Posts Tagged ‘internet’

#Internet as a #Utility

Posted: June 30, 2016 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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When was the last time something new was classified as a utility?

The internet being officially classified as a utility isn’t just another part of a disposable  news cycle. This is more than a current event. This is a piece of bonafied technological and human history.

The internet being classified in the same context as water, electrcity, gasoline, and the telephone is historic. Why? Because it changes many aspects of life for many many people forever. The direction the internet moves in, changes after this event. How? Because so many more people will have access to the internet. Regulation placed upon the price gouging Internet Service Providers will only help the have nots gain consistent access to the information super highway.

When things get bigger, they don’t stay the same. Evolution is inevitable just as change is the only constant.

Comcast, AT &T, Verizon and any/all ISPs have made their intentions clear with what they intend to do with the internet of the future, by the way they treat the technology AND the people dependent on the technology in the present. They want to tier and cap service while bleeding their dependent customer base for every nickel and dime they can. They have been doing this, are doing this, and will continue to do this until somebody stops them.

We have reached a tipping point where only an entity as big as the federal government can tell the ISPs that enough is enough, they’ve gone too far, it is time for regulation of pricing practices to democratize the technology for the masses  The masses need to internet not for the luxury of binge watching shows to waste their lives, but for the basics required in the 21st century to live their lives.


If people want to live and thrive in the modern world, internet use is required. It’s no longer a consumer-good-luxury-item. That which was once done on paper is now done online. Applying for a job is done online. A job is needed to pay the bills, which is also done online. After one gets a job and pays their bills, if they have something left over and want to buy anything, researching that product or service is done online. Either purchasing the product or service or finding directions to a physical location to go do are both done online.

At one point in human history, consistent access to drinking water was a luxury. But then the standard of living evolved just as the human race did. Electricity and gasoline instead of fire? A thought inconceivable as a witch’s magic at one point in our past. But we raised the bar. Shelter capable of protecting people all but only the most extreme elements of nature was once thought to be reserved for large stone castles.

Body language to spoken word to written hyrogliphs to the printing press to the telegraph to the telephone to the fax machine to the world wide web and now the smartphone. Technology once thought to be science fiction dreams of the future are now everyday essentials. Humans have come from using rocks and sticks to make fire to harnessing super computers in the palm of our hand utilizing satellites from space on a second to second basis.

This wonderful technology has given human beings great power to influence ourselves and the world at large. With this great power comes great responsibility. Part of that responsibility is sharing the power with the masses. Access to this power is no longer a luxurious leg up on the competition but has evolved into the minimum requirement to get in the game.

This issue is destined for a decision from the Supreme Court. There is too much money at stake for district courts. The internet touches too many lives for appellete courts. History beckons that the Supreme Court of the United States decide the law of the land on the issue of internet access as a necessary utility or a luxury consumer good.

What’s the Value & Purpose of #Snapchat?

Posted: April 18, 2016 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll

Temporary, private multimedia messages exchanged through a smartphone application.

Sharing personal moments. That is what Snapchat is about. That is why it is the social media platform de jour in America, it is THE preferred method of communication to a number of young people that warrants the phrase of a generation.

The early adopters may have used it predominantly for NSFW purposes. But the majority of users these days are using it to share their lives with a limited spectrum of people in their social circle. And of course young people use it to for the inherent ability of the app to prevent parents, relatives, teachers, and bosses from seeing their communications and embarrassing them on another public and achievable medium.

Big business has recently come around to the idea of leveraging Snapchat to build community like loyalty for their products. Snapchat still has an air of being counter culture cool and ahead of the curve. So anyone trying to make money is trying to utilize Snapchat’s young, cool factor.

Is Snapchat cool?

Well it is fun.

The people who use Snapchat have fun doing it. The ability to customize messages in so many ways, then send it out only to people the sender wants seeing it, for a limited amount of time. Snapchat has stood on the shoulders of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and has built a platform that combines the positives of each without the negatives.

Snapchat, like Tinder has an earned reputation for as an medium for the explicit and salacious. To deny that Snapchat is used as an exchange for sexual/sexualized acts and content is to deny reality. However, both Snapchat and Tinder are about much more than people’s naughty bits. Both are very much mainstream and both have a vastly large number of users who use the services for very much on the level, straightforward communication.

The purpose of Snapchat is that it is a temporary, multimedia messaging service and social media combo. The value is that the messages are temporary. In the era of big brother watching, there is an inherent comfort in sending a visual message that will self destruct in a maximum time of ten seconds. Whether the files actually delete themselves is another story and the public has decided is not important. The illusion of self destructing messages is just fine for most people whether they are sending goofy faces and/or nudes.

That comfort and intimacy whether illusionary or authentic is currently being exploited by every company and celebrity A list to Z. The business of Snapchat is on the exclusivity of the people the messages are shared with by the users and by the limited number of companies allowed to be featured in its Discover section. The personal of Snapchat is the fun factor that comes with the variety of ways to customize each message.

Snapchat has helped me open up more and share more personal moments with the world. For an antisocial who has battled depression and social anxiety for over half his life, that is a very good thing.

#NippleGate is Dead! Long Live #NetNeutrality

Posted: September 22, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
9/22/2014

Priorities can be hard to prioritize. In a world where there are multiple wars, Ebola outbreaks, wildfires, droughts, massive political corruption, famine, floods etc; celebrity gossip, cat videos, memes, and ironic gifs rule the media and our attention spans. More people vote for reality television talent competitions than in elections. So it is with the utmost pleasant surprise to find that America has tangibly and measurably decided that the future of net neutrality is more important than a female pop singer exposing her nipple at a football game.

