This Week In Techdirt History: February 15th - 21st

from the reporting-on-reporting dept

Five Years Ago

In the past five years, we've been convinced that Title II is a necessary step in the right direction for net neutrality — but back in 2010, we still holding out hope that the problem could be solved purely with competition. Nonetheless, we could already see the utter ridiculousness of most anti-regulation arguments and the bad behaviour of ISPs, from warning about the death of iPhones to blocking broadband stimulus efforts or favoring marketing lawsuits over service improvement. And we weren't convinced when the FCC chair said that Google Fiber represents enough viable competition.

These were also the early days of the New York Times paywall, when folks were still debating its fundamental structure and studying the question of how willing people are to pay for content online. Meanwhile the Times itself, like many other publishers, was attempting to sell people an expensive iPad edition (despite the obvious fact that pretty much all the same things can be done on the web). To some, the future of journalism was more about curation, or maybe even pay-what-you-want.

The USTR's infamous Special 301 report came out this week in 2010, and for the first time included an open comment system which we promptly utilized. It was nice and all, but it's really time to scrap the program altogether. And if you want to talk about copyright, maybe look at Public Knowledge's sensible ideas for reform.

Ten Years Ago

The future of digital journalism was even less clear this week in 2005. Some newspapers thought the best approach was to keep lots of content offline. The New York Times, for its part, bought About.com (since sold to Barry Diller's IAC). Of course, iPad editions weren't exactly an issue yet — at this time, analysts were still arguing about the distinction between PDAs and smartphones. That didn't stop lots of companies from pushing mobile TV, though, and while we still weren't sure how big of a draw it that would really be, we were happy to see Showtime start experimenting with straightforward online streaming.

This was the year that SHA-1 encryption was broken. Unfortunately, a decade later it's still in widespread use — though most companies are on track to deprecate it by 2017.

Also in 2005: some states were rejecting red light cameras while others were demonstrating their problems, an Italian DJ was fined over a million euros for his MP3 collection, a tattoo artist sued the NBA for showing his artwork, manufacturers were starting to make ultra-cheap phones for developing nations while companies at home were jumping on the gadget giveaway bandwagon, and we were catching on to the practice of UK libel tourism.

Fifteen Years Ago

Ah, 2000 — the not-exactly-dawn of the new millennium, and a time of much philosophizing and prophesying about technology. The New York Times (popular this week) realized we were stuck with the internet for better or worse; Forbes opined on the parallels between the internet and railroads; Salon debunked the idea that the internet makes us lonely; and everyone was trying to have their say about the wireless future. Some people were tackling more immediate, practical questions: does internet sex count as prostitution? Should married couples share an email address? Are online customers less loyal? And, critically, should Jeeves answer questions about sex?

Oh, and there was one very notable release this week in 2000: the original version of The Sims.

Sixty-Nine & Thirty-Seven Years Ago

We've got two milestones in the history of the internet and computing this week. First, on February 15th, 1946, the ENIAC was formally dedicated. It was the world's first general-purpose electronic computer, containing 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints according to Wikipedia.

Next, just a few decades later, after a snowstorm gave them few options other than cabin fever or feverish engineering, two Chicago men launched CBBS, the world's first bulletin board system on February 16th, 1978.

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Filed Under: history, look back