Protect the European Internet industry from Copyright Hawks

BackChannel strongly supports Telcom TVs "Throttle the Package" campaign, we ask that you do too and that you sign the petition to get it stopped.

Check it out; because if EU legislation proposed for passage into law in September goes through; your kids could get you and your family 'permanently' removed from the Internet.

With three aged between 6 and 15, the chance that they will stupidly download a song or watch a copyrighted clip on Youtube which could result in me permanently losing access to the Internet, and changing my life, is a real issue.

Having bamboozeled the French government, and the lunch time o'boozers in Brussels, the US copyright hawks are finally winning the war to end the principle of network as a conduit; a principle that has previously protected the personal privacy and human rights of the individual, and ensured that ISPs are not forced to act as on-line content police for the media industry.

If you're an ISP think what it would do to your business if you're forced to monitor the traffic on your networks and maybe hand over your customers details in order that they can be permanently remove from the online world.

Sub-sea Cabling Map

I spent an hour sorting out various service providers network maps this afternoon, and found this one that is rather good.

Global Submarine Cable Map 2007

In a world that is becoming more IT dependent it highlights the lack of redundancy in the global network of sub-sea cabling.