First major book on ICANN?
MIT Press has published Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace, a new book by Milton Mueller, ICANNWatch.org editor and director of the graduate program in telecommunications and network management at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. Salon’s Andrew Leonard’s review provides a brief yet illuminating narrative description of ICANN’s relatively short history and its current challenges.
Nice quote from Francis Bacon about the difficulty of explaining complex stuff to a bemused public
” Those whose conceits are seated in popular opinions, need only but to prove or dispute; but those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labor: the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate. So that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and translations [that is, metaphors] to express themselves.”
How broadband connections change online life
New report from Pew Internet Project.
24 million Americans have high-speed access at home and they use the Internet in dramatically different ways from dial-up users
Americans with high-speed Internet connections at home are strikingly different from dial-up Internet users in three ways:
First, they use their broadband connections to create content that they post online and they share many of their files with other Internet users. All told, 59% of broadband users have created content such as their own Web sites or shared their files with others online.
Second, the range of their online world is much greater than dial-up users. Broadband users have done substantially more Internet activities than dial-up users such as getting news, purchasing products, checking for health information, accessing government Web sites, doing work-related research, and pursuing their hobbies.
Third, a typical broadband user performs an average of seven Internet activities on any given day, more than twice the number of a typical dial-up user. The ‘always-on’ aspect of the Internet connection is as important to them as the speed of it.
A new survey of home broadband users by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that the act of getting high-speed Internet access changes Americans’ online behavior: They spend more time online, do more things, and do them more often than dial-up Internet users. They also high levels of satisfaction with the way the Internet helps them connect to family and friends, learn new things, pursue their hobbies, do their jobs, and connect to local organizations.
Access to these new Internet experiences also changes the way people spend their time. Many report that they spend less time watching television, less time shopping in stores, less time working at their offices, less time reading newspapers, and more time working at home.
The Project’s report, called ‘The Broadband Difference’, also finds that home high-speed Internet adoption is steadily growing, with 12% of all Americans — 24 million people — now enjoying broadband in the home; this is 21% of all U.S. adult Internet users and it is up from 6 million home broadband users that the Project first tracking in June 2000.
‘When people get an always on, high-speed connection, they treat the Internet as a “go to” tool for a wide range of information and communication needs’, said Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. ‘The most elite users have clearly adopted a broadband lifestyle that is built around finding, generating, and manipulating digital content. They are shaping the character of the online world every day.’
Some highlights from the survey of 507 broadband users conducted between January 29 and February 20 this year (the margin of error is plus or minus four points):
* 39% of broadband users have at one time or another created online content, by building or adding material to Web sites, posting comments or material to online bulletin boards, or creating an online diary. Some 16% of broadband users create content on a typical day.
* 43% of broadband users share files from the computers with other Internet users. Some 17% of broadband users do this on a typical day.
* 63% of broadband users have downloaded games, videos, or pictures, and half having downloaded music. About one in five do these things on a typical day.
* 49% of broadband users access some kind of multimedia content during a typical day online such as streaming videos or audio or playing games.
* Broadband users spend about 95 minutes online on the average day compared to 83 minutes for dial-up users. Fully 82% of broadband users are online on the average day compared with 58% of dial-up users.
* 55% of broadband users have networked all the computers in their homes so they all have access to the high-speed connection.
* One third of broadband users telecommute.
‘Broadband users drive both in both directions on the information superhighway,’ said John B. Horrigan, Senior Research Specialist with the Pew Internet Project. ‘With their tendencies to create and post online content, they value not only fast uploading speeds, but also an open Internet. This allows them to reach the widest audience for their content and gives them the greatest range of sources to satisfy their voracious appetite for information.’
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a nonpartisan, independent research organization funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to study the impact of the Internet on families, communities, health care, education, civic and political life, and the work place.
For the full report see: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=63
Steven Levy’s scoop on the Microsoft Palladium project.
