How to Save the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "An article up at the Harvard Business Review's website by Jonathan Zittrain, one of the founders of the Berkman Center, discusses how the desire to clamp down on Internet openness can be avoided. From the piece: 'Those who provide content and services over the Internet have lined up in favor of "network neutrality," by which ISPs would not be permitted to disfavor certain legitimate content that passes through their servers. Similarly, those who offer open APIs on the Internet ought to be application neutral, so all those who want to build on top of their interfaces can rely on certain basic functionality. Generative systems offer extraordinary benefits. As they go mainstream, the people using them can share some sense of the experimentalist spirit that drives them.'"

I have a better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyday, I fill up a jar with a little piece of the internet. Right now, my house is full of jars, but I figure this will pay off once the internet is gone.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Its very inefficient to store tubes in jars.

Re:I have a better solution

[smittyoneeach]

fill up a jar

Oh java, you were ever the solution in search of a problem.

Re:

[bobo mahoney]

I use mugs for my java not jars.

Re:

[lowid (24) _________]

I'll trade you a bottle of Crystal Pepsi for a jar of your internet..

Re:I have a better solution

[that this is not und]

I do the same thing, in terms of archiving and locally mirroring anything and everything I think I will find useful.

That means I have the entire NetBSD distfiles (source tarballs) for a fairly recent Pkgsrc version ("make mirror-distfiles" is your friend,) and data and info for all the equipment, etc. that I have or want. Also it's important to grab old stuff while you can, like collections of OS/2 applications, and even Simtelnet's MS-DOS archives.

Not because I assume it will all one-day go away. Because I KNOW lots of it will go away, because a lot of it already has.

Re:

[Guppy06]

Finally, someone who can answer the question "How much of the internet is pr0n?"

Save the internet with reefer

[Anonymous Coward]

once the internet gets the reefer madness, there'll be no stopping it.

Re:

[GDubs]

The fact that this was modded insightful brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Hrm

[jrwr00]

I wonder, What would happen all ISPs did not look at what the traffic was, i think they would drop prices as it would not take as much resources as watching all the traffic on the their networks

Re:

[lexarius]

You think that ISPs would drop prices due to a reduction in costs? I want to live in this fantasy world of yours.

Re:

[rhyder128k]

I think that ISPs will be quick to "protect" users from all of this dreadful offensive porn that could harm their users. Unfortunately, the form that this protection will take is to award themselves extra money... [cough] I mean... charge extra for porn channel access.

Easy.

[313373_bot]

Keep any form of legislation out of it. Let it self-regulate. Sounds radical and utopian, but the opposite seems even worse, ineffective and ultimately pointless.

Re:Easy.

[suv4x4]

Keep any form of legislation out of it. Sounds radical and utopian, but the opposite seems even worse, ineffective and ultimately pointless.

I'd give a hand* to eradicate cybersquatters by legislation. Also we have a big spam/scammer problem.

Legislation isn't out of the question, it just has to be applied with discipline. The internet is in its "wild west" phase right now, but as can be seen in USA itself, this is not a phase that lasts forever.

---
*Ok, I'd not give a hand, but you get my point.

Re:Easy.

[CastrTroy]

I don't think we have problem with spam or scammers that we can fix with legislation. Firstly, with spam, I have seen more than 2 spam messages per day in my inbox for a long time. This is through using GMail's filtering as well as SpamAssassin. Filtering out spam can get pretty far on just software, or at least a lot further than you'd get through legislation. Telling people not to send spam (especially when it's only illegal in certain countries) wouldn't get people to stop sending it. Also with scammers, it's a problem with education of the users, not with legislation. If people are stupid enough to type their bank password into some third party site because of an email they got, then they need to be educated about why that is such a bad idea.

Re:

[WilliamSChips]

Domain squatters though, that can definitely be fixed by legislation.

Re:Easy.

[CastrTroy]

Legislation through the organizations that handle domain registrations. This doesn't need to be dealt with at a criminal or government level. This is something that the internet can deal with on it's own, without incorporating the help of people in governments who don't understand the technology.

Re:Easy.

[node 3]

Legislation through the organizations that handle domain registrations. This doesn't need to be dealt with at a criminal or government level. This is something that the internet can deal with on it's own, without incorporating the help of people in governments who don't understand the technology.

How so? That's exactly how it is now, and there's no regulation for this whatsoever. What motivation *AT ALL* do the registrars have to not allow domain squatting? None. The incentive is *exactly the opposite*.

