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Costa Rica May Criminalize VoIP
chia_monkey writes "Here's an interesting little tidbit about the 'free' Internet. Seems Costa Rica may make it a crime to make Internet-based phone calls. It would be a shame if this sets a precedent of setting legistlation that would seriously stunt the growth of these emerging technologies that should be making communication cheaper and easier, not harder and illegal."
They should also make it a crime to talk to people without using a phone at all. After all you're just bypassing the phone companies systems by doing so which clearly should be a crime.
t would be a shame if this sets a precedent of setting legistlation
Because when other nations want to know what to do on a particular subject, they ALWAYS look to Costa Rica for advice.
This all dates back to the cold war and research done by various scientists and archeologists. Back in 1982, the world was taken by surprise when Soviet archeologists called a press conference and reported they had found a massive grid of copper wires buried under Russia that had been carbon dated back to 1500AD. The Soviets said this was clear evidence the telephone had been invented in Russia, and that Russians had been using a sophisticated telephone network five hundred years previous.
American scientists did similar work and after a lot of research reported in a big press conference in 1983 that they found a large amount of buried fiber optic cable spanning the entire United States and linking to Western Europe. They carbon dated this back to 1200AD, making it clear evidence that the West had had a sophisticated packet-switching fiber-optic network 800 years previous.
The South Africans, then under Apartheid and desperate to shore up its worsening image with the rest of the world, then undertook its own research. For four years, South African archeologists excavated, passing soil samples to the best of their scientists. Finally, in 1987, they excitedly called a press conference. After all this digging, they had found absolutely nothing, there were no cables - copper, fiber-optic, or otherwise - under the ground at all.
Which could only mean one thing, their scientists reported breathlessly: back in 1005, South Africa had the best mobile telephone network the world had ever seen.
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The South African system was made all the more robust by improvements that were forced on them just a few years before this by Y1K compliance.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
National Armed Hackey-Sack Squadron
Well I hope you're happy. Do you think, if I wanted the facts, and headlines that were vaguely related to the article, I'd be on slashdot!?!
You should have your UID taken away. Everyone was enjoying themselves until you came along.