InfoTech and Public Policy

 Imagine driving down the freeway with your eye intensely gazing at the speedometer needle.  Its right under 55 and you nervously brake to keep from speeding.  The road slopes a bit and you head slightly downhill and you cringe as the speedometer crosses 55 and hits 57.  Sirens begin to sound but there are no cop cars within miles of you.  No, the sirens sound from within your car, and a $10 fine has been added to your tab of speeding violations that you will pay off at the end of the month.

Seems a bit absurd right?  Well, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult.  All it would take is some type of general surveillance between your car and the road that you were on that kept track of you speed and checked to make sure you were not violating any traffic laws.  It should be easy enough of with the technology we have today, but the sheer idea of a surveillance system of this nature would drive shivers up my spine.  The mere hassle of being constantly fined for driving would seriously motivate me to find new means of transportation.  While that might not seem like a horrible result, you have to understand it would greatly hinder our efficiency as a society by placing unnecessary restrictions and penalties on ourselves.   

We currently use a model that is dependent on the fact that it is impossible to have cops patrolling everywhere in order to detect traffic violations.  But with the addition of traffic video cameras and overhead speed traps, you can see our America slowly gravitating towards an Orwellian future.  Perhaps that’s a bit extreme, but you should get the idea.  You are probably wondering why should we have speed limits if we do not want people to follow them?  Well the idea is that we do want people to follow them and they set up guidelines, but we also do not want people to feel like “the government is out to get them.”   

If you frequently speed, you are more likely to get caught by a random speed check.  While you won’t get caught every time, you should get caught often enough to dissuade you from speeding.  Furthermore, the penalties are strong enough to make such a breach of the law a serious issue.  Obviously, they could make the penalties for speeding less significant while increasing their surveillance efforts, but I would contend that significantly increases inefficiencies in society.  For starters, it creates more physical costs/paper work.  But beyond that, it causes distrust between people and the government by making it a “permissions culture.”  In other words, if the government is going to monitor ALL our activities to ensure we are not breaking any laws then we are yielding our rights to the government and giving them control over our actions.  There should be a certain level of trust between people and the ruling body, similar to the relationship between parents and children.  This of course goes beyond things like speeding tickets.  Technology will continue to make increased surveillance a very real option, but if we are to avoid an authoritarian type government, the government must continue to trust the judgment of its people, even if that means laws get broken more often (when calculated in absolute terms).  We have some very scary decisions to make over the next couple of decades, but when it comes down to the government monitoring daily activities of our lives, I will always come down in favor of a hands off approach.    

I think it is important to keep in mind that the true cost of computer hacking is yet to be convincingly determined. In the previous post by John Galt, we were provided with the $10-$100 billion dollar estimate (a rough estimate by Symantec), but after scouring the internet for a couple of hours I noticed that there is no real consensus on this. One interesting source listed a variety of “cost estimates” and the numbers are all over the place. One estimate was as high as $266 billion, and that was for 1999, so I would assume the associated costs have increased over the last nine years.

Another thing we should keep in mind when looking at these estimates is what is really being measured. Laura Koetzle, an IT consultant, states that estimates can measure “hard costs” like employee hours and hardware costs, but do a bad job in measuring loss of productivity or reputation. Perhaps what is even more costly is that companies have to reallocate their IT staff during virus crises and this can compromise general network stability and operations.

The scariest part is that we are becoming increasingly dependent on the internet and we require network security for our economy to operate. Could you imagine the cost of an internet blackout that lasted even an hour? It is naïve to measure the size of the problem in terms of dollar figures because it forces us to live in a constant state of fear regarding the safety of e-commerce, data storage, and general network dependency. For example, would it be fair to measure the cost of the September 11^th attacks by only considering the cost of lost lives and damage to structures? One would have to consider the general loss of productivity, the increased requirement for preventive measures, and the fear it creates. Network security is no different. There are still plenty of people who refuse to do online transactions because they do not believe it is safe. A single network attack is enough to bring a company’s operations to a halt for several days or to destroy years of unbacked up data on personal computers.

The good news is, the majority of these costs are currently from the corporate side. This means that the problem can really be isolated to having better corporate network security and this makes implementation considerably easier because we do not need vouchers or mandates. Education classes on safe network use can easily be handled in-house by companies who would like to preserve their network safety. At the same time, the government should look at network security as a “national security” issue. In other words, their main concern should be to consider the worst case blackout scenario and figure out how to circumvent any such national internet failure. Overall, I think network safety is a problem that will be propelled into the forefront over the next decade or so, but we should be careful at calculating the costs associated with it and also realizing that the main threat is not on the personal computer level.

