Web Thinkers Warn of Culture Clash

Passacaglia writes "The Washington Post is carrying an article describing some stimulating discussion from the Internet Society meeting this week, including comments from Vinton Cerf, Eric Schmidt, about the clash between freedom and commercial interests."

Comments

Web Thinkers suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead Ask Naughty Natalie a Question

Re:Web Thinkers suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead I would like to do all of the following with naughty Natilie:

angry dragon: Immediately after you blow your load in a girls mouth, smack the back of her head and make it come out her nose. When she gets up she'll look like an angry dragon.

bronco: You start by going doggy style and then just when she is really enjoying it, you grab her tits as tight as possible and yell another girls name. This gives you the feeling of riding a wild bronco as she desperately tries to buck you off.

cleveland steamer: The act of leaving a shit stain on the rib cage of a woman while receiving penile pleasure from friction between the mammaries.

club sped: Gang banging a retard. For those idiots out there, sped come from special ed, you do the math. cold lunchThe act of vomiting directly onto some chick's head while she's performing fellatio.

couch bombing: When you fill a small Ziploc sandwich bag with Crisco (or your favorite lubrication) and place it between the cushions on the couch. You then proceed to fuck the couch as if it were a woman...but no need to buy it dinner first.

coyote: This occurs when you wake up in the room of a nasty wombat and you know you've got to give her the slip. However, you realize that your arm is wrapped around her. Therefore you must gnaw off your own arm to get out of the situation. Can be very painful.

dirty river: You give a bitch the most painful anal sex of her life and then ask her to turn around. Just as she turns you surprise her with a low blow, a punch to her lower stomach as hard as you can. Once you land the blow she will shit uncontrollably, shit will flow from her worn out asshole like a dirty fucking river. Then just sit back and enjoy the show.

dirty sanchez: A time honored event in which while laying the bone doggie style, you insert your finger into her asshole. You then pull it out and wipe it across her upper lip leaving a thin shit mustache. This makes her look like someone whose name is Dirty Sanchez.

dog in a bathtub: This is a proper name for when you attempt to insert your nuts into a girl's ass. It is so named because it can be just as hard as keeping a dog in the tub while giving it a bath.

donkey punch: Banging a girl doggy style and then moments before you cum, you stick your dick in her ass, and then punch her in the back of the neck. The blow to the neck will stun the muscles in the female's ass, which will constrict the penis and give you a tremendous orgasmic experience when you ejaculate.

dutch oven: Entrapping an unsuspecting sleeping partner in a world of ass odor by farting under the covers and pulling them over her head (and yours as well if you're into that sort of thing).

flying camel: A personal favorite. As she is lying on her back and you are hammering her from your knees. You very carefully move forward and prop yourself (without using your arms) on your dick while it is still inserted in her vagina. You then proceed to flap your arms and let out a long shrieking howl much like a flying camel. Strictly a classy move.

hot lunch: The result of defecating a tube of shit directly into a girl's mouth.

mung: Obtain a female that has been dead for 2-3 days (the time period since death is important). Then place your mouth just outside her vaginal opening. Have a friend jump on her stomach, and try to catch as much stuff that comes out as you can in your mouth.

pearl necklace: Well known. Whenever you cum on the neck/cleavage area of a girl - it takes on the look of beautiful jewelry. Fuck that diamonds are forever shit.

rear admiral: An absolute blast. When getting a chick from behind (while both partners standing), make sure you don't let her grab on to anything when she is bent over. Then, drive you hips into her backside so that you end up pushing her forwards. The goal is to push her into a wall or table. It's almost as much fun watching her face hit the floor. You rise to Admiral status when you can bang her around the room without crashing into anything and not using your hands to grab onto her hips.

relative humidity: That first drop of sweat that rolls off your balls and down the crack of your sister's ass while you fuck her.

sandbag: Under an assumed name in a tropical region, you meet a young hottie and engage in the well-known cliché of sex on the beach. Just before insertion, remove the rubber (without getting caught of course), and proceed to bang away until you blow your load, without pulling out. As you dismount and prepare for departure, grab a handful of sand, throw it in her eyes, and run away laughing hysterically while leaving her blinded, butt-necked, and knocked up. Especially lots of fun when accomplished during the spring break season.

shocker: When you insert your index and middle fingers in the woman's vagina and pinky in her anus. After giving her a few good minutes of double duty finger banging, pull your fingers out and give your index and middle finger a quick sniff and pinky a good sucking, all in one smooth motion.(a.k.a. Smoking the Pinky.)

snowball: Ah yes, every man's worst nightmare, the dreaded snowball. This happens when a girl blows you and spits the jizz in your mouth. Another definition is when a girl blows some other guy, and then gives you a hot sloppy kiss with some of that guy's fresh jizz still in her mouth. With all those dirty broads out there, odds are it has happened to you. Just ask your friends if it has, cause they probably already know and have been laughing their asses off at you.

stranger: Sitting on your hand until it falls asleep and then jerking off. Eliciting the feeling of a hand job from someone else.

tea bag: To perform the tea bag, have the girl lay flat on her back. Then you squat over her with your hands on your knees, and gently dip your nut sac in and out of her mouth in a motion similar to performing some kinda fucked up yoga exercise.

tossing salad: A common prison act where one person basically chows asshole with the help of whatever condiments are available. (i.e. jelly, syrup, olive oil, etc.) I'm never going to prison.

upper deck: Next time you're at the house of someone you hate, take a wicked shit in the top part of the toilet. They'll go insane trying to figure out where that stench is coming from.

FP ?

[Anonymous Coward]

French Polisher, anyone ?

Hmmm...

[Drunken Coward]

worries that big, traditional businesses could gain unprecedented control through manipulating the high-speed services that are delivered over cable and phone networks.

Good lord, what on earth would we do if a company like Time-Warner merged with a company like AOL? I can see why they're so worried. Such a company would have a controlling share of nearly all kinds of media.

Duh

[pope nihil]

The reason that the internet has become so accessible to the common man is because of big business. What does big business want in return? They want you look at their popups and they want to track you and they want you (in the end) to buy their products or services.

Re:Duh

[shepd]

That's strange, considering the first company I ever bought internet from was a co-operative.

Seems to me the big-business internet was either developed on the backs of smaller companies, or was developed as smaller companies grew up.

Re:Duh

[daveed]

He's not speaking about the Internet "Growing Up", he's talking about the Internet being accessible by the common man. Completely different.

Re:Duh

[00_NOP]

Lots of things contributed to public access to the internet - it's not simply a question of business versus state.

But there is a wider question here So what if business built the internet. We - the people - are sovereign, not the CEOs. If we decide we want the internet to change or we wnat to restrict business activities in favour of community activities then that is our right.

"Business" is not sacred - why else do the mafia refer to their work as "business" after all?

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope popups and cookie abuse and all that crap is coming to an end, but I don't think that spells the end of doing business on the internet, which I am not opposed to. Think of this, over at kuro5shin Rusty puts out a call for some emergency funds--and it works! Meanwhile portal sites like Yahoo are getting uglier and more useless by the week, "content providers" like Salon and nytimes.com just don't seem to ever learn. Sooner or later I think the sites that don't get on the cluetrain will go under. Even the giants, because they cannot sustain a losing business model forever. It will take time, but for those that can stick it out, there will be financial rewards for those outfits who understand the internet and work with it. Well, that's my hope.

Re:Duh

[meringuoid]

The reason that the internet has become so accessible to the common man is because of big business.

True, where 'big business' = some ISP. Not true, where 'big business' = crappy banner farm. The internet would be no less accessible if (for instance) doubleclick vanished tonight; maybe some sites dependent on ad revenue would die, but who cares? That's not accessibility, it's content, and there's plenty more.

What does big business want in return? They want you look at their popups and they want to track you and they want you (in the end) to buy their products or services.

