Slashdot Mirror
FCC Pitches Free, Bowdlerized Wireless Internet Access
Aidtopia writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing auctioning off an unused part of the 25 MHz spectrum on the condition that the winner provide free wireless Internet access. The proposal sets coverage targets that ramp up to 95% of the population within 10 years. The catch: the provider must filter out obscene content." I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.
Add anything that is not "politically correct", and it'll be filtered.
Thus, about 99% of all media.
Fuck that.
s/obscene/dissenting/g
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I wonder if this is a less than subtle way of the FCC executing a power grab, first establish censoring on a free network, then start moving it to the current networks (although this would not be needed if the enough people use this as their "last mile", you just look at their traffic there).
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Tipper Gore and Jack Thompson
to place restrictions on private industry
Give me a tube, and I'll show you how to shove pornography and MP3s down it. Bring it on!
I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.
In the US, 'obscene' has a clear legal meaning: material that meets the three-pronged (I said 'prong,' huhuuhuh) test established in Miller v. California:
1. 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
2. the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law
3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Such material isn't protected speech. I think it should be, but there you go: it's hardly surprising that the FCC doesn't want it on a freely-accessible broadcast network. It's an infinitely more reasonable position for them to take than if they were demanding that providers filter "indecent" material, which is a) protected speech and b) has no strict legal definition.
At first, reading the title, there was amazement! An FCC chairman, pitching FREE internet?!?!
Then there came reality: no 'obscene' content.
What the fuck is this, 1953? Hey, while we're at it, why don't we go beat up some Commies and re-segregate the South, then fine anyone who says dirty words on these gosh darn 'radios'??
Thats like giving someone a car with no wheels, engine, gas tank, doors, windows, seats or seat belts, and wondering why nobody wants your gift.
Essentially this amounts to severe packet filtering or an Orwellian 'approved' list of websites. Whats worse, is who's doing the filtering, and how deep? I'm sure there are Wikipedia articles that would classify as 'obscene'.
Fuck this. I can't wait for the day when I can go buy an open source mesh broadcast tower, put it in my house, and get a truly FREE internet.
The FCC, just like the patent office, hasn't been able to cope since the 90's. When are we going to fix this broken shit, and WHY are all of our government offices run by morons? (As far as I know - I apologize to any /. readers who run a government office and are intelligent and make good decisions).
FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It's Alyson Hannigan
On the FCC front page, there is a link to all the members of the board, and their emails.
I say we email them.
Lets turn the ./ effect upon our government, and see if maybe, just maybe, we can convince them not to make the same dumb ass mistakes they make every 30 years trying to censor new formats.
I bet I can make a raunchy ASCII Art out of your 10 words. :)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This isn't the 25MHz spectrum, it's a 25MHz block of the 2.1GHz spectrum. Realizing that makes this story make a whole lot more sense. There's no possible way this would work in the HF range.
FCC FU: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzaqXFcsH2U
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
People that don't know better will be like: "Hey filtered is better than nothing. Can't bitch about free."
The christians will say: "Not only is this a great product, but free as well. Plus they will filter out all the smut... HOW WONDERFUL!"
1% will say: "Fuck that. Don't tell me how to surf."
And the rest don't give a shit. I give this a better than average chance of going through.
I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
I think that there are two pretty major flaws with this idea:
:).
1) Bandwidth. 802.11b uses 22Mhz of bandwidth for each of its channels. There is not 22Mhz of unallocated bandwidth at 25Mhz. I'm sure that compression techniques are better now than when 802.11 stuff was defined. However, looking at the FCC allocation chart, there isn't much unassigned bandwidth near 25Mhz. A few Mhz here and there, unless they're considering usurping ham radio and maritime bands and otherwise kicking people off of frequencies. I'm not sure what they're considering "unused". Someone with more knowledge of on data compression via radio techniques might chime in
2) Propagation. 25Mhz is right around 12 Meters, which the hams and DX CB radio folks will know can propagate hundreds and even thousands of miles, depending upon ionospheric conditions. Take the bandwidth problem above, and multiply it by the fact that the precious little slice of bandwidth you get might be stomped on by everyone in the US during peak sunspot activity. This is likely the reason that mobile carriers aren't interested in these frequencies.
I'm pretty sure this is a loser idea. If someone knows more than me, I'd love to learn more about this stuff, though.
Reid
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Bowlderized? Is that rock-solid censorship?
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
I agree with your concern. If we assume an S/N ratio of 20db (about 3 S units on my HF rig or noise at S6 and signal at S9 which I consider a good copy) then Shannon-Hartley's theorem says that they will get at best 333kbps. I used the example calculation #1 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem and just substituted 50kc for 4kc to get this.
Anyone disagree?
Why is everybody confused? The FCC already has legally definitions for "obscene" and clearly, since they're the ones auctioning off the frequency block, they'd be the ones deciding the definition of obscene. If you're still confused, here's how it works: Watch TV. Whatever they can do there, they can do on an obscenity-filtered wireless service. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/obscene.html
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Just route all content through china.
Hah! I never thought I'd see a 'Protect the CHILDREN, think of the CHILDREN!' argument on Slashdot!
