Internet – RI Future

November 29, 2015November 29, 2015

The great gun giveaway: Or, how easy is it to get a gun online

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The firearms industry and the consumers who rally against the notion of gun-safety measures do so using a public face of constitutional nobility. The rhetoric is one of rights and revolution as well as self defense for gun owners and their families. Yet, recently I was inadvertently given a glimpse into the world of the irresponsible marketing of guns and, in my experience, it is anything but noble.

Approximately six weeks ago, I was using the internet for its intended purpose: arguing with strangers about social policy issues while simultaneously binge-watching the latest Netflix series and shopping for the best online deals for boxer-briefs. During my bandwidth frenzy the social media debate in which I was engaged turned to the issue of gun laws. It must have been in the recent aftermath of one or another mass shooting. With the frequency of such occurrences, I cannot recall which one.

I made a comment concerning the relative ease of purchasing a firearm and was met with a strong opposing statement about how difficult it is to buy a gun. I believe I had said that peanut butter is too dangerous to bring on to school property, but certain lawmakers want to allow concealed firearms. I followed that up with something comparing the simplicity of buying a gun to that of buying peanut butter. Admittedly, this was not my best case argument to date. But, I was testing an angle. I decided to try an experiment.

Opening yet another browser window on my laptop, now hot to the touch due to the number of running applications, I typed into Google, “buy a gun online.” I clicked the first response that popped up. Six and a half minutes later, I had located a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, completed the background questionnaire, and been approved. I requested a hold for delivery to a nearby gun shop for pick up within six days. I also checked to see how long it would take to buy peanut butter online. For the record, ordering peanut butter for in-store pickup was quicker and easier by a good two or three minutes.

Also, for the record, I had no intention of actually purchasing a firearm. Nor do I plan on owning a gun. I rely heavily on statistics for most decisions and the numbers point to a much higher probability of something irreparably traumatic occurring to me or someone for whom I care than of requiring such a device for protection. I feel no need to repeat the statistics that have been accurately expressed ad nauseum by other sources. Suffice it to say, they all strongly suggest that more guns result in more shootings.

It was after I went through the online registration with the site that acted as the broker for my gun purchase that never was, that I started to receive the almost daily promotional e-mails from Gallery of Guns, a site that prices and deals in firearms. I had gone through something that called itself the Gun Genie. The primary address for the operation is in Prescott, Arizona. Yet, I also noticed a secondary address in Greensboro, North Carolina. I have no knowledge of Arizona. I did, however, live in Greensboro, North Carolina for six years. I went to college there. And, I cannot say that I am at all surprised that such an operation would exist in Greensboro.

But I digress. Below are some of the highlights from the e-mails that I have been receiving.

Then there was a bit of a shock when I was offered aan opportunity to enter for a chance to win not one, but two guns. Mind you, these are not just any guns. The Jericho 9mm is a nearly indestructible, polymer sidearm; and the Tavor is a unique, bullpup design, with a similar barrel-length and muzzle velocity to an AR-15 assault rifle. However, the configuration allows it to be more compact and maneuverable in close-combat situations. You know, like close-combat deer hunting and close-combat target shooting. Both are Israeli-design and versions are used by the Israeli military. I will be sure to let you all know more about their design characteristics if I win the “Great Gun Giveaway.”The last promotional e-mail is the real class-act. One might think that the day following the November 27 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood siege, in which a gunman killed three and wounded four over the course of a six hour standoff, it would be in good taste to refrain from sending advertisements for military-style firearms. However, one would be wrong to think so. Advertised as a special for this weekend only, the ever popular AR-15 type weapon, touted here as the best gun for WSHF/WROL (without forward assist). If you do not know (I had to look it up) that stands for “when shit hits the fan,” and “without rule of law.” So, I suppose this is the one you would want to buy if you found yourself trapped by police after invading a women’s health facility and opening fire on unarmed, innocent civilians.

I cannot pinpoint exactly what to take away from my own story. I suppose the issue worthy of discussion is this: If guns are tools of either survival or of sport, why are they being marketed so hard. As soon as I provided one single point of contact, I have been bombarded with a barrage of marketing that has showed me a glimpse of the culture of the firearms market. These are instruments designed to maximize the efficiency with which a human being can cause life threatening injury or death to another living thing. When there are cries of guns getting into the hands of the wrong people and discussions of responsible gun owners, limiting access to convicted felons, or (the most recent scapegoat) the mentally ill, it holds even less weight than before I became aware of all the savings, deals, promotions, and shameless advertising tactics for tactical weapons.

