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Anti-Technology Technologies?
shanen writes "A story from the NYTimes about metering internet traffic caught my eye. I thought the exchange of information over the Internet was supposed to be a good thing? Couldn't we use technology more constructively? For example, if there is too much network traffic for video and radio channels, why don't we offset with the increased use of P2P technologies like BitTorrent? Why don't we use wireless networks to reduce the traffic on the wired infrastructure? Such technologies often have highly desirable properties. For example, BitTorrent is excellent for rapidly increasing the availability of popular files while automatically balancing the network traffic, since the faster and closer connections will automatically wind up being favored. Instead, we have an increasing trend for anti-technology technologies and twisted narrow economic solutions such as those discussed in the NYTimes article, and attempts to restrict the disruptive communications technologies. You may remember how FM radio was delayed for years; part of the security requirements of a major company includes anti-P2P software, as well as locking down the wireless communications extremely tightly — but there are still gaps for the bad guys, while the main victims are the legitimate users of these technologies. Can you think of other examples? Do you have constructive solutions?"
It's a matter of balancing control against efficiency.
Understanding the workings of an entire swarm is is not easy.
With a swarm it is harder to differentiate for "elite" customers who pay to get that extra bandwidth.
Where you are in the swarm will matter just as much as which connection you're paying for.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
One answer: No.
is still the best solution.
USENET
Seems like monitoring would either cause an additional choke point or add more traffic. Neither option seems like it helps...
In reference to the bandwidth limiting efforts in particular, just because there may be a way to offset technical problems with good technology (e.g. Bittorrent for video/audio) doesn't mean it makes business sense. For an ISP, it may be more economical to simply limit the bandwidth of users (which is easy) than figure out what is really a fairly difficult problem. If:
What we're making now - Cost to implement bandwidth controls - Loss of customers that get ticked off
is greater than
What we're making now - Cost to implement good technology that handles bandwidth more efficiently
most companies are going to choose the former. It makes more business sense.
I'm reminded of a passage in "Becoming a Technical Leader" (great book btw - a commenter on Slashdot mentioned it). Anyway, it's about making the transition from techie to management, and analyzing the differences in thought processes. The author tells a story where a company was designing a system, and the requirements were "Make sure it can recover from one error per day" (or something similar). Anyway, the technical people involved with the project thought it would be better if they could get it to "Make sure it can recover from any error, ever, immediately", as they thought it was a more interesting technical problems. Turns out it cost the company something like $4 million, and in the end they had something that a) the customer didn't really need and b) they basically couldn't sell to anyone else. The moral of the story is that just because there are interesting technical problems, doesn't mean that solving them makes good business sense.
is still the best. USENET.
Is this what AT&T stands for: Anti-Technology Technologies... Interesting.
Only reading the first few lines of TFA (which I suppose is more than some people would). But it seems that this Internet metering stuff is the same as what has always been in NZ -- 5GB monthly bandwidth +$10 for extra 5gb, etc... Not till about 1~2 years ago did we have 1gb limits and shittier overage 'consequence' - go over and pay 1c/MB, or speed capping back to ~56kbps (we were already on 256kbps~2mbps dsl). Then we increased to 5gb/$10 and now have max speeds of ~7mbps (adsl1 max?). Of course, some plans still have the speed throttling overage crap...
signature is pants
It is a case of technology being held back by non-technical reasons, but please look beyond popular technologies when you make an assessment about desirable technologies.
The other side of things is that bandwidth usage isn't a constant-- much like TV, there's a definite 'prime time' when the networks are under heavy load, and laying new cable or provisioning new wireless devices just to cover those periods is not cost-effective.
There's also the real cost of bandwidth versus the gluttons who insist upon maxing their connections 24/7. Congratulations, guys. You're the reason why they're finally dropping the 'unlimited' charade. You want it unmetered, fresh from the backbone? Try leasing a T1, then get back to us on how cheap we're still getting it.
Bittorrent is a major part of the problem because it attempts to utalise 100% of the available bandwidth (and the client end). If every user used bittorrent, then the ISPs would have to supply 1:1 bandwidth (instead of overselling as they do at the moment), thus dramaticly forcing the price up for every user.
