Internet - Page 8

Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced, via an op-ed in Wired, magazine, that the FCC would reclassify the American Internet infrastructure as a utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934.

The sinister world of George Orwell’s 1984, which was based on the Russian novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, is fast becoming a living reality, as electronic devices on the market glean personal information from unsuspecting users. In particular, voice-activated services such as “smart TVs” permit the electronic devices with embedded ears to hear everything said by the user.

China is cracking down on free speech again. This time, an internet watchdog and organ of the country’s Communist Party has banned web users from using pseudonyms to post messages under the names of famous people. A new set of rules will also require Internet users to register accounts using their real names.

The move for the government to control the Internet took an insidious new turn, as FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler implied he would push harsher regulations that would categorize Internet service providers as public utilities.

David Cameron has pledged to bring back the ‘snoopers’ charter’ if the Conservatives win the election in May. The Communications Data Bill would force telecoms companies to collect information on their customer’s use of the internet, under the auspices of

Here in California, we regularly use the ballot initiative process to govern ourselves. Often, when a well-funded special interest is trying to ram through a change to the state’s laws, the opposition screams that the measure is a “solution without a problem.” The FCC’s potential actions in regards to Title II and the Internet fall in the same category. No one is crying out to be freed from the shackles of anything, anywhere, anytime broadband service.

If you hang around serious Internet nerds long enough, you’ll eventually hear talk of the “Dark Net” or “Deep Web.” These are the shadowy corners of the Internet, in which tracing users or finding websites is made extremely difficult. Conventional