Netizens-Digest Wednesday, April 9 2003 Volume 01 : Number 482 Netizens Association Discussion List Digest In this issue: [netz] Re: What do you hope is the purpose of the Netizens list: (Was: [netz] censorship) Re[2]: [netz] privatization Re: [netz] Question about the list Re: [netz] Question for Jay: Economic as well as political Re: Infrastructure (wads Re: [netz] A delicate line?) Re: [netz] Question about the list Re[2]: [netz] privatization Re: [netz] Question about the list ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:28:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: [netz] Re: What do you hope is the purpose of the Netizens list: (Was: [netz] censorship) Dan Good to hear your answer to my question about what you hoped was the purpose of the netizens list. On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Dan Duris wrote: > I thought this list was dealing mostly with cross-over of social > sciences and technology (internet mostly). Also since I am interested > in cooperative nature of internet, I subscribed to read about this, > too. And it is good to hear that you were interested in the cooperative nature of the Net. I wondered if you had come across the concept of netizen before joining the netizen list. > > dan Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:36:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: Re[2]: [netz] privatization On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Dan Duris wrote: > LDQ> how's czech and slovakia's economy doing lately? Perhaps you can tell us > Czech economy is doing better than Slovak and it's nothing wrong about > it. Czech rep. was more industrialized than Slovakia since the > beginning of 20th century , so it's just common development. > > I can tell you I am very happy we have democracy and big corporations > are coming here. If we didn't we would still have goverment-owned > telecommunication monopoly. And I can tell you that they are still > doing problems for other companies and so I have to pay for every > minute connected and doesn't have any other alternatives - cable, ADSL > or even wireless internet. It's too expensive and it would stay that > way for next 1 or 2 years. But thanks to BIG corporations all of you in > States could be connected in 4 hours to new telephone line and pay only > monthly fee for local calls. The basis for a good phone system in the US is *not* the free market, but the fact that AT&T, was a regulated monopoly in the US, under government oversight, for many years, and was supported to do advanced technical and scientific research by the government. Bell Labs at AT&T made it possible to develop electronic switching and to solve the very difficult problems of developing the 5 ESS switch. The principle was that advanced technology was needed to keep costs down. Large corporations on their own often squelch advanced technology as they need to protect their present infrastructure. There was a regulatory obligation on AT&T to develop advanced technology. That is responsible for a number of the current advances we have today not only in phone service in the US but also in developments that have made possible the Internet. You can look at the current moment and draw conclusions that are inaccurate if you don't know the background and where the developments are coming from. Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:56:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: Re: [netz] Question about the list On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: > >Hello Howard: One last thing about the misunderstandings that caused all the > >controversy and for clarification. What did you mean when you told Jay he was > >"demaning himself" by posting the anti-war article? > >Lou D. > > I never wrote that. It's not even the word I would have chosen had I > criticized that post.. > > I do seem to remember someone else said something along those lines. Howard, Here is what you wrote from the Netizens digest 449 Jay had written: > >The Internet is making possible a much more readily available spectrum of >news coverage and news sources. This is especially valuable when some >media see the need for "patriotism" rather than adherence to the truth. >Regardless of whether a national news media becomes jingolistic, more >people around the world can get other and perhaps more accurate news. > >Here is an excerpt from a posting to a mailing list. To me it is a small >clue that the Internet is increasing the signal to noise ratio available. This is what you wrote Howard: Jay, are you able to make a post to the list that does not in some way involve war and anti-war? It seems not, and that's a shame, because it presents an incredibly narrow view of netizenship, in which you diminish yourself by seeming to be unable to consider it in any other context. I hope you've noted that I've thrown out a couple of recent posts on topics completely unrelated to the war but directly relevant to information flow on the net (e.g., DMCA issues) and to "rumor control" such as why Al-Qazeera was down. Jay doesn't *diminish himself* by his posts. His posts are his contribution to the list and it is *not* appropriate for someone to be criticized personally for his or her posts to the netizens list. If you disagree with him, that is your right, but it isn't appropriate to make the disagreement personal. In fact there are good reasons why it is important for the netizens list to determine how it approaches the brutal attack on the Iraqi civilians and country that is going on now in the name of "democracy" by the U.S. and British governments. So I can understand your disagreeing, but Lou is helpful in pointing out that it is not only that you disagreed. Recognizing a disagreement and pointing it out is the kind of activity that is constructive for the netizens list. Criticizing the person who you have the disagreement with, isn't appropriate activity for the list. This was in a post