Obscene material is a joke. The FCC tried to regulate 'bad language' as obscene on the radio. Then they tried to do it on TV. They fail, and fail, and fail, yet they try again.
What you essentially posted is that the Government can't back free speech because free speech contains obscenity. The constitution has something to say about that.
Why do you want the government raising your children? Why don't you watch what they listen to, or monitor their use of the computer? You're probably the same kind of person who blames TV when their kid learns something vulgar, when in reality the kid learned it from some other kid at school.
Trying taking responsibility for what your kids are doing, and let the government worry about free speech, not obscenity.
And your red herring arguments get you nowhere here.
I know the FCC does some strange things at times. And I know that the censorship isn't exactly what I'd pick for my regular internet connection.
However, I know that when I'm working from my laptop while waiting at the mechanic, it'd be nice to have ANY cheap / free internet connection. $60/month for unlimited internet through the cellphone networks is too expensive for my needs...
Just about all of the stuff that I do online wouldn't really fall under the realm of obscene. Slashdot, Google, Wikipedia, other nerdy websites are relatively clean. Even most game sites should be fine. I guess a lot of it depends how strict the filter becomes, and if that filter is too tight for me.
Well if there were enough nodes, we wouldn't need an internet connection. It would be its own pseudo-internet. Those who wanted a website to be broadcast, could set their servers up directly connected to their own little tower.
The cost argument is true - right now. The cost is coming down on all wireless broadcast technology, and the performance is going up. How long will it be, really, until something like this is entirely do-able?
Your right, getting my neighbors on board would be the hard part. If the government got behind it, it could be done much quicker. Maybe they could provide a small tax break for those willing to participate in it? That would get people on it right quick.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Everyone is bitching about filtering...
I'm still stuck at the technological hurdle of actually being able to _implement_ such filters in the first place, given that it's an NP-incomplete problem.
It's all well and good to scream "protect the children!" at the top of your lungs, but what technology are you proposing to identify and interdict obscene content?
-- Terry
"I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use."
Probably the one they already use to charge violators such as Howard Stern, as well as the violators' station of origin, up to US$250K per incident. I'm not sure where it is in their regs (which I do know are online) but I recall quite clearly the sign in the studio booth at WUVT that reminded me constantly of the sword hanging over me.
What's always bothered me about the regs is the relaxation of the rules after 10 PM. When I was broadcasting, I had simultaneous netcast. After 10 PM where the station is (Blacksburg VA, eastern time) is only after 7 PM on the Left Coast (ie. pacific time). After 10 PM where? Was I simultaneously legal in Virginia but breaking the law in California?
Apply that now to on-demand, statically stored material which may or may not be infringing depending on the material and time of request. It's always before 10 PM someplace, so the owner may be liable according to the location of the requester. You can bet this is the way things would fall, because the alternative is to say 'it's AFTER 10 PM someplace', making the regs moot and removing a potential source of enforcement as well as income.
Oh yeah, and the context of the offending material matters. You can play hip hop and rap on air after 10 PM local and get away with broadcasting 2 "motherfuckers" and 5 "niggers" per minute, but try to say one of either yourself and see what it costs you. In the case of the latter, that may include body parts depending on your own color. The context of your reception can also matter, hence a "researcher" is supposed to be able to access an "obscene" web site for academic purposes without fear of reprisal. Yeah, right.
Personally I prefer Larry Flint's editorialized definition of "obscene" which puts murder and such well before sex in terms of badness. If that were used, you'd never be able to access most commercial news outlets, or much common TV or theatrical material. So sad that killing is not just accepted but expected, and fucking is outlawed.
OOPS, I think I just made it impossible for you to access this in the archives should the regulation of the proposed bandwidth go through. We'll see.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I turn on broadcast TV and radio today, and I note that I still can't hear any "bad language". I even learn that the FCC is slapping massive fines on anybody who utters such "bad language".
Failed? Really? Wouldn't that imply 'not successful'?
Obviously you don't know how the rules used to be.
A married couples on TV didn't share a single bed until about the 70's. There used to be rules that if one of the two was sitting on a bed, the other had to be standing-they couldn't even SIT on the same bed.
Elvis' hip gyrations used to cause TV stations to only portray him...from the waste up! How pathetic are all of those manipulations, considering where we are in TV today?
There was an episode of South Park that said shit, what, 147 times or something?
Wasn't it recently ruled that you're allowed to show pornography after 10 pm on public airwaves? I can't seem to find a link right now, maybe that decision was reversed. Anyone know?
Music is only censored on the radio by some radio stations - they do it so they don't receive complaints by dumb ass ministers (like what happened in the 60's). But popular stations, especially big ones in LA, play what they want because they have the money to fight that kind of crap.
Just like prohibition, any government body that tries to regulate morality eventually fails. We should just see the trend, and start writing the FCC and calling shinanegans. Unless you're willing to live in a wholly repressive state, like Communist China or some oppressive Islamic regime.
Here I believe obscene means having to pay for wireless spectrum that you're required to provide a free service on.
Of course the FCC is still scratching its head over why they couldn't get anybody to bid on spectrum that was dedicated for public safety use.
Anybody else think the FCC has lost the plot ?