Computer build lists Cisco Comcast FCC Intel Microsoft Network Management Network Neutrality Security Verizon
Written by: George Ou 4/22/2008 3:16 PM
Here are the slides I presented at the FCC Network Management hearing in Stanford and here’s a letter version I sent to the FCC which gives a much fuller explanation. While the letter is a long read (3000+ words), I really hope you take the time to read it since it gives you the full picture of what I was trying to present. Vontv.net has the event on video though they unfortunately edited out quite a bit of stuff. The hearings at Stanford on Thursday was probably one of the most hostile and uncivilized crowd you can expect and it was sad to see such a circus act. I didn’t feel too good about my presentation and missed a lot of key points since I was somewhat rattled and veered off my own script in my hands. Despite knowing what I might be in for given Richard Bennett's experience, I still got rattled and panicked a bit when the Commissioner skipped over me and then spent valuable time to apologize while my measly 5 minute clock was ticking. Before I could finish introducing my name, the "Raging Grannies" started to shout me down screaming "WHO PAID YOUR WAY GEORGE!" when I've never taken money for any political activities from anyone in my entire life. Maybe I need to grow some thicker skin but I was bothered by the raging grannies who didn't even know who I was and shouldn't have had any beef with me other than the fact that someone told them that they should shout me down. I was disappointed by the audience because I thought surely that law students and other Stanford students would be there since this was such an elite institution of higher learning. I thought surely these kids would be interested in an FCC hearing and even if they were going to come in with a bias, at least they would try to listen to an honest debate. But other than one Stanford Grad Student I saw and spoke to, what you had were a bunch of people who basically had their cue to cheer and their cue to boo and they already knew to shout down George Ou right off the bat. By the end of the day during public comments, half of the people were from Poor Magazine and they all went on to vent their rage at something or anything corporate or America. One guy indicated that he wanted to injure the economist on the second panel while another pleaded with the FCC to stop the defense department from implementing the secret Internet2 project designed to give the military control of the Internet. Maybe my expectations were a little unrealistic and overly romanticized, but this was downright ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was Larry Lessig's excruciating 50 minute circus act of an "opening speech" which single handedly eliminating nearly all of our break session. Lessig pulled all the stops including one word at a time slides running many hundred slides long and the usual misleading and inflammatory statements that "Verizon blocked text messages" when no text messages were ever blocked. Verizon merely had a one day bureaucratic snafu in approving a 5-digit short code phone number for abortion rights group NARAL and they quickly apologized but people like Larry Lessig and Tim Wu continue to mislead the public that text messages were blocked. Lessig (Stanford Professor), Harold Feld from Media access, Rob Topolski (Software Quality Assurance Engineer), and Barbara van Schewick (Stanford Professor) when on forever during the panel while Brett Glass and myself got cut off.
Here are the slides I presented at the FCC Network Management hearing in Stanford and here’s a letter version I sent to the FCC which gives a much fuller explanation. While the letter is a long read (3000+ words), I really hope you take the time to read it since it gives you the full picture of what I was trying to present. Vontv.net has the event on video though they unfortunately edited out quite a bit of stuff.
The hearings at Stanford on Thursday was probably one of the most hostile and uncivilized crowd you can expect and it was sad to see such a circus act. I didn’t feel too good about my presentation and missed a lot of key points since I was somewhat rattled and veered off my own script in my hands. Despite knowing what I might be in for given Richard Bennett's experience, I still got rattled and panicked a bit when the Commissioner skipped over me and then spent valuable time to apologize while my measly 5 minute clock was ticking. Before I could finish introducing my name, the "Raging Grannies" started to shout me down screaming "WHO PAID YOUR WAY GEORGE!" when I've never taken money for any political activities from anyone in my entire life. Maybe I need to grow some thicker skin but I was bothered by the raging grannies who didn't even know who I was and shouldn't have had any beef with me other than the fact that someone told them that they should shout me down.
I was disappointed by the audience because I thought surely that law students and other Stanford students would be there since this was such an elite institution of higher learning. I thought surely these kids would be interested in an FCC hearing and even if they were going to come in with a bias, at least they would try to listen to an honest debate. But other than one Stanford Grad Student I saw and spoke to, what you had were a bunch of people who basically had their cue to cheer and their cue to boo and they already knew to shout down George Ou right off the bat. By the end of the day during public comments, half of the people were from Poor Magazine and they all went on to vent their rage at something or anything corporate or America. One guy indicated that he wanted to injure the economist on the second panel while another pleaded with the FCC to stop the defense department from implementing the secret Internet2 project designed to give the military control of the Internet. Maybe my expectations were a little unrealistic and overly romanticized, but this was downright ridiculous.