Short version:
"I want everyone in the world to behave in a precise (but poorly defined) way to suit my personal sensibilities. Why don't they? Any ideas on how to make it happen?"
Have you tried saying "please"? Other than that, I have no ideas. Maybe try to help people and solve problems instead of worrying about whether things are done exactly your way.
Kill all the lawyers.
Sincerely,
Bill Shakespeare
Follow the money. The ones with (power|control|money) want to stay on top and it's only the ones with better agility that corner the market and then become the top dog. So you're looking for a technical solution for the wrong problem.
:p
What's the problem ?
IMHO, it's the "last mile". Legislated limited monopoly controlling access with an interest in keeping that position. so there's a high barrier to access put in place.
Some of the other problems is what may work in a high density area will probably not work in a low density area. A wireless mesh may work in cities and towns but completely fails in rural. Another issue - making data retrieval a crime. "you're" responsible for someone else's actions and that kills any open public access. Some one has to pay to connect to the backbone.
If I had a solution that would work in all cases - I'd be rich
Here's a lynchpin that needs to be remove - the last mile monopoly and its bundling with "providers". Here in the Northeast (US) the power line is a separate charge on your power bill than the generation. Break that up. Internet access "line" charge $0.02 per month. ISP charge $x. Anyone should be able to send data over the lines without the big guys restricting access - for the same cost. NO AT&T ISP should be able to send data cheaper than another ISP.
It may be time for $TOWNs to own the lines, bid repair out to another party and anyone to sign up to an ISP.
BUT it won't work. See any telcom endevor.
The Duck
It's all about money, not user experiences, technology or something else. Things that you have described require serious investments (infrastructure, employees, servers, power, etc) and large companies would not do this unless the absolutely must. Now they don't.
couldn't figure out why the darn thing kept blowing itself up....
The term "Anti-Technology Technologies" chosen by the poster is too neutral to do justice to the field of metering software. How about Anti-Motherhood Technologies, which provides the slight additional emotional context which would facilitate rational discussion.
I'd let them measure, but I was wondering a couple of things:
Users that don't know much about internet, are those thinking they just look emails, now, what kind of emails? I've seen people (still) sending 40MB files attached to emails.
A virus, popups and advertisement, download flash animations that people would believe they can't be charged for. How do the companies will deal with the "advertisment" issue, given that most of the advertisement these days is heavy and flash based? Moreover, how do they deal with viruses?
People normally buy a wireless router and place it there, if it works, works. Now, your neighbors can steal your signal and use internet for whatever they want. Now, I know is customer responsibility, but then, are they planning to track down people in such cases and start legal action against "people using open wireless networks"?
Just wondering.
I hereby revoke the shanen's geek credentials for failing to understand that single source versus multiple sources doesn't matter if the problem is the total volume.
The problem is not that on server or site is overloading. The problem is that the provider's network, including things like routers and gateways, have a finite bandwidth and these applications, regardless of source, are using up most of it.
Ever hear the phrase "You can't put 10lbs of shit in a 5lbs bag"? Ever wonder why they put in new water mains and increase the size of water mains when the build more housing developments? Or why the widen roads with more housing? It is because the total volume has increased.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I have remarked in the past that I am not sure that any government can really allow the free flow of information.
And there is little we can do about the nature of government but the second player is big business. We can and should limit the power of corporations and punish them when the work against public interests by doing such things as limiting the flow of the internet. People have rights. Corporations should not enjoy the same rights as people do, For example the directors of a large corporation all have one vote just like the common man. How is it that they are allowed undue influence by hiring professionals to lobby for their interests? Lobbying and bribery and corruption are pretty much identical terms in most cases.
You argue for the exchange of gigabyte-sized disk images by the exchange of information?
Simply exchanging knowledge doesn't clog the tubes.
why build more infrastructure to serve customers if you can find new ways to make them pay for the infrastructure you have now.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Bittorrent looks for lots of source, not the closest sources. That is an issue with the current protocol and how it tries to find where to download from. Only recently have people started looking into how to improve the efficiencey of the network usage.
MAybe it's time for some inteligent journalists and editors at the times.
"Time Warner would not reveal how many gigabytes an average customer uses, saying only that 95 percent of customers use under 40 gigabytes each in a month.That means that 5 percent of customers use more than 50 percent of the networkâ(TM)s overall capacity, the company said, and many of those people are assumed to be sharing copyrighted video and music files illegally."
