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ACLU Study Wary of Broadband Providers
An anonymous reader says "The ACLU recently had a study done that suggests that broadband access is a threat to internet freedom. Their study focuses on the control available to broadband providers who don't have to deal with the same level of competition or regulation as ISP providers. The result is the ability to radically control internet access combined with the omnipresent corporate incentive for profit, whatever the cost to free speech."
As anyone with low capped connections, bad quality of service, and terrible uptimes, broadband must be opened! Cable companies must be forced to share lines, etc etc, or else they will end up owning the end users on the internet.
It's broadband!!! *Hugs monitor and cries*
To all those who have AOL Time Warner stock get out quick. Buy some cable/teleco stocks instead cause they sure as hell will control everything.
Maybe on of the primary markets for PeekaBooty won't be China, but the U.S. Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" because of a number of things. They stopped travellers and demanded to see ID/papers/etc. The U.S. is doing that now. They controlled information flow and communications. The U.S. is doing that now.
On a more positive note, I think I saw a recent article about Time Warner saying they would not be limiting or regulating use of RoadRunner. Let's hope.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
AOL Time Warner IS a cable company. . .
Try to search for the report on Google. They often allow PDF documents to open as HTML. While Google does not have this one archived, many of the PDFs I read are available in HTML there.
I've always been a DSL proponent, because of the fact that DSL has regulation in place to create competition. Of course, the bush appointees to the FCC wants to take all of that away and allow for monopolies.
Of course, the way phone companies have been screwing independent DSL providers in spite of the law has bankrupted most of them. Its really sick.
Oh, and to those of you who say that only government regulation can cause monopolies, go fuck yourself.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Uh, Beavith, AOL/TW owns cable companies.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Then use dial-up. Or buy a link to someone else with a good net connection. DSL (because it's over phone lines aka common carrier) tends to have more government restriction (ie the companies have less freedom to restrict your access).
But, last time I looked, unrestricted internet access wasn't a constitutional right, anyway.
Go here for a text version.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
There are loads of ISP's offering broadband (ADSL) here in the UK some of which explicitly say you can serve anything legel and have as many pc's as you want hanging off you connection and tell you how to setup nats etc...
The UK regulater makes a hell of a lot of noise, the UK had a public monopoly upuntil a few years ago and the regulator keeps trying to force down prices offered to ISP's for dialup and ADSL access.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
What is wrong with corporations having an incentive to make profit? That is what they are there for.
Companies have no incentive to support free speech, the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to them. If you don't like what cable companies do then don't use them. Don't try to impose your will on others.
To all those who have AOL Time Warner stock get out quick.
Uhhh, you mean someone still owns AOL stock? Have you seen how far the price has dropped? If people haven't sold it by now, they're probably better off holding on to it and hoping for a turnaround.
AOL Time Warner owns less than 20 percent of the cable market. So in essence it's business will be going from #1 in the market to the middle of the pack. Trust me you don't want to be caught in the middle when the big boys take out there money from AOL Time Warner stocks.
It is nice to see a very powerful lobby group lobby to start taking control away from the large cable companies. Here in DC, there is actually a broadband competitor to Comcast (Now part of AT&T), StartPower (part of RCN). They are really helping improve service around here from everyone. Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, and Sprint are all facing competiton from them and it is keeping our networks in good shape. I use them, and the customer service is great, cable line-up is good, and prices can't be beat. As soon as RCN gets their mega-modem over here, I won't have to deal with anyone other than Starpower for my communication needs. This is the type of thing that needs to happen elsewhere, and maybe the ACLU can help get some ignorant congress-person to pass some laws that help broadband/cable competitors get running and profitable.
If the ACLU is so concerned about the "freedom" of the Net, and if ACLU think that the broadband providers are a threat to the "freedom", well
As the adage goes - If you can't beat 'em, join 'em !
The sure win-win-win way for the ACLU and "freedom-of-the-net" and broadband net access is for ACLU to provide broadband net access to the public !
That way, ACLU will make sure that FREEDOM survives on the net, while people will continue to enjoy the broad bandwidth, and ACLU will become an organization which no longer needs to raise funds to fight for freedom - because THEY ARE THE PROVIDER OF FREEDOM on the net !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Here in the year 2002, if you can't easily read a pdf, it's not someone else's fault. You should upgrade to a less primitive system.
I don't think people in the United States have much to worry about. If one shady broadband provider begins to censor content there will always be an alternative solution available to you that does not practice business the same way. If you don't think there will be, have a little faith in the marketplace.
It's places like Canada that need to be concerned. For example. in Western Canada there is only -one- Cable provider and -one- Telco. Granted there are different services providers for DSL, in the end they are all controlled by the telco, each provider simply offers different services with the same DSL packages.
