Internet Neutrality

In all the hubub surrounding Tuesday night's presidential debate and the continuing election campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain, I came across this article earlier today that I think merits mentioning. Popular Mechanics undertook a report to look into how the two candidates view the neutrality of the internet. The differences couldn't be more clear. As the article states, "McCain believes in a lightly regulated Internet, while Obama believes in more government involvement," while at the same time, each candidates campaign "can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication." The issues at stake revolve around the changing of the method of connection to the internet, from the phone-line based dial up services of the 1990's to a more cable/wireless/bluetooth/3G network society. With all these different possibilities, there is the possibility for a variety of different opinions.

When you look at both of the candidate's positions, it is not actually the data flow that they are interested in, rather the regulation over ISP's and internet access. These both follow their respective political philosophies, where Obama believes it is the government's mission to provide free and available internet, especially broadband, to communities where it is lacking, while McCain sides with the free market approach, with the private market promoting broadband access. What they can agree on, though, is that the internet access should be universal to all Americans.

With this, I agree completely. For better or worse, there is no more convenient, easy, and generally reliable source of information in such a quick fashion. Gone are the days when students use encyclopedias and other reference works to find books and articles for their research, now most subjects are a quick Wikipedia or Google search away. Access to information is key in having a well informed, well educated, and free society, and of all methods for information conveyance, the internet is the most universal, and if left unregulated for the most part, unbiased source for information. That's not to say that there is bias on the internet, as their certainly is; however it is easy enough for one to find opposing viewpoints of view, and with little effort to form their own opinions of the facts. Thus, while I think that given the current economic situation we'll have to wait and see how feasible either candidate's plan is, they are both pointed in the right direction in this aspect

After an anonomous reporter falsely reported on iReport (report since removed) that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a serious heart attack, Apple's stock plunged over 10%, and the SEC has gotten involved. This just goes to show the shaky state the markets are in now, where an unsubstantiated report on an unaccredited reporting service is taken at such a value to impact the stocks of a major company. Furthermore, the involvement of the SEC hints that the feds are taking this seriously. Which they should. This goes to prove the very insecurity of our markets. If one man could (intentionally) make such a false report, there is no reason to believe that someone intent of causing actual harm could post a report that on the surface looked believable such that it could have the same, if not worse, repercussions. Thankfully though, this incident will hopefully put a dent into unsubstantiated citizen journalism. Now, there is nothing wrong with legitimate reporting by the people, so long as the reports are documented by credible sources, be they individuals, pictures (which with the increasing propagation of programs like Photoshop begin to leave themselves open to question), video, or cross-references with professional news services.

At the same time, however, the markets hopefully have learned a lesson from this; namely, not to take all news at face value. I hope that those people who were convinced to sell are feeling rather foolish after determining that what they based their choice on was a hoax. This whole business of trading as a result of political action or supposed corporate tragedies is, I think, getting the entire stock market away from the purpose it was conceived. Stocks should be bought and sold based upon the direction a business is headed, and the potential one sees for success in it. Too often today, people are investing simply because they can, and not really looking into what they are investing in or why they are making that investment. But, as I wrote about before, with the rise in the access of the market to more and more people due to the internet and technology, such occurences are bound to happen.

Politics and the iPhone

This post was meant to go up yesterday, however like many of the politically minded people in America, I got caught up in the hubbub during and after the VP debates.
Yesterday the BBC posted an article of particular interest to this year's election; the Obama campaign has yet again taken the technology forefront, this time with the iPhone. Since Apple allowed for third party applications over the summer, the Obama campaign developed an application for their campaign last month that could be utilized by their most important resource: the people. The application includes news updates, a friends management component which the article states will let users keep track of their friends political positions and who has been called, and a notes component, with talking points for people to use to convince their friends. This use of the rapidly accelerating technological world is a theme that Obama has been quick to use; he made good use of both youtube and facebook resources early in his campaign to try and reach out to a younger, more internet savy generation, and now with this application the campaign can extend their reach through people's personal friendships.

Freedom of Information?

I bet many people didn't know this, but a bill was introduced to the U.S. Senate late last week that was completely overshadowed and forgotten in the controversy surrounding the Wall Street bailout; this bill would put restrictions on the Department of Homeland Security seizing individual's personal computers for search. That's right, for some time now, the DHS has had the authority, which has been upheld by the courts, to seize and search any laptop computer or other data carrying device of someone entering the country. Not only can they detain the computer, but they can also view any data on it; make copies of said data, and even hold the original device for an indeterminate period of time; all without a warrant.
Not something many people would like, is it? The Feds snooping through your personal data, possibly even confidential data depending on your business. Now, understandably, there need to be standards for security. But also, there is a difference between a bomb and data on someone's computer. One can explode and be used to kill people. With the ubiquitous nature of the internet, it's likely that smuggling data in through the border would be the last thing on the mind of anyone who would be out to do harm. They could just as easily, and in fact most likely more easily have access to it through a variety of anonymous internet servers and connections. So why do the Feds feel the need to data snoop? I wish I had the answer; but, like many things happening in the government today, I can only shake my head and wonder why. I'm in favor of this bill, and I have a feeling that the vast majority of the American public would be as well. Hopefully it will not be quietly dismissed in the turmoil in congress right now, but rather quietly passed, so that the majority of the American public can go on none the wiser, now having a slight bit of their privacy restored.