In the beginning, when the Internet was a twinkle in scientists’ eyes there was an idea of creating a network by which information could be exchanged.

This network needed to be robust, able to withstand a nuclear attack. It needed to be self-healing, and route information around roadblocks. This was the 1960s.

DARPA and various universities went to work on this problem over the next 30 years.

In the 1990’s the World Wide Web, the side of the Internet that most people have their daily experience with came into existence. A team at the European Center for Particle Research (CERN) in Switzerland developed a set of protocols that formed the foundation for how we view and exchange information on a daily basis via the Internet.

It was also during this time in the 1990’s that Linus Torvalds (father of Linux) penned the words that were eerily prescient on what happened this week:

“The explosion of capitalist conservatism, combined with a growing awareness of Internet’s business value, has led to major changes in the Internet community. Many of them have not been for the good. “

One must understand the Internet’s deep roots, nourished and grown by science and academia to fully appreciate the impact of the latest decision made by Wisconsin’s legislature.

The Internet is not Comcast, it’s not Verizon, it’s not AT&T. It’s not the local telcos and service providers. They are, at best, access points to the Internet, and at worst jailors of the Internet. They found there was money to be made in portioning off the US like a cow carcass and carving off choice slices as their own in the form of municipal monopolies where they laid their copper, fiber, and cables that serve as those access points for users. It also allows them to control the content that comes over wires – but that’s another rant.

That leads us to Wisconsin University which participates with a non-profit organization called WiscNet. The Chronicle says:

“WiscNet, a nonprofit network cooperative that services the public universities, most of the technical and private colleges in Wisconsin, about 75 percent of the state’s elementary and high schools, and 95 percent of its public libraries, according to David F. Giroux, a spokesman for the university system.”

Furthermore, the university of Wisconsin was awarded “$39-million in federal grants, they were awarded to two efforts: one involving the flagship campus, and another through the University of Wisconsin-Extension. The money is to expand broadband connections for health-care providers, public-safety agencies, community organizations, and schools, among other projects. “

WiscNet is involved in a project that:

“would lay about 600 miles of fiber-optic cable across the state.”

Right now fiber is the choicest connection you could ask for, something the US sorely lacks, and something private telecommunication companies have been dragging their feet for decades now to install despite billions in tax breaks that were awarded to them to do such.

Wow, so Wisnet sounds like something great!

Of course, if this non-profit is getting millions in funding, that means somebody else isn’t.

Enter in Wisconsin lawmakers who in:

“A budget approved by a legislative committee last week would force the University of Wisconsin to return $39-million in federal grants awarded to expand high-speed Internet access across the state, state education officials said. The plan would also require all University of Wisconsin institutions to withdraw from WiscNet… The surprise changes were included among a series of amendments to a bill containing the university system’s 2011-13 budget. “

These changes weren’t even discussed beforehand. There was no debate with those that use the service on potential impacts. There was no actual study of what was actually better for all involved.

Why?

“Republican lawmakers told the Wisconsin State Journal that the university should not be in the telecommunications business. “

And there lays the crux of the issue.

Corporations have put in the fix. Future endowments will go to them. In the meantime they control the landscape. And this just doesn’t happen in Wisconsin, this happens all over the US.

When people rise up and get sick of the frayed infrastructure telecommunication companies have left behind them and institute municipal (read government) solutions suddenly they get blocked, sued, or permanently delayed by said telecommunication companies.

It’s a fucking scam – but wait it gets worse!

“Another provision in the plan would bar any University of Wisconsin campus from participating in advanced networks connecting research institutions worldwide, according to Mr. Evers’s memo. For example, the Madison campus would have to withdraw from Internet2, a high-speed networking consortium”

And here we have gone beyond the pale. The Internet2

“ is an advanced networking consortium led by the U.S. research and education community. A revolutionary-class IP and optical network. Advanced technologies that enable services and achievements beyond the scope of individual institutions. An unparalleled human network to make sure these technologies get spread around where they can do some good. That’s us, but that’s just the beginning. “

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Internet2 is aimed at taking the huge strides in information sharing and collective intelligence that has been spread by the phenomenon known as the Internet and creating yet another academic revolution. It’s about making us, as people, collectively smarter, more connected, and ultimately better human beings. It’s the technology that will deliver that information.

And lawmakers in Wisconsin cut it off.

Why? Because the Wisconsin legislature have decreed it’s telecommunications related. Translation: “Our political coffers were filled by telecommunication companies and now we must deliver to them.”

And we, not the corporations or the politicians, get fucked over for it.

Remember this the next time a libertarian says the free market solves all problems and corporations would act in our best interest.

Remember this the next time a politician says… well… anything.

I speak of the internet, which is truly an engine of awesome. Think for a moment how it enriches your life, bequeaths knowledge, entertains and interconnects.

It is a device for which none compares.

It is also a threat, a disruption of power and status quo. It removes control from those that have traditionally been able to direct the populace. Yes, it may sound a foolishly romantic notion, but it’s true. One only has to look at how hard governments like China or those in the Middle East fight so hard to maintain a fragile, fleeting control over the content and ideas stored in simple ones and zeros, spread globally across an ephemeral network of computers.

The assault on the internet by government and corporate interest, to regain and assert control over content and ideas has been in overdrive for the past few years. First ACTA (which is still floating out there) and now COICA.

In short, COICA allows the US Attorney General to create two lists. One is a blacklist that must be enforced by ISPs. The other is a suggested list that web sites could end up on, for any reason or bias, that ISPs are recommended to block. This is censorship at its worst.

COICA was unanimously passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 18th.

Unanimously.

That word has never looked uglier.

Enter one Senator Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon. He may very well have saved the internet by placing a hold on the pending bill. I have no idea what Wyden’s record is on anything else, but for this act he should be thanked.

It’s alarming just how close we run to losing one of the most fantastic methods of communication developed by our species. In the words of Maxwell Smart, “Missed us by that much.”

Late last week the Obama administration released a document that outlined ideas and process for developing a more secure experience on the internet. There is a real and present danger from losing one’s confidential information through various cyber attacks. This leads to credit cards being charged for items you did not purchase, withdraws from your bank account, or even fraudulent accounts set-up in your name. It can wreck your finances, credit, and generally make life hell.

It’s worth reading the document if only to gird yourself against what will no doubt become the top panic topic du jour from the talking heads of media. The contents of the document will no doubt be distorted beyond measure.

My take from having read it is the technology and process already exist. There are many open source measures from PGP and OpenID that one can use to create a more secure precense on the web. The problem is it takes education and understanding – a focus that should have been the majority of the document but wasn’t.

Indeed, the strongest set of security tools and measures are completely useless if people don’t know how to use them and why they need to be used. Today’s internet environments like Facebook create habits that encourage one to lose their information. You become trained to click on any link someone sends (the quintessential internet security no-no), you friend anyone that sends you a request out of guilt, and post your daily information and habits for anyone to use to social engineer any answer out of you they’d like.

Creating good security habits, understanding how your information gets hacked and used, and knowing the basics for keeping the computers you use free of malware is a far better, far cheaper solution than any national internet ID plan.

Where do you get started?

One of THE best security podcasts available is Security Now! with Steve Gibson on the TWiT network. Few can interpret and relay complex information like Steve.

Though it’s a bit dry, The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has a good set of topics that is worth reading – from creating secure passwords to avoiding social engineering and phishing attacks.

All this is very similar to the old Smokey The Bear campaign – “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

Only you can prevent yourself from getting hacked.

On April 6th, the Federal Court of Appeals handed down a 36-page ruling on one of the first test cases of net neutrality. They ruled in favor of Comcast who was fighting against an earlier ruling by the FCC that Comcast was not allowed to throttle Internet usage.

About the ruling Comcast said:

“We have always been focused on serving our customers and delivering the quality open-Internet experience consumers want,” the company said.

Anyone that has been a customer of Comcast knows that line is pure bullshit.

This ruling by the Federal Court of Appeals sets in motion a dangerous precedent whereby no consumer protections are now in place. So why does anyone think this is a good thing? Chalk it up to the nice propaganda campaign waged by the talking-heads of radio and television.

A recent editorial in the Las-Vegas Review Journal spells out the mentality of those against net neutrality. It’s almost a point for point delivery of the screed pumped out by Glen Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity.

The summary of the editorial is A) It’s a government power grab, B) ISPs have been improving customer service, options, and service on their own, C) 98% of the people in this country already have at least three wired options and six wireless options, D) net neutrality stifles innovation and investment.

It’s hard to get things 100% wrong, but this editorial wins.

Let’s take a look at the facts of net neutrality.

First, net neutrality is an attempt to keep anyone, including government, from assuming control of the internet for purposes of selectively throttling one company’s content over another’s.

Second, some ISPs have been improving speeds in some markets. Overall, there are very few markets with quality broadband – and nothing compared to what you find in many other countries. The US is one of the wost in broadband speed, access, and cost.

