Regulating the Nets

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

A talk.politics.crypto post of mine forwarded because of my ego:

T >I can't imagine any combination of events or circumstances which would
T >keep the government out of the net.regulation business if they want to
T >get in,

Watch.  We already know how to set up an "enterprise" network that 
excludes anyone the operators wish to exclude.  We also know how to 
encrypt the traffic such that only authorized persons can read it.  We 
also know how to do traffic mixes that make tracing difficult or 
impossible.  And, finally, we know how to do this offshore, or in other 
countries, or using split processes running on different (or virtual 
networked) machines in many different locations at the same time.  These 
virtual processes can shift around the physical world on a random basis.

Rather difficult to regulate particularly since loads of people will be 
able to make their money while living anywhere on earth.  In any 
(changing) jurisdiction.

T >and I really don't see what private financing has to do with it

It does provide a little more flexibility plus lower costs and better 
service.  This would speed up the networking process.  But you're right, 
we can use the National Information Infrastructure for our own purposes if 
we like.

T >The net will be kept free of idiotic restrictions only if the 
T >majority of people want it kept that way and see to it the government
T >hears them, and financing doesn't have much to do with it.

The views of the majority (or the minority) are relevant only if someone 
can figure out a way to regulate the beast in the first place.  Not a 
non-trivial problem.

T >Do you really think Time-Warner management has a vision of a high 
T >bandwidth two-way communications network in which individual artists
T >could offer their productions to the public in competition with the
T >mindless network bilge? Or is it more likely Time-Warner imagines a
T >future in which they have a stranglehold on a big chunk of the net and
T >take the lions share of any profit associated with information that
T >flows over it,

I don't know what TW "imagines" but the competition -- Continental Cable 
-- is already planning to put 10 mbps Internet connections into the homes 
of any subscribers that want it by the end of 1994.  They will not be 
controlling content.  IBM was not able to kill "open systems" either.

T >I can certainly speculate about which path is most likely to occur
T >without any government interference with the be-all end-all cure-all
T >magic bullet of the pure libertarian free market.

You must realize by looking around you that there is no noticeable 
increase in obedience to authority going on.  Even with decent enforcement 
techniques, the government will have a hard time controlling the nets.  
People will just choose to disobey as they increasingly do in other areas 
of their lives these days.  In the *absence* of decent regulatory tools, 
obedience will be even lower.

What are the powerful regulatory techniques that will bring the nets to 
heel?  What is the government's magic bullet?

Duncan Frissell

You don't have to be nice to nation states you meet on the way up if 
you're not coming back down.



--- WinQwk 2.0b#0