From: news@wolves.uucp (The Wolfe of the Den)
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Subject: Excerpt: Cu Digest, #4.48
Date: 7 Oct 92 03:09:45 GMT
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<1992Oct05.034406.27927@chinacat.unicom.com> tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu writes:
>
>Computer underground Digest    Sun Oct 4, 1992   Volume 4 : Issue 48
>
>       Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET)
>       Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
>       Shadow-Archivist: Dan Carosone
>       Copy Editor: Etaion Shrdleax, Esq.
>
>CONTENTS, #4.48 (Oct 4, 1992)
>File 2--"Whose Internet Is It Anyway?" (Online! Reprint)
            "WHOSE INTERNET IS IT ANYWAY? -- A CHALLENGE"
                          By Dr. Tom Grunder

Tom Grunder is director of NPTN, the parent of the Freenet movement.
This is a good summary of why we are working for the freenet. - GWW

>Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are
>available at no cost from tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu. The editors may be
>contacted by voice (815-753-6430), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at:
>Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115.
>
>DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent
>            the views of the moderators. Digest contributors assume all
>            responsibility for ensuring that articles submitted do not
>            violate copyright protections.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
	:
>Date: Thu,  1 Oct 92 08:58:29 EDT
>From: Rich=Gautier%SETA%DRC@S1.DRC.COM
>Subject: File 2--"Whose Internet Is It Anyway?" (Online! Reprint)
>
>This entire article was re-typed by Richard A. Gautier
>(RG%SETA%DRC@S1.DRC.COM).  If there are any SPELLING errors, they are
>probably his.  If there are grammar errors, they are Dr. Grundners, or
>the editors.  Mr. Gautier HAS obtained permission to electronically
>disseminate this article from ngarman@tso.uc.edu who represents ONLINE
>magazine.  Her comment was that this article really does belong in the
>electronic (Internet) forum, and that it was really a shame that I had
>to ask with an article like this.
>
>            "WHOSE INTERNET IS IT ANYWAY? -- A CHALLENGE"
>                          By Dr. Tom Grunder
>           From--Online! Magazine, July 1992, pp. 6-7, 10.
>
>    It began innocently enough.  I was rummaging around the Internet
>looking for some NREN information to include in a proposal I was
>writing, when I came across a rather one-sided "debate."
>
>    It was a string of messages written mostly by people from academic
>computing centers bemoaning the fact that NREN _might_ be made
>available to K-12 schools, businesses, libraries, and (horror of
>horrors) even to the general public.  They were beside themselves.
>"The Internet and the NREN are supposed to be for academic and
>research purposes," they said.  "What's going to happen if we allow
>all these other people on?  There's not going to be enough bandwidth.
>Transmission time will suffer.  Before you know it, the NREN is going
>to be just as bad as the Internet is now."
>
>    As the messages came in, their outrage seemed to build.  So did
>mine.
>
>    Finally I came across a message that simply read: "Why should we
>let them use it at all???" and suddenly the terrible mistake we've
>been making became clear.  We in the non-university networking
>community have been framing the wrong issue.
>
>    Until now, the issue has been whether K-12 schools and community
>users are going to have access to the NREN.  It should have been
>whether K-12 and community users are going to
>_allow_the_academic_centers_ to access the NREN.  Somehow we had
>gotten our priorities crossed.
>
>    Who do they think is _paying_ for all this?  When the NREN comes
>online, the money to build it will be coming from that apparently
>forgotten group of people called "taxpayers."  Who do they think is
>paying for the current Internet backbone?  The National Science
>Foundation?  Wrong!  It's the taxpayers.  Who do they think is paying
>for those mid-level networks, and for the high-speed data lines to
>connect their colleges to those networks, and for the nice
>high-powered servers that makes the connection so easy?  Do they think
>that money is coming from good ole Siwash State U.?  If so, then who,
>pray tell, is funding Siwash State?  Right again.  Taxpayers!
>
>    So now we come along, with hat in hand, begging for permission to
>have minimal access to the Internet and to be a part of NREN.  Why?
>So we can set-up K-12 networks that will allow the _taxpayers'_ kids
>to learn the information age skills they will need to be competitive
>in the 21st century.  So we can provide the _taxpayers_ access to
>electronic mail, government information, and other resources via
>libraries and community computer systems.  So we can provide some
>piece of the information age to the people who paid for it in the
>first place!  And the academics treat us like beggars in a subway
>station.
>
>    _Absurd!_ Absurd, but not surprising.
>
>    To understand this attitude, you have to keep in mind that, in
>most locations, these university computing centers are designed for
>the people who work there plus 35 of their buddies.  No one else -
>including the other students and faculty on their own campuses - need
>apply.  In most locations, students or faculty members seeking to use
>the Internet are given a blinking cursor that dares them to come up
>with some combination of nonsense syllables to make it do something.
>That's it.  No help.  No training.  No assistance.  Nothing.  It is
>not surprising that the idea of letting the community have access to
>this preciously guarded resource would send chills up their spines.
>
>    But, in many ways, we in the non-academic computing circles have
>made our share of mistakes as well.  Not only have we been apologetic
>in our claims to this national resource, but we have engaged in what I
>call the "Balkanization" of the information age - the fragmentation of
>our efforts into dozens of competing networks and special interest
>systems.  We should be working toward a common framework with enough
>"conceptual bandwidth" to include everyone.
>
>    As a function of developing my organization, the National Public
>Telecomputing Network, I am asked to speak at a lot of conventions and
>conferences; and what I find at those meetings has become quite
>predictable.  Everyone is excited about computer networking.  When I
>go to a K-12 convention; everyone is talking about K-12 networks.
