http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/publications/ip_privacy/
In discussions about Free Software and wireless networks, the word 'privacy' is often left as an unanalysed ideal. It is cited as the purpose for, but then quickly sidelined by the technical details of IT security. IT security is the method of enforcing data privacy, the ownership of digital information, but in concentrating on these details, the reasons for that enforcement are often ignored.
Locke's concept of ownership, as an extension of the right to one's own body and to the wealth created through the 'mixing' of labour with land, is often cited as the basis for our understanding of property. With regard to Intellectual property, the same rules apply: ownership of intellectual property is based on the right to the fruits of one's mental labour.
This text sees privacy as the extent to which a person owns, and has control over their information. It is important to note that this refers to both indexical information about them (as we usually think of privacy, for example, health records, fingerprints or credit card bills), but also to information intentionally produced by them such as software or other intellectual property.
Understanding privacy in terms of legal questions of property, bodily security and autonomy is reductionist, but useful for the purposes of this text: to show how Free Networks, along with Free Software and other strategies of distributed information ownership are different fronts of the same battle for individual, and collective privacy.
Warren and Brandeis' text on the legal implications of new media ( the "evil of invasion of privacy by the newspapers"[3]) is often seen as the first attempt to provide legislative protection for the information about a private individual. They extend the definition of intellectual property to encompass the personality of the owner.
A century later the Critical Art Ensemble[5] write about the "data body". Like Warren and Brandeis, they are referring to information about a person, but in their critique of an information-centric society, the official body of information representing a person becomes their authoritative replacement, and is entirely alienated from that person's "organic subjectivity".[6] The data body is an abject, dystopian reflection of Warren and Brandeis' 'inviolate personality'.
Without any attempt at historical or political analysis, the two texts are brought together because they both address the struggle for intellectual property and personal privacy, from opposite ends of the 20th Century.
In Silent Theft: the private plunder of our common wealth[7] , David Bollier proposes the idea of an 'information commons' as a common wealth of intellectual property, culture and communication. He refers to the 'Internet commons' based on public funding (of military and academia) and on the 'gift culture'[8] of technologists. He then describes how the corporate subversion of open communication protocols and technical standards, heavy handed abuse of intellectual property law, and the privatisation of Internet governance is enclosing this commons.
In his analysis of the human effects of this enclosure, Bollier stops short of transposing an unfashionable Marxist analysis of the creation of the conditions for wage labor through land enclosure onto a contemporary context of 'information wage labour'.[9]
The CAE, however, are less restrained in their terminology. One of the alienated subjects of Tactical Media, the 'cyborg as bureaucrat' in the 'virtual sweat shop', is the figure of the information wage slave, an 'organic subjectivity' alienated from its 'data body'.
Tactical Media was presented to an audience of net artists, activists, technologists and theorists at The Next Five Minutes conference in Amsterdam in 1997. It was intended to de-bunk a late '90s revival of Situationist tactics and notions of Spectacle, and the idea that technology and the Internet could be useful tools of 'anti-authoritarian activity'. However, the CAE do make two constructive proposals.
The following two sections of this text examine two contemporary cultural practices in (the limited) terms of the CAE's proposals.
A comprehensive analysis of the Free Software[11] movement is beyond the scope of this document, but the aspects of FS most important to its function as a productive and protective strategy for re-appropriating 'vital information' are outlined below.
Technically, 'Free Software' is a term used to describe a software engineering principle. This principle advocates the collaborative development of computer software projects. The software is saved on a shared computer disk (now usually accessible via the Internet) along with its source code[12], the tools and the information necessary to use and change it. Programmers can use the software, determine its deficiencies, and amend them before putting it back on the disk in its updated form, along with a note of what they have done.
This technique was developed in software labs and universities at a stage when time-sharing of expensive computer facilities was necessary, long before the introduction of the personal computer, proprietary software or the Internet.
However, it was with the growth of the academic infrastructure of the Internet that FS Programming came into its own. Now thousands of FS projects constitute a complex gift economy of programmers, users and businesses, that is inspiring a burgeoning sociology[13] . As of early 2001, even the UK office of government commerce has a commitment to using FS.[14]
The word 'Free' as in 'Free Software' is still confusing. Richard Stallman defining it as "not as in free beer" is useful and concise, but in defining 'free' by saying what it does not mean, he leaves out the history and nuances of the term. The 'free' Stallman is talking about is J. S. Mill's concept of 'free' that he defines in On Liberty. This 'free', (or more accurately 'libre') is to a large extent synonymous with 'autonomy', the principle of self-government. Although the friction between 'free as in beer' (or more accurately 'gratis') and 'free as in speech' has been a source of confusion for the Free Software movement, it has also been useful in distinguishing it from simple market pragmatism in information economics.