If they start to change accessibility and content to suit their bottom line, those people will have no where to turn. Gotta love government endorsed monopolies eh?
...outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Most of the world is composed of people who are sheep, people who can't, or won't (in the case of religion) think for themselves. In this case, it is unlikely that the internet will be truely open for those few of us who would like it to be.
Get ready to be controlled.
how do you suppose that will happen?
thanks to the fcc the telcos can now exclude competitors from their hubs. The cable companies will never let a competitor on their cable. The cable networks were created with large government subsidies and such subsidies will not come for a duplicate cable network.
This government of ours has ensured that telcos and cable companies will have a monopoly on broadband for a loong time.
Mike
I opened the link, but all I can find is an article titled, "TOO POOPED TO PONTIFICATE: ANONYMOUS POSTER WEARY OF COMMON FILE TYPES."
Must be something wrong with my browser. I'll get 'round to checking it.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
The ACLU did NOT state that "broadband access is a threat to internet freedom". This is a study on the problem of broadband monopolies being created in the cable market only, due to common carrier restrictions.
Does this mean we're gonna see JESSE JACKSON on TV screaming about the man running his broadband? God I hope so.. can't get enough of that guy!!!
What's left to legally justify broadband? Nothing at all. P2P is the only thing that justifies broadband. If you're not using p2p then you can probably get everything you need from a 56K modem and save yourself some money.
I know that there are media enriched sites and game demos that are rather hefty downloads, but with a little patience the average home user could probably save themselves $30 - $60 by just using a modem. But the average home user loves to load up kazaa and download to their hearts desire. The ability to find any movie, music, program, etc file is what the average home user finds as the coolest thing. Thanks to p2p you can now download just about anything you want to download.
It's a catch 22 of mass proportions for ISP's. They want to advertise blazing fast downloads, but they also want to stay in business with as few lawsuits as possible. They aren't censoring information. They are making p2p applications stop working because that's what 99% of the bandwidth for broandband is used for. Cable modems unlike DSL rely on neighborhoods of networks to share bandwidth, if little jimmy 13 year old is constantly downloading full length movies at 900 k/s then that neighborhoods bandwidth is shot.
What's next are we going to go after the department of transportation because they have speed limits up and don't let me drive my porsche as fast as it can go? Blocking p2p is something that I would look for in a broadband company so that I would know that I can have fast downloads. I download OSS software and SDK's all the time that range anywhere from 10megs to 2 gigs. Do you really think I want a 5 k/s download with files that large? Nope, hence why I like blocking p2p.
Everyone who claims that p2p is a right of freedom is the same type of moron that believes handguns are a security device. This is not a violation of America's civil rights and quite frankly I'm getting a little tired of the ACLU always thinking that there is something wrong. Do any of these radical groups ever think that they've won, that the battle is over, that it might be okay to shut the hell up and let people live peacefully.
To those wanting to respond, remember everyone is wrong in someones eyes.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I thought BT wholesale only provided ADSL connection not internet connection, SFAIK ADSL could be used for anything e.g. direct connection to the office, not just 'the internet' so BT would have a hell of a job restricting the line.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
this mofo funny!
Jessee hiJackson - HiJacking a corporation near you for keeping his people down. Next he will be hiJacksoning the broadband providers.
Jessee had vision once, now he is out of touch. Maybe he can counsel others on the benefits of marital fidelity.
The bright orange banner ad at the top of this page when I loaded it says "Telephone Monopoly is Out!". Now that is what I call irony.
I tried BT's service, but switched to demon (no I don't work for them) as they have a pretty open policy, plus you get a fixed IP (which is a double edged sword I guess).
;-)
Before I signed up I asked about their policy for customers running services on their machines and bandwith limits. I was told I could do anything I liked so long as I didn't cause problems for anyone else.
Service has been great for me, I could never go back to a modem now
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Their goal is to make a profit, but the 1st amendment DOES affect them. They may not actively support my constitutional rights but they cannot limit my rights via their business practices.
This is especially egregious because they have a monopoly. This is the reasoning behind regulation by the FCC (e.g. equal access to radio & TV time, access to incumbent carriers' telephony facilities, the right to erect antennas for TV reception).
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
The 2nd amendment means that the government has the right to own guns, not the people. The Brady law, assault weapons ban, bans on machineguns, and other policies are a requirement of a free society. People have the right to feel secure. These pro-gun "libertarian" nutcases need to be put in prison for life.
"The Congress shall have Power
Maybe it's time to realize the fact that "email" and "information superhighway" aren't just empty metaphors. They are the modern implementation of the basic transportation and communication systems that have been mentioned in the US Constitution for 200 years.
