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[FYI] Bill Thompson [BBC] will Internet abschaffen - "How to control what is online"
[Waehrend Lawrence Lessig mit "Code is Law" noch die differenzierte
akademische Analyse eines bestimmten Phaenomenes in der Grauzone von
Technik und Recht leistete, so draengen jetzt die eher
hemdsaermeligen Typen nach und wollen Fakten schaffen. Bill Thompson
ist uebrigens kein Gruftie, der das Internet nicht kapiert hat - er
gehoert aber wohl zu der aufstrebenden Gruppe von noch nicht so alten
Leuten in den angelsaechsischen Laendern, die ein ganz
ausdrueckliches Faible fuer autoritaere Staatsdtrukturen haben und
das auch offensiv vertreten.
<http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39656000/jpg/_39656945_xmas_bil
l203.jpg>]
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<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3465383.stm>
How to control what is online
Giving governments control of the net is the worst possible idea,
says technology analyst Bill Thompson, apart from all the other ideas
which are worse.
Brighton teacher Jane Longhurst was brutally murdered by someone
whose fantasies of killing were nurtured, if not engendered, by the
pornographic images he found so easily on the web.
Malcolm Sentence, her partner, spoke for many when he said: "Jane
would still be here if it wasn't for the internet."
The case has generated a lot of discussion over the question of
whether - and how - we should be controlling what people can see
online, especially when it comes from sites in other countries.
[...]
The other approach, and it is one I favour - especially as the parent
of two children who both use the net a lot - is to throw away today's
network and build a new one, one which can be properly regulated.
It will be a network on which freedom of speech is guaranteed by law,
not simply allowed because of technical decisions on network
architecture made 30 years ago by a bunch of academic computer
scientists.
We must never forget that the nature of the internet is not fixed: we
created this network and we can change it.
There is nothing essential about any aspect of the net, nothing that
cannot be replaced, rejigged or removed.
If we don't like the fact that the net allows traffic to cross
national borders without any controls, then we can build a new
network that does allow monitoring.
If we don't like the fact that e-mail headers can be forged, making
untraceable spam possible, then we can build a mail system that
forces authentication.
We tend to lose sight of this, partly because the prospect of
changing a system used by seven or eight hundred million people
around the world seems so daunting.
But in fact we are already changing the way we use the net, every
day.
Changing times
The latest version of the TCP/IP protocol that underpins the net, IP
version 6, is already around and being slowly rolled out by ISPs.
Eventually users will be asked to upgrade their local computers, and
features like secure e-mail will become possible.
We just need to decide that this is a priority, and start working
towards it.
One part of the problem is that the net's standards are controlled by
bodies like Icann and the Web Consortium whose primary interest is
technical stability and corporate interests.
They deny that they are "political" organisations, where political is
used in a derogatory sense rather than meaning "acting in the public
interest".
Before we can change the net, and make it more able to reflect the
real public interest, taking it under democratic control, we must
remove it from the hands of these groups, whose time, like that of
the elves in Middle-Earth, is over.
Of course, one consequence of giving control of the net to
governments is that some governments are bad, prying on their
citizens, denying human rights and reneging on international
obligations.
But not everywhere is the United States or China, and I would rather
see the network in the hands of governments who can be lobbied,
replaced and argued with, than leave it in the hands of the large
corporations who develop the programs or standards bodies who are
blind to people's real interests.
As a culture we have decided that some sorts of imagery are
unacceptable, and that line is now drawn at a point that I and many
others feel happy with.
We allow images of consensual sex in our cinemas, but not images of
bestiality or child abuse. Why should the net be any different? And
if that means changing the way the net works, let's get started.
Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service
programme Go Digital. Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3465383.stm
Published: 2004/02/06 12:35:56 GMT
© BBC MMIV
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Siehe dazu auch insbesondere
<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/08/1515255>
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