CPSR-GLOBAL Digest 349
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) PGP (@)
by "Jim Livingston" <living@gcn.scri.fsu.edu> (by way of marsha-w@uiuc.edu
2) CYBERSPACE INC & the Straits of Consumption (@)
by rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) (by way of marsha-w@uiuc.edu (Marsha
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Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 10:20:42 -0500
From: "Jim Livingston" <living@gcn.scri.fsu.edu> (by way of marsha-w@uiuc.edu
To: cpsr-global@cpsr.org
Subject: PGP (@)
Message-ID: <ad7f0d1d05021004a4e4@[128.174.4.122]>
Sender: "Jim Livingston" <living@gcn.scri.fsu.edu>
The recent discussion concerning usage of PGP gives me pause. I see
this as the only effective method of controlling my information. This
is an age of information; it's "possession" and usage are fundamental
to it's "ownership".
I am convinced that the US Government cannot be trusted with
information. It has long mainatained it's right of maintaining it's
own private set of information while ensuring it's right to view
anyone else's under the guise of National Security. Maintaining the
integrity of MY information is perceived as a threat. Why? I don't
buy the "organized crime" usage of the Net as sufficent cause to
snoop into ANYTHING they care too. Has everyone forgotten Nixon's
plumbers group and the fact that Joe Namath was considered an enemy
of the state?
Another legitimate usage of PGP is to ensure that e-mail messages are
not accidentally sent to the wrong person. God forbid I direct a
sensitive e-mail message to the wrong person. PGP usage ensures accurate
delivery of information. Does anyone start blurting out whatever they
have to say as soon as the other party answers the phone? We all make
sure we have gotten the connection we intended before conducting our
converstaions. PGP is one more way to ensure this electronically. Also, it
prevents
a document intended for a particular person from being forwarded
without your consent or knowledge of who sent it. The receiving party
must rebroadcast it AFTER de-crypting it. This forces accountability
of re-transmission on the receiving party and forces them to use
pause.
Jim Livingston Domain Administrator Gadsden Community Network
living@gcn.scri.fsu.edu .^. URL:http://gcn.scri.fsu.edu/~living/
/ \ Manager, Bell & Bates Electronics
/ \ 11 North Madison Street
*******/ \******* Quincy FL 32351
***** *****/ \***** ***** Voice:904-627-6915
***** ********/ \******** ***** FAX: 904-875-1288
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/ _-" ***** "\ \
\__-" "\_/
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Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:13:10 -0500
From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) (by way of marsha-w@uiuc.edu (Marsha
To: cpsr-global@cpsr.org
Subject: CYBERSPACE INC & the Straits of Consumption (@)
Message-ID: <ad7f35031402100404a6@[128.174.4.122]>
Sender: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
Dear cg,
This analysis is most immediately applicable to the new telecom
regime in the USA, but I think the process is becoming increasingly clear
by which USA policy in this area rapidly propagates outward to the globe --
motivated by local eagerness to "get onboard" the cyber-telcom bandwagon of
the future, which the USA claims to be driving. Personally, I'd give the
oscar to Scandanavia, which already has anonymous digi-cash up and running
in all three countries.
A point of irony -- As Arun has pointed out, under the current
system, countries like India have no effective way of controlling satellite
broadcasts -- which provides some extra freedom of info-access to citizens
who can afford dishes. The irony is that if the USA succeeds in selling
its spectrum-auctioning concept globally (as part of the neo-liberal
corporatist globalism package) then Indians (and others) could find
independent satellites cut off -- orbits are imminently policable by U.S.
technology (which is always in the market for new enemies).
Globally Yours,
Richard
____________
CYBERSPACE INC & the Straits of Consumption
Richard K. Moore 20 March 1996
There's only one point of natural scarcity in the architecture of a
commercialized cyberspace, and that is CONSUMER-HOURS. There will be
nearly unlimited bandwidth and content offerings available to the
info-structure, but each user/consumer has only a limited amount of time
that can be spent each day consuming/viewing information products.
The obvious and natural objective of the major corporate players,
assuming a goal of maximizing overall cyber-profits, would be to establish
monopoly control of the Straits of Consumption -- the local loops into the
home. Thus, as with today's broadcast television, the true marketplace
becomes the selling of ACCESS-TO-CONSUMERS -- BY the straits-controllers TO
the information-product distributors.
Thus Disney pays Southwestern Bell for the right to sell Bambi to
Bell subscribers. This payment might be in the form of royalties on Bambi
sales, or it might be simply a stiff direct-charge for network access:
that's a matter of bi-lateral deal-making. The consumer pays Disney to see
Bambi, or alternatively, an advertiser-pool pays Disney (more than Disney
pays Bell) for the right to sponsor a freebie Bambi broadcast. Thus is
re-incarnated the market structures so profitably exploited in today's
broadcast-television and cable industries. Artifically created scarcity
creates the conditions for maximum profit extraction from an
investor-producer-broker-distributor-outlet channel system.
In order to implement this best-of-all-possible capitalist
scenarios, it is necessary to establish a laissez-faire
communications-regulatory framework which will give deep-pocket
corporations a free hand to lay down the rules of the cyber-road, and then
to systematically exploit the traffic. The groundwork for such a
regulatory regime has been firmly established by the Telecom Deform Act of
96, and the jockying-for-position of the players is underway in the spate
of recent info-industry mergers. Already the spectrum wars have begun,
with the probable outcome that wireless distribution will become
monopolizable, completing the corporate capture of the Straits of
Consumption.
A consequence of this cyber regime is that the price of delivering
information to a user is set artificially high, since that's the
point-of-leverage that scales the overall profit-making operation. The
price is not based on the cost of providing network bandwidth, but on a
maximize-overall-profit formula.
Thus, due to corporate profit-seeking maneuvers, non-commercial use
of the info-structure will be prohibitively expensive. Community
networking, access to government information, democratic discourse --
indeed the whole familiar Internet phenomenon -- will not be economically
viable in tomorrow's Cyberspace Inc regime.
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Posted by Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - Wexford, Ireland
Cyberlib: www | ftp --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib
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End of CPSR-GLOBAL Digest 349
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