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Comparing the Internet to postal systemsI hope you enjoyed my essay on comparing the Internet to Radio and Television. I plan now to turn my critical eye to part of the interview with Lawrence Lessig, which us T182 students were pointed to as part of our first assignment. In this interview, Mr Lessig covers a lot of ground, and puts forth his argument against 'big business' using their money and size to force changes to the internet architecture to benefit them, as this would slow down or even halt the ability of innovators to use the internet as they have been doing. He suggests that the internet formed a 'commons' of innovation, i.e. anyone could log on, see what someone else was doing, and then adapt that idea to do something of their own. No-one could say "you can do this on the internet, but you can't do that", because if you could do it using TCP/IP, then you could do it on the internet. The routers don't mind what they pass, as long as it is correctly addressed. A real life example is the nice bit of spam this morning. Do I want an enlarged male member? (If you can't understand that, then ask you parents about sex, I'm not explaining it to you.) Being female, I don't know whether to respond yes or no to this question. I personally don't like getting mail like this, but I do support freedom of speech in this manner. As Voltair said "I don't agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This is just one example of using the Internet as a 'commons'. It's not how I would choose to use it, but I'm sure it's a method which may of you who are reading this are familiar with. The point I wish to examine is where My Lessig says:
This is summarised by the T182 tutor as follows:
One point here is the fact that the internet had an 'end-to-end' architecture. What is an 'end-to-end' architecture? Basically it is a system where it doesn't matter what you put in one end, providing it is correctly addressed, it will get to the other end. The network doesn't care what it is carrying, and frequently doesn't even know what it is carrying, it just takes the packets from one machine, and routes them correctly to their destination. Lessig suggests two points which I wish to look at. Firstly, the internet is the first ever telecommunications network that had this 'end-to-end' architecture, and secondly, that the architecture is what caused the "explosion of innovation". I would like to dispute the first point, and in doing so, suggest a historic model to examine to see whether the second point is accurate. I don't believe that the internet is the first telecommunications network that is based on a neutral network. I think there are a number of telecommunications systems that pre-date it by some time. The one I wish to raise here is post. Yep, that simple thing, you get a pen and paper (from your local pre-internet museum if necessary), create the words you wish to send, put the paper in an envelope. Put an address on the envelope. Add the necessary postage and pop it in your local post-box (or post office where required). It doesn't matter what you put in the letter, it could be a love letter, a bank statement, a message for your granny, or even a suggestion that by buying this particular product, you can enhance your sex life. The postal workers don't, usually, care. In my humble opinion, this is eminently visible in a superb experiment carried out on the US postal service by Jeff Van Bueren San Francisco, California. They collected together a group of items, and tried to post them in non-usual means. They found that the postal service had a 64% delivery rate, on what must be admitted to be a small sample3. Given the internet can lose packets on occasion, and given what these people were trying to send, I think that this is excellent proof that the US Postal system can be considered to be an end-to-end architecture. In fact, the use of mail carriers was even considered in RFC1149, which considered the possibility of using avian carriers (carrier pigeons) for transmission of IP packets4. I also suggest you examine RFC2549 in response. This was even attempted, by the lesser known CPIP (Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol) Working Group, whose results are well worth examining. So, we have a system of routing, which does not route dependent on what the contents of the packet are, but solely on the address and the charge paid. The charge paid is user neutral, i.e. if I want to send a breeze block through the post to someone, it will cost me the same amount as it costs anyone else. Therefore the charge is independent of the user. This definitely qualifies under the 'end-to-end' architecture that Mr Lessig proposes for the internet, however predates the internet by some years. If we assume post gained the 'end-to-end' architecture with the introduction of the 'penny post', then post has been around since 1839. At least a hundred years prior to the Internet. This argument can be extended to cover a vast number of different telecommunications systems. The system of beacon fires to warn of invaders, for example. The American Indians apparently used smoke signals to send messages across long distances. Radio is another example; once you have obtained a radio transmitter/receiver, you can send messages to anyone else with the same equipment. Most of these could be used to send IP packets. The computer I am working on at the moment connects to the internet by use of a radio network. So I do use radio to send IP packets. So, we have a number of historical scenarios where a telecommunications system was based on an 'end-to-end' architecture. Did any of these scenarios result in an "explosion of innovation" that can be compared to the Internet? I will do the standard teaching method here, of answering a question with a question. When did you last buy a birthday card? Think about it. Birthday cards, postcards, mothers' day cards, etc. They all base themselves on the postal system. The Victorians started the craze for Christmas cards, which is big business today. Or how about pen-pals, postal chess, mail-order catalogues. All these businesses are based on the fact that mail was cheap, easy to use, and it didn't matter what you were sending, provided you had the correct address and postage. I am sure that there is an equivalent lot of ideas and experiments which occurred during the early post years, which failed and fell into the darkness of historical ignorance, but it would take a better historian than I claim to be to bring them to light. In conclusion, there are a number of different telecommunications systems which were/are based on the 'end-to-end' architecture which serves the internet, and some of these do show that their introduction lead to a number of different and innovative ways to communicate. A detailed study of the early years of the post service could prove useful to see if Mr Lessig's arguments that control stifles innovation is shown to be true in a historical situation. It is frequently said that "those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat them." We are in an unique situation, where we can study these lessons and see how we should apply the results to the legal structure of copyright law and the internet. Perhaps it is time we added some history to this course. Footnotes
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