Biggest problem from my point of view is that the US also happens to be the steward of the Internet. This public screwup represents the perfect opportunity for governments of the world to balkanize the Internet, as in further splintering it in geographic and commercial boundaries. Countries like China now have valid arguments in the eyes of the Chinese for blocking foreign websites and services. And more and more national firewalls will happen, firewalls that will crush freedom of speech and that will end the free trade.
I'm not sure if the age of the free Internet we've been enjoying is coming to an end, but you can bet your ass that governments are trying to end it. And the US government doesn't even seem to comprehend how big their screwup is.
These stupid short-sighted governments are going to ruin the Internet for the rest of us through their greed for money (like in this case) and power (NSA mass surveillance).
There are an entire list of reasons why a USA-centric internet is a bad thing even without the privacy considerations. Not least of which is the fact that the US is effectively worst-in-class when it comes to Internet adoption. And not coincidentally, also the most ravenously capitalistic society. To far too many Americans, the Internet is a profit mechanism, not an infrastructure.
Unless they are going to put FIDOnet back online (or is it still around?) you need a backbone for the internet, which means governments can always control and close it at will.
The mere fact the US is pursuing such an option is a demonstration of bad government that threatens and controls it's people with FUD.
The answer is both obvious and depressing: greed. USA basically controls the Internet right now. We need to build the next internet that cannot be co-opted, censored, disabled, or monitored.
Wow, first the EU debacle, now they're coming for the US. It's really getting hard to not assume that there is a global push to replace the participative internet with a purely consumptive one under the control of the benevolent oligarchy.
The only loonies in support of an unregulated internet is the same crazies in support of unregulated markets. Americans need to be free from the tyranny of an open internet, for the same reasons Americans need to be free from the tyranny of an unregulated markets -- that is, man left to his own devices will destroy himself. Unless you want nut jobs to be able to post whatever they want online, we should be honored the government is making the internet safe for us to use. /satire
Either we successfully manage to educate the majority of Americans on how to apply critical thinking skills to what they see on the Internet, or we balkanize the 'net and try to keep the bad actors out (or at least force them to attack from a location we have legal jurisdiction over). I feel like this is just one more nail in the coffin of the free worldwide Internet.
I really don't see any good solutions. It is super difficult to defend against entities acting in bad faith when their cost of their actions is essentially zero.
You are choosing to assign the entire value of the internet to government. This is folklore that is nothing less than nonsensical. If your goal is to "destroy" my argument you have to do far better than that.
The ARPANET was going to go absolutely nowhere without private enterprise rescuing it from obscurity and launching it into every-day life like a rocket.
Government did not PLAN the internet as we know it today. They didn't even have a clue.
Back before the internet got launched to the masses the masses were using services such as Compuserve, AOL and a number of others. The "internet" was going to evolve out of one of these efforts one way or another. It just so happened that industry found something that could be leveraged to make this happen and they did. In fact, I believe Compuserve was one of the first to offer it to it's millions (yes, millions) of customers.
It's almost like the idea of giving some guy credit for the invention of the wheel. What, nobody else was going to invent the wheel if he did not? Nonsense.
For every government project that resulted in a successful transfer to private industry there's probably ten or more that are still sucking money out of all of us and are useless.
Government-funded initiatives are very important, but, please, don't give them god-like attributes as if claiming that without government programs humankind would still be rubbing two sticks together to make fire.
You say it as a joke but I get sad at seeing all these efforts to circumvent a government policy while another government is allowed to obliterate a same type of service (parcel).
As I have said before. I'm not in the US and I don't care about its politics. But I'm scared and hiw easily they can define Good and Bad and then manipulate the internet
Government warfare is really the worst thing that has ever happened to the internet. I wish they would leave this old-fashioned territorial thinking to rot in the material world.
That's just conspiracy talk. So the same U.S. government that created the internet, and opened it up to the public, is now trying to censor it? I think the politicians are acting honestly and with good intent: their goal is to prevent this tool for communication for being used for criminal purposes, and yes, digital piracy is a crime.
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