Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/David Farber Interview

Text File | 1994-09-16 | 35KB | 676 lines

As promised.
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Professor David Farber
interviewed by Rosie Cross
[e-mail]

Copyright Cross 94.
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                          David J. Farber
Alfred S. Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications Systems
                     University of Pennsylvania
                    [e-mail]



David Farber
On one of my business cards I call myself a techno YENTA < a marriage
broker in technology > between new sorts of technology, I also teach and
do research in high speed networking., and I serve on endless advisory
boards and mainly and recently I've been on the Board of Trustees of
the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the Internet Society.

RosieX
You told me you're a YENTA what's that yiddish?

David Farber
Yeah ..it also has connotations of being a trouble maker. I try to cause
trouble in the sense I show people what they are doing wrong. Over the
past couple of years that has been a major activity for me with the
Gov't Administration, as it is, so I introduce people and deal with
largely bringing networking to people and organisations, both from a
technological and social standpoint...its a very strange thing cos my
background has always been technology up until 10 years ago, when i
started getting interested in creating networks of people; one of the
first things we did in the U.S we created a network based on the very
primitive networking technology which was around to bring all our computer
science depts. in the endless array of Universities in the USA into
communication with each other ___ cos there were hundreds of them scattered
in small towns where Unis tend to be located and they were loosing track
of each other and some people were being the only person in the field in
their schools. So we connected them through something called computer
science network..___and that took off and became a universally industrial
network which spread outside the United States..in fact one of the
earliest places it spread was Australia, :) and then from there on I
became interested in not only technologists but a broad set of people so
I was one of the founders of our National Research and Education Network,
and since then I've been creating that..

RosieX
There are so many networks which sponsor part of the expanded network
ranging from nasa, dept of defence, dept of energy, and I know that one
of your main concerns is the expansion and dominance of the commercial
networks, what is your particular interest in them..

David Farber
That's been a major chnage in the last couple of years its gone from
a few little networks which were non-academic non-gov't controlled
to a point where the gov't is almost relevant.

RosieX
People who don;t know about the history of the way the Internet operates
imagine it all runs very smoothly, they are not aware of the interconnection
of the networks and politics, should we make a distinction when we talk
of the Internet in and outside the USA.

David Farber
The internet is a collection of networks and within the U.S there are
Federally sponsored networks, Industrial sponsored networks and there
are just commercial networks who offer service to anyone who walks
in from the street, they are all connected in the US Internet which
to a degree is a North American Internet,.its very hard to tell where
the borders are, although the Canadians get upset when you say that.
(smile) now thats connected together into the Internet which is a
global network which is growing at a phenomenal rate, last time we
attempted to look at the stats, we guess there are 30 million people
who access the Internet, which makes it the 5th largest country., and
I jokingly sometimes suggest we should apply for UN membership since
we are bigger than many of the countries in the UN. This growth is
incredible mainly outside the US.

RosieX
How do you calculate usage?

David Farber
Yes its very hard we really guess ___ what we do is look at volumes of
mail and we look at how many different people you see mail coming to
and from to get some ruff sampling stuff but its almost impossible
its like saying how many machines are on the network,.or how many
networks are connected, its virtually impossible to calculate.

RosieX
does that include local dial-ups

David Farber
No not unless they are connected with the Internet... thats part of
the growth, cos it did start out as a bunch of computer scientists
talking to each other doing research and networking and when it
started growing its main growth was in the non-science areas, of
course science grew too, but for instance almost every student in every
college in the US as a matter of almost right has Internet access.
It's very rare they don;t have it. You go into any major technological
company certainly they have access.

RosieX
The military was crucial in the development of the Internet in
its early stages do they still have a vested interest or influence

David Farber
It sponsors research along with the National Science Foundation..its
leverage has gone way down. Its somewhat like a parent, the child
grows up and at some point in the game you loose control of them
and just watch them go away., and you hope they are going in a good
direction and the Internet is basically at that stage where the
people who created it are seeing their child grow up and sometimes
moaning that the child is being irrational and uncontrollable and
doing things that they didn;t think it was going to do,.. but thats
healthy.