Freedom of speech or the press only means one thing, that the government can't stop you from speaking or publishing. It dosen't mean that you have a right to force others to provide you with a Printing Press, or a TV station, or a Broadband connection.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Primitive?? Definitely not
Stripped to the bone?? Most definitely.
What the visionaries? of the internet business world
have forgotten is that the internet is for everyone.
-
So having a document in a proprietary format pisses me
off to no end. I want documents in text or in HTML.
-
So stick it up your IE using rear. reboot boy.
But their idea that "The Government Must Act to Protect the Internet" is just not going to happen. Especially under George II's reign. If anything, the government has gone out of its way to *ruin* the internet starting with the '96 Telecommunications Act, which also encapsulated (IIRC) the CDA. Then they passed the DMCA, COPA and now they want to force DRM down our throats. This congress and this administration is, in large part, squarely in the pockets of the large corps. I wonder if we could get Rick Boucher (D., Va.) to run for president in 2004? I have reviewed his voting record and he has a perfect civil liberties score AND he is entirely against all the above silliness.
It's a good thing that the Bill of Rights was passed when it did. Now it wouldn't even make it out of committee...
Actually, courts have ruled the first amendment does apply to corporations. They are using this to overturn many of the FCC's regulations on ownership, including limits on the percent of the national market that cable companies can own and the TV/newspaper cross ownership ban.
At least you folks out west have the better one (Shaw). Count your blessings. Where I live in the 'middle-east', we used to have Shaw until the 'big sawp'. Now we're stuck with the Canadian Evil Empire Builders (rhymes with Dodgers). Trust me, you guys are better off.
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees us freedom from government trampling on our rights.
Individuals, corporations, etc have the freedom to do what they please to do, and the market and consumers will decide if they can deal with those issues.
The ACLU are a bunch of morons, all they do is advance socialists race-balancing theories, not protect freedom.
The only organization that actually DEFENDS freedom is the Institute for Justice.
Argh.
I think that companies have to get one thing into their head. The internet is not the next big place to make money. The internet is the equivilent of a phone, paper mail, and a library, all of which are extremely personal and non-commercial. I really don't think that people want corporate interests to pervade every aspect of their lives. At some point, people's interest in keeping a vital economy and strong commercial sector have to come to a balance with people's interest in maintaining perspective and sanity. The current situation on the Internet is ridiculous. It is so overly commercialized that what once had the promise to become a powerful medium of information exchange has increasingly become a method for corporations to make money, just like T.V. and mass-market clothing and movies. I'm not saying we should all be communist and kill those evil corporations. All I'm asking for is for people to realize that maybe the current value of the NASDAQ isn't the most important thing in the world, and that keeping corporate America in a constant state of growth does not take precedence to maintaining peoples' quality of life.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The odds that this subject will make it onto TV at all are slim. The odds that they would interview anyone who would advocate for the position espoused by the ACLU are remote. I would be shocked if they let Jesse Jackson on because he would say something about media consolidation adverserly effecting minorities, but I would be thrilled if they did.
*nix - xpdf and acroread (sometimes)
Windows - Acrobat Reader
MacOS X - Preview, Acrobat Reader
There are also things you can download to convert it to html.
PDFs are nice because they show up exactly as you want them to (fonts and all). You can't always guarantee that with HTML.
The getting sued problem is solved by making the law clear that anyone supplying internet access is a "common carrier" NOT a publisher. Web hosting services, newgroup etc.. are a bit of a grey area, but the law should make it very difficult to sue the hosting company, and have clear protections against frivolous charges of copyright infringement.
As for bandwidth hogs - stop advertising unlimited bandwidth unless it IS unlimited. This isn't as much as a problem for the adsl providers, but for the cable guys where many customers are basicly sharing a big star one hog can cut into a lot of customers bandwidth.
My ISP (adsl) gives me X bytes up/down for a flat rate. If I go over this generous limit then I pay extra. Wouldn't this solve the hog problem for the cable guys too?
Anarchists never rule
I am a network engineer and sysadmin by trade.
As a consumer, I am very distressed with the state of broadband. I just can not find broadband providers that meet the needs that I desire. The only option that I seem to have is getting a DS1 or fractional DS1 at extreme cost to get what I want.
What do I want?
Broadband is made up of two things -- latency and capacity. Low latency is important. Anything over 100ms is high and can cause problems with time sensitive applications such as voice communications, shell usage, and action game playing. In regards to capacity, this is the pipe width of your circuit, be it 128Kbps or 1.5Mbps.
But it is also made up of other things. Does your service provider allow you to use servers? Will their mirror your reverse DNS files since they hold the masters? What about in and out port and protocol filtering? What about quality of service? Uplink costs are about $1000 per 1Mbps -- that is $1 per Kb! In order to make money and provide a good service to their customers, they need to oversubscribe, and also deal out the bandwidth fairly.
