Hacker 2/HACKER2.mdf/cud/cud448b.txt

Text File | 1995-01-03 | 12KB | 230 lines

Date: Thu,  1 Oct 92 08:58:29 EDT
From: Rich=[e-mail]
Subject: File 2--"Whose Internet Is It Anyway?" (Online! Reprint)

This entire article was re-typed by Richard A. Gautier
([e-mail]).  If there are any SPELLING errors, they are
probably his.  If there are grammar errors, they are Dr. Grundners, or
the editors.  Mr. Gautier HAS obtained permission to electronically
disseminate this article from [e-mail] who represents ONLINE
magazine.  Her comment was that this article really does belong in the
electronic (Internet) forum, and that it was really a shame that I had
to ask with an article like this.

            "WHOSE INTERNET IS IT ANYWAY? -- A CHALLENGE"
                          By Dr. Tom Grunder
           From--Online! Magazine, July 1992, pp. 6-7, 10.

    It began innocently enough.  I was rummaging around the Internet
looking for some NREN information to include in a proposal I was
writing, when I came across a rather one-sided "debate."

    It was a string of messages written mostly by people from academic
computing centers bemoaning the fact that NREN _might_ be made
available to K-12 schools, businesses, libraries, and (horror of
horrors) even to the general public.  They were beside themselves.
"The Internet and the NREN are supposed to be for academic and
research purposes," they said.  "What's going to happen if we allow
all these other people on?  There's not going to be enough bandwidth.
Transmission time will suffer.  Before you know it, the NREN is going
to be just as bad as the Internet is now."

    As the messages came in, their outrage seemed to build.  So did
mine.

    Finally I came across a message that simply read: "Why should we
let them use it at all???" and suddenly the terrible mistake we've
been making became clear.  We in the non-university networking
community have been framing the wrong issue.

    Until now, the issue has been whether K-12 schools and community
users are going to have access to the NREN.  It should have been
whether K-12 and community users are going to
_allow_the_academic_centers_ to access the NREN.  Somehow we had
gotten our priorities crossed.

    Who do they think is _paying_ for all this?  When the NREN comes
online, the money to build it will be coming from that apparently
forgotten group of people called "taxpayers."  Who do they think is
paying for the current Internet backbone?  The National Science
Foundation?  Wrong!  It's the taxpayers.  Who do they think is paying
for those mid-level networks, and for the high-speed data lines to
connect their colleges to those networks, and for the nice
high-powered servers that makes the connection so easy?  Do they think
that money is coming from good ole Siwash State U.?  If so, then who,
pray tell, is funding Siwash State?  Right again.  Taxpayers!

    So now we come along, with hat in hand, begging for permission to
have minimal access to the Internet and to be a part of NREN.  Why?
So we can set-up K-12 networks that will allow the _taxpayers'_ kids
to learn the information age skills they will need to be competitive
in the 21st century.  So we can provide the _taxpayers_ access to
electronic mail, government information, and other resources via
libraries and community computer systems.  So we can provide some
piece of the information age to the people who paid for it in the
first place!  And the academics treat us like beggars in a subway
station.

    _Absurd!_ Absurd, but not surprising.

    To understand this attitude, you have to keep in mind that, in
most locations, these university computing centers are designed for
the people who work there plus 35 of their buddies.  No one else -
including the other students and faculty on their own campuses - need
apply.  In most locations, students or faculty members seeking to use
the Internet are given a blinking cursor that dares them to come up
with some combination of nonsense syllables to make it do something.
That's it.  No help.  No training.  No assistance.  Nothing.  It is
not surprising that the idea of letting the community have access to
this preciously guarded resource would send chills up their spines.

    But, in many ways, we in the non-academic computing circles have
made our share of mistakes as well.  Not only have we been apologetic
in our claims to this national resource, but we have engaged in what I
call the "Balkanization" of the information age - the fragmentation of
our efforts into dozens of competing networks and special interest
systems.  We should be working toward a common framework with enough
"conceptual bandwidth" to include everyone.

    As a function of developing my organization, the National Public
Telecomputing Network, I am asked to speak at a lot of conventions and
conferences; and what I find at those meetings has become quite
predictable.  Everyone is excited about computer networking.  When I
go to a K-12 convention; everyone is talking about K-12 networks.
When I go to a library conference; everyone is talking about library
networks, and so on - all in direct competition with each other.

    It doesn't make sense.

    Let's say you are proposing a statewide network that will link
your libraries together, complete with Internet connections - the
whole bit.  And let's say you take it to your state capital and,
amazingly enough, you get it funded.  Now, what happens if a month
later the K-12 people (or someone else) shows up with a proposal to
fund their network; or worse, what happens if they get there a month
_before_ you?  Some one must lose; it is inherent in that kind of
competitive process.

