Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 390
Netizens-Digest Friday, May 4 2001 Volume 01 : Number 390
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] Government and Science Was:FC: Ftc action - part 3
[netz] All packets are created equal
Re: [netz] Government and Science Was:FC: Ftc action
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 16:51:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: Re: [netz] Government and Science Was:FC: Ftc action - part 3
On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 14:10:55 -0400"Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net> wrote:
Ronda Hauben wrote:
>Now that one doesn't have IPTO it is much harder to have the long
>term research that is needed for scaling the Internet in a way
>that is in the public interest.
>How do you see creating such a guiding research function?
First it would seem that there is a need to do some research and study
about this and have some public discussion about the Information Processing
Techniques Office and its management processes
It would be good to see a research collaboration to do this with
funding by some appropriate government agency so that it is
supported.
I have seen a very nice study done of the Air Force Office
of Scientific Research (AFOSR) done by the Air Force historian.
It was honest and forthright.
Also I have seen a very nice study of the Office of Naval Research (ONR)
supported by the ONR and done by a researcher at MIT.
There were helpful interviews done with some of those who were the
directors or program managers at IPTO and some of those in the IPTO
research community. But the one book written on these didn't take
on the issues as the ONR and AFOSR studies had done, but instead
just praised the DoD. I wonder why that was the case. The ONR and AFOSR
studies had documented the problem of research within the DOD where
there is a need to protect the researchers from the contractor community.
This happens at times and then there is general purpose basic research,
but when the institutional placement of the research office is changed
to be under the domination of the contractor community, the research
becomes under pressure to be more application oriented and the
researchers do not have the protection they need to maintain
general purpose basic research work.
This happened in all three research offices == the ONR, the AFOSR and
IPTO (I don't know about the Army Office of Scientific Research).
However, the study of it has only been done in AFOSR and ONR.
I have one paper about it and some of this is the subject of the
book I am working on. But there is at present no support for such
work.
Also the National Academy of Science (NAS) did a study called
Funding the Revolution. In it they had a section on IPTO and
commented on how it was a self-organizing and self-managing
institutional form. But the study just said that lots of different
research formats are needed, and it didn't take on the problem
that IPTO was ended, despite the fact that it supported such forefront
research.
Research reviewing this and publicly discussing it would be helpful
to begin to raise the lessons that can be learned from the actual
experience.
The IPTO supported not only centers of excellence collaborating
within the US, but also there was support for internatonal
collaboration. That is some of what is needed again. If the US
were setting an example and providing leadership then the rest
of the world would be interested in learning from it and collaborating.
>Historically, the Congress hasn't been very interested, and dissolved
>its own technology office.
I don't seem much effort to educate Congress. And when the public
is educated, they become a pressure for Congress as well.
Unfortately, the main pressure on Congress right now is the
industry and in general it isn't helping Congress to understand
what is needed. But when the GAO (General Accounting Office)
was considering the ICANN problem I was able to send them the
research I had done and I got the idea that this did have some
effect, as the questions they asked me when they interviewed
me showed some understanding of the real situation.
So somehow the needed research and writing needs to be done and
publicly discussed. How to have this happen is some of the dilemma.
>There certainly have been focused technical organizations in the
>executive branch, both open (e.g., the Apollo program) and
>classified. But these did not have huge amounts of public input.
>
>
I found a reference in my research to a NATO proposal that there
be an international technical organization created which would
support research not only in technical development but also in
the social implications of such development.
This is needed now.
Some of how I would think this could be started would be to
have support for social issues and study to become part of
the Computer Science curriculum in universities. Under the
original center of excellence models like Project MAC,
social issues were part of the work of the researchers nad
students. (The MIT center of Excellence developed under
Licklider's leadership.)
>>But after studying the incredible capability and achievements
>>of the researchers who created IPTO and the IPT community and
>>the important computer science and networking developments of our
>>time under its protection and leadership, it is hard to see the
>>kind of pressure that companies like MCI/Worldcom and others
>>exert on folks in the US Congress and other government officials.
>>I went to a congressional hearing and saw that the congressman
>>from Mississippi was there to take care of MCI/Worldcom not
>>the public.
>I can believe that.
There needs to be some way to protect against the vested interests.
There have been ways that this was done in the past. One needs to
learn from them perhaps to understand what can be helpful now.