The whole article is about online video taking up all the tubes, then they throw in unsubstantiated claims about piracy being the cause. The more these big media companies try and play the "piracy" card the less i believe that there is a bandwidth apocalypse coming and the more i think they just want the "cash flow from overcharging customers" line on the cash flow statement.
If you had been paying attention at all, you'd understand the purpose of these "anti-tech techs" as you call them is explicitly to limit progress so the rich old fucktards can continue milking their obsolete business models until they retire or drop dead.
To many people, progress is a scary, dangerous thing. Money, on the other hand, is a sultry lover that drives their every passion. Us folks on slashdot may prefer cheap plentiful bandwidth over money, but we're a tiny little minority in the grand scheme of things. The average Joe doesn't understand technological evolution, and most certainly does not see where it is all headed... it is far easier for Joe to stay ignorant and pay up.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I thought the exchange of information over the Internet was supposed to be a good thing?
It is. And that's why it's a good thing if my neighbor is discouraged from eating up 99% of the bandwidth with hundreds of simultaneous connections while I'm trying to work over ssh, or if he is at least made to pay for the necessary upgrades to our shared wire.
Why don't we use wireless networks to reduce the traffic on the wired infrastructure?
Let us know if you come up with something that works. Having suffered through WiFi-based home Internet access for a few months, I certainly don't want to go back. Of course, it kind of caps your bandwidth implicitly.
For example, BitTorrent is excellent for rapidly increasing the availability of popular files while automatically balancing the network traffic, since the faster and closer connections will automatically wind up being favored.
P2P and BitTorrent are horrifically wasteful because the same packets keep traversing the same wires. And they seem fast to you for file distribution because they make many connections and grab an unfair share of available bandwidth.
Instead, we have an increasing trend for anti-technology technologies and twisted narrow economic solutions such as those discussed in the NYTimes article
First, perhaps you could show us some evidence that there is an "increasing trend".
Then you might discuss how today compares to, oh, 20 years ago and 10 years ago in terms of maximum throughput, latency, and cost per megabyte.
As for P2P, combined with standard Internet protocols, it really is a technological disaster, even if it is a social success.
The internet providers were given massive tax breaks to improve their networks (fiber to the home and whatnot). Now they not only haven't done that with the money, but the inferior networks they've built instead are reaching capacity.
Somebody should make your ISPs sleep in the bed they made.
I also notice that the TFA appears to reference only cable companies. Cable internet shares bandwidth to the endpoint, a pretty bonehead move if a significant number of endpoints are going to be using it. Maybe this is simply the end of that technology's ability to improve. DSL and FTTH vendors could then capitalize and crush those companies, improving internet access for all. What is stopping this from happening (besides laziness)?
I agree with you that equation seems to be the way many companies are deciding their technological investments. If you think about it however, you might notice the problem with that equation:
It does not take into account the effect improved technology will have on future markets. Successful businesses focus just as much on the future as the present. Sure the present is important, you botch that and whatever your future plans are, they're worthless. On the other hand it is idiotic to ignore the future. Successful companies look for opening markets or weaknesses in their competition and build up to take advantage of them.
I'm no MBA, but what you really need is a cost benefit analysis and risk analysis. You need to consider the costs of both sides (cost implementing bandwidth controls, cost of implementing technology, cost/benefit of losing/gaining market share, cost of rapid depreciation of added infrastructure), as well as the risks to generate a spectrum of possible futures weighted by their possibility and considering smaller projects that could be implemented to hedge your bets and reduce risk. Then you decide the path that leads to the set of outcomes with the most benefit with a risk that matches that of your company charter.
If I use technology to build a missile, and then use technology to build a laser to shoot it down, is one technology and one anti-technology? No, both are simply the application of the techniques learned and taught.
Furthermore it would be difficult to know which is the technology and which is the anti technology. If I can't go about my work because kids are downloading pron 24/7 and clogging the pipe, even though the attempt is made to balance the traffic, then is technology to unclog the pipe a good or bad thing? The technology used to unscramble the picture and catch the guy that was abusing little kids, was that good or bad?