The one and only big business that is in any way relevant to my access to the Internet is my ISP. What they want in return is nothing more than my money. If some third party wants to track me, or make me look at popups, too bad. Their cookies get binned, their Javascript popups automatically denied, and their banner ad farms /etc/hosts'd.

Re:Duh

[shepd]

>he's talking about the Internet being accessible by the common man.

I bought my account at a computer store, and they sold accounts to anyone. They even advertised that they exist, and they included a thin manual on suggested ways to use the internet.

How much more accessible does it need to be? Does it need to come with flashing lights and dudes in radiation suits before its "accessible"? :-)

Status Quo

[houston_pt]

"But many participants said government agencies and businesses can't afford to wait on issues such as privacy, junk e-mail and copyright controls."

So, it's spam first and check the legislation later as usual...

There's no clash

[Anonymous Coward]

You want freedom, we want to sell it to you.

Culture of openness

[Anonymous Coward]

The medium which we affectionately refer to as "the internet" never had a culture of openness. It is a technocracy. Those who operate the communication lines say what goes over them. It has always been that way and those who have differing views of what the network should be used for have experienced how far from open that situation can be. The problem is not so much that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press", it is that very few own a press, metaphorically speaking.

Re:Culture of openness

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll match your cynicism, ac, and raise you a postmodern loss of identity. In fact you don't need tech literacy in order to express your views on the web, or usenet, or in listserves. And in many places, you don't even need to own a computer to get online and post your opinions. On the internet talk is cheap. Now, Vint Cerf, as reported in the Post article, argues that asymetric bandwidth is a threat to free expression and the ideal of open communication. In the present this is a real concern, but if recent history is any guide, then in the end I imagine video and audio will be as cheap and easy as talk. The real threat to liberty in that case will be the fracturing of dissent and the inability to form any organized opposition to power and its abuses. Power will hide itself in spectacle and the bogosity of the event even more effectively than it does through the mass media of Western democracies. As voices on cnn become indistinguishable from goatcx trolls, equally obnoxious and anonymous, communcition loses its emancipatory and critical functions. It ceases to mean. And what greater social disenfranchisement is there than to speak in a voice that has ceased to mean? This is the role the media giants, in cahoots with a self-appointed [and usurptatious] technocratic elite, have written for themselves: Their project is to engineer the sound of the free marketplace of ideas so that no individual voice can be heard. For evidence of this, look to the proposed collaboration of Verizon and MSN, or, more metaphorically (and therefore, some would say, more truly) listen to Britney Spears and N-Sync. Download an mp3 and really listen. Indeed speech on the internet has been less than egalitarian up till now, but in the near future these early years will seem to have been utopian.

Open standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Well as long as I have linux, tcp/ip, and an ISP that supports tcp/ip I'm fine.

Re:Open standards

[worldthinker]

Considering that phone companies and ISP's and content providers are merging (nee AOL/TimeWarner) your ability to connect over traditional access points could be hindered. I think to circumvent this, a grassroots network of wirless connections should be developed that anyone could tap into and other than government control, no one could monopolize.

Bandwidth is the key

[The Cat]

Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it.

This is the most important statement in the article. Bandwidth is the main component of every Internet policy discussion. Upstream is probably at least as important as downstream. To seperate the two significantly is an attempt to confine people to the role of consumer: i.e. "stay on the couch."

Upstream bandwidth allows people to become *producers* too, which is a good thing(tm).

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[Karora]

However the commercial reality is that the available bandwidth in a connection is the total upstream + downstream, and that's what drivers the provisioning costs. The pattern of usage for most consumers is that they pull down more than they push. Fact.

P2P applications change that a lot, as does hosting, but individuals don't usually want to host stuff at home.

Sure, it's an interesting thing to say, and it challenges us to think about it, but rather than assume some vast conspiracy to defraud the consumer, consider what happens when the consumer gets what they ask for.

People can be producers without aving upstream bandwidth. Hell, many companies don't host their own websites, for a bunch of really good reasons. Likewise many ISP accounts I see allow for hosting along with your e-mail, so they can still be producers. It ain't hard.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[JaredOfEuropa]

Companies are indeed inhibiting innovation y limiting upstream bandwidth, but I think this is just an unintentional result of certain technical decisions they made when setting up their network. When bandwidth is limited, downstream has always (remember 1200/75 modems?) been favoured over upstream, and rightly so, as the majority of people pull in more than they send out.

What I see as far more detrimental to consumers becoming producers, is all the limitations ISP's place on their services. Again, all in the name of bandwidth preservation, but in this case they are far less subtle. Things like not giving fixed IP addresses, port blocking, not allowing people to run services, not allowing people to hook up multiple computers. All these are examples of ISPs meddling with how you use the bandwidth they sell, and prevent you from becoming a publisher as well as a comsumer.

I'm glad my ISP is one that provides me with bandwith, and nothing else. Barring a few provisions about not using my account for spam or resell the bandwidth, and a (generous) monthly data allowance, I am free to do whatever the hell I want with my connection.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[JaredOfEuropa]

People can be producers without aving upstream bandwidth. Hell, many companies don't host their own websites, for a bunch of really good reasons. Likewise many ISP accounts I see allow for hosting along with your e-mail, so they can still be producers. It ain't hard.

Many ISP's and even webhosting services have rules about what you can host on their sites. The most common rule is: no pr0n. The point is not just being able to publish, but also the ability to publish whatever you want to publish. Put up a page on your AOL webspace about how badly AOL sucks, and see how long it stays up.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than no p0rn, it's usually no "adult content" and then some. Here's a list of reasons for deleting your homepage from aol hometown's tos:

* repeatedly uses language inconsistent with the Interest category within which the home page is located.
* contains highly explicit or graphic descriptions or accounts of sexual acts, including but not limited to sexual language of a violent or threatening nature, directed at another individual or group of individuals, particularly when unsolicited.
* depicts violence in a gratuitous manner, without journalistic or artistic merit, primarily intended to agitate or cause emotional distress
* contains vulgarities directed toward another individual or group.
* is intended to victimize, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on the basis of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. Hate speech is unacceptable anywhere on the service.
* solicits personal information from a minor (under 18 years old). Personal information includes full name, home address, home telephone number, or other identifying "offline" information.
* contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment.
* contains material that defames, abuses, threatens, promotes or instigates physical harm or death to others, or oneself.
* is illegal or incites illegal activity, such as instructional information on how to build a bomb, make counterfeit money, etc.
* solicits for exchange, sale or purchase of sexually explicit images, and/or material harmful to minors; including, but not limited to, any photograph, film, video, or picture or computer generated image or picture (actual or simulated).
* infringes anyone else's intellectual property rights, including, but not limited to, any copyright, trademark, rights of publicity, rights of privacy, or other proprietary rights.
* attempts to harvest or collect member information, including screen names.
* impersonates or represents any person or entity in an attempt to deceive, harass or otherwise mislead another member. You may not pretend to be an employee or representative of AOL, or any of America Online, Inc. family of companies, or affiliates.
* attempts to get a password, or other private information from a user. Remember: AOL employees will NEVER ask for your password.
* advertises and/or promotes the sale of products or services on AOL, including, without limitation: lotteries, ammunition, firearms, fireworks and other explosive materials, tobacco, alcohol, adult products and services, such as phone sex and escort services, illegal products and services, and other products and services AOL deems inappropriate.
* links to and/or references content not allowed under these guidelines. In addition, AOL reserves the right to prohibit members from linking to or promoting links to any commercial site beyond AOL Hometown.
* spams, including spamming of search engines or through use of search engine criteria.
* facilitates distribution of unsolicited bulk e-mail, advertising or any other unauthorized solicitation including chain letters, multi-level marketing schemes and pyramid schemes.
* solicits for advertisers or sponsors and/or contains sponsorships, ads, and banners unrelated to AOL Hometown.
* offers or solicits for payment information online (home pages or otherwise), including credit card or bank information, in return for the purchase of a product or service.
* obscures or eliminates the AOL Hometown frameset.
* utilizes member web space as a storage for remote loading of graphics or other content; including utilizing member web space solely as a "signpost" or "billboard" linking to an outside ISP or web page.

