How much would a government internet suck?

[Terror Australis]

Do you remember what AOL was like ?

[Brooklyn Red Leg]

Blargh, don't remind me of the days of AOHell back in '95.

[Terror Australis]

Blargh, don't remind me of the days of AOHell back in '95.

If you have an internet drivers licence what will they fine you for? 

[Turd Ferguson]

I bet you guys dont remember Pridigy Interet Services. Early 90's....... fuckin sucked. 1200 BAUD modem connection. Between that and my Packard Bell first gen Windows PC with 40mb hard drive and 128k ram, it took about 10 minutes to load the Rolling Stone magazine home page graphics. Tried it for about 4 days and cancelled my subscription and waited another 6 years or so before I even tried that crazy internet stuff again.


Prodigy made AOL look like high speed cable in comparison. I imagine a government interenet service would look a little like this.

[bobbysan]

It would probably look something like this:

http://www.korea-dpr.com/ocn/

[velojym]

Since the above were merely early attempts at wide connectivity, I think the government effort would suck even worse, as it... like anything else they do,
will be a deliberate attempt to limit or destroy freedom.


Oops. I guess saying that makes me a terrorist.
 

[voodoo]

It would probably look something like this:

http://www.korea-dpr.com/ocn/

For make glorious juche, the brilliant leader has expanded wardrobe choices to Members Only vinalon jacket with big glasses or oversized parka with big sunglasses and beaver hat.

[davann]

I bet you guys dont remember Pridigy Interet Services.

I thought it was called Prodigy. Some people made a tremendous amount of cash on that when it went AOL and split several hundred thousand times. Almost like Netflix but 1000 X better as long as you got out right after Ted Turner got in.

[anarchir]

Interesting, the North Korea link froze up my computer pretty bad when I clicked it lol.

[Turd Ferguson]

I bet you guys dont remember Pridigy Interet Services.

I thought it was called Prodigy. Some people made a tremendous amount of cash on that when it went AOL and split several hundred thousand times. Almost like Netflix but 1000 X better as long as you got out right after Ted Turner got in.

Oops ! typo.

[velojym]

I think a potentially realistic vision of what they'd "give" us would involve something like what you see at public libraries, but with more primitive hardware. Without the huge volume of private individuals buying machines for their own use (as well as business, etc), we'd likely still be using mainframes and what they used to call "mini-computers" with a few dumb terminals set up for "free" "public" use... at taxpayer expense, of course.
All access would be monitored, and suspicious activity would be flagged for later action (or not, depending on what the bureaucrats felt like).
Also, silly commercial attempts to market computers to the masses, like GUIs would have been denounced and left by the wayside, as the command line is all anyone really *needs* anyway, right?

In fact, since so few people really *need* internet access, government messages and "news" are so easily delivered using one-way media anyway, that a person would have to apply for each use of the terminals, perhaps even with a license for folks who need repeat access. Imagine a 'net facility being modeled on a DMV office.

Woot!

[TimeLady Victorious]

hint:

if you're on the internet right now, and not posting via some kind of souped-up hamgate, you ARE on a government internet

[yamnuska]

We'd have to use Netscape Navigator.

[alaric89]

It would suck more than a budget golddigger at a lottery award winners get together at a Hotel 6 in Tulsa.

[Zhwazi]

hint:

if you're on the internet right now, and not posting via some kind of souped-up hamgate, you ARE on a government internet

This. Welcome to the internet, a descendent of ARPANET! You will be assigned an IP address if one is available. If one is not available due to shortages, you will not be assigned an IPv6 address either because nobody uses it yet. Please wait in line, you will not be notified when an IP address is made available, but don't persistently ask for one.