Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug
From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Who Controls the Network?
Message-ID: <927.23A026C5@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 9 Dec 88 23:06:05 GMT
Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters
Lines: 203

Who controls the network? 
 
Is it possible that no one controls it, and furthermore that no one 
*can* control it? 
 
Perhaps we are living in an historical anomaly, but it's pretty clear 
to me that *this* network (usnet), at *this* time is not subject to 
much in the way of control.  Each machine is controlled by its 
owner/operator, and there are technical rules that have to be followed 
for it to work at all, but I think it would be virtually impossible to 
bar anyone from the net, if that "anyone" were even slightly 
determined.  
 
In a way the phone company controls the network, because many links 
use telephone lines, but the phone company is not usually interested 
in what you send over the line unless its illegal. 
 
If you or I were communicating something that was defined as illegal, 
then the courts could order taps on our phone lines, analyse the data, 
and use it as evidence for prosecution. 
 
Say we were using the net to organize a drug smuggling ring? That use 
could be controlled in exactly the same manner our use of voice 
telephone for that purpose could be controlled. The control is the 
same, control of the phone line. 
 
Perhaps people are thinking of other kinds of control? Commercial 
monopolies controlling networking so as to squeeze small companies out 
of the market, maintain prices at monopolistically high levels? Well, 
Western Union and Ma Bell provide examples, as does the British and 
German post office, etc. 
 
I'm going to quote some comments by nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor) 
 
>> In article <2367@ficc.uu.net>>, jeffd@ficc.uu.net (Jeff Daiell) writes :   
>> 
>>In article <2062@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>>, nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor) 
>>once again drags out the tired old canard that our only choices (in 
>>this case, on computer network provision), are Big Brother and Big 
>>Business.  I submit that the needs of computerdom would better be 
>>served by small firms, competing and/or cooperating as dictated by 
>>their interests.   
 
>I submit that small businesses are just as likely 
>(if not moreso) to see it as in their best interests to accept 
>megabucks from Big Brother as Big Business is.  I would further submit 
>that Big Business might well see it as in their best interests to take 
>over these small businesses.  Who, if anyone, will be able to stop 
>them? Oh no, we're back with Big Brother again!  
 
Every epoch of recorded history tells a story of centralization and 
monopolization of power, generally only limited by geographic 
restraints or other imperial centres. Various powerful groups struggle 
with each other for control of anything deemed to be worth 
controlling; anything that could produce wealth, military might, etc. 
Feudalism, which preceded the era of Democracy in the West, saw Europe 
riddled with wars between landowners. Those petty conflicts were 
replaced by grander and grander conflicts as organizing power 
increased. Whole nation states became organized under strong central 
governments by virtue of *public* popularity or support for a 
democratic government. Mass media, specifically the printing press, 
made public opinion into the decisive force in Western politics. 
 
Public opinion, of course, exercises its force through popular 
(usually elected) governments, and all the "Big Brother" and "media 
manipulation" apparatus which surrounds modern popular democracies. 
 
>Jeff seems to regard 
>it as axiomatic that the government of the USA equals Big Brother. 
 
Well, in one way it is. Any modern Western democracy has aspects of 
Orwell's "Big Brother", in terms of direct surveillance of individuals 
and in terms of society-wide pressures to conformity. Big Business and 
Big Government are usually, in my experience, almost indistinguishable 
at points, but nowhere has the marriage been more fully consumated 
than in America. 
 
Big governmnet is the creature of public opinion, and recent North 
American elections have demonstrated the triumph of PR over rational 
decision-making with renewed urgency. Public opinion scarcely exists 
at all without mass media. Mass media and mass marketing strolled onto 
the field of human history hand in hand, and have enjoyed a largely 
trouble-free marriage for 400 years now. You can't have a mass market 
without mass media. You can't have mass production without a mass 
market. Most mass media derive 50% to 100% of their total revenue from 
selling advertising. The advertiser, in a real way, is the employer, 
sole customer and boss of the communication medium. 
  
The same devices which can build a mass market for Chevrolets can 
readily be turned to create a masss movement (or a 2% shift in "public 
opinion") for a certain choice on a ballot. Remember, a 2% shift in 
public opinion, whether it involves which brand to buy or which brand 
to vote for can be decisive! 
 
