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Category: Technology

Freedom of the Internet

by | 0657, 25 Nov 14 | , | 2 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is.

Freedom of the Internet

Presidential decree not needed to fix it


In the wake of the Republican sweep in the midterm elections, President Barack Obama has decided to disregard the obvious message of the voters and charge ahead with his liberal agenda on a number of fronts. One area where Obama sees the need for more government intervention is in the regulation of the Internet.

The issue of net neutrality has been percolating for several years. While many people glaze over and search desperately for their happy place at the mention of “net neutrality,” it is really a debate that transcends the specifics of the day and is just the latest manifestation of the continual struggle between liberty and government control. In this case, Obama is seeking to advance more government control under the guise of protecting liberty.

The rise of the Internet has been the most transformational development in the evolution of civilization since the institution of farming. It has broken down barriers of thought and borders. It has enabled the first truly global economy. The Internet has destroyed industries and created others. It has allowed for the greatest dissemination of knowledge in history.

There are few areas of life that the Internet has not touched and it continues to expand exponentially into the lives of everyone on earth with each passing day. And while the Internet certainly has a dark side, it has also facilitated an overwhelming expansion of good in the world.

The rise of the Internet is also a testament to what people can do when the government stands aside. It is precisely because the Internet has largely escaped regulation and that the old regulatory structures are illsuited to sink their claws into the ethereal body of the Internet that it has flourished. Those days may be coming to an end if Obama gets his way.

At the root of the issue is the same thing that is at the root of most political issues: money.

On the one hand, there are the Internet providers. These are the cable, satellite and telecom companies that provide the infrastructure to deliver the Internet to your device.

On the other side are the content providers. These are the media, news and advertising companies that provide the actual content that Internet users view through the Internet.

The Internet providers are able to throttle and block traffic however they choose. They can choose to block some websites or make access to them slower or faster. They can do this for technical reasons or they can do it for financial reasons.

One thing that the Internet providers want to be able to do is to charge content providers for consumers for premium access. For example, Time Warner or Charter can make it faster for subscribers to get to Google instead of Bing if Google pays them money for it.

The content providers do not want to have to pay the Internet providers to allow consumers access to their content. Also, since many of the content providers charge consumers for the content, they do not want their customers to be driven away by high prices if they have to pay the Internet providers for access just to pay the content providers for the content.

In the end, you have a war between companies like Time Warner and Comcast against companies like Netflix and Disney for the consumers’ dollars. What Obama is proposing is for the federal government to regulate Internet providers like utility companies and forbid them from prioritizing Internet traffic on their networks for any reason.

What the government should do, and what it has done to date, is keep its beak out of it and let the market decide. The argument for regulating the Internet providers, dubbed “net neutrality,” is that consumers may be harmed if they restrict access to valuable content. This is an argument that fails to address an actual problem.

To date, there is no widespread issue with Internet consumers not being able to reach the content they want. Even if it were, it is not the consumers’ right to access specific content and the government has no business forcing it. Still, if this was a problem, there are literally hundreds of Internet providers and consumers have the choice to take their business elsewhere and the market will correct it. If the market fails and it is deemed in the national interest to correct it, then, and only then, should we consider government regulation.

Here, again, we see Obama going about this with the power of executive action instead of through the normal legislative process. Whether or not we decide that our federal government should regulate the Internet is a massive issue that should be debated and vetted through our elected representatives. It is not something that should be enacted by decree on the authority of a single man.

Leave the Internet alone, Obama. It is doing just fine without you.

(Owen Robinson’s column runs Tuesdays in the Daily News.)

Inflated Internet Costs

by | 1720, 12 Nov 14 | , | 1 Comment

This is interesting.

Wisconsin schools and libraries rely on Internet service that’s often inadequate and overpriced, with the true cost obscured by millions of dollars in government subsidies, according to research by a University of Wisconsin Extension professor that has pitted him against the state’s telecommunications industry.

Andy Lewis, a professor and community development specialist at the UW Extension in Madison, says the issue is twofold: Schools and libraries aren’t getting the broadband service they need to keep pace with increasing demands of technology and learning, and taxpayers could be paying up to 10 times too much for the service through a telecommunications network called BadgerNet.

[…]

About 80% of eligible schools and libraries in Wisconsin are part of the BadgerNet system, which operates in all 72 counties of the state.

Under the system, schools, libraries and other public institutions can get Internet services at a low price, such as $250 a month for a 100-megabit-per-second connection. But the actual cost to taxpayers — the amount paid to the Internet service provider — is $2,480 a month when federal E-rate subsidies are included, according to Lewis.

“My point is that it’s all taxpayer-funded. These important community anchor institutions are currently underserved and overcharged,” he said.

But then the solution is obvious…

One system that appears to be getting a good broadband deal is the Waukesha School District. It does not use BadgerNet.

I suspect that a lot of schools and libraries sign up for BadgerNet without much thought and do little, if any, comparison shopping. I don’t blame them too much. After all, Badgernet is supposed to be designed specifically to provide them with good, cheap service. If the schools and libraries starting really going to the market looking for bids, I’d wager that the market will respond with more favorable options for the taxpayers.

 

Obama Seeks to Regulate the Internet

by | 1707, 10 Nov 14 | , | 0 Comments

Just read the opening line of this story and you will understand why Obama is wrong.

President Obama says the Internet should be more heavily regulated to ensure it stays open and independent.

Soooo… more government regulation leads to a freer internet? Um… no.

Leave the internet alone, President Obama. It is doing fine without you.

Public Service Corporation Tweaks Utility Rates

by | 1909, 7 Nov 14 | , | 0 Comments

This is a sensible move.

Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, which serves about 443,700 customers in northeastern and north-central Wisconsin, had asked regulators for permission to raise its monthly fixed rate from $10.44 to $25 and reduce variable usage fees by a couple cents per kilowatt hour.

The utility said the increase was needed to ensure consumers who use less energy pay their fair share for maintaining infrastructure, such as transmission poles and power plants. Consumer advocates have countered the increase is designed to recoup revenue lost through conservation and punish low-usage customers.

The state Public Service Commission voted 2-1 to approve the request but limited the monthly increase to $9 rather than the $15 jump the utility wanted. Commission chairman Phil Montgomery and Commissioner Ellen Nowak voted to approve the package. Commissioner Eric Callisto voted against it, PSC spokesman Nathan Conrad said.

Together, the fixed rate increase and the hourly usage fee dip will translate to roughly a 3 percent increase in the average residential consumer’s annual electric bill, Conrad said.

If the rate structure were completely fair, the utility company would fund all of the fixed costs with a fixed fee. Just take all of the fixed costs and divide by the number of people connected to the grid. Then they would only use variable charges to fund the variable costs. But for utilities, the fixed costs are extraordinarily high. It would mean a pretty substantial bill even for a small shack with a single light bulb. So they use the variable usage fees to subsidize a lot of the fixed costs. This change gets it a little closer to being a bit more fair.

Unhealthy Wind Turbines

by | 2009, 27 Oct 14 | , | 0 Comments

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Brown County health officials have declared wind turbines a public health risk, but they haven’t determined how to put their declaration into action.

The county’s Health Board this month declared the Shirley Wind Farm operated by Duke Energy Renewables poses a health risk to its neighbors in the town of Glenmore. Three families have moved out of their homes rather than endure physical illness they blame on the low-frequency noise the wind turbines generate, according to Audrey Murphy, president of the board that oversees the Brown County Health Department.

“We struggled with this but just felt we needed to take some action to help these citizens,” Murphy said.

X-37B to Return to Earth

by | 1942, 13 Oct 14 | , | 0 Comments

Welcome back.

(CNN) — The U.S. Air Force’s mysterious unmanned space plane, the X-37B, is about to come back to Earth after more than two years in orbit on a mission the military won’t tell us much about.

The X-37B is expected to land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Air Force said.

The base did not give an exact time for the landing, but a notice to aviators and mariners on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website said airspace around the Southern California base would be closed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT Tuesday.

The Snappening

by | 2044, 11 Oct 14 | , | 0 Comments

Scary stuff. Please teach your kids how to use technology responsibly.

Thousands of children, some as young as 10, are facing the horror of seeing nude pictures of themselves posted on the net.

Message boards on a notorious website called 4Chan have been inundated with details of the “The Snappening”.

Hackers claim they have managed to break in to another image-saving service that allows users of Snapchat to store pictures received before they vanish.

As proof, they have reportedly posted pictures allegedly taken from this third party app but have since deleted them.

Half of Snapchat users are aged between 13 and 17, and there are grave fears that tens of thousands of leaked images will be of under-age UK children who have been persuaded or bullied into sending naked shots of themselves.

Origins of a Pandemic

by | 0654, 3 Oct 14 | , , | 0 Comments

No, not Ebola.

An international team of scientists say a “perfect storm” of population growth, sex and railways allowed HIV to spread.

A feat of viral archaeology was used to find the pandemic’s origin, the team report in the journal Science.

They used archived samples of HIV’s genetic code to trace its source, with evidence pointing to 1920s Kinshasa.

Their report says a roaring sex trade, rapid population growth and unsterilised needles used in health clinics probably spread the virus.

Meanwhile Belgium-backed railways had one million people flowing through the city each year, taking the virus to neighbouring regions.

CraftFund’s Crowdfunding Platform

by | 2106, 30 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

I’m fascinated to see how this economic and cultural innovation evolves.

Milwaukee, WI — CraftFund LLC has announced that it is piloting its investment crowdfunding platform in Wisconsin, positioning the state as a pioneer in growing national movement to democratize capital investment.

Focused on craft beer, food and place makers, CraftFund is a platform for local companies to showcase products and projects and raise capital by turning passionate local residents into owners and advocates. Decades old securities laws have made it difficult for the general public to invest in local businesses. Wisconsin recently became one of the first states to pass an intrastate crowdfunding law that allows state residents to invest in local companies. Specifically, the law permits Wisconsin businesses to offer and sell securities to Wisconsin residents through online portals registered with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institution.

Dual Premier of Movie in Theaters and on Netflix

by | 1225, 30 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

This marks a very interesting technological and cultural shift.

The dual release will be the realization of Netflix’s long-held goal to let subscribers see films at the same time they’re in movie theaters.

Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) has achieved its goal by working directly with the Weinstein Company, the independent studio chaired by Bob and Harvey Weinstein. The studio is producing “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend” for both Netflix and the IMAX chain of super-sized theaters.

“The film is to be the first of several major films backed by Netflix to premiere on the same day on the world’s leading Internet TV network and in select IMAX theaters globally, giving consumers and exhibitors around the world unparalleled flexibility in how, when and where they enjoy a major motion picture,” the companies said in a statement.

Electronic Medical Records Make Some Patients Reluctant to Share

by | 1423, 28 Sep 14 | , , | 2 Comments

Patients whose doctors kept records in an electronic format were more likely to withhold medical history and information from their health care provider than patients whose doctors kept paper records, according to new research by a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor.

Assistant sociology professor Celeste Campos-Castillo’s findings, which were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, suggests that patients could be worried about the privacy and security of their medical information if their doctors stored that information in electronic files. The correlation takes into account patients’ satisfaction with their health care providers and other factors that could impact patients’ perception of their doctors.

Thankfully, this hasn’t come up for me yet, but it is something I’ve thought about. The proliferation of EMR coupled with the possibility of a security failure and a government that doesn’t respect citizens’ privacy makes me very reluctant to share anything that might be used against me. Obviously, if I have a physical ailment or disease, there isn’t much I can do about it. But if I were worried about something like depression or suicidal thoughts – even if it was just a passing concern – I wouldn’t share it with a doctor. I wouldn’t want that information being stolen and leaked onto a lefty blog. Nor would I want the DOJ or FBI knowing. There are some real benefits to EMR with the quick and portable access to a patient’s records, but there are drawbacks too.

Flights Slowly Resuming After Fire

by | 1807, 26 Sep 14 | | 0 Comments

Thankfully I wasn’t travelling today, but I feel sorry for all of those businesspeople who can’t get home because of some jack-weasel in Aurora.

(CNN) — Flights resumed Friday afternoon on a “reduced rate” at Chicago O’Hare International and nearby Midway Airport after a fire in an air traffic control center shut down operations, authorities said.

The air traffic control center in Aurora, Illinois, was evacuated after a 36-year-old contract employee set the fire in the control center basement before 6 a.m. Friday and tried to kill himself with a knife, said Aurora Police Chief Greg Thomas.

CNN’s Ted Rowlands said officials told him there was no explosion and the incident was not related to terrorism. Controllers at other airports were helping manage traffic to and from Chicago.

Circling Mars

by | 2154, 21 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

Cool. Can’t wait to see the results.

(CNN) — MAVEN has arrived in Mars’s orbit after traveling 442 million miles in the course of 10 months to get there.

It won’t land on the red planet but instead study Mars’ atmosphere from above to answer questions about its climate change, NASA says.

NASA’s MAVEN craft will live up to its formal name — the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution craft — by helping scientists figure out how ancient Mars changed so dramatically into the planet we know today.

It is the first mission devoted to studying the upper Martian atmosphere as a key to understanding the history of Mars’ climate, water and habitability.

Study: No Water Pollution From Fracking

by | 2125, 17 Sep 14 | | 0 Comments

Indeed.

The final report from a landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, found no evidence that chemicals or brine water from the gas drilling process moved upward to contaminate drinking water at a site in western Pennsylvania.

The Department of Energy report, released Monday, was the first time an energy company allowed independent monitoring of a drilling site during the fracking process and for 18 months afterward. After those months of monitoring, researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas stayed about 5,000 feet below drinking water supplies.

 

Sidewalks for Texters

by | 1959, 15 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

It’s come to this.

Hong Kong (CNN) — Tired of bumping into people glued to their phones? One Chinese city thinks it has the answer: It has divided a sidewalk on one of its busiest streets into two lanes — one for cellphone users and the other for those without.

The sidewalk is in the city of Chongqing in southwestern China. Fifty meters long and three meters wide, it has warning signs painted in white on the ground.

[…]

The road, known as “yangrenjie” or foreigners street, is a popular tourist attraction in the city because of its faux Western architecture and an amusement park.

 

Tesla To Build New Factory in Nevada

by | 2123, 4 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

This is interesting on a number of levels.

The deal was announced Thursday after months of wrangling between California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. It will cost the state $1.25 billion in tax breaks and other incentives, Sandoval said. It is expected to generate $100 billion in “economic impact” over the next 20 years.

The Governor also said about 6,500 jobs will be created directly at the plant, but as many as 22,500 jobs will be created in the state because of the project. The state’s economic development office estimates that the factory will add $1.9 billion to state and local coffers over the next two decades, with a quarter of it going to K-12 education.

Why Arizona? The fact that Arizona is a low-tax state without an income tax. The massive incentive package that Arizona was willing to pay. The willingness of Arizona to have a very toxic factory in its borders. The fact that Arizona is a Right to Work state. The fact that Arizona has a lot of low-cost labor (a lot of it illegal). The irony that super liberal Tesla is going to take advantage of all of this to sell expensive cars to rich eco-liberals. Whatever. This is the part that caught my fancy.

Tesla will be allowed to sell its cars directly in Nevada without a franchise agreement, which has been a sticking point in other states.

The dealer model for vehicles really seems to be more and more a relic of the past. With consumers’ ability to research and price cars with the internet has really reduced the ability of dealers to offer the consultative service for buying a car. And while dealers do offer a lot of post-purchase vehicle services, there really isn’t any reason that they can’t provide those services while allowing consumers to purchase cars directly from the manufacturers. The only real piece that dealers provide that the manufacturers can’t is the ability to test drive a car.

Tesla is eroding the dealer model around the country. With the price of cars continuing to rise and the powerful car-buying tools available on the internet, perhaps it is time for other manufacturers to try a direct model too.

Obamacare Website Hacked

by | 2106, 4 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

Uh huh.

Hackers silently infected a Healthcare.gov computer server this summer. But the malware didn’t manage to steal anyone’s data, federal officials say.

Given their track record, are you confident in HHS’ assertions here?

Yea, me either.

Fake Cellphone Towers

by | 1424, 4 Sep 14 | | 0 Comments

Now this is just creepy…

Seventeen fake cellphone towers were discovered across the U.S. last week, according to a report in Popular Science.

Rather than offering you cellphone service, the towers appear to be connecting to nearby phones, bypassing their encryption, and either tapping calls or reading texts.

…

The towers were found in July, but the report implied that there may have been more out there.

Although it is unclear who owns the towers, ESD found that several of them were located near U.S. military bases.

…ComputerWorld points out that the fake towers give themselves away by crushing down the performance of your phone from 4G to 2G while the intercept is taking place. So if you see your phone operating on a slow download signal while you’re near a military base … maybe make that call from somewhere else.

Businesses Adopt the Cloud More Slowly than Expected

by | 0738, 1 Sep 14 | , | 0 Comments

Speaking of the cloud…

But big companies have embraced the cloud more slowly than its fans had expected. IDC, a research firm, estimates that businesses will spend $100 billion on cloud computing this year. That is not to be sniffed at. But it is a fraction of the $2 trillion or so that companies will spend on information technology (IT). Some are holding back because their IT teams claim they can run things more cheaply internally. Others are wary of entrusting sensitive data to another firm’s servers.

Such corporate reluctance may soon start to be overcome, as price cuts make cloud computing cheaper still. At the end of March Google slashed prices by between 30% and 85% on cloud services such as application processing and data storage. The move—aimed at boosting Google’s own cloud-computing business—sparked a swift response from AWS, which cut some prices by up to 65%. Microsoft, which is also determined to be big in the cloud, followed suit with cuts of its own.

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