch is very forward-looking in terms of Web apps and information business. I ain’t gonna lie to ya’ – I don’t understand everything I see there. But I don’t understand everything I see on the bus either – and that’s still interesting and entertaining.
I’m particularly pleased with TechCrunch because of the acknowledgement it gave yesterday to WashingtonWatch.com.
I like WashingtonWatch because it translates Bills into understandable costs and allows direct and collaborative feedback before the Bill is voted on. These are new web ideas put to work in a tangible and useful form. I hope our elected representatives are among the readers.
The other day, I blogged about how technology-aided transparency may defeat the twin scourges of rational ignorance and rational inaction in the area of politics and public policy. TechCrunch sees the vision.
Let’s say you’ve got a satellite with which you want to transmit video programming. And let’s say that, in addition to providing subscribers with live television programming, you want to provide your subscribers with relatively rapid access to a large library of pre-recorded video content. Your satellite doesn’t have enough bandwidth to stream each video to each customer in real time, so you’ve got to figure out a way to get the videos to as many customers as possible as quickly as possible. How would you do that?
Well, since we stipulated that you don’t have enough bandwidth to stream everyone’s videos to them in real time, the receiving devices will need some local storage so they can store the files until the user is ready to view them. You’ll want to transmit more popular items more frequently in order to minimize how long the user will have to wait until his desired program is transmitted. And you’ll want a mechanism for customers to communicate back to the satellite to request transmission of content that’s not on the regular rotation. Less-popular content can be beamed overnight, when the demand on the satellite is less.
And surprise, the preceding paragraph describes patent #5,404,505, which was granted to the Finisar Corporation back in 1995.
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Steven Colbert has discussed the concept of “Wikiality” on his show: that on Wikipedia, reality is whatever the majority wants it to be. We find evidence for this contention on the Wikipedia entry for network neutrality:
The debate has moved into the regulatory and legislative arena in a somewhat unusual way, because those who prefer to leave the status quo unchanged are advocating legislation in the U.S. to formalize elements of “net neutrality.” Those would want to change by introducing “non-neutrality” do not presently want any further legislation.
The two proposed versions of “neutrality” legislation to date would prohibit: (1) the “tiering” of broadband through sale of voice- or video-oriented Quality of Service packages; and (2) content- or service-sensitive blocking or censorship on the part of broadband carriers. These bills have been sponsored by Representatives Markey, Sensenbrenner, et. al., and Senators Snowe, Dorgan, and Wyden. Advocates of continuing with the status quo include content providers such as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and several prominent social-action non-profits, and media critics such as Robert McChesney.
It’s fun to watch whoever wrote that twist himself into semantic pretzels to portray the advocates of change as defenders of the status quo without saying anything that’s literally untrue. Here’s a less truthy way of saying the same thing: Those who advocate the status quo of a regulation-free Internet oppose new regulation, while those who want to change the status quo are urging Congress to enact new regulations.
EFF highlights a very bad treaty being pushed for ratification in the Senate:
The Convention on Cybercrime is a sweeping treaty that has been waiting in the wings of the Senate for nearly three years. Now the administration is putting pressure on the Senate to ratify it in the next two days. If it does, it would mean the U.S. would enforce not just our own, but the rest of the world’s bad Net laws. Call your Senator now, and ask them to hold its ratification.
The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries’ “cybercrime” laws – even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdiction’s requests to log their users’ behavior without due process, or compensation.
Apparently, the treaty is being held up by an anonymous Republican Senator:
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Derek Slater and Tim Armstrong have been having a debate over the merits of agitating for better digital rights management technologies rather than agitating for outright repeal of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules. I think Derek’s take on the question is dead on:
I am not a lawyer, but last time I checked, Title 17 is the Copyright Act–it’s meant to encouarge creation and distribution of artistic (and related) works insomuch as it benefits the public. Title 17 is not the Medical Privacy Act, nor the Privacy in Embarassing Pictures And Emotional Distress Act, nor the Confidentiality Agreement Enforcement Act. It’s the Copyright Act, and it shouldn’t be turned into a Christmas tree on which everyone hangs a pet project that they think technical restrictions might achieve.
Tim already knows this, and when he teaches his students about the Lexmark and Skylink cases, I suspect this is roughly his sentiment will be. Why this insight doesn’t apply in Tim’s cited examples, I don’t know.
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Matt Stoller thinks my New York Times op-ed is “just disgraceful.” Why?
Timothy B. Lee comes from the ‘Show-Me Institute’, a fake think tank that defends the teaching of Intelligent Design and is funded by corporate interests and foundations with a right-wing ideological slant. As a 501(c)3, they don’t have to release their donor list, but you can get a sense of who they are from reading the bios on the Board of Directors page.
