-------- Original Message --------
Subject: ISPs should own your eyes and ears, say AT&T, Cisco, McCurry
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:26:59 -0400
From: "David P. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Seth Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
New post on my blog
Permalink: http://www.reed.com/blog-dpr/?p=36
ISPs should own your eyes and ears, say AT&T, Cisco, McCurry
The hottest new faux-digerati lobby firm in DC in the communications
field is Mike McCurrys new firm Arts+Labs. McCurry is an old
political hand, Bill Clintons press secretary, looking for a second
career after the Clintons. Apparently theres no big cash to be had
protecting our freedom of speech, but Cisco and AT&T are happy to fund
him to run a firm to defend ISPs right to do "deep packet inspection"
(DPI).
Only Arts+Labs doesnt dare call it DPI, which sounds just a bit scary
and Big Brotherish. Instead they call it the "intelligent network"
that will smooth our experience, cleansing it of all those uneven
experiences. Those of us who are as old as I am - 56 - might
remember that the term "Intelligent Network" was a Bell Labs idea that
failed due to the success of the Internet. As David Isenberg told it,
the Internet was the "Rise of the Stupid Network".
The Internet is a simple network, a stupid network, that just connects
your computer to another computer with no interference. Thats opposed
to old smarty-pants networks that tried limit users to those things
that maximized the operators monopoly profits, by taxing the content
providers and preventing innovators from attaching new devices,
inventing new services at the edges, etc. The Internet won, for a
good reason: it enabled innovation, and it kept busybody operators
from having to tinker with or spy on their users traffic. It
delighted users, rather than holding them hostage.
The Arts+Labs site looks cool, very Web 2.0-ish. But hidden in that
beautiful design, behind the slick and seductive words, is a dangerous
idea, one that the founders of the United States rejected in the First
Amendment. The Arts+Labs site tries to convince you (and Congress) of
the idea that its a "good thing" to allow your ISP to decide what you
can see or hear or use. Thats the same ISP that is given by Fed,
State, or local regulators a monopoly or oligopoly over your ability
to connect at high speed to the Internet. For that monopoly to
examine your traffic, make guesses as to what it means, and to decide
for you which services you should connect to, using what protocols.
Dont believe Mike McCurry, AT&T and Ciscos new shill. He may be
connected, but its pretty clear that he wants to disconnect us.
_______________________________________________
p2p-hackers mailing list
p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com
http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
