To me, switching away from Blitzmail means giving up on the beautiful dream of a decentralized, community-maintained cyberspace. For those of you who don’t know, Dartmouth’s Taskforce on E-mail and Collaboration Tools (TEC-T) is reviewing two possibilities for the future of Dartmouth email: Google Apps and Microsoft Online Services, both services offered free of charge. The taskforce plans to make a recommendation by May 25th, and the transition could begin as early as June. Switching to one of these services will mean that our email will no longer be hosted on Dartmouth-owned servers. It also means the software powering our email system—including the clients we run on our own computers—will no longer be built and maintained by Dartmouth staff and other community members.

The switch makes a lot of sense in light of budget cuts; running our own mail servers and maintaining our own custom email software is expensive. By switching to Google or Microsoft, the school will save some money and we students will likely enjoy more storage space and an email client that feels more modern.

Nonetheless, there’s something sad about the switch away from Blitzmail, and not just because it represents the death of a part of our beloved “Dartmouth experience.” To me, the Internet represents a place where there is room for everyone—a place where Walmart will never be the only store in town. Only on the Internet is the cost of entry so low, and the accessibility of niche communities so high that every single mom and pop can set up shop and find success, whether that success is measured in dollars or Twitter followers. The Internet is a place where we can escape the cold, impersonal behemoth of American capitalist monopolies.

And yet Google and Microsoft, the Walmarts of the Internet, are replacing a home-grown email system that we just don’t have the money to maintain any longer. It’s time to move on to the shiny new corporate-controlled email 2.0. It’s probably for the best. I’m ready to accept the future, but I still think we should take a minute to realize that we have given up on claiming a distinct space on the Internet. We’ve given the world just a bit more reason to stop chasing the dream of a decentralized, community-maintained cyberspace.

Internet censorship is bad. Image courtesy of Melissa at http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissa/293920852/sizes/o/.

McCain introduced a bill on October 22nd that makes non-neutral network service by major ISPs explicitly legal. This could be an article about the right-wing propaganda surrounding net neutrality, and the corruption that’s driving it.  I could talk about how nowhere in any pro-network neutrality legislation is there room for anything even remotely like “government takeover of the internet.”  I could also talk about how McCain, a man who has publicly stated that he does not know how to use a computer, is the single largest beneficiary of telecommunications and internet service company lobbying money. Addressing these issues requires no carefully thought-out argument; they’re clearly absurd.

Instead, I’ll tell you exactly what net neutrality is and why it is so important. Net neutrality means that internet service providers (ISPs) treat all websites equally. In the political arena, net neutrality usually refers to legislation making it illegal for ISPs to give preferential treatment to some websites.
For example, imagine that your ISP decides that they want to make a little extra money. They’ve been laying some new lines that will greatly increase the speed of their service, but they haven’t started using them yet.

They approach big companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, asking them to pay up for exclusive access to the new fast lane. Domino’s has the money, so they get in the fast lane, while Joe’s Humble Pizza Joint, where they just got a spiffy new online delivery service up and running, stays in the slow lane.  
Maybe Domino’s pays your ISP a little extra to take Joe’s Humble Pizza Joint out of the picture.  

Or maybe your ISP, as it expands into new areas, offers a two-tiered network service, where access to the big names is the baseline, and access to Mom and Pop websites costs extra.

Network Neutrality legislation would make what your ISP is trying to do illegal. Network Neutrality is not about government regulation of the Internet—no agency or committee is being created here. We just want one simple law stating that ISPs are not allowed to give preferential treatment to certain websites.
“But the internet is already free—surely bringing the government into this will only fuck things up” Well, the internet is mostly free. In recent years, we have seen the scary beginnings of non-neutral network service.  For example, Comcast, one of the most popular ISPs, currently prevents its users from seeding torrents.
“But OMFG Bittorrent is piracy!  You wouldn’t steal a car, would you?!?!” Bittorent is a protocol for downloading files, just like http (the protocol for downloading web pages), and it can be used to distribute content legally and illegally.

