More lighthearted stuff this morning

Barron Trump goes internet viral. Why not?

Nikki Haley: I will be your internet overlord.

Nikki Haley is not a serious contender for the GOP presidential nominee for 2024. But you can't vote for her in future years either because this, is symptomatic of what is wrong with government:

Internet overlord Nikki Haley. Yikes.  She pretty much self-disqualified on that "second thing" comment.

Lessons from Canada's internet outage

Yesterday's massive internet outage across the country was for me, as well the rest of Canada, a great example of economic realities.  Unfortunately some people did not comprehend the lesson.  

Background 

Canada has localized internet and wireless monopolies in different areas.  This is not 100% true, but for all intents and purposes it is correct.  Several smaller carriers exist but do not have a large footprint anywhere. The largest carriers provide both wireless phone service and internet (as well as telvision and some other products like home security for example). Not only do these ISPs/carriers have monopolies in product sales but, and this seems like it is unique to Canada, but they also are the same companies that provide the hardware for these services (they own the cell towers, the cable and fiber optic lines).  There are smaller players, like my internet provider (ISP) who lease access to these lines and then compete with these larger carriers to attract cellular, TV and internet customers.

One of the large three providers, Rogers had a nationwide failure in it's internet and cellular coverage.  Some of the large banks and transaction processors as well as parts of the Canadian government were completely dependent on this ISP so the impact went beyond just their customers.  As well, ISPs such as mine, which lease the lines from Rogers, were impacted.

To further exacerbate the situation, carriers encourage bundling of products by providing discounts, so many people who use Rogers for internet could not switch to their phones and use data instead. 

The problem started yesterday at 2 a.m. in some areas and spread across the country. For most people the problem persisted until last night between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.  This impacted everything from people with medical conditions not being able to fill prescriptions to people being stuck unable to take taxis to free wifi cafes with working wifi being overrun with customers to some businesses losing thousands of dollars in business.

The Lesson

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this, for example don't bundle your products as you are more vulnerable to outages, or that Canada is way too susceptible to a hacking incident if this sort of thing if an astute hacker wanted to take advantage of it.

But the real lesson was pointed out by those who did not learn from it.  On message boards I was able to access (I'm not bundled so I could use my phone plan data), many people were calling for government ownership of telecom and internet. So wrong.

The people decrying an over-reliance and a few oligpolistic competitors provide as a solution a single provider. Not only does that make the nation more vulnerable, it puts the operation in the hands of the most inefficient monopoly out there - the government.  It reduces price competition (Canada has the highest prices in the industrialized world for internet and wireless) to zero, it reduces the available product and service selection, it decreases the need for provider responsiveness and locks the country into a solution that undoubtedly would be worse but even if there's only a chance of that, why do it?

The way to solve this problem is to open up the country to more competition; allow American carriers and new Canadian start-ups to compete in the currently monopolized regions. Split the ownership of hardware from the ability to sell the products and services, making them two separate industries.  Poor Government oversight allowed this all to happen, why would anyone think that handing everything over to them would improve anything?  My own experience of not relying too heavily on a single provider yesterday allowed me to escape complete connectivity failure.  The same holds true for Rogers; despite being offline, thet were able to tweet out infrequent and uninformative updates, no doubt using the still working Bell network to do so.  In summary, oligopolies -bad, monoplies - worse and government monopolies - horrifically bad.

Front Page Friday - An alternative to the deletions on the horizon?

Bill Whittle, Stephen Green and Scott Ott discuss a developing alternative to the Internet's biggest problem - Big Tech Overlordship and selective deletion of opposing voices:

Saturday Learning Series - Understanding Computers and the Internet

Harvard University lecture series: Understanding Computers and the Internet.

Things you should know.

When Donald Trump complained about having a defective microphone during the debate, Hillary Clinton responded that Trump complaining about his mic meant he wasn't having a good debate.  Except, now the debate commission admits that there were problems with Trump's debate microphone.

The U.S. has unilaterally given up oversight of the Internet:

The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet's so-called "root zone."

That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet's "stakeholders" -- engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups.

The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to "privatize" the internet, and backers have said it would help maintain its integrity around the world.

US and ICANN officials have said the contract had given Washington a symbolic role as overseer or the internet's "root zone" where new online domains and addresses are created.

But critics, including some US lawmakers, argued that this was a "giveaway" by Washington that could allow authoritarian regimes to seize control.

China buying Hollywood? Why would they bother? 

 Did this really happen?

Trump had seemingly pulled ahead in Florida, it appears to be a tie once again.

