Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers

[David Mandl <dmandl@bear.com>]

On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Duncan Frissell wrote:

> At 09:07 PM 1/1/96 -0500, David Mandl wrote:
> >I agree.  It's not a good idea to assume that there's going to be some kind
> >of widespread opposition movement when the big Net Crackdown comes.  Most
> >people will either obey the law, be unaffected by it, or violate it in very
> >insignificant ways ("net jaywalking").  There's strength in numbers, but I
> >just don't think the numbers will be there.
> >
> >   --Dave.
> 
> During Prohibition, consumption of illegal booze increased steadily during
> the whole period.  Hard liquor consumption was actually higher at the end of
> Prohibition than it had been before Prohibition.
> 
> DCF

The number of people who drank booze when Prohibition began dwarfs the
number of people who want access to "controlled" information on the
net today.  Most people still don't even understand what the net is.
They're two completely different situations.  Also, the powers that be
have much better reasons for killing the net than they had for banning
booze.

Also, access to the net for Joe Average is still largely limited to
authoritarian giants like AOL (which forwards people's mail to the
FBI) and CompuServe (which bans hundreds of newsgroups).  Maybe these
companies will eventually be knocked out by small libertarian-minded
ISPs, maybe not.

   --D.

--
David Mandl
Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.
Phone: (212) 272-3888
Email: dmandl@bear.com

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