That's the problem with libertarian free-market fundamentalists. Sometimes the market promotes undesirable behavior. For example, the free market promotes theft and murder. We regulate those activities because they are deemed to be sufficiently undesirable. Domain squatting isn't as bad as murder, but is in some ways like theft (blocking a limited resource with little-to-no societal benefit from being used productively by someone else, hence "squatting"). If you deem it sufficiently undesirable, the only logical solution is regulation. You're far more likely to find results with government regulation than you will with voluntary free-market regulation.

For example, without the EPA, do you think the environment would be cleaner or dirtier than it is now?

Re:

[rs79]

com/net/org can be said to be regulated. The country code domains less so. It end up being about the same at the end of the day.

How much of a problem is domain squatting really? There are laws against the most egregous ones. There are contractual arrangements for out of court dispute settlement. Then your left with guys buying domains for 6 and makig $7 or more of ads on landing pages.

The problem here is this is a slippery slope. You may have a "better" use for the domain but the result is the same. Some gu

Re:

[node 3]

To start putting any limits on this will undoubtedly inconvenience legitimate users while the sneaks just find a way around it. We saw this when we forced netsol to start enforcing .net regulations for their intended purpose. It just can't be done sorry.

Ugh, of all the brain-dead arguments put forth by free-market fundamentalists, this is the most inane. It's the "if even one person can get away with breaking the law, the law is useless" argument.

Making murder illegal doesn't stop murder. Does that mean outlawing murder has not worked? That it "just can't be done sorry"? Of course not.

The question is, can there be a law which sufficiently addresses some issue, while not unreasonably infringing on individual liberty?

For example, a law which states an indiv

Re:

[UncleFluffy]

For example, the free market promotes theft and murder.

Hmmm... this isn't as self-evident as you seem to believe. A purely short-term market, with no tracking of past history, maybe - but it doesn't work that way. In a fully open market, you are able to examine the past interactions of the people who are inviting you to interact with them.

(That's not to make a claim about whether government regulation is good or not, just to clarify a point.)

For example, without the EPA, do you think the environmen

Re:

[Merusdraconis]

Without the EPA, *and* without the restrictions preventing me from retaliating forcefully against the people producing toxins that enter into my lungs, it would be a whole lot cleaner, and you can guess why.

But if the people producing toxins have decided that it's better to spend money on effective mercenary security than effective pollution control, you're still SOL. Especially seeing as the security forces don't have to worry about the restrictions on appropriate force.

Let's rewind, and put aside the ques

Re:

[node 3]

In a fully open market, you are able to examine the past interactions of the people who are inviting you to interact with them.

Two problems with that.

The first and most problematic is that there's no such thing as a "fully open market" where you can "examine [all] the past interactions". Do you think if we removed all regulations that corporations would suddenly put their entire corporate history on the Internet for all to examine? It seems to me that clearly the opposite would happen, and they would disclose *far less* than they do now.

The second is that companies *right now* kill and steal, and we don't boycott them. The info is

Re:

[UncleFluffy]

The free market most libertarians have in mind is impossible. It is an oxymoron. It contradicts itself out of existence.

(Please don't assume I'm a frothing-at-the-mouth libertarian, btw - I tend strongly in that direction, but don't regard it as an absolute - maybe I'd be better classed as minarchist). My comment was mainly intended to say that government regulation has mixed effects. As ever, when I make a quick and imprecise slashdot post after a couple of beers, someone responds intelligently with we

Re:

[mh1997]

If people are stupid enough to type their bank password into some third party site because of an email they got, then they need to be educated about why that is such a bad idea.

Last week I received an email from the electric company (Duke Energy) that asked me to click a link in the email, update password, account number, answers to security questions, and finally, to verify if my banking info on file (for direct billing) was correct.

I forwarded the email to Duke thinking the email was a hoax (I didn't che

Re:

[CastrTroy]

I didn't say that companies were exempt from being stupid. I think it would be nice if companies started doing this kind of thing, although in a more secure way. It would be nice if my bank would send me PGP Encrypted and signed emails with my statements so that I didn't have to get a paper statement in the mail every month. I don't know why banks don't do thinks like this to make their customers more knowledgable, and try to show them that email can be a safe way of transmitting information. Once PGP go

Re:

[Torodung]

Legislation isn't out of the question, it just has to be applied with discipline. The internet is in its "wild west" phase right now, but as can be seen in USA itself, this is not a phase that lasts forever.