>>And a staffer said that the Congress folk only hear from industry
>>and in such technical matters he claimed they had no ability to
>>evaluate what they were being told to do by the industry folks
>>pressuring them.
>There are ways to lobby. But I don't see many "netizens" organizing
>to do so. In general, by the time it gets to the hearing level, the
>positions have already been communicated, especially to staff.
It seems it is still that there is a need for the research and
public discussion of the issues, rather than lobbying activity.
That comes later. But how to get the needed support for the research
and public discussion is a problem that needs to be solved.
>>Also I went to a town meeting at Columbia about the Internet and
>>its future. The people holding it, it turned out, were CEO's of
>>companies. They claimed they were there to hear what people had
>>to say so they could tell the new President.
>Personally, I regard town meetings as purely public relations
>activitites. Just as an individual, I have gotten things I wanted
>from corporations and government organizations, but I did it through
>reasoned correspondence and focused meetings. By "reasoned", I
>phrased my goals in a manner such they were net positives for both
>sides.
But the NTIA (of the US Department of Commerce had a good town
meeting online in November of 1994 and there was a broad discussion
of the problems of making access available to all then. And there
was helpful debate. We describe this in chapters 11 and 14 of "Netizens:
On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet".
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
So there can be useful town meetings, but not if companies run them :(
This is a government forum.
>
>>But mainly what people had to say was that they didn't like the
>>commercial activity and taking over of the Internet. Clearly
>>the CEO's at the meeting aren't going to tell the new President
>>that.
>I understand that "people" don't like commercialization.
That was certainly the sentiment at that cosponsored "town meeting".
>"People" also are demanding cuts in government spending.
I don't hear "people" demanding such cuts. I hear the folk I see
say that government should use the money it gets to make available
good public services, not redistribute it to the most wealthy in
the form of "tax cuts".
>So where is the funding for new Internet capacity going to come from?
>From the wise use of public money and public research funding and
support and the public discussion of these issues.
But again I see the problem as "where is the needed research
going to come from to make the scaling of the Internet as a
general purpose metasystem possible".
You seem to say the problem is "where is the funding going to come from."
These seem different.
I feel we need the new inventions and the technology that will come
from new research to solve the scaling problems and even to
know what those problems are.
You seem to feel it is a question of funding someone now.
I feel it is important that there be the public discussion of
the research and of the need for research.
You seem to feel it is a question of finding how to support the
investors who have the funds.
I don't see the investors being able to provide the funds for
the general purpose Internet infrastructure. Their funds have
strings attached that are detrimental to the development of
the Internet.
And it isn't only a question of funds. It is more importantly
that there needs to be the research and public discussion of
the research about the social and technological advances
represented by the Internet and its development. What are
the social and technical developments that grew up from
the development of the Internet? How can an understanding
of these help to make possible the scaling?
Implicit in all this is the fact that the Internet is a system
that is built on feedback and that requires feedback for its
continuing development. It can't be put under the auspices
of a nonfeedback institutional form like ICANN and continue
to grow and flourish.
>>So I agree that one doesn't want to demonize anyone.
>>
>>But the corporate folk that I have been around until recently
>>didn't think that there was anything else in the world but the
>>needs of their corporations.
>While I don't necessarily like it, the legal climate is that activity
>by companies that don't increase shareholder value leave corporate
>management very open to shareholder (or, in far too many cases,
>instigating class action attorneys) lawsuits. Corporations do have
>fiduciary obligations.
Yes this is a problem that needs to be understood and considered.
This is some of why corporations can't lead in Internet development.
In the situation of the development of a world class telephone company,
AT&T was allowed to make a certain fixed amount of profit, but it was
under government obligation to invest in the research to create the
most advanced technology. The shareholders were served and the public
was served.
>Regulation is one way to divert corporate resources into things that
>don't yield immediate shareholder value, and may very well contribute
>to greater goods. But deregulation is Republican dogma.
But dogma and a way of continuing leadership in technical and scientific
matters are incompatible. If the Republicans want the US to
deteriorate, they will continue their deregulation furor.
In general I have found that there are places where policy studies
are done and whether the Republicans or Democrats are in power,
the policy studies are implemented. So I don't see either the Republicans
or Democrats as the issue here. In fact the deregulation was emphasized
in the 1980s by the Democrats with Ira Magaziner and an MIT researcher
writing a book to promote it and suddenly there was lots of congressional
activity to support the kind of policy proposed in the book.
