Tag: Managing the Internet
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Net Governance Debate Heats Up
European countries surprised the U.S. Wednesday by suggesting that an international body rather than the U.S. government should have ultimate control over certain Internet functions. According to Tom Wright’s story in the International Herald Tribune, The United States lost its only ally [at the U.N.’s World Summit on the Information Society] late Wednesday when the…
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Who Is An ISP?
There’s talk in Washington about a major new telecommunications bill, to update the Telecom Act of 1996. A discussion draft of the bill is floating around. The bill defines three types of services: Internet service (called “Broadband Internet Transmission Service” or BITS for short); VoIP; and broadband television. It lays down specific regulations for each…
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RIAA, MPAA Join Internet2 Consortium
RIAA and MPAA, trade associations that include the major U.S. record and movie companies, joined the Internet2 consortium on Friday, according to a joint press release. I’ve heard some alarm about this, suggesting that this will allow the AAs to control how the next generation Internet is built. But once we strip away the hype,…
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ICANN Challenged on .xxx Domain
The U.S. government has joined other governments and groups in asking ICANN to delay implementation of a new “.xxx” top-level domain, according to a BBC story. Adding a .xxx domain would make little difference in web users’ experiences. Those who want to find porn can easily find it already; and those who want to avoid…
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WiFi Freeloading Now a Crime in U.K.
A British man has been fined and given a suspended prison sentence for connecting to a stranger’s WiFi access point without permission, according to a BBC story. There is no indication that he did anything improper while connected; all he did was to park his car in front of a stranger’s house and connect his…
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Who'll Stop the Spam-Bots?
The FTC has initiated Operation Spam Zombies, a program that asks ISPs to work harder to detect and isolate spam-bots on their customers’ computers. Randy Picker has a good discussion of this. A bot is a malicious, long-lived software agent that sits on a computer and carries out commands at the behest of a remote…
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GAO Data: Porn Rare on P2P; Filters Ineffective
P2P nets have fewer pornographic images than the Web, and P2P porn filters are ineffective, according to data in a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Mind you, the report’s summary text says pretty much the opposite, but where I come from, data gets more credibility than spin. The data can be…
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Content Filtering and Security
Buggy security software can make you less secure. Indeed, a growing number of intruders are exploiting bugs in security software to gain access to systems. Smart system administrators have known for a long time to be careful about deploying new “security” products. A company called Audible Magic is trying to sell “content filtering” systems to…
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Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Decision Architectures
Tim Wu has an interesting new draft paper on how public policy in areas like intellectual property affects which innovations are pursued. It’s often hard to tell in advance which innovations will succeed. Organizational economists distinguish centralized decision structures, in which one party decides whether to proceed with a proposed innovation, from decentralized structures, in…
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Is the FCC Ruling Out VoIP on PCs?
The FCC has issued an order requiring VoIP systems that interact with the old-fashioned phone network to provide 911service. Carriers have 120 days to comply. It won’t be easy for VoIP carriers to provide the 911 service that people have come to expect from the traditional phone system. The biggest challenge in providing 911 on…