[oclug] [canadian internet concerns] long post (you've been warned)

[Peter T.]

But Michael Geist has never been poor. I know cause I asked him based on his 
file sharing and copyright positions.

Peter Timusk B.Math Just trying to stay linear
www.crystalcomputing.net >blog>logbook.crystalcomputing.net
www.webpagex.org >blog>notebook.webpagex.org
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Strosberg" <bill at strosberg.com>
To: <oclug at lists.oclug.on.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 10:27 AM
Subject: [oclug] [canadian internet concerns] long post (you've been warned)


> All:
>
> I wrote this to lawyer Michael Geist in response to an article he wrote in 
> the National Post.  He is the same person quoted in the Pravda (whoops I 
> mean the Toronto Star) article referred to by Mike Soulier.
>
> Michael Geist lives here in Ottawa, and he "gets" technology quite well. 
> He teaches Internet law at OttawaU.
>
> --
> Bill
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Recent article in National Post
> Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 09:45:49 -0500
> From: Bill Strosberg <bill at strosberg.com>
> To: mgeist at uottawa.ca
>
> Dear Michael:
>
> Perhaps Graham Henderson was referring to the surfeit of truth, not
> money your position represents.  The CRIA and the American counterpart
> RIAA always sound like lumbering cartoon dinosaurs discussing warm
> blooded mammals as an annoying trend that will never catch on.
>
> Digital communication technology will continue to proliferate and
> spread. In previous eras, new technology was typically developed by the
> existing market players, who (in practice) controlled legislation via
> political funding and therefore implemented technology on a co-operative
> basis with legislative protections well in place before launch.
>
> I live in the digital communications security world, and from an
> in-the-trenches security practitioner's point of view it is impossible
> to stop digital communications on today's Internet without pulling the
> plug entirely.  Firewalls, port blocking, adaptive stateful inspection
> of content - all are easy to bypass.  Dissecting the (KaZaa) FastTrack
> protocol from Sharman Networks is an academic exercise on how to bypass
> packet filtering and stateful firewalls.  There are a lot of
> communications engineers out there working on new things every day.
> More importantly, there will always be boneheaded users who open unknown
> email attachments and visit unknown websites with horrible unsafe
> browsers from market leading software companies.
>
> The major problems with digital technology are not technical - they are
> financial and control issues.  How does the existing telecommunications
> industry deal with unregulated VOIP?  How does the government apply
> tariffs and taxes?  How does law enforcement apply control?  How does
> the existing entertainment business maintain control of revenues and
> distribution?
>
> The open source wide area development process, proven successful beyond
> a doubt by Linux and the BSD projects has spawned thousands of
> subsequent projects that are fundamentally uncontrollable.  Most
> projects live through Sourceforge and Freshmeat - with geographically
> and politically diverse development teams that can self-repair in the
> event of loss of a few developers.  Current nation-state level laws are
> irrelevant to widespread open source development.  Exporting quality
> crypto illegal in the US?  Develop in Canada (www.OpenBSD.org,
> www.freeswan.org, www.openssh.org).
>
> The major problem as I see it is that the legislative folks in
> government lack even a basic technical understanding of the issues they
> are trying to regulate.  Controlling digital communications is like
> herding cats - theoretically possible but practically unrealistic.  The
> core technology of the Internet was designed by spectacular engineers to
> be robust and self-repairing - routing around blockages and failures.
> These engineers did a great job - thirty year old ideas are still
> fundamentally working well today.  Once high speed / high quality
> digital communications moved from the Telco level down to the user level
> control became impossible. The Internet was a good thing when Telcos saw
> the opportunity to sell access, now they probably regret bringing it to
> the last mile, as they have shot their bread-and-butter business in the
> foot by enabling their own competition.
>
> Two years ago, everyone said the Internet QoS (quality of service) for
> H.323 and VOIP would never be good enough to attract people to drop
> their long distance service.  Wrong.  Early adopters are the folks with
> family back in countries where telephone tariffs are so high long
> distance is unaffordable - but today's adopters are getting acceptable
> service that gets better daily.
>
> Telcos must hate Cisco et al.  Ads promoting VOIP video conferencing and
> ongoing VOIP development are everyday occurances.  The Fortune 500 are
> adopting VOIP now - and once the money folks there realize the
> unconscionable performance bonuses rewarded to those that increase
> shareholder profits, the technology will be unstoppable.   Witness the
> Vonage law suit win over an American carrier for blocking VOIP access.
>
> The horse has departed, and closing the barn door now is pointless.
> Adding a complex and baroque security system (new laws) now is just a
> waste of money and effort.  The barn door will still be swinging in the
> wind post-legislative tinkering.
>
> Why don't these folks concentrate on the content developers?  Why don't
> they make better deals with artists and telephone users?  Fundamentally
> it is simple to analyze ... since you can't control the communications
> anymore, you have to move the choke point elsewhere - the logical place
> is with the person developing the desirable content.
>
> If lawmakers put one tenth the effort into solving legal problems that
> engineers put into solving technical problems, there would not be the
> state of affairs today that exists.  If existing market players learned
> to adapt and accept change, they would continue to exist - as Robert A.
> Heinlein said:
>
> "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the
> notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the
> public for a number of years, the government and courts are charged with
> the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of
> changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange
> doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law."
>
> --
> Bill Strosberg, CISSP
>
> -- 
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