from: Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:53:54 -0500 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: Re: [netz] Somewhere to get news - ------------------ HB> HB> While I didn't directly criticize the anti-war article, it bothered HB> me that Jay chose only to respond to anti-war issues and did not HB> address any of my other suggested topics. - ------- Jay disagreed with you about not referring to the importance of the Internet in what was happening with regard to the situation in Iraq. If there is some way that the conversation on the netizens list could have helped to prevent the unleasing of the weapons of the US and Britain on Iraq that would have been a good thing. Michael's concept of netizens was for the peaceful solution of problems via communication. There have been people online utilizing the net for communication purposes that have were helpful to understand the case that the US government was making for war. That case wasn't satisfactory to people around the world. One of the basis of that case was a thesis that some British public relations officials found on the Internet which had been written over 10 years ago. And people utilizing the Internet uncovered what was happening and made clear this was a hoax. These topics aren't > necessarily instead of anti-war, although that would be my personal > preference. > Lou did accurately identify an attribution, but didn't remember the accurate word. It is helpful to recognize that this happened and clarify that it isn't appropriate for the list. Is there agreement that it isn't appropriate to make a comment personal about a person on the netizens list? Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:01:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: Re: [netz] Question for Jay: Economic as well as political On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: > After thinking about your comments on participatory democracy, it > increasingly occurred to me that somewhere, there has to be revenue > to produce this process. Even ignoring the highly expensive network > infrastructure, what do you see as the source of funding for > participation? > Shorter hours of work are a pressure for new and advanced technology to be developed and used and that is the basis for more social wealth to be produced in the society. There is something called the Frankfurter Brief that was offered to the US Supreme Court under Frankfurter documenting the benefit of shorter hours on a society. Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:25:53 EDT From: AGENTKUENSTLER@aol.com Subject: Re: Infrastructure (wads Re: [netz] A delicate line?) - --part1_199.187620db.2bc57961_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/23/03 11:06:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, hcb@gettcomm.com writes: > You can _just_ compress current broadcast quality television to 1 > Mbps or so, but, to provide hundreds of channels, plain copper wire > will not do the job. You can use LAN cabling on copper, however, to > select the channels of interest and bring them from a enterprise or > home termination to the place they are used. > > So, if you think of some digital divide situations, the incremental > cost of bringing high bandwidth to an apartment house isn't that > great -- in fact, it may be lower than bringing hundreds or thousands > of separate pairs to it. You may get similar economies of scale with > neighborhood installations by using short-distance copper to a small > unmanned concentrating pedestal. > > What's my point? If advertisers, for example, want to bring > television to consumers and need to do so through other than wireless > broadcast, the physical facilities can deliver telephony and Internet > applications at a very small marginal difference. > > The media giants may have a pernicious effect on "major media" > content, but they also may subsidize access to other resources > previously not affordable. > I can already see the revenue potential here. By the way Howard, where do I find out what the particularly FTTB as well as 'broadband aggregator' market looks like on a region by region basis in the US? -- Websites, journals? I can see where high integration of services can mean 'win-win' for subscribers and advertisers in a 'digital divide' context. Larry - --part1_199.187620db.2bc57961_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In a message dated 3/23/03 11:06:53 PM Eastern Dayligh= t Time, hcb@gettcomm.com writes:

You can _just_ compress current= broadcast quality television to 1
Mbps or so, but, to provide hundreds of channels, plain copper wire
will not do the job. You can use LAN cabling on copper, however, to
select the channels of interest and bring them from a enterprise or
home termination to the place they are used.

So, if you think of some digital divide situations, the incremental
cost of bringing high bandwidth to an apartment house isn't that
great -- in fact, it may be lower than bringing hundreds or thousands
of separate pairs to it.  You may get similar economies of scale with <= BR> neighborhood installations by using short-distance copper to a small
unmanned concentrating pedestal.

What's my point? If advertisers, for example, want to bring
television to consumers and need to do so through other than wireless
broadcast, the physical facilities can deliver telephony and Internet
applications at a very small marginal difference.

The media giants may have a pernicious effect on "major media"
content, but they also may subsidize access to other resources
previously not affordable.


I can already see the revenue potential here.  By the way Howard, where= do I find out what the particularly FTTB as well as 'broadband aggregator'=20= market looks like on a region by region basis in the US? -- Websites, journa= ls?  I can see where high integration of services can mean 'win-win' fo= r subscribers and advertisers in a 'digital divide' context. 