So control can be said to belong to Big Government or Big Brother, 
whatever you want to call it, but Big Government is subject to public 
pressure which derives from public opinion which is subject to 
influence by the mass media access to which which is certainly 
dominated by Big Business. 
 
Therefore Big Business controls Big Government. While "we, the people" 
certainly have a say, minority opinions have a hard time getting heard 
in modern democracies. The major parties dominate election debates, 
media covereage is focussed on them, and corporate campaign donations 
go to those with a decent chance of winning power. 
 
It's a more civilized way of designating a king than a feudal war but 
it rarely involves extensive and decisive public discussion of real 
issues. Even where extensive public debate results in a decisive 
majority for an issue, consitutional and electoral ideosyncracies are 
seeing the Canadian government forcing through a bill which 55% of the 
population clearly opposes! On another matter, constitutional 
ideosyncracies seem to be resulting in a measure that is very popular 
being defeated by the opposition in one minonrity provincial 
government! (in a small province even) 
 
In the US election last month, less than half of eligible voters 
bothered to show up, less than a dozen members of the legislature 
seeking re-election were defeated (I guess the US must have unusually 
excellent legislators) and few were elected with more than 25% of 
eligible voters having selected them. 
 
The Democratic ideal of "majority rule" is probably a rare exception. 
Instead we have, usually, consensus rule and a very real, very raw 
power struggle with very elaborate rules. Tiny shifts in "public 
opinion" can be decisive and mass media is capable of generating those 
shifts. Thus the power struggle replaces the knigts of medieval 
chivalry with advertising executives, the sword and lance have been 
replaced with sound bytes and glossy photos. The aristocracy which 
could produce food and fighting men has been replaced by Big Business 
which can train advertising people and salesmen, and cough up the 
megabucks needed for widespread ad campaigns. 
 
While government can be seen to sometimes act in the public interest, 
and even respond to major shifts in public opinion over time, 
government can also been seen to rarely bite the hand that feeds it, 
big business. Just as government generally identifies the interests of 
big business as its own, that large slice of the public which works 
for big business often does that too. 
 
>Why? Is it perhaps to do with Watergate, Irangate, etc? Do not permit 
>the open manner in which these scandals were investigated to blind you 
>to the fact that the business community is composed of the same type 
>of people only they are much more loath to do their dirty washing in 
>public! How many small businesses were involved in the Irangate 
>affair?  
 
I think the pessimism about Big Government derives in part from the 
1972 US election in which Richard Nixon won, even though his 
complicity in Watergate was plainly apparent before voting day, and in 
part from the 1988 election in which George Bush was elected without 
ever even having to deny involvement in Irangate, making his 
complicity in appear virtually certaint.  These things don't matter, 
it seems.  
 
>seem to add up to an indictment of democracy in the USA.   
 
I am certainly *not* a libertarian, but as I've just shown, an 
indictment of Democracy as experienced in North America is not too 
difficult to generate. 
 
>Is this 
>really what he feels? How many others feel this way? Now the really 
>awkward question : What are you doing about it?  
 
It is my feeling that "who controls the network" is the same question 
as "who controls the world", or at least will be the same question 
within 50 years.  
 
I think we are already seeing signs of a fracturing in the monolithic 
fabric of public opinion. Computer networks have the possibility of 
vastly increasing the number of information sources available to the 
user, thus reducing the relative audience size for any one source. 
 
Computer networks will make control of public opinion more difficult 
in the long run I think, unless the aforementioned biggies can 
effectively limit the ability of you and I and everyone else to be 
information sources. 
 
Mass media is subject to the "lowest common denominator function". 
Every medium must seek the largest audience possible for each message, 
thus those messages must appeal to something shared by many people. 
This medium, on the other hand, is just as happy informing a few 
hundred people as a few hundred million. This permits more diverse 
sources of more specialized information. An underlying reason for that 
is cost. It is much cheaper to exchange ideas with this medium than by 
printing this on paper and mailing it, broadcasting it, etc. Faster 
modems and cheaper hardware is reducing that cost steadily. 
 
I'll predict that in 50 years one instument in the home will make 
available to you films, sound recordings, newspapers, electronic mail 
and conferences like this, as well as a huge array of small, special 
interest "publications", and that the dominance of television and 
newspapers in the total "media environment" will be vastly reduced.  
This same instrument, I think, will let *you* make information 
available to anyone else. 
 


--  
 Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162
     UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!doug
 Internet: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG