Fwd: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti. JC Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. ( http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
Perdonatemi il cinismo. Bellissima (oddio, io la trovo eccessiva, ma "de gustibus"..) retorica, zero pragmatica. In questo modo non si va molto lontano. Ciao, Andrea On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM, J.C. DE MARTIN <demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti.
JC
Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. ( http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
-- -- I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it in mind. Twitter: @andreaglorioso Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=1749288&trk=tab_pro
Caro Andrea, non so se tu sia cinico o meno, lo lascio dire a te (ma conoscendoti mi sembra difficile :-)), ma mi sembra che le tue parole tradiscano un quanto meno temporaneo mancato apprezzamento di un aspetto importante della società civile (e, quindi, per esteso, della politica, almeno in democrazie come le nostre). Mi riferisco in particolare al fatto che molti esseri umani, molti ordinari cittadini si iniziano a interessare di determinati temi di pubblico interesse non perchè fulminati sulla strada di Damasco da, chessò?, un rapporto tecnico BEREC o un foglio di calcolo Eurostat. Molto più probabilmente iniziano, meritoriamente, a incuriosirsi di temi di policy perchè qualcuno ha parlato loro di determinate questioni facendo appello a valori, a una visione del mondo, a doveri verso la collettività o verso le generazioni future, e così via. Base etica che col tempo lascerà, almeno per qualcuno, sempre più spazio a una comprensione oggettiva e analitica dei problemi, ma che non potrà mai scomparire del tutto perchè solo con una motivazione etica di base le persone della società civile possono giustificare - innanzittutto con se stesse - il tempo, le energie e a volte il denaro spesi per questioni che non solo non solo personali, ma che assai spesso finiscono in sconfitte (o successi solo parziali). Testi come quelli di Lauren, quindi, a mio avviso servono allo stesso modo in cui sono sempre serviti discorsi "motivazionali", o di visione generale. Il chè non vuol dire che poi magari la stessa persona non sia capace di pragmatici negoziati in una commissione parlamentare o di produrre un documento oggettivo e ricco di sfumature. Ma hanno importanza, a seconda del momento e dell'audience, sia gli "I have a dream", sia le analisi pragmatiche. My 2 cents. Ciao, juan carlos On 1/6/12 10:53 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Perdonatemi il cinismo.
Bellissima (oddio, io la trovo eccessiva, ma "de gustibus"..) retorica, zero pragmatica. In questo modo non si va molto lontano.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti.
JC
Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein<lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. ( http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
Caro Juan Carlos, sono d'accordo con te: l'elemento "motivazionale" e` importante. Per questo ho detto che dal punto di vista retorico - termine che ho usato in senso letterale, senza alcun velato intento polemico - il testo di Lauren Weinstein e` ben fatto. Il problema e` che praticamente le stesse cose le diceva John Perry Barlow in un altro testo di cui riconosco sia la bellezza retorica (d'altronde, come aspettarsi di meno dal paroliere dei Grateful Dead?), sia la semi totale assenza di pragmatica, ovvero la "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace" del 1996. Cioe` 12 anni fa. Con la differenza che 12 anni fa l'impatto di Internet era ben piu` limitato di oggi e dunque tale assenza era da un lato scusabile e dall'altro, tutto sommato, ininfluente. Ma che dopo 12 anni la "classe intellettuale" di Internet - categoria nella quale includo sia Barlow che Weinstein, senza per questo desumerne che le loro posizioni siano le uniche meritevoli di essere considerate "intellettuali", anzi - si esprima ancora con testi che sono al 99% retorica e all'1% (e mi sento generoso :) pragmatica, mi desta preoccupazione. Perche` significa che non siamo collettivamente ancora riusciti, come societa`, ad uscire del tutto da un paradigma iper-semplificatorio di cosa rappresenti Internet e di come affrontare le innumerevoli contraddizioni che esso genera; incluso l'aspetto "etico" che, mi permetto di osservare, e` ben piu` complesso dell'immagine che Barlow, Weinstein e altri "evangelisti di Internet" amano promuovere. Per carita`, i paletti, le chiamate alle armi, le visioni escatologiche e salvifiche servono a mobilitare le persone, spesso per fini nobili - ce lo insegna la storia. Cosi` come ci (o almeno mi) insegna che senza un ancoraggio reale nella pragmatica tali visioni possono trasformarsi nel migliore dei casi in urla al vento. Ciao, Andrea On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 1:14 PM, J.C. DE MARTIN <demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Caro Andrea,
non so se tu sia cinico o meno, lo lascio dire a te (ma conoscendoti mi sembra difficile :-)), ma mi sembra che le tue parole tradiscano un quanto meno temporaneo mancato apprezzamento di un aspetto importante della società civile (e, quindi, per esteso, della politica, almeno in democrazie come le nostre).
