8 ms·

The Internet Should Be a Public Good

60 points by borkborkbork 10y ago

okket 10y ago
Most relevant Internet bodies are noncommercial organisations, like ICANN, IETF, RIPE, ARIN, APNIC, AFNIC, LACNIC, the various Internet exchanges (xxCIX), some DNS registrars are noncommercial too. But someone has to run the actual cables, manage customers, host servers, etc. I'd say the Internet has a very good balance between commercial interests and the noncommercial "public good". So good in fact, that some very restrictive governments choose to opt out and create nationwide intranets (China, Iran, ...)
- borkborkbork 10y ago
  China and Russia are doing this largely to avoid Western cultural and political influence. Their choice to opt out does not necessarily imply that we're structuring our networks in the most just or efficient way.
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    It does imply that we are structuring our networks in a way that doesn't have the capabilities for restriction that they would like.
    - borkborkbork 10y ago
      That's correct. We don't enforce restrictions on political speech or deviant pornography, for the most part. But we do enforce intellectual property restrictions that largely benefit Western corporate interests.
  - okket 10y ago
    To me it is a testament for the resilience and sane architecture of the Internet as we know it that restrictive governments can not achieve their goal without changing the underlying structure of their part to a central controlled version. Other technologies like the radio or telephone were centralised by default, so much more "dictatorship friendly".
    - borkborkbork 10y ago
      The U.S. government seems to have no trouble achieving its commercial and surveillance goals under the current architecture.
      - okket 10y ago
        Really? I only hear western governments whining that encryption threaten their surveillance powers [1][2]. [1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf160/comey-fbi-wants-adult-conversation-device-encryption http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/24/12621834/france-germany-encryption-terorrism-eu-telegram http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/24/12621834/france-germany-en...
        borkborkbork 10y ago
        Your argument assumes it's not within their power to end this threat. In fact, the Senate proposed a bill that does just that [1]. There's nothing inherent to the current architecture that prevents the government from compelling companies to do their bidding. We've seen that time and time again with NSA surveillance. The crux of this article is that the Internet was largely funded by the public, then handed over to an oligopoly of telecoms in the 1990's. There's nothing about this arrangement that protects average users. In fact, it is partially responsible for the U.S. having the slowest average broadband speeds of any industrialized nation [2]. [1] http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/encryption-backdoors-legislation-richard-burr-diane-feinstein/ http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/encryption-backdoors-legislat... [2] http://gizmodo.com/why-americas-internet-is-so-shitty-and-slow-1686173744 http://gizmodo.com/why-americas-internet-is-so-shitty-and-sl...
- badsock 10y ago
  In BC, Canada the provision of electricity and water are by provincial/municipal governments, have very similiar requirements in terms of running wires/pipes, and in my experience have delivered much better services. They don't constantly try to gouge me. I've had to call their support lines maybe a few times my entire life (as opposed to many tens of times for telcos). And I really don't see how sending bits could be more difficult than delivering high voltage or pressurized water.
  - zdw 10y ago
    This is exactly right. Most services that lend themselves to a natural monopoly (because most people only really need one power/water/phone/internet line to their house/business) should be implemented as a publicly run infrastructure with value added ISP's on the end. The current vertical integration of internet providers impedes any new competition. Arguing for integration is like saying that all roads should be owned by the "Road Company" that also happens to be the "Car Company" and you can only use an expensive car you bought from them on their road.
    - wonder_er 10y ago
      > The current vertical integration of internet providers impedes any new competition Wouldn't the government owning the service be the ultimate impediment to new competition? I'm not defending ISPs, but lets not too quickly throw them under the bus. Also, your casual throw-away comment: > Most services that lend themselves to a natural monopoly ... should be implemented as a publicly run infrastructure Requires the government forcibly taking over quite a few large companies. That's a weighty request, and would be exactly the opposite of what we should want to see in the world.
      - damptowel 10y ago
        > Requires the government forcibly taking over quite a few large companies. That's a weighty request, and would be exactly the opposite of what we should want to see in the world. Yet this is exactly what happened in developed countries in the 20th century, now many of these are again privatized with the predictable loss of efficiency and increased bureaucracy (supporting frameworks, arbitrage, watchdogs, etc...). In my country the privatization of public transit and energy companies has been a total disaster. I remember when I could get things done without being pingponged between 12 different parties, things that used to take a day now take weeks.
notliketherest 10y ago
The internet already is a public good.
- SteveNuts 10y ago
  How so?
tptacek 10y ago
This rosey view of the public-funded Internet ignores the reality of the network at the time. As recently as the mid-1990s, the entire Internet could netsplit, like a badly-run IRC network; there was a run of a couple days where commercial sites (like Ripco, my first ISP) couldn't reach any .EDU sites. Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it. Not just the backhaul connections they install at enormous expense, not just the hundreds of millions of dollars of switches and routers, but the very peering centers and agreements that allow different networks to interoperate. Had UUNet been forbidden from building "private" backbones, they'd have simply built a new IP network, and we'd all be using that instead.
- borkborkbork 10y ago
  Are you saying that this couldn't have been accomplished by a public utility? Or that these companies have produced better outcomes? We made the choice to hand over the existing backbone that took decades and billions of dollars to build.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Yes, I'm saying this would not have been accomplished by a public utility. I don't know what "hand over the existing backbone" means. Verizon's network consists of optical backhaul links, terminations, and a switching infrastructure that they spent billions to build over decades. They didn't inherit it, and I don't believe UUNet inherited their DS3s and AGS+'s in the 90s, either.
    - borkborkbork 10y ago
      They inherited NSFNET, which emerged from ARPANET. It's in the article.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        That's not what the article says. The article, by the way, generates the same question your last comment did: what does it even mean to "inherit" the backbone? Does it mean "be allowed to interconnect with"? That's a pretty counterintuitive definition of "inheritance".
wyager 10y ago
Internet is a public good => government claims general regulatory powers over what goes through the Internet. No thank you.
- falcolas 10y ago
  As compared to a private company claiming regulatory powers with no oversight? If Facebook owns the internet, Facebook decides what is on the internet. If icann owns domain registration with no regulation, icann decides who gets a domain (as well as the power to strip domains from their current owners). And who can stop them? Some other company offering competing root DNS servers? I don't see how that could ever work. For better or worse, the internet operates strongly on the concept of a central root authority. Root DNS servers. Root Certificates. Centralized distribution of IPs. If those central authorities have no regulation or oversight, they can and will shape the internet to their whims.
  - pnathan 10y ago
    in a nutshell, you and OP have summed up the problems. Neither solution is terribely awesome, and we - society - needs to find a balance and appropriate governance for the system.
