Digital Constitution

There has been a lot more talk recently about various legal issues surrounding technology and how it affects the end user (EU, from here out, I'm lazy).  It's not surprising actually.  There has been legal turmoil surrounding the internet since "The Internet" became mainstream and commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) started offering home internet service in the early 90's. Once our online consciousness woke up we did what we have been doing since discovering fire and the wheel....we evolved.  Our online evolution has sparked controversy and nearly endless debate and has caused the creation of government agencies and new laws regarding what we can and cannot do inside of an intangible place.  A place that would not exist if we cut the power. The internet has affected our daily lives in almost everything we do.  Shopping, bill paying, online dating, movie/music streaming...all that and much more has evolved to "help make our lives easier."  Like I said, the inevitable digital evolutionary ball started rolling and it has morphed into a "thing" that is exponentially larger than its inception and has the potential to grow well beyond anything we can conceivably imagine now.

The first major legal case that comes to mind is, in my opinion, the cornerstone on which all future precedents were set: Napster.  Brothers Shawn and John Fanning and Sean Parker came up with the idea for a universal file system sharing system.  It's based on the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) protocol to share what was mainly music files between friends and eventually grew legs and branched out on it's own, but the growth was very short lived.  The long legal arm of the Recording Association of America (RIAA) stepped in and put the legal brakes on hard.  Oddly enough the first song was Metallica "I Disappear" that spearheaded controversy and ultimately brought the Napster boys into court defending themselves against the likes of Lars Ulrich and even Dr. Dre.  Copyright infringement and racketeering were the main focal points Lars pointed out during his testimony at the State Judiciary Hearing.  Metallica "won" so-to-speak and the judge ruled a filter be put on the Napster software to eliminate copyrighted songs.  The ruling didn't do what it was intended to do and Napster went live in 1999.  By February 2001 they had an estimated 80million users to Yahoo's measly 54million each month.  Napster lived a healthy life for a few months at the same time it was fighting a legal battle that would deal a death blow.  In July of 2001 the Ninth Circuit Court issued an injunction and forced Napster to shut down permanently.  In September they partly settled and paid out $26million in damages and by June of 2002 Napster was filing for bankruptcy.  The rise and fall was so quick that 14 years later it's hard to remember what Napster even was.  Those that were born the year Napster launched are now in Junior High.

Issues like Napster have created an entire legal subculture that deal with nothing but what is right, wrong, legal and illegal on the Internet.  Keep in mind that I'm still talking about a space that doesn't exist beyond what you see on your screen when you navigate to any website.  Lawyers have risen up to defend and prosecute for issues like file sharing, net neutrality, censorship, privacy, copyright....the list goes on and on.  Where does the law actually start and stop?  Who governs cyberspace?  Where are the boundaries and borders?  Let me show you a picture and you see if you can tell me:

This picture is a visual representation of "The Internet" as we know it.  Keep in mind a few things when looking at this picture:  roughly 30% of the world's population has internet access of some kind, over 1 billion searches are done daily on Google alone, 294 billion emails are sent daily and there are over 144 million active domains as of this post.  Those numbers are absolutely staggering, mind boggling and almost hard to reconcile. 

Statistics aside, look a little closer.....what else do you see, rather, what DON'T you see?  There are no borders, no countries, states or even time zones defined.  It is next to impossible to define a line that doesn't really exist in the first place.  The Internet is a one dimensional place and only exists when a convergence of data packets align themselves to form the very page you are reading this blog from.  All this brings to mind a ton of questions: How does one make laws and regulations pertaining to such a place as the Internet especially when it's very existence is so fluid and ever-evolving?  Who is responsible for enforcing these laws?  If no one person, state, country or governing body "owns" the internet then should it just self-regulate?  In the case of Napster how does one regulate the sharing of the intangible INSIDE the intangible?  It is a deep, deep rabbit hole with no end in sight and it's enough to make your head swim. 

I didn't write this post to try and sway your opinion of file sharing, privacy and the like when it comes to your presence on the Internet.  What YOU do in Cyberspace is your business as far as I'm concerned and I'm not here to judge.  Maybe we as "cyber citizens" should develop a Digital Constitution of sorts much like our fore fathers did when the country was in it's infancy.  If my history serves me, the people of the New World were in turmoil and chaos while those who were appointed leaders developed our own Bill of Rights and eventually the US Constitution.  The Inernet is in a similar growth stage as our own country once was.  There are those out there that strongly feel the Internet should self-regulate.  Personally I think that is a very very bad idea.  If history has taught us anything it is that as a species we are poorly equipped to self-regulate anything that has legal defining lines.  I have been on the Internet since around 1995 and there is one thing that has continued to amaze me:  for a place that is so intangible it sure has created a lot of tangible outcomes.  Lives have been saved, criminals caught and long lost family members reunited all due in large part by a place that none of us can physically visit or really ever get closer to than our own computer screens.  Simply amazing. 

Just remember........

 

Oh great....ANOTHER tech blog.

OK, I know there are a literal metric ton of tech blogs out there right now.  Hell, I read most of them in some way or another.  I'm hoping this one will be a bit different.  Granted, I don't have a fancy domain name and I'm using a FREE site to publish my ramblings.  I won't do product "hands on" videos or write-ups about the latest tech because I seriously don't have that kind of time, money or sponsorship.  Tech companies aren't willing to just send me something to review because I'm cool.  Doesn't work that way.

Like I said, I'm hoping this one will be different in some ways from the "news media" style that the mainstream sites have become.  We are in an age where technology, mainly computer technology, is the invisible 800lb gorilla in every facet of daily living.  Think about that for a second....take your time, no rush.  Everywhere we go and nearly everything we do these days revolves around a "computer" of sorts.  I remember when I was in high school and futility was OWNING me when it came to learning algebra.  We all had that teacher who said "You need to learn this because you will use it every day when you get older."  I called bullshit then and I call it now.  Now, had there been a teacher who told me "Thomas, you need to learn microprocessor technology because you will use it every day when you get older."  He/she would have been crowned my favorite teacher ever in the history of teaching kids things....ever.  Don't get me wrong, I know there are some who use algebra, calculus, trigonometry and differential equations everyday:



"Normal" people, however, are not immersed in the sciences that require higher level math:

You get the idea.  What I'm trying to say is that you really can't do anything without a computer of some sort involved.  Hell, even the Japanese have a high tech toilet that will help you do your business AND give you the kind of verbal encouragement you got as a toddler when you graduated from the potty trainer. 

What I hope to see this blog evolve into is a place where I can attempt to explain the tech in way that at least makes sense to the non-tech person.  I eat and breathe this stuff and can't get enough but for a lot of folks they don't care to weed through the crap to understand what they just read.  I also hope that by me putting some thoughts into words will help me keep things in perspective personally.  It may not help you and you may see it as the ramblings of a lunatic but so be it.  Along the way I'll explain what I do for a living, make fun of A LOT of things and people and use pics and video to help lighten the mood.  Keep in mind this is all for fun and I'm not looking to get rich by doing this.  The technology that has engulfed us is something to be serious about because it has shaped, and will continue to shape, our lives but at the same time we shouldn't forget that there is fun to be had and a laugh to let loose.

On that note I'll end this entry with a video.  It's not funny or comical but it is very insightful and was put together by a site called Code.org.  Some of the poeple in the video you will recognize and some you won't but the one commonality is that they have all created something from nothing that has shaped the way we live and work.  If I knew then what I know now......