Two Word Opinions - April 2014

I`m busy and with limited internet connectivity today, so just some quick thoughts on the topics of the day.  Very quick.  Two words.

Lois Lerner is  is facing charges of contempt regarding the IRS targeting of Tea Party Groups.  Meanwhile she's apparently looking to get a job with Democrat PAC Organizing for Action. - Not Over.

The crisis is the Ukraine isn't over, unless you happen to be part of the Obama administration or the mainstream media. - Face palm.

Stabbing spree by a student this morning n Pennsylvania didn't involve guns. - Bearing arms?

Obama is still pushing a gender gap agenda ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. - Pure politics.

The GOP is urging the White House to slow down on transferring control of the internet to countries around the world. - About time.

Free Internet for the entire planet? The Outernet is coming

Welcome the Outernet. The implications of free Internet for the entire planet are vast. Cheaper access from Internet providers is probably more of an immediate impact than change in North Korea, where free is no good because they aren't all exactly walking around with Galaxy tablets.

Nevertheless, this is the type of thing that could have a dramatic impact on situations like the ones in Syria, Egypt and the Ukraine.

If all goes according to plan, North Koreans will soon have free, uncensored Internet provided by satellites the size of toaster ovens.

That's part of a project called Outernet, which hopes to launch hundreds of tiny satellites—known as CubeSats—to provide Internet to every person on Earth. Forty percent of the world's people currently don't have access to the Web. In a little more than a year, Outernet plans to have a fleet of 24 satellites operational and testing to pave the way for a globe-spanning network.

The satellites won't be providing conventional Internet right away. They'll initially be used for one-way communication to provide services like emergency updates, news, crop prices, and educational programs. Users will help determine what content is offered.

The project's backers say knowledge is a human right—one they intend to provide even in countries where dictators have thus far limited access. "We exist to support the flow of independent news, information, and debate that people need to build free, thriving societies," said Peter Whitehead, president of the Media Development Investment Fund, Outernet's backer. "It enables fuller participation in public life, holds the powerful to account and protects the rights of the individual."

I'm not sure what the business model supporting this venture, perhaps it's based on advertising.  If this does materialize, it will most certainly change the dynamic of geo-politics.  Information cannot be contained and controlled, which is a very positive development in many countries.

Hey left, you screwed up.

You had the media. We on the right are onto that. You had the web, we're onto that too. You had the courts. We're working on that one. With all of those advances by conservatives to combat your underhanded tactics at tricking the public into voting for your progressive liberal candidates, it's only natural you'd be looking for new ways to own the voters.

Sure, some tried and true methods like public schools and unions still represent strongholds for you but they aren't enough. Your agenda requires a complete web of misinformation. You need more tactics to employ. This is especially true in the time of Obama where the screw-ups come at us in a fast and furious way. You need to run cover for the president and more importantly for the agenda.

So it's only natural I suppose that we'd see you try to juice the polls to mount a voter suppression effort. It's ironic that liberals scream about the voter suppression of voter ID laws proposed by conservatives but are more than willing to use dubious polls to disenfranchise voters.

As an aside, it's also ironic that as the party of big government you deem requiring people to present some official form of documentation to be allowed to vote as bad. You'd think you'd be all for another government issued ID for voters and perhaps another agency to manage the whole system.

But with the speed of the news cycle in the era of the Internet, we're onto you on the poll trickery much more quickly than we were with the other things you've done. While it might have some limited success short term, it won't last. Every time you try a new tactic, we will counter it. Alinsky's playbook is a set of guidelines you can no longer rely on. Everything it advocates can be countered.

You pushed us too far and we are no longer going to stand idly by and let it continue. That's ultimately where you really screwed up. Whether it takes a generation or two or three to fix, we're on it now.

Business can have unintended consequences too

Not quite what I had in mind.

Government typically doesn't do too many things right. This we know. From the military overpaying suppliers for hammers, to 46 million people on foods stamps clearly making visible the fact that the welfare state model is worse than broken, the government gets an enormous amount wrong. But they are not alone. Business makes an awful lot of mistakes too. Business decisions from off shoring jobs without a full impact assessment to tightening credit requirements are often made in knee jerk fashion focused on short term thinking. I'll give you a personal example and then explain why it's not sour grapes on my part. The anecdote itself is not the point of my argument in any case.

Internet trouble

I haven't been able to post in a few days and it's been a long time.  It was nice to have the Easter long weekend  'off' from blogging but the truth is I missed it.  I wanted to blog quite a bit this weekend but I had lost my internet connectivity.  It's a long story, better saved for a later post.

In any case I'm back for now and looking forward to posting more shortly.