    But our mistakes do not end with the competition for monies.  They
run deeper than that.  We have also failed to come up with a
comprehensive plan to show how any of our ideas fit together.  Let me
use the K-12 initiatives as an example.

    I have seen a number of proposals going around that (depending on
the proposal) would provide every school in the city/state/country
with a connection to the Internet - so every child will have access to
the information resources to be found there.  That's fine.  In fact,
on the surface, it sounds wonderful.

    But what happens _after_ the student graduates from high school or
college?  Do we toss him or her out into a world where those resources
are utterly unavailable?  If so,
_what's_the_point_of_training_them_on_the_resources_
in_the_first_place?  It's like having mandatory driver education in a
world without cars!

    It doesn't make sense.  We create plan after plan, proposal after
proposal, with no common conceptual framework to tie them together.

    I believe we must start developing our programs in the context of
community-wide information systems.  The guy who runs the corner gas
station (and who was in a K-12 class only a few years ago) should have
at least as much information access as the K-12 students who are in
class right now.  But we can't do that; we can't achieve it; unless we
can band together somehow to speak with one voice.

    And...we need leadership.

    Where is that leadership going to come from?  One logical source
is the library community.  But I don't see that happening.  What I see
is a profession divided.  Half the librarians I've talked to see this
network technology as exactly the kind of thing libraries should be
embracing; and the other half (usually higher-level officials) see it
as the work of the devil - with no detectable middle ground.

    We can't continue without leadership, without a plan, and in
direct competition with each other.  Perhaps what is needed is a plot
of ground that stands outside existing territory, a place where
everyone can stand, and around which we can all rally.

    Let me try out an idea on you.

    Suppose a super-fund was created for the development of a
nationwide network of computerized community information systems.
These systems would be free to the user in the same sense that the
public library is free to its patrons.  Of equal importance, each of
these systems would have a place on them for the library community,
the K-12 community, the medical community, government officials, and
anyone else who wanted to use it.  In addition, each system would be
linked by, and would provide its users with controlled access to, the
Internet/NREN.  From a technological standpoint, there are no barriers
to the development of these systems.  Indeed, there currently exist
several pilot systems that are already accomplishing all the above and
more.

    How would we fund it?  One way would be to ask every Regional Bell
Operating Company to contribute, along with every high-tech
corporation, the federal government, every state government, every
major city, and every major foundation.  If necessary, we would
approach the various state Public Utility Commissions to ask that a
surtax be placed on phone company data line profits.  The fund would
be charged with developing a minimum of 100 community computers
covering all 50 states by the year 2000.  Initial cost would be about
$30 million dollars.

    Could it be done?  Without any doubt, yes.  We've done it before.
    Most people do not realize that 100 years ago there was no such
    thing as the public library as we know it.  But we reached the
    point in this country where literacy levels got high enough (and
    the cost of producing books cheap enough) that the public library
    became feasible.  People across the country began to come together
    around the idea of free public access to the printed word; and the
    result was a legacy from which everyone reading this article has
    benefitted.

    What I am saying, is that in this century _computer_ literacy
levels have gotten high enough (and the cost of computer equipment
cheap enough) that it is time from a similar movement to form around
the development of free public-access computerized community
information systems.  It is time for us to stop being apologetic, and
to stop competing wih each other.  In short, it is time for us to
leave a legacy of our own.

    Do you see what I am saying?
    Would you support such a plan?  I mean, would you support it
    personally?
    Would you work for it?
    Would your company or institution support it?
    Would they contribute to it?  If so, let me know.

    Send me electronic mail, send me snailmail, but let me know.  The
key here is not the technology, that's already in place, it is "wil."
Do we have the will to do it?

    The issue is no longer _whether_ we will enter an information age.
That part has been settled.  We have.  What is at issue is whether the
information age is something that happens _to_ us, or something that
happens _for_ us.

    Fortunately, that decision still remains in our hands.

++++++++++++++++

    _TOM_GRUNDNER_ is the president of the National Public
Telecomputing Network, and the founder of the Cleveland Freenet.  The
freenets are community information systems, located in several Ohio
communities and in Peoria, Illinois.  A column in DATABASE (April
1988, pp. 97-99) by Steve Cisler describes the Cleveland Freenet in
its early stages.

    Communications to the author should be addressed to Dr. Tom
Grundner, National Public Telecomputing Network, Box 1987, Cleveland,
OH 44106; 216/368-2733; [e-mail];
 BITNET-aa001%cleveland.freenet.edu@cunyvm. (Editor's Note: Write to
Tom Grundner, or write to ONLINE ([e-mail]), to answer this
challenge and comment on this controversial issue facing the library
and online community.  ONLINE will publish as many notes and letters
as we have room for in coming issues.  --NG)

Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253