From Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au Tue Apr 5 15:08:32 1994 Received: from fac.anu.edu.au (durras.anu.edu.au [150.203.22.8]) by ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (8.6.8/8.6.6) with SMTP id PAA04241 for ; Tue, 5 Apr 1994 15:08:11 +1000 From: Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au Received: from [150.203.22.61] (commmac4.anu.edu.au) by fac.anu.edu.au (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA15553; Tue, 5 Apr 94 15:00:21 EST Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 15:00:20 EST Message-Id: <9404050500.AA15553@fac.anu.edu.au> X-Sender: clarcomm@fac.anu.edu.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable To: tomw@vallona.act.acs.org.au (Tom Worthington), Lambert.Keetza@statemail.ss.sa.gov.au, Sandra_Wills@muwayf.unimelb.edu.au, clarcomm@durras.anu.edu.au, gopal@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au, kreed@latcs1.lat.oz.au, kreed@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Karl Reed), GEOFF.DOBER@GIS.CARLTON.cub.telememo.au, hughes@socs.uts.EDU.AU, "Sally Viney" , tomw@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Tom Worthington), CAELLI@qut.edu.au, CAELLI@qut.edu.au (Bill Caelli), bruces@well.sf.ca.us (Bruce Sterling), rohan+@osu.edu (Rohan Samarajiva), fog@asc.upenn.edu (Oscar Gandy), karnow@cup.portal.com (Curtis Karnow), Chris Johnson , staff-IS@anu.edu.au, banisar@washofc.cpsr.org (Dave Banisar), DFLAHERTY@galaxy.gov.bc.ca, dml309@coombs.anu.edu.au (Don Lamberton), link@wombat.anu.edu.au, 7TRUBOW@jmls.edu (George Trubow), G.Greenleaf@unsw.edu.au (Graham Greenleaf), Herbert.Burkert@gmd.de (Herbert Burkert), James Rule , jennie@uow.edu.au (Jenny Seberry), klaudon@rnd.gba.nyu.edu (Ken Laudon), hoffman@seas.gwu.edu (Lance Hoffman), Lawrie.Brown@adfa.oz.au, Marc Rotenberg , marcusw@gsb.su.oz.au (Marcus Wigan), "Peter G. Neumann" , Phil Agre , Sheri Ann Alpert , spelley@mars.mqcc.mq.oz.au (suzanne pelley), AUST0361@AppleLink.Apple.COM (AUPtnr - Factotum Research,ACT,IVC), wg9.2@htsa.aha.nl, marie@cse.unsw.edu.au (marie wynter) Subject: Public Access to Network Services Status: RO Tom Worthington and myself are developing a paper on the above topic. Its purposes are for submission to sundry (Australian) committees, especially (admittedly belatedly) to the ASTEC RDN and Broadband groups, and for presentation at an international conference in Sydney in July. I append the abstract and other lead-in pages. The text is 20 pp. and there are 7 pp. of attachments. Anyone who is interested in a copy, please let me know. I can either email it (ASCII or RTF, or Eudora 1.4.1 using MIME), or work out which ftp/gopher site to put it up on. Thanks for all feedback ... Roger Australian Computer Society - Working Document Vision for a Networked Nation The Public Interest in Network Services Roger Clarke and Tom Worthington Abstract This paper's purpose is to establish the policy of the professional body of information technologists in Australia, the Australian Computer Society, in relation to the public interest in network services. The elements of a 'national information infrastructure' currently being debated include the long-standing public switched telephone network, the more recently implemented analogue mobile telephone services, the new digital mobile telecommunications services, and television signal reticulation, including terrestrial broadcast, satellite broadcast and narrowcast, and cable TV. Added to the pressures generated by improvements in those technologies are the explosive growth of the Internet, and its rapid maturation from a restricted electronic message transmission service, for a limited range of locations, with an arcane user interface, to a vehicle for the provision of very usable and very useful services to individuals in a very wide range of occupations and locations, apparently gratis. Associated with the Internet's development is the rapid emergence of a de facto dispersed 'electronic library'. The paper commences with introductions to key elements of the emergent technologies, and to the economics and politics associated with them. The nature of an information infrastructure (II) and information services is outlined, and the use of metaphors, and especially the 'information superhighway' is discussed. Public fears about what may go wrong with the II initiative are collated, the role of government generally considered, and necessary policy measures identified. Although government actions are necessary, it is important that government does not place itself in the driving seat and unnecessarily stultify an already dynamic process. Version of 5 April 1994 =A9 Australian Computer Society, 1994 This is a working document and it does not represent established policy. Tom Worthington is a joint author of the document, but he has not yet had the opportunity to comment on parts of this version. The document draws heavily on materials from link@wombat.anu.edu.au, Tony Barry of the A.N.U. Centre for Networked Access to Scholarly Information, and Eric Wainwright, Deputy National Librarian. CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. The Information Infrastructure Movement 3. The Internet 4. The Information Infrastructure and Information Services 5. The 'Information Superhighway' and Other Metaphors 6. The Public Interest 6.1 The Internet 6.2 The Public Electronic Library 6.3 The Universal Telephone Service 6.4 Justifying the Public Interest 6.5 Conclusion 7. Public Fears About Information Infrastructure Initiatives 7.1 Inappropriate Orientation or Scope 7.2 Dominance of the Agenda by Corporate Interests 7.3 Excessive Intervention by Government into Network Architecture 7.4 Excessive Intervention by Government into Services and Traffic Content 7.5 Inequity of Access 7.6 The Basis of Charging 7.7 A 'Tower of Babel' of Standards 7.8 The Information Infrastructure as a Weapon of Surveillance 8. The Role of Government 9. Policy Proposals 9.1 Infrastructure 9.2 Services 10. Conclusions References Attachments 1. An Overview of the Internet and AARNet 2. The New Electronic Support Technologies Roger Clarke Department of Commerce, Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Tel: +61 6 249 3666 Email: Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au =46ax: +61 6 249 5005 Tom Worthington Director of the Community Affairs Board Australian Computer Society Inc. G.P.O. Box 446, Canberra ACT 2601 Tel: +61 6 247 4830 Pager: +61 6 285 6209 Email: tomw@adfa.oz.au =46ax: +61 6 249 6419 ABOUT THE ACS The Australian Computer Society is the professional association in Australia for those in the computing and information technology fields. Established in 1966, the ACS has over 14,000 members and on a per capita basis is one of the largest computer societies in the world. Activities are announced in the Usenet newsgroup 'aus.org.acs'. Information is available via e-mail from 'info@acs.org.au' or Gopher at URL: gopher://acs-gopher.mit.csu.edu.au:1605/00/acs, courtesy of Charles Sturt University.