Timothy J. Salo wrote:
There was an interesting article in this Sunday's New York Times
about a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to extend CALEA requirements to Internet services provided by
municipal Internet service providers (ISPs), libraries, and
presumably community technology centers (CTCs). The
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
mandates that a variety of communications providers design
their networks so that it is easy for Federal authorities to
tap their network, including e-mail and other online
transactions. The new proposal extends these requirements to
university networks and those listed above.
The original CALEA was intended for voice circuits ONLY, data circuits were left
out intentionally (this was in 1994). The FCC had the FBI and DEA on them for a
while to do this, but it remains to be seen if the FCC actually has the
authority to modify CALEA since it was a legislated act to begin with.
This new revision is not limited to municipal data networks, but all data
networks. How they expect to do this is beyond my comprehension. I worked for
VISI.com (a local ISP) as a network engineer for a few years and had to deal
with the fallout from Clinton's DMCA (it was a mixed bag). The amount of data
that traverses one ISP, much less the whole Internet, is gigantinormouslyhuge.
REALLY BIG. Even if there was no such thing as encryption, the fragmentation of
major networks (IPv4, IPv6, Internet2, copmletely private networks, etc.) would
make this a ridiculously monumental task. While I am sure they would not be
sifting the whole Internet like China wants to (they really only monitor
input/output), even trying to monitor a single person is hard, especially if
that person does not want to be monitored.
The guys behind the CALEA expansion (FBI/DEA) were behind the previous attempt,
called Total Information Awareness (TIA), which was later changed to Terrorist
Information Awareness after the first name failed the public approval test.
Congress cut funding for the project in late 2003. Darn.
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) made a stand against the revision to
CALEA but the FCC finalized the expansion in August. More info:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/
The EFF will probably continue to work against this non-legislative revision to
a piece of legislation like it did other things the FCC recently 'legislated'.
Thier most recent victory against the FCC was the broadcast flag requirement for
all devices capable of recieving an HDTV signal sold after June or July this year.
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/
(slightly off-topic, sorry)
The New York Times article is online, (if you don't mind
registering so that the Times, and anyone else with access
to their records, can track what you read):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html
Quick note on web registrations for those not in the know:
Download Firefox first: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
(alternative to Internet Explorer, arguably better, definitely safer)
Then get bugmenot: http://roachfiend.com/archives/2005/02/07/bugmenot/
(extension for Firefox allowing you to fill in compulsory online registrations
without submitting your own personal identification)
CNET also has an article:
http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-5910976.html
These articles hint at some interesting issues for municipal networks.
o The ISP business in a fairly risky business. (Note that
I am using "risk" in the financial sense, in that outcomes,
such as future revenues and expenses, are uncertain and
may have a high variance.) Exogenous events, such as
the imposition of CALEA requirements on municipal networks,
can be sudden, unexpected, and have a significant effect on
revenues and/or expenses. (The same is true for the
technology and market environments, but that is another
topic.)
o Running an ISP is a demanding task. The CALEA issue hints
at only the administrative side of things, which includes
a lot of regulatory issues as well as interactions with
your upstream ISP and all of the ISPs upstream from it.
This backs into a personnel issue, in that a range of
highly skilled people are required to successfully run
an ISP. Even after the tech bubble, the good people
are in high demand.
o There are tremendous economies of scale in running an ISP.
For example, a good legal department for a moderate-sized
ISP can probably support a much larger ISP without much
difficulty.
Speaking from personal experience, which is in no way indicative of how things
actually work, when the DMCA came around, VISI.com kept getting hit with DMCA
violation notices from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). There was little time spent on
sending canned responses back to these guys, who were usally just trolling for
lawsuits. Sometimes they tagged one of our customers that was violating the DMCA
quite obviously and it took a few minutes to get the customer sorted out. No
governmental body ever played a part while I was there, so to me the DMCA was
more about large corporate entities protecting their ever-increasing
intellectual property management/litigation business. (Did you know the Happy
Birthday Song is still protected by copyright?)