I have no sympathy for the P2P copywrited material sharing fools out there who are upset that they can not pirate software -- that is not what the Internet is for. The Internet is not TV -- you do not just watch things. The Internet lets you publish, touch, interact, and exchange information on an International scale.
Companies who do not let you run servers on ANY connection, be it dialup or DSL, are NOT providing Internet connectivity. They are providing browse-only-Internet, Read-Only Internet, or just plain TV-like crap.
Companies that do not provide quality of service mechanisms are also doing a poor job. Implementing a QOS scheme with modern equipment is very easy and works, but nobody wants to rock their big dumb ISP boat and say that they need to do something like that.
Offering only an OSI layer 2 (bridged) network connection is NOT acceptable. This means cable providers, LRE (long range Ethernet), and PPPoE/PPPoATM providers that do not provide point to point circuits. If you want to provide this kind of service, then that is okay, but not as an only option.
Any ISP that does not provide for IP allocations is no ISP at all, period.
I do not need a 1.5Mbps upstream and 128Kbps upstream DSL line. I would much rather have a 384Kbps bidirectional ADSL or SDSL line (yes, you can have a balanced line with ADSL, there is no technical excuse) and be able to use it.
I do not mind paying a little more for these services, but overcharging me for things like a small IP allocation, or reverse DNS on the allocation, or using servers, is unacceptable. How much work does it take to do a SWIP and enter a configuration line in your RDNS pull system? I KNOW how much work it takes because I used to do it -- about two minutes AT MOST, almost zero resources, does not have to be done by an engineer, and is easily automated.
AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate modern broadband providers, and I hate the people who use them blindly. Why does nobody care?
In Denver I was paying $150 a month for a 640Kbps PPPoATM ADSL line with a
I have recently moved to the Orlando Florida metro area, and while looking for apartments have found that I am really screwed. I just can not get what I need. Almost all of the apartment complexes here used digital line compression on their phone lines, which kills DSL. There is nothing wireless, and only RoadRunner cable modem service is available, and I hear very oversubscribed.
I hate everybody! Die.
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From page 2:
/give up/ your competitive advantage.
"4. Cable broadband is not restrained by competition
5. Cable broadband has not been restrained by regulation"
These statements are mutually exclusive. Allow me to elaborate. It is partially true that cable is not subject to competition. The reason for this is that it has indeed been "restrained by regulation". Throw a rock in a room full of US cities and you'll hit one with a legally-protected cable monopoly. My city sure has one. If you don't allow multiple cable companies to operate, how can you chide them for lack of competition? It makes no sense. It's also preposterous to suggest that the solution is MORE regulation rather than less. You cannot produce the effects of competition by writing laws. The failure of socialism proved that one.
But this logical breakdown hardly matters, as the entire premise of their concern is faulty.
From page 1:
"The danger is that the Internet will come under private control. Core American liberties
such as freedom of speech are of no value if the forums where such rights are commonly
exercised are not themselves free."
I don't know what country these guys have been living in, but it ain't the USA. Every avenue through which free speech is exercised is under private control. Newspapers, TV, radio, even if you just stand on a soapbox and shout, the ground you're standing on is owned by someone. Even our precious internet runs on cables and computers owned by individuals. Quite simply, "free speech" on the internet doesn't exist. You can only post on Slashdot what the Slashdot owners will allow you to. It's the same at ArsTechnica, Shacknews, SomethingAwful, or any other online forum system or moderated usenet group. And unmoderated usenet only acts "free" because the designers and operators of the system and the individual groups decided it should be so. There is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING "public" about the internet, and that changes not regardless of whether you use dial-up or cable.
And didn't we address this already recently, in the story on making 'net access a public utility? There the fear was that it's in the competitive interest of providers to limit access. As I said re: that story, that's bullshit. If what consumers want is unfettered access to anything and everything, then providing that is what gives competitive advantage. Limiting access is how you
The value of the internet is in how decentralized it is in terms of content provision. The value of the web isn't on Yahoo or MSN.com or anything owned by AOL/TW, it's on Geocities, lonestar.org homepages, stupid Tripod sites, small community forums, etc etc etc. It would only ever be in the interest of providers to limit access if they could limit access to just things that they own. But no provider could ever own enough of the internet to be useful on its own.
The ACLU is responsible for so many of the freedoms and rights that you now enjoy.
What i like a lot about the ACLU is that they protect everyone's liberties, including people that obviously dont deserve them, like you.
http://saveie6.com/
I wasn't generalizing. And you can block all stories I post if you'd like :)
Always on? That's a joke and a half. It takes less than a minute to connect via dialup, if your email is that important then you really need to find a hobby. A second pohne line with a dialup connection is actually far cheaper than a broadband connection.