I understand your analogy, but isn't it a bit specious? Did you ever fear being gunned down like a dog while running your shell account? ;^)

I think we all need to tone down the hyperbole. It's the only way we're going to be able to come up with measured solutions. More legislation is absolutely going to be necessary, but it needs to be carefully considered, not applied in fear and haste like the self-appointed judge/jury/executioners of the "Wild West."

That disciplined application of law you want isn'

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

Did you ever fear being gunned down like a dog while running your shell account? ;^)

There's somebody here you should meet....
http://members.iinet.com.au/~bofh/ [iinet.com.au]

Re:Easy.

[suv4x4]

I understand your analogy, but isn't it a bit specious? Did you ever fear being gunned down like a dog while running your shell account? ;^)

Yes, we all fear. Isn't it obvious:

"Don't forget your anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-phishing!"
"Do you know of a good spam filter?
"You need a good firewall, I recommend XYZ!"
"Internet Explorer isn't secure, get Firefox"
"You absolutely need to be always patched with the latest fixes?"
"I have all my ports closed but 80 and 443, even on those I'm having special rules setup."
"Drive-By Downloads: definition"
"Spammers attack back anti-spam site with DoS attack"

Does it sound like the Internet is a safe and happy place?

But here, I'll extend the analogy even further and explain the reasons: every single industry/society in the history so far is moving in cycles:

1. First cycle is early adopters, accidentally stumbling upon something new, people who use and develop something for the hell of it, without the general public realizing what it may be useful for (Columbus accidentally stumbling upon USA and thinking it's India)

2. Free phase: great for innovation, since the entry level is ridiculously low, anyone gets a chance, but there's no stability, no control, and that limits the use of previously mentioned innovation (wild west phase).

3. Police State phase: everything is legislated, entry level is high, but there's stability, so that you can rely upon the inventions of phase "2". There's still some innovation going on, but people rely on stability a lot more.

So there we go. Things that happen in the wild west phase don't keep repeating forever. There won't be a new Google every few years, for example, just like there won't be new Microsoft any time soon. Search engine has been invented and working well enough already, we'll mostly see legislation and increase in stability in this area. Innovation will happen elsewhere.

In the great Slashdot spirit of car analogies, I'll also ask you to imagine road without legislation. Sure, if this was the case, we'd have most problems with technology: much more intelligent, sturdier cars, cars that can take huge impact and the passengers will survive.

But they'll also cost a lot more in money and time to maintain and be sure the next time you crash you won't be dead, since it'll be perfectly legal to drive drunk zig-zag accross the road.

Okay now, enough is enough

[Torodung]

Look, that was a very interesting reply, but you didn't really read mine if you must ask this:

In the great Slashdot spirit of car analogies, I'll also ask you to imagine road without legislation.

Bzzt! Why? Here's what I said before:

More legislation is absolutely going to be necessary (emph. added)

I can't be any clearer.

But for crying out loud, your hyperbole (and apparent fear) seems to have taken this discussion off the deep end. I'll just pray that you are joking when you suggest that the only way to implement law and regulation is in a...

3. Police State phase

Holy crap.

"Wild West" seemed specious, but "Police state" is a very dangerous way to describe simple "law and order."

Re:

[Ash Vince]

A wonderfully insightful post from Mr Bullshit.

Re:

[Torodung]

LOL. I mean that.

And a wonderfully appropriate signature you have. ;^)

--
Toro

Re:

[Ash Vince]

Thanks, I meant what I said sbout your insightful post too. I wish I had some points for it.

Re:

[suv4x4]

Police State phase

Holy crap.

"Wild West" seemed specious, but "Police state" is a very dangerous way to describe simple "law and order."

Oh it's a a very fine way. I like interestingly sounding names.

You see, the phase after Police State is revolution, death and rebirth.

Societies and industries are like people. They're young and free, then adult and productive, old and stubborn, controlling, then they die, but their kids are there to replace them. And every generation does better than the previous one, that's

Re:

[Torodung]

Cool. You were just being colorful. I had hoped so.

I think you're right. They're drowning in their own sense of privilege. I honestly think we're at the point where we can no longer even guarantee the incentives that copyright (and other IP law) provide, and are going to tighten down ("police state") until society can no longer stand it, and then comes your "revolution."

The revolution is alternatives and new business models. New incentives and the death of those who cling to the old, hopefully without viole

Re:

[rohan972]

Did you ever fear being gunned down like a dog while running your shell account?

There is some doubt you would have had this fear in the "wild west" anyway. http://www.mises.org/story/1449 [mises.org] There would probably be places in the now "civilised" US that you would be more likely to be killed than in the wild west.

"in many places like Dodge City, tales of violence were actually accentuated to appeal to the tourist trade in the latter years of the Frontier."

"the excitement in the Old West in general has b

Re:

[maxume]

Deaths by gun would be a lot more interesting than murders. Also, per capita numbers.

Re:

[rohan972]

I wondered that too, I remember seeing something about incidence armed robbery being lower, but I don't have a source. I think the "die violently" part of the quote "Dodge City alone saw 15 people die violently from 1876-1885--an average of 1.5 per year" probably is indicating gun deaths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_City [wikipedia.org] 1880 census 996 for Dodge city, so still very high, but considering that Dodge City was a famously wild place it seems likely to me that most of the west was not that bad. Even at

Re:

[perlchild]

I'd argue that the problem with technology issues and regulation, is that it's almost unheard of for an industry expert in them, to also become a judge. What we need is for people who actually understand the issues to be the ones deciding, not politicians.

Re:

[suv4x4]

I'd argue that the problem with technology issues and regulation, is that it's almost unheard of for an industry expert in them, to also become a judge. What we need is for people who actually understand the issues to be the ones deciding, not politicians.

Ministry of information technologies...?

Re:

[perlchild]

I meant judges, few issues are "decided" by ministers, they usually are put forward by them however.

Re:

[Mattintosh]

eradicate cybersquatters by legislation

Can't be done. There are two ways to cure cybersquatting. Either 1) don't buy their wares and let them find real work, or 2) use the internet for what it should be used for: finding their personal information and subsequently using it to ruin their lives.

we have a big spam/scammer problem

No, "we" don't. Spam can be made unprofitable by raising the signal-to-noise ratio. Fight spam with spam by sending 10 fake spams for every spam you recieve. Eventually, people will de

Re:

[rustalot42684]

Yeah, 'cause deregulation ALWAYS works. Yes, it works in some areas of the market.

"But what is there stopping someone from making their own, new ISP that does not prioritize certain traffic?"

The costs of starting a new telecommunications provider are huge. You would have to lay in all your own fibre-optic cable and build a new infrastructure from scratch. Face it: The costs of making a new ISP are so immense that only someone like Google or Yahoo would be able to do it, and even then it would be VERY ri

Re:

[313373_bot]

Some form of neutrality and fair competition enforcement is necessary indeed, given the big ISP oligopoly that currently exists. But it wasn't big business that made the Internet popular, rather, they encroached and grew alongside it. Proprietary services like Compuserve and others died or, like AOL, were forced to open to the "free" Internet in order to survive. If big ISPs try to go back to walled gardens, they will wither and die like their predecessors, so in that sense we don't really need legislation

Re:

[DittoBox]

Regulation works in two ways. It's either written directly into law that assumes technology and market will never change or it's written in such a way that a bureaucracy is created with a broad charter and allowed to deal with the technical side of things in the way the body sees fit. The former works great until the market wants to go in its own direction or innovation occurs and the latter usually is given too much power, in that case we see things go ill very quickly when large amounts of industry money

Re:Easy.

[Planesdragon]

you're absolutey right. I mean, look at how quickly the meat packing industry cleaned up after The Jungle. Or how quickly the automobile industry rolled out seat belts and air bags to all their automobiles, even the cheap ones, just because it was a good idea.

Self-regulation is a fool's dream, moreso than industry by demand.

Re:

[313373_bot]

Look the other way: would you feel safe to do your shopping and banking online, because there are all sorts of laws and regulations to protect your data, yet find out that the merchant's database was hacked or some clerk in your bank lost a notebook will all your account information? They will not really fix their security because of some law, but only if people perceive the problem and demand a solution or otherwise take their business elsewhere. Laws usually come later, when some legislator adopts the cau

Re:

[marsall_banana]

Cars all had seatbelts before regulation, the regulation was to force drivers to wear them.

Re:

[that this is not und]

You must not be very old. I can remember when seat belts became mandatory. Before that point they were optional equipment.

Re:

[Bios_Hakr]

This is one of the reasons I can't vote Democrat. I really don't need mommy to tell me to wear a seatbelt. It's awesome that The Jungle (awesome book about chicago meatpacking) informs consumers about meatpacking. However, government shouldn't be in the process of regulating transactions between individuals.

Every law that is written means more taxes, more bureaucrats, more waste, and less money that I can spend.

Stop calling for government to take care of you. Start taking care of yourself. If 20% of th

Re:

[eldepeche]

Yeah, start inspecting the packaging facilities of all the places from which you buy food yourself. It'll be way cheaper than everyone in the country paying for the FDA and USDA.

Re:

[Bios_Hakr]

Places like 20/20 or 60-minutes (or the fucking new york times) can make money by telling you what is good or bad. Or, even better, if you don't know your local butcher, don't trust them.

Of course, you can always rely on mommy to tell you what's good for you...

I bet...

[Ayanami Rei]

...you think you'll be thrown clear of an accident.

If that is the case, you really do need mommy to tell you what to do, because you're apparently too stupid to evaluate risks yourself.

Re:

[Bios_Hakr]

The people who think that are dumb. However, the government has no business telling me to wear a seatbelt. If people want to drive without a seatbelt, that's their problem.

What's amazing is that in every state in the union, I'll get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Yet in most places, there is no law against people who drive while eating, talking on a cell, adjusting the radio, smoking, etc... Which of those things is a real danger?

Re:

[sustik]

> This is one of the reasons I can't vote Democrat. I really don't need mommy to tell me to wear a seatbelt.

The seatbelt protects *not* only the person wearing it. In accidents of medium impact, without the seatbelt the driver may become completely incapacitated (knocked unconscious) and lose the ability (chance) to avoid another impact (maybe more fatal) or other danger. This effects the other drivers on the road (and the passengers if there are any).

I cannot comment on whether the seatbelt is a Demo

Re:

[Bios_Hakr]

Democrat means big government regulating everything and everyone in every way possible. They "take from the rich and give to the poor". Republicans are often seen as friends of big business. The reason for this is that they are against government regulation and oversight. Dems == big government. Repub == small government.

Re:

[daeg]

If they want it unregulated, they need to use only private land. Since they use public easements, the public has a right to regulate it through the Government. The Government should serve the people. In this case, it is of everyone's interest to allow companies to use the public easements -- companies stay in business and the public gets a valuable service from it. At no time should any concession be given to companies that require public property to operate. If a company disappears because they cannot serv

Re:

[that this is not und]

I can't think of that many things more horrible than a whole building full of government bureaucrats unleashed to 'regulate' the Internet.

You use some pretty wide-open terms there. Like 'serve the public.'

Re:Easy.

[ls -la]

The inherent problem with this is that you assume people in general are smart and rational.

Re:

[quantaman]

Keep any form of legislation out of it. Let it self-regulate. Sounds radical and utopian, but the opposite seems even worse, ineffective and ultimately pointless.

There's a problem with trying to make a system an anarchy to maintain freedom.

There's no such thing as anarchy.

Just look at any 3rd world country without a strong government, they're some of the least free places around since you're at the complete mercy of whoever happens to control your little area. That's exactly what will happen to the current infrastructure of the Internet without government control, and the local warlords are almost certainly going to be ISPs. ISPs who control the flow of bits, and i

Don't Worry Ma'm

[m1sha]

I'm here to save your internet!

Re:

[beyondkaoru]

truly heroic, like this:

http://xkcd.com/c208.html [xkcd.com]

Crisis? What crisis? I stopped at page one.

[Torodung]

The only crisis I see regarding the Internet is that a large percentage of its users and networks implement a fundamentally insecure operating system, and the overwhelming majority of the client side users that run that operating system do so as ROOT, because that was the default install.

That's a garbage in/garbage out (GIGO) proposal for the Internet.

Otherwise, I think the Internet can handle it. It is carefully maintained and I think we'll even solve the looming address space problem. It doesn't need "saving" from anything but predatory last mile carrier profiteer rail barons who want to choke it off at the access points for profit.

So, Mr. Zittrain, your basic premise is flawed.

Here's a brief for a future article: The crisis is not with the *Inter*net, it is with the networks themselves that are internetworked. They're not secure. That's a local crisis, on a user by user and network by network basis. No change to the Internet or its protocols can fix it. GIGO.

Discuss.