  - wyager 10y ago
    Why in the world do you think DNS is the issue? If you're worried about that, look at Namecoin. This is a solved problem. The issue is that the government, given sufficient regulatory power, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened in the UK.
    - falcolas 10y ago
      Let me paraphrase your own comment in response. The issue is that the corporations, given no regulation, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened on Facebook. Censorship is not purely the domain of the government. At least there are checks and balances on a government's power (as ineffectual and slow as they may be); save for the morals of a company's leadership team, there are no checks or balances on a corporations actions without regulation. > look at Namecoin. This is a solved problem. Most excellent. How do I give my mother a namecoin domain and have her visit their webpages? If it involves "download X from namecoin.org", you're already in trouble, since that's already relying on DNS. If we get past that, and the namecoin wallet needs to bootstrap itself - does it also use DNS? If it involves changing system configurations, period, it also won't work, since I've taught my mother to never to do that (she lacks the technical knowledge to add nuance to the restriction).
wonder_er 10y ago
From the article: > It’s precisely the insulation from market forces that enables government to finance the long-term scientific labor that ends up producing many of the most profitable inventions. It's this insulation that allows the government to waste billions and trillions on everything. Innovation requires smart people and money. Neither of which the government can provide except by taking from the population as a whole. Therefore, the government is entirely unnecessary in the process, and usually quite counterproductive.
- wfo 10y ago
  Sure, I'd characterize the creation of the internet as a "waste" as well, I say while typing a message on it. Similarly the social security and medicare that allows our grandparents to continue to live without bankrupting us, or forcing us to watch them die. Similarly the healthcare that stops poor people from dying on the street or robbing/killing you and your family out of desperation, and the police that protect your wealth, and the roads you drove on to get to work today, and the regulatory bodies that ensured your car isn't an explosive deathtrap and that you didn't keel over and die this afternoon from the meat in the sandwich you ate for lunch. All wastes. Almost all valuable research cannot be supported by a profit motive; it does not pay off in any reasonable timeline. It is always done by a group with a huge amount of money to waste, like Google, AT&T in the past, the U.S. government. The market is as terrible at creating new and relevant research as it is at creating art. It is an optimization machine that finds local maxima and it is very good at that. The government is literally made of smart people and money.
  - wonder_er 10y ago
    > Almost all valuable research cannot be supported by a profit motive I disagree entirely. Only a profit motive can support valuable research. We obviously see the world differently, but would probably get along just great if we were spending time together, so - help me understand your perspectives a bit better. What book or author would you recommend, who makes a strong case for your point of view? I'll give it a read. Thanks!
Kalium 10y ago
> In return, the government demanded nothing: no compensation, and no constraints or conditions over how the Internet would take shape. This isn't true. The US gov can and has put its thumb on the scale and used its position in the past. The .xxx TLD springs to mind. As is so often true, Jacobin ignores history as experienced by the rest of us in favor of their preferred narrative.
jachin 10y ago
Maybe this is nip-picky, but I don't think the author knows what "public good" actually is. I'm referring to economic definition of "public good" which is quite interesting, if you aren't familiar with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good I don't think there's another definition. Is there? Maybe the author didn't pick the title, but he misused the term in the article too.

