NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Why the Internet is the Most Important Thing in the World
Why the Internet is the Most Important Thing in the World
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000856.html
Today is the day the world ended. At least it was scheduled to end
according to another in an endless chain of "end times" prophecies.
I'm not usually a gambling man, but I'll take a chance that I can
finish this posting before the Apocalypse arrives to ultimately still
my fingers, heart, and blood.
I'm not a big believer in doomsdays, except of the human-created kind.
Oh yes, it's certainly possible that a giant asteroid, an errant
comet, or some other natural catastrophe totally beyond our control
spells the end to mankind and roaches alike.
But of much more immediate concern are those aspects of our world and
lives that we do architect and control. For those are where the onus
falls squarely on our own shoulders, where we can't rightly blame God,
the universe, and everything except ourselves.
Over the years I've probably written and spoken millions of words
about the Internet, related to technical issues, policy matters, and
the intersection of those two complex domains. In retrospect, I've
probably done this to the neglect of other issues that at times
probably should have taken precedence. C'est la vie -- the choices
are our own.
When I started working on the Internet's ancestor ARPANET in the early
70s, most other students at UCLA only had computer access of any kind
via punched card batch input systems -- just like you see in those
grainy old clips in computer history films. You want to feel really
old in a hurry? Try watching grungy old footage like that and realize
that back then you routinely used every piece of antique equipment
being shown.
Much has changed since those early days -- and a perhaps surprising
amount has not.
Obviously, the speed of our computing and communications capabilities
has vastly improved since the time that the Net backbone itself ran at
what would be dial-up modem speeds today. Yet oddly, the subjective
experiences of waiting for responses from online systems then and now
seem very similar. One might be tempted to partly blame software
"bloat" for at least part of this effect, but we'll let that pass for
now.
The obsession with sex on the Net is not a new phenomenon, except in
quantity and perhaps degree of explicitness. From the earliest
ARPANET days, line printers were being used to generate giant nude
images for display (always of women -- then as now the computer
science field has to its detriment been dominated by us boys). And if
you knew the right sites and port numbers, you could obtain at any
time a bawdy limerick or a happily obscene "tingle" quote. I still
have online the source databases for both the original ARPANET
limerick and tingle servers -- even today I could not post them
publicly without triggering upset.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the ARPANET and Internet that has
not significantly changed is the hacker culture.
I'm not using the word hacker here in its popularized evil, "black
hat" sense of computer break-ins and damage. Rather, I'm referring to
the term as we originally used it decades ago, and how it is still
used today by many aficionados of computer science and related
technologies.
This positive form of hacker, both then and now, are those persons,
young or not, variously over the years sitting at keypunches, TV-style
CRT terminals, or modern displays, often up to the wee hours ingesting
endless cups of coffee. Their "hacking" has produced prodigious
amounts of code to extend and organize the reach of knowledge, to
improve communications around the world, and as the Net has extended
to become a foundational basis of our technological societies.
And of course, much positive hacking has always been done for the
sheer joy of creation, sometimes -- often in fact -- not even knowing
exactly where you'll end up. Many of computing's most important
developments have sprung forth from very much these kinds of efforts.
It has been suggested that a sort of "hippie" freedom-loving, free
speech promoting, "end-to-end" philosophy has traditionally existed on
both the ARPANET and Internet --- at least partially rooted in the
counterculture mindset of the late 1960s. After all, while ARPANET
was a U.S. Department of Defense project, its actual implementation in
many respects was largely in the hands of university professors and
students.
The Net as counterculture? Perhaps not explicitly, but rather
implicitly under the surface. Though most of us hacking on the Net
back then spent far too much time in basement computer rooms to
actually have participated much in the more colorful aspects of
counterculture sensibilities, perhaps a bit to our social detriments.
But yes. There is a strong current of freedom running through the
Internet since its inception, a strong sense that it should foster
communications and knowledge without itself "getting in the way" by
attempting to punitively control -- or censor -- information,
knowledge, or speech.
As I've suggested in "The New Campaign to Demonize Google for Their
Protection of the Constitution" ( http://bit.ly/jLDmLU [Lauren's Blog] )
and various essays linked from that posting, it is this very sense
of freedom that has so pervaded the Internet throughout its genesis
and development, that is now so greatly at risk.
While it's easy to point fingers at various corporate Internet
entities for lapses of one sort or another, I have come to believe
that the ultimate enemy of freedom on the Internet is governments
themselves -- often (but not always) well meaning, but always carrying
the potential for enormous damage.
For the Internet is now arguably the most important thing in the
world.
How can I possibly say this? What of life, love, energy, famine,
disease, global warming, and the rest of a seemingly infinite list of
human desires, concerns, and travails?
Individually, in isolation, those issues are indeed more important
than the Net.
But in our modern world, all of these concerns are increasingly
fundamentally entwined with the triumvirate of communications,
information, and knowledge. And our abilities to perform functions as
basic as phone calls or as far-ranging as complex medical or other
research increasingly are dependent on the Internet and its connected
resources, with "offline" alternatives decreasingly useful or
available.
Government control and surveillance over Internet content --
especially government-mandated censorship, blocking, and eavesdropping
regimes -- are in some ways more dangerous than nuclear weapons. They
all have the ability to cause destruction on an enormous scale. One
hopes that the utter decimation of life that can result from nuclear
weapons will continue to further restrain their use.
But few if any such restraints seem apparent on governments' desires
to control and surveil the Internet, even though this could be as
ultimately damaging to the human spirit, as fusion bombs are to human
life.
By controlling, monitoring, and spying on Internet content,
governments around the world will have the ability to observe,
influence, or control almost every aspect of our lives -- how we
communicate, how we research, where we go, what we say.
At no previous time in human history has a technology existed that has
become as pervasively crucial to so many aspects of our individual and
collective experiences.
But the Internet is that very technology. It is, in this crucial
sense especially, the most important thing in the world. For so much
else that makes us human, so much that is critical to our future lives
and societies, is or will be dependent in one way or another on the
Internet ecosystem.
Government efforts to restrict, monitor, and control the Internet, its
services, and its users are the most serious threat to freedoms of our
time, perhaps ultimately of any time in history. For abuse of the
Internet in such manners could set the stage for a future of
dictatorial surveillance and restrictions on communications,
knowledge, and speech that simply would not have previously been
technically possible.
Except in hindsight, it sometimes is not very obvious when humanity
reaches a momentous crossroads. But when it comes to the Internet
today, the choices we face are stark indeed, and require that now --
right now -- we choose the path forward that we desire not only for
ourselves, but for our children as well. In the process, we will
either be promising freedom to the future, or alternatively be
relegating freedom only to the annals of history.
Take care, all.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com