Remember Nipplegate? If you don’t, you’re lucky or young or both. Well up until this month, that issue was the event that the FCC received the most complaints about in their history. Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson decided that a Sunday evening musical performance during halftime at the most watched television event in history (at the time) was a good time to expose one of Jackson’s nipples covered in a silver pasty. Middle America freaked out and a wrath of censorship followed. One of the many side effects of this was Howard Stern moving to satellite radio.

Well move over ten-year old musical performance, because something that actually matters has taken your place at the top of the heap!  The future of net neutrality, which literally will affect every person in America who uses the internet, is now the most commented topic in the history of the Federal Communications Commission.

The people have spoken, the 99% wants the open internet to remain as is. It is positively refreshing to see so many people speak up and speak out about something of such grave importance. Remember just because many people use the internet to fuel procrastination, narcissism, and vices doesn’t mean those are the only uses for the internet. The open internet is vitally important to the present and future of our society and culture.

What will the FCC do now that the people of spoken? Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are hoping to use lobbying based leverage to gain complete control over the world wide web. This issue is a true litmus test between who has more power in the world going forward; the 1% or the 99%. Whichever way the FCC ends up going, whether people know it or not, we all have a horse in this race.

#Netflix is Representing the People in the War versus Telcom Greed

Posted: September 4, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
9/3/2014

The war for the future of the internet is being waged now, in real-time by lobbyists of the big US Telcom companies.

If this were a court case, then apparently the people who don’t work for Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon would be represented by Netflix.

Now of course Netflix is publicly and privately battling the nation’s broadband providers for their own personal gain as well. There is no such thing as a free lunch after all, especially when millions, upon billions of dollars are involved.

However, Netflix has now officially earned some benefit of the doubt for reasons other than how good House of Cards and Orange is the New Black are. Netflix has taken three public steps that directly help the consumers:

  1. Opposing the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner
  2. Lobbying to maintain Net Neutrality
  3. Campaigning for Municipal Broadband

Netflix may be looking out for its own bottom line. But each stance that they have publicly come out in favor of or against directly benefits working class people who use the internet. Coming out against the proposed merger which would create a broadband monopoly, is a good thing for consumers. Drawing attention to net neutrality is good for consumers. Encouraging the development of municipal broadband is good for consumers.

In the fight against the billion dollar companies who want complete control of the internet, the common people need someone with deep pockets in our corner. Netflix has repeatedly stepped up to the plate publicly this year alone. They’re not a non-profit or NGO. But when billion dollar corporations are doing everything they can to reduce choice and increase cost to access the information superhighway, we the consumers will take help anywhere we can get it. I for one, will take the million dollar company that brought Arrested Development back, in my corner any day of the week.

The #Information Superhighway is More Potholes than Roads

Posted: August 10, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
8/9/2014

Have you noticed more news on data breaches, password stealing, and hacking as a tool for war in the news recently? It’s not just you, and it’s not just sensationalism.

It turns out the internet being referred to as the information superhighway is an apt metaphor. As it has been recently revealed that the highway is more potholes than road.

In addition to have more holes than concrete, stretches of solid road that exist are seemingly ruled by Mad Max/Road Warrior style gangs in the form of international hacker mafias. No information on the open internet is secure. That was one of the lessons that should have come from the Edward Snowden NSA Leaks last year. But that fact took a distant second to the US government having a full-fledged Orwellian domestic spying program active, in place, and recording everyone’s emails, text messages, phone calls, and data placed on social media.

Not only is our personal, private information not safe from our government but our stock markets aren’t safe from international hackers either. The NASDAQ got straight up hacked into by Russian hackers in 2010. The hack and investigation into it were recently declassified and chronicled in a great article by Bloomberg Businessweek. After the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Secret Service each took turns looking into the matter, it is still unknown exactly how the hackers got in, what they took, and/or what they left behind. Essentially the only thing they know is that the hackers were Russian.

In related news, Russian hackers just this week stole more than 1 billion passwords and half a billion emails in the largest data theft in the history of the internet.

In the spirit of a stock market being hacked, it turns out professional hackers have their own exchange market. A recent article in TIME magazine revealed that hackers sell software bugs to the highest bidder to both governments and private companies.

The last year and a half will be remembered as the golden age for conspiracy theorists. Before you know it there’ll be a video released showing big foot, shooting Kennedy, from the studio where it staged the moon landing.

Learning that the information super highway is more potholes than roads in the long run, is good for us. We must be less trusting of faceless corporations. I know we’d all like to think Mark Zuckerberg is our friend, but he’s just another CEO trying to make money off of his customers. Not only are social media companies selling our information first hand through data brokers, but the information is so unsecure that all social media services are serving as enablers for identity thieves.

I can only imagine how much of my personal information is being packaged and sold on the black market. I’ve signed up and signed away my identity to a plethora of social media providers. But I’m a lower risk target. When I check my bank account online moths fly out of my monitor. But there are plenty more people who have plenty more to lose who have plenty more valuable information floating around online. And what we have definitively learned is that the information is NOT secure, it is floating around, waiting to be snatched by any hacker collective willing to put in the time and money.

There is no going back from the digital revolution. We’re not going back to analog and paper. So what is the solution? I don’t know, I just hope a solution is found before I have enough money to invest online.

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