If that was what your article eventually discussed, I apologize for my prejudice, but I couldn't get past your "Chicken Little" premises and foregone conclusion that "the Internet" is somehow in the crisis you described.

--
Toro

Re:

[that this is not und]

the overwhelming majority of the client side users that run that operating system do so as ROOT, because that was the default install.

Who should get root then? Government functionaries whose job is to oversee the 'smooth running of the internet'? Functionaries at Microsoft and Red Hat? Admins at the ISPs should have root on all equipment hooked up through their wires??

You're engaging in hand-waving.

Re:

[Chandon Seldon]

Just because you have root access doesn't mean you should be running as root. This isn't a contradiction, or even a hard problem; Ubuntu and OS X get it right.

Re:

[Barbarian]

The default install of Windows Vista Home is no difference than the way Ubuntu is set-up with respect to the user account and default permissions.

Re:

[eldepeche]

Yes, but there are applications that have to be run as an administrator because enforcement of user privileges didn't start until 20 years after Windows entered the market and 12 years after it became an operating system.

Re:

[maxume]

So it's a social, not a technical, problem?

ROOT == ADMINSTRATOR folks. Windows is the OS.

[Torodung]

I'm sorry. I've got a few people confused here by not using proper terminology.

I used the term "ROOT" because I didn't want to specifically mention Microsoft (MS). The machines that default to the user running at ROOT privileges by default are *all* Windows machines, and the proper term is, of course, "Administrator privileges."

To me, it's just running as ROOT. Sorry to cause confusion. I thought I had thoroughly insinuated I was talking about MS.

--
Toro

Re:

[TeknoHog]

You could have used 'admin' or 'administrator' which is a relatively vendor-neutral term, whereas 'root' is associated with unix. Unix people know you mean 'root' if you say 'admin', but Windows people may not know you mean 'admin' if you say 'root'. I mean, there's even a widely used title called 'unix admin'. Besides, writing 'ROOT' is confusing while you use 'GIGO' as an initialism, which 'root' is not.

Re:

[Creepyguywithastick]

I stopped at "a fundamentally insecure operating system".

Just stating the obvious.

[JRGhaddar]

The internet doesn't need to be messed with. Its actually the only free (as in speech) place to exchange information (depending on where you live).

If someone tries to regulate it people will find an alternative unregulated version and an industry will spring up to provide that, and those who regualted it in the first place will deregulate it to compete again.

The internet is actually the latest step in human evolution.
[For those who don't believe in evolution just ignore this. I'm not attacking your views ju

Re:

[eldepeche]

Where do the comments on YouTube fit in to your evolutionary process?

Re:

[JRGhaddar]

Your comment totally cracked me up. That is a good one.

Hmm... let's think about. Well I think they fit somewhere in the realm of the weak minded wasting there opportunity and instead of taking advantage of what we have, are spending there time contributing useless stuff. Every genetic pool has weak links. Youtube comments just help identify the weak links floating at the surface and distracts them with "shiny things" while the rest of us can move forward.

Re:

[Scarblac]

The internet doesn't need to be messed with. Its actually the only free (as in speech) place to exchange information (depending on where you live).

But only because of net neutrality, and the whole open, free way it was designed.

Without government interference, the original AOL would have ruled the world. You get to see exactly what your provider wants to sell to you. Net neutrality is the only thing keeping that at bay, imo.

Re:

[JRGhaddar]

I completely agree with your comment. Net neutrality is completely essential. and it was government interference that knocked down the original AOL, and thankfully so. Ya know come to think of it. Sounds very much like a certain OS dominating the mainstream today and an incredible open OS in the shadows.... one can only hope this is where history repeats itself.

Does this not call for a redesign of the internet?

[perlhacker14]

Lets face it: the internet is a mockery of what it was meant to be. It is full of literally crap and is subject to the whims of politically oriented morons. If the internet was redesigned, there would be a chance to restart: a chance to redesign the net to suit what is best, without idiotic interference. The issue of net neutrality would come up, but with a redesign that works around it, there would be no problem. Think: a new chance to fix all the ridiculous errors and issues and clean up the internet through a redesign.

redesign

[jefu]

Somehow, I suspect that any redesign would bring out all the special-interest groups, the rich corporations and the nutters big time. We'd get a redesign, but it would be specified so that unsolicited email (not "spam", of course) from large corporations would get favorable treatment, so that towns could censor (that whole local values thing the supreme court put into place) all incoming and outgoing traffic, so that politicians could take over the internet at any time for any reason. For my part, I thin

About appliance-like locked down computers

[lachesis-jp]

The article is interesting, long but interesting. The author is arguing among other things that PCs should stay mainstream because they are a motor of innovation since they are easily adapted to new applications. The author sees closed appliances such as tivos as a danger to innovation.

