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U.S. Wants Large Cyberpolicing Powers
LindaAthena writes "Thus were the words from a French report on a meeting of the
G8 nations and 150 representatives of companies from the
communications and information technology sectors.
A summit on cyber crime was held in Paris with the U.S. pushing
for total police power to bypass due process and other countries'
laws to catch cyber-criminals (as defined, of course, by the U.S.).
Note that public images of nudity in France are rated "G" while
U.S. protected "racial hatred speech" is a crime there.
The article from Le Monde can
be found in the original French or viewed in Babelfish. " A number of people have submitted this recently from the recent G8 meeting. The U.S. apparently pushed very hard for major cyberpolicing actions, while France was one of the few nations in the group that adopted a more intelligent long-term view.
If various countries can't get together on stopping, pursueing, prosecuting, etc. crimes on the Internet (especially things like DoS, break-ins, and such) then we will end up with a system where each country is firewalled off from the others and all traffic will flow through specific routers. When an attack happens the source country will be completely blocked. Which will result in more damage occuring to the entire country where the attack originated than it will to the victim of the attack. Do we want the entire net to be regulated to hell and back? Or would we prefer a more open network? If there is no recourse for a victim in on nation to stop/punish/whatever an attacker in another nation the second will be impossible.
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Here's my mirror
Nah, the whole hoopla looks like it's designed to let incompetent sysadmins and suits keep their cushy jobs...
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Here's my mirror
>what I think we need is to form a totally independent Net - something where the
>governments keep their paws off, that regulates itself by technological means *only*.
Unacceptable. That we tech gods might rule this land is as abhorrant to lawyers as their underhandedness is to us. In their twisted world, it is wrong - morally repugnant that the god of corporate law should not walk unhindered by us into the land we have created, and rule there in our place, in perpetuity. It is only by the grace of the law god that we were permitted to set up a temporary reign as mere place-holders awaiting the Arrival of Law. That we dare to even consider calling ourselves something more is simply blasphemous.
(tongue out of cheek) I think the business people (and certainly the big corporations) unthinkingly side with the lawyers. Geeks and nerds and weird people are not trusted by mainstream society, and mainstream society believes the net is the latest fashion accessory, with all the consumer guarentees that that implies...
Linus totally hit the nail on the head when he said society is doomed to endless cycles of construction and deconstruction. All societies are competing for control of the world so naturally someone comes out on top eventually. It goes into a hitler-eske stage rebellion mode kicks in and society rebuilds itself. The only problem is that the more control the govt has during the time of economic prosperity and success before the crash, the longer it takes to rebuild.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
While I am no fan of Bill Clinton, expansion of domestic police power and interference with other sovereign governments has been a staple of US politics since the 1950s at least. I mean, J. Edgar Hoover mean anything to you? How about Richard M. Nixon?
The reason why the kid from Montreal got picked up so fast was because the US has probably one of the strongest extradition/policing agreements with the RCMP.
On the other hand, think about the weekend long wait that authorities had in the Philippines to even get a search warrant for the de Guzman apartment. As many people were saying on /., anyone in their right mind would've destroyed their hard drive in a milisecond if they were responsible. Also, the authorities in the Philippines had to figure out what law they could even apply to the situation.
However, I think that US law enforcement/defense authorities would much rather have the opportunity to work unilaterally if they could in a matter like this. (I would not be surprized if they are already doing this covertly.) Getting involved with an international body could hamper US goals and be a problem if there's ever an international disagreement over enforcement actions.
This is another view of the world.
McCarthyism: n, a mid 20th century political attitude characterized by chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations esp. on the basis of unsubstantiated charges-
(webster's ninth)
try mid-20th century and still kicking. the politics of fear is coming back into style. The ignorance of the people is being used against them.
Hackers threaten the corporate power structure even when they don't break the law, just like communists. Hell, they are a bigger threat, on an indivual level, than communists ever were. The government and corporation would turn the masses against the hacker elite by conguring images mass histeria induced by angry teenagers.
This scenario is easy to imagine. In fact it has clearly already begun. Last week someone made a phony espn.go.com page at go.to.espn (or something like that). Newspapers called him a hacker. Computer savvy is associated, by most people, with destructive, anti-social behavior. It is the fear of the unknown.
Is it any wonder slashdot readers are paranoid? they really are out to get us.
