[Colchester] The Internet

[Wayland Sothcott]

Toby

Toby Whaymand wrote:
> I generally agree with what you are saying mate.  Despite the dangers of the internet it is the freedom it can give people that makes it so great. 
>
> Imagine if you was in a wheel chair and pretty much house bound most of the day until your career or family member arrives for these people I believe the internet is vital because it can take you around the world.  You can go to New York see all the tourist places like The Statue of Liberty. then a click later you could be seeing Dingo at at Australia Zoo.  Indeed you can travel the world with out leaving your home.
>
> Like Television -which I also belive plays an important role. The internet is escapism which can be very important for some people....
>
>   
The Internet is not like television, but it could be and this is what I 
am worried about. Google Earth is a fantastic tool, but we have MS Live 
Earth and if I wanted I could start my own version or do overlays to 
these where I show things of interest to me. If Google Earth had some 
sort of operating licence and I was banned from doing a similar thing 
unless I obtained a licence then that would be bad for freedom. From a 
technical point of view the Internet does not require much regulation. 
Unlike TV channels it expands when ever I add a new website or install a 
new server. To run a website I have to pay for monthly bandwidth. The 
more popular my site the more bandwidth (traffic to my site) I have to 
buy. This money filters out over the various providers as they each  buy 
bandwidth off each other. If they start charging for virtual routes 
between points then that makes it like a switched circuit, like the 
telephone. The Internet can make free international calls because it's 
packet switched, the destination does not affect billing. If ISP's do 
deals to get a faster connection to the BBC's servers for video then 
users of ISP's who don't have such deals will suffer. The BBC rejected 
the plan to make them pay the ISPs for all the extra bandwidth their 
iPlayer users were causing. The BBC already has to pay for bandwith and 
is actually providing content for the ISPs to deliver to their 
subscribers. If we had to rely on the ISPs to come up with content, we 
would still be using Compuserve. What perhaps is a little rich is the 
huge prices BT charge the ISPs, but the solution is that the ISPs should 
provide the connections to the subscribers homes, which I am active in.

> When I heard on the radio about sex offenders registering there e-mail address I could not believe my ears - it's just a joke! That never going to work because it is dead easy to register an e-mail.  
>
> The only hope that I can see is if a sex offender registers his or hers IP address which will then have some kind of software control.  I think in that kind of case controlling the internet for that person on there own computer is justified.  
>
>   
So you believe that some sort of control on what sex offenders can do on 
the Internet is justified? That the average person should have freedoms 
to do things that a sex offender is banned from doing? Or maybe that is 
not fair, maybe to make it fair we should all be monitored and banned 
from doing certain things? Recently an insignificant social networking 
site that only allows over 18's banned anyone with a profile over the 
age of 36 year because of concerns about predatory paedophiles. It's 
hard to know where to start with this one. First people lie about their 
age so under 18's maybe online, second people lie about their age so 
over 36 years maybe online and thirdly what does the age of the 
paedophile have to do with being a paedophile?

> There one thing I would like to see... Every body getting together and target an ISP like Virgin Media and try and get better support for Linux.  If everyone (being Linux users) across the UK acted as one then the ISP will adjust to include Linux support
>
>   
I think Linux is very well supported these days. Obviously with Linux 
you should get a router and not even try and use a USB Modem. The main 
problem with Linux is proprietary media formats that require a licence. 
Many sites like to use these because of DRM and some of them have pretty 
good performance. It seems to me that these media formats are like 
printer Ink Cartridges. Basically liquid ink would fit into any shaped 
cartridge, but it's always sold in the cartridge which being solid will 
only fit into the right shaped hole. Each time the Ink Cartridge cloners 
copy a new cartridge the printer makers come out with a new printer. I 
saw a printer in PC World (spit) that was £45, I thought that's good 
value, since the replacement cartridges were £40! This is what the 
computer industry spends most of it's time doing, making things 
incomputable (spell checker suggested that word) to screw more money out 
of us.

Linux provides the computer professional with a means to control their 
own destiny. The trouble is most people are too short sighted to see 
this. If Linux can't connect to the Zune player then Linux is at fault 
in their eyes. The incomputability (I like that word) of things is 
deliberate. The boy who got convicted of mod chipping his X-Box had his 
conviction overturned last week. He was getting round one of these 
deliberate incompatabilitys.

So when you want Linux better supported you need to fight for the right 
to create better support.

Wayland.