RosieX
What metaphor do you use to describe the Internet, do you like the
term cyberspace?

David Farber
(laugh)
I very much like the term cyberspace..it characterizes very much the
spirit of the Internet, the fact that its insensitive to National
boundaries & insensitive to most social boundaries..you are prolly
familiar with the New Yorker cartoon which situates 2 dogs sitting
next to each other, and one is saying to the other,  "its great on the
Internet no-one knows you are a dog"!

RosieX
Yep I agree there are lots of dogs out there..:)
Well I was going to get into this a bit later in the discussion but
I have to disagree with you, there are definite signifiers which
suggest & even give clues to gender, race, class or educational
background or other social characteristics which seem to show threw..
a veil of anonymity..

David Farber
But you don;t see it, its up to the person what they make of their
personna, I remember very early in the game there was a person not doing
this intentionally and we were communicating for a long time...and I had
this image of a sort of 17 or 18 year old female. God knows why.(smiles)..
it turns out to be a grandmother <shrugs>..I forget why I knew the person
was female I think there were some statements that made it obvious., but
there is no reason for stating anything you don't want known. When I
communicate to somebody I'm really communicating on the basis of what they
have to say, and if they choose to give clues, I don;t even usually bother
to look for the clues..now I agree its different in the BBS world. Bulletin
Boards tend to be much more a hobbyist world they tend to create images
and they look for clues. For example, I never ask how old people are.
Sometimes that hurts ___ cos one of the clues you use things, for better
or worse is what the experience of the person (giving to you) talking to
you has . Sometimes you have to expend a lot of energy on the Internet to
understand that why the person might sound good, doesn't have a clue in
the world whats going on, other times, you get young kids who know a lot,
..let me give you a story cos its a marvellous example of what I mean. I
was scanning, surfing around and I found this marvellous little thing that
someone had put together , yet another guide to the internet.. I thought
wow thats really neat. I edit books myself for McGraw_Hill and so I said
to the author, 'hey would you be interested in this book being published',
and after some discussion yeah we decided to go into print., but decided
the original one should be free. So, I shipped the contract electronically
got the contract back, and the manuscript was ready to go. Then I got a
call from one of the local Colleges where the person was sending the
posts from..this woman was curious to find out if it were strange for a
freshman in College to write a book. I said *freshman*, I had no way of
knowing..and I think thats a healthy thing.

RosieX
Ah, books which reminds me, we have the Dummies guide to the Internet
the Idiots guide to the Internet, maybe you will even consider
editing the Mashugas (sp) guide to the Internet,..what does this tell
us about the sort of person who uses the Internet are they stoopid if
they can;t use the Internet?

David Farber
NO..it requires neglible technical skills once you get it going, the
problem with the Internet is that its not quite at the plug and play level
...we're getting there but if you have a PC at home it takes a little bit
of energy to come up to speed..but its getting to be less and less and
by next year probably next to no skills at all. I think some of those
titles are inappropriate and a little less derogatory titles could
be beneficial.

RosieX
Which way do you think we will go..more available easy to use
software and interface..more Internet in a box type...systems?

David Farber
I think what we will see in the next few years is that when you buy a PC
the basic software system will come with the Internet. Microsoft, new to
be delivered some day system Chicago has essentially all the structure in
it to deal with the Internet. Apple will have the same type of thing where
the Internet is a push of the button.

RosieX
Can we get back to the issue of prejudice on the Internet and the
potential ghettoizing of certain groups and interests? Linguists such as
Susan C. Herring and Lauren Hutton in fact have been researching gender
differences in Computer Mediated Communications and draw quite conclusive
evidence from their work, that women and other minority users are treated
differently than men on the net. In fact many woman are harrassed and
either silenced or ignored in posts or conversations..