The subcommittee interviewed these witnessed:
- Keith Rhodes, GAO
- Harris Miller, Technology Association of America
- Sandra England, McAfee, A Network Associates Company
- Peter Tippett, ICSA.net
The level of outright lying regarding the security issues of Windows and Outlook, along with standard congressional grandstanding in front of cameras was just astonishing -- with only one representative taking Sandra England (and the rest of the witnesses) to task for misrepresenting that the love bug affected all computers -- and was not just a Windows/Outlook problem. At the end of that exchange Peter Tippet finally agreed that [paraphrase] 'OK, 97% of all computers were affected' and then pointed out that the very features that Microsoft just discontinued (embedded scripting in document data) was a critical necessity. The most frightening testimony came from Peter Tippet (who appeared the most technically savvy) who would not admit that the problem was client side security in Windows/Outlook and instead recommended draconian laws to resolve the issue. From memory:- Criminalizing the creation of all viruses or self replicating programs -- even for research purposes.
- Making "hacking" a federal crime with severe punishments
- criminalizing THE HIRING of "white hat hackers" so that anyone who has EVER been convicted of "hacking" will be permanently barred from employment in the computer industry.
- Of course they recommended against any corporation hiring "hacker" security firms and recommended that these organizations be criminalized.
In whole, the entire subcommittee hearing appeared entirely designed to further the cause of McAffee Associates and Microsoft, while recommending insane laws plainly unnecessary to further the cause of Internet security -- but they certainly do benefit the witnesses.I was most dismayed by Peter Tippet, who really did appear to understand the technical arguments and seemed to just be lying through his teeth to our congress critters.
SHAME ON YOU PETER TIPPET!
Microsoft: embrace, extend. USA: embrace, extend.
Which point are you trying to make here? "We" tried to stop Hitler. Too late. We lost. Don't forget that hundreds of thousands of French soldiers died during the blitzkrieg. A real slaughter. You make it sound like "we" (I put quotes bc I was'nt born and don't want to sound like I'm taking credit for it) did'nt try to as if we were to weak to do it. Well, don't forget that Hitler defeated both the French AND English army in 1940. Shit happens. Tough luck. At least "we" tried.
I am not racist. I think racism is a terrible thing. I am totally against racism.
But I am ALSO against egoism. My (current) views are not gospel. I would never purge an international archive to remove those things and only those things that I personally find offensive. I would especially not do this if it meant that everyone was going to. We'd have nothing left.
Trying to distinguish between "good examples like nudity" and "bad examples like racism" is exactly how we got in this mess. There are people who think nudity was a "bad example": "Viewing porn makes people rapists, ya know", they'll say.
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Linux MAPI Server!
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the internet is a universal medium so maybe it is time we face it as the whole of humanity not as the fragmented bunch of nationalistic political states.
<P>Maybe the "we" should be "I and I" instead? If the Net is to stay free and unfettered by government meddling, it has to be viewed as the actions of millions of individuals, literally, building and using new worlds. To continue approaching Net access and regulation as some collective action betrays both the networks and the people using and building them. Only by recognizing the implicit individualism of the Net can it remain a free medium. Any form of regulation strangles the network, and the people, and must be resisted. 8)
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
I can't believe that I just read the words "intelligent" and "France" in the same sentence without a negative. Seriously, this whole issue is subject to some serious interpretation. Could it be that France is just opposed to policing actions (as opposed to thoughts) of any kind? How much of this is just an extension of current extradition and similar treaties? The Internet is global and the rules they are a changing.
Nick http://www.nickspace.com
Really, do we need this? I think not.
As protocol's mature and evolve, the security surrounding them is inheritly improved.
5 or 6 years ago someone could crash nearly every windows box on the Internet by sending it some trash data. As time goes on, these things get more and more secure. The internet and its community do this themselves. Call it evolution if you want, its a natural process and it has worked pretty well up until now.
Currently ISP's hold the power, they can cancel accounts and client ISP's and again, this self regulation has proven pretty effective.
Now the governments of the world want to come in with centralised power and take control of this democratic, trans-national entity that we call the internet in the name of 'protecting the people' (which is their claimed reason for everything.). I don't see how all this recent complicating of a democratic, uncorruptable, peer-to-peer system to one of disputably corruptable centralised power can benefit anyone other than those in power themselves.
If they want to stop 'cyberterrorists' they implement strong security ratings policies and baseline guidelines for security that companies must deal with when processing sensitive data online. They can contribute funding to security auditing and open security products and work with the community for its overall good.
The US government is on a powertrip with Echelon, the Clipper chip and all the crazy powers of the NSA and its not doing any good for their people or the rest of the world.
Then, it is no longer censorship. Censorship is something done by a third party to prevent information flow from A to B. But when B decides NOT so see some information, it is only choice, not censorship.
