Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008: Why You Should Care

For non-Americans out there, this is slightly less relevant, but not entirely unremarkable, as your country may soon implement something like this as well. It's called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, and it is important to you, whether you know it or not. While, on the whole, I am incredibly skeptical about any regulation of the internet, this is something that I feel is increasingly necessary.

Lake gives a nice summary of the bill, which follows:

The full text is actually very short so I encourage you to read its entirety.

It has three main points:

First to amend the 1934 Communications Act to include some policies which state that "to maintain the freedom to use for lawful purposes broadband telecommunications networks, including the Internet, without unreasonable interference from or discrimination by network operators" is a good thing. And similar statements.

Second to require the FCC to assess various things such as how harmful the restrictions providers apply to a user's network connection are. F'ex Comcast forging 'reset' packets to break BitTorrent.

Third to require the FCC to hold multiple summits on the topic, include a wide range of input (including on the internet as well as live events), and report the results to congress.

This has impact on us, the gamers and downloaders, in a couple of key ways. First, it will presumably preclude ISPs from shutting down torrent transfers. I know that many game clients (WoW, for one) and other legal software use torrent downloads to get their product to their market. As Lake mentions, there are ISPs out there who will force these downloads to stop using forged reset packets. In my personal opinion, even if the claim is to stop illegal software and media transfer, the blocking of this by the ISP itself represents a stripping of privileges that they frankly should not be allowed to undertake. Additionally, if you've tried to mail me at my eve-mail.net address and I haven't gotten back to you, I apologize, but I think my ISP is blocking port 25, preventing me from accessing my SMTP server. Finally, I have heard many cases from friends in the UK of ISPs throttling connections to game servers, including EVE.

While this bill would not help my immediate e-mail issue (since I am in Japan at the moment) or those gamers in the UK, it will have an impact on preventing these things from happening to American internet users in the future. Please, read the full text, and, should you feel so inclined, write your congressional representative and sign up on OpenCongress to vote the bill up.

Real World Political Theory and EVE

More than any other MMO I have played in recent memory, EVE Online lends itself to the application of real world political and economic theory. CCP clearly shares this belief, as they recently hired on a real life economist to handle Quarterly Economic Newsletters for the EVE economy. With factional warfare coming up in the near future (I hope...), I would like to see CCP put a similar amount of effort into the development and analysis of the political landscape of New Eden.

NPC politics are one of the little utilized gameplay elements that CCP have total control over, and I think developing the nature of those relationships between the various NPC factions, even so far as to dictate how they will interact with various player factions, would make the game feel more like an RP rich environment (sans robes), and less like a wax museum that we are all playing around in. This has always been a sticking point for me in EVE. Players are usually forced to choose between NPC and RP politics, and the power play politics of territorial conflict. Even famed roleplayers like CVA have had to compromise their hard-line RP stance for the sake of 0.0 politics. There may not be much, if anything, for CCP to do about that dilemma, but I seem to remember a time when player factions and NPC factions had a more interactive relationship (MC's long standing rivalry with Mordu's Legion over non-payment for a contract comes to mind). More richly developed NPC politics would make PC and NPC interaction much more attractive to those alliances and groups out there who would like to RP more, but don't want to be saddled with the stigma and the fact that it means excluding play with a large chunk of the EVE populace.

My solution would be for CCP to utilize existing staff, or potentially hire new outsiders, to beef up the application of real world political philosophy and theory to the New Eden cluster. In my view, the best theory to apply to EVE politics at the moment is Neo-Realism. This is the theory that argues that states will pursue their own interests and gauge success in the ability to pursue those interests primarily through military power, but that there is also a sort of governing structure that states act through. At the moment, we have large mega-alliances amongst the players, and the NPC factions have established CONCORD to serve a presumably similar function to our UN. I think that we are prevented from moving on to a more contemporary theory such as Complex Interdependence by some of the mechanics of the game, i.e. a lack of fear of death and the relative ease of replacing and amassing military assets. To a group thinking in a realist paradigm, interdependence after a certain point shows weakness and is a potential security risk (see BoB and the MC).