In short, you couldn't run anything like a slashdot on your aol hometown web page. And the contract is unequal: they can change the terms, but you, the user can't. That is not the same as letting you run your own servers, or just giving you some drivespace and letting you have your say. Not by a longshot.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[Gryffin]

"Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it."

There's an old saying: "Freedom of the press only applies to those who own one." Besides the issue of bandwith limits, most broadband ISPs block ports 21 and 80, and specifically prohibit running any sort of server, i.e., publishing on the web.

George Orwell's "1984" got one thing wrong: it's industry, not the government, that's now playing the role of Big Brother. In the US at least, this makes sense; the government is bound (well, to some degree) by the Constitution; corporations have no such limits on their behavior.

With fewer and fewer corporations controlling more and more of our lives, and with huge profits to apply towards influencing government policy, is it any wonder we're heading towards Dystopis, Inc.?

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[SN74S181]

In the US at least, this makes sense; the government is bound (well, to some degree) by the Constitution; corporations have no such limits on their behavior.

The US Constitution was written specifically to limit the reach of government. It's shocking to see people bemoaning the fact that it doesn't limit what private individuals and organizations can do. Don't you see? You're asking for government to be allowed to step in and say: 'you can't do that anymore' to private individuals and organizations. That's exactly the kind of thing the Constitution was drafted to prevent.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[Anonymous Coward]

> The US Constitution was written specifically to limit the reach of government. It's shocking to see people bemoaning the fact that it doesn't limit what private individuals and organizations can do. Don't you see? You're asking for government to be allowed to step in and say: 'you can't do that anymore' to private individuals and organizations. That's exactly the kind of thing the Constitution was drafted to prevent.

OK, then if not the government, then who should limit the reach of big companies? Who else but the Gov't has the power to do such limiting?

The early railroads, Standard Oil, the Bell system, and Microsoft have shown in abundance what corporations *will* do without restraints. Who should/is able to impose suitable restraints? (Or are we really discussing Randian philosophy where there should be no such restraints, and we just depend on the kindness of corporate strangers?..)

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[surfimp]

Please tell me again exactly what, if any, difference exists between our Industry and our Goverment? Historically, I think you can make the case that they're two heads on the same hydra, so to speak.

I think Microsoft vs. The United States of America is a good example of the above. But that's just my opinion, and I've been wrong before.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[apg]

George Orwell's "1984" got one thing wrong: it's industry, not the government, that's now playing the role of Big Brother.

But if you consider that more and more Industry is the government then maybe he wasn't quite so wrong after all.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[Cplus]

*WE*, as consumers, should be the ones who limit the powers of the corporations. All it takes is putting a little more thought into your purchasing.

Do you honestly believe that line about the "kindness of corporate strangers"? John Galt would have slapped you.

Re:Bandwidth is the key

[Karora]

Just because you have bandwidth to your house doesn't change the fact that you have an ISP who is providing that bandwidth to you and you have to abide by their rules.

Hosting elsewhere provides broader choice, allowing me to host anywhere in the world, and to pick a hosting ISP who doesn't restrict me.

Hosting elsewhere also provides much greater possibilities for anonymity.

operator classes

[cybermint]

This is probably in the ARRL link.

Field Day is themed about emergency communications, although it couldn't be considered "practice" for emergencies. (Running/participating in emergency nets, etc.) - That's what ARES/RACES drills are for.

Field Day is purely a contest - BUT it is a contest that was designed with emergencies in mind. Most ARRL (and international) contests have various operator classes - In the case of Field Day, operator classes are based on how your station is powered. I think there's also a rule stating that you can't operate from your own station.

So basically, all Field Day entrants MUST be using equipment brought to the operating position for the event, not stuff that is there at all times. (I think people HAVE operated in tents from backyards, but people prefer to go hardcore and do some mountaintopping, or go to a firehouse, etc. where they can set up with their club. Club operations from community firehouses, etc. seem to be the most common Field Day arrangements.)

As a result, Field Day makes sure there are plenty of operators in this country with portable (or semi-portable at least) equipment that can be set up in a matter of hours. Bonus points to those who can operate for a weekend without a single bit of help from AC mains.

I was thinking of making the trek back up to school for Field Day, but I need to do some car shopping instead. I wish it were a few weeks later. :)

Organized Crime, and Interesting Links

[peatbakke]

The article doesn't go into much detail about the discussions, and leaves a lot of questionable assertions dangling. For example, the claim that "Going too far one way would restrict freedom of choice, while the opposite could foster organized crime." The more you restrict freedom of choice, the more actions become criminal. And doesn't organize crime really take a foothold when undue restrictions are imposed upon the masses? The Prohibition in the United States is/was a pretty stark example.

That aside, check out the conference website for a full list of the subjects they're covering. You might also be interested in reading an interesting report from the US National Research Council and Eric Schmidt (the CEO of Google) about how the Internet is growing up, so to speak.

Re:Organized Crime, and Interesting Links

[Anonymous Coward]

> And doesn't organize crime really take a foothold when undue restrictions are imposed upon the masses? The Prohibition in the United States is/was a pretty stark example.

Organized crime also flourishes when there's insufficient law enforcement to keep it in check; Russia since the fall of socialism is a pretty stark example, too.

Too much freedom (ie, anarchy) is just as individually-limiting as too little. Too little freedom and "Big Brother is watching." Too much, and you're at the mercy of the local mafiosos.

Re:Organized Crime, and Interesting Links

[efflux]

"The more you restrict freedom of choice, the more actions become criminal. And doesn't organize crime really take a foothold when undue restrictions are imposed upon the masses? The Prohibition in the United States is/was a pretty stark example." I can think of a more recent example... Oppressive regime (Taliban) --> Organized crime (Al Qaida) Of course one can argue that they were in cahoots, so this doesn't count... but it's not as if entire U.S. cities were ever under the influence of mobsters. Ssh... The Pendergast machine and Tammany Hall were only fabricated by the CIA.

selected buts from the article

[56ker]

as governments try to exert control and businesses look to maximize profits.
Since when have governments not been trying to exert control and businesses not looking to maximise profits? This difference between upload/ download speed only comes into play when you go to anything above a 56k modem. For most internet users won't even know there's a difference in speed between the two as they hardly ever upload things.

Re:selected buts from the article

[Wyzard]

Many people run P2P clients like Gnutella and WinMX, and those programs do upload things.

Furthermore, if I'm using all my upload bandwidth (15kB/sec) for, say, sending a file to someone, my downloads are reduced to a crawl because my TCP acknowledgement packets are slow getting out, and the other end won't send too many packets without receiving acknowledgement that I've received the ones it's already transmitted. It literally takes me from cable-modem download speed to sub-56K download speed. I've had my brother complain that his browser timed out while loading Google's front page, and that's pretty spartan.

It's very irritating because it means if I want to send someone a large file, I have to wait and do it overnight, or my family gets annoyed when they can't effectively do anything online. It reminds me of when I was on a modem, and I'd have to stay dialed-in overnight when I wanted to transfer something big.

The representative from NOIE.

[Dogcow]

It's worth noting that the only reason the Australian guy (from NOIE) wants there to be better privacy and authentication standards/implementation is so people can trust "e-commerce".

NOIE never "got it" during the Internet boom days of 1999 and 2000, and it's clear they still don't "get it" now.

To them, it's all about money. Screw privacy so people can actually keep their personal information private. Screw authentication so your friend knows it's actually you're they're talking to. When you've got a religious zealot like Senator Richard Alston running a liberal, freewheeling, abstract, technical and artistic portfolio like Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, you're doomed to failure. At every turn, with regards to policy and proposed legislation is the shadowy hand of religious zealotry and fear - "close it down, lock it up, throw away the key, because only the heathens do it" sort of mentality.

Online gambling is the obvious example, with "content regulation" (aka censorship) being the other.

It should be no surprise that the NOIE representative is there pushing the out of touch, out of place, out of money approach.

Thank goodness NOIE got a swift kick in the pants at the last Federal Budget.

When they finally die, they will not be missed.

::sigh::

[DarkZero]

He pointed to the current "balkanization" of instant messaging, where a lack of standards prevents America Online users from communicating with people on rival services.

The people in this article made a very good point when they mentioned the problems that arise from upload speeds that differ wildly from the download speeds on the same service. However, the above point was just absolute stupidity. AIM and ICQ are COMPLETELY different services that function very differently from one another. They have differing levels of privacy, different ways of conveying information, and even very different ways of sending and receiving messages (AIM only receives messages when the user is online, while ICQ effectively acts as a short message equivalent to an e-mail account). A forced standard in this situation would do nothing but annoy those who have chosen AIM or ICQ specifically because they prefer the very different functions of whichever one they chose.

They're both referred to as "instant messaging services" (or some such), but that's where the similarities between AIM and ICQ end. Trying to force AIM and ICQ to conform to a standard is like trying to force ham radio companies and phone companies to conform to a standard. On the surface, they're very similar, as they're both forms of solely verbal communication between individuals or small groups. But the similarities stop there and the two services should be kept completely independant of one another for that reason.

Re:::sigh::

[transiit]

Trying to force AIM and ICQ to conform to a standard is like trying to force ham radio companies and phone companies to conform to a standard.

You do understand that AIM and ICQ are both products of AOL, right?
I think it's become apparent through the efforts of Jabber, Trillian, etc. that the technological side of getting interoperability between the networks isn't impossible. The problem is companies such as AOL changing their protocol whenever they feel threatened.
-transiit

Re:::sigh::

[DarkZero]

You do understand that AIM and ICQ are both products of AOL, right?

I don't see how that matters, other than to drive home my point that they are two (almost) completely different things.

I think it's become apparent through the efforts of Jabber, Trillian, etc. that the technological side of getting interoperability between the networks isn't impossible.

Oh, of course the technological side isn't impossible. But I was talking about the usability side, and so far all of the "universal instant messenger" services that connect with anything that they can find display the same sort of problems that you would find in a Swiss Army Knife, i.e. they do everything "okay" or "pretty well", but overall don't do the job as well as a service or tool that is tailored to one specific job.

But then again, services like Jabber and Trillian aren't really what was being talked about in the article. The article, at least when it mentioned instant messaging, was talking about forcing instant messaging services to conform to a standard. This differs greatly from programs that deal with the differing standards and manage to lump them all into one program. Accepting differing standards and packaging them together allows you to keep most of the purity of each standard by keeping them mostly seperate from one another. Forcing the services themselves to conform to a standard, however, would force the groups behind AIM and ICQ to decide whether or not they, for instance, wanted messages for a user that is offline to be stored and then sent when the user logs on. They wouldn't be allowed to make seperate decisions about how they wanted their services to work, so there would be a lot less choice and competition among instant messaging users. And that just doesn't serve any purpose, or at least much less of a purpose than creating a standard in upload and download speeds over cable and DSL lines that aren't federally regulated.

Re:::sigh::

[Jim Florentine]

You do understand that AIM and ICQ are both products of AOL, right?

I don't see how that matters, other than to drive home my point that they are two (almost) completely different things.

An interesting anecdote, but not realistic in the real world.

I think it's become apparent through the efforts of Jabber, Trillian, etc. that the technological side of getting interoperability between the networks isn't impossible.

Oh, of course the technological side isn't impossible. But I was talking about vagina the usability side, and so far all of the "universal instant messenger" services that connect with anything that they can find display the cock same sort of problems that you would find in a Swiss Army Knife, i.e. they do everything "okay" or "pretty well", but overall don't do the job as well as a service or tool that is tailored to one specific job.

You have missed the point completely.

But then again, services like Jabber and Trillian aren't really what was being talked about in the article. The article, at least when it mentioned instant messaging, was talking about forcing instant messaging services to conform to a standard. This differs greatly from programs that deal with the differing standards and manage to lump them all into one program. Accepting differing standards and packaging them together allows you to keep most of the purity of each standard by keeping them mostly seperate from one another. Forcing the services themselves to conform to a standard, however, would force the groups behind AIM and ICQ to decide whether or not they, for instance, wanted messages for a user that is offline to be stored and then sent when the user logs on. They wouldn't be allowed to make seperate decisions about clitoris how they wanted their services to work, so there would be a lot less choice and competition among instant messaging users. And that just doesn't serve any nigger purpose, or at least much less of a purpose than creating a standard in upload and download speeds over cable and DSL lines that aren't federally regulated.

This is somewhat true, although these services are easily crafted and the business side of things really makes no difference.

Re:::sigh::

[transiit]

You do understand that AIM and ICQ are both products of AOL, right?

I don't see how that matters, other than to drive home my point that they are two (almost) completely different things.

I think I'm still going to have to disagree with you on this point. ICQ was developed, as my memory serves, by a company called Mirabillis. AOL bought them, and for whatever reason, never merged ICQ in with their product, AIM. Some features have shown up that didn't used to be there, like multiple users in the same chat session, etc., but the only thing that's keeping them apart at this point is the whims of AOL. (although some could say they're dealing with the problem by making ICQ increasingly more crapulent, but I've not used it in years. Couldn't say.)

Oh, of course the technological side isn't impossible. But I was talking about the usability side, and so far all of the "universal instant messenger" services that connect with anything that they can find display the same sort of problems that you would find in a Swiss Army Knife, i.e. they do everything "okay" or "pretty well", but overall don't do the job as well as a service or tool that is tailored to one specific job.

If your argument is to hold true, the whole situation is self-defeating. Either the gateway services are to cater to the lowest common denominator, or they aren't going to work. If they don't work, they fail. If they don't support every stupid addition to every possible client/protocol, they fail.

I'd also like to point out that analogies still suck. I've had a swiss army knife for years. Works great. Does what I need it to. (mainly, it cuts stuff, has a screwdriver, and keeps me from having to open cans with my teeth).

This differs greatly from programs that deal with the differing standards and manage to lump them all into one program. Accepting differing standards and packaging them together allows you to keep most of the purity of each standard by keeping them mostly seperate from one another. Forcing the services themselves to conform to a standard, however, would force the groups behind AIM and ICQ to decide whether or not they, for instance, wanted messages for a user that is offline to be stored and then sent when the user logs on. They wouldn't be allowed to make seperate decisions about how they wanted their services to work, so there would be a lot less choice and competition among instant messaging users.

Wait a second....you're against standards because they mean less choice for the user? Are you on crack? The idea of having a standard is all about choice: it means that you aren't forced into using one tool just because it's the only one that supports feature X. Say we've got a standard, like "For every instant message, the format is a 32-byte 'From' field, a datestamp, and the rest is message until you reach a null terminator". Now as a user, this doesn't mean a whole lot, except that you know that any client that follows this standard will work with the rest of the instant messaging user community, at which point you start picking the client based on whether or not they think you should see ads on your contact list, or how well they manage those contacts, or if they're prone to crashing every ten minutes, or if the servers they talk to are prone to being unreachable every ten minutes, etc. All the other bells and whistles get embedded between the datestamp and the terminator. Want HTML formatting, include it. Think XML is the one true instant message format? use it. But just like email clients, you would do yourself a service by being less noisy, but HTML mail continues to annoy email users worldwide, and most of the people sending it are too clueless to get it, so it continues....