This experience has further validated my suspicions of an industry and a culture that speaks out of both sides of its mouth when it promotes rights and responsibilities and then acts in such a sensational and classless manner, offering deals on AR-15 rifles the day after a national gun-related tragedy. And, as for the “Great Gun Giveaway,” yes, they have indeed given it away. But not just the gun. They gave away the whole scam.

March 12, 2013March 12, 2013

Schools Censor Internet From Students, Teachers

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If a school administrator claimed the right to censor a teacher’s work plan on a regular basis, there would be an outcry over such a blatant attack on academic freedom. In fact, this scenario plays out in our public schools every day. The censorship occurs in the context of Internet access by students, and it should be no more tolerated than it would be for a teacher’s offline lessons.

Every school uses Internet filtering software to bar student access to a wide range of websites. A report the ACLU of RI has just issued demonstrates just how pervasive, flawed and inappropriate the use of that software is. It’s not just that students – and teachers – find themselves barred from accessing. To give just a few examples, the websites of PBS Kids and National Stop Bullying Day, or a video clip of the Nutcracker ballet, or a website on global warming, or sites that include information about “anti-government groups.” That is bad enough.

What is worse is that when a teacher seeks to have one of these websites unblocked so their students can make use of it during a lesson plan, administrators often exercise unbridled discretion in deciding whether to accede to the teacher’s request. The effect of this regime of censorship is to significantly hinder teachers from making full use of the Internet to educate students, and to significantly hamper students from accessing relevant information in the classroom.

The ACLU report recommends a number of actions to address the serious impact that use of these filters has on students and teachers’ First Amendment rights and on their right to access information at school. Once they recognize how problematic the use of this software is, we are sure those concerned about education will demand changes in school policies and help free both students and teachers from the shackles that this privately-created software imposes. I encourage everybody to read our findings and help us take action.

Link to news release and report: http://www.riaclu.org/20130311.htm

August 21, 2012August 21, 2012

Race Is On: Who Will Be the Political Party of the Net?

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At Demand Progress we’ve just launched a public effort to compel the major parties to adopt Internet freedom planks as part of their party platforms. You can click here to sign our petition to the people responsible for drafting platforms. It buttresses a behind-the-scenes effort we’ve been running for a few weeks, and we’re very hopeful about the chances of winning. Here’s US News on the push:

In an attempt to woo so-called “Internet voters,” both the Republican and Democratic parties are considering adopting official positions supporting a free and open Internet in their upcoming party platforms at their respective conventions, according to sources familiar with party platform drafting.

There’s a race of sorts on to be the first party to corner Internet voters… and Internet dollars. The Republicans are doing an unusually good job securing support from Silicon Valley, as US News notes:

Both Republicans and Democrats are in a race to capture the Internet’s voting power, but if campaign donations are anything to go by, Republicans seem to have a slight lead. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 54 percent of the $4 million that Silicon Valley-based PACs have donated have gone to Republican causes and candidates. Companies that have given more to GOP PACs include Intel, Microsoft and Facebook, while Google and Oracle have given more money to Democrats.

This represents a shift from the norm: Repubs were faster to peel off of SOPA and have been actively wooing tech support. There’s a strong libertarian streak among VCs and start-up entrepreneurs (too many of whom forget that the creation of the Internet was a publicly financed endeavor) that comports well with certain strains within the GOP. The Dems are still better on Net Neutrality and privacy, but SOPA was a much bigger deal both to most web entrepreneurs and rank-and-file netizens — and the Dems stood by SOPA for far too long, likely largely because they were worried about losing Hollywood’s support. The Repubs didn’t have that counterweight to consider, and were more able to make a more swift play for tech votes and bucks.

The Dems need to catch up, and fast.