Email and IRC are part of my work, and quite a few other people's, not to mention that things like real-time online communication (talk, IRC, AIM, whatever) require being connected to be worth anything. If you don't like those things, you don't like them -- no one can make you, but it's stilly to ascribe your interests and preferences to other people. Do you have a telephone available to you, and do you keep it plugged in, or only when you want to make calls? Back to the walkie talkies.
Right now, it's not a very large percentage, but the possibility for more people to work from where they'd like to is a good argument for always-on service.
Re: cost, it may be "far cheaper" some places to maintain a 2nd phone line and a permanent ISP connection, but for me the prices break down like this: $20-30 for a no-frills local phone line (has varied by state), plus $20-25 for a national ISP. (Mindspring, btw, does *not* like you to keep your connection up all the time, and email asking you to spend less time online.) Some people want only occasional internet access, and there are better deals available if you're willing to deal with a less certain ISP and sharing your voice line for your data calls.
DSL and cable (in the places I've looked) have cost approximately the same ($40-60/mo for low-end service) as telephone line + ISP for much better service. Many DSL providers also provide dial-up provisions either for emergencies (DSL down) or travel (to cushion the blow of not having the national access of something like Earthlink). I've also lived with dial-up as my primary connection to the internet for most of the past 10 years; the price argument alone is no longer valid anywhere I've lived recently (5 states), perhaps it is where you live.
"I bet your TOS says that it can be changed at anytime, doesn't it? Yup! "
No idea -- it might. Like I said, I've never seen any ToS agreement, and certainly haven't signed one.
As far as handguns, you are a simple minded fool for thinking such things.
So I've been told.
I want you to loose someone you love to a handgun and ask yourself how much that they are useful as security devices.
At a gas station in Arkansas, I saw an elderly man attacked (beaten and kicked) by a group of five young men, who seemed uninterested in stopping before another man shooed them away effectively with a (brandished) handgun. The victim got away with hospitalization.
Handguns (and all guns) are dangerous -- that's what they're designed to be. I'd hate for you to lose someone close to you in a vending machine accident (http://www.inforamp.net/~gerry/ttidbits.html) and decide that vending machines are without value. And those aren't even *designed* to be dangerous.
No one hunts with a handgun, and if no one had a handgun there would be no reason for anyone to have one.
Actually, quite a few people hunt with handguns (Of the mainstream manufacturers, Ruger makes some handguns people seem to like for this purpose, though I've never fired any of them), and on farms they come in quite useful. (You can read about the hard times faced by "frustrated handgun hunters" here -- http://www.hawkbullets.com/Handgun.htm) I don't ask that you carry one, or hunt, or take up farming, or enjoy milkshakes. Many people believe that police or other agents of the state should be allowed to carry handguns -- if you share this belief, do you think that agents of the state should be the only ones allowed to do so?
"The biggest argument for handguns is that someone else has one and you want to protect yourself."
That's one good reason, but it generalizes, too -- it's not just whether someone else has a handgun, but whether they represent some other danger to your life / liberty / pursuit of happiness, like being physically dominant and malicious. When Mike Tyson used to beat up old ladies and take their money, he wasn't armed. (http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:1ZLgK9fNKkMC :www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/nationworld/orl-as ectyson02060202jun02.story+mike+tyson+mugging+new+ york&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)
Eh, that's all I care to say in this line :)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I am reading this with utmost amazement; first I hear some liberal group say that broadband does more harm then good, then I hear someone tell me that we shouldn't have guns! Hahaha - who are you to tell us that we should not have guns? The whole point our wonderful democracy is the people are free to do as they wish, as long as thier actions are in accordance with our laws. Owning a gun is certainly lawful; perhaps you should read the Second Amendment, written by the founding fathers:
Amendment II
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Only in America, eh!
Ahem.
I mean, this is a threat to internet freedom only in one (increasingly reactionary) country, the US of A.
This goes to show you how companies and "insiders" manipulate the mind of the individual investor to actually believe that the stock price reflects the value of the company at all. Here's the scoop: The company offers stock in bulk offerings (millions of shares) once a year or so. Between these offerings, the stock price can fluctuate as investors trade these stocks amongst one another, and it has no hard impact on the company itself (spare employees with stock options). When the company offers stock, even at this low price, they are still making investment capital. So yes, Virginia, your stock is actually valueless. Those are some mighty expensive bits and bytes. And... if you STILL have stock in AOL/Time-Warner (you didn't notice that, oh, $150 billion loss), you are screwed. The "big boys" are gone before the street even wakes up in the morning.