In July of 2001, Napster shut down leaving 26.4 million people scrambling for a new way of getting their music.  There would be those who would shift to the next large file sharing sites, like Grokster, Kazaa, Bearshare, etc.  There would be those who would revert back to buying CDs, which had been the way people had done things for as long as they could remember.  But then a funny thing happened.  Online music downloads were front and center once again in 2003 with the introduction of the iTunes Music Store.  But this time it was legal.  People were buying their own music, just like they had always been doing, yet everything had changed forever.

            Let’s backtrack a bit for those who may not fully comprehend the revolution that Napster started.  This is what the RIAA used as the basis of their lawsuit:  “Napster is about facilitating piracy, and trying to build a business on the backs of artists and copyright owners.”  Napster responded with, “We’re this tiny company caught between two industries: the Net and music industry.  We look forward to working with the RIAA to create laws for the good of artists and music lovers.”  Well the truth was somewhere in between the press releases from the two companies.  It is true that Napster facilitated the violation of copyright by individuals, but at the same time it served legal purposes.  Moreover, it’s arguable how much it really hurt the artists and copyright owners. 

The constitutional justification for copyright has very little to do with a personal entitlement to have ownership over your work, but rather, belongs to the more vague reasoning of “promoting the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”  Well what does this actually mean?  The argument can be made that copyright exists to promote the spread of the arts to as many people as possible.  So then, is it possible that the breach of copyright, through a program like Napster, does far more to spread music to all income levels, than protecting copyright ensures the creation of more art.  In other words, if our objective is to maximize the promotion of music, it is unclear if we should focus on its creation or its distribution.

Now, let’s return to the case of Napster.  Even if we assume that the primary usage of Napster was for illegal activity, one has to wonder if it is fair that someone else gets the complete benefits of the product they created.  The entire MP3 revolution and the iTunes revolution would have never existed without Napster.  Napster created a whole new way to distribute music and popularized a rapidly growing form of music compression.  However, the “rents” from this new distribution channel were quickly captured by Apple, the music industry, and the artists, while the innovator behind the entire process was left with lawsuits.  Of course, I do not bring up Napster just to reminisce.  Napster is particularly pertinent in today’s world because we are faced with an extremely situation with YouTube and it is interesting to see if YouTube will be rewarded for revolutionizing the way video media is distributed or if the courts will come down hard on the company. 

After our very interesting class discussion about the multiple directions e-governance can go in and the viability of it, I decided to try and flesh out what I envision for the future of our democracy.  In class, we discussed various “styles” which we labeled through common terminology such as “Facebook style,” “Youtube Style,” and of course the one that started the entire discussion, “Wikipedia Style.”  Yet, the exact nature of how we put together this e-governance framework can be discussed after we figure out what we expect from it.

            There were several cogent arguments I kept hearing in class regarding the inability of any form internet solution to displace our current form of government.  As I have discussed in a previous post regarding the possibility of an Athenian type democracy, I am fully in favor of direct representation by the people, but also feel that such a radical change is not suitable for nation of our size and complexities.  But, I do feel that the internet can be used to supplement our democratic representation in a more active format.  I will start by addressing one of the main issues that kept reappearing: accessibility.  I do understand that there are numerous demographic statistics that explain why the internet is not a representative democratic outlet.  However, when debates began airing on National Television, neither was TV.  I don’t feel we can constrain the extension of democracy because it is not comprehensive enough.  Let us not forget that by the time any type of internet framework is developed, the number of people with access to the internet will be significantly larger.

            It seemed what people in class were really afraid of was some form of e-government where millions of people could vote on resolutions.  A secondary concern was any form of discussion group where the focus of the discussion could somehow be controlled by a single group of people.  As we begin depending on the internet for more important functionality, there will always be the potential for fraud and misrepresentation.   However, we must trust that we have the technological ingenuity and the democratic commitment to address these issues.  With every democratic advancement there is always a temporary step backward.  For example, electronic voting machines are full of potential bugs and drawbacks, but in the long run, they will greatly increase the accessibility of election centers and the ease and frequency at which we can have public voting. 

