The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution | The Economist.
This issue of The Economist contains an excellent overview of the Net Neutrality issue. It would be a great resource for anyone who wants to get up to speed on the issue (or to pass along to friends). They address it primarily from the standpoint of the fragmentation of the Internet, and give current examples like international domain names and closed applications to support their point. They back it up with an oft-forgotten historical point:
Devotees of a unified cyberspace are worried that the online world will soon start looking as it did before the internet took over: a collection of more or less connected proprietary islands reminiscent of AOL and CompuServe.
International examples also show how we approach the issue much differently than the rest of the world.
It is telling that net neutrality has become far more politically controversial in America than it has elsewhere. This is a reflection of the relative lack of competition in America’s broadband market. In Europe and Japan, “open access” rules require network operators to lease parts of their networks to other firms on a wholesale basis, thus boosting competition.
Things close with Zittrain’s argument that a more closed internet might harm innovation.
Should the network become a collection of proprietary islands accessed by devices controlled remotely by their vendors, the internet would lose much of its “generativity”, warns Harvard’s Mr Zittrain.
Props to the Economist for such a clearly written, accessible piece on this important issue.
In my day job as an instructional technology support guy I hear (and make) the occasional complaint about the technologies we use at our institution. Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about the new “Saved Successfully” alert banner that appears in Desire2Learn (D2L) version 9. Since it’s slowing people down (myself included), I thought it was worth putting together a user stylesheet to alter its display.
Note: this is a bit of a geeky hack. It looks right on my screen but might not on yours. You’ve been warned!
Firefox or Chrome
Go to http://userstyles.org/ and install the extension for the browser you use most (you will need to restart your browser). You can then visit this page http://userstyles.org/styles/36309 and Install with Stylish. You will then need to edit the style to include your institutions address. On Firefox, this means making sure your status bar is displayed, clicking the icon to manage styles, and change “Your Domain” to be the right “d2l.address.edu” for your institution (this can also be done on install with the “Switch to edit” button. Chrome users can edit the domain under Window > Extensions > Stylish > Edit by adding the address under “Applies to.”
You may also alter the numbers here to fit your institutions Navigation better.
Safari
Go to http://code.grid.in.th/ to Download and Install the extension. You can then add the userstyle by right-clicking on any page and and selecting “Manage user CSS.” Enter your institution’s D2L address, being sure to include /* at the end. Add this bit under Styles and save.
.d_ma_s {width: 30% !important;margin:25px 0px 0px 400px !important;}
Internet Explorer
IE 7 Pro users may have some luck installing a user script from http://userstyles.org/styles/36309 (I couldn’t test this). Most IE users need to use a single custom stylesheet, which can be activated by using these directions.
I’m interested in feedback!
If there are tweaks that would make this more generalizable, please let me know in the comments.
10 Rules for Radicals: Lessons from rogue archivist Carl Malamud – Boing Boing
I can’t recommend this enough for anyone interested in Internet history, politics, hardware, or law.
Rogue archivist Carl Malamud’s 10 Rules for Radicals is the transcript of his keynote at the 19th World Wide Web Consortium conference in 2010. It’s a thrilling and often hilarious account of his adventures in liberating different kids of information and networks from various bureaucracies in his storied and exciting career. Malamud has instigated the liberation of American law, the Blue Book describing the workings of the telephone system, the EDGAR database, the video archives of the National Technical Information Service, and many others.
I couldn’t have said this any better myself.
Now that we’re going from wired to wireless, these same folks don’t want “the open Web” to happen to them again all over again. If they have to compete in an open marketplace, with the best applications and services on neutral ground, well, they’ll just be consigned, once again, to a commodity service layer with low margins. That’s their greatest nightmare.
Be sure to check out this short but insightful post: AT&T Weighs In: Trust Us, We Know What You Want – John Battelle’s Searchblog.
Google released the details of their talks with Verizon (Google Public Policy Blog: A joint policy proposal for an open Internet). On the whole their proposal doesn’t sound all that bad. There is, however, one potentially dangerous point:
Fifth, we want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation. Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services such as Verizon’s FIOS TV offered today.
At a glance, this sounds perfectly reasonable. Yet, what this might effectively do is create a system of multiple networks–or multiple internets. One of the greatest strengths of the Internet is the fact that it’s one big happy network (though admittedly less happy along the backbone where peering can be problematic). Assuming that these innovative networks interconnect with the greater internet, we may end up right back where we started: with companies that run the wires in ways that are best for the bottom line. I’m not that convinced that’s the best way to run the network.
Edit: Looks as though I largely agree with Public Knowledge’s take on the situation.