There is a sense of entitlement that is pervasive is our culture, a sense that we somehow have an inherent right to any technology. Not only a right to the technology, but a right to have someone produce at the price we want to pay, in the form that we want, and as soon as we want it. If this isn't possible, the government should subsidize it. We see this with gas. If we don't get waht we want, we whine.
The problem with this is that not all technology is good. We see this with medical supplies. We see this with cars and SUVs. A bit more time, a bit less greed, a reduction in the sense of entitlement, we might have technology that is helpful and not just cool.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"I thought the exchange of information over the Internet was supposed to be a good thing? "
Only if that information has been properly sanitized by the government and you pay a licensing fee to consume it.
Otherwise, its evil.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
FM radio was delayed for years because the enormous amounts of money being generated by RCA's investment in AM broadcasting was funding the development of the infinitely more disruptive technology of television.
Then there were the minor setbacks of World War Two and Korea.
FM doesn't come into its own until the Hi-Fi craze of the mid to late 50's. The LP. Magnetic Tape. Heathkit for the budget-minded hobbyist. H.H. Scott, Marantz and McIntosh for the audiophile.
"The interview mentioned a Japanese business term that has no translation in English; I forget the word, but it meant something like "the faith that building products that people need and selling them for a fair price, long-term, will be profitable, long-term."
The translation is "Fast Bucks vs. Slow Dimes". America likes This Quarter's Sales. Japan does likes Next Decade's sales.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The poster makes it sound like the sky is falling. OMG, if you download terrabytes of data/month on your residental account they might *gasp* charge you!
Australia has had metered plans pretty much since inception. Most are of the "XXgb then shape to 128kbps" variety. There have been companies offering unlimited, but they either go under, or oversell at a horrendous ratio.
If the cost of bandwidth, as a proportion of operating cost, goes up for the ISP, then something has to break. Either they introduce some type of allocation (metered plans) or the overall quality of service needs to go down (they oversell more). It's not some grand conspiracy, it's *possibly* money grubbing, but it's far more likely just trying to keep on top of a ballooning cost.
Really, unless you're streaming hdtv 24/7. it's *not* a huge issue. I have 60gb/month in total, and even when I'm leeching a bit I'll be lucky to go through half of that. Often I'll only use a couple of gigs. And I'm still considered a _heavy_ user ffs.
Many of the posters here, including the one who authored the original article, seem to be forgetting a very simple but important point: bandwidth costs money. A lot of money, in fact, if you're an ISP outside a major city. Many ISPs pay $100 to $300 per megabit per second per month for their bandwidth. Can they afford to give bandwidth hogs unmetered, unrestricted access to it? Of course not! Add to this the fact that TCP/IP is the most inefficient way yet devised to distribute media (a simple analog TV tower is millions of times more spectrally efficient) and that P2P is designed to eat up many times the bandwidth required to transfer the data to the user (because the user's computer becomes a server), and it's no wonder that providers are concerned. Regulations that prohibited ISPs from throttling P2P, or from implementing pricing tiers, would sting the telcos and cable companies (which can cross-subsidize from their other services) but would flat out kill their smaller, independent competitors, leaving a cable/telco duopoly. So, be careful what you wish for. We all like to get a good deal, but if you ask the government to legally mandate that people give you expensive stuff for nothing, do not be surprised when they go broke in a hurry. For more, see my remarks to the FCC at http://www.brettglass.com/FCC/remarks.html.
Well, eventually there *is* going to be a wire. :)
Making high-bandwidth *wired* infrastructure affordable should be our priority, since cost seems to be the biggest issue with last-mile lines... That's really where most of the traffic issues present themselves... When you have 200 people sharing a single hub.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
A little background on the delay of introducing FM: Edwin Armstrong was the inventor of FM. He won many distinctions during his life, including the IEEE Medal of Honour, and the AIEE Edison medal. Working for Radio Corporation of America, Armstrong invented frequency modulation radio. RCA wasn't interested (initially because of a paper published by the inventor of single side band modulation, John Carson, stipulating that FM offered no additional benefits to AM), and resisted any changes attempted to move from AM to FM. RCA pushed the FCC to change the band of FM from the 42-50MHz range to what it is now: 88-108MHz. This rendered all of Armstrongs infrastructure obsolete in one fell swoop. Armstrong spent a fortune (all of his fortune) to keep pushing FM because it offers superior perfomance under certain conditions: although with less range than AM, if the amplitude is above a certain level the signal to noise ratio is much better than AM. To add insult to injury, the RCA claimed the invention of FM technology and won a patent. A lawsuit ensued, and the RCA won, leaving Armstrong unable to claim royalties for FM use in the USA (Note that after his death, his wife continued the fight and eventually won against the RCA in 1967). The reluctance to embrace the new technology and the malicious behavior of the RCA resulted in the ruin and eventual suicide of a gifted inventor, and one of the fathers of radio and wireless technologies. It is interesting to note the techology-stifling and patent stealing didn't start with the computer age, there have been previous battles fought. The question is, can this be avoided in the future?
