From: rcgraves@ix.netcom.com (Rich Graves)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 23:22:16 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Interesting article on ATM in Wired (of all places)
Message-ID: <199610220622.XAA26959@Networking.Stanford.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Since I ordinarily do nothing but bash the journal of hype and unreadable
blue-on-orange type, I figured I should express appreciation for Steve
Steinberg's "Netheads vs. Bellheads" article starting on page 145 of the
October issue. The ATM v. real networks battle is one that is becoming
increasingly important at gads of institutions, such as mine. In addition
to economic efficiency, there are civil liberties reasons to favor the
current packet-switched technology over circuit-switched bit-mangling. The
nexus on this technical front isn't as tight as it is on the encryption
front, but I'd urge people in positions of technical or budgetary
responsibility to line up with the good guys, i.e., us netheads. You don't
want an Internet controlled by ATM technology. It would make censorship,
wiretapping, and other forms of nastiness by government and other armed
thugs far too easy. I'm speaking only for myself, of course, and of course
there are technical reasons I'd prefer to implement gigabit Ethernet as
well. 

The leader "Why the net should grow up" in the October 19th issue of _The
Economist_, whose net reporting has improved markedly with the addition of
some new staff, may also be of interest. Some overlaps with the Wired
article, though the writers probably weren't technically savvy enough to
realize that they were talking about the same thing. More comments on that
when I find time. 

-rich