I too believe that PC are extremely important in our society. But I am not sure that the generalization of locked down internet-appliance would be a bad thing.

The main reason we are assaulted by spam and that botnets are rampant is that the average user is ignorant. A computer is a great tool and it's a very powerful one but as the other said "with power comes responsibility". But for a large portion of the users, the computer is a tool, that they use for a rather limited set of applications, and they have no deep understanding of how it works and what they have to do to use it properly : we can see that in the inability of so many to secure their computers.

To use the sacrosanct car analogy, computers are like cars that you can drive without license. Since you don't need a license, people don't bother learning how to operate it properly : they are not interested and I can understand that. The problem is that now computers are interconnected and interact with others computers the same as cars interact with other cars on the road. You could very well operate your car without learning anything other than how to turn it on and accelerate but in that case, it is required that every drivers learn how to use turning light and other things before they can go on the road so that they don't impact the welfare as the other users.

On the other hand, I'm sure that , those problems will be reduced in the future as children that have been brought up around computers and the internet will be more computer literate than their parents but the general level of computer illiteracy I see around me makes me think that it will take a long long time before the average joe can be trusted with a computer.

What could be done to reduce this problem :
        -Nothing. Things are going to worsen but there is probably nothing we can do.
        -Let OS vendors turn to trusted computing but that would destroy the power and usefulness of General Purpose computer for everybody.
        -Hope people will turn to easy-to use appliance like device.

I think we are indeed seeing that on a level : we can already find appliance-like locked down computers in many houses : tivos, xbox, playstation, they all are lockdown computers. Not everybody need a PC and I think it would be good if people had the choice not to get a real PC if they don't have the skills to use it.

Re:

[keithjr]

What could be done to reduce this problem : -Nothing. Things are going to worsen but there is probably nothing we can do. -Let OS vendors turn to trusted computing but that would destroy the power and usefulness of General Purpose computer for everybody. -Hope people will turn to easy-to use appliance like device.

Unfortunately, there is a fourth option: gross restrictions on internet traffic and application usage. This brute-force and lowest-order solution is the impetus for ou

Re:

[cdrguru]

As long as you have "users" connecting unsecured devices to the Internet, they will be compromised. As long as there are people using the Internet to attempt to trick people into doing things which will compromise their computers, the Internet will not be safe for commerce, banking and other business activities.

The drive to use the Internet for these functions is going to mean that the script kiddies, organized crime gangs, botnet herders and hackers have to be stopped. One way or another. Today, it can

Re:

[that this is not und]

So everyone has a general-purpose computer that is wide open to compromise. All it takes is opening the wrong email attachment.

My 'general-purpose' computer that I use to connect to the net is a hugely popular model of which millions were sold. A Dell Optiplex GX1. Yet somehow it isn't 'wide open to compromise.' I use Sylpheed to read my email, and only from my user account on NetBSD.

So how, again, am I wide open to compromise? The setup I am using was completely free, so there's no 'cost barrier' to ot

Re:

[lachesis-jp]

You are safe because unlike 95% of the population you are a technical user. You know what you are doing. You need to consider the security of John Doe's computer : he's the one very likely to be infected with malware.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to the car and road analogy... Despite the various laws and regulations concerning roads and vehicular use, there ARE still crashes and drunk drivers that Joe Average can't avoid. Thus there should be a set of laws to govern against phishing, malware, spyware, adware, and spam and there should be some way to enforce them, and make sure they pay. Joe Average gets in a wreak and he goes to a mechanic after settling the matter, through a court case if need be, to fix the car up. Joe Average should also,

DRM Hurra!

[Via_Patrino]

"If enough Internet users begin to prefer PCs and other devices designed along the locked-down lines of tethered appliances, that change will tip the balance in a long-standing tug of war from a generative system open to dramatic change to a more stable, less-interesting system that locks in the status quo."

DRM Hurra, for making the Internet more stable and people less free.

Now a bit more serious, that's still a single point of failure, the closed devices that, if compromised, none may notice or easily recover.

People still crack Xbox, blue-ray, even being closed devices, because they see a value on it, but what's the value of cracking an Ipod ?