The problem is that the whole world is stuck with the shit those morons want.
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Here's my mirror
I vote that our worrisome government relax - If nothing else, I don't want to pay for some massive law enforcement agency with my tax money to pick through servers for contraband! Intellectual property can't be handled by a criminal court, especially internationally.
- "That's a big no can do" - B. Banzai
As long as there is continuing international disagreement about how the Net should be policed, no major actions will be taken by the countries involved. The difficulty inherent in extradition and international enforcement in the absence of cooperation will make it impossible, in practice, to enforce any legislation that is passed. We must try to preserve this state of confusion and disagreement if we want a free Internet.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
No the only thing us americans have going for us is worker mobility. If you have become valuable to your employer, they will reward you to keep you around. Even this is being chissled away with non-compete agreements. Your work will not be rewarded or appreciated unless you make it so. Don't assume that you are in the best situation possible just because you are where you are. And yes, I don't really like France.
The UN is inherently one of the largest and slowest bureaucracies on the planet. There's a lot of talk of working on "Internet time". For an indication of "UN time", look at the Korean war, which until recently was technically still going, just in the middle of a 40 year ceasefire.
Not every country is a member of the UN. From memory Indonesia is not a member, and it's both one of the most populous nations and rapidly increasing it's uptake of technology.
What would they police? What real common ground is there between nations on the regulation of information and remote access to services? I don't think there's really anything that counts as an international "Internet crime" short of kiddie porn. And organisations and alliances already exist to deal with that at an international scale.
I'm damn sure techno-jerks like yourself will construct a way to detect that as well.
;)
Just did it. You set off bells.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
With regard to DoS attacks, REAL child porn (the stuff that makes you tremble with rage), spamming and other abuses on the net, it does make sense for an international law enforcement structure to be put in place, subject to a separate judicial system - after all, the police can't be expected to police themselves.
International commerce rules also need to be put in place or redefined to fit the ever changing reality of the Internet.
As always, different countries and cultures will clash over priorities. These need to be worked out in a open rational forum or the result could be the equivalent the tarriff laws that were passed in the 1920's that all but shut down international trade and were prime contributors to the Great Depression.
I, for one, think the French can come up with a decent regulatory structure. After all, they did come up with such a structure to successfully regulate nuclear power in their own country (but that's another issue).
Aside: It's funny how racism only runs rampant in the one country that considers 'racial hatred' to be a protected, inalienable civil right.
:) But it made for a good discussion.
Something tells me that "ONLY" should not be in that statement. That would have kept the flames to a tollerable level - though still toasty.
Yeah, there's racism everywhere - or more precisely, there's ethnic and religious discrimination everywhere. The US is the only place in this hemisphere where blacks are still discriminated against on sight. South American countries have intermixed a lot since slavery was abolished there, and the color-line is nowhere near as clear anymore.
When I wrote the statement that's been thrown in my face all day, I was thinking of the black man who was dragged behind a pick-up to his death, here in the most free and tolerant country in the world. That, more than any clearly thought out argument, prompted me to choose those particular words. It's a shameful 'current event'. Had it happened in the 50's or even 60's, we could look back and say "back then racism was a problem". But the shameful thing is, despite government and civil actions, hate is still with us, and we protect it to the death under the First Amendment.
No, I don't think that ANY opinion, no matter how vile, should be silenced. Not at all. What gets under my skin is that, here we are, having walked on the Moon; and a man can still die because of the color of his skin - or over sexual preference (the boy tied to a farm fence and beaten to death) .
BTW: I've read 1984, Animal Farm, We... I lived in Communist Poland and left in time to see it reborn. Maybe growing up in a repressive system made me a little more tolerant to government control, and a little less tolerant to flag waving.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The difference is that the US is neither in a position to march troops across the Earth or bind other states by trade dominance. . .our main assets are military strength and, well, wealth.
To paraphrase one of my favorite video game intros, "He who controls the Laws controls the Net -- and he who controlls the Net controlls the world!
Bah.
-Omar
All your points are well taken, and I agree, except..
Also you are not making your moral argument very strong when you start off by bragging about causing someone else to lose their job so that you can financially profit from it.
Man... Sarcasm. I was playing off a stereotypical bias against immigrants. Jeez! All I've earned, I've earned on MY MERIT. If I'm depriving a natural-born American Son of a job, it's because I work harder, that's all. I am and American, I just wasn't born here - neither were most American's grand-parents.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Having said that though, and contratry to what you said. I think the internet can still work well. I think alot of commercial stuff, is just buzz. And I think some of it will die down. Only if people care about this issue and not let it get taken over bit by bit like is seems to be now.