And that just doesn't serve any purpose, or at least much less of a purpose than creating a standard in upload and download speeds over cable and DSL lines that aren't federally regulated.

Whoa. Where the hell did that come from, and for that matter, what the hell does it have to do with anything? Where is it written that if we try to create an instant messaging standard, we'll never get a standard in cable/dsl rates? In fact, why should we have a standard in transfer rates on those media above what already exists? (What, you think they got this shit working out of sheer dumb luck? Everybody reinvents the wheel for every cable provider or dsl-providing-telco? There's plenty of standarization on that stuff.)

The problem in this market is a lack of competition. How are we supposed to show our disgust with artificial bandwidth caps if we don't have any other choice in the market?

-transiit

Re:::sigh::

[infiniti99]

so far all of the "universal instant messenger" services that connect with anything that they can find display the same sort of problems that you would find in a Swiss Army Knife, i.e. they do everything "okay" or "pretty well", but overall don't do the job as well as a service or tool that is tailored to one specific job.

Maybe the users of these multi-IM programs are not interested in the extra service-specific features you speak of, otherwise these types of programs wouldn't be so popular. It is abundantly clear that the general public does _not_ like the segregated world of IM we live in.

Communications standards would not preclude an AIM-lover from using the official AIM client if they want the bonus features. Consider AOL internet services, which gives you all sorts of other things in addition to a TCP/IP connection. Consider AOL email, which uses a proprietary protocol internally, but talks SMTP to the rest of the world.

What we need is for AOL (and others) to agree on an IM standard, if only for the basics, so that we can tear this wall down exactly like what happened with email 10 years ago.

The Jabber protocol has achieved RFC status, and will likely be accepted by the IETF. There's our standard. Unfortunately, there are powerful market forces at work, so I won't place any bets on AOL running a Jabber server anytime soon. Too bad, really..

Re:An inspirational thought for all to share

[Qrlx]

I hate to admit it but I find this song quite catchy. The cadence is true to the original; it scans verynicely. This is pretty impressive, esp for a website whose participants normally can't even spell.

What was that about?

[Tim Ward]

The comment didn't say anything, so I read the article. That didn't say anything we haven't heard zillions of times before either, apart from the new (to me) idea that asymmetric bandwidth to the home is a conspiracy by ISPs and advertisers (and there was me thinking there were some technical considerations).

So why does this make the front page?

Re:What was that about?

[Krapangor]

I suppose that the main point of the article is that "web thinkers" are rather slow thinkers.
Hmmm, is that news ?

Re:What was that about?

[Jim Florentine]

The comment didn't say anything, so I read the article. That didn't say anything we haven't heard zillions of times before either nigger, apart from the new vaginal (to me) idea that asymmetric bandwidth to the home is a conspiracy by ISPs and advertisers (and there was me thinking there were some technical considerations).

So why does this make the front page?

It's obvious you didn't read the article. If you had, you would have realized, unequivocally, that the writer is trying to etalage an outline of sheer business no-how that the current model does not favor.

Re:What was that about?

[Anonymous Coward]

"didn't say anything we haven't heard zillions of times before"

Heard? There's nothing we haven't seen. They're talking about it like its some sort of gloomy future. It's the gloomy present.

A Little Late

[TastySiliconWafers]

Business has already taken over the internet and destroyed much of it's utility. Too bad these guys didn't get any press around 1994 or so before the proverbial fit hit the shan. Now you can't even view most websites without accepting cookies, answering 3 pages of marketing survey questions, and closing 5 pop-up ads (not to mention that damn Best Buy advertisement that displays a bunch of stick figures dancing around on top of the NYT article I'm trying to read so I can't see the text and eventually decide that it's not worth the hassle to try). And quality content is buried deep underneath a pile of sites that modified their META tags or paid off the search engine owners to get themselves listed at the top of your search results despite their total irrelevance to the topic you're searching for information about.

Re:A Little Late

[Anonymous Coward]

use a proxy ;)

Re:dear diary

[Qrlx]

If you were watching Two Fat Ladys you could create copious cupsful of cum.

If you're modding this comment down, I hope it's not for grammar, because "cupsful" is in fact the plural of cupful. One cup, two cups. One cupful, two cupsful. Strange language, this English.

Upstream and Downstream

[Beautyon]

I am not overly concerned about the upstream downstream issue. We have already seen tools that combine small amounts of bandwidth from many different users to make an "on demand fat upstream pipe", as long as all the upstreaming users have identical files on thier system.

People collaborating to share their upstream bandwidth with the inevitable second genration swarming tools that will follow the like of Open Cola and its brethren will completely solve this "problem".

I say inevitable, because whenever a situation like this is artificially created, wether it be censorship (Freenet) or email privacy (PGP), the small group of creative software writers that fix these problems always come up with a tool to redress the balance, and sometimes, change everyones thinking permanently (gnutella).

If I consulted for these media companies, I would advise them to let everyone have the bandwidth that they want, because trafic shaping, contention and other evils will force the creation and evolution of tools that will make it easier to share content, which is precisely what they are trying to restrict.

Re:Upstream and Downstream

[Jim Florentine]

I am not overly concerned about the upstream downstream issue. We have already seen tools that combine small amounts of bandwidth from many fucking different users to make an "on demand fat upstream pipe", as long as all the upstreaming users have identical files on thier system.

People collaborating to share their upstream bandwidth with the inevitable second shitty genration swarming tools that will follow the like of Open Cola and its brethren will completely solve this "problem".

I say inevitable, because whenever a situation like this is artificially created vaginally, wether it be censorship (Freenet) or email privacy (PGP), the small group of creative software writers that fix these problems always come up with a tool to redress the balance, and sometimes, change everyones thinking permanently (gnutella).

If I consulted for these media companies, I would advise them to let everyone have the bandwidth that they want, because trafic shaping, contention and nigger other evils will force the creation and evolution of tools that will make it easier to share content, which is precisely what they are trying to restrict.

But you don't, and I think that's what the author of the article is trying to substantiate.

Re:Upstream and Downstream

[Alsee]

combine small amounts of bandwidth from many different users to make an "on demand fat upstream pipe"

In some cases this "solves the problem", but in other cases the benfit can vanish to zero. You have a one virtual fat upstream pipe divided by many users. The number of data requests tends to increase at the same rate as the number of users. The system remails upstream-throttled.

-

Organized Crime?

[flatt]

I do realize this man is referring to national laws applying to the world, yet even then it doesn't really matter. But I particularly liked this part:


Policymakers need to tread carefully, said Wolfgang Kleinwachter, professor of international communication at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Going too far one way could restrict freedom and choice, he said, while the opposite could foster organized crime.

<sarcasm>
So logically, too much freedom and choice ends up as organized crime... Of course.

It's nice to see a nice foreign view on things. I hope nobody would go too far, though. I like my freedoms just as much as the next guy. I'm just glad we Americans don't have this problem. Really all the government is doing with laws like the DMCA is just stopping us from becoming crime bosses. Those net filters at the library are a simple means of preventing a mob war. What we need is prohibition those damn file-sharing apps...
</sarcasm>

I think you get it.

Re:Organized Crime?

[big.ears]

Imagine a world where 'organized' crime was occuring on-line. For instance, casinos would be on-line, skimming off the top, not paying off what they claim to be, and bilking senior citizen's out of their children's inheritance. Or, large billion-dollar corporations would extort protection money by requiring 'licensing' of internet middleware on all your computers, even those that don't use their software. And, to make sure you are honest, they would install a artificially-intelligent mole on your computer that would snitch on you if you didn't pay up. Or imagine a multi-national syndicate that artificially creates a scarcity of urls, and then makes people pay through the nose for the privilege to own such scarce property?

