I've been watching the "let's block Skype on Campus" story bubble for the past week or so wondering how it will shake out. The impact on this is far greater that the campus, as it has the makings of being one of the landmark turning points on "Net Neutrality" because this involves a state supported network, a university and freedom, or the right to use whatever anyone wants to use over the "public" Internet.
Russell Shaw has pretty much painted the picture of how backwards the university is, labeling them ludites. What's amazing is this is happening in a university of higher learning in the center of Silicon Valley, where plenty of input could easily be obtained. Sure it's a known fact that Skype punches holes in security systems. Pal Om quoted client and Peerio inventor Dmitry Goroshevsky on this matter over two years ago.
But what's scary here is if it's Skype this week will it be Yahoo, AOL, Gizmo, SightSpeed and others tomorrow. What's even more ironic is that SIPPHONE's Michael Robertson over two years ago started the University Peering Program so universities have had an option to provide their students an option that's manageable and secure. However in the two years that "Golden Boy" has had the network concept up and running, only 10 have joined in.
When the subject of Net Neutrality arises, we often hear about the fear of the carriers blocking, but now with these bastions of higher learning working in the dark ages, it's obvious we need the Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyds of technology to come to the forefront and show everyone just what could happen if we do things wrong.
This other post along similar lines by Russell could also apply at the University level if we don't all shoot for the Open Net!
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