There has been a lot of talk about locking down the Internet and throttling back speeds and controlling access. The size of your bank account would gain you more access than others. Or if backed by a large corporation you would get more service. Well today that threat might have been partially neutralized by the statements of the highest lawmaker.
Clear and firm net neutrality rules would leave the Internet open to the people and not have one set of users favored over another. Obama has called for the reclassification of access such as broadband service to be under Title II, meaning that those service providers can be held accountable in the same way as the telephone companies. This levels the playing field blocking paid prioritized access, throttling and no right to block users access.
This applies to the grydscaen series in the way the gridscan is accessed in the novels. The government has free reign to control who can access what. The City has better access than the Echelons since they are citizens and what the government terms as a higher “class” of people. One minister in the palace in grydscaen: tribute actually calls people from the Echelons “trash” in the short story Rogue.
The hackers in grydscaen in the Echelons have to do just that, hack into the gridscan because they could not access it otherwise with what is available readily. They use powerful NEK hardline terminals to hack in using senso gloves and headgear that allows they to view the virtual reality view of the network.
With this statement today about net neutrality from the highest levels of the American government, this is a breakthrough moment that has implications for the FCC and mobile device platforms. This brings a movement together having spoken up and not remain silent.
The actions of the hackers in grydscaen are just that because the government, the City and the Zone Police along with the corporations that support them with ZenZen the head of the Corporation leading the charge have virtually restricted the network from everyday people who are starving in the Echelons. The hackers like the Packrats leak government secrets and provide access to news and information opening up sites by any means necessary to enable people to get information.
In other places like the Atlantea Federation this is all locked down with throttling, blocking and paid access only available to the highest levels of society and corporate backed entities. The Atlantea Federation even inflicted an entertainment ban in the Inlan Islands which they occupy locking people out of gridscan access.
Net neutrality is a movement and laws have always been behind technology. With the statements today we can take a sigh of relief that censorship by big media and corporations has lost some of its foothold. In other countries like China there are restrictions on media and people can not access all the information that is available. State run sites are highly monitored as well as web traffic and it is subversive to visit certain places on the web.
Grydscaen shows what happens when you lock something down. Activits and hackers will find a way to circumvent those controls and make that access available. The Packrats do that by any means necessary with the Terror Hack broadcasting corporate secrets and government information out for everyone to see. They are making a statement that those restrictions that certain companies place on data can be thwarted and they will make your laundry airable for all to see.
Grydscaen makes a commentary about net neutrality in the pages of the story. Some stories in grydscaen: tribute like “Data Feed” show the going price for information and exactly how Faid can get past the controls and make the data available to a data messenger on the black market. Knowledge is power and the more knowledge you have the more powerful you are. All Hail the Packrat Code!