What is this anti-technology you talk of? I thought the article was related, but no, and you don't even introduce the concept. Use wireless bandwidth? Haven't you noticed wireless is *more* expensive? Bittorrent? What could they share that we all download? A lot of download sites already use nearest-server detection, and many of us already use bittorrent. None of your examples make sense, and you fail to define your concept of anti-technology technology.
FYI unlimited bandwidth does not mean unlimited bandwidth. Nothing is unlimited. Web hosts and ISPs do it as a marketing tactic, because they can safely assume the average usage will be tolerable. Some users will use more than others, but in the end, the sum is within their limit.
Now they are trying to solve a problem with over usage. They are exploring both infrastructure improvements and pricing plan strategies.
It isn't like ISPs are just trying to be a pain in the ass. Think about outages and performance problems with your connection. It could very well be due to too many file sharers in your neighborhood hogging bandwidth.
For years companies like Comcast, Time Warner, et al have been collecting monthly fees for UNLIMITED internet access.
They could have beefed up their networks because let me explain, they knew what was coming yet they failed to plan for it.
Oh some did. Why else would Cox keep upping their net speeds? I note they're the one company that's been noticeably quiet about any kind of metered service.
And has Verizon tipped its hand yet? I know they're pushing hard to sell FiOS in many areas and metered would be death to that service.
No, that is not the translation.
Actually, I do speak a fair bit of Japanese, but his description did not bring any kotowaza (folk sayings) or yojijukugo (four-character slogans) to mind. He did remind me of kaizen, but his explanation went rather beyond that idea, which is often translated as 'continuous improvement'.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Users who will have abnormally high bills each month, potentially HUGE in fact.
:)
.... ADVERTISEMENTS...regardless!!! :)
* Users unknowingly w/ Viruses, Zombie/Bot-net PCs broadcasting or communicating with bot-net or sending spam.
The potential here is to have huge bills, but the users will then argue with the ISPs
Call to ISP: "But I *only* emailed my grandson and read the news, I don't understand, now I cannot pay my food bill, I am on a fixed income!!!"
The other obvious stipulation, is that
***YOU*** now pay to download all those high end animated/movie
Those new ads are often huge or stream video. So they are going to make you all PAY TO WATCH THEIR ADVERTISERS.
Ahhhh, they have some savvy business folk in the ISP companies now!
Now that they have ruined our economy with counterfeit loans, high fuel. (Ya feel it at the store now!) So many of us are making a living providing content, can't have that, they need to steal every fucking last penny from the people.
So now it's time to fuck up the people's communications.
Watch TV? You hate fascist propaganda, censorship, and lies? Wanna fight back? Get and publish news alternatively? Ya planning on using TVUplayer and streaming it via capture card/TV out to your "SD" TV to avoid buying a $1000 dollar HDTV?
Think again...
Bandwidth caps will stop you from running a website. Or getting news. Or anything else.
Child porn will be the new "War On Drugs" or "911" to censor, limit, delete, and cut your service. All nicely wrapped in a buried TOS / AUP that say's, "If you say shit we don't like we can cut your websites off."
There goes the alternative news. First time you say something that blows back on their parent corporation, your fucked.
Think FIOS and Internet 2 are good?
Gimme your thumbprint. No more anonymous whistleblowers. You just gave the fascist corruption in government their FINAL FREE PASS. Now they can make you disappear and stop your neighbor from reporting it. Oh and did I mention your nice expensive domain.com will now be subdomain.att.com?