David Farber
I don;t think people have to present themselves as men or men-like to be
heard or be respected. Personally I don;t find myself caring..maybe I am
unusual but I really don;t care. I will say that I do care about the
ability of someone to articulate a view and use English properly. It drives
me up the wall when people send me grammatically incorrect material. I
don't think it gender matters.

RosieX
Remind me never to send you mail David..:)

David Farber
I'm just as bad, but some people are gross!!

RosieX
The internet is very effective in alienating certain people. Would you
agree with that?

David Farber
Let me take the opposing view ___ the Internet provides an opportunity for
people to communicate more than they would in person. Of course, some
things are still difficult for people who may be dsylexic or there
English is really unbearable and they can;t express a view at all., but
that will change over the next couple of years..lets face it, the Internet
allows you to hide certain characteristics about yourself which may create
bias in the real world, for example, you maybe overweight or you have a
funny accent, you can still do quite well on the Internet..some people are
uptight about language but i think the majority over look that..

RosieX
Have we got over the image of people who use machines as socially awkward
and inept people, you know dweebs?

David Farber
There are still remnants of that, its interesting we are in the midst of a
battle right now..its the pioneers who settled the frontier who've noticed
the farmers coming in..I like the frontier analogy :) they are settling the
land they are building stores and schools etc and the original settlers
don't like the shoot em up bang bang world...and they feel these guys are
coming in and wrecking their place. yes., its true. And the image of the
original settlers is something of a dweeb as you call it.

RosieX
The EFF and the recently formed Electronics Frontiers Australia seem to be
addressing a lot of the structural problems associated with the Internet,
but they don't appear to be tackling a lot of the social inequities which
exist in cyberspace..

David Farber
You should come to our board meetings :)

RosieX
Has that changed, is it changing?

David Farber
We have a rationally balanced board now., and a number of female
participants on the board seem to be concerned about these issues...we are
looking at it carefully but we don't do that very well as a society on a
whole. The Internet is still a microcosm of society and the problem with
the Internet is that the ratios favour men. I do think we do better on the
Internet than we do IRL (in real life). Although again there is a component
of computer mediated communications which has real problems,, and I think
they exist mainly on BBS and, Internet IRC (internet relay chat)..where I
think the problem there is that they are on the network for entertainment,
and they are not there to do business and they are not living there live
there, they are playing there. There are a lot of kids out there..and
I think that is a problem..kids and some people who have just lost it..

RosieX
What do you think of the explanation that the medium is an unmoderated one
and if you don't like the heat get out of the network?

David Farber
I don't try and get around it, in many ways it reflects real life and its
up to the user where you go., I don;t choose to go certain places cos I'm
sure I won't like what I see or hear..

RosieX
But if you do choose to go to a place and you don't like either the
language that is used or the way you are treated should we all
just accept technical solutions which enable us to gag or /ignore
someone who is harrassing or insulting us? what about a concerted
effort to change these incidences using social solutions and
approaches.

David Farber
Well I don't dwell in the same places as you.. I don't see how bad it is..
in most of the worlds I live in..there are minimum levels of rational
discourse and people who exceed those levels since I have no way of shutting
them off and I really object to the idea that somehow they should be denied
access. Because, its a slippery slope problem...if you deny access because
they say something you don;t like, next time they'll be denied access
because of something the supplier of network services doesn't like, next
something the gov't doesn't like..so I really take a local ammendment and
local laws which provide very seriously there.. the way you shut people off
is you plug your ears, in the sense you say I don't wanna hear from you
I ostercise you, electronically its trivial to do that..if they wanna
petition me, if they wanna suggest they have changed their behaviour
then we try again., you can't do that IRL..in the electronic world
they retain their right to talk and I retain my right to plug 'em out.