Standfirst reads:”An exclusive first look at Microsoft’s ambitious-and risky-plan to remake the personal computer to ensure security, privacy and intellectual property rights. Will you buy it? “
Sounds to me like Gates and Intel want to do Fritz Hollings’ dirty work for him, by pitching security as the upside. Or, as The Register puts it,
“According to Levy, Palladium is a hardware and software combination that will supposedly seal information from attackers, block viruses and worms, eliminate spam, and allow users to control their personal information even after it leaves their computer. It will also implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) for movies and music to allow users to exercise ‘fair use’ rights of such products. Palladium will essentially create a proprietary computing environment where Microsoft is the trusted gatekeeper, guard, watchstander, and ruler of all it surveys, thus turning the majority of computing users into unwilling corporate serfs and subjects of the Redmond Regime. ”
Mystery about Dave Winer’s health solved
“OK, here’s the deal. I did not have a heart attack, but it was close. I had bypass surgery, which I am now recovering from. It was my fault — I had classic warning signs that I ignored. No family history of heart disease. Most important — I wanted to keep smoking. The numbers are good if I quit smoking. If I don’t the numbers are totally awful. “
Phew! What with Dave suddenly going offline and Quentin moving house, there’s been precious little to read around here.
Reading this piece by Stewart Alsop I had the thought that TiVo+broadband = a P2P system for television content. But when I got to the end of the article, it seemed that Alsop had backed off the idea. Or maybe he just didn’t see it? But the phrase “file-served television” is good.
Intriguing review of new book on network thinking.
The book is Linked: The New Science of Networks by Elbert-Laszlo Barabasi. This “NYT” review was good enough to make me order it from Amazon anyway. Quote:
“The extensions of Professor Barabasi’s thinking go in many directions. What caused Cisco Systems and other technology companies that outsource much of their production to be so clobbered in 2000 and 2001? Cisco, in particular, had bragged that its Internet-based supply chain meant that it would never be surprised by having too much inventory. But, Professor Barabasi writes, Cisco did not understand network effects and had to pay for billions of dollars’ worth of components in its extended supply chain; oddly, Cisco, the master of the network, didn’t think in network terms.”
ISOC warns about threats to the Net
The Internet’s potential for promoting expression and empowering citizens is under threat from corporate and government policies that clash with the medium’s long-standing culture of openness, some leading Internet thinkers warned.
At the annual Internet Society conference this week in Arlington, the engineers who built the Internet and many of the policymakers who follow its development urged caution as governments try to exert control and businesses look to maximize profits.
“We’re at a turning point in the evolution of the Internet,” said William J. Drake, a fellow at the University of Maryland. A wrong turn means “robbing it of its real democratic potential.”
Vint Cerf, co-developer of the Internet’s basic communications protocols, worries that big, traditional businesses could gain unprecedented control through manipulating the high-speed services that are delivered over cable and phone networks.
Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it.
“That leads to a lot of peculiar effects,” he said. Two people “could each receive high-quality video but can’t send it. They can’t have high-quality videoconferencing.” [ more…]
Useful summary of current state of play on access to personal data under RIPA
So why did the government back off the proposal for extending surveillance powers under the RIP Act?
Interesting piece in Stand arguing that one important factor was the volume of email and faxes to MPs by cyber-activists worried about online liberties. Quote:
“As most of you will already have heard, the government has backed down from the RIP s22 Order that would have given access to traffic data to dozens of government departments. We thought you’d like to know that this U-turn was largely down to you. The FaxYourMP folk say that they relayed 1789 faxes from last monday, and estimate that around 1600 of those were related to the s22 RIP Order. That means that, on average, every MP received at least two messages expressing concern over the measure. We’ve received mail from constituents saying that their Member of Parliament called them directly to discuss the issue. We’ve had MPs mail us with advice. We’ve had TV companies and newspapers contact us after they’d been hassled by their readers and viewers. We’ve even had MPs writing letters to constituents explaining, mournfully, that there was nothing they could do – and then had their own voters explain to them how to attend Standing Committee debates, and who to get in contact with others to help fight this order. Ah, those apathetic votees. ”