>
>>However, with IPTO there was a general purpose objective.
>
>>With Microsoft, there is a narrow self serving objective.
>
>>And it seems that the general plans for scaling the Internet are
>>are being subjected to public discussion and consideration so
>that the research can be done in a general way, rather than
>>to increase some sector's profits.
>
The above should have bene
are *not* being subjected to public discussion and consideration so
>that the research can be done in a general way, rather than
>>to increase some sector's profits.
>That is why I feel we need a research institution like IPTO again.
>
>
>
>>Somehow to equate good government regulation with "socialism"
>>even "modified socialism" seems to be a lack of recognition of
>>the importance that regulation plays to make science possible.
>I'm not using "modified socialism" as a derogatory term. Once
>government takes a role in private industry, controlling rates of
>return, it's no longer a classic free market. Once arbitrageurs take
>a role in manipulating short-term financial instruments without
>reference to real value, it's also no longer a classic free market.
Well actually "private" industry under this definition is "socialism"
as a corporation doesn't have an existence except by virtue of
law and government regulation of what a corporation is and what
it can do.
So the socialism is really corporate socialism that we are faced with.
There is no such thing as a free market or a corporation that can
exist outside of the laws and other regulations that government
provides.
There is no classic "free market". And there is no classic
unregulated corporate entity. The actual dispute is over whether
the "regulation" will serve the self interest of the corporations
or have a public rationale and purpose.
I don't know where this notion of the so called "free market" came
from but it is not based on any real situation that I understand.
Rather it becomes a public relations weapon against the public
interest and public purposes of government.
>>>The US has excelled in scientific activity when it has protected
>>>and supported scientific research. This took good regulations.
>
>>Bill Gates fights regulation tooth and nail and thus the world is
>>stuck with a windows operating system that perpetually crashes.
>>
>>Research is needed not only in the technology but also in the social
>>forms and institutions needed to nourish and provide the soil for
>>the technological development.
>>And again: what vehicle can implement this? Who needs to take the
>>initiative? Who pays? Who takes the legislative lead?
I outlined some about this earlier. How in the past has this happened?
In some cases the creation of programs within the DoD has helped.
In some cases there needs to be public media attention to these issues
to create the climate where Congress and the Executive Branch of
government are under pressure to introduce needed initiatives.
The fiasco of ICANN shows there is a need. The National Academy of
Science in its studies could make proposals for what is needed and
these proposals could have some impact, but the committee studying
the next generation DNS has been so poorly constructed that this
possibility is lost and instead one needs to understand how to
deal with the damage they are likely to do instead.
DARPA could do something. Probably the other research agencies like
ONR or AFOSR could as well. NSF could probably do something.
Its interesting that there are infrastructure studies that have
been done of other infrastructures like telephone and power that seemed
to be considered as a model for the Internet's future development instead
of a study of what is unique about the Internet's development and the
social forms that grew up as part of that development.
I am not sure how to change the environment that gives lots of funding
and official support to studies that are useless with regard to
understanding what is needed for the Internet's development but
gives no support for needed research.
Maybe there need to be some articles written about this for online
journals.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 15:18:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: [netz] All packets are created equal
If I might draw an analogy between Internet traffic and vehicle traffic,
should all traffic be treated equally, or should there be provisions for
certain types of traffic, such as fire fighters, police, or ambulances?
- --gregbo
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 18:44:37 -0400
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net>
Subject: Re: [netz] Government and Science Was:FC: Ftc action
I hope this discussion can be fruitful. Ronda, you and I probably
have some fundamentally different assumptions about social policy.
But, we shall see.
>Sorry it has taken a while to get to respond to this as things have
>been hectic this past week, but the discussion is really important.
>
>I wonder what the thoughts of others on the netizens list are to the
>issues being raised in this discussion:
>
>>"Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net> wrote on Sunday April 29 wrote:
>>
>Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>>Well you may find it of interest to take a look at the May 2001 issue
>>>of Wired. I don't often read it but this had an article by Larry Roberts
>>>(one of the ARPANET pioneers) and he explains how he is creating
>>>a new kind of intelligent router significantly change the routing done
>>>on the Net so that there will be priority service for those who pay
>>>more and lower class service for those who can't afford the higher
>>>prices.