Also. If you feel this way about the internet. I can't see much hope for Open-source software. As they also rely on anarchic ideas aswell.
I'm personally not one of the people who're obsessivly worried about 'The Man' coming to get us, but.. Geeze, it is /IMPOSSIBLE/ to physically hurt anyone over the Internet - the only thing you can possibly do is spread information... and yet the most powerful people in the world are holding meetings to find ways to police it.
You'd think they'd be trying to figure out how to police something that can actually affect people...
If there are citizens who are having problems with the Internet.. Tell them to turn off the computer. Sheesh... Problem solved.
Disclosure- I work for Cisco, but I don't speak for them.
It is certainly true that Cisco doesn't put out code without demonstrated demand, and multicast is a perfect example. I know. I asked Len Bosak to do multicast in 1990. Cisco likes making money. Big shock.
However, anyone who has been at the IETF for the last few years knows that Cisco has contributed a lot to both the standards and the state of the art. The reason that multicast is disabled by default is that there are two standards for multicast routing- DVMRP and PIM. To make matters more screwy there are two different types of PIM - sparse and dense. None of these play well with each other by default. Hence, The Principle of Least Astonishment dictates that we not enable anything until the standards settle down a bit. (If you're turning on anything, btw, go with PIM sparse).
Add to that areas where service providers are rightfully nervous. This relates to interdomain multicast (IDR), and the use of MBGP and MSDP. This stuff is still pretty fresh code. Not to mention that many ISPs don't know how to measure and plan for multicast services. The only thing that will help them is gradual deployments so they can get operational experience.
Regarding IPv6, we're all going there, slowly but surely. We need some customers to use it. Want it? Ask for it. We've actually had images you can play with for years. But the routing software isn't the only issue. There is a vast support infrastructure that is tied to IPv4 right now, such as HPOV, your preferred commercial databases, most free (or any other) code. To paraphrase the great William Shatner: Said in another way, the installed base of IPv4 is over 100 million people and has been for some time. Moving to a new version will take time and great care, things break all over the place.
Finally, on proprietary standards, all I ask is that you simply count the number of Cisco employees who attend IETF, and then look at the quality of the output of the groups they're in.
And this is the difference between Cisco and Microsoft, IMHO. Our APIs, if you will, are protocols such as IP, RIP, OSPF, BGP, IS-IS, SNMP, HTTP (to some extent), COPS, and RSVP, all protocols that were done in the open, in full view of the public, with public participation.
I've been reading about some of the war crimes trials/kangaroo courts that the UN has set up, specifically the ICTY.
You're correct that ICTY is a kangaroo court, but you're wrong that the blame for this lies with the UN. ICTY is a creature of the US State department, set up, staffed, and financed by the US government, and NOT the UN. It poses as a legitimate "international" court, even going so far as to having set up in the Hague, in the hopes that some of the legitimacy of the World Court would rub off on it.
ICTY is just another weapon of war that was established by the US government to bludgeon its(balkan) enemies with. Please don't blame the UN for the dirty work of your own government.
A good place for the clueless to start learning is: www.covertaction.org
As much as anything the US is just a self righteous load mouthed minority, and is in general governed and policed by it's own self righteous loud mouthed minorities.
There is a very small number of people/corps with all the real power
This is as bad for the avarage US citizen, except of course for the pride you get in knowing that it is your tyranny (U.S.A!)
People don't always hate #1 anyway, it's generally that most that are #1 did some seriously dodgy things to get there....
~ppppppppö
We are an omnipotent superpower. Go USA!
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
"The Internet is made of cats."
Clinton and his goons got to get their hands in everything don't they? Let me guess "Al invented it so we should police it"
Makes me sick.
You get sick easily, don't you?
Why were the LOVEBUG arrests made? Because the Filipinos had the FBI and Big Brother Janet insisting on it.
Oh, you mean the Filipinos should have just said: "Ha-ha! Serves right these rich stupid imperialist Yankees! Let's give these students a scholarship and tell them to write more viruses."? I have no clue what computer-crime laws are there in the Philippines, but I would assume that virus-writing breaks at least some.
What the hell happened to the concept of sovereignty?
Well, see, there is a problem. If you accept that governments are the "real" players and the populations are just shit to trample on, then yes, sovereignity should be absolute. I mean, why should anybody in the world care that the Pol Pot government is killing off a third of the country's population? Cambodia is sovereign, right?
