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Dark Web or Net Neutrality. Do Something About It?
5/24/2006
By Terry Calhoun
I was going to write this week about seeming parallels between the spread of monocultures of food plants by big agriculture and what’s happened in the past ten years with Learning Management Systems (LMS), but a couple of timely news items captured my attention. Instead I am going to urge you to do something to help preserve Net Neutrality and fend off the Dark Web.
If you don’t want to read any further, then the gist of my opinion this week is that right now is a fairly critical time for higher education institutions with regard to the next ten years of the Internet. It would be very helpful if you view this and the accompanying information about how to communicate with your federal legislators. Take a moment to do so. That way, you can be doing something about an important issue.
If you want to learn a little more about the debate, along the same lines that I have been learning, then read on!
In order to make more money, the large telecoms (Some of the same folks who are tracking our calls for the NSA.) want to change the World Wide Web’s founding principle: Net Neutrality. To me it’s kind of like they’re trying to make a limited, and therefore more expensive, resource out of an unlimited resource.
I’ve been following the debate on Net Neutrality and learning a bit more each week. At first I thought it was a simpler matter of companies like AOL wishing to charge e-mail senders a fee to ensure that their e-mails don’t “accidentally” get caught up in AOL’s spam filters. (Even that instantly sounded a bit Mafia-like to me.) But as I read more, I learned that it is a larger issue.
I find myself, almost reflexively, on the side of those who write things like:
Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment – a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you – based on what site pays them the most. If the public d'esn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multimillion dollar lobbying campaign.
Of course, World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee has a large influence on my opinion. Last week, speaking to that larger issue of U.S. telecom companies wanting to create a two-tier Internet system (read article here), Berners-Lee said, “What’s very important from my point of view is that there is one Web.” He said that if the U.S. allowed the companies to move forward with their plans, the World Wide Web would enter “a dark period.”
Recommended Reading
- Campus Security :: June 27, 2008
:::::: NETWORK SECURITY
: Delivering Slices of Network Securely at USC
:::::: CAMPUS SECURITY NEWS
: VMware Finds Home on Campus in Disaster Recovery Planning
: Microsoft Advisory Targets SQL Injection Attacks
: Mobile Security To Surface in Sybase iAnywhere Suite
: Southeast Missouri State Says Former Employee Took Student Data
: Universities Deploy Procera Hardware to Prioritize Network Traffic
: Dartmouth Launches 2-Week Crash Course in Security
: Survey: Many Microsoft Patches Are Going Uninstalled
: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole - IT Trends :: Thursday, June 26, 2008
:::::: FOCUS
:: Lyon's 1:1 Laptop Program Aims To 'Level the Playing Field' for Students
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Windows XP's Death Is for Real, Microsoft Rep Explains
:: Temple To Deploy Wireless LAN Across 8 Campuses in Philly
:: Adobe Releases Acrobat 9, Creative Suite 3.3
:: Microsoft Open XML Converter Arrives for Mac
:: Pentaho's BI Platform Released Under GPL
:: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole
:: New 11.0 openSuSE Linux OS Released - C-Level View :: June 25, 2008
:::::: EXECUTIVE VIEW
: The Educational Software Paradox - Can We Learn to Unlearn?
:::::: WORTH NOTING
: D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
: Western Governors U Offers New Online Degree in Health Informatics
: Foothill-De Anza CC District Deploys Abaca for E-mail Protection - SmartClassroom :: Wednesday, June 27, 2008
:::::: VIEWPOINT
: Podcasting in Instruction: Moving Beyond the Obvious
:::::: NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES
: D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: Samsung Launches Pint-Sized Projector
: Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
: Mitsubishi Launches Wireless, Short-Throw Projectors - News Update :: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
:::::: NEWS
: Sao Paulo University Taps Sun Technology for Computing Cluster
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
: Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
: Intel 'Holding Back' USB 3.0 Spec, Says Nvidia
: Allegheny College Launches Energy Reduction Program
: Virginia Tech Automates User State Management with Kaseya
: Tokai U Uses PTC MCAD Software To Design Car that Competes at Le Mans - IT Trends :: Thursday, June 19, 2008
:::::: CASE STUDY
:: Job Scheduling Software Smooths Data Transfers at IUF
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Blackboard Continues Pursuit of Desire2Learn
:: IBM Launches 'Carbon Strategy' Service in Project Big Green
:: Microsoft Joins Open Source Census Group
:: Swedes Deploy Dual-Boot 'Green' Supercomputer with IBM, Intel Chips
:: U North Texas To Roll Out ImageNow for Document Management
:: Cambridge Installs Panasus Parallel Storage System for Research Support
:: Novell Joins Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program, Runs Windows Server 2008 On SUSE Linux Enterprise