It is useful to note, here that the name "Free Software" was abandoned by many FS practitioners in the mid 90's in favor of the term "Open Source", because the word "Free" made the venture capitalists of the 90's high tech boom nervous about investing in FS projects, or companies that used them. The Free Software Foundation continues to use the term "Free Software" because it recognises and wants to maintain the political dimension of the word "free".
The GNU[17] General Public License[18] is the best known legal mechanism for ensuring that free code remains in the public domain. The GPL states that any code that uses it as a copyright license may not be included in any proprietary (non free) software. Although the terms of the GPL allow for companies and individuals to sell their free software as boxes sets of CDs, it is the transit medium (compact disk), user manuals, or technical support that constitute the value of the sale. The code itself must be available to download gratis from the Internet.
The GPL itself is licensed under the GPL, and there are almost as many varieties of open publishing license as there are pieces of FS. One of the strengths of the FS movement is that it breeds diversity, rather than limiting a project along a single line of use and development.
FS licenses can be applied to any intellectual property, and since the popularisation of the movement (as Open Source), it has been usefully applied in many areas of cultural and industrial production including art[19], music[20] and literature[21].
Direct threats to FS are a combination of abusive exploitation of intellectual property law, and a technical and legislative assault by hawkish government and the information industries. These assaults, and the privatised regulatory structures of the Internet Domain Name System are often addressed with reference to the many purposefully obfuscatory acronyms of the institutions, technologies and laws involved.
Although it is beyond the scope of this text to deal with the specific criticisms of each of these entities, references to sources of critical information and simple expansions of acronyms are provided below.
1. DRM - Digital Rights Management
http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/publications/ip_privacy/
2. DMCA - The Digital Millenium Copyright Act
http://www.anti-dmca.org
3. SSSCA - The Security Systems Standards and Certifications Act
http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010921_eff_sssca_alert.html
4. UCITA - The Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act http://www.4cite.org/
5. ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
http://www.icannwatch.org/ and http://name-space.org
6. RIPA - The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
http://www.stand.org
7. EUCD - The European Copyright Directive.
http://www.stand.org
Of course these regulations and institutions must be reformed, and the references above point to good resources for doing so, but instead of attempting to summarise their analyses here, the focus of this text will shift to the issue of Free Networks; an area where deregulation, rather than over-regulation is proving to be the major problem.
It could be argued (if criminalisation were not a problem for most software users) that if Free Software was distributed without using the Internet, that enforcement of these various laws, and the interference of these institutions would be impossible.
In this interview with George Gilder (one of the most prolific techno-utopians of the 'Wired' crowd) by Kevin Kelly (a social Darwinian of the same school) the word "bandwidth" is used in its non-technical sense to mean the amount of data that can be carried by a medium (such as copper or fiber cable) at any one time.
However, if it is possible to string meaning together from his endless string of buzz words, what Gilder is actually talking about is the price of connecting to the Internet. Unbelievably, Gilder was right about one thing. Since 1993, the price of connecting to the Internet has come down (though it is still far from gratis), but the utopia he predicts as a result of cheap Internet access has conspicuously failed to appear.
The glaring mistake in his thinking centres around his misuse of the word 'free'. The copper and fiber of the Internet have always been owned by corporate, military or institutional players.
Opportunistic attempts to force unworkably restrictive, and potentially draconian communications legislation through parliament by the UK government in the last year is just one example of how the rules that govern transactions in that network are subject to changes in the political climate.[23] This is the understanding behind the CAE's second proposal, to "[appropriate] the conduits of information transfer themselves."[24]
Due to the restrictive wording of the 1949 UK Wireless Telegraphy Act[26] and, in the wake of the 3G auction scandal, the lack of political will to amend it, the 2.4 Ghz. FM radio band was prohibited from commercial use, but legal for private individuals.[27] Until recently, It was not considered useful enough for long-range or complex communications networks, and has been used for cordless telephones, remote controls, and more recently, for small scale, mostly indoor networking of computers.
