The Federal Communications Commission, the five-person panel that regulates the telecommunications industry, is poised to approve a sweeping set of rules that would prohibit internet service providers from favoring their own content and discriminating against rival traffic.
The FCC has NO authority over the internet—none, zip, nada! No mandate, no statutory standing…it is an illegal usurpation of authority… as are all the other intrusions by the Feds. The original network which formed the future “internet” was ARPANET, a joint project of the Defense Dept. and key universities (UCLA,MIT, Berkley, Washington University, Stanford Institute…). When the internet was “released” to the public in (around) 1991 it began an exponential growth cycle that today numbers over
10,000% in 15 years.
I can tell you that there are guerrilla “
tech commandos” already in place to launch ad-hoc replicating “subnets “when the Feds crack down. People should be watching the story of “
The Pirate Bay” (TPB)—after losing a court trial in the Netherlands (for murky charges under the copyright laws—featuring a judge paid for by Hollywood), facing steep fines, and the destruction of their site…;they re-deployed to servers in the Ukraine and Russia, and move their servers two steps ahead of the Hollywood bloodhounds.
Whether you want to argue about the propriety of TPB, which acts as a go-between for providers andpartakers of all sorts of data that is shared by “peer-to-peer” users; that it is a hub for distribution of all manner of bootlegged music, movies, ebooks, audio, and software—and copious amounts of (illegal) porn—it is the model for the future of the free web. It operates outside legal boundaries, moves quickly to relocate when threatened and utilizes the cyber underworld to continue operations.
There is no “internet” per se—just (loosely speaking) a series of backplanes that connect servers via software protocols in a non-linear fashion—a series of inter-webs. The tech world is peopled by tens of thousands of free thinkers who are smarter than this beast that wants to control them. I predict one of the great wars of the near-future will be tech wars on the web.
What most western users of technology don’t know is that during the period of “Glastnost”, when jobs were nigh unto impossible to find for bright, young computer science grads; they sharpened their skills on the, then emerging, network protocols that now power the global web. Likewise, in China today—the “official” internet in China heavily filtered and restricted, yet untold numbers of Chinese obtain full use of the unfiltered web on small handheld wireless devices which are engineered and manufactured all over the Pacific Rim. Poland, the Ukraine, the former Soviet satellite states all hold untold numbers of young, tech-savvy ex-patriates who hack, crack, and exploit for the sheer joy of confounding and infuriating their counterparts in the military, intelligence, and industrial-financial systems.
These “cyber-kids” hold no allegiance to any government, any currency, or laws—national or international. They use the system’s assets to their own advantage and are often scouted for their prowess with network security holes. An entire generation of young people—raised on technology in the volatile political climate of Eastern Europe—are the recruiting grounds for the REAL “Info Wars”—wars where the ability to game sophisticated networks, hack complex software, and manipulate encryption will be key to “liberating” hard assets like money, food, munitions, electrical power, and battle-winning data.
The FCC, which can barely contain a vulgar Howard Stern or cope with Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”, are already out-classed and out-numbered by the global legions of “Cyber Kids” who will thumb their noses as they romp through the fields of the cybersphere for profit and fun. More seriously, these “Kids”, who are only a generation removed from the repression of the Soviet Empire, hold deep disdain for authority of a totalitarian stripe. These may be the front line commandos for open communication in the coming wars.
“WHEN FREEDOM IS OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS HAVE FREEDOM.”