>
>>Unfortunately, you are dealing with popularizations of concepts that
>>have been discussed extensively, for years, in quite public
>>engineering forums. See, for example, the IETF Differentiated
>>Services Working Group at
>>http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/diffserv-charter.html
>
>
>But there hasn't been public discussion on these issues. And as
>these are public issues, issues in which the public needs to be
>involved to understand their concerns and needs, it is a problem
>that the discussion doesn't happen in a more public arena than
>an IETF forum.
As long as it is a technical discussion, I don't know how anything
could be more open than an IETF forum. It isn't necessary to attend
the in-person meetings; most of the real work is done on mailing
lists.
The working groups, and their charters, are established in an open
manner. But the rules do require that to be chartered, a working
group has to set up a set of objectives, of engineering output.
In the real world, there have to be people motivated to do the work,
whether academic or commercial. They represent various interests.
"The public" is a little nebulous -- it needs some representation
that has an informed understanding of the issues involved.
My current research, for example
(http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-berkowitz-bgpcon-01.txt
is now a work item in the Benchmarking Technology Working Group. It
deals with coming up with vendor-neutral measurements of router
convergence. Such methodology both helps the consumer of internet
components (not end users), and also is a necessary parameter for
understanding technical issues of Internet scaling. It has as much
direct public policy relevance as the mechanics of a medical research
organization standardizing on the exact chemistry of a
general-purpose blood sugar measurement.
I happen to be a diabetic and do self-monitoring. I also happen to
know enough biochemistry to understand exactly how the monitor works.
But if this were a field where I didn't have the detailed knowledge,
at some level, I'd have to accept that FDA monitoring and
certification was adequate. The equivalent is true in the detailed
work of any technology. Give us policy guidance at a high level, but
then let the specialists do their work within that policy.
>
>>What's wrong with having economically differentiated premium service,
>>as long as the lower class services are affordable? The "tragedy of
>>the commons" is a classical economic paradigm -- unless there are
>>consequences to using shared or premium resources, some people will
>>take more than their unfair share.
>
>But what is being done is exactly what is the concern in the "tragedy
>of the commons". The commons is being fenced off and the result
>of common effort is being grabbed by some to limit what is available
>to the public.
Not necessarily. If economies of scale make the larger backbones
cheaper per packet transmitted, and low-cost services remain
available as well as premium, general access costs go down. I don't
know of anyone who suggests that there should be a monopolistic raise
in basic access pricing.
>
>Originally the Net was built on a principle of the more who are
>connected, the more valuable it is to all. The more who contribute,
>the more valuable it is to all.
>
>Now the opposite principle is being introduced. That there will
>be those who will fence it all off and keep take the premier
>aspects for the most wealthy, and others will all be second class
>citizens.
>
>Somehow this is a fundamental change in the nature of the Internet,
>and once it is implemented, we will *no* longer have an Internet,
>but something much less desirable.
>
>>For health and productivity reasons, I fly business/first class on
>>long flights. The availability of this premium service doesn't seem
>>to empty out the economy class cabin.
>
>Perhaps you fly business/first class. But I can't afford to.
>
>The seats I get in the other class are smaller because a part of
>the plane has been reserved for first/business class.
>
>Often the planes I have been on have had the first/business section
>of the plane empty while the section of the plane I am on filled to
>the brim.
>
>All the seats should have more space, not more space given to some, and
>others having less as a result.
We disagree profoundly. I'm not sure if your analysis is Marxist, or
what, but I detect a fundamental belief that there should be equal
shares of everything to everyone.
>
>Somehow the Internet has functioned in a good way with all packets
>being treated equally. To change that is to fundamentally change
>the Internet and its operation.
NO! It _never_ has done that. Management and control traffic ALWAYS
have had priority.
>
>>
>>>The changes that are being proposed would seem to affect the lower levels
>>>as well as the upper levels of the Internet.
>>>
>>>And what is interesting is that these changes are not being discussed
>>>and debated publicly. Instead there is an effort to install them by
>>>fiat on the folks in the US and around the world.
>
>>But these are widely discussed in public engineering forums such as
>>the IETF and operational forums such as IEPG, NANOG, RIPE, etc.
