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posted by janrinok on Sunday November 01 2015, @05:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the dream dept.

While the Net has certainly scored a point or two against the State, the State has scored a lot more points against the Net. If the State wants your domain name, it takes it. If that's independence, what does utter defeat and submission look like?

Worse: whatever state tyranny exists, it's obviously dwarfed by the private, free-market, corporate tyrannosaurs that stalk the cloud today. We can see this clearly by imagining all these thunder-lizards were actually part of the government. "Private" and "public" are just labels, after all.

Imagine a world in which LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and the NSA were all in one big org chart. Is there anyone, of any political stripe, who doesn't find this outcome creepy? It's probably going to happen, in fact if not in form. While formal nationalization is out of fashion, regulation easily achieves the same result, while keeping the sacred words "private enterprise."

How do today's technologists win freedom from State control?


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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:03PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:03PM (#257217) Homepage Journal

    I'd point out that real decentralization would require (I know, this is one of my hobby horses) ubiquitous symmetrical ISP/last mile network connections and strong network neutrality rules. If we have that, real decentralization is possible. Without it, individuals have a wheelbarrow for consumption and a teaspoon for production -- And that strongly favors centralization and continuation of the broadcast/consumption paradigm.

    Which means those with the fat pipes and wallets will control information flow and creativity.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:20PM (#257227)

    You're not perfectly correct. The right protocol running over whatever transport produces network neutrality because the provider doesn't have a clear (or hardly any) idea of what is really being transported.

    As for the problem of asymmetry, if you have a protocol which is topology-independent, that is a strong enabler for collective action on the ground, with people creating their own connections, pooling resources, and generally undermining attempts at control which hinge upon a false assumption of sole gateway ownership. In other words, the question of enablement is a two way street.

    Also, in the general sense, even upstream bandwidth is so hugely beyond what it was when the public internet was still in short pants, that it looks like breathtaking luxury by comparison. The problem is gatekeepers preventing people from offering services, not a fundamental inadequacy of the infrastructure.

    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:43PM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Sunday November 01 2015, @07:43PM (#257237) Homepage Journal

      Also, in the general sense, even upstream bandwidth is so hugely beyond what it was when the public internet was still in short pants, that it looks like breathtaking luxury by comparison. The problem is gatekeepers preventing people from offering services, not a fundamental inadequacy of the infrastructure.

      I think we're in violent agreement here. I take the concept of network neutrality to mean more than just not creating fast/slow lanes. I believe that real network neutrality is the provision of a "dumb" pipe that passes data regardless of its origin/destination. That includes unrestricted use of "servers" on residential connections.

      It's true that the 768KB upload capacity which I have is orders of magnitude more than the 56KB that I had twenty years ago. I do realize that I could (if I wanted to contract with an ISP which acts as a "gatekeeper" to use your word) I could probably have *slightly* more upload bandwidth. However, I prefer to contract with an ISP who allows me unfettered (i.e., I can run my own servers with my own static IP addresses if I choose, and I do) access to the larger Internet.

      However, the limited upload capacity seriously restricts my ability to be a producer rather than a consumer. Having symmetrical connections (along with the "dumb pipe" concept) would go a long way towards the goals of decentralization and digital liberty.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr