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The Egyptian authorities have the ability to shut down free speech in 2011, but turning off the Internet is not enough - they must completely halt modern commerce.

Since they are not, as far as I can imagine, performing mass jamming of the 2.4ghz spectrum, anyone with a laptop and "wi-fi" connectivity has everything they need to conduct insurrection. This concept is known as "Free Speech or Stone Age":

http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or-stone-age.html

Unless you remove the general purpose tools of modern commerce, filtering (or even disabling) the Internet will not stop speech.

I began writing this short piece a year or two ago, titled "Free Speech or Stone Age": http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or-stone-age.html The current events in Iran are a perfect illustration of two competing memes: the (mistaken) notion that a state can completely suppress anonymous free speech while maintaining a modern economy, and the (surprising to some) notion that that is impossible. Many Iranians (and even many Americans) may not realize it, but arbitrary, anonymous free speech on any subject is currently available in Iran, as well as China, etc. This is a fact. Only by freezing all international travel, confiscating all general purpose computing devices, and outlawing/jamming all standardized wireless network protocols could Iran possibly hope to curtail this speech.

The phrase:

"the information technologies that are the mainstay of modern society can become its weapons, as well"

is very similar to what is being said in the "Free Speech or Stone Age" meme that has sprung up:

"Once again, the standardization and interoperability of these protocols
that so readily enables anonymous free speech are the same qualities that
make them so valuable to commerce. You cannot restrict access to this
functionality and continue to take part in modern commerce."

http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or-stone-age.html

(I recommend the entire article that is linked from the blog synopsis...)

http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/2007cb.html

(vmware 6.x working on a modern FreeBSD release)

and:

http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2007/12/bounty-posted-f.html

Both of these items are long overdue to be fixed - having a modern version of vmware working on FreeBSD is essential to many, many developers and engineers, and because so much of the web now requires a recent version of flash to _use at all_ it is imperative that there be a method to use flash9 on a native FreeBSD browser.

I encourage everyone that is interested in FreeBSD on the desktop to look into supporting these bounties.

I fully agree that any material placed on publically accessible web servers should be referencable under the "fair use" doctrine. However, I think the court's descision is correct in light of this. Mr. Kozubik's main complaint seems to be that the behavior of browsers as regards linking are entirely arbitrary. He is correct. However, fair use is by its very nature a doctrine which will be interpreted on a case by case basis, respecting precedent.

Rather than fearing, as he does, that the court will constantly have to "revise" the decision as technology changes, I think courts will be able to read the intent and wisely apply it to many other decisions. After all, a court decision is not a law, defined by the precise wordings, but rather a carefully considered opinion on the burden of evidence. Future courts should be able to apply the same fundamental distinction--linking that is designed to automatically reproduce the work vs linking that is designed only to show the location of the work--irregardless of the precise technology involved.