On the other hand, if you accept that people, individuals, humans, have rights that a government should not be able to (at least easily) take away -- such as the rights for not being killed for knowing how to read and write, or for having been born in the wrong tribe -- then the concept of sovereignity starts to look somewhat shaky.
Basically, it's a trade-off. If you essentially discard sovereignity you do end up with the rich and powerful dictating their will, culture, and morals to the rest of the world. If you absolutize sovereignity, you allow people like Khmer Rouge (Cambodia) and Hutu extremists (Rwanda) to operate completely unchecked.
It's a hard trade-off and not nearly as simple as you make it to be.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I can just see Janet Reno, hyped on Jolt, sitting in front of a 21" monitor for 37 hours straight. This will be another way that the corporate politics of the US will effect the internet. Anytime the US gets involved in a legal way in the internet, the corporate weasels find a way to screw over the average person.
JMHO,but I think we need some sort of global 'cyberpolicing' infrastructure,just not this heavy-handed,"US makes the rules",version. These Melissa/ILoveU bugs and DoS's may only be cutting into profit margins,but it's only a matter of time before someone does a genuine terrorist attack that causes real damage. I'd say it should be handled in one of two ways. One,have the FBI get together with Interpol and form a special,net-only task force. Or two,make cyberpolicing a part of regular trade agreements. If a country has the capability to handle net crime,and we find that it came from their soil,then they should be left to handle it. In the case of third world countries,maybe they wouldn't mind if the US or another larger nation stepped in to help them with something they aren't equipped to handle.
Please note:my above comments are in regards to cybercrime only. Site content should only be regulated by the host country,in accordance with their local laws and mores,and not some global morality.
==== Warning:this poster contains subject matter that may be offensive. Flaming discretion is advised.
But the US also wants to take your Money and they just passed an "IP Charges" Bill. .. Although a DoS would be very costly ($$) for that l33t h4x0r.. ;-)
Just one step closer to the US trying to regulate the Internet. When will the realise that this will not work?
In other words, let's be constructive about this, and not just go for knee-jerk complaining.
Martin
"The belief that other people are lesser than you because God said so, borders on schizophrenia. "
That sounds kind of nice, until you realize that this is what people all over the world think and have throughout history. It's not schizophrenia, it's human nature.
If you want me to believe that people in France are different, I'm sorry. I'm not convinced.
As long as $$ is exchanged over the internet, crime will be there, and we need a way to protect each other. However, ruling one land by another's law is not the proper path. Perhaps an international delegation would be better.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
It seems that when it comes down to it, when the US Government has to choose between the freedom of the public, and the economic growth of the country (particularly the megacorporations), they always come down on the side of the corporation.
Maybe it's because the corporations are the ones with the owner's certificates to the politicans with their large donations, and they know that the public in general isn't smart enough to realize what they heck they are doing and do anything but perpetuate the system? That when it comes down to it, loyalty has to lie with the people donating large amounts of money because that's the only way to stay in office?
And those of you bashing Clinton about this - first, can you show this is his policy? Second, do you think any other president in recent memory, or either of the republicrat party candidates would do anything different? We all know the shrub's "wonderful" views on freedom...
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Spain is not in. It is Italy. Also G8 includes Russia. (G7 doesn't)
My concern is that this increased policing will likely end up being a protection racket for the music and film industry as companies increasingly seek the use of legitimate force to back up DCMA etc.
In any case, it will take at least two decades for law enforcement to understand the technology in order to effectively police it. We've got a huge lead time to change the popular will in the meantime.
Why do we feel the need to do this 'Play policeman and walk over any nation we don't like' crap. Makes me sick sometimes. Why were the LOVEBUG arrests made? Because the Filipinos had the FBI and Big Brother Janet insisting on it. They didn't give a flying [snip] about a college student who may or may not have written a virus. We do it to Mexico too. Just because they aren't willing to arrest and prosecute their drug offenders, we decided we're going to do it for them.
And why do we get away with it? We grease palms with easily skimmed 'Foreign Aid', sell the worst of them military weapons, and generally have a history of using the Navy SEALs to 'pick up' any world leaders we don't like. Manuel getting pissed the CIA isn't giving him his cut of the drug traffic? Let's snatch him up, play innocent, and let him hang in a US prison for crimes committed in Colombia and Panama. Nasty old dictator doesn't like having US troops on his island? Let's put some money into the rebels and let them go!!
