Journal: News & Comment

Your year's supply of bits

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From Philip Greenspun:

While our politicians fret about old-style feudalism in the Muslim world they ignore neo-feudalism springing up in their midst.

[...]

The public is allegedly the owner of the electromagnetic spectrum. Why can't we combine these facts to conclude that every U.S. citizen ought to be entitled to transmit and receive a certain number of bits per year?

This sounds like something the Canadian government would do, but so far there's been no talk of it here either. Right now I'm in a downtown office piggybacking off a wireless connection in some other office or apartment (I don't even know where it is, other than nearby). It would be cool, and would make me quite productive, if I could do that anywhere, and legitimately.

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