Posts tagged Writing
The Internet’s Intolerable Acts
Sascha Meinrath and I have a new article Slate on how the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act amount to collective punishment against online communities.
More than 300 years later, the U.S. Congress is considering bills that would lead to collective reprisals against online communities. The Senate’s PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House are supposed to address copyright infringement and counterfeiting. In reality, they are so technically impractical that they do little to address these problems. They would, however, undermine participatory democracy and human rights, which is why these bills have garnered near-universal condemnation from both human rights groups and technologists.
The interconnected nature of the Internet fostered the growth of online communities such as Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. These sites host our humdrum daily interactions and serve as a public soapbox for our political voice. Both the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA would create a national firewall by censoring the domain names of websites accused of hosting infringing copyrighted materials. This legislation would enable law enforcement to take down the entire tumblr.com domain due to something posted on a single blog. Yes, an entire, largely innocent online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority.
In Defense of the Internet Craftsman
A new article I wrote with Sascha Meinrath is up on Slate discussing the importance of user control of Internet enabled technologies”
To save the Internet as a platform for innovation, we need to see concerted intervention to protect the rights of users to create. Most importantly, we must fight for the Internet craftsman—the individual who is free to develop networks, services, and applications and who shapes networking technologies better to meet her own needs and those of her community.
Digital Feudalism published
Digital Feudalism: Enclosures and Erasures from Digital Rights Management to the Digital Divide was recently published in the latest issue of CommLaw Conspectus: Journal of Communications Law and Policy. As Sascha Meinrath, Victor Pickard and I write in Digital Feudalism:
A Growing Digital Divide
A Growing Digital Divide: Internet Freedom and the Negative Impact of Command-and-Control Networking.
Wireless versus Wireline Broadband and the Digital Divide
With all the talk of wireless broadband and the digital divide I became curious what the price difference was between wireless and wireline broadband access. After all my Computer may have cost $1000 when I bought it three years ago, but my phone, with the mandatory service I barely use like Voice, ran nearly $3000 over two years. Granted a phone with a data plan is cheaper, but my next computer will likely run $400.
The Wireless Generation Gap
If you’ve followed broadband discussions in Washington, DC, then you’ve heard that wireless is the future of communications. The National Broadband Plan offers wireless as the competitive solution to the broadband duopoly dilemma, and in the recently released White House Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative, President Obama reiterated his State of the Union commitment to helping “extend next-generation wireless services to at least 98% of Americans.”
If you watch TV, you might think this is a good thing. The whole country is moving to 4G—next generation wireless—and according to some carriers, this is our chance to beat the world in broadband. For Obama, it’s a chance to Win the Future.
It will certainly help us win a future—but if this, as Obama said, is our “Sputnik moment,” we are not reaching for the moon.
Keep reading at Ars Technica.
Digital Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
Lisa Guernsey of the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative and I recently wrote a piece titled: Making ‘E-Textbooks’ Real — and Really Accessible — in Public School.
From iPads to the Espresso print-on-demand, the publishing world is changing, and textbooks are no different. For example, not only do publishing giants like Pearson and McGraw-Hill have digital offerings, and the new formats allow for the purchase of individual chapters, and more “choose-your-own-adventure” education.
Mobile Devices are Increasingly Locked Down and Controlled by the Carriers
How Cell Phone “Customization” Undermines End-Users by Redefining Ownership
1968 was a landmark year for communication in the United States. The same year when HAL 9000, the psychotic computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, famously said “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” consumers were suddenly freed to connect any phone or devices to their telephone lines. In the seminal “Carterfone” Supreme Court case, the nation’s highest court ruled that a carrier did not have the right to restrict an end user’s ability to add devices to the network. This decision is what made everything from answering machines to the dial-up modem legal, the foundation for the modern Internet.
Why Europe Needs Community Level Network Neutrality
Last week, I led a submission to the European Commission on why Network Neutrality rules are needed at the Community level, a common regulatory framework for the European Union. The full submission and listed authors is available here.
The debates surrounding network neutrality and the open Internet begin with debates on network architecture and network management, but their implications are far-reaching. The Internet is not a direct private link between two end-points but a common pool resource created from the interconnection of tens of thousands of autonomous networks. The value of the Internet, to those who build it, use it, and build on top of it, is not created by any one network or operator, but depends on access to all endpoints being available on a neutral basis to all. If not carefully restrained, the traffic management practices of each inpidual network can influence, fragment, or foreclose the opportunities the Internet provides for innovation, democracy, and free expression.
