Re: pptp-based vpn

[<martin.m@suddenlink.net>]

David Wright wrote:
> When I was a boy, the TV licence fee was taxed (called "duty") by the
> government at 33%.

	This has been a very interesting discussion as I am one
who believes that information and media should be unrestricted
and priced reasonably or subsidized by advertising. Being from
the United States, the idea of paying a media license fee is
abhorrent so I wanted to find out what a country such as Canada
does. In the United States, it is forbidden by law for the
federal government to broadcast directly to Americans so all
broadcasting is either commercial or community/public
broadcasting such as from universities and other schools and some
religious organizations.

	Canada has a model which is close to what could be done
in Britain and I wouldn't be surprised if, at some future time,
Britain changes their model.

	In Canada, there is both a vibrant commercial radio and
television industry and the CBC which is the Canadian
government's broadcasting arm.

	The money to run the CBC comes out of the federal budget
and is not tied to individual taxpayers. Look up the topic of a
Canadian TV license fee and it has come up and been roundly
dismissed.

	Australia also has a duel system which apparently has
worked over time.
	Several years ago, one of the United States television
networks did a story on the British TV license and showed agents
in a van driving around looking for the tell-tale weak radio
signals from the local oscillators of television tuners and then
counting and matching the number of such signals with the number
of residents in houses to see if anybody had an un-licensed
television.

	Sometimes, they found them and people got in to trouble.
They then showed a message airing on British television urging
people to pay the license fees and in the announcement, several
men are in a jail cell asking each other what they are in for.

	Answers are such things as murder, robbery and having an
un-licensed television.

	Now think, for a second how much money it costs to outfit
a van with high-quality broad-spectrum radio receivers, a person to
drive and another to tune and evaluate what he/she is receiving
and whether or not it is from a TV tuner or Heaven knows what
else. These days, there is a faint and not-so-faint electronic
smog everywhere from computerized gear that emits signals from
below the AM broadcast band well in to UHF. These signals are
what is called incidental radiation so I am not speaking about
things such as WiFi and other one and two-way radio
communication. This is just radio frequency noise that is the
result of microprocessors and other switching circuits doing
their thing and emitting signals more or less by accident.

	All that aside, think of the money that the BBC spends
administering and enforcing the system that they have created.
The United States is not immune to this sort of self-harm,
either. It goes on at all levels from local government up to
federal agencies.

	We have a problem so we must do this and that to make
sure everybody pays. Oh my, they're getting around paying by
doing X, Y, or Z, so we must make it illegal to--- and it goes on
and on.

	It reminds me of a quote reportedly from Albert Einstein
that says,

"Clever people solve problems. Wise people avoid problems."

	As a newly-retired IT person, I am alarmed at the faction
that just says "no" versus those who say, "Maybe we can work
something out." That is much more positive and makes fewer people
in to criminals.

Martin