EFF-Austin just received this press release from the Computer and Communications Industry Association:

Contact:
Heather Greenfield
202-783-0070 ext 113
hgreenfield@ccianet.org
Ed Black
202-783-0070 ext 110

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 12, 2012

Washington – Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has put out a statement may add a provision to study the impact of DNS blocking before that provision within the controversial PROTECT IP bill (PIPA) would take effect. The offer to suspend the timing of DNS blocking comes after cybersecurity experts in the Obama administration and those implementing the latest cybersecurity measure known as DNSSEC have warned PIPA and the latest cybersecurity measures the government has spent the last ten years developing are incompatible. Internet engineers and cybersecurity experts have written to Congress about their serious concerns.

The following can be attributed to Computer & Communications Industry Association President & CEO Ed Black:

“I hope this statement signals a recognition they didn’t understand this issue when the bill was drafted. We hope this means they will step back, talk to stakeholders, identify and focus on the real problem they’re trying to solve and target that. But it seems more likely to be aimed at newer opponents of the bill that haven’t absorbed how harmful the legislation would still be, even if there was a firm commitment to remove DNS blocking, which there isn’t.

“This DNS blocking was the tip of the iceberg in terms of the broad range of real problems with the approach of SOPA and PIPA. The DNS blocking was easy to understand and remove. Those who value the functioning of the Internet and the jobs that depend on it should now focus on the provisions of the legislation that still cause much collateral damage to the Internet.

“Those pushing this flawed bill discounted a lot of early concerns voiced by Internet experts about the bill. The DNS blocking was just one glaring flaw that would harm cybersecurity. There are a lot of other concerns they seem to continue to ignore about the collateral damage to the Internet that are also well founded. If the offer to further study the DNS blocking provision were a sign of real willingness to step back in general and rethink this bill, then it would be meaningful.”

About CCIA:
CCIA is an international, nonprofit association of computer and communications industry firms, representing a broad cross section of the industry. CCIA is dedicated to preserving full, fair and open competition throughout our industry. Our members employ more than 600,000 workers and generate annual revenues in excess of $200 billion.

Last night, Michael Hathaway of Tiga Energy Services brought us up to speed on the real story behind Smart Grid, which his organization sees as “a business strategy, not a technology.” He pointed out several pitfalls that utilities are walking into, not the least of which is a speculative investment-driven bubble formed by disruptive technology vendors who are largely ignorant of the history and state of the electric utility industry. Efforts towards creation of parallel, proprietary two-way communication networks into customer homes will likely be abandoned once it is recognized that privacy and security concerns will outweigh any potential benefits.

Here’s the slidedeck from Michael’s presentation:
EFF Austin (Sep 7, 2011) – Michael Hathaway – Smart Grid and the Internet

Thanks to everyone who came out last month to hear Jon Lebkowsky [ @JonL ] guide us through and to the past and future Internet.

This month, we’ll be hearing former EFF Austin Board member Michael Hathaway present information from the world of modernizing electric utilities and the regulatory bodies that love them in a talk entitled “Smart Grid and the Internet.” Here’s the summary:

Michael Hathaway, CEO of Tiga Energy Services, Inc, www.tigaenergy.com, will share his unique and controversial perspective on the Smart Grid as it mirrors the evolution of the Internet.

He will outline the similarities between these two industries, explore lessons learned from the Internet and ponder the various scenarios for Smart Grid ranging from it transforming our lives to becoming a dot-com bubble.

This will not be a conventional industry overview of the Smart Grid, so bring an open mind and lots of questions!

Michael Hathaway is a technology executive whose career spans the the early days of digital audio, the broadband & multimedia revolution, to the rapid evolution of the energy industry occurring today. He currently heads up Tiga Energy Services, a network communications and cyber security firm that serves the energy industry.

Michael is always an engaging and passionately rational speaker and conversationalist. It’ll be a good talk and we’re all sure to learn.

We meet on First Wednesdays at The Flying Saucer [ @FlyingSaucerAus ] from 7-9pm. So that puts us on Wednesday September 7th. Parking is available on the surface lots, in the garages, and in the field adjacent to the SFC Farmer’s Market, which takes place every Wednesday in the commons field. We’re in the reserved room in the back right corner as you walk into the Saucer. We’re raising bandwidth issues with Flying Saucer, so for now bring your wireless access device of choice if you got em; any less pressure on the network infrastructure helps. And we have our own VGA cable this time to avoid that “everything is yellow” jaundiced-effect. Power strips will be available on side tables.