What the hell happened to the concept of sovereignty? Gee, all these backward nations must not be able to police their 'cybercrime'. Let's walk right over them and prosecute their citizens with our laws. Oh, I forgot. They're not US citizens, so they don't get all of that nifty Constitutuinal stuff. Due process? False imprisonment? Search and seizure? Nope! Fuck them, France, Britain, Germany; They can't be trusted to prosecute their own criminals. Stupid backward Eurotrash!
Makes me sick..
.sig: Now legally binding!
Panic driven nonsense. ILOVEYOU is a pretty flimsy excuse to increase police powers, even by the contorted logic processes of the average politician.
.vbs suffix. The clever part of the virus was the psychological hacking that exploited a typical human's immense curiosity to see who was sending them a message saying ILOVEYOU. If we include self replicating organisms that exploit psychological weaknesses, then does that include memes. Should we imprison everyone from Vatican city to Madison avenue ? (I've heard worse ideas...)
What exactly is the definition of a virus anyway ? It is generally taken to be a self replicating piece of code. However, viruses often rely on a little help from naive humans. For instance ILOVEYOU required you to disable security settings on Outlook, then double click on an attatchment with a
Suppose we restrict our attention to computer viruses. Harmful code that corrupts data, replicates itself over the network (either fully automatically or with the assistance of duped humans). How about if we add the proviso that it performs action on the host's computer that are purely for the benefit of the author of the virus, rather than for the service of the user. How about a virus that exploits humanity's addiction to pointless ritual. A really sophisticated virus would be so effective it would try to eliminate competing pieces of software from being able to operate properly even on separate computers. Kudos to Bill Gates for creating the most successful computer virus of all time.
It's a question of responsiblity. There's this notion that if you get infected with a virus, you're the victim. The way I see it, if you're infected with a virus you are to blame. If your computer is performing illegal activities then I believe you are at least partially at fault. Certainly running stupid software (Outlook) makes this more likely, but ultimately it's your responsibility to run good software, and to use it sensibly.
You own a computer which is connected to a worldwide network. In the wrong hands your computer could cause untold damage. As computers become ever more tightly integrated into the fabric of civilisation, the damage that can be caused grows. If you own a gun and leave it loaded and lying in a playground, you can blame the kid for stealing it and shooting someone, but you're also at fault for not exercising due dilligence. A malicious virus gaining control of as many computers as ILOVEYOU managed could cause more damage than a postal worker. Suppose the virus contained voice software and dialed in hoax messages to emergency services, etc etc.
If the network is to have any chance of robustness, then everybody has to take responsiblity for their part of the network. It's worse than useless to say "virus writing is illegal, so if I catch a virus I'm a victim". Unless we have some relatively harmless mechanism to continually stress test the network, we leave ourselves open to catastrophic effect.
Owners of equipment are traditionally held responsible for any damage that equipment may cause. If you leave your handbreak off and your car rolls down the hill wrecking another car, then you pay. If it turns out that you purchased a car with faulty handbrakes, then maybe you can sue the manafacturer for damages. Although, it should be within the rights of the manafacturer to sell a car "as is", ie caveat emptor.
We don't need to worry about catching the "criminals" who write viruses. Just make it clear that catching a virus is irresponsible, and comes with it's own instant punishment.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
When will everyone understand that cultural (and economical) differences warrant different laws. What is considered OK in one country may be viewed as the most terrible crime in another.
For example, a few years ago that American kid was caught in Singapore vandalising cars with baseball bat and spray paint. Singaporeans consider vandalism a very serious crime and hence have very serious punishment for it.
He was sentenced to caning (heavy beating with a bamboo stick on the back - not funny), 6 times. After much fuss and direct Clinton's intervention, it was reduced to 4 but was still carried out. Americans thought it was too much ("He's just a frustrated teenager" - yeah, right!), Singaporeans thought of him as a criminal who should pay for his crime and were rather pissed of at their govt for backing down under pressure.
Point: Americans have different values to Singaporeans. Are Americans wrong? No. Are Singaporeans wrong? No. They are *different*!
This law has as much chance as a snowflake in hell! US administration ought to realise by now the Internet is no longer an American thing. Deal with it!
All people who are US Citizens should be *VERY* upset about such a thing. For one this breaks how we have been trying to conduct international affairs. We have been trying very hard to be diplomatic instead of war-torn. Wars happen because one people group pushes it's culture on another. The USA can't decide on a culture for 10 years at a time, much less the rest of the worlds. I strongly suggest that all US Citizens write the approperiate authorities and voice their opinions.
The internet has always been a medium of communication that is relatively unrestricted. France, England, India, China, Iraq, etc will *NOT* let this go through. Hell, in Canada it would be illegal to register godhatesfags.com!