Since the large scale commercial production of wireless networking components in 1996, business and individuals have been using 2.4Ghz to share Internet connections and to allow movement around an office with laptops.
In 1996-1997, groups of hobbyists, technologists and artists realised that if their computers could be connected to an interlocking mesh of wireless network coverage, a local, non-metered, non-commercial computer network could be created from cheap and readily available components.
Using home made antennas, a wireless link could be stretched up to 2 km, and city rooftops and tower blocks provided perfect locations for antennae. The home computer had been powerful enough to run simple web, mail and other communications services since the early 90's. It became clear that if enough individuals would interconnect their computers and become "nodes" in a network, a free (in both senses of the word), local communications infrastructure could be possible.
Today there are hundreds of Free Network groups in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.[28] with very diverse agendas, methodologies and organisational strategies. To illustrate the potential of these as Free Networks, research into Consume[29] and Free2Air[30] networks (two London based free networks) will be presented.
The onus on participants in a wireless free network is to build, maintain and understand their own infrastructure, there is not a single organising body or a planned distribution of computer and radio networking hardware, except by independent agreement.[31] However, there is an extremely strong culture of mutual support, and technical assistance.
Jesse Walker's account of the early days of ham radio reveal strong similarities in the way sharing of information and production of infrastructure was organised. He describes the ham radio culture as self-organising through non-professionalised hobbyist clubs for mutual education and the presentation of independent research.
"Early radio transmitters were built with everything, from old pop bottles to porcelain cleats salvaged from somewhere". [32]
The use of available household materials and the presentation and sharing of research is evident in the many sets of instructions, diagrams, test reports and methods of 2.4Ghz. antenna construction that are available both on the Internet, and locally, at the frequent meetings of the free network groups.
Consume and youarehere[33] both organise workshops in local self-subsidised spaces (such as the Boxing Club[34] in Limehouse, or Deckspace[35] in Greenwich) at which participants share tools, advice and research, and discuss the growth of the networks. Meetings are often organised at prospective locations for nodes, the technical building of the node (antenna construction, computer software and hardware installation) are undertaken then and there by volunteers.
The computers used are usually salvaged from the skips of businesses that are caught in the upgrade cycle necessitated by proprietary software,[36] and less resource-intensive Free Software is then installed and configured to make them into routers or servers on the Free Network.[37]
The fact that Free Software is used in the construction of Free Networks is one obvious link between the movements, but they overlap in many ways.
Free Transit
Possibly the most important aspect of the free network is the construction of common ownership. The infrastructure of each piece of equipment in the network is the property of each participant, (usually) based in their homes or work places, so clearly, no 'collective' ownership of the physical components of the network infrastructure is possible. The concept of distributed ownership works similarly to the idea of a General Public License. In Vortex's[38] view, the commons of the free network is:
Vortex sees the flow of information in a network as the 'commons' of the Free Network. That flow is often referred to simply as "transit". Some explanation of the concept of "transit" should be useful here.
Transit can be defined as one of the five types of information traffic that flows across networks. The five types of network traffic are:
1. Internal: packets[40] that flow around, but never leave your network. 2. External: packets that flow outside, but never come into your network. 3. Incoming: packets originating outside, but addressed to a computer inside. 4. Outgoing: packets originating inside, addressed to a computer outside. 5. Transit: packets originating outside, addressed to a computer outside, but that flow across machines on your network.[41]
Free transit, the agreement to pass on packets of information without blocking or altering them is the premise of a Free Network.
Vortex goes on to say that nothing in the network is "commonly owned", the Free Network is "just an explicit set of resources and responsibilities".[42] In his understanding the primary resource is the transit of data traffic, and the responsibility is to allow that data traffic to pass freely across your section of the network.
The 3 A's.
The idea of Free Transit and the use of network resources are often conflated, because one delivers the other; for example, the stream of mp3 audio is carried by Free Transit, but is separate from it, and is not part of the 'commons' of the network.
In Vortex's words, the 3 A's of IT security control are:
1. Authentication: satisfactorily determining who or what you are dealing with.[44] 2. Authorization: defining what that entity can do. 3. Access Control: regulating access to resources.
These are the technical methods by which resources in non-free networks are uniformly restricted. In the Free Network, Vortex argues that they are still important, to control access to the resources inside the network of each participant, and that it is vital that that participant understands and takes responsibility for that level of control.
For example, he has some servers in his basement containing databases, stored data, and software in development, access to which he wants to be able to regulate very tightly.
There is also a responsibility (Vortex argues) to regulate the transit of traffic across your network. For example, if transit traffic is taking up most of your transit resources, it has to be controlled. He argues that as far as possible, transit should be unimpeded, but in certain circumstances it is necessary to use one or more of the 3 A's to regulate it, and to be transparent and open about how you are regulating that access.
Pico Peering
Peering is the agreement to interconnect and exchange routing information. On the Internet, peering is organised hierarchically. There are nine or ten huge corporations (for example MAE East in the US, or Linx in London) that are interconnected through the 'backbone' of the Internet, a series of extremely high-capacity fiber optic cables. By having 'peering agreements', these corporations agree to mutually route information between the 'borders'[45] of their networks without charge, based on equality of the exchange. They then sell on parts of their connectivity to smaller corporations (who are connected to the backbone through them), who then re-divide and sell it on again etc. These smaller companies (usually Internet Service Providers or extremely large institutions) may have peering agreements of their own, or may sell on their connectivity to lesser organisations.[46] A large part of the money you spend on your internet connection, and ultimately, control over what information you can access through it, is passed up this chain of peers to one of the huge corporations at the top.
A useful way of looking at Free Transit in Free Networks is the concept of Pico[47] Peering. This is the agreement between (in Internet hierarchy terms) the lowest level of peers - the users themselves. Each peer agrees to transit the traffic of other peers across their network without charge (but subject to local conditions and circumstances). The fact that there is no "backbone" of a meshed Free Network means that on a basic level of transit[48] no peer would have any more bargaining power than any other. The Pico Peering Agreement, a document to facilitate this kind of bargain, is being developed at http://www.picopeer.net.
This horizontal structure of distributed ownership and responsibility would make it very difficult (if not impossible) for one peer, or an outside interest to appropriate the Free Network.
Once this network of Pico Peers is established, there is even the potential to negotiate for cheaper or less legally restrictive provision[49] with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who are locked into expensive upstream peering agreements.
As Figure 1 (see below) shows, if Free Network members can connect to each other, but are wired into separate ISPs, it may be cheaper and faster for those ISPs to transit their traffic directly across the Free Network rather than having to go to an Upstream Service Provider (one of the larger companies) who charge them for that privilege, and then back down to their neighboring network.
According to some members of the group, this eating away at the borders of commercial networks is the meaning of the name Consume: consuming the edges of the net.
This potential, to subvert the value structures of the Internet bandwidth hierarchy, is a powerful weapon for advocates of Free Networks, and one they will probably need to survive commercial pressures.
Marvin Bensman's analysis of the history of radio regulation in the US shows how legislators were hesitant to legislate ownership rights in the 'special case' of the radio spectrum. He argues that this initial idealism, and the thriving, self-regulated amateur radio broadcast infrastructure was quickly undermined by commercial interests and the Hoover administration,[51] and that eventually the lack of clearly defined legislation allowed it to be almost entirely removed from public ownership.
On the 10th June, 2002, Stephen Timms, the 'e-Commerce Minister' announced the opening up of the 2.4Ghz frequency band for commercial use. Given that in this case, there is not even 'public and political' sentiment opposed to the commercial deregulation of 2.4Ghz, it seems that US amateur radio history could well be about to repeat itself in the legislative and commercial fate of wireless Free Networks. Starbucks opened their first metered wireless access points later that summer, and the roll-out of commercial 2.4Ghz services in airports, hotels and public 'hot-spots' is quickly following.
In this context, the only hope for Free Wireless Networks will be the shrewd use of alternative economic models, such as non-profit systems and voluntary labor to undercut the market for such services. Pico Peering to de-value and subvert the pricing structure of Internet bandwidth, will also be vital to Free Networkers when negotiating favorable local network arrangements and bidding for survival in the increasingly harsh, competitive climate.
Privacy is often characterized as freedom 'from' something; from the curiosity of others, from government, from surveillance, from law. This characterization, exemplified by the fetishised representation of the surveillance camera and covert footage in 'reality TV' shows such as Big Brother or Police, Camera, Action, seems to limit the condition of privacy to a passive, solitary state of self-possession.
A more anthropological conception of privacy as the basis for relationships, both intimate, but also as a premise for social interaction[53] was the starting point for this examination of communications networks, in which each individual's ownership and control of their information, and the means of its distribution, premises their privacy.
In Rites of Privacy and the Privacy Trade'[54] , Elizabeth Neill sets out two conceptions of privacy; the 'reductionist' view that privacy can be seen in terms of a social construction based on ownership, and the more holistic view of privacy, as a basic human need and therefore, an inalienable right. She then attempts to synthesise these two concepts of privacy by arguing that they are constantly reconstructed as cultural norms by their performance through social rituals such as shitting, sex and sleeping.
To some extent, this text follows Neill's synthesis by seeing communication, both interpersonal and social, as the ritual through which the privacy, and autonomy of each actor is constructed.
It is the enclosure of this ritual, by the expropriation of intellectual property and the means of communication that is the cause of the widespread anxiety about a lack of privacy, and is the subject of the CAE's critique in Tactical Media.
Free Software and Free Networks have both been useful defense strategies for re-appropriating the rituals of communication. However, in light of recent threats, they may need to develop strategies of offence, and compete more fiercely with their proprietary and commercial counterparts if they are going to survive.
[1] John Locke, 'Second Treatise of Government', quoted in Matthew H. Kramer, John Locke and the Origins of Private Property, (Cambridge U.P., 1997), pp. 130.
[2] Warren and Brandeis, The Right to Privacy December 15th, http://www.lawrence.edu/fac/boardmaw/Privacy_brand_warr2.html 13/11/02.
[3] Warren and Brandeis, The Right to Privacy.
[4] Critical Art Ensemble, Tactical Media, 1997 - http://www.molodiez.org/net/tactical_CAE.html, 11/11/2002.
[5] References hereafter to CAE, in my text.
[6] "Look at all files that intersect my organic subjectivity: Credit files, travel files, education files, medical files, employment files, communication files, political files, tax files, investment files, consumption files, files onto infinity." - CAE, Tactical Media, 1997.
[7] David Bollier, Silent Theft: the private plunder of our common wealth, (New York: Routledge, 2002)
[8] See Ghosh, Rishab Aiyer, 'Cooking Pot Markets', First Monday, Vol. 3, Issue 3, March 1998. http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_3/, 5/3/2000
[9] Instead he opts for a gentle rhetoric of 'community investment and policy reform', and only mentions the alienated subject of enclosure when romanticising the commons of the 'great American outdoors'.
[10] CAE, Tactical Media¸1997.
[11] References hereafter to FC, in my text.
[12] A distinction must be made here between software and code. Code is the instructions written by a programmer in a human-readable computer programming language. The computer can only use these instructions as software once they have been converted into machine code (binary). This process is called "compiling". It is difficult and illegal to de-compile and edit proprietary software.
[13] See Barbrook, Richard 'The High Tech Gift Economy', in First Monday, 3.12, 1998, http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbrook/
[14] See the OGC website: http://www.ogc.gov.uk/index.asp?id=2190
[15] J.S. Mill, On Liberty (1859), Mary Warnock ed., Utilitarianism, The Fontana Library, Philosophy, 1968,
[16] Why Free Software? FSF, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html 10/11/2002
[17] GNU is a recursive definition of itself - Gnu's Not Unix, a typical hacker in-joke for naming conventions. The GNU project set out to build a comprehensively non-proprietary software development system starting with a compiler (the basic tool of software production for turning human-typable code into computer readable machine code). It has now developed into a network of thousands of FS computer operating systems, with millions of tools and billions of lines of free code. For an exhaustive definition, see http://www.gnu.org/
[18] References hereafter to GPL, in my text.
[19] See Saul Albert, Open Source Collective Art Practice -http://www.twenteenthcentury.com/saul/os.htm
[20] See http://www.linart.net
[21] See Florian Cramer: Digital Code and Literary Text, http://www.netzliteratur.net/cramer/digital_code_and_literary_text.html, and on art: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/
[22] Kevin Kelly, 'George Gilder: When Bandwidth is Free', Wired, 1.04 (1993), pp. 2.
[23] The most obvious example is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill which would have given authority to procure and cross reference private communications such as email and web logs to unaccountable civil servants and the Post Office. thankfully, was 'postponed indefinitely' after huge campaigns and lobbying by the public, and an impressive rallying drive by www.stand.org.uk.