Mi riferisco in particolare al fatto che molti esseri umani, molti ordinari cittadini si iniziano a interessare di determinati temi di pubblico interesse non perchè fulminati sulla strada di Damasco da, chessò?, un rapporto tecnico BEREC o un foglio di calcolo Eurostat.
Molto più probabilmente iniziano, meritoriamente, a incuriosirsi di temi di policy perchè qualcuno ha parlato loro di determinate questioni facendo appello a valori, a una visione del mondo, a doveri verso la collettività o verso le generazioni future, e così via.
Base etica che col tempo lascerà, almeno per qualcuno, sempre più spazio a una comprensione oggettiva e analitica dei problemi, ma che non potrà mai scomparire del tutto perchè solo con una motivazione etica di base le persone della società civile possono giustificare - innanzittutto con se stesse - il tempo, le energie e a volte il denaro spesi per questioni che non solo non solo personali, ma che assai spesso finiscono in sconfitte (o successi solo parziali).
Testi come quelli di Lauren, quindi, a mio avviso servono allo stesso modo in cui sono sempre serviti discorsi "motivazionali", o di visione generale. Il chè non vuol dire che poi magari la stessa persona non sia capace di pragmatici negoziati in una commissione parlamentare o di produrre un documento oggettivo e ricco di sfumature.
Ma hanno importanza, a seconda del momento e dell'audience, sia gli "I have a dream", sia le analisi pragmatiche.
My 2 cents.
Ciao,
juan carlos
On 1/6/12 10:53 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Perdonatemi il cinismo.
Bellissima (oddio, io la trovo eccessiva, ma "de gustibus"..) retorica, zero pragmatica. In questo modo non si va molto lontano.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti.
JC
Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein<lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. ( http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
-- -- I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it in mind. Twitter: @andreaglorioso Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=1749288&trk=tab_pro
Caro Andrea, I respectfully disagree: un testo, infatti, non può essere tutto contemporaneamente. "I have a dream" (uso questo esempio perchè universalmente noto [1]) non può essere un discorso di ispirazione, intessuto di valori e di speranza, e allo stesso tempo un articolato di proposta di legge sull'integrazione razziale, o un libro bianco sul problema dei neri in Nord-America. E neanche un cauto bilanciamento di pro e di contro di tutti gli aspetti di un problema. E' un discorso politico-etico volto a motivare e a dare un'identità più forte a milioni di persone. Niente di più e niente di meno. Che come genere letterario possa dar fastidio a chi, come te, si confronta con le mille difficoltà del policy making reale, di tutti i giorni, lo capisco e lo rispetto. Ma la politica è fatta anche (e ripeto: _anche_) di discorsi e di testi di quel tipo, che secondo me è politicamente importante che ci siano, altro che "urla al vento". Se poi la poltica si riducesse *solo* a quel genere di comunicazione, è ovvio che non si andrebbe lontano. Ma non credo che nessuno lo sostenga. Ciao, juan carlos On 01/06/12 14:38, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Caro Juan Carlos,
sono d'accordo con te: l'elemento "motivazionale" e` importante. Per questo ho detto che dal punto di vista retorico - termine che ho usato in senso letterale, senza alcun velato intento polemico - il testo di Lauren Weinstein e` ben fatto.
Il problema e` che praticamente le stesse cose le diceva John Perry Barlow in un altro testo di cui riconosco sia la bellezza retorica (d'altronde, come aspettarsi di meno dal paroliere dei Grateful Dead?), sia la semi totale assenza di pragmatica, ovvero la "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace" del 1996. Cioe` 12 anni fa. Con la differenza che 12 anni fa l'impatto di Internet era ben piu` limitato di oggi e dunque tale assenza era da un lato scusabile e dall'altro, tutto sommato, ininfluente.
Ma che dopo 12 anni la "classe intellettuale" di Internet - categoria nella quale includo sia Barlow che Weinstein, senza per questo desumerne che le loro posizioni siano le uniche meritevoli di essere considerate "intellettuali", anzi - si esprima ancora con testi che sono al 99% retorica e all'1% (e mi sento generoso :) pragmatica, mi desta preoccupazione. Perche` significa che non siamo collettivamente ancora riusciti, come societa`, ad uscire del tutto da un paradigma iper-semplificatorio di cosa rappresenti Internet e di come affrontare le innumerevoli contraddizioni che esso genera; incluso l'aspetto "etico" che, mi permetto di osservare, e` ben piu` complesso dell'immagine che Barlow, Weinstein e altri "evangelisti di Internet" amano promuovere.
Per carita`, i paletti, le chiamate alle armi, le visioni escatologiche e salvifiche servono a mobilitare le persone, spesso per fini nobili - ce lo insegna la storia. Cosi` come ci (o almeno mi) insegna che senza un ancoraggio reale nella pragmatica tali visioni possono trasformarsi nel migliore dei casi in urla al vento.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 1:14 PM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Caro Andrea,
non so se tu sia cinico o meno, lo lascio dire a te (ma conoscendoti mi sembra difficile :-)), ma mi sembra che le tue parole tradiscano un quanto meno temporaneo mancato apprezzamento di un aspetto importante della società civile (e, quindi, per esteso, della politica, almeno in democrazie come le nostre).
Mi riferisco in particolare al fatto che molti esseri umani, molti ordinari cittadini si iniziano a interessare di determinati temi di pubblico interesse non perchè fulminati sulla strada di Damasco da, chessò?, un rapporto tecnico BEREC o un foglio di calcolo Eurostat.
Molto più probabilmente iniziano, meritoriamente, a incuriosirsi di temi di policy perchè qualcuno ha parlato loro di determinate questioni facendo appello a valori, a una visione del mondo, a doveri verso la collettività o verso le generazioni future, e così via.
Base etica che col tempo lascerà, almeno per qualcuno, sempre più spazio a una comprensione oggettiva e analitica dei problemi, ma che non potrà mai scomparire del tutto perchè solo con una motivazione etica di base le persone della società civile possono giustificare - innanzittutto con se stesse - il tempo, le energie e a volte il denaro spesi per questioni che non solo non solo personali, ma che assai spesso finiscono in sconfitte (o successi solo parziali).
Testi come quelli di Lauren, quindi, a mio avviso servono allo stesso modo in cui sono sempre serviti discorsi "motivazionali", o di visione generale. Il chè non vuol dire che poi magari la stessa persona non sia capace di pragmatici negoziati in una commissione parlamentare o di produrre un documento oggettivo e ricco di sfumature.
Ma hanno importanza, a seconda del momento e dell'audience, sia gli "I have a dream", sia le analisi pragmatiche.
My 2 cents.
Ciao,
juan carlos
On 1/6/12 10:53 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Perdonatemi il cinismo.
Bellissima (oddio, io la trovo eccessiva, ma "de gustibus"..) retorica, zero pragmatica. In questo modo non si va molto lontano.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti.
JC
Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein<lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. ( http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/martin-luther-kings-speech-dream-full-text/st... On 01/06/12 18:41, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote:
Caro Andrea,
I respectfully disagree: un testo, infatti, non può essere tutto contemporaneamente. "I have a dream" (uso questo esempio perchè universalmente noto [1]) non può essere un discorso di ispirazione, intessuto di valori e di speranza, e allo stesso tempo un articolato di proposta di legge sull'integrazione razziale, o un libro bianco sul problema dei neri in Nord-America. E neanche un cauto bilanciamento di pro e di contro di tutti gli aspetti di un problema. E' un discorso politico-etico volto a motivare e a dare un'identità più forte a milioni di persone. Niente di più e niente di meno.
Che come genere letterario possa dar fastidio a chi, come te, si confronta con le mille difficoltà del policy making reale, di tutti i giorni, lo capisco e lo rispetto.