RosieX
Well this raises also the question of censorship..and a lot of fear is
being driven by proposed gov't intervention...and control of content.
To me a lot of people are wasting bandwidth..

David Farber
We got bandwidth to burn!, If people start broadcasting objectionable
video..which does burn bandwidth then I think we will have to go back
and rethink the process.

RosieX
But heh, that might be something i enjoy and you find objectionable..

David Farber
I'm not sure... let me give you a difference. I may choose...on my
entrance to the network to put the filtering up there., so I may ask
a supplier not to pass information from the following set of people
or in the US we do that in the mail system I choose not to accept
mail (its sort of strange on what basis that we do it) but I can choose
not to accept mail from the following set of companies cos I find
them unobjectionable and they don't or are disallowed to waste the
bandwidth on my post office box..I think thats not an irrational way to
go, to deny access is totally irrational and totally dangerous, but to
deny delivery NO, anyone can have the right to mail anything they choose
but I should have the right not to have it in my post office box cluttered
with it..especially if i find it objectionable..

RosieX
You mentioned the transmission of video, what thoughts do you have
on the possible mergers of cable companies with phone companies.

David Farber
I am not a firm believer in electronic/video on demand as being a
rational business..I think a lot of them are interesting experiments
that will probably not get very far. I think whats going to happen is
we will see a large fight as to who owns (I like to call it) the FIRST
KILOMETER....the cable companies have traditionally talked about the
delivery of information not the acquisition of information..So when I
refer to the first kilometre I am really poking the point home that
people generate information, thats the ultimate in democracy. Now I think
whats happening right now is the cable companies would like to get hold
of the telephone business, and the telephone companies would like to get
hold of the cable business and both of them sort of think that the video
rental market might have something..but we've seen a number of mergers
that have fallen apart, largely cos the financial industry thought they
were ill informed and ill conceived, I don't think we will see that again
..I think what we will see is the cable companies attempting to offer
telephony services and the telephone companies attempting to be the video
suppliers..what form that takes I think is the interesting problem
is there a market for video on demand..are you willing to pay 6$
for a video which is instantaneous, compared to a much lower price
available at your local video mart? My own feeling is probably not..

RosieX
You don;t think that Murdoch purchasing Delphi is an indication
that he intends to use a system like that for other purposes..?

David Farber
There are a lot of reasons to buy things..there have been accusations
that some of the purchases were to drive down the price of certain media
___ in the U.S we are in the process of selling media, selling spectrum
space..and there is a lot of good financial reasons to try and drive down
the expectation of certain spectrum so you can get it cheaper, I think
nobody knows what they are doing right now, everybody is waiting for the
magic bullet that will create the business..meanwhile you have this, in
a funny sense,.a very strong business going on right now and a lot of
companies that are making a fair amount of money supplying things to the
business community ___ which tend to know what they need,. its the home
market thats the big unkown and untapped market and the question is, is
it there..will you buy electronically from a catalogue..as opposed paper.
I have problems with that cos its inconvenient, I can't carry it, I can't
be on the subway whilst reading the catalogue...but its not dissimilar
from what happened with the personal computer..

RosieX
Is there a magic bullet which will work on luddites to get them to use
the Internet?

David Farber
Yes eventually they will see the advantages..I think the Internet
creates some interesting social effects, such as, dropping national
borders., its very international. What we are seeing is its just
as convenient to talk to someone in the next office as it is for
someone in the U.S to talk with some in Australia. The community is
growing, I can do a lot of things ..apart from instant mail
delivery, which is the beginning __  attach documents __ share common
work space etc. We can do a lot of things that turn out to be handy;
it helps in person to person communication, if it didn't help there
it would be a nice toy but nothing else. The fact I can effectively
communicate with people in Australia and Japan and Europe simultaneously
and not wait 6-7 days and not have to use a fax and cut and paste
is incredible.

RosieX
Sorry to get back to the negatives but what about what the majority
consider to be really offensive subjects like alt.child.pron.pics.binary..