60 points by borkborkbork 10y ago

okket 10y ago

Most relevant Internet bodies are noncommercial organisations, like ICANN, IETF, RIPE, ARIN, APNIC, AFNIC, LACNIC, the various Internet exchanges (xxCIX), some DNS registrars are noncommercial too. But someone has to run the actual cables, manage customers, host servers, etc. I'd say the Internet has a very good balance between commercial interests and the noncommercial "public good". So good in fact, that some very restrictive governments choose to opt out and create nationwide intranets (China, Iran, ...)

borkborkbork 10y ago
China and Russia are doing this largely to avoid Western cultural and political influence. Their choice to opt out does not necessarily imply that we're structuring our networks in the most just or efficient way.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  It does imply that we are structuring our networks in a way that doesn't have the capabilities for restriction that they would like.
  - borkborkbork 10y ago
    That's correct. We don't enforce restrictions on political speech or deviant pornography, for the most part. But we do enforce intellectual property restrictions that largely benefit Western corporate interests.
- okket 10y ago
  To me it is a testament for the resilience and sane architecture of the Internet as we know it that restrictive governments can not achieve their goal without changing the underlying structure of their part to a central controlled version. Other technologies like the radio or telephone were centralised by default, so much more "dictatorship friendly".
  - borkborkbork 10y ago
    The U.S. government seems to have no trouble achieving its commercial and surveillance goals under the current architecture.
    - okket 10y ago
      Really? I only hear western governments whining that encryption threaten their surveillance powers [1][2]. [1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf160/comey-fbi-wants-adult-conversation-device-encryption http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/24/12621834/france-germany-encryption-terorrism-eu-telegram http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/24/12621834/france-germany-en...
      - borkborkbork 10y ago
        Your argument assumes it's not within their power to end this threat. In fact, the Senate proposed a bill that does just that [1]. There's nothing inherent to the current architecture that prevents the government from compelling companies to do their bidding. We've seen that time and time again with NSA surveillance. The crux of this article is that the Internet was largely funded by the public, then handed over to an oligopoly of telecoms in the 1990's. There's nothing about this arrangement that protects average users. In fact, it is partially responsible for the U.S. having the slowest average broadband speeds of any industrialized nation [2]. [1] http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/encryption-backdoors-legislation-richard-burr-diane-feinstein/ http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/encryption-backdoors-legislat... [2] http://gizmodo.com/why-americas-internet-is-so-shitty-and-slow-1686173744 http://gizmodo.com/why-americas-internet-is-so-shitty-and-sl...
badsock 10y ago
In BC, Canada the provision of electricity and water are by provincial/municipal governments, have very similiar requirements in terms of running wires/pipes, and in my experience have delivered much better services. They don't constantly try to gouge me. I've had to call their support lines maybe a few times my entire life (as opposed to many tens of times for telcos). And I really don't see how sending bits could be more difficult than delivering high voltage or pressurized water.
- zdw 10y ago
  This is exactly right. Most services that lend themselves to a natural monopoly (because most people only really need one power/water/phone/internet line to their house/business) should be implemented as a publicly run infrastructure with value added ISP's on the end. The current vertical integration of internet providers impedes any new competition. Arguing for integration is like saying that all roads should be owned by the "Road Company" that also happens to be the "Car Company" and you can only use an expensive car you bought from them on their road.
  - wonder_er 10y ago
    > The current vertical integration of internet providers impedes any new competition Wouldn't the government owning the service be the ultimate impediment to new competition? I'm not defending ISPs, but lets not too quickly throw them under the bus. Also, your casual throw-away comment: > Most services that lend themselves to a natural monopoly ... should be implemented as a publicly run infrastructure Requires the government forcibly taking over quite a few large companies. That's a weighty request, and would be exactly the opposite of what we should want to see in the world.
    - damptowel 10y ago
      > Requires the government forcibly taking over quite a few large companies. That's a weighty request, and would be exactly the opposite of what we should want to see in the world. Yet this is exactly what happened in developed countries in the 20th century, now many of these are again privatized with the predictable loss of efficiency and increased bureaucracy (supporting frameworks, arbitrage, watchdogs, etc...). In my country the privatization of public transit and energy companies has been a total disaster. I remember when I could get things done without being pingponged between 12 different parties, things that used to take a day now take weeks.

notliketherest 10y ago

The internet already is a public good.

SteveNuts 10y ago
How so?

tptacek 10y ago

This rosey view of the public-funded Internet ignores the reality of the network at the time. As recently as the mid-1990s, the entire Internet could netsplit, like a badly-run IRC network; there was a run of a couple days where commercial sites (like Ripco, my first ISP) couldn't reach any .EDU sites. Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it. Not just the backhaul connections they install at enormous expense, not just the hundreds of millions of dollars of switches and routers, but the very peering centers and agreements that allow different networks to interoperate. Had UUNet been forbidden from building "private" backbones, they'd have simply built a new IP network, and we'd all be using that instead.

borkborkbork 10y ago
Are you saying that this couldn't have been accomplished by a public utility? Or that these companies have produced better outcomes? We made the choice to hand over the existing backbone that took decades and billions of dollars to build.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Yes, I'm saying this would not have been accomplished by a public utility. I don't know what "hand over the existing backbone" means. Verizon's network consists of optical backhaul links, terminations, and a switching infrastructure that they spent billions to build over decades. They didn't inherit it, and I don't believe UUNet inherited their DS3s and AGS+'s in the 90s, either.
  - borkborkbork 10y ago
    They inherited NSFNET, which emerged from ARPANET. It's in the article.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That's not what the article says. The article, by the way, generates the same question your last comment did: what does it even mean to "inherit" the backbone? Does it mean "be allowed to interconnect with"? That's a pretty counterintuitive definition of "inheritance".