Larry - --part1_199.187620db.2bc57961_boundary-- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 08:48:37 -0400 From: Luis De Quesada Subject: Re: [netz] Question about the list Hello: I believe Ronda posted a clarification on this matter, in which I mistakenly confused the word "diminish" with "demean". When you leave things to memory, it can play tricks on you, especially on words that are somewhat similar. I regret this mistake, although there might not be much difference between the two words. In any case as Ronda pointed out, I don't think Jay "diminished" himself by posting the article, but that's water over the dam. Perhaps if Jay would've replied to it in a timely fashion perhaps all that heated debate could've been avoided. However I told Jay that my postings will be down to zero, or far and few between because I have to educate myself more on netizens and its pertinent issues to be able to offer more educated postings or contributions. Lou D. lindeman@bard.edu wrote: > Lou, > > I downloaded the Netizens digests for the last month and searched for all uses > of the word "demean" or "demeaning". As far as I could determine, you were the > first one to use the word. However, I imagine that you must be referring to > Howard's statement: "Jay, are you able to make a post to the list that does not > in some way involve war and anti-war? It seems not, and that's a shame, > because it presents an incredibly narrow view of netizenship, in which you > diminish yourself by seeming to be unable to consider it in any other context." > > I also tried to figure out what had inspired your repeated allusions > to "accusations against Ronda and Jay about 'destroying the list'". My best > candidate is this statement by Larry: "I am not pointing fingers. Maybe we > should just not talk about the war anymore; please forgive me. There is a lot > of integrity here and I think that this war talk generally destroys thread > credibility because we cannot all try to be as objective as Howard and others." > > Honestly not intending to stir the embers of past conflict, it has been > incredibly confusing to have attributed to me (and/or my "buddies") sentiments > and actual words that I did not even recognize. > > Mark ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 09:58:59 -0400 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: Re[2]: [netz] privatization At 7:23 AM -0400 4/9/03, Ronda Hauben wrote: > > >The basis for a good phone system in the US is *not* the free market, First, let me say that the breakup of AT&T was the most horrible example possible of how NOT to do deregulation (well, there _is_ the fiasco in the California electric power industry). But, like most things in life, there were both good and bad aspects. >but the fact that AT&T, was a regulated monopoly in the US, under >government oversight, for many years, and was supported to do advanced >technical and scientific research by the government. Bell Labs at >AT&T made it possible to develop electronic switching and to solve >the very difficult problems of developing the 5 ESS switch. Bell Labs was a national and world resource. > >The principle was that advanced technology was needed to keep costs down. Not so much advanced technology, but there was a practical need for coordination of interconnection, telephone number assignment, etc. Very similar problems, indeed, to problems of Internet governance. AT&T served several roles. One was a technical governance body, along the lines of a combination of ICANN and the IETF. Another was economies of scale in operating long-distance communications. AT&T never had a complete telephone monopoly, especially at the local level. Significant but smaller players included General Telephone (which became GTE and merged into Verizon) and United Telephone (which is among the several parents of Sprint). The 1913 Kingsbury Compromise set most of the regulatory conditions, including AT&T agreeing to give up all telegraph business. :-) I've always wondered why, after 1913, they didn't change their name from American Telephone & Telegraph to American Telephone. There's a substantial amount of credit owed to an early CEO of AT&T, Theodore Vail. Some of his statements, however, have to be interpreted in the language of the time. He was indeed an early and sincere proponent of what he called universal telephone service, but he did not, by this, mean that every individual should have telephone access. He meant that every public telephone should technically be able to connect to every other public telephone, which had definitely not been the case in the early twentieth century. Especially given the time of his work, I think we often forget Vail was a very real corporate executive who also understood the concept of service to the public and being the steward of a regulated service. The Carterphone decision, slightly before the AT&T breakup (1972 or 1973, as opposed to the AT&T Modified Final Judgement in 1975) was a good and balanced step. It permitted the connection of non-AT&T end user equipment to AT&T lines, either through AT&T protective electronics or after certification that it met technical standards. > >Large corporations on their own often squelch advanced technology >as they need to protect their present infrastructure. Under AT&T regulation, they had to go to the government FCC to have any new offering approved. That took time. There was also a procedure for requesting a quote on what was called a "special assembly," but the Bell System could simply refuse. Even if they agreed, it often could take a year or more to get the service. I tried, from 1974 to 1977, to get a T1 line in the Washington DC area. This was a routine part of telephone infrastructure. Even with the 1975 breakup, it was very