<Amanda`> I just went out to the parking lot in my bathrobe to exchange warez CDs.
Why does the ACLU need their report to show up "exacly as they want it"? It's a report. It's an ideal document type for HTML. Headings and logical styles are all you need. PDFs read very slowly compared to HTML because they are read page by page with lots of scrolling. And most converters don't work very well.
the un-spamness, bandwith and such of Internet2 were available as a "second" internet to the masses.. imagine only a high speed internet of broadband connections... what effect would that have?? what are the downfalls/positive notes?
just an idea.
I support publik eduscatation!
I agree. This is the difference between capitalism and a free market. When there is a monopoly, there is no free market because the buyer can't choose different suppliers. Yet monopolies are often the result of a long term capitalist market.
Having a free market should be the goal--not a capitalistic one. Unfortunately, the government seems to be pushing for a capitalistic market that is tightly regulated (as in enforcing policies that define every way the company should act). This is much like communism--the only difference is that the government doesn't own the companies on paper. Maybe it is this way in some countries, but it is this way in my country (the US). They don't even seem to punish most real criminal behavior--just bring down everyone with absurd contradictory and restrictive standards.
It should be that the government maintains a free market by enforcing anti-trust laws (which they don't--just look at Microsoft) and punishing actual criminal behavior--such as fraud, theft, murder, etc.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
if you want to stay in 1979, that's your deal. The rest of us will watch with amusement as you whine for things. You're using a system where it's a pain to view pdf's, and you expect the rest of the world to care? btw, i haven't rebooted this 2k system in about 8 mos. try that with x-windows.
GNU xpdf is a very crappy program by pretty much any standard. Don't inflict it on other people! In fact, IMO, Acrobat Reader is a very crappy program too, however I imagine some people will disagree with that one.
Yes, which gives them no excuse for not providing an html version on the web. After all, html is the standard format for documents on the web. Why shouldn't I be able to view their documents with my browser?
BTW, PDFs are made for formatting documents on paper not a computer screen. That may be good if you need to print it out, but otherwise it isn't.
In fact, every PDF file I've looked at uses black text on a bright white background--very bad for viewing on a computer--when your monitor is showing lots of white, it is just like staring into a lightbulb. I remember several years ago when there were so many complaints from office employees about eye strain that the government came out with regulations that basicly suggests that monitors should have "filters" on them (that are really just sunglasses). This was "coincedently" just a few years after MS Windows (you know: the OS with the paperwhite colors) came out. I doubt there would be those kind of problems if a dark background was used.
fredom to surf, they have a compleatly open policy and the T's and C's say you can use as many machines as you like, you can have as many fixed IP's as you wan't etc... and its about £25 a month. ($38 USD)
You get web and email space included with a postgress or mysql database, perl and php.
not bad
I'd be very supprised if BT havn't ADSL'd and area that had cable you need a far higher population density to make cable worth while/cost effective.
We need ubuquitous broadband so we can build wireless encrypted networks on that infrastructure.
Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" because of a number of things. They stopped travellers and demanded to see ID/papers/etc. The U.S. is doing that now.
/. stretches of belief of all time. Honestly, the USA today and the Soviet Empire are similar? Are you getting moved to North Dakota because you hold a dissenting opinion? Are you getting a state-run occupation given to you? I THINK NOT.
This has to be one of the greatest
Does the current US gov't not let you go from state to state without papers? It is a little different, I would say. The only thing that you have to stop for in the US is if you are hauling cargo, and you have to make sure that you don't break bridges and roads with oversized roads.
They stopped travellers and demanded to see ID/papers/etc.
Well, do you know of a nation that DOES NOT DO THAT? I went to Cozumel, Mexico, a resort island with a planeload of yankees the other day. A man in green fatigues with a rifle was the first person I saw off the plane. IT IS A RESORT ISLAND FOR TOURISTS. Every nation does this. The USA for one had NO REASON TO STICK MILITARY AT THE AIRPORTS BEFORE SEPT. 11. They do now.
They controlled information flow and communications. The U.S. is doing that now.
I am a news photographer for FOX. My best friend at work went to Afghanistan. They could go wherever they pleased IN A WAR ZONE. I have no concept of what you are talking about nor any knowledge of what you claim, but I have videotape in my personal possesion to prove you're lying. If you are saying that the government and I are in bed together, and that I am doing everything in my power to control information to you, then you are a stone cold idiot. I work for an independent news organization.
I am not their "friend." Both sides understand the issues that we bring up.
DO YOU EVEN LIVE IN THE USA OR KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE USA ENOUGH TO MAKE THESE KINDS OF STATEMENTS? Apparently not. So take all of your crap karma and pointless, uninformed, anti-USA rhetoric and look up some information before you and your little revolutionista friends start spouting "facts."