            What I really would like to see from our government is a more transparent and active forum for public debate.  In this election, we have seen the incredible advancement of Youtube submitted debate questions and AIM/text-message questions.  What used to be a very exclusive process has now opened up so that every individual has potential access to the candidates.   The drawback, however, is that there are 300 million of us, and only a handful of candidates, and it is very hard to get any real information extracted out of a 2 minute sound bite.  What I want is a national forum that allows the internet to work for us.  Yes, there are tons of political blogs and discussion boards, but what we need is an official source for political discussion.  On this discussion board, any individual can register to discuss issues that there are important to them.  We run into a potential snag at this point, because there are both positives and negatives to making this registration “official.”  We could make any individual on the forum register using a voter identification number or a SSN, or a variety of other forms of identification.  Alternatively, we could maintain anonymity between people, but this makes fraud significantly more possible.  For forums like this to work, the concept of one man, one voice has to hold true.  The best possible solution may be a official registration process that required you to authenticate your identity, while allowing you to maintain your anonymity on the forum. 

            The forum itself would allow people to become as involved as they choose.  Individuals would be able to create Facebook type profiles that allowed them to have their own page where they could describe what issues matter to them and how they feel about these issues.  Moreover, they would be given the built-in capability of running a blog from this page so that they can flesh out their arguments about individual issues.  Other users will then be given the opportunity to read these views and bookmark/friend the people whose opinions they find educational.  We can also give people the ability to rate these blogs so that the general public knows which ones may be appealing.  The rating system would have to be somewhat complex because the nature of political discussion is that people will negatively rate arguments they don’t agree with.  For example, if someone who is anti-gun control reads a well written and factual argument about why gun control may be beneficial for America, we do not want his negative vote against the article to convey to people that this article isn’t worth reading.  The voting filter should be removing poorly argued and erroneous articles from the public debate so that the public can focus on the important issues, even if they are controversial.  There are a few ways to do this, but one way might be to factor in the voter’s political preferences, as determined by his profile, and then create some form of rating adjustment to take into account the voter’s biases.  Alternatively, articles that receive a high standard deviation of votes (lots of +5s and a lot of -5s) may be labeled as controversial and given their own category. 

            Lastly, there should be a moderated forum that allowed people to guide the political debate.  For example, suppose there are over a million Americans who feel extremely strongly about Darfur.  This would give them an opportunity to bring this issue to the forefront while clearly signaling to elected officials that this issue is extremely important to Americans.  Ideally, the forum topics could be automatically determined through an algorithm that searched all blog and profile discussions on the entire site and then creating single discussion threads for these topics.  We would also need a way to manage the high number of posts certain topics would receive.  We want to give everyone the ability to make their political opinions known, while still making it easy for others to read through these thoughts.  There are a few ways to do this depending on what our goal is.  We could maintain a typical moderated forum like you would have on most message boards.  The drawback is popular topics like the abortion debate may quickly grow to have hundreds of thousands of comments.  To make this whole idea reasonable, there could be moderators responsible for summarizing all the discussions of the week in a short 3-5 page memo for each thread.  This may be less than ideal, but it allows the casual user a way to quickly get updated on the progress of the discussions.  At the same time, it filters out recycled arguments and repeat posts.  Because the original transcript is kept in place, those who are really interested can always return to it. 

            A less flexible, but also workable solution was mentioned in class.  We could allow each individual the opportunity to comment once about each thread and this comment could be connected to his user profile.  Therefore, he can write as much as he wants about the abortion issue, but he will only have one total post on the thread.  This would keep threads from getting overly cluttered.  Moreover, there could be a voting system in place for this as well that allows highly rated (as well as new) opinions to gravitate to the top of the thread.  Any form of rating algorithm would have to be kept proprietary so people didn’t game the system.  Users could be given the opportunity to modify their original post, perhaps once a month, since people do in fact change their stance on things. 

            Lastly, because everyone has to authenticate themselves and there is profile capability, this opens up a whole new venue for individuals running for office, particularly independent candidates. They can take grassroots to a whole new level by individually answering questions on the thread and running their own blog from the site.  This way, if Ralph Nader is running for president, it will be very easy for everyone to see how he feels about a variety of topics.  My guess would be that fringe candidates would take the effort of answering a much larger range of issues, and thereby move once overlooked issues into the center of discussion.  I realize there are lots of things I haven’t thought about yet and potential drawbacks, but I think the important thing is to begin moving towards a system like this so that we can start improving the framework.

