The God of the Internet

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Goldsmith ◽  
Tim Wu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Human Operators ◽  
The Right ◽  
E Mail

If you had met Jon Postel in 1998, you might have been surprised to learn that you were in the presence of one of the Internet’s greatest living authorities. He had a rambling, ragged look, living in sandals and a large, unkempt beard. He lived like a modern-day Obi-Wan Kenobi, an academic hermit who favored solitary walks on the Southern California beach. When told once by a reporter that readers were interested in learning more about his personal life, he answered: “If we tell them, they won’t be interested anymore.” Yet this man was, and had been for as long as anyone could remember, the ultimate authority for assignment of the all-important Internet Protocol (IP) numbers that are the essential feature of Internet membership. Like the medallions assigned to New York City taxicabs, each globally unique number identifies a computer on the Net, determining who belongs and who doesn’t. “If the Net does have a God,” wrote the Economist in 1997, “he is probably Jon Postel.” Jon Postel was a quiet man who kept strong opinions and sometimes acted in surprising ways. The day of January 28, 1998, provided the best example. On that day Postel wrote an e-mail to the human operators of eight of the twelve “name servers” around the globe. Name servers are the critical computers that are ultimately responsible for making sure that when you type a name like google.com you reach the right address (123.23.83.0). On that day Postel asked the eight operators, all personally loyal to Postel, to recognize his computer as the “root,” or, in essence, the master computer for the whole Internet. The operators complied, pointing their servers to Postel’s computer instead of the authoritative root controlled by the United States government. The order made the operators nervous—Paul Vixie, one of the eight, quietly arranged to have someone look after his kids in case he was arrested. Postel was playing with fire. His act could have divided the Internet’s critical naming system into two gigantic networks, one headed by himself, the other headed by the United States. He engineered things so that the Internet continued to run smoothly. But had he wanted to during this critical time, he might have created chaos.

Issues in Using Web-Based Course Resources

2010 ◽  
pp. 1771-1779
Author(s):  
Karen S. Nantz ◽  
Norman A. Garrett
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Course Materials ◽  
Socially Isolated ◽  
Rss Feeds ◽  
E Mail ◽  
The Web

Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error. John Chambers, Cisco Systems, New York Times, November 17, 1990 Web-based courses (Mesher, 1999) are defined as those where the entire course is taken on the Internet. In some courses, there may be an initial meeting for orientation. Proctored exams may also be given, either from the source of the Web-based course or off-site at a testing facility. The Internet-based course becomes a virtual classroom with a syllabus, course materials, chat space, discussion list, and e-mail services (Resmer, 1999). Navarro (2000) provides a further definition: a fully interactive, multimedia approach. Current figures indicate that 12% of Internet users in the United States use the Internet to take an online course for credit toward a degree of some kind (Horrigan, 2006). That number is indicative of the rapid proliferation of online courses over the past several years. The Web-enhanced course is a blend with the components of the traditional class while making some course materials available on a Web site, such as course syllabi, assignments, data files, and test reviews. Additional elements of a Web-enhanced course can include online testing, a course listserver, instructor-student e-mail, collaborative activities using RSS feeds and related technologies, and other activities on the Internet. One of the biggest concerns about Web-based courses is that users will become socially isolated. The Pew Internet and America Life Project found that online communities provide a vibrant social community (Horrigan, Rainie, & Fox, 2001). Clearly, students are not concerned or feel that other benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks. According to government research (Waits and Lewis, 2003), during the 2000-2001 academic year alone, an estimated 118,100 different credit courses were offered via distance education (with the bulk of that using Internet-based methods) by 2- and 4-year institutions in the United States. Over 3 million students were registered in these courses. Navarro (2000) suggests that faculty members are far more likely to start by incorporating Internet components into a traditional course rather than directly offering Web-based courses. These Web-enhanced courses might be considered the transition phase to the new paradigm of Internet-based courses. Rich learning environments are being created, with a shift from single tools to the use of multiple online tools, both to enhance traditional courses and to better facilitate online courses (Teles, 2002).