Re:Organized Crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, organized crime can also be seen at the lower, more thuggish level. Extortion rings of people who call themselves 'sysadmins' form little groups to black hole portions of the Web that they consider the domain of 'spammers.'

Maybe that's more of a cowboy zone than a Mafia zone, though.

Re:Organized Crime?

[cerberusti]

Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

This is why

[teatime]

These type of efforts are so important

Slashdot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Theres a constan't culture clash here! In slashdot there are two major groups, the GEEKS and the TROLLS! The trolls always fight the geeks but the geeks are COWARDS and they cry to their mommies (the moderators) to moderate the TROLLS to -1! If youve got goatse.cx hiding in that other mozilla tab, then you are TROLL. If youre compiling your kernel while your reading this then your a GEEK!

"Web Thinkers"? Who are they kidding...

[Howzer]

"Web Thinkers"? I think not. These chumps are just people who could afford to go to some conference.

I've heard "big business is taking over the web" since the day I first installed Mosaic. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now.

Most big business, as everyone here who's worked for one or contracted for one knows, can't even UNDERSTAND the web let alone take the thing over. Sure, there's some big companies making some plays, but the web is wise to that stuff.

Sorry, just don't buy this kid of FUD.

And "we have to have more bandwidth" is hardly a comment worthy of someone billed as a "web thinker". Of course we all need more bandwidth. We also all need to eat healthy and take excercise. There's "health thinker" conferences for people who say these things as if they are new ideas, too!

Not trolling, just stating the blinding obvious!

Re:"Web Thinkers"? Who are they kidding...

[randmairs]

Big Business IS taking over the web. MS, AOL are two of my examples. They have the power to channel you to their preferred sites either through their content hotlinks or by eliminating from their search engine listings of viable choices that should have been readily found.

Try it yourself. Go to their sponsored "price grabber/finder" and type in a software title. See if they REALLY find you the lowest price from a company that's been around for several years. My favorite check is Provantage for consistently low prices. Does that company name appear in any of their results? If not you can be assured that the findees are paying some sort of fee to be found. But that's business.

If the major players can direct these people to their content sponsored sites, what's to prevent them from directing them to their sponsored information or thought sites? Yes there are ways around it IF you are webbily nimble.

Re:"Web Thinkers"? Who are they kidding...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not trolling, just stating the blinding obvious! "

Yup, and did you notice they mentioned the threat of organized crime, but didn't mention those nasty terrorists? These guys think it's still 1997.

Re:"Web Thinkers"? Who are they kidding...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've heard "big business is taking over the web" since the day I first installed Mosaic. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now.
Most big business, as everyone here who's worked for one or contracted for one knows, can't even UNDERSTAND the web let alone take the thing over. Sure, there's some big companies making some plays, but the web is wise to that stuff.

Well, I guess you missed the recent announcement where Web broadcast sites will be effectively terminated unless they're sufficiently well funded, that effort being a "compromise" between business and current operators. Guess who lost?

You missed the idea that Microsoft would just as soon set the authentication standards for e-commerce with polluted protocols like their version of kerebos and their version of web standards via Internet Explorer?

I won't even start with ICANN.

Re:"Web Thinkers"? Who are they kidding...

[dangermouse]

Yeah, the way around it is not to go ask them where to find stuff.

I can't remember the last time I went to a website that had anything to do with AOL or Microsoft, apart from CNN.com-- which I have no trouble balancing with other, independent news sources.

At any rate, larger media companies have always had more power to influence people simply because of the scope of their operation; this is nothing new. The thing about the web, though, is that you don't have to be particularly "nimble" to avoid any undue bias. It's all pretty much equally accessible.

Re:"Web Thinkers"? Who are they kidding...

[DEBEDb]

These chumps are just people who could afford to go to some conference.

Sure, Vint Cerf is a chump. And you're the
unrecognized genius.

Re:The Role of the Common Consumer

[PinkSchizoid]

I agree with the merits of your statement completely. However, I wonder how many "Joe Shmuck's" surfing the net at home really care about upstream bandwidth? I have to assume that the number of people who simply turn on their pc, check their email, and see what the Weather Channel(tm) website has to say about their local forecast is the largest percentage of typical users of the internet. A good chunk of the rest are mindlessly wandering around AOL (no further comment).
This would imply that the minority consists of we who read sites like Slashdot and care about upstream bandwidth. I have to stress the word minority here because if you:
A) care about bandwidth
B) want to be a producer or host
C) even know what the word "bandwidth" means
then you are definitely in the minority. Something I think we are all too quick to assume is that there is some type of universal intelligence on the part of web user's when there defintely is not. Again, (IMHO) I think most user's want to be a couch potato because they don't know or don't want to know anything more that would further complicate their lives.
Someone's previous observation that P2P software has changed this is assuming that all recipients of data equally want to be sources of data. I don't know about you, but uploaders really cramp my style on KaZaA. My downstream bandwidth gets killed because I have a 56K ISP uplink and a satellite dish downlink. I don't want to share data in this case as I can't get those cd's fast enough.
I've presented a case for the merchandiser/consumer model here. As long as the majority of user's stay stupid then marketers will increasingly seek alliances with service providers to affect the largest number of users possible. This is not only confined to the web - it reaches much further. Does Microsoft's recently announced partnership with Verizon bother anybody? It bother's me. As a Verizon customer (which I am), do I now have to face another outlet for "Windows" to be in my face on my phone? To hell with the contract cancellation penalties. I'll use two tin cans and a string the day I see ANY ad, service, etc... from MS on my cell phone.
Back to the web and the original article in general: perhaps the most troubling part of the reality to me is the admonishment of government influence/control. Perhaps I'll be labelled as a "terroristic threat"(tm GWB) for saying so, but with the level of paranoia up within an already visibly bipolar Bush adminstration I think we can expect certain government affects on our freedoms on the web (will the "right" to cruise the web soon become a revokable "privalege"?). But, for the majority, it's not a problem because they can still get their email and they can still check the weather channel as long as they behave themselves. HELLO !!!! Does anyone have a problem here or is it just me being paranoid again?

Uh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't anyone noticed that the internet related-business is in a crisis and will not get out of it for the forseable future?

Which comes first: chicken or egg ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most internet users don't upload because they cannot, with such a limited upstream b andwidth. Or is that because they don't upload that upstream bandwidth is generally inferior to downstream bandwidth ?

It'd be interesting to see the reasons that led to the technical choice of favoring downstream over upstream.

Re:The Role of the Common Consumer

[Anonymous Coward]

What I get out of your comment as a whole is:

'We are the eleeeeet! We are oh so coool!'

Get over it, dude.

McGill Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

McGill is what happens when you take a perfectly good English institutions and open it up to a bunch of frogs.

Opening the consumers' eyes

[Nomad37]

Agreed that "Joe Schmuck" doesn't care about becoming a content provider or freedom of the press, sharing information, etc. This is clearly evident in the number of people sharing vs. number of people leeching on p2p networks (on Gnutella, 70% people shared nothing, 50% of search responses came from 1% of servers - lecture given at Australian National Uni.).

This does not mean however, that the cause is lost. Systems like Freenet, which is quite sh*te at sharing files Napster style, would work brilliantly if it was used as its author designed it to be used - sharing important information without fear of reprisal or censorship. The fact of the matter is, by restricting upload speeds, and encouraging the average user to stay a consumer, a corporation can in effect deny the user the framework to use the freedom they theoretically have gained from the internet.

Until these technical issues are solved, Joe Scmuck will remain a schmuck...

Re:The Role of the Common Consumer

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it. "

..."an attempt to confine people to the role of consumer: i.e. "stay on the couch."