David Farber
Well the net is very complex. The creation of the network is a distributed
organisation with no control..even local systems are bi=passable. For
example, I may choose not to admit certain news groups in my installation
and my users may not agree with that,.you will find in universities certain
administrators are doing censorship,,and I have a strong feeling the
last people who should violate our constitution are those who educate,
so, we are having big fights about what you allow through and what
you don't. Now certain things are illegal, for better or worse they
are illegal. The law says you can't do certain things especially in
a world where its not just the U.S. we are dealing with countries
which have completely different ethical standards,..and there's no
mechanism and there shouldn't be a mechanism for saying that there's
global control, if a country wants to block access to things we
may disagree with especially if its things that we don't feel are harmful
except to the gov't..Under current international law thats their right.
There is a huge part of the network which anything is run which is
not explicitly forbidden by law., so for e.g all the alt.sex are
protected by 1st ammendmant rights. The best analogy I have to describe a
lot of discussion on the net is like a gathering in Hyde Park in London..
you stand up and people say what they wanna say and I as a listener have
a right to walk by, or stop and yell back..and some people create an
atmosphere that is very argumentative and confrontational, I don't know
why or how and I don't want to stop that. But there are limits and these
we are still debating..the EFF was formed for reasons that I think are
still valid..normally in the US when you go into a different technology...
it takes decades b4 laws catch up.,.and this type of technology can be
a saviour for many of the economies of the world..access and freedom issues
for some people are crucial..it seems a shame to have laws being applied
(which are undue) at glacial speed and have the whole thing slow down to
a crawl, because people are trying to use the laws that work with say the
printed media for the electronic media...and so we formed the EFF to try
and speed up that process, we wanna cut the black years the dark ages from
maybe 40-50 years! which normally is the time law takes to catch up.
So we, the EFF attack things which people try indelicately to apply
traditional ideas to, such as there have been censorship cases on the
net, none of those have gone to court yet but there have been a couple.
For example,..we have something in the US called community standards, its
a marvellous invention which may make sense, but I doubt it. In printed
material the arguement is the community sets the standards, usually
applied to pornography..so some community says playboy is an obscene thing
within their community and not allowed to be sold..There was a case
the other day in a town in Tenessee which tried  to use the community
standard case for a person in that town who accessed a BBS in Boston
from Tenesse. It was claimed that the sysop in Boston was violating the
laws of Tenesse cos they carried questionable material..which was being
accessed by a person in Tenesee,..now if you extrapolate and don't fight
back...if case law supports that..then essentially we might as well throw
the whole thing out the window, especially in the International arena..
some small town in the middle of..[pick your favourite country]..could
set a set of laws and then go round arresting everybody in sight., you
can't have that in a borderless world., so we are helping fight that..
what we would like to do is get case laws like that settled as soon as
possible so we can go on..BBS operators what are they publishers?
book stores? in US terms..if there seen to be an editor then they are
liable for a lot of the stuff they carry, so if you slander somebody then
the BBS operator who tends to have a deep pocket can be pulled into the
libel suit, thats intolerable.., book stores don't have that if you sell
a book and its libelous the book store operator is innocent. So laws can
turn the technology into a growth industry or impede the progress. This
is a time of the 3rd information revolution.. the 1st was Guttenberg, 2nd
broadcasting..& maybe an intermediate revolution which was computers, which
changed our society phenomenally and now we have a combination of 2
revolutions combining computers with information. Which will spawn companies,
services and companies supporting this structure and employing people
and providing information..its not just jobs but people have another
way of expressing themselves..Issues such as cryptography have stirred up
a great deal of opinion such as 50,000 electronic letters to the President.,

RosieX
What about an Orwellian future for the Internet?