Acquisition of Nationality in the Emergency Refugee Shelter

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-19
Author(s):  
Albert G. D. Levy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Immigrant Status ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
States Government ◽  
Free Port ◽  
Near Future

Several families now living in the Emergency Refugee Shelter which the United States Government has established at Fort Ontario, in the state of New York, are expecting the birth of children in the near future. Will these children acquire American citizenship jure soli? Does the non-immigrant status of the parents derogate from the privilege of the children? And most important among the numerous questions involved, Does the so-called “refugee free port” constitute the requisite type of American territory?

Considering Precedent in Louisiana: Balancing the Value of Predictable and Certain Interpretation with the Tradition of Flexibility and Adaptability

2013 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Mary Garvey Algero
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Common Law ◽  
New York State ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Stare Decisis ◽  
The Common ◽  
Judicial Opinions ◽  
The Right

Despite the fundamental differences between the doctrines employed in common law and civil law (or mixed) jurisdictions when it comes to the respect paid to prior court decisions and their weight or value, United States courts that follow the common law doctrine of stare decisis have embraced some of the flexibility inherent in the civil law doctrine, and civil law and mixed jurisdictions throughout the world, including Louisiana, that use the doctrine of jurisprudence constante seem to have come to value the predictability and certainty that come with the common law doctrine. This Article suggests that Louisiana courts are striking the right balance between valuing the predictability and certainty of interpretation that comes with a healthy respect for precedent and maintaining the flexibility and adaptability of the law by not strictly considering precedent a source of law. This Article discusses the results of an ongoing examination of the sources of law and the value of precedent in Louisiana. The examination involves a study of Louisiana legislation, Louisiana courts’ writings about the sources of law and precedent, and a survey of Louisiana judges. Part of the examination included reviewing Louisiana judicial opinions on various issues to determine if there were differences in valuing precedent based on area of law or topic. It also included reviewing judicial opinions from the United States Supreme Court and New York state courts to compare these courts’ approaches to the use of precedent with those of the Louisiana courts. The article is based on a paper presented to the Third Congress of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists, which was held in Jerusalem, Israel in June 2011, and the author’s prior writings on the subject.

Tsarist Anti-Semitism and Russian-American Relations

Slavic Review ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann E. Healy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Naturalized Citizens ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Anti Jewish

For over a hundred years the fate of Russian Jews has been of special concern to many Americans. During the first half of this period, tsarist policies toward the Jews were the major irritant in the otherwise comparatively harmonious relations between the United States and Russia. The result was a recurring diplomatic dispute over the Jewish question, the course of which provides a barometer for gauging the changing situation of the Jews in the Russian empire. The dispute centered largely on individual acts of discrimination by Russian officials against Americans. Many of them involved naturalized citizens of Russian origin, most of whom were Jews. Behind the State Department protests on their behalf lay the more complex issue of mounting American indignation at the increasingly difficult situation of Jews in Russia after 1880.American reactions varied from holding public meetings on the issue to exerting pressure on United States government agencies. Former president Ulysses Grant was one of the main initiators of a rally in New York in 1882 protesting anti-Jewish atrocities in Russia. The pogroms received considerable coverage in the Western press: the April 1882 Century, for instance, carried a vivid account of riots that raged for more than twenty-four hours in Elizavetgrad during Easter Week of 1881 and spoke of “world wide sympathy, and a protest almost unprecedented in its swiftness.”

Paradigm Lost: The Dutch Dilemma

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Punch ◽  
Bob Hoogenboom ◽  
Tom Williamson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Zero Tolerance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crime Reduction ◽  
Dutch Society ◽  
Community Oriented Policing ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Right

In the 1970s the Dutch police developed a paradigm of policing that married ideas from the United States on community-oriented policing to a strongly social and democratic role for the police in society. From the early 1990s there was a gradual shift to the right in Dutch society that was reflected in concerns about crime and safety. The paradigm came under scrutiny. Then Dutch officers began to visit New York in considerable numbers and returned with ideas on ‘zero tolerance’. This ‘tough’ approach to crime reduction appears to conflict with Dutch ‘tolerance’ in criminal justice. The paper argues that there is reluctance to abandon that original paradigm, ambivalence about the new concepts from abroad but, above all, an inability to develop a new, comprehensive paradigm. This may well be true elsewhere and we assume that modern policing needs to be based on a well-thought paradigm on the police role in society.

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