difficult. > >There was a regulatory obligation on AT&T to develop advanced >technology. > >That is responsible for a number of the current advances we have >today not only in phone service in the US but also in developments >that have made possible the Internet. AT&T and Bell Labs were not major players in the early Internet. If one were to select one prime corporation, it would be BBN, which was subsequently acquired by GTE, then spun off into several units -- Genuity as an ISP and assorted BBN labs as consultancies. > >You can look at the current moment and draw conclusions that are >inaccurate if you don't know the background and where the developments >are coming from. > >Ronda ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 10:02:04 -0400 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: Re: [netz] Question about the list >On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: > >> >Hello Howard: One last thing about the misunderstandings that >>caused all the >> >controversy and for clarification. What did you mean when you >>told Jay he was >> >"demaning himself" by posting the anti-war article? >> >Lou D. I repeat. The word "demean" does not appear in my post. > > >> I never wrote that. It's not even the word I would have chosen had I >> criticized that post.. >> >> I do seem to remember someone else said something along those lines. > > >Howard, Here is what you wrote from the Netizens digest 449 > >Jay had written: >> >>The Internet is making possible a much more readily available spectrum of >>news coverage and news sources. This is especially valuable when some >>media see the need for "patriotism" rather than adherence to the truth. >>Regardless of whether a national news media becomes jingolistic, more >>people around the world can get other and perhaps more accurate news. >> >>Here is an excerpt from a posting to a mailing list. To me it is a small >>clue that the Internet is increasing the signal to noise ratio available. > >This is what you wrote Howard: > > Jay, are you able to make a post to the list that does not in some > way involve war and anti-war? It seems not, and that's a shame, > because it presents an incredibly narrow view of netizenship, in > which you diminish yourself by seeming to be unable to consider it in > any other context. I hope you've noted that I've thrown out a couple > of recent posts on topics completely unrelated to the war but > directly relevant to information flow on the net (e.g., DMCA issues) > and to "rumor control" such as why Al-Qazeera was down. > > >Jay doesn't *diminish himself* by his posts. His posts are his >contribution to the list and it is *not* appropriate for someone >to be criticized personally for his or her posts to the netizens list. > >If you disagree with him, that is your right, but it isn't appropriate >to make the disagreement personal. Point taken, and let me clarify. In that case, I disagree with him on apparently being willing only to respond to war related posts until very recently. His most recent post (that I've seen) mentions replacement of voting with a new governmental style, suggesting this is a goal of Netizenship. I vehemently disagree. > >In fact there are good reasons why it is important for the netizens >list to determine how it approaches the brutal attack on the Iraqi >civilians and country that is going on now in the name of "democracy" >by the U.S. and British governments. > >So I can understand your disagreeing, but Lou is helpful in pointing >out that it is not only that you disagreed. I'm sorry, I don't understand quite what you said in the previous sentence. Are you saying other people disagreed with Jay's position, or something else entirely? > >Recognizing a disagreement and pointing it out is the kind of activity >that is constructive for the netizens list. > >Criticizing the person who you have the disagreement with, isn't >appropriate activity for the list. > >This was in a post from: > >Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:53:54 -0500 >From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" >Subject: Re: [netz] Somewhere to get news > > >------------------ > >HB> >HB> While I didn't directly criticize the anti-war article, it bothered >HB> me that Jay chose only to respond to anti-war issues and did not >HB> address any of my other suggested topics. >------- >Jay disagreed with you about not referring to the importance of the >Internet in what was happening with regard to the situation in Iraq. > >If there is some way that the conversation on the netizens list >could have helped to prevent the unleasing of the weapons of the >US and Britain on Iraq that would have been a good thing. > >Michael's concept of netizens was for the peaceful solution of problems >via communication. > >There have been people online utilizing the net for communication >purposes that have were helpful to understand the case that the US >government was making for war. > >That case wasn't satisfactory to people around the world. One of the >basis of that case was a thesis that some British public relations >officials found on the Internet which had been written over 10 years >ago. > >And people utilizing the Internet uncovered what was happening and >made clear this was a hoax. > > These topics aren't >> necessarily instead of anti-war, although that would be my personal >> preference. >> > >Lou did accurately identify an attribution, but didn't remember the >accurate word. It is helpful to recognize that this happened and >clarify that it isn't appropriate for the list. > >Is there agreement that it isn't appropriate to make a comment personal >about a person on the netizens list? > >Ronda ------------------------------ End of Netizens-Digest V1 #482 ******************************