If CALEA were legislated and legalized for data networks, the single biggest
hurdle is trying to figure out who pays for what. There is a huge hierarchy
involved in maintaining the Internet and to provide no governmental funding for
implementation of data-grade CALEA would be disastrous. Who would pay to monitor
their own customers; who COULD pay? Only the top-level Tier 1 ISPs like MCI,
Qwest, Sprint, Level3 might have the extra overhead to deal with the outlay
required to be in compliance. Smaller ISPs would not be able to afford the labor
and equipment required. Herein lies the problem: If you are only monitoring
traffic at the Tier 1 level, you are missing everything that does not traverse a
Tier 1 ISP. Any traffic or connections made below the Tier 1 level are off the
radar, making the system much less effective. If the government foots the bill,
then we just get to rest easy on the notion that we are paying to spy on ourselves.
Having said all that, I don't think these observations provide a basis
for concluding whether a particular municipal network is a good idea or
not. Rather, I suggest that citizens ought to demand that a good
business plan, one that takes into account these sorts of issues,
if they are applicable, be created before their municipality
invests heavily in becoming an ISP.
I have been loathe to comment on the previous municipal wireless discussions
while I formulated a better opinion on the topic. There are a number of issues
that people need to consider. Here are my thoughts on a few:
Future technology: Wireless tech is going nuts in terms of expansion right now,
investing in a large-scale roll-out may not be as cost-effective as waiting a
few months or a year. 802.11g is standard now, 802.11n is coming soon and 802.15
may or may not happen at all. What do these numbers mean? As wireless tech gets
better, the throughput and strength of wireless devices usally improves. If you
have to install 1000 base units with the current tech where 50 base units of the
next tech would be able to do the job, is it worth it to wait and see what
happens, see how the tech matures?
Past technology: Is there anything wrong with using DSL or cable in a municipal
setting? The infrastructure is already built, the big hurdle is getting the
corporations (Qwest, Frontier, Sprint, Time Warner, Comcast, etc) that hold
rights to those little bits of copper to cede some power to the city or county.
They could also not cede anything and just give the municipality a deal on
connections. This would have to go through the Minnesota Public Utilities
Commission I am sure. The nice thing about using DSL or cable Internet is that
these techs are well-tested and known entities. They may not be as versatile as
wireless but once they work they continue to work. Technically, their connection
performance currently surpasses any wireless techs in both latency and
bandwidth, the two metrics by which any Internet connection is readily measured.
Corporate Intrigue: Philadelphia and a few other cities have had legal
challenges from telecommunications companies like Verizon regarding government
vs private enterprise. Companies want to exploit these wireless markets and are
arguing against governmental interference in what they think are supposed to be
private enterprises. I am not too well versed on this one yet, but it might be
nice to see the beginnings of a legal precedent before having our own
municipality's fledgling wireless project torn down by legal action.
Libertarian Ethic: While this may be a bit far-fetched, I think it still holds
merit. Do the benefits of entrusting your communications infrastructure to a
governmental body outweigh the problems? I doubt that a Minneapolis-wide or
Hennepin County-wide wireless project would be subject to many evils, at least
not like something state or country-wide might be. Trying to get through the
bureaucracy at Qwest is pain enough sometimes, what happens when your Internet
connection fails and you have to deal with the city? Is the city ready to handle
the amount of effort it takes to run an ISP? This point is probably not
applicable if a contract is granted to a private company, unless that company
is.... Qwest. (joking, Qwest only sucks sometimes)
While I would like to see a wonderful municipal wireless project here, there are
numerous potholes for it to fall into that I think can be easily avoided by
giving things a little bit more time. Wireless has a little bit of growing up to
do before it is ready for Minneapolis. Now that you are done reading this,
enough time may very well have passed.
David Hauser
Logan
REMINDERS:
1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If
you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL
PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list.
2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html
For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract
________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn
E-Democracy
Post messages to: mailto:[email protected]
Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