We need to take a libetarian approach to the internet, leave it the hell alone.
7) is italy ...
8 is russia they used to be pissed off being left alone sor G7 upgraded some years ago to G8
none Yet.
not quite. The point was that just because someone knows how to break a bank vault doesn't mean they know how to make an unbreakable vault. You don't hire Billy the Kid to make a better bank vault. But you *do* hire him to work in the QA department of the place that does make vaults. ;-)
BTW, maynard, Harris Miller did *not* recommend a central email cleaning thingy. He meantioned it, but did not recommend it. Mind you he didn't reject the idea on privacy grounds either..
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Simon
Left, Right, what difference does it make. These labels exist strictly to divide people along party lines rather than by opinions on policy. In the old Soviet Union a radical Communist would have been called a "Right Winger" while a radical Capitalist would have been a Leftist; here it's reversed. Thus proving that these labels are meaningless.
What counts is not the label assigned but specific policies, which our media do their best to obfuscate at every turn. Given these opinions, what would you call me?
So, where the hell am I? Right winger because I support gun rights and the death penalty, or left winger because I support strong corporate regulation, strong government services for taxpayers, and limited military/intelligence budgetary support?
I think I'm just a radical. I have my own views and I'll vote by them... I'm voting Nader this year.
OK, look. I'm a conservative, just as you seem to be. The reason I don't mention the Lunatic Liberal Left is that really, they're working for the same goals as the Radical Religious Right. The only difference is that the left either doesn't know it, or they've over-rationalized it.
But if you'll notice, the values they espouse are the same as the ones the Radical Religious Right espouses. Look at the criteria they want to use for censorship; they're basically identical. The right wants to "save" America, while the left wants to "save" the children; what's the difference? They may argue on particulars, but they're working for the same general thing. At least the right is open about it, if you could call that a Good Thing, which is why I mentioned them.
Besides, while I don't like either group, I have a particular beef with the right. Among other things, it's megalomaniac loonies like them that give my religion a bad name, and I'm tired of being feared simply because of the diety I choose to worship.
IMHO, there should be databases, similar to the Sendmail Blackhole, which list URLs that fall foul of the maintainer's constraints. You then pick the constraints YOU are comfortable with.
This would essentially "open source" the filtering process, allowing it to evolve into something that people want and use.
As for the US' dictatorial claims to rule the world, they've done that before. They banned sales within the United Kingdom of Cray computers to Universities, on the grounds that Pinko Commies can enroll on a course.
IMHO, it's less a product of Government Thinking, and more a product of the dysfunctional, extremely co-dependent idiots Americans decide to vote for. You've no-one to blame but yourselves.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't want to go too off-topic here but...
Sorry, I don't agree about the free speech issue. There are simply too many instances of free speech violations, especially with progressive or leftist ideals. Vocal, written, and electronic criticisms of corporate doings an quickly get you blacklisted, fired, and censored while typical rightist speech is unbelievably protected up until that person/organization kills someone.
Leftists are quickly labeled terrorists, communists, anti-business or whatever the new hot-button word is. Who do you think the feds have more files on, those insane ineffectual militias or those who openly question the economic policies of this country?
The Le Monde article comments that the US considers cybercriminality to be a case of natianal defense as well as protecting economic ineterests. Before they start organizing some gung-ho international cybergestapo to go after miscreants, they should start by actually building up their cyberDEFENSES. A good place to start would be by reading this article from the intelligence analysis website, Stratfor.com, which looks at the implications of most of the computerized world being "overwhelmingly dependent upon a single computer operating system that is exceedingly vulnerable to even simple attacks."
If a teenager with little talent can shut down major websites with DDoS attacks or corrupt computer files with a simple script, imagine what a foreign intelligence agency could do. As the article says, "the real threat from rogue states won't be nuclear attack, but cyber attack. Rogue states won't launch nuclear attack for fear of the counterattack. But how do we retaliate against a virus attack? We depend on computers. They don't."
It seems that a much more effecient way of protecting yourselves would be to prevent as much damage from happening as possible instead of just sending the troops after someone after the damage has already happened.
On the other hand, if by 'national defense', they mean making the world safe for the MPAA by going after Norwegian teenagers, then perhaps they have a point.
Ideology is for ideots.
at least in finnish textbooks (and in some swedish too) you can find all those how-to's of building bombs and stuff like thermite, or napalm, today. (ok everyone can do napalm from gasoline and soap) And most of these things could be found from finnish boy scouts manual 1988, so why bother with internet.