NPC factions, however, cannot reasonably behave the same was as capsuleers. For normal NPCs, there is a legitimate fear of death, and my understanding of the game background is that individual capsuleers are far more wealthy than most non-capsuleers. This means that acquisition of the means of making war is a long and costly process for the five (including the Jove) empires. What I would like to see is the representation of a more realistic type of politics governing the interaction between these NPC factions. Having some of the pirate states declare additional empires and demand CONCORD recognition could be a very interesting twist on the game, and could change some of the political landscape for everyone. Also, it is unlikely that the major empires will willingly engage in total war with one another. Economic means of fighting one's enemy have always been part of the fabric of conflict, and are, I feel, under-represented in the game background. This isn't to say that I don't think there should be some nice epic battles when Factional Warfare does eventually roll out, but CCP is looking at a chance to dramatically increase the depth and realism that their world presents.

CCP, please make me a prettier sandbox.

2008 Predictions

Because every self-respecting blog should have one, here is my list of predictions for this year, in no particular order other than that in which they entered my brain:

• BoB will be dug out of Delve, albeit perhaps slowly. Following this, there will be cries of "We planned it all at the barbecue of 33 AD. We got kicked out of the banquet room for some other schmucks."Following this, there will be a brief period of the homeless BoB that people have come to fear, but unless they find some territory to take root in rather quickly, they will go the way of D2, ASCN, LV, and so many others. There is no significant evidence, other than the self-righteous ramblings of the high level BoB members to convince me otherwise at this time.

• BoB' Departure from 0.0 will not create a power vacuum. Instead, it will create a war vacuum. Many alliances have thrown their entire operation into the effort of preparing for the massive struggle that we are now witnessing. These sides are still self-interested, and are not terribly likely to just peacefully go on their way once BoB is toppled. Expect boat violence between the Morsus Mihi lead North, and the Pax Goonia of the South.
  

• The North itself will continue its current path to stabilization, provided Triumvirate don't decide that they want another go.
  

• The drone regions are prime to see a big power emerge. Smashkill has been on the road to that, but has hit some stumbling blocks, recently, namely RA. My prediction is that 2008 will see a major power rise up in this region, potentially enough to form a coherent coalition to take on the rest.
  

• Tortuga will face at least one serious attempt to remove them from their new home. This may come from the displaced BoB, or bored Goons, but it will happen, and there should be a good show when it does.
  

• CAOD will continue to be a cesspit, just like it always has been.
  

"But, Crovan!" I hear you say, "What about your prediction and hope for small-scale warfare returning to the game at large this year? Isn't a lot of this mutually exclusive to that?"

The short answer is no. The long answer is that this amalgamation of power blocs around the game, and their coming together and beating the piss out of each other is a long and time-honored tradition in the game, but in between, there are periods of relative stasis while the powers all set up their pieces, annex new territories, and bully their neighbors. In these times, the mercenary thrives. Given that I am, at my core, and internet spaceship mercenary, I can't help but hope we'll see it again before returning to BLOB: Online.

Credit to Exekias for the "Sign of the Apocalypse" image.

The End of BoB and the Last Superstate.

Forgive the shameless ripping off of Francis Fukuyama, but I find the title rather appropriate given the struggle between the mega-alliances seems to be coming to a close. Churchill rip-offs by SirMolle aside, BoB is really on the ropes, and they may have their Thermopylae or their Alamo, but sadly the Spartans and the Texans lost those battles, and unlike those battles, there is no main bulk of the forces lying somewhere over the horizon to rush in and finish the war after the heroic sacrifice. When BoB is done, that's it. Granted, they will most likely live on, at least for awhile, but, despite the claims of undying brotherhood and whatnot, no alliance of that size that was bereft of space has long survived.

So, once BoB has been removed as a territorial entity, which, barring some miracle, must now be taken as an eventuality, the south will be rather firmly in the hands of what is now known as the Southern Coalition. My prediction is that, once things settle down, this coalition will show a few cracks, and trim some fat, but we are unlikely to see the major players go at each other. With the spoils of this war, both RA and Goons simply have too much to lose by fighting each other.

What will happen, then. Is this the "end of history" that Fukuyama predicted, on the EVE scale? My prediction is that, just like the real world, we have not reached the end of history. Pax Goonia is not the end state of EVE politics. In my opinion, the most likely course of action is the setting up of a new North vs. South sort of arrangement. The Northern Coalition and RSF are not terribly likely to stay friendly for too long, and we may well kick off another Cold War style conflict for the next year or so.

My hope is that the result will be a number of single-region entities, or regions divided among entities, which will lead to a lot more small-scale conflict and more work for filthy space mercenaries like myself. This, however, is rather unlikely to come to pass within the next 6 months, or even the next year, still, a guy can hope.