An Expansive Defense Of Internet Freedom
From a Dialog tower, née Suntel.
The cabal at the ITU seems to be losing their effort to bring the Internet under UN control. Which is good, because that’s as terrible an idea as it sounds. Now India is opposing the move, leaving Saudi Arabia, China and Russia as its proponents (which should tell you something). What was most interesting about India was their statement, perhaps the most expansive defense of Internet freedom I’ve heard:
“India feels there should not be a regulation of the Internet,” Rabindra Jha, the deputy director general of India’s telecommunications department, said in an interview. “It should be self regulating. It remains self regulating, like the solar system. Nobody regulates day and night, nobody regulates the year and months. It comes automatically.” (Business Week)
Well, indeed. Most people defend Internet regulation saying that engineers and individuals and the market can self-regulate, but the comparison to the solar system is both picturesque and compelling, especially for non-technical people. I wouldn’t say it’s an accurate comparison necessarily, but better than calling the Internet a set of tubes.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
RT @indica: An Expansive Defense Of Internet Freedom: comparing it to the solar system http://t.co/F6MmlPgA
The alien master race has been on the case for quite some time now. Not to worry, the Internet will be safe thanks to our saviours, who will arrive soon.