DISQUS

I sit on the fence when it comes to this whole 'Net Neutrality debate.

Firstly, the whole concept of a neutral debate /is/ akin (stress on akin) to the Internet's first amendment. I'm sure you can interpret Mr. Gilmore's oft-quoted phrase, "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it," as being applicable here.

However, there's one key point that people seem to be missing: the Internet is a *global* thing. It's not American. It's not controlled by American companies. It's not governed by the American government. So, quite frankly, this only affects Americans and American companies. And if American companies don't like it, they can host their servers elsewhere.

Yes, that still leaves American citizens in the lurch -- no matter which way you see as 'the lurch'.

Quite frankly, I don't see the American government regulating the Internet as a Good Thing. Conversely, I don't have faith in Big Company to be trusted to inherently regulate the internet itself (and let's not bring the "Free Market" into this, please, as it's almost meaningless in cases like this).

So, which should it be? Should the Government regulate the 'Net? Should it be left to the forces of the market? Frankly, I /prefer/ the latter, but only because it is the lesser of two evils.

My suggestion instead: if you're this concerned about it, move to a different country where this isn't (yet?) and issue.

(I should also point out that I'm half hoping that there /will/ be a tiered Internet created, as I think it would be a Very Good Thing to split the commercial Internet from the actual useful Internet. We're already seeing mini-splits with things like Freenet and I2P, and I can't help but think that with enough effort, a commercial push to charge people to make their sites 'more available' will wind up encouraging more splits that have a real potential to wind up making the Internet a better place.)

A device to zap RFID tags has been fashioned out of a disposable camera, by replacing the flash with a coil of wire. See for more details. They have been talking about putting the details online for some time now.