Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation

[lmccarth@cs.umass.edu]

I'm counting my blessings for not suffering carpal tunnel syndrome yet, so
I'll chime in here before we hear back from Strata.

Duncan Frissell writes:
> Operation Sun Devil happened in 1990.  A couple of BBS' were shut down.  It
> hasn't been repeated much since.  There are currently more than 7,000
> commercial ISPs in the world.  At one or two shutdowns per decade, it will
> take a while.  

Assuming shutdowns continue at the same rate, which is a rather large
assumption that I happen to doubt.

> Note too that an ISP is more like a carrier (common or not)
> than like a publisher.  Legal difficulties for the Feds.

>From what I have read here and heard elsewhere from lawyers, common carrier
status gets decided by the courts, and hasn't been conferred definitively on
ISPs or anonymizers/pseudonymizers, etc.

> Even harder in the future when 100 million households worldwide have full-
> time net access running on real multitasking workstations.

We'll see....

> I'm waiting.  Then I'll have to call all the way to Montreal to log on.

So much for the-net-as-I-know-it, where people don't have to call outside
the country just to log in to the net. Most of the people I want on the net
are very unlikely to do this.

> They will have a lot of fun trying to *find* all the ISPs though.  There are
> quite a few and that still leaves company, academic, government, and private
> TCP/IP servers up.

Presumably the govt. can use all the same means everyone else will be using
to find ISPs. They can also go around tracking physical net connections etc.,
which is out of reach for most folks.

Meanwhile the govt. will have coerced *.gov and *.edu and the corporate
sites to establish and enforce restrictive local use policies.

Strata wrote:
# I assume it surprises no one that much of the
# major flack about the net began when it became widely known to
# government that the net considered itself anarchic.

Duncan Frissell writes:
> It doesn't consider itself anarchic -- it is.  

(0) Strata did not claim that the net is not anarchic.

(1) Do you really believe that the net "doesn't consider itself anarchic" ???

[...]
> When one goes out into the marketplace, one encounters many different people
> and many challenges.  You must win acceptance from some of the other
> participants you find there.  There are mores.  You have to learn some of
> them or find others of your ilk who already share you mores.  It is not
> hard.  It is called life. 

Some mores are mostly bullshit. "The other ones are complete bullshit."
It is entirely consistent to defend everyone's right to his/her own set of
mores, and still attempt to convince some people that some of the mores they
observe are crocks. Many of the net.prejudices are particularly absurd,
counterproductive, and worthy of change, IMHO.

Strata wrote:
# WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? Can someone take an anonymous poll of the
# Known Network and ask the following: "I routinely refrain from
# posting my opinions or beliefs to mailing lists and/or newsgroups for
# fear of flaming, harrassment, or ridicule, even when I am confident of 
# those beliefs or opinions

Duncan Frissell writes:
> A short survey of the Feed suggests that many other people
> continue to post at will.  Probably too many.  In fact, they obviously feel
> freer to do so on the net than in real life.

Uh, I guess that's why there's no need for anonymizers, pseudonymizers, etc. ?

[...]
> In modern capitalist societies like the US, it is possible to actually own
> fairly powerful computers yourself.  In fact, I understand that even the
> peasantry in America can put together the $200 for a used 386sx and the $39
> for a 14.4K modem and run a free copy of Linux and have a powerful TCP/IP
> server of their own.  

I'd be interested to see the documentation of the number of peasants in 
the U.S. (or elsewhere) who have done anything like this. Documentation of
the number of peasants who could manage the technical details would also
be interesting.

> The dialup connection is not permanent of course.  It
> can be bought from many local, national, and overseas providers.  

And of course, all peasants have plenty of disposable income to spend on
long-distance phone charges....

Strata wrote:
[yes, this is taken out of context]
# Yes, I should give up my political career and
# the hope of building new housing in my district, getting more school
# funding, etc for a bunch of twenty (or thirty)-something
# non-constitutents who think of me as a pustulent gastropod. I'll run
# right out and vote against TRA!!

Duncan Frissell writes:
> We (some of we) don't want the housing or the school funding either.  I
> certainly consider slave schools to be the most common form of child abuse
> in the world today.

That's nice, but are you seriously claiming that the portion of the average
set of voters in a Congressional district that strongly agrees with you on 
those issues matters a whit in a Congressional election ?

Strata wrote:
# How much do you go out of your way for people who openly despise you
# and publicly declare your stupidity with every other breath?

Duncan Frissell writes:
> Don't go out of your way.  Just stay out of our way.  Play golf instead.  

But the USG has to go out of its way to ignore creeps like Bob Dornan, just
for openers.

[...]
> Use another domain name.  Internic doesn't even have a monopoly of domain
> name assignment within the US.  If it casually screws around with too many
> people, it will guarantee further loss in market share.  

Well, for openers the USG can saddle all DNS companies with onerous
legal obligations. Let's not forget the stories we've heard about the
wiretap equipment set up at various telcos. Maybe it's high time for the
USG to _give_ a monopoly to InterNIC, or an ambitious competitor hungry for
market share.

Strata wrote:
# Find something original and concrete to do instead. Spend the five 
# minutes writing and *mailing* an original letter to your elected
# official and mention you are in his or her district. 

Duncan Frissell writes:
> This is *original*?

For many people, yes.

-Lewis	"You're always disappointed, nothing seems to keep you high -- drive 
	your bargains, push your papers, win your medals, fuck your strangers;
	don't it leave you on the empty side ?"  (Joni Mitchell, 1972)