February 19, 2012February 19, 2012

Inventing the Internet

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I attended a fascinating conference last week in DC, the 20th anniversary celebration of the National Information Technology Research and Development program (NITRD), a 15-agency cooperative mission launched in 1992 to coordinate federal R&D around information technology. Funded as a consequence of the 1991 High-Performance Computing Act (a/k/a the “Gore Bill”), this was the funding that created the backbones of the internet, and persuaded the admins of ARPAnet and NSFnet and the other smaller networks to join in creating the single internet that we know today.

There were a bunch of interesting points passed along by the various speakers, too many to cover, but here are some highlights:

From Tom Lange, the director of Modeling and Simulation R&D at Proctor and Gamble, we learned about the challenges of creating computer models of the flow and absorption of non-newtonian fluids on a porous substrate, and why that’s important to the design of Pampers. P&G apparently funds research at Los Alamos and Argonne national labs, among others.
From Sebastian Thrun, a scientist at Stanford and Google, we saw videos of automated cars negotiating Lombard Street in San Francisco and one-and-a-half-lane mountain roads with oncoming trucks. He says that in 250,000 miles logged on California roads, they have had only one accident, when the car was rear-ended as it stopped at a red light.
From Kevin Knight, a researcher at USC, we heard about the limits of machine translation and how statistical language analysis can make increasingly good translations of text from one language to another even if it still can’t tell you what the text was about.

These were all fun, but there were two big points made that have to be passed along, too. One is the phenomenal return we’ve seen on government investment in this science (and many others, but the conference wasn’t about them). Samuel Morse’s development of the telegraph was supported by government funding, and so was virtually every aspect of the internet, computers, mobile devices, and communication technologies that have changed all of our lives over the past 20 years.

We take the internet for granted, but there is no sensible reason to do so. The people who made the decisions to make it possible were not corporate buccaneers or rich investors. The necessary investments to make it possible were too risky and too large for the private sector to take on. So the government did. They managed to find private partners to manage important parts of the result, but to imagine it would have happened without government is to live in a fantasy world. Fortunately, your government hadn’t yet been so defanged in 1991 that it couldn’t envision something ambitious (and equally fortunately, George Bush Sr. was persuaded to support it). One speaker said, after accounting for the economic impact of NITRD, “not bad for a bunch of faceless government bureaucrats,” and everyone laughed.

There’s a train station opening up near my house soon. Driving by it recently, I thought about how much I am looking forward to its opening and how seldom I get a chance to express some pride in the workings of our government. The people who imagine that government can do no good have had the upper hand in our politics for the past 30 years. Even when Democrats hold office, discussions of what government can do is dominated by the limitations in resources imposed by the starvation resulting from decades of tax cuts to rich people. Our ambition to use government to improve our lives has been squeezed out of public discussion. But here it is in 2012, you are reading this text electronically. While you thank one of those faceless government bureaucrats for that improvement in your life, you might also wonder what equally astonishing innovations have been squeezed out of your future by the fashionable austerity that rules our days in 2012.

What’s the other important point to make? Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn were at the conference, too. Together, they invented TCP/IP, the communication protocol that makes all this internetworking possible, and not a few other communication innovations along the way. Cerf introduced Al Gore, who gave the keynote address after lunch, and pointed out three or four different ways the internet might not have happened at all without intervention, support, and initiative from the geeky Congressman and then Senator from Tennessee. Aside from the Gore Bill itself, Cerf recounted a hearing in 1986 about the national supercomputing centers, then a half-dozen or so universities and research institutions around the country with supercomputing facilities. At the hearing Senator Gore asked, “Would it be a good idea to link the supercomputing facilities with a fiber-optic network?” According to Cerf, the question took everyone by surprise, but it resulted in a three-day meeting in California six months later where they decided the answer was “yes.” So that’s the other point: the next time you hear an Al Gore joke about the internet, know that you’re listening to someone who was taken in by press malfeasance in 2000.

How did that joke really happen? It sounds ridiculous, but this is how: Gore made a completely accurate claim in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN and a few days later, Michelle Mittelstadt of the Associated Press restated it for him, exaggerating his meaning. The restatement was restated again by Lou Dobbs on CNN, with some flourishes stolen from a press release by Jim Nicholson, the Republican National Committee chair. That was repeated and further embroidered by the press many zillion times, sometimes mindlessly and sometimes maliciously, and the result was that Al Gore lost that election — the imagination reels — and I have a joke that can make you click on this post. Isn’t history fascinating?