Learning with the Fang

I think that broadband access to the web is the modern day equivalent of deep shipping lanes at city ports – kinda important for commerce trade and all that.

Two articles in today’s paper ‘The Australian, Tuesday July 29, 2008′ really got me down. ISPs’ co-operation crucial to federal blocks on child pornography and Big bills for excess data usage on the iPhone.

ISPs’ co-operation crucial to federal blocks on child pornography

Im no civil libertarian but please, lets deal with this social problem on a social level, not technical one. That you cannot blacklist enough sites to make the internet safe and cannot whitelist enough sites to make it useful is the conundrum. Here are a smattering of quotes from the piece that show how ineffective forcing ISP’s to provide ‘clean feeds’ would be. ‘As a child protection agency we want ISPs to block child pornography but not any other form of pornography..’ – wonder how other agencies would feel about that one. ‘there are always going to be ways to bypass filters, such as using anonymous proxy servers’ – no shit sherlock! ‘Parents must do all they can to keep their children safe on the web’ – since when has it been the duty of a parent to raise kids? ‘If it’s something consumers want, we’re happy to be a part of it’ – now there is heartfelt commitment to important issues like net neutrality. ‘Hopelessly unworkable and technically flawed’ – don’t let that get in the way of political expediency, there were election promises made and we have egos at stake here.

Big bills for excess data usage on the iPhone

David frith’s summary of the IDC analysis of various Aussie iPhone plans confirms what I suspected – parsimonious data allowances on monthly plans with vicious gouging of excess usage. ‘telstra’s $30/month plan provides a measly 5MB of data’, ‘exceed that and you will be charged at least $1 per megabyte, thats $1,000 per gigabyte.’ But wait, there’s more ‘if you don’t sign up for a browsing pack, you cop Telstra’s pay as you go charge on your excess data: up to $2 a megabyte, or $2000 for every gigabyte. Ouch! So my monthly usage of 40GB (which internode can provide for $60 per month, with many other benefits) would cost $80,000 per month. Get off the grass!!

Ouch, indeed. How the hell are we supposed to compete in the information economy? Now do you see why I keep banging on about the importance of free public WiFi (at least I can work in coffee shops and compete globally), and boast that for the past three years I have spent no more than $15 per month on prepaid sim cards.

Fang – Mike Seyfang

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