"how many "Joe Shmuck's" surfing the net at home

Yeah, and how many Joe Shmuck's ever do anything innovative? Its not that there aren't plenty of Joe Shmuck I-want-to-be-a-couch-potato-forever(s) running around out there. The point is that the small percentage of innovative gifted talent out there should be exploring the possibilites and extending the potential, which won't happen while we're stuck in consumer mode. Controling access is to content allows content to be priced. When everyone has the ability to be a producer, then the 2% or 3% who can, will, and that will disturb the current access control models. Those models should be distrubed.

Make an Open Net

[Monoman]

"We are actually at a point where we can make some very wrong decisions, and the Net will just kind of become like any other industry"

I think it is already too late for that. Once something is used by the common people it is an industry... an industry is mostly customers and people trying to make a buck off of customers. There are a few exceptions but I think we seeing the "almighty dollar" ruining the Internet in some ways(spam and pop-ups come to mind).

I think a new network based on openess is the way to go. Maybe Internet2(I don't know much about it) could be that network. Only allow organisations that adhere to a few mandates:

1. Apps and protocols that use Open standards.
2. Open source applications/protocols so they may evolve into open standards.

Question?

[dh003i]

I'm not familiar with the intimate details of ISP-services, but here's a question.

Why can't ISP's just offer users the option of how much upload/download bandwidth they want. On my cable modem, I get about 100-300 KB/s download bandwidth, and about 40 KB/s upload bandwidth. That amounts to about 140-340 KB/s bandwidth total. Lets say that its 240 KB/s.

So why can't my ISP just offer me any combination of upload/download bandwidth totalling up to that?

Or any percentage combination?

Or why can't they set up a dynamic system where the amount of upload and download bandwidth automatically shifts depending on what I'm doing?

Re:Question?

[Monoman]

Lets see because the "broadband" providers are the telcos and cable companies. Both of which dont "get it" when it comes to *data* communications.

DataComm is a new field to them and they got on the bandwagon cuz their business side told them they were missing out on something. They rushed their services to market without building an infrastructure to support it if it got popular.

They can't deliver what they promised and they don't care. They know that most folks don't have a choice when it comes to a broadband provider. The telcos have squashe the DSL resellers and the cable companies are virtual monopolies (with other cable providers) in their areas.

Re:Question?

[dh003i]

But my question was this:

Is there anything physically preventing them from offering a dynamic upload/download pipe, where it adjusts to what the users are doing automatically?

Or is it just that they choose not to do that?

Re:Question?

[Monoman]

Most likely the technology exists but they don't have it and/or didn't correctly plan for it. Now it will cost them to go back and "do it right" like they should have from the start. That will be their justification to raise prices and/or offer less than what they promised. Of course they will put a different spin on the issue.

My "broadband" connection is through Adelphia PowerLink (one-way only, cable for downloads, dial-up for uploads). It really sucks but it is the only broadband connection I can get it my area (hence a monopoly). BellSouth has no plans to offer DSL in my neighborhood anytime soon.

Adelphia is in financial ruins (I hope the owners get whats coming to them) and I am not looking forward to what my service will be like in the near future.

Re:Question?

[Kamel Jockey]

They rushed their services to market without building an infrastructure to support it if it got popular

But how much are you willing to pay for broadband? Most people won't shell out $100 a month for it. If the cable companies turned every broadband connection into the equivalent of a T1 or T3, you'd certainly be paying a lot more than $40-$50 a month for it. Would you be willing to pay that kind of money for a "real" internet connection?

Re:Question?

[Monoman]

I agree that most folks aren't gonna pay $100/month. However, the providers are the ones marketing broadband as T1 speeds for the home. It is their own fault for selling a product too cheap just to get into the market. It is their fault but in the end the customers will pay more.

No I wouldn't. I sit on a fast connection all day at work. No need for it at home at that price.

IF the providers can't honestly offer their service at a price average people are willing to pay THEN the service isn't ready for the general market.

But that isn't the case in this industry and many others. We all know of plenty of products and services get rushed to market just because the business folks don't want to miss out on making a buck.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:Question?

[Kamel Jockey]

the providers are the ones marketing broadband as T1 speeds for the home

I dunno about that one. The ads I've seen for DSL and cable modems here in Philadelphia advertise it as being "X times faster than dialup", "really fast" and "always on" without really getting into specifics. While it is true that all these services are capped at sub-T1 speeds, I don't think its fair to say they are marketing a "poor man's T1" to the masses.

Yet another glorious example of...

[Anonymous Coward]

SLASHDOT CENSORSHIP!

My only response is

[extrasolar]

"Duh"

Why Joe Schmuck Cares - and When

[billstewart]

Hi! I'm Joe Schmuck, and I'm a Couch Potato. I don't create cool applications and services myself, I just run stuff other people create and leech off them, but I'm still the most important person out there that the cable company knows about, because I'm paying them $50/month to run Cool Stuff, and if there weren't Cool Stuff for us Couch Potatoes to use, I wouldn't bother. Here are some times I care - or don't - about upstream bandwidth.

• I don't care when I'm running Napster - most people spend more time listening or ignoring it than downloading, so the asymmetry averages out.
• I don't care about upstream bandwidth for my web server - it's mostly my vacation pictures and pictures of my kids, and it's much easier to use DigiCamWebSharer to have the pictures on my 20GB hard disk than to upload them to the wimpy 5MB that the cable company's website lets me store. It's mainly my relatives who look at it, plus a bunch of spiders.
• I don't care when I'm running Quake, because it runs ok on modems and I can really kick ass on the cable modem.
• I do care about upstream when I'm running VideoPhone, because my 128kbps upstream is good enough for talking heads and showing the kids when they sit still, but if they start running around, Grandma complains that they get all blocky, especially if I forget to turn off Napster.
• I also care when I'm running VaporBlaster, since that needs 512kbps upstream. Unfortunately, not enough Couch Potatoes have better than 128k upstream or a few have 384k, so the VaporBlaster folks never finished writing the home version of the arcade game that would have gotten 30 million more Couch Potatoes to buy cable modem service, so I can only play it at the mall,and my cable bill keeps having inserts about how they're not filling up their OC48 backbone and could we download some more movies from their PayPerView site so they don't have to cut the monthly bandwidth limits again.
• I also care when I'm running NeighborhoodWatchWebCam, because there've been a couple of car breakins this month and most of the neighbors are running theirs in slow-speed mode so we couldn't recognize the kids who did it.

We need only worry of the infrastructure...

[telbij]

Numerous posts here proclaim that the Internet has already been ruined by big business. That is a load of crap. You can still write any software you please and deploy it over the Internet with no problems.

The fact that there are thousands of commercial web sites with pop-ups and cookies doesn't mean anything. Corporations should be free to make a profit just as you should be free to tune in to different sites.

The only thing that we have to worry about is hardware-based DRM and other such restrictions. Because of the investment and infrastructure needed to build a global network, we will be in a lot of trouble if restrictive HARDWARE manages to become the standard. Although such restrictions seem a long way off, it would be nice if some sort of democratic and non-profit institution could step in and start building network bandwidth in the event that the Comm. giants decide it's time to deploy a new 'Smart' Network.

Re:We need only worry of the infrastructure...

[Ziviyr]

The fact that there are thousands of commercial web sites with pop-ups and cookies doesn't mean anything. Corporations should be free to make a profit just as you should be free to tune in to different sites.

Yes it does, it means browsers are going against my will on my system. There should be checkboxes for sound and the ability to spawn new windows (the ability to spawn them under anything flat out shouldn't exist). There should be site by site control of cookies so I could allow sites very narrow usage if sites I want require them.

Basically I think the web should be stripped back down. Too many cute flashy features that compromise security in various ways.

Re:We need only worry of the infrastructure...

[JimPooley]

Yeah! Let's go down to plain text delivered over 300 baud modems! The way it was in the good old days, right?
Sounds like a good way to drive the net into a geeks-only private club.