Ma la politica è fatta anche (e ripeto: _anche_) di discorsi e di testi di quel tipo, che secondo me è politicamente importante che ci siano, altro che "urla al vento".
Se poi la poltica si riducesse *solo* a quel genere di comunicazione, è ovvio che non si andrebbe lontano. Ma non credo che nessuno lo sostenga.
Ciao,
juan carlos
On 01/06/12 14:38, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Caro Juan Carlos,
sono d'accordo con te: l'elemento "motivazionale" e` importante. Per questo ho detto che dal punto di vista retorico - termine che ho usato in senso letterale, senza alcun velato intento polemico - il testo di Lauren Weinstein e` ben fatto.
Il problema e` che praticamente le stesse cose le diceva John Perry Barlow in un altro testo di cui riconosco sia la bellezza retorica (d'altronde, come aspettarsi di meno dal paroliere dei Grateful Dead?), sia la semi totale assenza di pragmatica, ovvero la "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace" del 1996. Cioe` 12 anni fa. Con la differenza che 12 anni fa l'impatto di Internet era ben piu` limitato di oggi e dunque tale assenza era da un lato scusabile e dall'altro, tutto sommato, ininfluente.
Ma che dopo 12 anni la "classe intellettuale" di Internet - categoria nella quale includo sia Barlow che Weinstein, senza per questo desumerne che le loro posizioni siano le uniche meritevoli di essere considerate "intellettuali", anzi - si esprima ancora con testi che sono al 99% retorica e all'1% (e mi sento generoso :) pragmatica, mi desta preoccupazione. Perche` significa che non siamo collettivamente ancora riusciti, come societa`, ad uscire del tutto da un paradigma iper-semplificatorio di cosa rappresenti Internet e di come affrontare le innumerevoli contraddizioni che esso genera; incluso l'aspetto "etico" che, mi permetto di osservare, e` ben piu` complesso dell'immagine che Barlow, Weinstein e altri "evangelisti di Internet" amano promuovere.
Per carita`, i paletti, le chiamate alle armi, le visioni escatologiche e salvifiche servono a mobilitare le persone, spesso per fini nobili - ce lo insegna la storia. Cosi` come ci (o almeno mi) insegna che senza un ancoraggio reale nella pragmatica tali visioni possono trasformarsi nel migliore dei casi in urla al vento.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 1:14 PM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Caro Andrea,
non so se tu sia cinico o meno, lo lascio dire a te (ma conoscendoti mi sembra difficile :-)), ma mi sembra che le tue parole tradiscano un quanto meno temporaneo mancato apprezzamento di un aspetto importante della società civile (e, quindi, per esteso, della politica, almeno in democrazie come le nostre).
Mi riferisco in particolare al fatto che molti esseri umani, molti ordinari cittadini si iniziano a interessare di determinati temi di pubblico interesse non perchè fulminati sulla strada di Damasco da, chessò?, un rapporto tecnico BEREC o un foglio di calcolo Eurostat.
Molto più probabilmente iniziano, meritoriamente, a incuriosirsi di temi di policy perchè qualcuno ha parlato loro di determinate questioni facendo appello a valori, a una visione del mondo, a doveri verso la collettività o verso le generazioni future, e così via.
Base etica che col tempo lascerà, almeno per qualcuno, sempre più spazio a una comprensione oggettiva e analitica dei problemi, ma che non potrà mai scomparire del tutto perchè solo con una motivazione etica di base le persone della società civile possono giustificare - innanzittutto con se stesse - il tempo, le energie e a volte il denaro spesi per questioni che non solo non solo personali, ma che assai spesso finiscono in sconfitte (o successi solo parziali).
Testi come quelli di Lauren, quindi, a mio avviso servono allo stesso modo in cui sono sempre serviti discorsi "motivazionali", o di visione generale. Il chè non vuol dire che poi magari la stessa persona non sia capace di pragmatici negoziati in una commissione parlamentare o di produrre un documento oggettivo e ricco di sfumature.
Ma hanno importanza, a seconda del momento e dell'audience, sia gli "I have a dream", sia le analisi pragmatiche.
My 2 cents.
Ciao,
juan carlos
On 1/6/12 10:53 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Perdonatemi il cinismo.
Bellissima (oddio, io la trovo eccessiva, ma "de gustibus"..) retorica, zero pragmatica. In questo modo non si va molto lontano.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti.
JC
Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein<lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To:nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. (http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com):http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility:http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League:http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog:http://lauren.vortex.com Google+:http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter:http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
_______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
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Caro Juan Carlos, sono completamente d'accordo con te. E' uno dei motivi di fondo che mi spinge a tenere il corso di "Computer Ethics" alla Scuola di Dottorato del Politecnico di Torino ... dove una delle "esercitazioni" e' proprio quella di costruire la "stakeholders' network" di Internet e vedere tutti gli attori coinvolti, le loro relazioni, i loro interessi, i conflitti, i dilemmi etici, etc. ed infine le proposte o indicazioni possibili per i policy-maker, etc. Un caro saluto, Norberto Il 01/06/2012 13:14, J.C. DE MARTIN ha scritto:
Caro Andrea,
non so se tu sia cinico o meno, lo lascio dire a te (ma conoscendoti mi sembra difficile :-)), ma mi sembra che le tue parole tradiscano un quanto meno temporaneo mancato apprezzamento di un aspetto importante della società civile (e, quindi, per esteso, della politica, almeno in democrazie come le nostre).
Mi riferisco in particolare al fatto che molti esseri umani, molti ordinari cittadini si iniziano a interessare di determinati temi di pubblico interesse non perchè fulminati sulla strada di Damasco da, chessò?, un rapporto tecnico BEREC o un foglio di calcolo Eurostat.
Molto più probabilmente iniziano, meritoriamente, a incuriosirsi di temi di policy perchè qualcuno ha parlato loro di determinate questioni facendo appello a valori, a una visione del mondo, a doveri verso la collettività o verso le generazioni future, e così via.
Base etica che col tempo lascerà, almeno per qualcuno, sempre più spazio a una comprensione oggettiva e analitica dei problemi, ma che non potrà mai scomparire del tutto perchè solo con una motivazione etica di base le persone della società civile possono giustificare - innanzittutto con se stesse - il tempo, le energie e a volte il denaro spesi per questioni che non solo non solo personali, ma che assai spesso finiscono in sconfitte (o successi solo parziali).
Testi come quelli di Lauren, quindi, a mio avviso servono allo stesso modo in cui sono sempre serviti discorsi "motivazionali", o di visione generale. Il chè non vuol dire che poi magari la stessa persona non sia capace di pragmatici negoziati in una commissione parlamentare o di produrre un documento oggettivo e ricco di sfumature.
Ma hanno importanza, a seconda del momento e dell'audience, sia gli "I have a dream", sia le analisi pragmatiche.
My 2 cents.
Ciao,
juan carlos
On 1/6/12 10:53 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
Perdonatemi il cinismo.
Bellissima (oddio, io la trovo eccessiva, ma "de gustibus"..) retorica, zero pragmatica. In questo modo non si va molto lontano.
Ciao,
Andrea
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM, J.C. DE MARTIN<demartin@polito.it> wrote:
Memorabile post di Lauren Weinstein, che penso echeggi i pensieri di molti.
JC
Begin forwarded message:
From: Lauren Weinstein<lauren@vortex.com> Date: 01 giugno 2012 02:55:42 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
Saving the Internet, Ourselves, and the Future
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000963.html
Since its birth as the U.S. Department of Defense ARPANET research project, the Internet has faced various threats -- some technical, some in the policy realm, and some purely political.
Recently we've seen the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Make no mistake about it -- the Hollywood content giants have not given up on their desires to reshape the Internet in their own traditional images.
We now face CISPA and its cyber-scaremongering, with cyberwar profiteering threatening to undermine decades of privacy protection legislation.
Everything in the vast repertoire of mankind is finding its way onto the Net in various guises, from wonders sublime and beautiful, to horrors of the most crass and demeaning.
There are marvels of generosity, cooperation and good will to be found all over the Net.
But there is also blatant exploitation by those who see the Internet and its technologies merely as a "gold rush" to be exploited, the best interests of the community at large be damned -- organizations explicitly entrusted with the well-being of the Net sometimes joining the dark side in the enablement of obscene profits.
