I hide nothing from you: I kicked back this Friday night. I slacked off. Now it’s Saturday at 2am and I’m finally getting to this. But, you all read this in the morning anyway so it really doesn’t matter much, right? (If I’m wrong I’ll surely hear in the comments)
Let’s start with a widely reported but badly reported story: DNSSEC. This is a framework for the Domain Name System (the framework for translating from hostnames such as www.redstate.com to IP addresses, which are the actual addresses used on the Internet). The system is akin to SSL for domains. Verisign will manage it for the Commerce Department and create a single “Root Key” which is then used to create certificates for domains, which will then be used to make sure your a domain’s DNS records are legitimate.
In my estimation, it’s just a big boondoggle for [Verisign] to get more customers. The vast majority of domains won’t be able to be secured by it, because Verisign is going to have a monopoly and will charge accordingly. This will only affect big businesses transacting large amounts of money, and they’re already secured against DNS-based attacks. If they’re smart they are, anyway.
What DNSSEC does that is bad, however, is create a new point of failure for the Internet, because there are 7 key holders which control escrowed access to the root key. If 3 of them lose the keys, the entire system will have to be re-keyed at expense and inconvenience to all, as pointed out by George Ou.
Oh, Net Neutrality is still a crock. You know that big, evil, corporate bias on line? It’s a myth. George Ou (again, he’s on a roll) tested and found out that FoxNews.com takes twice as long to load as Daily Kos. Are the ISPs biased in favor of Kos? Is that really the theory? Nobody believes this.
Nobody except maybe the radical neo-Marxist extremists at Free Press, who (as Ou points out) have demanded that “all Web sites and applications download and upload at the same speeds.” This is ludicrous because page load times are determined by a number of factors including site server speed, site software performance, the site’s Internet connection, your Internet connection, and anything going on in between you and the site. This is magical thinking born of a radical ideology.
Free Press’s view of the Internet is best compared with Lysenkoism, a Soviet scientific ideology that demanded the world confirm to Marxist-Leninist thought, and ignored all evidence to the contrary (and put those who dissented in the gulag).
Which is why two more Democrats have announced opposition to the FCC‘s plans to Deem and Pass Net Neutrality via Title II Reclassification. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and Alan Grayson of Florida, come on down.
Yeah, when Alan Grayson is against you, you’re just just to the left. You’re so far left that Karl Marx would bow.
And lastly, India isn’t banning Blackberries, despite rumors they would due to RIM doing a very good job in making Blackberry communications secure to prying eyes. Encryption done well is a great equalizer and giver of privacy.