Even more ridiculous was Larry Lessig's excruciating 50 minute circus act of an "opening speech" which single handedly eliminating nearly all of our break session. Lessig pulled all the stops including one word at a time slides running many hundred slides long and the usual misleading and inflammatory statements that "Verizon blocked text messages" when no text messages were ever blocked. Verizon merely had a one day bureaucratic snafu in approving a 5-digit short code phone number for abortion rights group NARAL and they quickly apologized but people like Larry Lessig and Tim Wu continue to mislead the public that text messages were blocked. Lessig (Stanford Professor), Harold Feld from Media access, Rob Topolski (Software Quality Assurance Engineer), and Barbara van Schewick (Stanford Professor) when on forever during the panel while Brett Glass and myself got cut off.
3 comments so far...
Re: FCC hearings at Stanford Live and learn George, and yes the college environs today are more disappointing than ever before (excepting certain peak periods of radicalism during the late 60's and early 70's). Sadly the 'lemming" syndrome is running at full bore across most college campuses as we chug into the new millennium. As for those law students who besieged you at this "elite institution of higher learning" showing little if anything for brainpower (but instead a healthy contempt for taking in anything new or possibly challenging), please bear in mind these are the very folks who will be spending the rest of their days practicing how to dance AROUND the law - and getting well paid for it into the bargain. Still more will be filling our congressional halls, as both representatives and lobbyists, like so and so many monkeys (academicians, lawyers, politicians) in search of vines (reasons for existence). In that sense, simply replace "elite" with "elitism" and you have your answer.Glad to see you at least tried. That beats most who litter far too many of these "elite institutions" as they're now constituted, from the administrators and staffers down to their junior charges.
Re: FCC hearings at Stanford
Live and learn George, and yes the college environs today are more disappointing than ever before (excepting certain peak periods of radicalism during the late 60's and early 70's). Sadly the 'lemming" syndrome is running at full bore across most college campuses as we chug into the new millennium. As for those law students who besieged you at this "elite institution of higher learning" showing little if anything for brainpower (but instead a healthy contempt for taking in anything new or possibly challenging), please bear in mind these are the very folks who will be spending the rest of their days practicing how to dance AROUND the law - and getting well paid for it into the bargain. Still more will be filling our congressional halls, as both representatives and lobbyists, like so and so many monkeys (academicians, lawyers, politicians) in search of vines (reasons for existence). In that sense, simply replace "elite" with "elitism" and you have your answer.Glad to see you at least tried. That beats most who litter far too many of these "elite institutions" as they're now constituted, from the administrators and staffers down to their junior charges.
Re: FCC hearings at Stanford It wan't the law students, they didn't show up The people who showed up were mostly from "Poor magazine" and "Raging Grannies". The grannies were told by SaveTheInternet to watch out for me and the grannies attacked me as soon as I started talking.
It wan't the law students, they didn't show up The people who showed up were mostly from "Poor magazine" and "Raging Grannies". The grannies were told by SaveTheInternet to watch out for me and the grannies attacked me as soon as I started talking.
Re: FCC hearings at Stanford Poor People and Raging Grannies, Oh My... I am glad to see we are digging up the finest around the world, and yes, I know those grannies can be spiteful and mean, but let's all bring back the 90s with their International Website:http://www.geocities.com/raginggrannies/We can continue with Poor Magazine:http://www.poormagazine.org/I now know how to properly design a modern and important website. As for "Save the Internet" I think I will wait to attack that website when I have studied a bit more.
Poor People and Raging Grannies, Oh My... I am glad to see we are digging up the finest around the world, and yes, I know those grannies can be spiteful and mean, but let's all bring back the 90s with their International Website:http://www.geocities.com/raginggrannies/We can continue with Poor Magazine:http://www.poormagazine.org/I now know how to properly design a modern and important website. As for "Save the Internet" I think I will wait to attack that website when I have studied a bit more.
Adrian's PC Doctor blog Deb Shinder's blog Deb Shinder on Vista Dietrich T. Schmit on Linux Erratasec blog - Security Ed Bott on Microsoft Jason Hiner's blog John Carroll Justin James' developer blog Matt Sherman's blog Martin McKeay Paul Mah, Tech at play Richard Bennett's blog Sunbelt Blog - Security Tom Shinder on ISA Tom Shinder on security ZDNet - Zero day Rich Tehrani - VoIP