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From: anderson@secd.cs.umd.edu (Gary Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Revolutions and Fidonet
Message-ID: <14578@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 16 Nov 88 17:27:43 GMT
References: <621.23788C5A@isishq.FIDONET.ORG> <8811102118.AA12763@pinocchio.UUCP> <60@sopwith.UUCP>
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Reply-To: anderson@secd.cs.umd.edu (Gary Anderson)
Organization: UMIACS, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
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>|Some say that the critical thing in making the auto revolutionary was
>|committing to building roads for the autos to drive on. W/o smooth
>|roads horse-drawn buggies seem a win over cars.
>
>|Now many are saying networks are to computers what roads are to cars
>|(including the need to invest in infrastructure at a societal scale.)
>

I have no answers, only questions.


There is a potential tension between providing easy access 
to "authorized colleagues" for sharing data and programs and providing easy 
to access to "potentially hostile and uncolleagual illmannered pranksters".
Security versus openness.

How much security? Who pays?
How much access? Who pays?

Is it reasonable to use revenues collected from 
poor families who have no
computers in order to finance a computer network 
for relatively well off academics and business persons?

How can we address the redistributional aspects of providing this
important public good?