Xref: utzoo news.admin:10902 news.misc:5612 comp.protocols.tcp-ip:13554 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!rsiatl!jgd From: jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc,comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Internet/NSFNet proposal to be run by IBM -- call to action! Message-ID: <4532@rsiatl.UUCP> Date: 29 Oct 90 07:48:43 GMT References: <1990Oct28.220432.521@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Followup-To: news.admin Organization: Radiation Systems, Inc. (a thinktank, motorcycle, car and gun works facility) Lines: 69 karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: >This is a call to action by all interested parties. >There is wind of a proposal stirring in Washington that would place the >NSFNet backbone, and eventually the entire government-run part of the >Internet, into the hands of IBM. This is part of the disgusting Senator from my home state, Albert Gore, Sr as part of his supernet that will cure all the nation's technology ills, make is a world competator and brush our teeth, all in one fell swoop. He is being "assisted" by that "gentleman" we've all come to know and loathe, (bob?) Abernathy of the Houston Chronicle. Remember the Great Internet Smut Controversy of 1990. Yep, same guy. He posted to a mailing list the articles he wrote for the paper on the subject. I didn't keep an archive copy but here's what I remember: IBM and >>> Compuserv <<< have steped forward and volunteered to sink about 10 million into the management effort. They are proposing to institute a "user fee" schedule based on the quantity of data transmitted. BUT they still propose to keep the network "closed" and only available to those who have a "need" to be on there. In other words, enjoy the Internet while it lasts because will soon become a mutant offspring of an incestuous inbreeding of IBM, Compuserv, and the government. Can you imagine an ftp session that is billed by the hour and by the bytes transfered all the while, advertisements scroll across the screen? No smileys. As is typical of Gore, he proposed to dump buckets of money into the project and create a backbone of gigabit-per-second links that no one but the government could afford to interface to. He calls upon those old worn phrases of motherhood, apple pie, and another Apollo-like mission to the moon of networks. The articles that Abernathy writes glow so from yellow journalism that I feel that I need my cobalt glasses just to read them. Even as he promotes this grandois scheme, he executes a perfect self-pat-on-the back by noting that a "controversy" has grown out of the exclusive investigative article by the Chronicle. Then he uses the previous dose of yellow to justify a "remedy". And we know how the Democrats "remedy" a problem. At least our wallets do. Perhaps someone else on the list will post a couple of Abernathy's articles. What to do? As usual, make noise. Lobby for incremental funding to handle the growth of the internet, incremental funding for higher speed technologies and the creation of a mechanism for commercial users with research as opposed to business need to get on the net. Lobby for the congress to do that but otherwise leave what works alone. And hey, if anyone out there has enough money to buy a congresslime, then please do so. (and just in case Abernathy wants to quote me out of context.) This article is copyright 1990 John De Armond. All rights reserved. No journalistic use whatsoever permitted. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "The truly ignorant in our society are those people Radiation Systems, Inc. | who would throw away the parts of the Constitution Atlanta, Ga | they find inconvenient." -me Defend the 2nd {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd| with the same fervor as you do the 1st.