30 years ago, the activists of the US Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) moved their headquarters from Cambridge, Massachusetts to the capital Washington DC. At the same time they started lobbying for a national telecommunications infrastructure with a campaign called “The Open Platform”. Many people who supported the EFF as an organization for freedom of expression and electronic civil rights took it amiss. The pro-industry lobbying work was essentially propagated by EFF founder Mitch Kapor.
What is missing: In the fast-paced world of technology, there is often the time to re-sort all the news and background information. At the weekend we want to take it, follow the side paths away from the current, try different perspectives and make nuances audible.
Without return channel passive sofa potatoes
At the “Demo” computer conference organized by Stewart Alsop II in Indian Wells shortly before the Superbowl, he presented the reasons why the EFF is committed to ISDN as the next best medium of a new communication culture. “If we don’t have a feedback channel and people only consume TV, cable TV and videos, they become passive sofa potatoes. So we never get active, democratic, open communication that leaves nobody behind and disadvantages. If they have a feedback channel, they take it maybe their camcorder and do their thing or communicate with each other”.
Cover of the EFF brochure
The reorientation with which the EFF, which was founded in 1990 after a police action, moved into the bacon belt of lobby organizations was based on paper The OpenPlatform subtitled “A Proposal by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a National Telecommunications Infrastructure”. It was written by Jerry Berman and Mitch Kapor and was based on the assumption that in the long term a fast, broadband “information highway” would emerge, but that in the short term people would have to set up a somewhat slower, cheaper communication system with a practicable return channel in the form of ISDN.
The EFF paper quoted Ed Markey, Chair of the Telecoms Subcommittee, extensively in a footnote. In 1989 he had demanded that “information services must be created as quickly as possible for all Americans at a cost that society does not divide into information owners and information-less and that does not affect our proven principles of diversity, competition and shared network operators.”
ISDN instead of analogue modem hell – the state as arbiter
In his presentation at the “Demo”, Kapor talked about outdated analogue networks, the 14.4 KB modem hell and explained that the future belongs to digital networks, fiber optic connections and also future wireless networks. He criticized the current rhetoric of the information superhighways and referred to the potential of ISDN, which in the USA was only perceived as a telephony system for companies and banks. It should be used until the set-top boxes of the future catch on. That is sufficient for e-mail, Telnet, FTP and for going through the Usenet, which are the most important activities.
Americans should use ISDN to dial into commercial Internet providers or use “Public Access Unix Systems,” of which there would soon be thousands of offerings. He introduced his audience to WAIS, Eudora and Gopher as key applications. He placed great hopes in the PC industry, which would develop user-friendly applications for navigating the web. in the Interview with Rolling Stoneswhich arose for this reason, Kapor explained that the state should be left out in the development and could at most take on the role of an arbitrator.