>When I go to a library conference; everyone is talking about library
>networks, and so on - all in direct competition with each other.
>
>    It doesn't make sense.
>
>    Let's say you are proposing a statewide network that will link
>your libraries together, complete with Internet connections - the
>whole bit.  And let's say you take it to your state capital and,
>amazingly enough, you get it funded.  Now, what happens if a month
>later the K-12 people (or someone else) shows up with a proposal to
>fund their network; or worse, what happens if they get there a month
>_before_ you?  Some one must lose; it is inherent in that kind of
>competitive process.
>
>    But our mistakes do not end with the competition for monies.  They
>run deeper than that.  We have also failed to come up with a
>comprehensive plan to show how any of our ideas fit together.  Let me
>use the K-12 initiatives as an example.
>
>    I have seen a number of proposals going around that (depending on
>the proposal) would provide every school in the city/state/country
>with a connection to the Internet - so every child will have access to
>the information resources to be found there.  That's fine.  In fact,
>on the surface, it sounds wonderful.
>
>    But what happens _after_ the student graduates from high school or
>college?  Do we toss him or her out into a world where those resources
>are utterly unavailable?  If so,
>_what's_the_point_of_training_them_on_the_resources_
>in_the_first_place?  It's like having mandatory driver education in a
>world without cars!
>
>    It doesn't make sense.  We create plan after plan, proposal after
>proposal, with no common conceptual framework to tie them together.
>
>    I believe we must start developing our programs in the context of
>community-wide information systems.  The guy who runs the corner gas
>station (and who was in a K-12 class only a few years ago) should have
>at least as much information access as the K-12 students who are in
>class right now.  But we can't do that; we can't achieve it; unless we
>can band together somehow to speak with one voice.
>
>    And...we need leadership.
>
>    Where is that leadership going to come from?  One logical source
>is the library community.  But I don't see that happening.  What I see
>is a profession divided.  Half the librarians I've talked to see this
>network technology as exactly the kind of thing libraries should be
>embracing; and the other half (usually higher-level officials) see it
>as the work of the devil - with no detectable middle ground.
>
>    We can't continue without leadership, without a plan, and in
>direct competition with each other.  Perhaps what is needed is a plot
>of ground that stands outside existing territory, a place where
>everyone can stand, and around which we can all rally.
>
>    Let me try out an idea on you.
>
>    Suppose a super-fund was created for the development of a
>nationwide network of computerized community information systems.
>These systems would be free to the user in the same sense that the
>public library is free to its patrons.  Of equal importance, each of
>these systems would have a place on them for the library community,
>the K-12 community, the medical community, government officials, and
>anyone else who wanted to use it.  In addition, each system would be
>linked by, and would provide its users with controlled access to, the
>Internet/NREN.  From a technological standpoint, there are no barriers
>to the development of these systems.  Indeed, there currently exist
>several pilot systems that are already accomplishing all the above and
>more.
>
>    How would we fund it?  One way would be to ask every Regional Bell
>Operating Company to contribute, along with every high-tech
>corporation, the federal government, every state government, every
>major city, and every major foundation.  If necessary, we would
>approach the various state Public Utility Commissions to ask that a
>surtax be placed on phone company data line profits.  The fund would
>be charged with developing a minimum of 100 community computers
>covering all 50 states by the year 2000.  Initial cost would be about
>$30 million dollars.
>
>    Could it be done?  Without any doubt, yes.  We've done it before.
>    Most people do not realize that 100 years ago there was no such
>    thing as the public library as we know it.  But we reached the
>    point in this country where literacy levels got high enough (and
>    the cost of producing books cheap enough) that the public library
>    became feasible.  People across the country began to come together
>    around the idea of free public access to the printed word; and the
>    result was a legacy from which everyone reading this article has
>    benefitted.
>
>    What I am saying, is that in this century _computer_ literacy
>levels have gotten high enough (and the cost of computer equipment
>cheap enough) that it is time from a similar movement to form around
>the development of free public-access computerized community
>information systems.  It is time for us to stop being apologetic, and
>to stop competing wih each other.  In short, it is time for us to
>leave a legacy of our own.
>
>    Do you see what I am saying?
>    Would you support such a plan?  I mean, would you support it
>    personally?
>    Would you work for it?
>    Would your company or institution support it?
>    Would they contribute to it?  If so, let me know.
>
>    Send me electronic mail, send me snailmail, but let me know.  The
>key here is not the technology, that's already in place, it is "wil."
>Do we have the will to do it?
>
>    The issue is no longer _whether_ we will enter an information age.
>That part has been settled.  We have.  What is at issue is whether the
>information age is something that happens _to_ us, or something that
>happens _for_ us.
>
>    Fortunately, that decision still remains in our hands.
>
>++++++++++++++++
>
>    _TOM_GRUNDNER_ is the president of the National Public
>Telecomputing Network, and the founder of the Cleveland Freenet.  The
>freenets are community information systems, located in several Ohio
>communities and in Peoria, Illinois.  A column in DATABASE (April
>1988, pp. 97-99) by Steve Cisler describes the Cleveland Freenet in
>its early stages.
>
>    Communications to the author should be addressed to Dr. Tom
>Grundner, National Public Telecomputing Network, Box 1987, Cleveland,
>OH 44106; 216/368-2733; Internet-aa001@cleveland.freenet.edu;
> BITNET-aa001%cleveland.freenet.edu@cunyvm. (Editor's Note: Write to
>Tom Grundner, or write to ONLINE (ngarman@tso.uc.edu), to answer this
>challenge and comment on this controversial issue facing the library
>and online community.  ONLINE will publish as many notes and letters
>as we have room for in coming issues.  --NG)
>
>------------------------------
reposted from comp.society.cu-digest
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