Gore Puts Internet For Auction On eBay (Updated)

The folks over at SatireWire have got a pretty amusing article regarding Al Gore's newest fund raising effort. The fund raising in politics these days - sheesh. Updated 6:00 GMT by timothy: AntiNorm writes: "As of 9/17 0538 GMT, the auction is no longer valid." Seems like all the good auctions get pulled.

Comments

Re:you're no better

[edhall]

In 1990, I had been using the internet for about 10 years.

You're being just as misleading as you accuse Gore of being. The "Internet" didn't exist in 1980. Its ancestor at that time was called the "ARPANET," and it differed in many ways (aside from size and speed) from today's Internet. It was run for the Department of Defense, with an (often ignored) "official use only" policy and a (strictly enforced) non-commercialization policy. Nodes were either military bases, military research labs and contractors, or universities such as MIT and Berkeley which were performing military research. Yes, there was an "underground" that used it for socializing and hacking, made up of people at these institutions (and a few of their friends). But such "unofficial" use was quite low-key, and at least among ARPAnauts was defended as being a matter of academic freedom (while the DoD generally looked the other way). But as traffic increased and budgets were cut, the DoD's benign oversight changed.

In the late '80s the military insisted on cracking down on "unofficial use." Many schools and contractors wound up having to justify their access, and came up short. Efforts to start member-supported networks, such as CSNET, got a lukewarm reception since they (1) cost too much (no more 100% government subsidy) and (2) did too little (email and limited file transfer only). It took an act of congress to get these folks hooked up again: the ARPANET was split into the MILNET and NSFNET (NSF == National Science Foundation), with the latter offering subsidized access to any academic institution that wanted it and paid its share. And it was after this split that users starting refering to it as just "The Internet" (though from time to time I heard ARPANET referred to as "The ARPA Internet" back in the '80s).

Guess who wrote the bill that funded NSFNET? Or the National Supercomputing Initiative which built its backbone? Or the one somehwat later that lifted restrictions on commercial use? Yup, Smilin' Al (or, rather, one of his staffers wrote the bill and he sponsored it).

When you look at it from a technical perspective, saying that he "created" the Internet is a clear absurdity. But from a legislative and public policy perspective, it's hardly an exaggeration. I'm not convinced that Al "gets" the Internet any more than W does. But he did manage to listen to someone on his staff who "got" it. (And I've been racking my brain to remember the guy's name--I met him briefly while I was working at The RAND Corporation.) It's too bad that so few technophiles go to work as congressional staffers; it leaves me with some doubts as to whether Gore wasn't just "lucky" to be involved with the Internet.

-Ed

Silly Fools. The Internet Is On My Hard Drive.

[weston]

They can't auction off the internet. It's on my hard drive. There's a little icon on my desktop that says so.

Once (as the story goes), and I'm not sure how, but I accidentally clicked on something and I got a message saying "Are you sure you want to delete The Internet?" Boy, was I scared. I know a lot of work went into that thing. But I guess if I deleted it, we could all go home. :)

you're no better

[macpeep]

If you want to make fun of someone, at least stick with the facts. Gore never said "I invented the Internet". What he said as: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.". Of course he didn't invent the Internet and nobody (I hope) is so stupid that they believe that Gore actually thinks he did. What he was talking about was how he, in 1990, before 99% of Slashdot readers even knew about the Internet, introduced bills that would bring "the information superhighway" to ordinary people, schools and businesses.

It's sad that instead of giving the guy some credit, you have to mock him over and over again because of a little exaggeration that happened years ago.

What is the going price

[www.sorehands.com]

for a politician?

Does E-bay auction entire politicians? Or do they just auction votes on individual bills?

Re:Why is Al Gore claiming Internet paternity ?

[KingJawa]

An article about the claim "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" can be read here. The author is a columnist for Wired.