I posted this on an internal list, and thought it would be a good idea to make it public.

Finally I think I've done most of the fussing with my servers, and I actually backed up and turned off the server that was causing all the problems. It's work is now distributed among three servers. Seems likely that I'll have enough bandwidth.

And since the AFP app was unplugged by AFP, I now have the freedom to move that server. They were sending the pictures to a fixed IP address, if I ever moved it I would have lost the pics.

After all this fussing I now see what nirvana would be...

An integrated web server, registrar and DNS.

Without all the ads and upsell and pictures of female gymnasts.

The whole thing in one package, where you configure the sub-domains in the same place as you say where their content is served from and how it is served. One Get Info panel where you set it all up.

The difficulty in all this is all the different places you have to go and that have to agree with each other in order for anything to work. That's also where the fragility comes from.

And a reduction of the number of concepts you have to master. Most of them are irrelevant vestiges of the way some engineer who's probably dead used to think about this stuff before anyone understood it.

 12/4/2010; 9:45:54 AM.   .

Yesterday's piece on Wikileaks really connected.

Lots of links (thanks!), but perhaps the most interesting to me, was the roundup posted at Berkman Center, quoting Ethan Zuckerman, Rebecca Mackinnon and myself. I think a lot about Berkman these days, and wonder if this was the event it was founded for.

Its full name is Berkman Center for Internet and Society. This one lands on Berkman's desk, I'm afraid.

Is it time to "do something" to create a haven for the free web?

Would the school form a legal braintrust to work on this? Could it happen, or is it hopeless? Do all lawyers want to work in government, and therefore would be working against their own interests if Wikileaks found a safe place to operate?

We now understand that we can't look to the tech industry or even the Library of Congress. The tech industry more or less failed the neutrality test, and the LOC has failed the unwritten code of librarians everywhere. They had a tough choice, no doubt, as part of the US government (think of their name, they take it seriously) they were obligated to maintain its confidentiality, but as librarians, they had an obligation to provide access to the information. I have a feeling that if you're a member of Congress, you can access the info. But the people, whom the government serves, may not enter.

Twitter, who I often am critical of, is singular in not banning Wikileaks. Good for them and thanks.

It makes sense that Switzerland, long the exemplar of neutrality, and the birthplace of the web, would also stand by Wikileaks.

Ron Paul, alone, in the government -- speaks up for Julian Assange.

I think of my friend and former boss, John Palfrey, who is now responsible for the Harvard Law School library. He has the same decision to make that the LIbrary of Congress had, I assume.

And when you think about the future-safety our writing, remember that it must be safe against a future where the government is even less perfect that the government of today. Sending archives into deep space doesn't seem too wacky when you think in those terms. Very deep space.

It's a perfect storm if you're a tech guy, a political guy and a writer, such as myself. Seems to me this is the kind of problem Berkman was founded to work on. I know they have moved in a different direction, but the Internet and Society need us now.

To paraphrase JFK: Ask not what the Internet can do for you, ask what you can do for the Internet.

 12/4/2010; 5:28:34 AM.   .