David Farber
When I got mad at the administration a short time ago and still am
actually, I used to comment and still do that Orwell almost got it
right..he was just ten years of in his date, I think this technology
also gives the opportunity for visions which will make Orwell look
like amateur day, the ability to track where you are, we have a big
law debate at the moment about the gov't tracking phone calls..
who you are __ from where ___ who to..this is the digital telephony act..
This is triple Orwell, not only do they know where you are, but
who you are talking to, and who that person is, a complete dosier
or the Orwellian nightmare..,that is a possibility to listen to
everything you say..I think democracy needs to practice a delicate
balancing act.

RosieX
Ah which makes me wonder Professor Farber what your definition of
democracy is??

David Farber
laughs
laughs some more.

RosieX
Okay let me put it another way, I think a lot of people who are
involved with the development of the Internet think they are
above reproach..! And to them democracy is a game.

David Farber
NO..believe me, a significant amount of bruises on my back comes
from the fact we are not above reproach, intelligent reproach..
intelligent argument is welcome..

RosieX
But I hear it from lots of people that the *early settlers* say even
Vince Cerf can't bear discussing the possibility of change on the Internet..

David Farber
Well we are dealing with people and as in a democracy if you go to
the Hill in Washington you'll find all sorts of people..and collectively
they may not do a bad job but individually some of them are really
off the wall, and I am not saying Vince is..but you may not understand
where they are coming from..but thats part of a democracy, the fact that
nobody is controlling individuals. The INternet to put it into perspective
is changing and there is no way that any of the founders can stand up and
stop it, even if its not the right way to go..they can try and influence..
to send it in other directions..but the citizens of cyberspace will send
it in a direction they want to send it in.,.,now the term democracy is a
very strange thing its hard to find a democracy in a classical sense of
the word..but, what the network has given is the ability for a large number
of people to make their views known, which is vice versa, I get for instance
(not being unique) get announcements out of the Whitehouse, Press Releases
faster than the news services. News services tend to pick them up by paper,
the  Whitehouse is shipping them electronically and seconds later..they
are there..Staff does get back..the staff write back, from the Secretary
of Commerce for example his staff guarantee at worst 48hrs response.
critical 24hrs. There is beginning to be a much more open world, one of
the problems that happened in the US in WW2, was Washington became isolated
from the country the representatives didn;t go back home (its a big country)
they got detached from their constituents..now thats not the case..they
can be hit with electronic mail very rapidly., its a marvellous
example of representative democracy,

RosieX
Hmmm, yes, but what you are saying is very 1st world isn;t it..an example
of 1st world representative democracy

David Farber
One of the things I dislike is the built into notion of the US as being
the country with all the answers, and a "do as I say" attitude (maybe I
have a little bit of it myself..:) the administration has an attitude
also of we will bring democracy to the world and democracy will translate
into our terms..I don't think there is a global view.,.probably some global
views of the rights of an individual to information and to a certain
standard of freedom, but there certainly isn't a universal agreement on
democracy,.American democracy may not translate so well, in fact it has
not in many countries. On the other hand I think it is not irrational for
a country or individual to set a standard to that which they feel is
appropriate..the right of the people to discard gov'ts which are not
representative in the US is a built in right. And periodically we do it,
we got rid of an administration like that, we chased them out of the
Whitehouse essentially cos they went past the boundaries of what was
acceptable. Yes, I mean Nixon. I think the problem the US has is that
it thinks that every country can use the model of gov;t we have. Thats
naive..maybe its a good dream I dunno open to debate..but we can disagree
on that, but basic rights such as rights to information are critical.
China would disagree, Singapore., and maybe more,.part of it is
evolutionary part of it different culture,. I think we can live together
with that though..

RosieX
Do you think that the Internet and I coin a term which has been
floating around for some time... do you conceive of a Netopia..
A Utopian Net Based Environ??

David Farber
Well it depends where you live on the Internet..you'd like Snow Crash

RosieX
Oh yeah Neal Stephenson I have it..I ain't read it yet..

