This does not sit well with me. Giving government the capability to control a public, open and free network is where I draw the line. I do like the idea of having a federally-recognized cybersecurity certification program, as this will establish one standard for knowledge on the subject and clear a lot of hurdles for aspiring network security analysts. Everything else is bull. This is the first time I’ve seen the EFF call out something introduced by a non-Bushie. I took issue with the NSA in the Bush years because the same thing happened: government took too much liberty with the public internet, and spied on its own citizens in the process. If a threat emerges, let the government deal with their own networks. Any sysadmin who has completed the proposed federally-sponsored cybersecurity certification program would predictably be able to take care of those under their control.

If you haven’t noticed already, I’ll go ahead and say that my problems with this are solely practical rather than political, as the internet is a big part of my life and work, so naturally these are the issues I care most about. (I’m working on an essay-type thing detailing my positions, in which I proclaim that Republicans are evil and Democrats just don’t care anymore.) I’ve seen a lot of people online throwing harsh words at the president for this, which is stupid because he has nothing to do with it. These people are crossing the line. They’re probably overzealous Glenn Beck fans. Anyway, case in point:

This has nothing to do with “protecting” the internet.

It has everything to do with the power drunk, dicatorial 0bama engaging in an unprecedendted, unconstitutional power grab, orchestrated by his psychotic. lunatic fringe “czars” like Van Jones.

After siezing the auto companies, siezing the banks, setting up a snitch line at flag@whitewhite.gov for Americans to report anyone who doesn’t agree with 0bama’s evil health care bill, , ahile ammasing a fedrel deficits of a staggering $1.6 trillion, and sending “stimulus” money to murderers in US jails, this communist wants to grab control of the internet too does he?

Really? Really? I suppose the fact that Jay Rockefeller is coming up with this thing rather than the White House does nothing for you. You probably think President Obama has exercised some sort of mind control on this poor fellow to perpetrate this communist, Kenyan, Bill Ayers-esque, Orwellian, Illuminati, unconsitutional, and overall, evil, evil, evil power grab that will turn everyone gay, make the divorce rate skyrocket, take away all your guns and direct the government to demolish all churches.

To this I say: Really? What are you smoking?

This stumped me for months and I eventually arrived at the point where I just didn’t care anymore. I blamed it on my computer’s NIC, and then just left it at bad signal levels from the cable company when I found that all the other computers on my network were almost as slow. A couple of nights ago, in a fit of disgust I decided to go downstairs and plug my netbook directly into the cable modem. The speeds were fast as lightning, as things should be. What device on my network could have caused such a bottleneck?

The culprit was an old Intel 16-port switch I had thrown into the mix when I mounted a small contingent of servers and networking equipment in the basement. Back then I didn’t have enough ports on my Netgear wireless router to support everything, so I had everything going to that switch. Over time things kept getting slower and slower. Now that I use one of my servers as the router, I can take the old switch out without impacting the network.

Lesson learned. I’m getting acceptable speeds now.

Not only is this a testament to how good of a job I thought he could do (and I still think he is doing), but the fact he’s in office shows that a lot of Kentuckians thought he was an improvement over his predecessor.

I think Governor Beshear has done a lot of great things in office, some of which were shot down by opposition, but great things nonetheless. I agree with the man on the issue of legalized gambling in Kentucky–we need it to help alleviate our budget shortfalls.

I do believe, however, that he is making a big mistake when it comes to his administration’s endeavor to seize control of 141 domain names belonging to some of the most popular Internet gambling sites out there. Just because someone has something and you can’t get it doesn’t mean you get to steal it. Forbes has an article about Judge Thomas WIngate refusing to drop the case and I can’t help but be worried.

The Internet is a global medium. We pioneered it and got it started here in the United States but it has a worldwide reach. Ergo, I believe that the Internet is international jurisdiction and the Commonwealth of Kentucky has no business messing with it. Domain names and the seizure thereof are on ICANN’s turf since, you know, they control the DNS. I’m hoping ICANN steps in and doesn’t let this happen. If a state government can seize someone’s domain name because they don’t like the site that’s running on it, what’s next? Will the state government next seize my domain name and that of any other blogger, as I suspect there are many, who have written things critical of the Beshear administration because they saw the exact same thing I see coming? If a state government can seize a domain name, and that precedent is established, the federal government may follow suit and perhaps even the Bush administration will start taking domain names of bloggers and other web sites that have been critical of the president and his cohorts. If this case is allowed to continue I fear it will escalate into a matter of First Amendment rights.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I am horrible at ending these things.

Photo by Jenny Sevcik, Messenger-Inquirer

If you happen to pick up a copy of today’s Messenger-Inquirer, on the front page of the Venue section you will find a story about Twitter, complete with my ugly mug which also accompanies this blog post. I met on Tuesday with Beth Wilberding and Jenny Sevcik and spoke to them about Twitter, what it can be used for, why I use it, and speculated on why its use is so light in the area. I had a great time speaking with Beth and Jenny and I must say they’re both a joy to work with. With compliments given where they are due, I have a bone to pick with the paper.

You see, I have not provided a link to the story about Twitter for one main reason. I doubt you want to pay a while dollar to read it online — more than the 75 cents it costs to buy a normal paper. The internet effectively has an overhead cost of zero, so why do we have to pay more to read it online than to get a physical paper?

It’s no secret that the Internet is slowly eating away at print media. So what if people don’t want to go pick up a paper? Why can’t the M-I accept this inevitability and embrace the internet? If anything, they’re leaving themselves open to some heavy competition, especially if anyone local starts a news organization that’s strictly online. I know people at the M-I have read my blog before, and I urge everyone there to make some noise about it.

Update: The Twitter article has been syndicated in BusinessWeek, which is FREE to read online. Check it out.