Map

When: 7PM Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
Where: Flying Saucer, 815 W 47th St at the Triangle.
Hashtag: #EFFatx

You can also sign up for the event on the Facebook. Like us if you do.

In a recent Fox news article, the inevitable death of the Internet was recently announced.

The exponential growth of Internet traffic has been a hotly debated reality from the the very beginning. Historically there have been two reactions to exponential Internet bandwidth demand, fear, and denial. Funny how that hasn’t changed for 25 years! Meanwhile bandwidth demand, and the capacity to support it continues to grow hand in hand regardless.

On the business front there are three intertwined factions each with self serving businesses motivations:

1. The Venture Capital funded Internet businesses that seek to grow as much stock value as possible on services delivered over the Internet in order to achieve unrealistic exit opportunities for their investments. They run roughshod over the internet and poison the Net Neutrality debate with their own brand of pirate capitalism masquerading as Internet socialism. They present the perfect enemy to the next faction, the Phone and Cable guys.

2. Phone and Cable service companies, stuck in a 19th century business model they adopted from Thomas Edison. They fear the encroachment of the Internet on their core services. They strive to constrain the last mile of the Internet to being an information service, lest it replace the antiquated Infrastructure that delivers their voice and video services with a more efficient service delivery model that better meets the demands of consumers.

3. Cisco and its business strategy to dominate the Internet infrastructure market by making Internet protocols and equipment unnecessarily complex to block competition. They are the arms dealer in the Net Neutrality war. Through their “strategic under specification” strategy within the IETF standards groups, they have convinced the world that complex packet examination, reordering and discard is the best method to insure quality of service. This, as opposed to avoiding congestion through intelligent capacity planning and management using simple, reliable and low cost packet routers.

I’ve worked in all three of these businesses. Hell, I even researched the capacity problem for DARPA in the 90s. Needless to say what drives the self serving commentary on Internet capacity/demand remains the same – FEAR and DENIAL.

Is it any wonder that analysts, researchers, the press and the general public are confused? The fact is, the phone and cable broadcast business models should have died in the 20th century and they are doing everything the can to keep their businesses on life support. Add to the mix the threats of venture funded upstarts and the lure of Cisco’s “Kill Your Competitor’s Packets” endgame solution, and you have the perfect war – Two bitter enemies and an arms dealer to keep them alive and fighting indefinitely.

… and now for the rest of the story:

First and foremost, Internet backbone bandwidth is well compensated for by ISP’s and the customers they host. This bandwidth is not free. As demand for capacity requires lighting up more dark fiber, customers are there to pay for this, the fiber is there to be lit, and the routers can be added to support drive the traffic. Currently, backbone Internet data paths are well maintained. These links are well utilized (90+%) and have none of the random spikes of bandwidth demands that the alarmists would like us all to believe. The only real spikes in the backbone occur when a backhoe cuts a line or a backbone router crashes due to software failure. Physical layer failover mechanisms provided by SONET and other similar technologies resolve these failures in microseconds. The fact is that the Internet backbone is more reliable than ever, and shows little sign of dying an untimely death. So the real “capacity” problem exists with the last mile, which remains under the control of the very business that want the Internet to fail or better yet just go away.

What’s funny is, I find myself working with utilities and regulators on Smart Grid technology over the last few years. The Internet poses the identical threat to the electric utility business model. This industry is being transformed by the growing demand for distributed renewable energy and the need for a vast and ubiquitous information grid to manage an increasingly complex electric grid. They fear the Internet so much, that they are attempting to build their own capacity constrained private service network. These Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) networks are being extended to utility meters and into controls and displays in customer premises. They will likely fail just as Compuserve and Prodigy did, and for the same reasons – they simply cannot compete with the service delivery capabilities and low cost network capacity of the Internet. Its like deja vu all over again! The utilities biggest threat? Google’s recently announced PowerMeter service! Now all three 19th century style utility businesses have their sights on killing the Internet!

Sadly, the Smart Grid needs the Internet to survive and thrive. There is no possible way to build a private network fast enough to support services promised to energy consumers. I sincerely hope that recent hype and government stimulus money to accelerate Smart Grid growth will help to offset some of the other agendas that seek to constrain the last mile of the Internet.

One thing is for sure, if the Internet fails, it won’t be due to us all watching Hulu, but because someone decided to shut it down to keep their dying business alive for a few more years. Unfortunately, it could result in the failure of the Smart Grid and ultimately turn the lights out for all of us.

Michael Hathaway is an EFFA board member and founder of Pico Innovations