            By the end of the second class this week, I felt simultaneously troubled and intrigued by the amount of faith and stock people put in both the success of Second Life and its importance to our economy.  Having made my position as a skeptic fairly well known, I felt the need to take a look what type of evidence the internet could provide to help strengthen, or perhaps reverse my position. 

            To help make my position more clear, I would like to reiterate that Second Life is an important service to many people in the world and the addition of choices is always an important step in innovation, which drives the economy.  But it seems that the fascination the world has with this concept of a virtual world has them expecting too much from what is essentially no different, and significantly smaller than World of Warcraft.  Yet, I heard no one claim World of Warcraft was a vital cog in our economy, and its collapse could great damage to the American Economy.  But I remember when I first heard about Second Life about 4 years ago, when it was still a fledging MMORPG.  I was watching CNN and they had a special with the creator of Second Life who basically had the hype machine working 120% about all the possibilities of the game, yet the CNN anchor seemed notably perplexed.  It’s not so much that he didn’t know what the game was about, but he just seemed skeptical about how well it would catch on.  Well, it suffices to say that the game certainly has caught on, but some of the skepticism that surrounded SL originally has still not dissipated.

To be honest, I cannot, for the life of me, understand the appeal of watching a movie within a game.  Well scratch that, I can understand why I would want to watch a movie online with my friends.  Watching television on your computer is notably anti-social and it seems that it’s a problem that can easily be rectified once the big three TV stations get fully behind the online movement.  See I would argue, that many of the things you can do on Second Life, can be done better and more efficiently in the absence of a large clunky virtual world.  The social appeal of doing things together is what drives internet virtual worlds, but specialization always makes things more accessible to people.  If I wanted to watch a movie with all my friends online, then there should be a chat client that lets me talk to everyone while simultaneously watching a movie from a large library of selections.  If you want to be an amateur clothes designer, there should be a virtual outlet for your creativity (http://www.virtual-fashion.com).  Obviously, everything in SL cannot be outsourced to a specialized version of the game, but a large portion of internet innovation goes in this direction. 

It is true people make money off of SL.  But people also make money off of being card counters at Vegas (or well, they used to).  But the fact is, most people do not view SL as a money making venture.  Yes, there is advertisement revenue to be made, which is similar to ads while watching television and while browsing the internet, but these ads are in no way specific to SL, so in the unexpected collapse of this virtual world, the ads will just go elsewhere.  And yes, it is true that there are jobs to be had in SL, but seriously, who thinks that these jobs wont be crowded out as more people sign up?  Every new user on SL is the equivalent of an immigrant, whose ability to undercut wages will possibly make the world more productive but also drive wages down.  And at some point, you have to wonder if anyone really wants to be an online sales representative in the virtual world for $2 an hour.  But when you really think about it, it makes no sense for such an activity to actually be profitable for the bulk of the population.  Similarly, blogging CANNOT be a sustainable job for most.  There are always success stories, but on the whole, its really something people do because they enjoy it.  It would be interesting to do a study on the psychology of SL users, but I would bet that most users consider the money they put in the game as consumption, and any money they extract from the game as a bonus. 

Lastly, it may help to put things in a bit of perspective.  According to Wikipedia, there are 13 million registered users with Second Life, most of whom are inactive.  Its most similar and successful competitor is IMVU, which is basically a virtual messaging client that currently has about 1 million users.  To get deeper into the numbers, its important to note that it is extremely hard to have an accurate picture of how many people really use SL.  The main reason for this is that SL would love to trot out the 13 million user number to advertisers in order to negotiate better advertising contracts.  As of last year, when SL had 6 million registered users, only about 1.6 million had logged in during the previous 2 months, and it was estimated that only between 100 and 300 thousand users regularly logged in to SL and the game as a whole had approximately a 10% retention late.  World of Warcraft, on the other hand, has about 9 million active users as of mid-last year, which means, on subscriptions alone, the game is pulling in over 1 billion dollars a year.  That simply dwarfs any type of numbers that SL can put up.  Moreover, how would people’s conception of SL change if users paid a subscription fee of $10 a month, but the economy had no “real” exchange rate.  I feel like much of the hype about the game would die down, even though the actual revenue surrounding the game would probably increase or stay about constant.  I think the world is still figuring out what the best financial model for virtual worlds is and we are still in the experimental phase.  For example, in mid-2005, you could farm about 30-50 per hour on World of Warcraft and turn around and sell it at a 1:1 exchange rate.  And then inflation reared its ugly head and a year later, you could buy 2000 gold for about $100.  What once was a fairly profitable job had been reduced to about $1-2 an hour in real wages, which is barely worth it, even in overseas economies.  Today the price of gold has stabilized at about $50 for 2000 gold (although, you can make roughly 80-100 gold per hour with the expansion pack).  Ultimately, the way any real economy works is as there is money to be made, competition tries to extract all possible rents.  We won’t know how successful SL will be at extracting rents from their game, but my guess is that SL will lead the way through a whole new world of online gaming, but the game itself will never have the same type of financial success that WoW has had and worries about the US economy ever becoming dependent on SL are greatly overstated.�

            Over the last few years, Windows has had to stave off pressures from the increasingly popular Mac OS and the always improving open source world.  Its hard to project what the operating system landscape will look like ten years from now, but it has become quite apparent that if Linux and Apple want to cut into Windows market share, the time is now.  A recent survey (according to Wikipedia) shows that Windows still holds about 92% of market share, while Apple is at about 7% and Linux is close to 1%.  What does this actually mean?  Well, for one, it’s going to have to be a steady uphill climb for both Apple and Linux, but because of their vastly different approaches, they will have to use different marketing strategies if they wish to make any advances.

            You may be wondering what makes 2008 and 2009 particularly critical years for Apple and Linux.  Well the short answer to this question is Windows Vista.  I’m not sure if it just goes with the territory of being the #1 operating system provider or if Vista is just that bad, but it seems hard for Windows to catch a break with their new operating system.  As a user of Windows for the last 15 years, I would have to say there is a regular cycle during which the new release of Windows software is criticized for being buggy and unusable, but the complaints generally subside as more and more people make the switch and developers are forced to incorporate the stability on the new platform into their design (personally, I think anyone that chooses to purchase a new operating system in its first year deserves whatever they get).  Having used Vista for the last year, I’ve found the change to be relatively painless.  The design looks prettier and the user has gained significantly more functionality.  However, the operating system places an enormous strain on laptops and sometimes leaves me reminiscing about the days of XP.  But the key for Apple and Linux is that with all the bad press about Vista, curious users may be interested in trying Apple’s new Leopard operating system or making the switch to one of the many varieties of Linux. 

            For years I had been looking for a reason to dual-boot operating systems on my computer, but I could never come up with a decent reason that made the effort worth it.  When I got my new laptop which had Vista pre-installed, I finally decided it was the time to make the plunge to Linux.  Well…maybe I didn’t actually take the plunge, but I at least decided to try the waters.  I decided I would dual boot Vista with Ubuntu (one of the more popular free versions of Linux), using the latter when I wanted to use the more basic functions of my computer (i.e. word processing, browsing, instant messaging, etc) without the incredible performance strain of Vista.  There was a bit of a learning curve, like there is with any new software, but overall things were pretty intuitive, yet they required a greater deal of patience and familiarity with a computer than either Windows or Mac (but when you consider that it’s free, it’s really a small price to pay).  With the concerns people are having with Vista, Linux has the unique opportunity to get people to try their platform, even if it is just to supplement Vista. 

            This brings me to Leopard.  I will have to confess that I have had very limited interaction with Mac’s, and the mere sight one of one drives me running with my hands flailing above my head.  Hyperbole aside, I feel completely lost next to a Mac, not through any complexity on their part, but simply because it forces me to change everything I know about computers.  I would liken it to change your form on a tennis serve:  You may see improvements after a couple of months of learning, but during the middle period where your game has gotten worse, it hardly seems worth it.  See, part of the problem is, the basic user who is not willing to use any advanced hacks cannot install Leopard on their PC.  Therefore, he is not given the opportunity to experiment with Leopard while retaining the safety of the more familiar XP.  Instead, they must switch to a new computer, which is often a stress inducing process in itself, and then accustom themselves to a new operating system.  However, Leopard has greatly relieved the stress of new users by offering BootCamp, which allows users to theoretically use both Leopard and Windows simultaneously on their new Apple computer.      

            Overall, it really comes down to what you want from your computer.  For people who have limited needs from a computer (or niche needs, such as graphic design), Leopard may be the “sexy” choice because Apple makes more stylistic sense, more media capability, and the user wont lose much efficiency during the operating system change.  For more advanced users, dual booting Linux with Vista/XP makes a lot of sense because of all the open source development geared towards Linux.  However, in the end it seems very hard to envision any way that either operating system could supplant Windows. 

