Okay, we seem to think there is absolutely nothing public about the
Internet, and that this allows us to finally break free of the burden of
government. Now let's move on to the next step, and find a way to think
about the Internet as something we all share, which needs massive
cooperation to make it work.
Once the vague 'authority' of the USG is withdrawn from IANA in Sept. 2000,
what will take its place? How do we account for the fundamentally
cooperative nature of the Internet, yet avoid the awful p-word? Isn't it
just possible that what makes this whole damn thing work is something a
little more than private? We don't have to use the dirty word 'public,' but
can't we find some way to account for the cooperative action which the
Internet needs for all of our benefit?
Everybody seems to deny the importance of the USG-funded predecessor
networks, but nobody can convince me that what we now know as the Internet
could have arisen without the groundwork laid by the ARPANET and NSFNET.
AOL arose, like GEIS and all sorts of VPN services and closed content
services like Nexis, on a completely different model to the Internet.
Here's a question, without the predecessor networks, whose basic
architecture we still use, just how would something like the Internet, as
opposed to something like AOL, have arisen?
Think about the instant messaging war going on and think about how far
'private network' thinking will get us as we try to defend the Internet from
the @Homes, AOLs, and Microsofts of the world, who have a lot more money
than any of you private network owners out there.
Craig McTaggart
Graduate Student
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
