Slashdot Mirror
Ask Dr. Vinton Cerf About the Internet
If anyone can claim to have "invented the Internet," (or at least to have co-invented it) it's Vint Cerf, who never makes this claim himself. But he's certainly had a hand in shaping most of what we call "the Internet" today, and is now working on taking the Internet or something like it to Mars and other planets. A Google Search for "Vint Cerf" brings up thousands of responses, so you should have no trouble coming up with a unique, interesting question for him. (As is usual with Slashdot interviews, we'll send 10 of the top-moderated questions to Dr. Cerf about 24 hours after this post, and publish his answers shortly after he gets them back to us.)
It has become a truism that the internet "treats censorship like damage and routes around it" and in general I agree. This feature is possible because of the decentralized (nowadays called "P2P") nature of TCP/IP. What I would like to know is, what are your feelings about services built on top of TCP/IP that are NOT decentralized (but could be)?
Obviously it would be difficult to make a web page "available from anywhere", that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'm talking about a site like Slashdot. It professes to be an open, community-moderated discussion site. Yet in reality it suffers from a top-down moderation scheme (with a tiny bit of distributed moderation thrown in). Does Slashdot's moderation system follow the open principles of the Internet? In general, would you say that people who try to exert fascist control over what is essentially a public forum are kinda...stupid?
I'd argue that statement is a falicy. When anonymous, or more accurately, faced with the ability to do or say something with no recourse possible just means that people will act while being constrained by only their own moral principles.
The fact that most people are irresponsible, and generally assholes when constrained only by their own moral princples shouldn't be terribly suprising.
What was it like working with Al Gore?
Actually Vint has publicly commented on this, and (seriously) said that Al Gore as a senator provided crucial support, allow me to quote: "The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator."
No, Al did not invent the internet, but yes, he was a key player back then.
How do you feel about the fact that many people think of the World Wide Web and the Internet as the same thing?
Email, FTP and even chat protocols seem to be more and more mediated by an HTTP interface. Is this just the price of making the 'Net available to more people, or do you think there is a chance for a non WWW or WWW-workalike to get significant public use?
All's true that is mistrusted
Actually there is a significant amount of research into the phenomena which sees people lose or relax social and/or moral control when given anonymity.
The opportunity to vent destructive behaviour otherwise unacceptable in society is a coping mechanism employed by some people. It is often done in a (socially) harmless manner - yelling in your own back yard, hitting walls, going to gym - but occaionally people go "over the edge".
Anonymity brings the edge closer: it seems that people are just naturally more destructive when they cannot be held accountable.
At the core of the whole problem is that a society cannot exist with true anonymity. Society requires the ability to identify individuals who are acting against society.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
It has been said (by Lessig and others) that architecture IS policy. With that in mind, how would you (re-)architect a global network today to shape the world in a better way?
He probably has not responded to it, and even so, they won't give this question to him.
John Gilmore was not seeking a response. The time for that has long passed.
This is Mr. Gilmore going 'RASPBERRY!! THBPPPTTTTTPTTTT!!' it's an up raised arm at a 90 degree angle with a hand on the upper arm. It's not a call for a debate, it's a last ditch "Hey buddy, screw you, you suck."
Not that I DISAGREE with Mr. Gilmore about the state of ICANN, just the idea of this being a request for dialog. ICANN is going to be dragged down to its knees, pompous and proud the whole way.