Our overall unwillingness -- especially as technologists -- to "play the game" the way the "big boys" play has allowed entities with less than admirable motives to gain sway over many aspects of the Net.
In the U.S., net neutrality and service quality have languished as a few dominant ISPs have reached their pinnacles through exploitation of original monopoly grants, cherry picking deployments of broadband, and outright lying to communities -- not to mention outright political chicanery to help kill off effective competition.
We have allowed relatively minor issues such as arguments about Web cookies to become political pawns, diverting us while governments plan and deploy vast schemes to control and censor the Internet, turning the Net from a tool that could greatly enhance individual rights, into a mechanism to muzzle and control.
Fear that efforts to find new, innovative ways to solve the Net's problems might not succeed, have resulted in a continuing panicked embrace of organizations and policies of demonstrated failures, creating ever broadening wedges between the wide variety of Internet stakeholders around the planet.
And now, as the United Nations (UN) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) contemplate a horrific takeover of many aspects of the Internet, we reap what we have sowed through our long complacency and unwillingness to use all tools at our disposal to fight for Internet freedoms. ( http://j.mp/KhOR8m [Vint Cerf Congressional Testimony {PDF}] Lauren's Blog )
We may yet still have time to turn the tide for many of these issues. But every day the odds loom larger against us, and the image of Don Quixote stabbing uselessly at windmills is increasingly difficult to banish from one's mind.
When I started working on the ARPANET decades ago, most of the other students at UCLA were confined to using keypunches and IBM punch cards.
I've watched as computational power that used to fill rooms has been vastly outstripped by a tiny box hanging on my belt, and even smaller devices still.
Communications capabilities hardly even dreamed of decades ago are now commonplace. Even the masters of classical science fiction mostly had a blind spot to coming technological magic like smartphones and other personal communications devices.
To see so much of what we have jointly created being put at risk today, for the sake of government suppression and the almighty dollar, is frankly nothing short of being quintessentially depressing.
I'm not one of those persons who had an organized "plan" for my life. I never intended to become deeply involved in technology policy issues as I am now, and I morphed into that role gradually from a more traditional code hacking environment.
In retrospect, I might well have been happier if I had stayed more completely in the software engineering realm. Conceptual "satisfaction" seems much easier to derive from deployed system metrics than from seemingly intractable public policy dilemmas.
And yet, one does what one can, and I've endeavored to be scrupulously honest in the process. Over the years my various attempts at commentary and analysis have at one time or another upset just about all points on the spectrum. Perhaps this means I've struck an appropriate balance in the long run. Perhaps it means I struck out entirely. All I've ever tried to do in these regards is call the issues as I see them, suggest where I thought matters were awry and how they might be improved, and let folks make their own judgments.
But as the saying goes, all that plus a dollar will buy you a cup of cheap coffee these days.
The future will look back on what we're doing now -- right now -- towards protecting Internet freedoms. They may peer back with gratitude for what we achieved, or they may curse us in our graves for opportunities lost.
That aspect of the future is still ultimately under our control, today.
I grew up along with the Internet, and I like to think helping it in my own small ways -- watching it evolve into the technology infrastructure and communications foundation of the world.
We are now at a moment, a crossroad in history and time, where the decisions we make about the Internet, and its importance to our lives and freedoms, will have lasting effects for many years, decades, or perhaps far longer.
Will the Internet be sucked completely into the pit of oppression, censorship, and greed, or will we have the moral fortitude to say, "No! Not to our Internet. Not to what we worked so long and hard to achieve in the name of freedom, humanity, and community."
Quixotic or not, the quest for the best possible Internet for everyone is an effort in which I've been honored to be engaged. To lose this battle, this war, is potentially to lose so much else that will matter to your children, and to their children, and potentially to many more generations yet to come.
It's about so much more than bits and bytes, disks and fiber, CPUs and JavaScript. The Internet is humanity. We are the Internet.
If we lose the Internet, we lose ourselves.
Take care, all. And thanks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - 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 Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
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participants (3)
-
Andrea Glorioso -
J.C. DE MARTIN -
Norberto Patrignani