Politics

(I'm postponing going into lab and finding out that my so-brilliantly prototyped circuit fails like all its predecessors).

Last night, I fell asleep on the couch while reading Aldous Huxley's 'A Brave New World'. I'm always struck by his introduction (and if I were a better person, I'd re-read it before making what will, no doubt, be a poorly structured and inexact discussion). In it, he talks of the vulgarity of dwelling upon the past, and that it is far more noble to revisit one's mistakes only to avoid them in the future. We gain nothing, artistically or personally, by dwelling upon our past failures. What I like most about this sentiment is that it ties in nicely with Kundera's argument that life is something we only get to live once; it is a blank page upon which we write and then we're done. No do-overs. So we gain nothing by dwelling over the past except to sour our present -- it is a far better course to let the past guide the future in a purely cautionary way, which we implement by retaining only the shadow and form of the past and not its substance. It's a lovely idea in theory -- though a little difficult to implement emotionally. But that really wasn't Huxley's end point (I would hate to imply otherwise). Moving on, Huxley cites the omission of hard science from his text as one of his most grievous mistakes in 'A Brave New World'. He then detours into debating a disturbing and likely future (in which I find myself living) where atomic power, warfare and biological advances combine with an increasingly totalitarian government to enable the "really revolutionary revolution."

It's here that I need to think before I write, so let's not talk about the nature of the revolution but instead that totalitarian governments are enabled by the increasing ability to regulate both the systems of warefare and commerce (in addition to the regulation of the social structure and the individual himself). This week, there's a telecommunications bill going up for vote in Congress which will affect what's called "Net Neutrality." Net Neutrality is the principle that all content on the Internet has the same priority to access and use available network bandwidth. This bill will lead to regulation of the internet, or at least limit the ability of the FCC to prevent regulation of the internet, or which will cause the FCC to over-regulate the internet, depending on whom you ask.

As an introduction to the less ins0rweb savvy: in reality, each node of the internet is not created equal. Some servers and some pipes are slower than others. Sometimes the internet is "slow". This can happen when your download attempts are fighting for bandwidth against some spanker who's hosing your sub-net by video-conferencing with her long-distance boyfriend. Or maybe the internet is slow because a major hub went down in Ohio and suddenly all your packets are getting routed through a fiber-optic cable under Siberia. Most people assume the fix for a sluggish net connection is to buy a dedicated high-bandwidth line from your provider to your home, but this isn't what net neutrality is all about. It's not about how bandwidth is distributed between users or making sure that ISPs send internet traffic along optimal routes, but by how bandwidth is distributed between content providers (ie websites) by the companies that own the fiber optic cables. Here's an example: given the existence of Net Neutrality and assuming that all webservers are created equal, content from Site A will download to your computer just as fast as content from Site B. Loss of Net Neutrality means that Site A could pay the company which owns the network infrastructure $5 to make sure that their video always downloads twice as fast as Site B (unless Site B is also willing to pay $5 to the bandwidth provider in order to stay competetive with Site A). Both A and B lose, or you lose if they're unwilling to compete, and the company that laid the fiber-optic cable (who already charges you, through your ISP, for the right to so many GBps per month) makes an extra $10.

Yes, you can argue that the man who owns the cable calls all the shots. But how about the man who owns all the rails? What about the man who owns the roads? Currently, interstate travel is run by the government, not private corporations. Civic councils everywhere would shit a brick if the federal government charged big ca$h for the priviledge of having an Interstate Highway exit to the Everytown, USA business district. Without the FCC to regulate their behavior, I feel that the priority of any internet privateer would be to engage in whatever behavior increases their net profit margins.

The proponents for preserving Net Neutrality, who see the bill as a lead-in for internet regulation can be found at: http://www.savetheinternet.com/. They're looking to have the bill modified to remove the provision where the FCC is not allowed to make any new Net Neutrality regulations, or to have the bill modified to explicitly state that bandwidth providers can not upgrade or degrade network services based on the source or type of content provided (or related economic incentives).

For me at least, privatizing the bitstream just seems like a horrible idea. If someone wanted to protest or boycott a bandwidth provider (like Verizon or some similarly monolithic company) then that provider could just drop the agitator's bandwidth priority to zero, or deny access to it entirely. This already happened in Canada, despite the socialistic enlightenment of our frigid neighbors to the north. Also, this bill's got more potential for abuse than China's current Internet censorship. But you don't have to take my word for it. This article should give you a slightly less biased opinion, although still conservative (and if you follow the links, CNET has a host of other articles on the subject).

project_athena%: dict conservative

Conservative \Con*serv"a*tive\, n. : 1. One who, or that which, perserves from ruin, injury, innovation, or radical change; a preserver; a conserver.