[governance] Re: FW: [OIA] MS & Skype?

Wed May 11 15:26:57 EDT 2011

In this context I think that it is useful to try to stretch our CS thinking
back before the neo-liberal onslaught wrecked havoc with the role of the
state in attempting to ensure equity/universailty in areas such as
telecommunications and transport.  In Canada at least, a very great
component of the political and regulatory history of the late 19th and 20th
centuries had to do with developing the means to manage and control
predation in the areas of technology advance in the late 19th
century--electricity, transport, telecommunication--to ensure some degree of
rate (and service) balancing (and non-discrimination) as between regions and
individual consumers(as well in certain instances extended to universality
of access).  In Canada this produced nationalized railways, a national
airline, a national broadcaster, nationalized electricity suppliers,
nationalized telecommunications carriers in certain provinces and very
highly regulated telecoms at the national level.

I believe there were similar developments in many other national
jurisdictions.

The technology developments and globalization of service provision in a
number of areas of the late 20th century obviated the need for certain of
these state sponsored service provision leading to deregulation and
privatization, although almost certainly not as much as neo-liberal
ideologists have managed to convince/coerce governments and electorates.

However, the same techology advances in certain areas--global
communications, virtual public space, the global knowledge sphere--have
resulted in a shifting of the need for regulation/management in the public
interest to the global and away from the national (just as the developments
of the late 19th and early 20th shifted them from the local to the
national).

That we don't have institutional or regulatory mechanisms in place (yet) to
manage these is not, I think, because of their nature but rather because of
political immaturity in managing at the global level and from the fierce
resistance (including or even especially at the ideological level) from
those who are benefiting from their current monopoly positions (quite
parallel I would think to the railway etc. robber barons of the 19th
century). 

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: governance at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf
Of parminder
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 1:56 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: FW: [OIA] MS & Skype?

On Wednesday 11 May 2011 01:25 AM, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: 

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 07:49:24AM -0700,

 Michael Gurstein  <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com> <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote 

 a message of 51 lines which said:

I'm not exactly sure how/where this should be covered in IG

discussions but even from a purely self-interested CS perspective

there is an absolute need to begin to work towards some sort of

global institutional/regulatory framework to ensure the preservation

of a public interest in a global virtual public space and public

capacity for very low cost IP enabled international communications

(a la skype).

I fail to see why the fate of the private company Skype, which

produces a closed software using undocumented proprietary protocols

could be a subject for CS.

In the same way as Google of the closed algorithm is difficult to ignore as
a subject by civil society. Is there anyone here who doesnt use google?
Would MS and Google merging be not a big issue for all us? 

I agree that "preservation of a public interest in a global virtual

public space" and "very low cost IP enabled international

communications" are good goals. But Skype is the very counter-example

of what we should aim for. 

I agree that is the point. But what do you think we should aim for. Not only
as our IP based communication system, but also as our search engine, and our
social networking site,  as out payment gateway ......

The solution lies both in encouraging alternative practises, models and
software/ applications, but as much in right regulatory frameworks. It would
never to be possible to get what we seek without the later. That for me is
one of the biggest IG issue around today. parminder 

Specially, the fact that the source code is

hidden from its users is there to hide shameful practices such as

enrolling users as "supernodes" without asking their advice or even

informing them (see

<http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t727931-skype-fixed-supernodes-list.h
tml>
<http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t727931-skype-fixed-supernodes-list.h
tml>

and the list in

 <http://cryptolib.com/ciphers/skype/skype_servers.txt>
<http://cryptolib.com/ciphers/skype/skype_servers.txt>).

So, if CS is interested in "preservation of a public interest in a

global virtual public space", it should push the use of open protocols

for instant messaging and voice over Internet (XMPP and SIP), not to

encourage closed software.

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-- 

Parminder Jeet Singh
Executive Director
IT for Change 
NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net <http://www.ITforChange.net/> 
Tel:+91-80-2665 4134, 2653 6890. Fax:+91-80-4146 1055

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