Ok, so the corporatists dug up a shill from an ideologically oriented corporate funded think tank, had this guy write an Op-Ed rehashing fake arguments about competitiveness and broadband, and weirdly enough, his name sound almost exactly like world-reknowned expert Tim Berners Lee, who takes the opposite position.
For the record, I’ve had the name “Timothy B. Lee” since before Mr. Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web. Of course, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that the vast right-wing conspiracy contacted my parents in anticipation of the network neutrality debate and convinced them to name me Timothy B. Lee.
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A few weeks ago, I blogged on Cato@Liberty about how technology beats law for curtailing video voyeurism. (You may have come across it here in my recent cavalcade of cross-posting.)
Now a TechDirt post shows how technology can beat law for promoting net neutrality. Broadband Reports cites technology to test how neutral a network is, putting users in a position to gauge what they’re getting from their ISP. A watchdog press (inculding folks like TechDirt) stands ready to amplify consumer concerns, adding seasoning to the stew that is a competitive marketplace.
This doesn’t solve the whole problem, but it solves an important part of the problem. As Tim points out, the alternative – public utility regulation of broadband – may address problems in the near-term while tying knots that take decades to unravel.
Alas, Dan Kaminsky, who’s debuting this tool at BlackHat this week, sees it as an adjunct for regulation. But it is just as powerful as a tool for consumers. Take some advice from the people who’ve seen Washington (not) work, people! Stay as far away as you can!
Speaking of which, I have nothing but sympathy for observers like TechDirt Mike, who rarely fails to note the dishonesty, truth-bending, disingenuousness, and astro-turfing that goes on in the net neutrality debate. My first job in politics/policy was advocating against single-payer health care (read socialized medicine) in California. Advocates on each side came to directly opposite conclusions about what the proposed law would do. Each side honestly believed that the other was composed of complete liars.
Repeat: Run as fast as you can from coercive society! (politics) Run toward cooperation. (markets)
I’ve got a new op-ed over at the New York Times in which I compare today’s Internet regulation debate to the big “network neutrality” debate of the 19th Century: whether the federal government should regulate the railroad industry. As I explain, the pro-regulatory side won that debate, creating the Interstate Commerce Committee. And the results were not good: by the 1920s, the ICC was helping the railroads restrict entry and raise prices. In 1935, as a result of railroad and ICC lobbying, Congress gave the ICC authority over the trucking industry. And the surface transportation industry was uncompetitive for the half-century that followed. As a Ralph Nader report put it in 1970, the commission became “primarily a forum at which transportation interests divide up the national transportation market.”
Space constraints prevented me from elaborating very much on the history of the ICC, but there are a lot of striking parallels between the debate of the 1880s and today’s debate. One of the biggest issues was discriminatory pricing. Smaller farmers and merchants complained that the railroads offered larger shippers discounts that put the little guy at a disadvantage. There were even some arguments that railroad monopolies threatened democracy: the railroads tended to give politicians and prominent business leaders free passes on the trains, and there was even an accusation that a railroad refused to ship newsprint to a newspaper that was critical of the railroads.
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The Government Accountability Office testified to the Senate Finance Committee today that investigators were easily able to pass through borders using fake documents. Indeed, sometimes documents were not checked at all.
“This vulnerability potentially allows terrorists or others involved in criminal activity to pass freely into the United States from Canada or Mexico with little or no chance of being detected.”
That’s true, but shoring up that vulnerability would add little security while devastating trade and commerce at the border.
Identity-based security works by comparing the identity of someone to their background and determining how to treat them based on that. To start, you need accurate identity information. That’s not easy to come by from people who are trying to defeat your identity system.
Here’s a schematic of how identification cards work from my book Identity Crisis.
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The relentless march of open standards online continues, as AOL effectively abandons its paid, premium offerings in favor of a free, advertising-supported model:
Besides e-mail, AOL will give away its proprietary software for accessing the once-premium offerings, as well as safety and security features such as parental controls.
Millions of subscribers are likely to drop their paid accounts, making the strategy risky for Time Warner and AOL. Subscriptions still account for about 80 percent of AOL’s revenues, contributing to 19 percent of Time Warner’s revenues in the first half of the year.
But AOL has little choice. As of June 30, AOL had 17.7 million U.S. subscribers, a 34 percent drop from its peak of 26.7 million in September 2002. AOL lost 976,000 subscribers in the past quarter alone.
Nick Gillespie notes that he called this trend years ago, in a 2000 article suggesting that the AOL Time Warner merger was nothing to sweat about:
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.