Yeah that's right, consolidate the fascist corporate media, and roll out expensive HDTV, cap the bandwidth (when we need more actually), spy illegally on every fucking packet and tie your real name to it all.
Seems like a plan to me. Seems like someone dropped the fucking ball on their oath of office to protect the constitution to me.
You can argue all the shit you want to say I am wrong. You fucking KNOW I am right. Go to your local fucking supermarket and see if you can get out for less than $50. Motherfuckers! (not you reading this)
So let me get this straight, our oil is too expensive to survive, we're doing nothing to replace it NOW with alternatives, hydrogen, HHO, Hydrogen On Demand, solar, bio-fuel (FUCK ETHANOL!!!), electric cars, air cars, electric bikes, and we keep outdated laws from actually rolling out new technologies. (a car converted from gas to hydrogen won't pass smog!!!) Meanwhile, things like the elimination of driving to work by using the web/internet are going to be too expensive to use, capped, censored, and TOS/AUP'd to death, and snooped on illegally. Then add more shit like Patriot Act 1, 2, 3, 4 Homegrown Terrorist 1958/1959, then add rigged electronic vote tabulation devices, vote caging, registered voter roll purging (and cry wolf at voter fraud to get REAL ID in place) At the same time keep the fascist corporate media playing Lacy and Scott Peterson and the lost Britney Spears Panties, instead of asking some hard questions, and real fucking journalism. Meanwhile Ben Bernake "stanky bernaky" and the UN-Fed keep running the counterfeit heist, stealing every fucking last penny. Not only does your dollar buy less food, and less bandwidth, it's worth fucking less invisibly, because all those fucking AAA loans are not really AAA, they just a shoebox someone shit in and said it's worth $100 Trillion dollars.
What's this going to lead to?
Who has the $100 Trillion dollars and what are their next move against us going to be?
Where can I get a decent "soup can" for the "soup lines" that are already here?
You might say, it's time to just turn everything off. I mean isn't that what seems to be happening here anyway?
Turn off your SD TV.
Don't buy a HDTV
Don't go to work -- Strike
Don't vote for "party" vote for INTEGRITY.
Fight ALL ELECTRONIC VOTE TABULATION DEVICES
Fight every fucking stupid ass legislation that comes out every fucking day.
Turn off your phone. (Oh wait, how are we going to fight legislation if we don't have a phone or internet or TV?)
Do You Fucking Get it yet?!
Do ya?
No ISP could afford to do that. Currently, the practice has been to sell "all you can eat, subject to certain rules." These rules say that you can't, for example, run a server or engage in P2P. And these rules make sense. Think about an "all you can eat" buffet. There's virtually always a sign, posted prominently, that says you can't take food out to other people and can't stay all day. They also say that everyone who eats must pay. The rules for bandwidth are analogous. They vary between ISPs, but generally say that you can't do P2P (which amounts to smuggling food out to a thousand of your closest friends) or stream day and night. This sort of rule is fundamental and necessary in any "all you can eat" pricing model. If you won't accept such rules, the only other choice is metered pricing.
Down here in Australia we have always had download limits. This is largely because of the limited bandwidth between Australia and the majority of internet sites (in the US). It is arguably a fairer "user pays" system, but overall it makes internet access more expensive because of the infrastructure the ISPs need to count the bytes used by each account.
Here P2P technologies are seen as a problem, not a solution, because they have encouraged the downloading of high volume content such as music and videos. Some ISPs actually limit P2P bandwidth to prevent the heavy downloaders choking off bandwidth to the lighter users.
So does this all mean that I can rebill my usage to advertisers who play video automatically on sites like major sports links or news links?? I mean, I never want that video to automatically play, but it does and it increases my bill each time... just like telemarketers calling my cell phone.
While to some extent we hopefully recognize some value in human creativity, such that copyrights and other IP deserve to be respected for an appropriate LIMITED time, excess greed is trying to create "Artificial Scarcity". ALWAYS a bad thing.
Robert Mugabe, "extraordinary rendition", Burma, the chopped for parts Falun Gong, in Communist China,
Death is the Ultimate Technology: with it, and the ability to enforce it, all the rest of rights come home to roost, too.
No individual can keep rights, in the ultimate game: government corporations, and private corporations, cannot help but own them all.