[dundee] Open Wi-Fi 'outlawed' in Digital Economy Bill

[Robert Ladyman]

The major fault with this legislation is the belief that there is "An 
Internet" (sic) - internet is short for interconnected networks: there is no 
'internet' to connect to; it isn't 'out there' as a real, separate thing any 
more than the sky is blue.
This belief in a 'something' that exists without its components leads to 
cloudy thinking: once you realise this, you can see that this legislation is, 
in effect, a tax on particular types of network equipment and an attempt to 
impose a technical constraint upon how you run YOUR network. Managing end-
points of, and access to, your own network is your concern. Managing the 
interconnection to other networks is surely your own concern as well: those 
networks are run by other administrators, not by government (unless they are 
government networks). 
Managing a connection to "The Internet" goes in the same in-tray as an email 
address for the Tooth Fairy. 

> 
> Well, you're assuming it has to be a "network", rather than a simple a
> pipe to the Internet.  And there are many reasons these are desirable,
> community wifi projects being one of them.  The legislation here
> essentially says "only big companies can become ISP's"...  Legislation
> like this is driving smaller players out of the market... Making the
> whole industry less competitive.  Would Robert Ladyman have ever set
> himself up as a rural ISP if more legislation like this were in
> place?!?!  Maybe, maybe not... I'm hoping he can answer this point.
> 
There are no 'simple pipes' to the interconnected networks - to interconnect 
you have to be a network, even if only of one device.

When we set up, there was other legislation in place - we had to submit 
business and technical plans, and so on: the technical plans were explicit in 
that we allowed anonymous access to local services (an Intranet) but paid-for, 
controlled access outwith that. Had we had to pay for each access point on our 
network we would not have started - after all, we would not have a tax on any 
other switch, hub or router.

> What does this legislation mean for community Mesh networks and future
> WiMax projects?  WiFi technology is rapidly approaching a saturation
> point large enough to sustain large community networks...  With future
> wireless technologies such as WiMAX and it's successors around the
> corner mesh networking becomes increasingly viable.  We could have a
> future within 5 years where most users wouldn't need ISP's, and could
> instead get free internet access with self configuring mesh
> networks...  The technology to do this exists today, and it will
> likely be in your home in a couple of years.  Legislation like this is
> prohibitive of this future, and means that we'll likely remain paying
> our ISP's £20 per/month for the next hundred years.
> 
> The telco cartel have far too much control over Internet and mobile
> communications as it is, for example charging approximately £900 per
> MB (for SMS's) is scandalous.  Not to mention the fact that we're
> effectively giving control of the Internet to the copyright lobbyists.
>  Disney and others would have killed the Internet a decade or more
> ago, if they'd known what the world today is like...  If you'd rather
> a parallel universe; sans Internet, then I can understand you
> supporting this legislation...  Otherwise, I struggle to see why
> allowing them to push through this legislation benefits anyone other
> than the established 'rights holders' and Telco's.
> 
> Ensuring authentication on the endpoints does nothing to improve
> security on the Internet either, as malicious users and those with
> something to hide can simply bounce a connection around the world a
> couple of times through something like TOR.  So again, all this does
> is penalise legitimate users with additional inconvenience, whilst
> propping up the failing business models of incumbent industries, and
> preventing future innovation in services and wireless technology.
> 
> There are countless other ways that this legislation is ill conceived,
> but given you've now got many good arguments as to why this
> legislation is bad, perhaps you can offer us a reason as to why it's
> good?  So far all you've said in support of this is that it will
> "improve network security", do you have a stronger argument or more
> straw men?
> 
> Incidentally if you want a full treatise on the effect of legislation
> such as this, I'd recommend reading Yochai Benkler's seminal work "The
> Wealth of Networks" (
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page ) and
> Lessig's first book "Code - and other laws of cyberspace" (
> http://codev2.cc/ ).
> 
> > I could only come up with avoiding the long arm of a totalitarian regime,
> > but that stretched the point into a new one. Or the "Sex And The City
> > meets the Spice Girls" argument - because we want to! :-p Always a poor
> > one for me.
> 
> Sounds more like a Billie Piper argument to me :-)
> 
> > However, due to this discussion I had a look and I did find an article in
> > which Bruce Schneier advocated it (for himself, at least). Schneier's
> > arguments rely on the practical aspect of (and I paraphrase) "it doesn't
> > matter to me" or "it's bad elsewhere so why bother, better to focus on
> > other aspects", because the technical reasons are so weak, which, to his
> > credit, he admits.
> > http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html It
> > didn't convince me at all. Comments section was quite good though.
> 
> Yes, I provided a link to this Schneier article in my original message.
> 
> --
> Rick Moynihan
> http://twitter.com/RickMoynihan
> http://delicious.com/InkyHarmonics
> http://sourcesmouth.co.uk/
> 
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-- 

Robert Ladyman
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