Sender: Martin Janzen <•••@••.•••> Marilyn Davis <•••@••.•••> writes (to Craig, I think): >[...] >You have no right to block our action unless you give us a reason. > >We *do* have consensus. I don't read in Martin's latest post anything >that disagrees with our statement. You yourself can't find anything >against it. I like Marilyn's description of how a group may arrive at consensus; namely, that any member of the group is able to block consensus, but must be prepared to give a reason for doing so. Very well; I object to the proposed statement, for the following reasons: >We, the 500 members of the cyber-rights email list, agree by consensus >that: > >1. Email is the communication/cooperation superhighway, completely >distinct from the information/entertainment superhighway. This is unclear at best, and untrue at worst. I see what you're getting at -- that an email-based list such as this one is very different from, say, a video-on-demand network. But I for one use email for communication, cooperation (believe it or not), information, _and_ entertainment. Also, I don't think that it's a good idea to try and encourage would-be regulators to think differently about different kinds of Internet traffic. This can only lead to absurdities such as the talk about treating voice-over-net differently than other Net traffic. An IP packet is an IP packet is an IP packet. And attempts at distinguishing different kinds of traffic will be largely unenforceable in any case, as I will discuss in a moment. Finally, a minor aesthetic point: Email (or the Internet) "is" not a superhighway at all. Will people _please_ stop using this tired old metaphor??? It died of overuse years ago, but refuses to stay buried and is starting to smell bad. :-P >2. Email is the backbone of grassroots online organizing and holds >great promise as a democracy-enhancer. Yes, it does. (Though whether this will lead to an increase in the amount of reasoned debate, or simply in the number of fanatical, missionary, and humorless -- but well-organized -- special interest groups, remains to be seen...) >3. Email demands a miniscule amount of resources delivered at low >priority compared to information/entertainment applications. Any >scheme that bases price on resources used and makes entertainment >affordable will render email almost free, as it should be. Yes, most likely. The "as it should be" part makes me a bit uneasy, though. Let's not forget that Net access is not some "natural right", like the right to free speech, or some ubiquitous natural resource that is ours for the taking, like oxygen. It must be supplied by someone, and that someone deserves to be compensated for providing it. I know that Marilyn is not suggesting otherwise here, but given some of the talk about "universal service" and "equal access", I'm concerned that someone will eventually suggest the application of similar distortions and subsidies to the Net. >4. If an innapropriate minimum charge per session or per transaction >is applied, only email will be adversely affected and it will be felt >as a direct attack by government on online democracy. Well, first of all, not _only_ email will be affected by high per-session or per-transaction charges. FTP, HTTP, and other IP-based protocols also rely on many relatively short connections. (Of course, if "inappropriate" per-session or per-transaction charges become the norm, technology will come to the rescue as usual. That is to say, the protocols will change to adapt to the new model, whatever it may be. As an example of this, ATM networks -- that's Asynchronous Transfer Mode, not bank machines -- can support alternative "adaptation layer" protocols. If setting up a "Virtual Connection" through your favorite public ATM network is fairly cheap, you can use the simple AAL-5 protocol and set up lots of connections; if VCs are expensive, you can use the more complex AAL-3/4, which allows multiplexing of separate data streams over the same VC. "The Net interprets obnoxious pricing models as damage..." :-) Second, who or what determines what charge is "appropriate"? (Regular readers of this list will be able to predict my answer: it should be determined by a _consensus_ between the supplier and the purchaser of the service.) Or does this sentence mean to say that _any_ per-session or per-transaction charge is inappropriate -- that is, is it meant as an argument for pricing based solely on bandwidth or time used? If so, I agree, and would choose not to deal with an ISP who uses a different pricing model -- but wouldn't dream of inflicting my preference on, say, an infrequent Net user for whom a per-session or per-transaction charge might be more economical. Finally, the use of the passive voice makes this sentence unclear. I read it to mean that the "direct attack by government" occurs because the per-session or per-transaction charge is required by some law or regulation on the part of the government. I would see this as an attack as well, on more than just "online democracy", and would oppose such a charge -- or any system in which the government dictates pricing levels or models, for that matter. Besides being immoral, central economic planning has not been wildly successful, to put it mildly... (An alternative reading of this sentence is that the government is guilty of a "direct attack" if a privately-owned ISP institutes a per- session or per-transaction charge that Marilyn feels is inappropriate, and the government fails to act to force the ISP to change its pricing policy to something that she prefers. Calling for such blatant interference by the government would be contemptible, and according to the "principle of charity" I will assume that this is not what she meant to say.) >Therefore, *if* the government regulates the price of internet access, >the regulation must guarantee continued widely affordable access to email. To me this feels like discussing the terms of surrender even before the war is lost. The government has _no_ place in determining the price of Internet access; I'm not interested in discussing the details of how it might go about doing so. The danger of making such a statement is that even if it is received enthusiastically by supportive politicians and bureaucrats, it might be easily construed by them as a call to "do something" -- to pass regulations which (they believe) will have the desired effect. This is the last thing I want to see. The best thing that these people can do for the Internet is to leave it alone. >Other than that, the call is for a stronger statement. Does anyone >have any ideas? The stronger statement would be that the internet >declares itself to be free from regulation by any country. Such a statement would be absurd, on several levels. First, "the internet" is not a single entity that can make such a "declaration of independence" on its own behalf, but a globally distributed network of networks composed of an incredible variety of people of all national- ities and viewpoints. Who, or what, is "itself"? Second, the foundation of the Internet -- specifically, the telecommuni- cations facilities over which Internet Protocol packets are sent -- are patently _not_ free of regulation. In fact, at present they are quite highly regulated by most countries, and this regulation shows no signs of disappearing any time soon. (Fortunately, there are encouraging trends towards deregulation in some countries, even if not everyone on the list is delighted at this development...) Third, and by far most importantly, the statement is unnecessary. Even as governments all over the world wake up to the Net and attempt to regulate it, the independence of the Net and its users is becoming a technological fait accompli. Strong public-key cryptography, anonymous remailers, steganography, IPv6, ISPs which provide anonymous accounts, and (soon) anonymous digital cash (*) all weaken the ability of the state to regulate individuals' behavior, by strengthening the ability of individuals (and, yes, corporations -- sorry, Richard!) to engage in private communications, in private economic transactions, and "regulatory arbitrage". Governments can and will claim to be regulating the Internet, but they will be widely ignored. (**) Those are my objections. If you must issue a statement despite the lack of consensus, I ask for just one change: >We, the 500 members of the cyber-rights email list, agree [...] should read >We, 499 of the 500 members of the cyber-rights email list, agree [...] Finally, our esteemed Moderator writes: >[...] >But my main point here is to ensure that people can stay on the list >for discussion or just to learn, and not feel that they have to take a >position on some issue. Several types of people will not want to join >in a position paper: >[...] >I want all these people on the list. We need you all, for healthy >criticism and to help get our views out to a wider audience. Thanks, Andy! It's an interesting list, and I'd hate to have to unsub simply in order not to be associated with a group statement with which I disagree. -- Martin Janzen •••@••.••• (*) If you are unfamiliar with these topics, or want to find out more, you can throw them into any one of the search engines on the Web. But an excellent starting point is Tim May's "Cyphernomicon". An HTML-ized version is at http://ocaxp1.cc.oberlin.edu/~brchkind/cyphernomicon/ cyphernomicon.contents.html. Fascinating reading; essential information and "idees fortes" for anyone interested in Cyber-Rights! (**) Interesting; as _capitalism_ advances, the state withers away! Karl Marx is probably rolling over in his grave... ;-) ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/ CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
