From: "Wayne Crews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Matthew Gaylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: CATO Institute Flop "What If We Had A Party And Nobody Came?" Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 13:03:16 -0400 Hi Matt, I think we have a real mix up here, and I guess that's my fault. I don't support isolationism on the net at all, and never said anything about taking hackers and others and sticking them on their own net. Although not well portrayed in the article, distinct networks aren't really a goal as such: I'm merely making a governance point, that as the net grows and proposals for regulations of different sorts increase, the political nature of the net's governance may increasingly induce companies to start looking at ways of branching off over the coming decades. We see this kind of dissatisfaction with New.net and the work Silvertech is doing. Those branches could be quite inclusive though. And users could enjoy participating in many of them. I tried to be clear about this in the Forbes piece but there was little space. I will have to work harder to make it clearer in longer pieces in the future. BTW, I had similar misunderstandings in the electricity debate when describing the problems with network innovation that central governance can create. Best, Wayne http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/0402/036_print.html On My Mind Pick Your Net Clyde Wayne Crews Director of Technology Studies, Cato Institute Despite its Wild West reputation, the Internet has no shortage of regulation. There are rules involving children, copyright, domain names and more. Congress is looking at new privacy and antispam requirements, Internet taxation, gambling and the digital divide. And the American Bar Association, the French government and the UN are pushing global Internet governance. How about more Internets, not more regulations? The political battles are rooted in the Internet's nobody-owns-it, common-property status. Yet cyberspace is populated by exhibitionists at one extreme and would-be inhabitants of gated communities on the other. Conflicting legislative aims reveal the basic truth that not everybody wants-or needs-to be connected to everybody else. Classical economics identifies something called the tragedy of the commons: the tendency of things in public hands, or in nobody's hands, to be mismanaged. There is a preventive measure here: Take the Internet private and split it up. Eliminate the monopoly. Make way for proprietary "Splinternets" where prespecified ground rules regarding privacy and other governance issues replace regulation and central planning. Physically, parallel Internets could be up in short order. The World Wide Web itself runs mainly on 13 root servers (computers). Other server and router hardware is obtainable. The fiber backbone is in place-maybe in surplus. And the audience and applications are growing. Already, dedicated video networks operating on Internet Protocol are emerging. The catch is securing widespread adoption, a horrendous marketing and money problem. Some consider today's root server system to be a "natural monopoly." But as broadband infrastructure strategies and server warehouses expand, it becomes conceivable (and probable) that we will surf distinct networks the way we surf Web sites today. At some point it will be hard to ignore the benefits of tailored, owned networks capable of harmonizing issues of privacy, values, access and participation-and, likewise, easy to see the costs of regulation, endless governance fights and inherent insecurity on a non-owned Internet from which criminals and hackers can't be excluded. Besides, diverse applications-streaming video, gaming, secure commerce and teleconferencing-may benefit from separation. The Wireless Application Protocol, a proprietary means of aggregating Web-based content on cell phones, already exists apart from the Internet. And popular AOL has been separate for many years. While today's Internet will forge ahead, companies may profit from a presence on several networks, on each maintaining different relationships with the other users. Or they could provide content to newfangled middlemen who troll for information across networks and then filter it according to consumer preferences. Are you terrified of privacy leaks? You might be a customer for an alternative Net in which banks, hospitals and insurance companies team up with an Internet service provider to produce a product that is as secure as you want. You would keep confidential information off the more hackable commodity Internet. While networks paid for by ads can be frequented by people who don't mind giving up personal information, those who don't want to reveal such data might use for-fee networks that ban mouse-click "profiling" by advertisers. In a thousand ways, self-selecting users, through contracts, could sort themselves among competing networks with unique ground rules and policies. Certain overarching issues, such as encryption policy and Internet tax policy, will apply to any network. But consumers and businesses can still organize among networks rather than hire a national nanny in Washington, D.C. to make all the rules. Warfare on the digital commons invites more regulation and adds to a deteriorating and antiquated Internet. Splintering increases our options and wealth. It also protects our rights, which depend so critically on the institution of private property. ### ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, 2175 Bayfield Drive, Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************
