Death of Free Internet is Imminent;Canada Will Become Test Case By Kevin Parkinson

[Demeter]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20330.htm




21/07/08 "Global Research" -- - In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to more information than ever before in modern history because of the Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been recognized as such by the global community. The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news, entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it's good news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where children are involved.

However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the needs of society don't count. Take the recent case in Canada with the behemoths, Telus and Rogers rolling out a charge for text messaging without any warning to the public. It was an arrogant and risky move for the telecommunications giants because it backfired. People actually used Internet technology to deliver a loud and clear message to these companies and that was to scrap the extra charge. The people used the power of the Internet against the big boys and the little guys won. However, the issue of text messaging is just a tiny blip on the radar screens of Telus and another company, Bell Canada, the two largest Internet Service Providers (ISP'S) in Canada. Our country is being used as a test case to drastically change the delivery of Internet service forever. The change will be so radical that it has the potential to send us back to the horse and buggy days of information sharing and access.
In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit sites beyond a cutoff point.



From my browsing (on the currently free Internet) I have discovered that the 'demise' of the free Internet is slated for 2010 in Canada, and two years later around the world. Canada is seen a good choice to implement such shameful and sinister changes, since Canadians are viewed as being laissez fair, politically uninformed and an easy target. The corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world, probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the 'evil' of the Internet (free) and the CEO's spouting about 'safety and security'. These buzzwords usually work pretty well.



What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that the ISP's will provide a "package" program as companies like Cogeco currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now for their television stations. Television stations will be available on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the package, you know what happens. You pay extra. And this is where the Internet (free) as we know it will suffer almost immediate, economic strangulation. Thousands and thousands of Internet sites will not be part of the package so users will have to pay extra to visit those sites! In just an hour or two it is possible to easily visit 20-30 sites or more while looking for information. Just imagine how high these costs will be.



At present, the world condemns China because that country restricts certain websites. "They are undemocratic; they are removing people's freedom; they don't respect individual rights; they are censoring information,” are some of the comments we hear. But what Bell Canada and Telus have planned for Canadians is much worse than that. They are planning the death of the Internet (free) as we know it, and I expect they'll be hardly a whimper from Canadians. It's all part of the corporate plan for a New World Order and virtually a masterstroke that will lead to the creation of billions and billions of dollars of corporate profit at the expense of the working and middle classes.

There are so many other implications as a result of these changes, far too many to elaborate on here. Be aware that we will all lose our privacy because all websites will be tracked as part of the billing procedure, and we will be literally cut off from 90% of the information that we can access today. The little guys on the Net will fall likes flies; Bloggers and small website operators will die a quick death because people will not pay to go to their sites and read their pages. Ironically, the only medium that can save us is the one we are trying to save- the Internet (free). This article will be posted on my Blog, www.realitycheck.typepad.com and I encourage people and groups to learn more about this issue. Canadians can keep the Internet free just as they kept text messaging free. Don't wait for the federal politicians. They will do nothing to help us.



I would welcome a letter to the editor of the Standard Freeholder from a spokesperson from Bell Canada or Telus telling me that I am absolutely wrong in what I have written, and that no such changes to the Internet are being planned, and that access to Internet sites will remain FREE in the years to come. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to write to the media, ask questions, phone the radio station, phone a friend, or think of something else to prevent what appears to me to be inevitable. Maintaining Internet (free) access is the only way we have a chance at combatting the global corporate takeover, the North American Union, and a long list of other deadly deeds that the elite in society have planned for us. Yesterday was too late in trying to protect our rights and freedoms. We must now redouble our efforts in order to give our children and grandchildren a fighting chance in the future.


Author's website: http://realitycheck.typepad.com/

[liberal N proud]

1. Make you dependant on it, then snap, the trap closes

[Juche]

2. I don't know if I believe it

If there is an ISP that still offers unrestricted access to the net, even if they charge 2x as much as the other providers, I will still go with that one.

I think that the profit margin would not be there to censor the internet. People would flock to the unrestricted ISPs who could charge more, which would attract more unrestricted ISPs.

[zeemike]

3. They know how to deal with small companies

They make them an offer they can't refuse and buy them out. And who can stand against a very large diversified company that has lots of cash and power and influence with the government They can turn the IRS on them, pass laws that hurt them, tie them up in court, and mess with them in a hundred different ways until they give up.
I think it could well happen.

[Trillo]

4. I also think it's unlikely. but for a different reason.

We'd likely see people setting up a shadow Internet of point-to-point networks that bypass the ISPs, as well as share ISPs among those who have ISPs.

At first, all one would need is a wireless router, mount the antenna on the roof, and some software. If you added a server, your close neighbors could access your server without any ISP. It would build up from there. Pretty soon, some people would set up little parabolic dishes with the wireless antenna at the focal point, and point them to an identical parabolic device pointed back on the next street over....

Hmm, that reminds me, I've got to pick up some of those little "dishes". Might come in handy.

[scubadude]

10. I agree that if this internet is killed, another will arise.

But I see many problems with the freewheeling point to point or peer network you describe. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to protect your pc when literally everyone is banging at your door? Security for an average user is daunting enough as it is, running a server is a whole other matter. Not only that but can you imagine the number of jumps a site would have to go through to get to you? The performance of this type of network would be atrocious.

I believe that another form of internet will eventually arise. What it will be I don't know, but my feeling is that smart people are already working on it.

Scuba

[Trillo]

13. Oh, sure. What I desribed is just a wireless version

of what was originally conceived as a decentralized network (darpanet), that business has now apparantly centralized. Happened in the 90s near as I can tell, but finished off under Bush years.

I think to some degree that some of the system's original strengths have been lost, but yes, a performance tradeoff. I also believe the basic idea has some merit for neighborhood networks that are independent of the telecoms.

If wireless became too limiting, perhaps because of radio-emission regulations, it would likely be a short time until hackers started playing with lasers pointed at each other for higher-bandwidth communications. In reality, a laser is little more than a specialized florescent tube. Just a little glasswork, some vacuum, inert gas filled (quite a number of gasses probably can be used), a lens at one end, and some electronically switched digital ballasts. Some photocells for receiving.... Nothing that new.

Edit: What do you know, there are even plans online for making a small one: http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/7156/laser.htm

[truedelphi]

14. I am interested in what you are talking about.

Someone in the neighborhood just dumped a hge antennae in the trash (Due to a foreclosure I think)

Sounds like you know how I can make good use of it.

[Trillo]

15. I'm no expert, but am thinking of doing what I wrote above,

just tinkering... I've got too many computers sitting around here, some rather fast machines that aren't being used much....

Here are broad-brush ideas on implementation of cutting our telecom dependence.

Point-to-point wireless bridge:
http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/point-to-point-bridge.php

Another photo of a similar system using a parabolic dish:
http://www.radiolan.com/products.html

ISP access point sharing software using a particular wireless router:

PERM is the Practical End-host collaborative Residential Multihoming framework. 802.11 networks have spread rapidly in the residential area, and it is common for neighbors to receive signals from each other's home wireless networks. PERM allows residents to leverage such an opportunity to improve their last-mile Internet connectivity, at no additional cost, by pooling their Internet accesses together. PERM is practical in that it does not rely on support from the network infrastructure in terms of advanced naming scheme or proxy, the remote host in terms of new transport protocols, or the end-user in terms of explicit application feedback or configuration. Instead, PERM employs automated on-line analysis of the user's networking behaviors, and exploits the identified patterns to achieve high-performance scheduling at the flow level. PERM is also highly usable for normal residential users. It preserves a user's privacy and security, and mitigates the free-riding problem. We have implemented PERM for Linux clients and the open-source Linksys wireless router.
http://swing.cs.uiuc.edu/projects/perm/index.php#overview

It would be a start. Where it goes from there?

[Uncle Joe]

6. Little by little they choke you off.

Sort of like the blockade around the South during the Civil War, very ineffective at first, but as the U.S. Navy presence grew the stranglehold gradually kept much needed supplies from coming in.

The corporations don't care about the people's freedom, for them it actually gets in the way of their total control and they won't stop, because they worship the dollar whether Canadian or U.S.

While the fanatical Muslims believed martyrdom would bring them 72 virgins in heaven, the fat cats believe they can buy 72 virgins here on Earth from their ivory towers.

The short term profit margin doesn't mean anything to them, they just want control.

[zeemike]

5. Here is a thanks for the heads up kick and R n/t

[PSPS]

7. This is nonsense

First, this ranting author makes no citations to back up his "vision of the future." It seems to come entirely out of his ass.

Second, the commercial community won't stand for it. Thousands of large corporations have spent millions of dollars creating an online presence for their customers and potential customers to transact business. What would they do? Revert to printed catalogs and mailed-in order forms? I don't think so.

I think this is an obvious case of, "just because you read it on the internet doesn't mean it's true."

[RC]

8. Beat me to it.

Too many people are making too much money from the internet as it is now.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Do you believe the oligarchs and mega corporations

will not try to gain control of the Internet?

Look what happened to radio it started out with a bunch of individual owners and companies putting their cash in to it, how many corporations own radio today? The same holds true for newspapers, they became conglomerates.

[tuvor]

11. The author cites no sources.

Would have been nice if he had.

[tuvor]

12. A couple of problems with the article.

The companies charging to receive text messages are Telus and Bell, not Telus and Rogers.

Also, according to the first comment to the article, the Telus director of media relations says, "several weeks ago I spoke to the alleged Time Magazine reporter, Dylan, about this issue and sent him the attached note. Dylan conceded that he was not a Time Magazine staff reporter but was hoping to submit a freelance story for their consideration. I never heard back from him after this note nor have we received any formal follow-up from Time Magazine as would be a normal part of the fact checking process prior to publication." (http://realitycheck.typepad.com/commentary_news/2008/07/death-of-free-internet-is-imminent--canada-will-be-test-case.html#comment-123089138)

Not the most well-researched article I've seen.