> Which brings us to the internet and listservs like this. Doesn't it seem
> likely that as the internet because more commercialized, listservs and other
> means of discussion will become run by these same media corporations? All
> that's needed is a change in the way payment for use is structured, and
> they've started pushing for that.
>
> Or am I just being paranoid?
>
Not in the way you are expecting.
I have been a freelance reporter on Internet issues for various
papers in my area, and you have every cause to be paranoid about how
large corporations are taking over. Let's begin with the fact that it
was only a few years ago that the Internet "Backbone" (formerly
controlled by the National Science Foundation in the US) has indeed
been sold to corporate interests. In Ontario, it is Bell Canada that
owns the Internet access. Bell leases out its phone lines to the
local Internet Service Providers, and the ISPs sell access to
customers. This is strange, because Bell also has its own access,
called "Sympatico", so there is competition, while at the same time,
Bell leases access to its competitors.
Previously, the Internet was owned by government institutions and
universities. In other words, since 1968 your tax dollars and mine
were largely used to build and expand the Internet. It was built
primarily to allow free telecommunication anywhere in the world. It
would be large and complicated enough to withstand a nuclear attack
and still meintain service to other areaas, uninterrupted. Since then
it got sold for a song to the phone giants in the mid-90s.
What kind of interventions on free speech can we expect? On the outer
fringes, newsgroups can be discontinued in the interest of
"bandwidth" (which of course means money) or "family values" (which
means that the net should be as sterile as the rest of our culture).
First on the chopping block would be anything left-wing, which of
course "nobody" posts to, and last on the chopping block would be the
commercial-based newsgroups, including the 200 or so newsgroups begun
by Microsoft so that users can give product support to other users.
There are currently 14,000 newsgroups on the Internet.
Interventions of email can be expected. In Canada, there is no
explicit "Right to Privacy" like they have in the States, yet in the
United States we hear of an employee who lost a court case when he
sued his boss for intercepting his email. The court ruled that the
plaintiff had no reasonable expectation of privacy even after the
company gave the employees assurances that their email would not be
tampered with. Neither the company nor the plaintiff are ever named,
but it is cited in a 300-page Canadian government report called the
"Content-Related Internet Liability Study".
So, perhaps we will never need to see the "Corporate Takeover" of the
Chomsky list, since email can be legally intercepted, if we take
that precedent seriously. What can save us is PGP encryption. I don't
use it, and I suppose I should. But that would prevent even the CIA
from reading our posts for quite a while. That's why PGP is illegal
in the US (but who in God's Earth is going to stop you?)
List servers are a function of the software you have on your
computer. You and I can start an Internet site with modest funds. On
it, we can run a list server. This has nothing to do with what
commercial providers charge to end users. If it is impossible to
stop hackers from posting kiddie porn or defacing the web pages at
the US Department of Justice or the CIA, then it will be quite a
while before our list can be stopped.
BTW, recently, some hackers from Spain went on-line and hacked the
web page for the Government of Indonesia (see http://www.2600.com/).
Paul King
====================================================================
Paul King 1660-309 Bloor St. E., Mississauga ON L4X 1R9
Tel: (905) 629-2138 Email: pking at idirect.com
====================================================================
Come visit my web page at: http://cgi.idirect.com/index///pking.html
====================================================================
"Show no favouritism to your own discredit; Let no one intimidate
you to your own downfall." --- Sirach 4:22, NAB translation
|