Low price and marketing (deadlines) will continue to be the focus of big companies, not reliability and security, although the working environment will be more predictable.

And PCs won't die before TV Sets do, which I mean both will coexist with new (more things to sell) technology.

Re:

[bluefoxlucid]

but what's the value of cracking an Ipod ?

There is none [rockbox.org].

Article link leads to a login page

[Animats]

The link to the article on Internet openness leads to a page where you have to agree to an EULA to read the article. Openness. Right.

Better than a EULA!

[Torodung]

It's not a EULA. There is no licensure. There isn't anything to agree to, either, other than copyright law in general or their TOS/AUP if you're a subscriber. No license. No agreement.

It's simply a 189-word boilerplate statement about their commitment to copyright, and a statement of policy.

In the first paragraph, however, is the stand-out offer:

We therefore allow you to excerpt up to 500 words of an article for your personal use. This excerpt may be posted in your or another's blog or site, provided that it is accompanied by a link to the page on which the original article appears.

The way I read that is that HBR Online grants anyone who clicks "I accept" up to 500 words of limited personal republication rights, which is rights to exactly 500 more words than any other copyrighted publication. They simply ask that you link the full article in return.

Or you could accept no republication rights at all. Your choice.

So far from being a EULA, it's a concession. HBR Online is going to accept that small bloggers can't really use a "fair use" defense and is going to give them, beyond "fair use" coverage, limited rights in return for a link back. That is a good deal at a good price.

All I can say to HBR is, "Thank you." After a brief bit of reading I happily clicked "I accept."

Or as you said: "Openness. Right."

--

Toro

Torrent

[normuser]

How 'bout a torrent ;-} [whyisthishere.com]

Here's how:

[The Orange Mage]

Right click -> Save File As...

Re:

[Dersaidin]

Brilliant, except Firefox is Right click -> Save Link As...

The crisis with the sponsored Internet...

[jd]

...is much the same as the crisis with the sponsored academic and the sponsored journalist. Ultimately, those doing the sponsoring (whether it is big business or big government) will want a return on investment. In the case of academia, this involves fraudulent research and a restriction on what can be studied. In the case of journalism, fraudulent articles and a restriction on what can be covered. In the case of the Internet - well, we've seen some attempts at disinformation campaigns and we're certainly s

Don't forget the lawsuits and babysitting

[ColeonyxOnline]

Everyone is talking about Spam and botnets, but most are forgetting about the blatant assault by idiots using the legal system to take down anything that they don't like on web sites and forums, or parents that get abhorred when they allow their kids to talk with strangers without supervision just to find out that not everyone will treat their kids the way they do.

I believe these two issues outweigh the problems with spam and botnets, because we won't be able to say anything about anyone on any site witho

Jonathan Zittrain is Dead Wrong

[asphaltjesus]

Those who provide content and services over the Internet have lined up in favor of "network neutrality,"

Either the guy doesn't have a clue, or the ridiculous statement was intentionally misleading.

Both content and services are run by some combination of the telco's and media conglomerates. It is very plain to see that their objective is to turn the Internet into a _delivery_ system that they control. Most governments in the world go along with this because an Internet that has some semblance of unfiltered

It's fairly simple

[petrus4]

Most of the people who make up the American government should be moved into nursing homes where they belong. If that were to be done it'd solve a whole heap of different problems, not just the net's. ;-)

Saved?

[jaavaaguru]

The Internet needs saved? I didn't think it was dying. At least, it hasn't been confirmed [netcraft.com].

HBR Online Terms and Conditions

[Jump]

HBR Online Terms and Conditions

In order to access articles on HBR Online, you must agree to the terms and conditions that apply.

The 'I Decline' button doesn't work. Accepting the terms is contradicting the message of the article (how to save the internet openness).

Re:It is official; Netcraft now confirms: The Inte

[slicenglide]

This man is straight babbling incoherently, please ignore.

Re:

[Spazntwich]

You're new here, aren't you?

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=139135 2 [everything2.com]

It's called Tongue in Cheek [wikipedia.org] humor. It can require some ability to recognize nuances in language or technique, and given the number of self-proclaimed Asperger's syndrome patients on Slashdot, I'm not entirely surprised it has been modded troll.

Re: your sig

[smittyoneeach]

Sure that wasn't Joe Walsh, "looking for clues at the scene of the crime"?