[24] CAE, Tactical Media, 1997.
[25] http://www.consume.net 10/11/02
[26] All use of radio spectrum is subject to licensing under the 1949 Wireless Telegraphy Act, unless specifically exempt by regulations.
[27] In early 2000, the UK government nearly bankrupted half of the mobile telephony operators in the country by auctioning the 1755 to 1850 MHz "3G" spectrum band for high speed mobile data services for almost £32 billion. One of the methods attaining this inflated price was the legislative suppression of commercial use of 2.4Ghz. In an article in Itweek, David Rae reports that 2.4Ghz networking is predicted to shave 50% off the profits of 3G lisencees. See http://www.itweek.co.uk/News/1132534 16/11/02.
[28] See http://freenetworks.org for links to many of them.
[29] http://www.consume.net
[30] http://www.free2air.net
[31] See the section on Pico Peering below.
[32] 'The Ham', Wireless Age, December 1919, p.37. Quoted in quoted in Jesse Walker, Rebels on the air : an alternative history of radio in America. (New York: NYU Press, 2001). pp.16.
[33] Another Free Networks group, but with a different background to Consume or Free2Air. youarehere is an off-shoot of Mute magazine. Its agenda is specifically to connect existing social networks of cultural producers in a wireless Free Network. youarehere is funded by Cityside Regeneration and C.I.D.A. (the Cultural Industries Development Agency). See http://youarehere.metamute.com. The approach is clearly very different to the more anarchic model of Consume, but is a good example of how different organisational models of Free Network participants can co-exist.
[34] A self subsidised multi-use space run by artists, film makers, and cultural producers in Limehouse Town Hall, E14. See http://spacehijackers.co.uk/boxingclub/
[35] The successor to Backspace, an open access project space for technologists, artists, and cultural workers in Greenwich, run by James Stevens. See http://grault.net/cgi-bin/grubstreet.pl?Deckspace
[36] Companies such as Microsoft and Apple produce software that is needlessly resource intensive. People who use their computers as glorified typewriters are therefore forced to purchase incredibly over-engineered machines just to run word processing, email and web browsing software. Large firms upgrade their computers once every two to three years, and computers that were worth thousands of pounds in 1998 are being left in skips.
[37] The favored operating systems of Free Networkers are FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org) (a FS variant of the proprietary Berkley Software Distribution of Unix) and Debian Linux (http://www.debian.org). These are both self-professed Free Software projects, and are often seen as the least commercial , and most responsibly licensed operating systems. Debian Linux for example uses the "Debian Social Contract" in conjunction with a GPL copyright device to explain the social implications and convictions of the project contributors. See http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html
[38] Vortex, A.K.A. Adam Burns, of Free2air.net
[39] Vortex@Free2Air.net. 2002. Interview by the author, Hackney Road, 11/11/2002. See Appendix 4
[40] A packet of data is the basic unit of traffic in a network. It contains a sender IP (Internet Protocol) address, a recipient IP address and some data.
[41] Summarized from the 'Pico Peering Agreement'. See http://www.picopeer.net/wiki/index.php/PicoPeeringAgreement 17/11/02
[42] Vortex@Free2Air.net, interview by SaulAlbert, 2002.
[43] Ibid.
[44] For example, iris scanning, fingerprinting and pin numbers.
[45] It is interesting to see how the language of land rights enters into this informational context, the technical protocol for this exchange is called the "Border Gateway Protocol".
[46] For more on peering, and a proposal for wireless peering see Adam Curry on ?WiFi peering: http://stories.curry.com/stories/storyReader$12 or the Pico Peering Agreement at http://www.picopeer.net
[47] In this context Pico is used to mean "tiny", rather than as a reference to the renaissance humanist philosopher.
[48] Services, shared Internet connectivity or any other asset might be used to barter on a local level
[49] The "Terms and Conditions" of ISPs are shockingly restrictive. Often they reserve the right to censor any content you publish via their network, and restrict the ability to share (or re-sell) your connection to other users. This has been a significant legal problem for people who want to share the cost of their broadband Internet connection with other users of their Free Network, they have had to take the risk of prosecution (or more likely disconnection) or simply pay.