David Farber
It really is a very good model of things like this,. where you live
is crucial, and its no different where you live IRL..there are
cultures to a degree which you should accept as adversarial..the network
tends to attract a lot of different people as a community it easy for
them to come together, its easy to form cliques, and its harder for people
to get in..sometimes adversarial and sometimes very supportive..and it
depends on what clique you get into. Thats why I feel one of the nice
things about the Internet is that you can migrate a whole lot faster in
cybersapce than you can IRL. If you don't like that group you can sit
there and suffer or get out and form your own group.

RosieX
EFF still fighting the Clipper Chip..

David Farber
yeah yeah

RosieX
I don't think Clipper will happen..

David Farber
It might don't feel to confident I don't..there are a lot of activities
going on, bi-lateral discussions with other countries..and the International
connections could be a deciding factor, its a real interesting problem
that won't go away...I happen to dislike Clipper, as soon as I heard the
idea  it suggested it took rights away from me.,.the argument said you
don't have security anyway, so what the hell..I think is a false thing
in the electronic world cos it will extend to electronic communications
__ the problem is that we are jumping into an era where electronics
(cryptography) can mean groups of people can do things that society
as a whole find objectionable. Terrorism.. (shrugs) its the same logic
that says if you ban guns you stop people owning guns and the argument
against that is that lawful people don;t have guns anyway..lets forget
Clipper for the moment, but society as a whole will demand protection
against activities which society as a whole feels is inappropriate, the
protection could be Draconian and its not that hard to make it critical,
so what you'd like to do is almost a way of finding your way of having
your cake and eating it 2.  My personal feeling is I have less problems
with Clipper than I do have with digital telephony. One of the big problems
with wire tap on the Federal level is that its quite carefully controlled,
but on a local and state level its abused tremendously..not accountable its
chaos. If you took a Clipper type argument where you had the Escrow
agencies outside the gov't so they weren't susceptible to gov't pressure
and you had electronic warrants the judges couldn't hand out blanks..and
were audible and the number of warrants issued by the judge were public
record then we might end up with better bottom line freedom than we have
now..cos right now we don't have any idea. In upper state N.Y there is
something like 12,000 warrants in one district..that means its free for all
and eaves dropping. Maybe Clipper is negotiable..its tricky and emotional
but its not as important as the thing that doesn;t generate the emotion,
if you say Clipper on the Internet everybody goes *blah*!! I have testified
against Clipper (don't get me wrong) but if you say digital telephony..
nobody reacts and says whats that..and it really is an Orwellian nightmare
which is sliding thru with very few people objecting to it..its really
been up to the EFF..to take a stand.

RosieX
What about provision of the technology for people who normally can
not access it..

David Farber
There's been a lot of research in giving network and computer access to
people physically, such as the disabled or people who are culturally or
financially isolated..and that is something a lot of attention is being
paid to by many people,. its not clear how to do it..there are many
solutions on the grass roots level..they involve inner city schemes, and
big sky telescope which demonstrates that you can give network access to
rural areas, ..Seattle for example uses the community centres and they
refurbish old computers and they have dial up access networks, such as
to the schools..which keep computer classrooms open after hrs. A lot of
activities which help to widen the scope...I am worried by the entitlement
approach to life which stipulates 20% of all bandwidth should be made
freely available to anyone who wants to use it, I agree with that in
principle..but then they say when you get down to nickels and dimes they
can't decide out of the thousands who are waiting,. they say 'oh we will
form review boards which will decide who really gets access',,,and
who is really deserving and who is doing the right thing,..that worries
me and I don;t see a convenient way out of that and I don't think thats
necessary,. I think there are mechanisms which are remapping of current
mechanisms for providing information which allow access to groups or
individuals who do not for many reasons normally use the Internet. The
public libraries can provide resources to ensure marvellous community
resource centres are available.

RosieX
Thankyou David Farber

David Farber
No problem im here to cause trouble. ;)

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