Re:We need only worry of the infrastructure...

[telbij]

Yes it does, it means browsers are going against my will on my system. There should be checkboxes for sound and the ability to spawn new windows (the ability to spawn them under anything flat out shouldn't exist). There should be site by site control of cookies so I could allow sites very narrow usage if sites I want require them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mozilla does a pretty good job of this. It's hypocritical to complain about what commercial vendors do with their products, because you yourself want complete freedom to do what you want with software you write.

It's easy to disagree with capitalist excess and pervasive commercialization of everything, but that is the cost of freedom. Saying what features browser makers should be mandated to add is like media conglomerates lobbying to get DRM hardware installed in every electronic device. Those guys think their side has the moral high ground too.

Re:We need only worry of the infrastructure...

[Ziviyr]

Hey, no need to burn the newer modems to the ground. Just close and make sutiably optional all features that pose significant privacy/security/annoyance risk.

It would really rock to be able to pull down whole books in a few seconds though. Might challenge people to new speedreading records. :-)

Re:We need only worry of the infrastructure...

[Ziviyr]

Except that half of what I said involved user controllable buttons allowing their preferences to be respected and I have no world-power governmental military force behind me to back it up (just a handful of slashdotters whose opinions I might have slightly changed).

Note alot of this fancy web tech came along because most web users are using one or two different browsers, many of which had the ability to nag the average user into submission (again, no "shut the f" -- " up" button available).

Bringing DRM into the conversation is like comparing the evils of sugar in Kool Aid with the evils of grinding Hitler's corpse into a new flavor of Kool Aid.

Technical Issues prevent that

[billstewart]

The technology doesn't work that way - some things are inherently symmetric, and some are inherently asymmetric, but they're not just allocating bandwidth on a shared simplex channel like an Ethernet or radio space. There are three common standards out there for broadband to the home:

• Symmetric DSL versions - they're symmetric, and bandwidth is limited by the electrical characteristics of the wires. They usually need dedicated wires.
• Asymmetric DSL versions - they play different electrical tricks to fit the signal onto the wire, and can line-share with analog phones, so they're becoming the most common home DSL. Typical speeds are 384/128, 608/128, and 1544/384.
• Cable Modems - Cable TV depends on lots of Funky Analog Electrical Tricks just to work at all, and cable modems do even funkier tricks, and it's easier to do these tricks downstream, where you've got one signal source, than upstream, where you've got lots of sources at different points on the same wire which all want to bounce around and echo and interfere with each other unless you tune the thing right. It's much worse than the old ThickWire Ethernet. So it's easier for them to add as much downstream bandwidth as they want to pay for, but upstream's much harder. However, they're not giving you as much upstream bandwidth as they could, for a couple of reasons.
  • One is that they developed a bad performance reputation early on because of some bad equipment in the beta-test city, leading to high packet loss and all those Web Hog TV commercials by competitors, so they'd rather not push the limits of the network, because Bad Perception by the public is a killer.
  • Another is that the upstream is a shared medium, with total performance depending on the number of people sending right now and how fast they're sending, and if they let you have a lot more upstream, which they easily could, some users really would hog their neighborhood upstream, especially if they're running popular Pr0n Web Servers (see Bad Perception, above.)
  • They could manage the bandwidth of excessive users by using packet shapers like Packeteer, but those didn't really exist when they started, and still cost money today.
  • They either have to set all users to a lowest-common-denominator speed that will work everywhere, or they'd have to keep track of each individual user's setting and do much more complex engineering for each set of cable, and that's way too much work for a low-price service.
  
  Most of the cable modem technology out there limits you to 128kbps upstream, but it could do more if they wanted to set it for that. Some of the cable modem companies offer business-class service with 256kbps upstream and much better repair time guarantees, but the economics of the consumer-priced services are based on the idea that it's really just television and if it goes out for a day or two you can read a book or go to the movies.
  
• Digital Cable - This is the Mos Eisley of kitchen sink bandwidth allocation protocols, doing a huge variety of ugly things with different parts of the bitstream under different conditions. You really don't want to go there; it makes those ISDN Q.93x protocols designed by French Telecom Bureaucrats look positively clean and simple.
  

Geeks: Problem or Solution?

[Sasm]

Perhaps the danger is that there is a threat in the form of not just commercial interests, but non-geek interests. Of course the net got taken over by business. Why? Cause geekies make stuff that allowed for it to happen. Of course the dotcom is now the dotcalm. Why? Cause the geekies made stuff that allowed it to happen. Now the net is full of kiddies (or ex-kiddies like myself) poking our noses into everything and not really knowing squatt, but not caring. Why? Cause geekies made stuff to allow it to happen. Why? Cause geekies (like those of you who are composing in full sentences with a modicum of thought, not the rest of you) didn't have enough sense to design things in a way that it didn't happen. So, if there's anything wrong on the net. Whose fault is it? Sarah @ sarahsmiles.com

Meanwhile...

[Rogerborg]

While Vint and his chums write insightful pieces on why there might be a possible problem with conflicts of interest, the commercial interests just carry on buying up the laws and precedents to do whatever they damn well want with the root servers and TLD's.

The problem with reasonable, balanced, polite objections is that the other side is utterly convinced that might makes right. They see Vint and his kind as irrelevant dinosaurs, and they see us not as contributing netizens, but as consumers.

Vint, Vint, stop being so nice. Start asserting the bald fact: the net is for individuals, not for companies. Don't make the mistake of justifying that or explaining why it should be so, because the commercial interests damn well don't. Just assert it, and keep on asserting it more confidently every day. There's a war on for control of the internet, and wars aren't won through appeasment and debate, they're won through a single minded belief that there can be only one possible outcome, and that's that we will win this.

Its all in intertia

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing about the internet is that it is the first medium where there's an upstream. Every single mass media before it has had downstream but NO upstream. Look at the radio and television. You could do small communication between parties, but you could never reach the audience that you can online. This creates a conundrum among business because media has been shaped for the past century with produces and consumers. The produces and consumers have remained fairly separated except for a few enthusiasts. Because of the fact that the web now empowers everyone to become a producer easily, we get a flurry of geocities pages made by some mom in Iowa equipped with a copy of MS Frontpage. However, to become more serious about empowering more to become producers, upstream would have to be increased which could cause an upset in the way business is done. Business has remained split for the past century, and with inertia, is trying to remain that way.

BTW, AIM and ICQ use the same protocol and servers

[smcv]

I'm currently running Gaim (a Linux/X/Gtk client originally developed for AIM compatibility) which uses a plugin system to connect to several competing IM servers (ICQ, AIM, MSN, Napster etc.) - as far as I can see, Trillian is its Windows equivalent (I don't know which came first).

The Gaim developers have stopped working on their ICQ plugin, because the same protocol ("Oscar") and server (login.oscar.aol.com port 5190) will work for both services, and their AIM plugin has expanded to have full ICQ functionality - you just fill in an ICQ number and password rather than an AIM screenname and password.

AIM and ICQ still don't seem to interoperate - I'm not sure whether this is a Gaim-ism or an AOL problem, but sending a message from my ICQ account to my AIM account (or vice versa) fails.

Plutocracy

[I am Jack's username]

> You're asking for government to be allowed to step in and say: 'you can't do that anymore' to private individuals and organizations. That's exactly the kind of thing the Constitution was drafted to prevent. - SN74S181

"The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institution and monied incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the begger in the omenry." - Thomas Jefferson, 1816

"We're going to need to have these corporations redefined as instruments of public service because they have the resources, they have the reach, they have the skill base, and maybe there's a new generation coming up that wants to achieve meaning in that context and have an impact, and that may be a more efficient way to deal with society's problems than governments." - Plutocrat Gerald Levin's testimony before the USA Congress.