Daily Archives: December 19, 2010

“Net neutrality” — now that would be a good idea.

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Dave Winer’s post about Net Neutrality reminded me of the story about Mahatma Gandhi arriving at Tilbury Docks in London and being asked by a reporter what he thought of Western Civilisation. “Ah”, said the Mahatma, thoughtfully. “Western civilisation — now that would be a good idea.”

The idea is that the transport layer, operated by telephone companies and cable companies, must transport all bits across their lines at the same rate and cost. Nice idea, but it’s hypocritical to demand that of their vendors when they don’t provide it to their users. For some reason they are never called on this hypocrisy by the tech press.

At the PDFleaks conference in NYC last Saturday I said that after Amazon booted WikiLeaks from EC2 that signaled very clearly that there is no such thing as net neutrality. Here’s a service provider, very analogous to Comcast and Verizon, that decided it wasn’t in its economic interest to carry a user’s bits. It wasn’t just about the level or cost of the service, they cut them off totally. Without adequate explanation of why. Saying they were doing something illegal is no explanation at all. That’s not for Amazon to decide, that’s for the courts. Due process is required to prove that something illegal is happening. And many legal experts believe that there’s nothing illegal about WikiLeaks.

Yep. That’s why one of the long-term implications of the WikiLeaks row will be a re-evaluation of the value and risks of cloud computing.

Biden loses it

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I blogged yesterday about the contradictory hysteria implicit in the Obama Administration’s reaction to WikiLeaks. But it turns out that Vice-President Biden’s remarks on Meet the Press were even more absurd than we had been led to believe.

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, today likened the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to a “high-tech terrorist”, the strongest criticism yet from the Obama administration.

Biden claimed that Assange has put lives at risk and made it more difficult for the US to conduct its business around the world.

His description of Assange shows a level of irritation that contrasts with more sanguine comments from other senior figures in the White House, who said the leak of diplomatic cables has not done serious damage.

Interviewed on NBC’s Meet the Press, Biden was asked if the administration could prevent further leaks, as Assange warned last week. “We are looking at that right now. The justice department is taking a look at that,” Biden said, without elaborating.

It’s interesting, also, to see how Obama has been keeping out of this — so far, anyway. But if he thinks that the muck raked by Biden won’t stick to him, he’s wrong.

Quote of the Day

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You know those state occasions when important people feel they must impose a minutes silence on everyone? Do they realize this is a copyright infringement of the first 60 seconds of John Cage’s 4’33”? I think this should be enforced, along with Happy Birthday, and other mickey mouse intellectual property.

Jon Crowcroft

What’s a ‘book’ then?

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This morning’s Observer column.

These two developments – the Economist’s app and Eagleman’s ‘book’ – ought to serve as a wake-up call for the print publishing industry. The success of Amazon’s Kindle has, I think, lulled print publishers into a false sense of security. After all, they’re thinking, the stuff that goes on the Kindle is just text. It may not be created by squeezing dyes on to processed wood-pulp, but it’s still text. And that’s something we’re good at. So no need to panic. Amazon may be a pain to deal with, but the Kindle and its ilk will see us through.

If that’s really what publishers are thinking, then they’re in for some nasty surprises. The concept of a ‘book’ will change under the pressure of iPad-type devices, just as concepts of what constitutes a magazine or a newspaper are already changing…