Calm down, dummy. He never even said they were equivalent, just that that US was starting to engage in some of the same behaviours.
You, my hysterical friend, are a stone cold idiot.
Dear enraged person, please click here.
Thank you.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Why do we constantly get these stories posted that bring out all the crazy communists.
Say no more.
You, sir, are a liar.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Freedom of speech or the press only means one thing, that the government can't stop you from speaking or publishing.
The government stops me from speaking over the radio because the FCC refuses to open new application filing windows for low-power FM radio stations.
The government stops me from publishing over the Internet because municipal governments have granted exclusive last-mile franchises to the telcos and the cable companies.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you don't like it, then bypass them by hooking your webserver up directly to the internet.
How do I do that if the cable company and the telco have a government-granted duopoly on the last kilometer?
Will I retire or break 10K?
1. There are innumerable implementations of various versions of X going back to 1984, on any number of platforms, including Windows 2000 and various Unix-y and non-Unix-y platforms. There are machines running X that handle display API extensions better than any version of Windows, display 3D graphics better than any Windows machine, display video better than any Windows machine, display high resolution graphics for decision systems better than any Windows machine, and of course handle distributed and multiuser computing far better than any Windows machine. High end graphics work is settling back to X, running on Linux workstations. What's that about 1979?
2. Virtually all of the X implementations out there are rock solid and simply do not crash when they are run normally, including, for that matter, the one I use on Windows 2000 (Hummingbird Exceed).
So, then, what is your remark supposed to mean? Or was that a simple troll?
N/M
When I first read that, I thought that it was a study that said something about how broadband was "unpatriotic." I need more caffeine...or sleep...nah, caffeine.
[insert witty comment here]
Will the web be assimilated as well? Are we allready too late?
Reality: bob buys a computer and begins surfing. what sites do you think he will see? He will probably hit MSN.com or aol or something related where he will be encapsulated into their version of the internet which only really links to itself.
-xtat
- about me
Google up DMCA cease and desist letters and see how many apply the precedents deceitfully even falsely.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
First off, as others have said, relax, Mr. Fox Photographer.
/. stretches of belief of all time.
;^)
This has to be one of the greatest
No, it's pretty typical for slashdot. You really ought to have known that about slashdot posters.
Well, do you know of a nation that DOES NOT DO THAT?
He was referring to the Gilmore v. Ashcroft lawsuit. Please click here. There are many people who haven't been keeping up with slashdot articles. Too many people post without reading the stories. Please become current before you post.
I am a news photographer for FOX. My best friend at work went to Afghanistan. They could go wherever they pleased IN A WAR ZONE.
The issue isn't US gov't control of media companies. The issue is that the gov't and media companies (MPAA, RIAA, and Microsoft) are trying to control information flow of individual users on the internet through legislation.
Once upon a time, there was the DMCA. This didn't go far enough so congress, the content providers and Microsoft created the CTPBDA and Palladium. These initiatives require changes made to hardware to protect content from broad piracy through the internet.
But those initiatives will affect more than simple piracy, though. Things are happening that are threatening free speech on the net.
As long as the internet exists in its present form and with current computer technology, it undermines any government's attempt to control information to the general public. This is important to US foreign policy in places like, say, China.
Currently, the Chinese government is playing whack-a-mole on the internet cafe's. In those cafe's, the users are pretty much in control of the information they choose to receive. The police, even in China, only have so many resources, and as some have been shut down, many more have popped up.
If DRM initiatives become the law of the land forcing all electronic devices to implement DRM, and we export those technologies to China, then China would potentially have an absolute lock on the information going to it's citizens. If that web browser isn't signed with the Official Chinese Department of Information's digital key, than it's not going to run on the Palladium architecture, now will it?
But here's the real kicker. If we don't export the DRM technologies to China, then Communist Red China's citizens would have greater liberty to access information than US citizens.
So the question of the day is, do we as a nation implement DRM to protect movie studios profits, or do we encourage the internet to be a medium for social and political change?
Oh wait, and it doesn't stop there. Remember COINTELPRO? Ashcroft has removed the rules that were put in place to prevent the FBI from abusing it's power. The FBI can open a file on you having a GREENPEACE bumper sticker.
And then Congress wants ISP's to hold email for 90 days -- of course, the terrorists will have long moved away from email, and use FedEX, USPS, Airborne Express, UPS, or one of the many other shipping companies to send their instructions, or packet radio, or newspaper ads, or drop boxes... And even if they do use e-mail there's also things such as one-time use hotmail addresses, one-time pads (which are provably unbreakable), IPSec, VPNs, pgp (or gpg), 802.11b networks, and anonymous remailers. Just remember, this law won't affect the terrorists, only you and me.
So, tell me again how the US is not regulating information flow and communications?
Me? I work for a large company that (until sometime in the near future) owns a large cable TV system - but I'm planning to get DSL, because I want to run servers and don't want to put up with the service restrictions. Some of the DSL providers are equally clueless, but some aren't....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
And phones, paper mail, and libraries are all _highly_ commercial as well as personal. The contents of your mail should be private, and who you get mail from should be private, and in a free market they would be, but the government monopoly lets the post office open your mail to inspect it for politically incorrect plants and sexually incorrect pictures, and doesn't require a warrant to give the police records about who you got mail from. Some libraries are tax-funded, some are privately funded membership-based, some are run by other kinds of organizations for their members, and some are purely commercial - Borders and Blockbuster Video and the wonderful independent bookstores we have in the San Francisco Bay Area are just as much in the library business as your town's library, and the books your library buys are mostly byproducts of the commercial publishing business (Authors may write books for artistic reasons as well as financial reasons, but publishers pay for the cost of printing and distributing them purely because they're trying to make money....)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
oh yeah...fuckn slashdot bullshite...
The original poster is a fuckn commie dirtbag,then this guy gets justifiably pissed off...
Then you commie scum start backpedalling like crazy...and blame HIM
"he didn't mean it THAT much..you're crazy"
fuckn bunch of commie sympathisers
Please, not everyone lives in AmeriKa and has $300 to shell out for an O/S. So would you stop being an ignorant elitist and climb back into your hi-tech cave. Thank you.
The USA for one had NO REASON TO STICK MILITARY AT THE AIRPORTS BEFORE SEPT. 11. They do now.
Please explain how a military presence at airports would have prevented the 9/11 hijackings.
Perhaps you're being extremely insightful, in that the USA does have a reason to place military units in airports now, and that reason is to make people feel more secure.
--
E_NOSIG
I drem of the day when companies wake up and realise that 90% of there employes only? need to go into work one day a week, and should be given the freedome to work pro-rata from home.
I tele-work, most of the work I do is a few hundred miles away and on different locations.
I still have to come into the office though for no apparent reason.
I have a faster connection a better PC, more software, a confortable environment and thats all at home.
Number of man days lost to, 'I could just do with another hour in bed' drop to near zero.
Hours lost having to go outside for a smoke , drop to near zero.
Whole days lost to illness, drop to near zero.
etc.....
People may slack off for a while, but I took a 3 month sabatical and came back to work because I got board.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
> I am a news photographer for FOX.
If this doesn't give the guy credibility, I don't know what does.
Fox News is the boradcast version of the National Enquirer. After all, it was the fine reporting at Fox news that labelled the guy that logged into CNN's online chat as President Clinton after the system crashed as a hacker.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I think what happens here is these guys get pointed to some "underground" news site on the internet, and they read some "shocking" story about coverups, and they think;
"My God, normal Joe Sixpack would NEVER read this site, nobody could find this site but because I have an open mind and such cool friends, *I* found it, and now I know *THE TRUTH* - and everyone else is duped by this huge corporate conglomerate media conspiracy! I MUST get the word out! I know, I'll start with slashdot - - they seem pretty open minded. . . "
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
How would free competition work? I don't think you'd have "everyone running their cables on existing poles". The point is, you'd leave the copper up to the regional Bells. If they're completely released from govt. control and have to compete in the marketplace, that's their only unique asset. They'll, of course, want to sell everyone on the idea that they're the "only one who can bring you DSL" - and in my scenario, yes - they would be.
The fact is, competitors would simply have to think "outside the box" a little bit. Instead of worrying about running more copper (or finding ways to share Bell's copper), they'd have to offer competing technologies that use other means of transmission. Perhaps the electric companies will sub-contract new companies to offer Internet over their lines? The cable company's high-speed access is already working quite well. Some of the wireless Inet services offered via microwave that didn't survive before might be viable in the near future, too. Certainly, cellular phone providers would have more incentive to offer high-speed Inet service over their networks. (Instead of trying to convince us we really need to get web services on that tiny cellphone screen, they can sell adapter cards for laptops and desktop systems to get you on their network at high-speed.)
Don't forget, too, there are other ways to get cable into a home. There was talk in the past of running fiber through sewer lines. Some properly protected fiber could come in through water, sewer, or maybe even gas lines. In all these cases, the public utility wouldn't have to offer the service themselves. (I don't think you'll really want your local water company becoming your web host.....) They simply need to strike up a deal with someone else to make this happen together.
Dude, your sig should be linked to vorbis.com. Xiph is the .org.
This anonymous coward thinks the Karma-scorer's alimentary orifice makes their mouth redundant.