[50] Marvin R Bensman, The Beginning of Broadcast Regulation in the Twentieth Century, (London: ?McFarland &co, Inc., 2000), pp. 226-227.
[51] The loss of the case of United States v. Zenith Radio Corp. (1925), who were suing the US government because they would not award any more broadcast licenses, ruled that the government no longer had any authority to regulate the radio spectrum. This precipitated a brief period of total deregulation in 1926 which, due to over-exploitation, in turn led to the 1927 and 1934 Radio Act, opening up radio to regulated commercial, but very little public use.
[52] Steve Timms quoted in an archived news report at the Government News Network website: http://www.nds.coi.gov.uk. 17/11/02
[53] See James Rachels, "Why Privacy is Important," in R. Dejoie et. al., eds. Ethical Issues in Information Science. ( Boston, MA: Boyd and Fraser, 1991), pp. 110-117.
[54] Elizabeth Neill, Rites of Privacy, (Montreal & Kingston and London: ?McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001).
http://www.lawrence.edu/fac/boardmaw/Privacy_brand_warr2.html 13/11/02.http://www.molodiez.org/net/tactical_CAE.html, 11/11/2002.http://www.ogc.gov.uk/index.asp?id=2190 12/11/02http://www.gnu.org, 15/11/02http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htmlhttp://www.twenteenthcentury.com/saul/os.htmhttp://www.netzliteratur.net/cramer/digital_code_and_literary_text.html, and on arthttp://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/http://www.stand.org.uk.http://www.itweek.co.uk/News/1132534 16/11/02.http://freenetworks.orghttp://www.consume.nethttp://www.free2air.nethttp://spacehijackers.co.uk/boxingclub/http://grault.net/cgi-bin/grubstreet.pl?Deckspacehttp://www.freebsd.orghttp://www.debian.orghttp://www.picopeer.net/wiki/index.php/PicoPeeringAgreement 17/11/02http://stories.curry.com/stories/storyReader$12http://www.picopeer.nethttp://www.nds.coi.gov.uk. 17/11/02http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbrook/Adam Burns (Vortex), Armin Medosch, Lottie Child, Julian Priest, Consume, Free2Air, youarehere, and the East-end.net list.
Figure 1 – ASCII network diagram.
Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier.
+------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| fig 1 | fig 2 |
| | |
| Commercial Network Model | Free Network Model |
| | |
|....................................... | ....................................... |
|+--------------+.. ..+--------------+ u| +--------------+.. ..+--------------+ u|
||commercial |.. n ..|commercial | s| |commercial |.. n ..|commercial | s|
||network 1 |.. e ..|network 2 | e| |network 1 |.. e ..|network 2 | e|
|| |.. t ..| | r| | |.. t ..| | r|
|| +-:---->.. w ..| | s| | +-+ |.. w ..| | s|
|| +-+ |.. o ..| | | | +-+ |.. o ..| | |
|| |.. r ..| -- | /| | / |.. r ..| -- | /|
|| |.. k ..<----: :-------- | | / |.. k ..| | |-------- |
|| |.. ..| -- / s| | / |.. ..| --\ / s|
|| -- |.. b ..| /| e| | -- |.. b ..| | \ /| e|
|| | :--------->.. o ..| +--: | r| | | | |.. o ..| | +--+ | r|
|| -- +-+ |.. r ..| +--+ | v| | -- \ +-+ |.. r ..| | +--+ | v|
|| | :--->.. d ..| +--+ | i| | \| | |.. d ..| +--+ | i|
|| +-+ |.. e ..| +--+ | c| | +-+ |.. e ..| +--+ | c|
|| |.. r ..| | e| | / |.. r ..| \ | e|
|| |.. ..| -- | s| | / |.------+- \ -- | s|
|| |.......<---------: | | | | / / -\------| | | |
|| -- |.......| -- | | | --/ / / \ -- | |
|| | :------>.......| | | | | :--/-----------@ \ | |
|| -- |.......| | | | -- | | |
|| |.......| | | | | Free Network | | |
|| |.......| | | | | | | |
|| |.......| | | | | | | |
|+--------------+ ......+--------------+ | +---------- --------+ |
|....................................... | ...........\ /......... |
| | \ / |
| | \ / |
| | ---------- |
|Transit between users / services on each | Transit between peers makes commercial |
|network is by agreement between commercial| network borders & transit policies |
|networks. | irrelevant |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+