I really like reading The Technology Liberation Front, but they’re in serious disarray over Google’s bid to force the 700 MHz band open. The backstory, for those who haven’t been following it: the FCC is about to auction off the last major block of radio frequencies that will become available for ten years or so. They’re particularly delicious frequencies, too, able to penetrate buildings and carry lots of information. Google’s been lobbying the FCC, hoping that the agency will require some or all of the winning licensees to keep their networks open: they’d have to let new services and devices connect instead of getting to pick who connects and what services they offer, the way today’s cellphone companies do.
This has thrown TLF into a tizzy. They’ve responded by providing hefty helpings of hand-wringing, ludicrous potshots, and, yes, some actually reasonable analyses of the situation.
It’s easy to see why they’re going nuts over this: their no-regulation ethos naturally favors big companies throwing their weight around. It’s the market working! But Google is also a big company. And it’s also throwing its weight around. Except this time, the weight is being thrown in the direction favored by those of us who want more regulation — the net neutrality cranks, communists and starry-eyed idealists. It’s a very confusing situation for market triumphalists, and it undercuts a whole class of “let ‘em play ball” arguments.
Consequently we get posts like this one, which is wrong in a number of ways:
Closed networks, or rather networks that aren’t wide-open, offer some significant advantages. Security, for one, is markedly enhanced by a closed or limit-access system. That’s why our national security system, at least those outside the Pentagon’s email servers, are often totally severed from the wide-open internet.
An open network, like the internet itself, is prone to all variety of attacks. By contrast, I’ve never gotten a cell phone virus, something I owe to my cell carrier’s closed system. My phone also seldom crashes, unlike my PC. I owe much of my PC woes to the OS I’m sure, but the various apps I have running are likely not custom made for my particular machine, unlike the apps found on many cell phones.
Let’s think different for a moment and consider Apple. Mac has always been a fairly limitedâif not closedâsystem, yet this walled-garden isn’t seen as an evil. That’s likely because Macs works so well, but its crucial to recognize that much of this is owed to Mac’s closed architecture, something that eliminates many of the variables that plague PCs.
It’s a little funny to see folks that are normally against government paternalism turning around and arguing that we need Verizon to save us from ourselves. But that’s basically what Cord Blomquist is saying.
I think he’s wrong in a number of ways: cell phones are already more susceptible to dangers Mr. Blomquist is worried about than he realizes. However, the danger is minimal, both for engineering and economic reasons, neither of which are likely to be significantly affected by open networks. And even if they were, the openness of the network would allow consumers to select technologies that avoid these problems, while retaining the windfall in innovation that even Mr. Blomquist acknowledges.
Not all cell phones are closed software platforms. Many cheap ones are, but that’s certainly not true of the smart phones that are getting less expensive and more popular — yet you don’t hear many complaints about malware from Treo and Windows Mobile users, despite their ability to install third party software without getting permission from their carriers. Nor are the entirely-closed platforms all that secure: there are tons of bluetooth-based attacks out there, and there are a number of exploits already available for the iPhone (most related to vulnerabilities in Safari).
But you don’t really have to worry about people taking advantage of them, because while these exploits can be used to annoy a phone’s owner, they aren’t much good for making money. And it’s the entrepreneurial hackers that are the ones you have to fear — folks who enrich themselves with distributed denial of service attacks that hold websites for ransom, or who enslave armies of infected zombie machines to send out untraceable Viagra-hawking spam.
Cell phones aren’t a very good target for DDoSing or enlistment in zombie hoards. They’re underpowered, connected to slow networks, turned off some of the time, have limited battery life, and are owned by people who will notice a sudden spike in network usage as soon as their monthly bill arrives. Nor are cellphones particularly easy to infect — there’s no ActiveX Mobile Edition, they frequently use optimizing proxies, and phones don’t have much need for leaving ports open. They’ve got fewer vectors for infection and fewer capabilities that are useful for evildoers. There’s not much reason for a hacker to go after them when easier and more attractive prey is available elsewhere.
On the question of stability, Mr. Blomquist is right about Apple benefiting from a relatively closed system. This is also why game consoles can generally avoid crashing: it’s a lot easier to create a stable operating system if you don’t have to support every dodgy piece of third-party add-on hardware under the sun. But of course cell phones already do support a few kinds of peripherals — bluetooth headsets and GPS units come to mind. And they already do spread their software systems across diverse hardware platforms, as Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile and the J2ME stack have to be implemented on varying handsets. And, contrary to Mr. Blomquist’s assumption, software developed for phones by third parties is typically created for a generic platform, not a specific handset. Cell phones have competing platforms, processor families and operating systems — the environment surrounding these apps is more similar to the one facing computers than Mr. Blomquist thinks.
The bottom line is that mobiles already have to deal with some hardware and software diversity, but are unlikely to ever have to struggle with the level that’s given Windows its awful reputation. And hey, if any device can attach to the network, consumers can just leave a flaky software implementation for a better one — no contract-breaking required! It’s the market in action! Doesn’t that sound great?
Besides, using the PC as an example of openness gone awry is an odd gambit. Despite what’s generally considered to be obviously inferior technology — both in hardware and the software written for it — the openness of PCs translated into such huge advantages in cost and ability to innovate that the platform decimated the competition. Those savings and the computing ubiquity they afforded gave birth to the open source movement and the consumer internet revolution. I love what my Mac does for me, but I’m astounded by what the PC platform did for the world.
But the silliest part comes here:
While an open wireless network is intriguing and could create a platform for unique innovations, limited networks will still offer stability, compatibility, security, and privacy and should be allowed to compete.
Well, okay, sure. But who’s stopping closed networks from competing? They’ve got huge swaths of network already, and we have scores of mobile vendors; existing players can and will keep their closed systems. If the advantages they offer are as great as Mr. Blomquist maintains, I’m sure they’ll be able to carve out a comfortable niche for themselves — perhaps in the same way Apple has.
Yes, I’m sure Google’s fighting for open networks for its own selfish reasons. But at the moment Google’s interests seem to line up with my own pretty well. So I say we give openness a try. I’m pretty confident that it’ll be recognized as hugely advantageous to consumers. I imagine that many of the telcos’ advocates think so, too — they wouldn’t be complaining half so loudly if they didn’t.