Shouldn't we be more upset with politicians lack of knowledge?
I don't really understand politics and politicians don't really understand technology, so when politicians get involved in technology I have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Over in Brussels, our overlords have voted to end the internet in Europe. The BBC is reporting the incredible news that the European Parliament have voted for the "Telecoms Packet", which contains an interesting provision...
Another amendment allows governments to decide what software can be used on the web.
[From BBC NEWS | Technology | MEPs back contested telecoms plan]
Anyone else think this is a good idea? One generation from now, the U.S. will be twice as rich as the European Union, and this sort of nonsense is one of the reasons why. I'm surprised that Cotswold wool producers haven't been lobbying the Commission to force people to start wearing wool on Sundays yet.
P.S. Philip Sheldrake reports that apparently Britain has a "Minister for Digital Inclusion". And no-one seems at all outraged when the Minister for Digital Inclusion says "I am not a techical person". If the Minister for Education said "I am not a reading person", at least the odd eyebrow would be raised.
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Posted 24 Jul 2008
Last edited 24 Jul 2008
Latest revision: 2
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1. At 24 Jul 2008 17:27, Philip Sheldrake wrote:
Dave, I'd like to project a cerebral response to your post straight off the bat, but can only resort to a red-top type exclamation... IT'S A SHOCKER!
Now I'll try and get a bit more serious.
The Internet is something very special. So is democratic government. But the former was not evolved from the latter with a big G. To me there are two very precious things about the Internet today that we must fight tooth and nail to preserve:
1. It's incredibly simple.
2. It treasures the end-to-end principle.
Internet Protocol couldn't really be more simple, and this simplicity has created an innate flexibility and power. As for end-to-end, this principle is little known outside geeky circles (but is well articulated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle). It basically sets down, as I know you'll know, the principle that the intelligence in the network should lie at the edges only. The bit in the middle is as dumb as dumb can be.
Let's face it, we didn't envisage YouTube, Skype, iPlayer, Facebook, Amazon, Google et al in the 1960s, yet the foresight of the Internet's founding fathers and mothers laid down something very special that can spawn such wonderful, awe-inspiring applications decades later. And if we keep our heads (and keep those of politicians largely out of it), the best is yet to come.
The Telecom Packet seeks to change all that. This Internet thing has become too critical to the economy.
[Fascinatingly (and do read Lessig's "Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity" if you haven't already) it's the copyright lobby stirring the mud here... the very industry that borrowed on their own kind's legacy in developing Walt Disney storylines and Beatles mania without so much as sharing a dime. Not for any small reason has the fact that copyright keeps getting extended beyond its original scope been labelled the Mickey Mouse phenomena.]
We should run educative workshops for the politicians on this kind of thing. I know we could secure high profile speakers to get bums on seats. Olaf Kolkman, Chair of the Internet Architecture Board, has already volunteered his services to me!
Speaking at this June's OECD ministerial meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy, Mozilla's Chair and former CEO Mitchell Baker said we cannot take the open nature of today's Internet for granted, as valuable as that has proved to date. She's damn right, and Malcolm Harbour, MEP, is so so wrong.
2. At 30 Jul 2008 11:22, Philip Sheldrake wrote:
Dave, nice piece in the Washington Post from the FCC...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/27/AR2008072701172.html
3. At 30 Jul 2008 21:22, Dave Birch wrote:
Thanks for the Post link.