            To me, what it comes down to is simple opportunity costs.  Before I am willing to put aside Microsoft Word and Excel and invest considerable time learning how to use Google Docs and Spreadsheet, I want to know that I have a stand alone choice that will suit me well both at home and at work.  The latter is where users like myself run into trouble.  Until business platforms begin to embrace alternate operating systems, it hardly makes sense to truly abandon Windows.  It’s a time intensive process to memorize all the shortcuts and formulas for Excel, so if you are going to have to use it at work, you might as well use it at home.  While BootCamp does solve some of these issues for Apple, Linux is still in a catch-22.  Open source development allows for greater innovation within Linux, but the lack of standardization means there is less documentation and less user support for whichever Linux package someone uses.  Ultimately, I see the future of operating systems going towards free software packages, with licensing for certain added features or technical support.  I believe that the pressure from open source will become too great for Windows and Apple to continue to market their product to home users at such high costs.  Moreover, for if Apple is going to succeed in the world of operating systems, I feel that it must continue to focus on stylistic appeal, and develop interdependency between all its products (iPhone, iPod, iMac, etc.).  For Linux it’s a whole different ball game.  To succeed, I think one of the free Linux packages must negotiate a contract with a major computer manufacturer (HP, Acer, IBM, etc.) so that users can purchase discount computers with a pre-installed Linux OS.  This would allow Linux to enter the mainstream market, give developers a need to provide more drivers for the platform, and allow low-end users to purchase extremely cheap computers that are not capable of running the graphics intensive Vista but would run efficiently with the less intensive Linux.  Of course, only time will tell what actually will happen…

Over the last decade or so, it has been common practice for the developers of mobile handsets to secure contracts with only one or two of the major cellular service providers in the United States and therefore maintain a less than competitive market.  Often, for the most popular of these handsets, a second or third generation phone will eventually get released that works with all the service providers.  However, this has led to a dangerous precedent within the tech. industry where companies purposely disable functionality for the purposes of making more money off of proprietary services. 

One of the best examples of this is the Motorola Razr, which still appears to be one of the most popular and recognizable phones on the market.  The Razr was originally released in the US in early 2005 and was made available to AT&T and T-Mobile, as well as some regional carriers.  The notable exceptions are of course Verizon and Sprint, who would get a CDMA version of the phone until December of that year.  By 2006, users on all four of the major American networks had access to the Razr, but the mileage they received from the phone greatly varied by provider.  The Razr has constantly been updated by the providers with both superficial changes to the exterior (i.e. new colors, designer editions, etc.), as well as specification upgrades and firmware changes.  However, the phone, like most available in the US, has often been constrained by the restrictions in place by the cell phone provider.  The most egregious of these restrictions has been carried out by Verizon which has disabled a variety of the built-in functions on the CDMA version of the Razr.  For starters, the transfer of most different types of data over USB or Bluetooth has been restricted.  In addition to these restrictions, a verification system is in place that checks to make sure all applications loaded on the phone are Verizon certified.  This allows Verizon to better market its own pricey packages such as VCAST while eliminating access to free ring tones and open source development projects online that would improve functionality for consumers.  All in all, we see consumers look for ways to hack their phone to restore functionality that used to be there. 

To consider how absurd that really is, imagine buying a computer from Apple that required ALL music on the computer to be purchased from the iTunes store.  Similarly, consider buying a computer from Dell which had a modified version of Windows pre-installed on the computer.  Now assume this modified version of Windows disabled compatibility with non-Windows condoned applications (i.e. Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes, etc.).  These types of limitations slow down our nation’s productivity and the value consumers get from cellular devices.  These types of technological restrictions are not limited to cellular devices, but have also extended to music players.  Some music players only play DRM music, while other music players only offer compatibility for proprietary headphones. 

While this may seem like a smart business move (and in the short run it is), its only a matter of time before consumers become fed up with such policies and switch to more progressive companies.  Its ironic that the success of similar proprietary practices between AT&T and the iPhone may have been so successful that it will undermine the ability for this to continue on in the long term.  Pressure from consumers has forced the iPhone to expand its operating system’s flexibility if it wants to keep users from hacking the phone.  It is common to hear people say that American cell phone users just want the basic service of being able to make calls.  To that I would respond, perhaps if we opened up the competitive playing field for designing software for phones, while making the data transfer services more affordable, we would open a whole new level of productivity through our cellular devices that is already being enjoyed across the world. 

