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Science & Technology
Just About Everyone Wants To End The Internet By 2012
2008-06-12
Lots of conjecture, hand-waving and doom without much in the way of pesky things like facts.
ISPÂ’s have resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, according to a leaked report.

Despite some people dismissing the story as a hoax, the wider plan to kill the traditional Internet and replace it with a regulated and controlled Internet 2 is manifestly provable.

Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISPÂ’s all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit.
Posted by:Anonymoose

#13  I will name it SkyNet.
The name is already taken by the UK military satellite network.
Posted by: phil_b   2008-06-12 21:48  

#12  That's what the Mayan's REALLY meant.
Posted by: eLarson   2008-06-12 21:36  

#11  I concur that this is nonsense. It misunderstands the way the internet works, the amount of money the internet brings in currently, and the way the internet and tv, and the internet and telephones are coming together to change the way we access the beast.

Total nonsense. Perhaps a few monopolists wishful thinking but total nonsense none-the-less.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-06-12 16:37  

#10  This article is sheer idiocy. To think that if you have a small site that has important content and people won't be able to get access because your site isn't on the "subscription list" will only result in the spawning of a new network that does give access. The technology of creating a network is available to anyone with a Linux box, Quagga routing deamon, and a data connection.

The internet will always route around inefficiency and when it comes to access to data, the people involved always bat last.

I CAN see a network offering a REDUCED PRICE product that only allows certain access on some devices such as cell phones or something but there will always be demand for the internet connectivity we know today.
Posted by: crosspatch   2008-06-12 15:03  

#9  I will set up my on net and let others join it wirelessly. I will name it SkyNet.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam   2008-06-12 14:23  

#8  Unfortunately, the idea of a "reduced Internet" shows the major flaws in the idea that "it will survive".

AOL is an interesting study of what things might become. They tried to become the software interface to all parts of the Internet. Unless you had special knowledge, you had to use their browser, their newsreader, etc. It created an "AOL version" of the Internet that was very easy to control and censor.

If other ISPs wanted to do something like this, they could use port control to force users through their system and surveillance. Non-authorized ports might be limited, or an extra fee added for their use.

ISPs have already discovered than only a fraction of their users are skilled. If they eliminate that fraction, which some of them are already doing, the vast majority of users buy high bandwidth to just surf the web. High bandwidth fees for dialup service.

There are an endless number of ways to screw things up, and eventually even the expert users would be confined to BBS style intranets. Most governments would be happy with this.

The telco's are under no obligation to provide inexpensive service to wildcat servers, as well.

One of the weakest links is ICANN, which is on the razor's edge. The US government wants to take it over, as does the UN, etc.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2008-06-12 14:11  

#7  In a day and age when you can get free server software off the net, set up your home computer to act as a server, buy older servers at discounted prices, wire up home computers to act as parallel processing supercomputing clusters, build yor own wireless networks, and beam wireless signals miles across country with only a minimal amount of effort or materials, these folks are whistling in the wind. It's more like a far-fetched hope for what they'd like to be able to force people to do or a fantasy of a future in which they hold the reins to internet access than anything else.

I see absolutely no basis in reality in this fantastic conspiracy theory. Even if the folks who control domain names were somehow conscripted into this madness there are enough smart people out there who could circumvent them that the free web would continue somewhere, somehow.

Posted by: FOTSGreg   2008-06-12 13:19  

#6  "He who can destroy a thing controls that thing."
Posted by: mojo   2008-06-12 13:09  

#5  I think it is a hoax, but they may try.

And they will fail.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-06-12 13:08  

#4  I don't doubt the telcos want to do this. They planned for an AOL 'walled garden' type internet, and were in complete denial when an open model spontaneously happened.

Will it happen?

I doubt it, but doesn't surprise me they will try.
Posted by: phil_b   2008-06-12 12:37  

#3  And other, entirely unregulated networks will be born.

The internet views regulation as 'damage' and routes around it. Long live the internet!
Posted by: Iblis   2008-06-12 12:18  

#2  will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model

I'm about to dump cable since it is nothing but a bunch of damned commercials with an occasional program in between commercials. Not much value there. I don't need T.V. and I can live without the internet. I already pay plenty for internet use. I have a business fax and my number gets sold to whomever wants it and I get all kinds of unsolicited faxes thus using up my paper and time. I have tried no-call lists but these don't really work. We end up subsidizing every jack-leg idiot out there.
Posted by: JohnQC   2008-06-12 12:18  

#1  When that happens, I'll just go back to doing things the way we did 8 years ago. They don't really "have us by the balls" the way they think they do. It is only going to hurt online businesses.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-06-12 12:00  

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