Imagine that you and your friend had watched Wayne’s World a few too many times and you decide film a television show in your parents’ basement. You’re just doing it for fun and don’t have an agent or extra money, so the best way to get your “shwing” out to the masses is to publish online (where it would be cost-free).  

You create a website at wordpress.com and publish your videos on YouTube, but you want to make high-quality downloads available so that people can see your ripped pant legs in High Def at home. You consider buying server space so that you can host the videos yourself, but serving large video files is incredibly expensive and the price increases proportionally to the number of downloads.  In other words, the more popular you are, the more expensive it will be to make your content available. You may even put your videos out with a Creative Commons license that allows free, legal, noncommercial sharing and remixing.  You want people to see your show and mess around with it by creating remixes with dancing hamsters, but the server fees are too damned expensive.

Bittorrent is your answer; it allows downloaders around the world to voluntarily “seed” your high-quality videos at no cost to you.  The more popular your videos are, the more seeds, and the faster the downloads will be (while the cost to you remains free). It enables your Mom and Pop (or, in this case, Wayne and Garth) operation to thrive by harnessing the ability of the Internet to connect everyone equally.
This is what Network Neutrality legislation is hoping to protect. Television is already largely useless because of major commercial interests that turn news into a puppet show controlled by large corporations pushing their products and their political agendas.  
The Internet is uniquely suited to egalitarian treatment because the publishing costs are so low.  
While Mom and Pop’s Brick and Mortar Store is being put out of business by Wal-Mart, we still have a chance to keep momandpop.com online.

“The Gospel According to Matthew” by Matthew Ritger ‘10 from the October 9th issue of the D opened up the floodgates to a tsunami of letters and conversations about rush and the Greek system in general. The anti-Greek article used anecdotes to pull at the reader’s heartstrings and spark dialogue. Matthew started a blog, changedartmouth.blogspot.com, so that he could share all of the email responses that he received—both in favor of and against his article. Two of the letters are from female students who describe being raped by fraternity brothers and place at least some part of the blame on the fraternity system itself. If that doesn’t spark dialogue, I don’t know what will.

This article is just another wake in the torrent of writing on the Greek system. I say keep ‘em coming. Let’s start a fucking storm.

Our Greek system is central to social life on campus, so it is seldom strongly challenged by most students. The predominant campus attitude is that going to frat parties and eventually rushing a house is simply what people do. People rush “just to check it out” (as if they hadn’t been checking it out for the past year) and pledge because “they seem like a pretty cool group of people.” Even worse, people inside and outside of the system are very reluctant to voice their criticisms—any sort of anti-Greek speech is taboo. I have had countless conversations with students who have spoken pleasantly about the Greek system until I revealed my problems with it. Then their complaints poured out. Heck, the taboo is so strong that I’ve been pulling my hair out writing this article and worrying that it will make everybody hate me.

To those students who have pledged: Think like an activist for a second. Take issue with obvious problems. Be honest with yourselves. Did the ooey-gooey feeling of getting a bid—a statement that you have more merit than others not because of something that you have done, but because of who you are—play a role in your decision to pledge, even though you “only rushed to check it out?” If so, do you think this is a problem?

Do you have any major problems with the system that you fund with your membership dues? Do you find that, at least in some cases, your house facilitates sexism, homophobia, alcoholism, negative body image, or even violence and rape? What have you done about these problems? What are you going to do?

Many of you are great friends and awesome people. All I ask is that you carefully consider things. Talk about it. Don’t let the taboo keep you from airing your concerns—talk honestly and openly about where you stand.

And for all those unaffiliated students, including ‘13s, you can be activists too. If you’re fed up with the Greek scene, what are you doing to create alternativesocial spaces? Are you still supporting frat culture by showing up at frat parties on Friday and Saturday nights? If you plan to rush, are you merely considering it because everyone else is?

Just stop and think. Look around you the next time you’re in a frat basement. Read every single entry at changedartmouth.blogspot.com. Write and submit your own anonymous letter. Start a conversation.
Make waves. Be the change.