>>Where do you think they should be discussed?
>
>They need to be discussed in more public forums.
>
>For example, on Usenet, on slashdot, in The Register and Telepolis.
I agree these can be forums for discussion and awareness, but hardly
for policy formulation.
>
>But is this a debate?
>
>Or only one point of view?
>
>It seems if only the ISP's viewpoint is being considered, it
>is a very narrow sector of the opinion.
ISPs certainly are only one part. But any group has to consider the
economics of its proposals.
>
>My opposition to commercialization of the NSFNet on Usenet was
>actively opposed by folks who ran ISP's who viciously flammed
>me when I tried to raise concerns.
If you do not commercialize, is there any alternative to funding
through tax revenues? The overall government budget is a separate
issue.
>Early on others on newsgroups
>where this was happening would post saying that they hadn't thought
>what I had said was important but when they saw the flame from the
>ISP proponent, they realized they should reread what I had written
>and that it was important.
>
>But there have been other situations where folks from the ISPs have
>cut me off from having a chance to speak. There has been an active
>effort to prevent the discussion, rather than to encourage it.
>
>So it is particularly good to see your efforts to encourage this
>discussion.
>
>Also the Internet Society was a place which could have done a public
>service by encouraging the discussion and debate on such issues,
>but instead they have actively promoted a narrow set of views.
I don't know how to answer. I will be speaking on scalability of the
Internet routing system, at the ISOC Stockholm meeting in June. Four
of us have 90 minutes. Like any other speakers, we have to focus on
what we have time to cover.
>
>I offered to present papers at their conferences a number of times
>and only had the offers ignored or rejected. In 1998 I raised some
>issues about Internet governance and offered a paper, and they turned
>down the paper but said I could do a poster. I went to the conference
>with the poster, and when I got there my name was *not* on the list
>of those who were doing posters. Fortunately I had the email that
>had told me I could do the poster. I showed it to the head of the
>conference and he wrote a note authorizing me to put up the poster
>I had brought. But the name of the poster wasn't included in the
>table of contents given out to those viewing the posters either.
>
>And the history work I have done is *not* included at the Internet
>Society web site. A friend asked me to look into why and I was
>told I had to have the work approved by someone. I sent it to
>that someone, and there was still no means of having the work
>included.
>
>So my experience is that there had been an active effort on the part
>of some folks to prevent the public discussion of these kinds of
>important public issues.
>
>Hopefully we can break through that now.
>
>>>Well depending on who does the funding, that will help set the priorities
>>>of what the research is that gets done.
>>>
>>>For example I have been looking at some of the technical articles written
>>>during the early development of the Internet when the research was
>>>funded by government. Then the aims of the research were to create
>>>a "resources sharing network" and "fairness" of treatment of all packets
>>>was an objective.
>
>>Totally equal treatment for all packets has, with experience, turned
>>out to be a very bad engineering idea. The most basic concern is
>>that if all packets are equal, the control and management packets
>>that actually run the routers and other infrastructure components may
>>be blocked by user traffic. If the control traffic is blocked, the
>>Internet as a whole cannot respond to changing conditions, and can
>>and has suffer massive failures.
>
>
>But weren't there ways to deal with this problem early on and so
>can't there be ways figured out to continue to deal with the problem?
>
>Somehow the Internet has grown up and developed on the basis of
>equal treatment for packets. And this seems a good principle, not
>a bad one.
Again -- it absolutely, positively doesn't work that way.
>
>
>>There are reasonable differentiations among basic kinds of
>>application traffic. Is it reasonable to treat an interactive
>>session (e.g., web browsing, interactive games) with the same service
>>quality of "freight" such as an overnight file backup?
>
>Yes!
>
>It is reasonable because then email gets thru and it isn't put on
>as a second class citizen to video conferencing.
*sigh* I'll try one last real-world example, but I am beginning to
feel as if your agenda is overriding technical realities. A couple
of years ago, I was working with a regional health provider that
contracted with community cardiologists to deliver specialty care.
Cardiac ultrasounds and other imaging information were stored at a
central facility.
The medical organization, at first, thought that community services
could not be economic, because each doctor's office, to retrieve
images in useful real time, would need prohibitively expensive
communications links.
