E-Budget Days Long Past
Budget Day here in the UK. Brings out the nostalgia in me for when this was the biggest day in the Internet calendar over here.
Ten years ago ISP pioneer UUNET used posting of the budget speech online as a demonstration of its bandwidth muscle.
In those dial-up, pre-ADSL days big document downloads took yonks or crashed in the process. UUNET struck a deal with the Treasury and the Beeb (I recall) to upload the full speech onto a dedicated webpage for easy downloads. Our job was to promote the service and encourage journalists to use the web page.
All sounds very quaint today alongside Budget promises on broadband for all etc. And UUNET is now consumed within Verizon, following the collapse of Worldcom.
Snail Mail'll Get You!
New anti-piracy initiative between UK ISPs and the music industry is supposed to have real claws. But somehow the threat of getting a good old fashioned letter in the post to re-educate you doesn’t seem to be that threatening. What’s more ISPs are falling over backwards to say what they won’t do to back up those letters with strong evidence of real wrong-doing e.g. no spying on what their customers get up to. So some deterrent?
