that Web Networks found themselves in seems to have been resolved now. I don’t know any details, but it looks like Network Solutions were part of the problem more than part of the solution: “After days of wrestling with Network Solutions and working with Open SRS…”
Web Networks’
highly-coveted domain – web.net – was hijacked the other day by an unknown person who sent an unauthorized change of information email to Network Solutions, which they promply executed without following proper procedures. So an innovative, old-guard non-profit internet host who works extensively with other non-profits, charities, and is a member of the Association for Progressive Communications, was left high and dry for a few DAYS – as were their clients.
I bet Network Solutions makes excuses rather than apologizing. I wonder when they’re going to realize that this isn’t just a game, this is people’s livelihoods, their vision of the future, their business. A bank doesn’t start sending my statements to someone else without a lot of information and confirmation. I wonder why Netsol thinks they should offer any less security?
Inside out:
Jesse Berst gets it. The promise of the web lies in turning it inside out. That’s what it’s always been about, whether “it” is media in general or the WWW specifically. The WWW gets us part way there; fast, always on, internet connections take it a bit further. Symmetrical high speed connections (still rare) take us even further. And the software – whether it’s Gnutella, SETI@home, or whatever – goes still further. It’s also about relationships, not information per se – but at this level, information is a relationship.
Note:
Not much blogging between now and Monday. I’m getting out of the city for the weekend, and taking a respite from the web for a couple of days.
Wired is running
a fantastic story about Lawrence Lessig’s speech at the Ninth World Wide Web conference in Amsterdam. One thing that he neglects to mention but forms the backdrop of the whole story is that the Telecom Reform Act (the one that the CDA came packaged within) explicitly paved the way for AT&Ts current behaviour. That should have been a bigger story than the CDA at the time – it sure is now. By allowing mergers and combinations in the telecom space that were previously illegal, it opened the door to many really cool business combos that weren’t possible before. But it also raised the spectre of a virtually private network that could be controlled by capital in ways that the net cannot be. And, really, who needs CDA-style censorship when you have a closed network in the first place?