I raised the question of how long it took to schedule a routine
appointment, and was told about 3 weeks. The economical fix, which
definitely had a public good, was to integrate the appointment desk
with the image transfer system. When a patient made an appointment,
the patient records were searched to see if there were relevant image
files. We put servers with large disks into the physicians' offices,
and connected them to all the office telephone (and ISDN) lines and
modems.
At the close of each business day, the image repository automatically
dialed the server in the doctor's office, and transferred files all
night (and weekends). The links were slow, but otherwise unused. By
the time the patient's appointment came, the image file was present
on the server, and the physician could then retrieve it in real time
using the office LAN.
In other words, we gave the phones priority for voice and fax during
the day, and for bulk data transfer at night. This wasn't
discriminatory -- it was smart engineering that helped deliver
cost-effective health care.
>
>Somehow equal treatment means that the whole internetwork has to be
>improved to have something that is better for any part. So it
>is a good constraint.
>
>The fundamental purpose of the Internet is communication and
>resource sharing to making such communication possible.
>
>Therefore every packet needs to be treated as important, not just
>the packets of those who are used to being treated in a privileged
>way in most other aspects of our society.
Again, you are flatly wrong technically. If you were transferring a
book -- a text file -- every packet must be delivered accurately,
because the meaning would be compromised if it had errors. For text
transfer, accuracy is more important than the delay caused by
retransmitting packets in error.
The absolute opposite is true for packetized voice, where delay is
far more important than error. An occasional errored packet in a
voice call might cause a click or hiss, but voice is surprisingly
tolerant to occasional errors -- the human ear interpolates very
well. Delaying voice traffic, however, can make it completely
unintelligible.
>
>
>>Internet voice simply will not work if it encounters significant
>>delay. It is incidentally, surprisingly tolerant to loss and errors,
>>but not delay. Prioritizing voice traffic, which actually doesn't
>>take much bandwidth, is a reasonable engineering compromise.
>
>No because that puts voice at a comparative advantage to data email, or
>newsgroups for example.
Voice actually needs less bandwidth than newsgroups, but it can't be delayed.
>
>I thought that voice didn't lose much if some packets don't get thru
>as there is redundancy in voice.
>
>The reason the Internet has been so successful in accommodating
>a wide range of networks and technologies and facilitating communication
>among them is that it was created and developed as a general purpose
>infrastructure.
>
>To change this, to make changes that are good for voice, but not
>email is a beginning of a step away from this general purpose infrastructure.
It simply isn't as uniform as you think. It NEVER has been.
>So it wasn't that the DoD required the whole network to meet its needs,
>rather it created a network to meet its immediate needs and supported
>its communication with the research network that would serve other needs.
>
>As I understand it, the whole end to end principle was that the
>network which sends or receives the packets is responsible for doing
>what it needs to do, not that it requires the internet to change to
>serve what the individual needs of the participating networks are.
The end to end principle NEVER excluded differentiated services. IP
has always had a Type of Service/Precedence field.
>
>
>>>Now the article in Wired reports that the investment community funding
>>>the research on charging more for service is eager to fund research that
>>>will raise the cost for all to send packets.
>
>>I haven't read the article, but I would disagree with the premise.
>>Historically, the costs of mass electronic communications, as a
>>function of personal income, have dropped dramatically. That doesn't
>>preclude the existence of premium services.
>
>But the whole point of those created differentiated and priority service
>will be to make it more expensive and to exclude some from what is
>available to others.
So? I'd like a Mercedes-Benz, while you are at it. I'm excluded from
it. That's bad?
>
>
>>Wired is a profit-making magazine. Are they required to give
>>perspective? Who determines how much perspective is sufficient?
>
>This is irresponsible reporting. It may be what its advertisers want,
>but it fails to serve any public purpose. Journalism is protected
>in the US because it is expected to serve some public purpose.
Be sure that the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, etc., are
aware of their responsibilities. The print media have never been
required to present "equal time" -- the historical First Amendment
right offers the opportunity for them to be checks and balances on
government.
Broadcast media are in a different situation because they use a
public resource, the radio frequency spectrum.
>
>Unfortunately there is little in the offline media that does serve
>any public purpose by raising the important issues regarding Internet
>development. Instead they hype the commericalization and e-commerce
>and fail to provide the public with any education about the nature
>of the Internet or the social impact of its development.
>
>
>>>The social goals mean extending the resource sharing capability
>>>of the Internet and making very low cost access available to all.
>
>>I have to disagree. Not all users of all resources can or should be
>>equal. One of the major social goods possible with IP networking is
>>improved delivery of healthcare, including such things as
>>telepresence surgery. Are you saying that the surgical blade can be
>>delayed by the traffic of some kids playing Doom? Or are you saying
>>that there must be so much network capacity that no matter what
>>traffic is put onto the network, it will never be delayed?
>
>Improved delivery of healthcare doesn't mean changing the entire
>Internet to accomplish this particular purpose. There needs to be
>the research done that is necessary to figure out how to
>have this improved delivery without deteriorating the delivery to
>other uses of the Internet.
WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO THAT! It's called traffic engineering and
it requires that some traffic gets prioritized.
>
>>
>>>The aim being promoted by Wired is end the Internet, create a new
>>>network that will cost everyone more and will provide those who
>>>can pay access to the best service, and everyone else will be second
>>>or third class netizens.
>
>>So? As long as there are seats in coach, does that mean it's evil for
>>me to fly in first? Is it wrong for me to send one package by
>>Federal Express for 8:30 next day delivery, and send a routine bill
>>by postal mail?
>
>We do disagree. On airplanes all the seats should have more space,
>not cause all in tourist class to be cramped so those in first class
>can have more room at their expense.
Total disagreement.
>
>With regard to mail, that seems a different situation. I didn't think
>that regular mail was slowed down to accommodate Federal Express.
But FedEx diverts funds from postal mail, so the postal service can't
give the same level of service it did when it was a monopoly.
>
>Have different networks that provide the different services and have
>them communicate via the Internet. But don't deteriorate the service
>on the whole Internet to accommodate some particular service.
I simply can't convert the above paragraph to any technical
understanding I have of how protocols work.
>
>It is bad that this is the case. It would be desirable from not only
>your own point of view, but from a public point of view, to have
>good researchers supported by public funds so their research could
>be done for the public purposes that need resarch.
>
>What about the academic world? Is there any way good researchers
>can get positions there and still be able to continue their research?
Well, in my own case, I was a dropout into computer science, long
before there were meaningful academic programs. Without a PhD, I
can't even begin to discuss any significant academic involvement --
actually a shame, because I enjoy teaching as well as research.
>
>
>>Again, I'm confused. There are lots of competing backbones. When I
>>design a large network, I have a choice of backbones. That's good
>>both for price and for avoiding a single point of failure.
>
>Perhaps. I would need to know more about this situation to be able
>to comment. Early on with the phone companies, however, in the US,
>there were competing phone companies and one had to take service
>from each of the companies to be able to talk with the people on that
>companies' phone system.
>
>It seems that competing backbones means duplication of resources
>and therefore higher prices. And it means potentially the lack of
>the needed long term research to upgrade backbone technology.
Again I'm confused. In the early telephone system, there never were
significant competing backbones. AT&T pretty well had that as a
monopoly. The competition was in local access, such as the Bell
versus Home systems.
>
>
>When I saw Vint Cerf at the 1998 ISOC meeting, he said something like that the
>research or education Internet was a security hole in the commercial
>Internet.
>
>He seemed to be proposing that the whole of the Internet had to be
>modified to meet the needs of one sector of the traffic, the commercial
>sector.
Let me suggest a rephrasing: all aspects of the Internet, commercial
or not, now need security measures that were not required in the
early days, when trust could be assumed. The reality is that
destructive crackers and criminals will attack resources -- including
things such as medical care facilities, simply for bragging rights.
Political protest has gotten worse.
>
>The US government White paper on E-commerce and Green paper suggesting
>ICANN all make the same assumptions it seems. That the whole Internet
>must be changed to make it safe for e-commerce.
The whole internet needs to change to make it survivable with respect
to very real and current threats.
>
>This is fundamentally opposed to the history and development and
>basic nature of the Internet. This nature is that what is to
>be developed is a general purpose system and those who have
>particular needs will have to engineer them into their services
>not make the whole change for them.
The design remains general purpose. It has to consider new
requirements. I don't just mean security of commercial traffic -- I
mean the very operational existence of the network, of personal
privacy, etc.
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #390
******************************