            About 230 years ago our founding fathers made the radical decision to attempt to give the power back to the people and form the first large scale modern democracy.  As innovative as it seemed at the time, the foundations for modern American democracy were derived from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the latter of which was unique because it was a direct democracy.  Of course, the task of assembling the entire voting population was significantly easier during the time of the Ancient Greeks.  However, in the late 1700s, a direct democracy would have been nearly impossible considering how large the American population was and how sparsely populated certain states were.  The infrastructure of communication simply was not there, and although communication technology has steadily progressed throughout American history, our population has always been an obstacle to forming a direct democracy.

            However, the internet age and the increasing popularity of electronic voting machines may forever change the way we look at democracies.  While much has been said about the shortcomings of electronic voting machines and their supposed inaccuracy, the majority of their flaws could easily be remedied if we changed to a non-anonymous voting system.  To many that may seem an erosion of our democracy altogether, but suppose there was a trade-off that made the loss of anonymity worth it.  I do not know if the founding fathers ruled out a direct democracy because they felt it was impractical or because they felt giving that much power to the people may have been dangerous, but it is probably safe to assume our government would not be open to changing the core principles of our representative democracy anytime soon.  That being said, states such as California have been moving towards a direct democracy by allowing its citizens to vote in an increased number of referendums.  In theory, this allows citizens to have a greater say regarding the decisions of their political figures throughout their election term, and not just once every two or four years. 

            But perhaps what is even more exciting is the opportunity we have to allow new democracies to experiment with a fully Athenian style of democracy.  With electronic voting, it is possible for citizens to vote even in the comfort of their own home, perhaps even daily on decisions the government is making.  Surely this raises issues regarding encryption, voter fraud, costs, etc., but before such questions can be addressed, the idea must be discussed.  Moreover, I can name about 100 reasons why this idea may be horribly ineffectual and bordering on absurd, but I can name two overriding reasons that may make it worth it:  transparency and accountability.  Consider not having Presidential elections dictated by any single issue (i.e. Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Education, etc.).  Any major decisions of this nature will have to be voted on by the people, thereby almost mandating that the voting public become informed about a much broader range of issues.  Moreover, even a forever complained about topic such as taxes become less hated because citizens will take ownership over tax spending once they get a direct say in how the money is spent.  While the American government is too large, too removed from the people, and perhaps even too important for such a social experiment, there are plenty of smaller countries whose adoption of a democratic government may offer unique opportunities to experiment with the way we envision democracy.  After all, our government started as an inspired experiment 230 years ago and there is no reason to assume we have perfected the method of governing people. 

It appears that the internet cannot avoid controversy these days.  From free speech issues, to identity theft, to piracy and copyright violations, it is clear that the world may not have been as prepared for the internet as we would like to have believed. 

The latest of these controversial storms has developed over the music and movie industries in Great Britain.  The British government is ready to take the relatively unprecedented steps of holding internet service providers (ISPs) responsible for the illegal piracy activities of their customers.  The situation is actually quite complex because it is difficult for ISPs to detect the contents of file transfers meaning no one really knows how the ISPs can practically go about this. 

This issue strikes at the core of the problem:  What is the internet?  Is it a right?  Is it an international commodity or part of the national domain?  Is it a form of communication that is as protected as print in a newspaper?  Is it a form of communication that is as secure as mail?  As issues continue to arise, we realize that certain principles that have been written into a country’s legal code no longer apply to the internet, partially because of the anonymity and partially because of the ease with which things can be done across incredible distances.

I would feel that it is just as unreasonable to expect ISPs to protect against privacy as it is to expect gun makers to protect against armed robbery and other criminal actions with guns.  Since when has the creator of a legal product become responsible for illegal actions of its user?  Of course, there is the case of peer-to-peer sharing products where a particular product is directly made to facilitate illegal activity.  This brings us near a slippery slope where we have to approach internet innovation with paranoid inspection and try to discern the purpose of the new programs and services.  But can anyone really confuse an ISP for a criminal facilitator?  Does anyone really believe that the internet was made for piracy?  Like with any other business, it is the record and movie industry’s job to protect their own goods from theft.  As one British ISP argued, what the government is asking them to do would be equivalent to “asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted.”  Well that’s just absurd right?  We are well past the day and age where the seals on mail were often broken and privacy tossed to the side with other idealistic conceptions such as free speech and free exercise. 