wyager 10y ago

Internet is a public good => government claims general regulatory powers over what goes through the Internet. No thank you.

falcolas 10y ago
As compared to a private company claiming regulatory powers with no oversight? If Facebook owns the internet, Facebook decides what is on the internet. If icann owns domain registration with no regulation, icann decides who gets a domain (as well as the power to strip domains from their current owners). And who can stop them? Some other company offering competing root DNS servers? I don't see how that could ever work. For better or worse, the internet operates strongly on the concept of a central root authority. Root DNS servers. Root Certificates. Centralized distribution of IPs. If those central authorities have no regulation or oversight, they can and will shape the internet to their whims.
- pnathan 10y ago
  in a nutshell, you and OP have summed up the problems. Neither solution is terribely awesome, and we - society - needs to find a balance and appropriate governance for the system.
- wyager 10y ago
  Why in the world do you think DNS is the issue? If you're worried about that, look at Namecoin. This is a solved problem. The issue is that the government, given sufficient regulatory power, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened in the UK.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    Let me paraphrase your own comment in response. The issue is that the corporations, given no regulation, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened on Facebook. Censorship is not purely the domain of the government. At least there are checks and balances on a government's power (as ineffectual and slow as they may be); save for the morals of a company's leadership team, there are no checks or balances on a corporations actions without regulation. > look at Namecoin. This is a solved problem. Most excellent. How do I give my mother a namecoin domain and have her visit their webpages? If it involves "download X from namecoin.org", you're already in trouble, since that's already relying on DNS. If we get past that, and the namecoin wallet needs to bootstrap itself - does it also use DNS? If it involves changing system configurations, period, it also won't work, since I've taught my mother to never to do that (she lacks the technical knowledge to add nuance to the restriction).

wonder_er 10y ago

From the article: > It’s precisely the insulation from market forces that enables government to finance the long-term scientific labor that ends up producing many of the most profitable inventions. It's this insulation that allows the government to waste billions and trillions on everything. Innovation requires smart people and money. Neither of which the government can provide except by taking from the population as a whole. Therefore, the government is entirely unnecessary in the process, and usually quite counterproductive.

wfo 10y ago
Sure, I'd characterize the creation of the internet as a "waste" as well, I say while typing a message on it. Similarly the social security and medicare that allows our grandparents to continue to live without bankrupting us, or forcing us to watch them die. Similarly the healthcare that stops poor people from dying on the street or robbing/killing you and your family out of desperation, and the police that protect your wealth, and the roads you drove on to get to work today, and the regulatory bodies that ensured your car isn't an explosive deathtrap and that you didn't keel over and die this afternoon from the meat in the sandwich you ate for lunch. All wastes. Almost all valuable research cannot be supported by a profit motive; it does not pay off in any reasonable timeline. It is always done by a group with a huge amount of money to waste, like Google, AT&T in the past, the U.S. government. The market is as terrible at creating new and relevant research as it is at creating art. It is an optimization machine that finds local maxima and it is very good at that. The government is literally made of smart people and money.
- wonder_er 10y ago
  > Almost all valuable research cannot be supported by a profit motive I disagree entirely. Only a profit motive can support valuable research. We obviously see the world differently, but would probably get along just great if we were spending time together, so - help me understand your perspectives a bit better. What book or author would you recommend, who makes a strong case for your point of view? I'll give it a read. Thanks!

Kalium 10y ago

> In return, the government demanded nothing: no compensation, and no constraints or conditions over how the Internet would take shape. This isn't true. The US gov can and has put its thumb on the scale and used its position in the past. The .xxx TLD springs to mind. As is so often true, Jacobin ignores history as experienced by the rest of us in favor of their preferred narrative.

jachin 10y ago

Maybe this is nip-picky, but I don't think the author knows what "public good" actually is. I'm referring to economic definition of "public good" which is quite interesting, if you aren't familiar with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good I don't think there's another definition. Is there? Maybe the author didn't pick the title, but he misused the term in the article too.