Third, I’d love to know where the AT&T rep that was quoted in the editorial came up with this magical 98% number. I disbelieve. Because of the exclusivity agreements most municipalities have signed with companies like Comcast, you are lucky to have one option for broadband internet access. Wireless options are still in their infancy, and only in huge metropolitan areas. I personally have one option, Verizon DSL. That’s it, nothing else. And that’s only at 3.1Mbps speed. Moreover, I’m one of the few in the neighborhood that can actually almost hit those speeds.

Fourth, the internet is the awesome, innovative, artistic, knowledge-filled, and ridiculous troll-tastic place that it is because companies have not been allowed to selectively throttle packets. The sheer amount of applications, protocols, services and innovations are in spite of the crappy, uncaring service the big ISPs provide.

What really takes the cake, however, is the fact that everyone already pays their share. The terrabytes of videos sent out over YouTube? Google pays for that on their end and you pay for it on yours. Online video games? The same. iTunes music downloads? The same. Each company has to purchase that bandwidth so you can reach their servers. You pay a monthly fee to get online as well.

Khan has nothing to do with this, but screaming his name loudly is cathartic.

What the opponents of net neutrality propose is that ISPs now force you to pay an additional fee on top of all of that based on their arbitrary terms decided on whether somebody else might be offering a competitive service to their own.

And this all wouldn’t be quite so maddening if the big ISPs hadn’t already been given billions of dollars by the government in the 1990′s to build out their infrastructure in the first place. You see, we’ve already paid for all this. Moreover, what we paid for – high quality, fast broadband connections – most don’t have and will never see.

It’s enough to make you scream.

And this is why we can’t have anything good. We’re surrounded by stupid people writing editorials about topics they know jack shit about, parroting talking points from slimy but clever talk show hosts.

And they believe every word they’re fed.

To hear the lamentation of Verizon, Comcast, and every other worhtless ISP that has dragged its sorry ass in rolling out decent broadband across America.

As reported by Engadget,

today the company (Google) announced that it’s getting in the game for real with the launch of a fiber-based ISP service that’ll offer 1Gbps speeds at “competitive prices” to select markets.

I sincerely hope this scares the living hell out of ISPs across the land and forces them into action. Broadband in this country is scattered and pitiful. Prices are ridiculous, and choices are either between two evils or non-existent.

I hope Google hits them like the fist of an angry god.

I posted earlier this week on Net Neutrality. Why read when you can watch.

This all reminds me of the heady days of the 1990′s when us lil website developers had this handy tag on our sites:

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

Currently in Congress and the Senate are various bills all circulating around the idea that the FCC should not be making any regulations in regards to IP based systems (Internet Protocol).

The most visible is John McCain’s Internet Freedom Act. This amazing example of political doublespeak aims to keep the FCC from enforcing the concept of net neutrality.

Net neutrality is about keeping the Internet an open architecture platform. In much the same way electric lines carry current to your home the Internet carries packets of information. How ludicrous would it seem if your local power company dictated what that current could do. Imagine them charging more per kilowatt hour if your TV was tuned to CNN rather than Fox News. Seems silly, right?

However, this is the end game that telcos and cable companies are playing. They have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidate’s campaigns and the result are bills with misnomers like Internet Freedom Act.

These companies want the power to do deep packet inspection. With that info they can prioritize traffic – slowing down what they want, even forcing packets to drop off, meaning the information never makes it to you. This allows them to prioritize their own content, or even force you to spend more for services you use now for free (sorry you need to buy Comcast VOIP, we don’t support Skype on this network).

Adding insult to injury are the telcos and cable companies bleating like sheep about a mythological clogging of the pipes and that it costs them so much money to keep the infrastructure going. Not many people realize these companies were given billions of dollars by the government to rebuild and roll out a fiber-based broadband infrastructure. Do you have fiber yet? I know I don’t and may not ever see it. Where did that money go? No one is saying.

There is amazing innovation taking place right now on the open architecture that is the Internet. Billions of private funds are being invested in start-ups, jobs are being created (one of the few truly growing sectors in America), and we all benefit from this.

You need to contact your representatives and let them know you want this progress and innovation to continue. Don’t let the politcal doublespeak win. Don’t let telcos and cable companies dictate what you can or cannot see based on what may or may not make them more money.

Greed is what this comes down to. You already pay monthly for the bandwidth. Telcos and cable companies get their money in spades, and are now making a play to strengthen their position through active censorship of packets and the IP process rather than innovate.

Think about it. Act on it.