So perhaps it’s a practical matter and the government truly sees no other way to stop the piracy epidemic.  But I’m not quite sure that’s a sufficient defense.  After all, who really believes that ISPs can impede piracy without considerable harm to the privacy of internet users?  We are back at that slippery slope, but it looks more like a cliff, and it is quite a terrifying view from here.  I’m not sure there is a particularly satisfying solution to the dilemma faced by the entertainment industry, but perhaps it is their turn to adapt to the new world in which we live. 

This may seem like a ridiculous example, but should it be illegal for consumers to use TIVOs because it allows them to access television shows while skipping over the commercials which “pay” for the show.  I realize this is not quite the same because there are issues of intellectual property at stake, but from a practical matter, the situation is exactly the same.  With TIVOs all over America, and people uploading their favorite television shows just mere hours after it originally airs, the networks are facing a similar crisis.  However, it appears they have taken the active approach by making their own shows available on the internet for free, while maintaining brief, but effective commercials during their internet broadcast.  Instead of trying to impede new technology, the networks have tried to use new technology to expand their base and reach new viewers.

It appears that the music and movie industry are missing the point.  It is only a matter of time before new forms of piracy make any steps taken by ISPs obsolete.  Instead of trying to direct its power against the internet and the public, the government should stop appeasing the entertainment industry and encourage them to seek new ways to profit off of an extremely marketable product. 

The battle for internet supremacy is more than a competition over domain names and IP numbers—it is a 21st century battle over nationalism.  The internet has revolutionized communication in ways that could not have been foreseen 40 years ago when Jon Postel began his research, but has also given way to extremely critical issues over property rights, global communication, privacy, and governmental domain. 

Unlike similar technological innovations we’ve seen with wireless spectrum auctions across the United States and Europe, the internet has not been developed in a way that lends itself to be monetized by each nation.  While I’m not certain that a nation truly has the right to “own” wireless spectrums, it allows for a very convenient and organized method of distribution, which is ultimately beneficial to the development and entrepreneurship of wireless technology.  The distinction with the internet comes primarily from the fact that it has progressed greatly through the innovation of a single nation which has masked the international implications until recently. 

Beyond these tangible issues of property rights is the argument about political ideology and nation building.  Although we live within the confines of a democracy that praises and protects free speech, it is clear that certain nations are not currently built to handle this type of expressive communication with no political “checks.”   While we may believe that compelling other nations to our form of transparency is beneficial, it is also hypocritical to believe that countries should defer to American beliefs when it comes to internet communication.  There are clearly times where our government feels the need to monitor (i.e. wiretap) and restrict certain types of communication and other nations will clearly feel they deserve the same right.  We may find Kazakhstan’s government worrying about www.borat.kz humorous, but we have to understand that in countries where mass communication is not open and transparent, sudden and unrestricted exposure to the internet may be harmful and even dangerous.  Should the Chinese government have the right to restrict access to “Anti-China propaganda?”  As American citizen, I would clearly say no, but as a member of the Chinese government, it may be a necessity to maintain peace and growth.

Possession over the internet also extends to nationalistic concerns that may not be readily obvious.  While I hate to draw upon the wisdom of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding the necessity of a nuclear program for the spirits and morale of Iranian people, the argument does hold water, even if it is misguided.  From a practical stand point, Iranian money may be better spent going towards food, education, and infrastructure, but we have to remember our enormous expenditures on space exploration during the second half of the 20^th century often came with few directly tangible results beyond the effect it had on American spirits and pride.  There are certain innovations or developments that become distinctly associated with progress, and the internet, like nuclear development, is one of them, albeit a significantly less threatening one.  While most countries cannot reach an American standard of living across all parameters, if they can find themselves on equal footing in any particular category, it increases their commitment to progress and development.  Whether or not America should concern itself with the development of other nations is a separate issue, but it seems important that we consider the motivations of other nations if we are to reach any reasonable agreement with them.  Therefore when Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, claims “the existing system of Internet governance [is] a form of neocolonialism,” we should not be quick to dismiss his words as foreign propaganda (which it most certainly is), but rather, we should question whether or not the current construction of internet control breeds a sense of colonial superiority and American hegemony that will continue to breed ill-will abroad.