Working with COVID-19

Silicon Valley is full of firms that are tracking our movements and recording our contacts today. This is how Google and Facebook make a living, and they’re going to keep on doing it whether their datasets and computer power are used to sell ads or to protect public health.

March 23, 2020 0

Local Muni Broadband Measure Squeaking By

Contrary to popular myth, Colorado is not witnessing a taxpayer revolt against commercial broadband. A number of cities and counties has seized the authority from the state to build broadband networks through regular election ballot measures, but few have proceeded to build anything.

November 7, 2019 0

The Music Man Comes to Lakewood

Fellman, a veritable Music Man, sold the Council on the ballot measure by conjuring various extremely vague partnerships with private companies to serve various unspecified projects.

October 30, 2019 0

DoH Creates More Problems than it Solves

We need to redesign DoH so that it works with DHCP and local policies, not against them. The layered architecture of the Internet and the distributed nature of DNS become nothing more than cruel jokes if this standard is rolled out in its current form.

September 15, 2019 0

Is it Time to Reboot Internet Policy?

None of the proposals for ISP regulation or platform regulation currently in the mix are very good. If the Internet is good for anything, it’s a great disruptor. Is is too much to ask it to disrupt its own policy frameworks toward the goal of producing more of the good and less of the bad?

August 18, 2019 0

OTI United States of Broadband Map is Fake News

US broadband is nothing to sneer at, as all of us who have taken the time to study it in depth are happy to say. Alternative fact reports targeted at naive journalists have the potential to do serious harm, so I would encourage anyone who finds OTI’s United States of Broadband remotely credible to dig a little deeper before firing off clickbait headlines. You might be a victim of fake news.

July 25, 2019 0

Underestimating Rural Broadband Coverage

Is it justifiable to misrepresent the facts (to lie, actually) in order provoke a legislative reaction that improves rural life?

June 22, 2019 0

Behind the Curve: EFF’s Long Strange Trip

Perhaps the time has come to tell EFF what Barlow told lawmakers in 1996: “On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone.” The future of networking is intermodal competition between networks and services that control their destinies.

June 12, 2019 0

Small Victories in the War on Internet Disinformation

People like DeGette and Lindenberger are little points of light in the dark night of search engine optimization. Their success will depend on the willingness of millions of ordinary people to join their fight for reality-based public policy. 

March 4, 2019 0

Questions for Witnesses in Tomorrow’s Net Neutrality Hearing

Net neutrality was created at a time when the only large firms conducting Internet business were ISPs. It was sensible for lawmakers to focus on ISPs in 2003. But today’s Internet is dominated by non-ISP edge services that routinely abuse personal information. Internet law need to leap forward to the present day.

February 6, 2019 0