Slashdot Mirror
Fiber to the People: Lessig, IEEE & AFNs
Codeine writes "Larry Lessig articulates some infrastructure observations based on work by the IEEE & Cornell AFN Institute regarding 'end-user-as owner' (EUO) advanced fibre networks."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
That's kind of shocking considering what the IEEE stands for. The points made on shameonieee.org are good points; they're going against their own regulations to cover their ass, in typical cowardly I'm-afraid-of-lawyers fashion.
If you're so afraid of US law, why don't you relocate to, say, Germany or France or even Canada? If this is such a big issue, why don't you serve your members better by moving to the Free World...
Reminds me of a line from an old song... "You are living in the free world, and in the free world you must stay"
Dragging the nationality of their organization into the debate will not serve to promote their organization.
You don't get it. Often times, scientific and technical societies are one of the few ways that students in these countries can interact with the outside world. Students are usually in the vanguard of pro-democracy movements (as in China and in fact Iran too) and it's a *good* idea to keep communications open with them.
It is not the role of a supposedly apolitical organization to get involved in politics. Traditionally, academia has crossed borders without restrictions; why should it be any different now?
By accepting people who are from such countries as Iran, you're giving them a window on the outside world; at least then they can see that perhaps their own country isn't a perfect world, and that other countries (like the US) aren't necessarily evil either. Broadening minds is a very effective tool; it works much better than blocking countries off so that everyone inside is narrow-minded and follows the government's line.
Hatred and isolation, on the other hand, are totally counterproductive.
IEEE took action to fulfill the U.S. Treasury Department trade regulations administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). This shows that:
1.IEEE is a organization that to a large degree is influenced by US policy and interests.
2. In this case the OFAC regulations could result in the opposite of the intended effect:
Restricting the ability for researchers in these countries to communicate with western researchers will only make it more difficault for them to do their job and participating in legitimate research. That could make some of them less sympatethic to western ideas and harder to find legitimate jobs.
And getting the information in these IEEE papers is not rocket science even in a banned country. I bet that Iranian researchers allready send money to Pakistan or Turkey so someone there can set up a false member account or copy the papers. And the OFAC regulations were constructed without Internet in mind...Today you can't expect published information to stay out of North Korea just becasue you no longer send it directly to them by mail.
IEEE's policy in this case is stupid and short sighted. In a *worst case* scenario this could lead some engineers and researchers to the governmental WMD programs instead of other work.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Lessig's point, as tends to be the case with him, is not that fiber is good because its fast. He's not a technologist first and foremost (thankfully). His point is that shared-ownership is far better than corporate competition or limited monopolies (as is the current state in telecom).
He argues that the reasons to support limited monopolies (which clearly defeat straight competition) are limited, because they still result in monopolistic pricing, but that shared ownership by the consumer gives all the benefits of competition without all the reasons it's unfeasable for telecom.
RTFA.
My city does the roads, and lets the car makers compete on them.
We don't have GM make the road than then insist you to only drive GM cars on it.
Cities should do the networks like they do the roads. Usage taxes help maintain the 'information superhighway'. Let the free market build the cars, gas stations, AAA, onstar, etc..
I do not need an ISP. I MUST pay them and I don't even like them. Our city would have saved more money in the long run doing it themselves than all that regulation waste. (including lawsuits, regulation boards, etc.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Siiiiigh...when are you people going to realize it's about POPULATION DENSITY? When you have 50 customers in one building- it's rather practical to run a T3 to them. If you have 5- no way.
Case and point- when I worked in south boston, we had a 256kbit T1 installed because it was the only option- no cable, no DSL because the phone company apparently ripped out all the copper in the area. Mind you- this is a 5 minute walk from DOWNTOWN FINANCIAL CENTER in Boston. Not the boondocks.
It's not about density - Boston (like most US cities) is already very dense. It's about poor planning and monopoly extortion. Why did the phone company rip out all the copper? Did they leave empty conduits behind?