Parents Against Kuro5hin
France may have some of its free speech priorities in order, but I keep thinking of the way they try to use legal authority to keep French pure, and generally try to minimize the impact of US and Global culture on their country's culture.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Well that would not be that easy.
The laws in Germany restricting free speach, are not concerning hate speach in itself. (I can easily shout out that I hate the world and everybody and their mom without being arrested.
The thing that is forbidden are lies (against a certain part of history). For example what is called the "Auschwitz-Lüge" (claiming that Auschwitz never existed, and was just an invention of the US) and the like.
And remember the (West-)german political system was designed after the US's (those system are remarkably alike). So I'm not sure If in the descision to create this law, the US hasn't been involved.
"Wie immer sind alle Angaben ohne Gewähr"So the result is trading ( a small part of) free speech against for comfort in the immutible moral standard (which was , at least in part, was imposed by the allies, in order to keep lies from spreading, like the "Dolch-stoss-legende" after WWI, which at least in part helped the NSDAP gain Power, in order to help keeping WW III from happening, or at least from keeping the germans from thinking they need to start it) from which you can deviate, as long as you don't state those (false-, as seen by current History books) views as facts publicly.
(I think that was my longest sentece I ever wrote)
IANAL, so I do not have an absolute view on that all, IANAH either (I am not an Historian either) , but IAG (I am german), so I might have a little one sided view.
OK, South Africa (whites against blacks, and blacks against whites) and Japan vs China
Here are some long choice comments backing up my previous post:
Regarding ways to solve the virus problem Harris Miller astonishingly recommended:
IOW: One possible solution he recommends is to create a central authority which manages and could potentially censor ALL email on the Internet. WOW... that goes against EVERYTHING I've ever stood for as a System Administrator responsible for email traffic.
Here's another choice quote:
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LYNN N. RIVERS (D-MI) asked this telling question to the panelists: So at least one Congresscritter "gets" it, but the responses she received in reply should dismay anyone with a technical background:
So Security problems with Windows/Outlook aren't inherent in to the design of those products, just a funtion of their popularity. Riggghhhhtttt....
Here Dr. Tippett defends the necessety of executable scripts which read the Outlook address book in order to find names of others with which to send email (typical Outlook security hole which he thinks necesssary -- at least until Microsoft changed their security tune I suppose):
And Finally, they recommend outlawing the hire of "hackers" who at one time have been convicted of malicious "hacking," thus permenantly revoking one's right to pursue employment instead of just fixing the problem client side: I'm just disgusted by this... if you've read down this far you ought to just go and read the whole thing. Be prepared to puke... this just makes me sick.
There's a difference between speaking of hate and acting on it. In the U.S., speach is protected but your actions are answerable under the law. Anyone who actually does "ethnic cleansing" in the U.S. is punished by the law. So I'm not sure where the hypocrisy is here...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
No one's got it right. Not one nation there has a truly intelligent view.
Look at the corporate-run United States. We have our free speech (much to the Radical Religious Right's chagrin) but no right to privacy.
Then check out Europe. Most of the nations there view privacy as a fundamental right, but can and do restrict free speech. Sure, it's against things like racism, but it's still wrong to censor anything, because the second one voice is silenced it sets a precedent by which all other voices are by definition jeopardized.
France is no more intelligent than the US in that regard. Sure, they have different views on nudity (whereas many Americans consider all nudity to be pr0n, it takes more than that to be consdered pornographic just about anywhere else). But they do ban other forms of speech. Yes, hate speech is a terrible thing. I have the distinct displeasure of living near a whole family of racists, so I know how bad it can get. But if no one has the right to censor me, then no one has the right to censor them either. And yes, it is annoying to have to put up with them (while I might not be the target of their race hate, I am still distrusted on religious grounds). But it's the only fair way.
The Declaration lists "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as inalienable rights. Note that happiness is not a right, only the pursuit of it is. In other words, you certainly have the right to try to be happy. But if you fail, your rights haven't been violated just because you aren't happy. This is something we as Americans seem to forget often; I'm guilty of it sometimes too. But the fact is, even in a truly fair system we're all different people, so we all have to put up with crap from others at some point.
I'm sure I'll run up against the Radical Religious Right and the Terminally Insecure, I mean Politically Correct, for this. But if we're going to be fair, and the people do want fairness, then no censorship can be allowed at all. Privacy must be inviolable without a warrant issued by a court of law. Intellecctual property must be maintained, but so must fair use of that property.
And in the end, some things will result from this that people won't like. You might run across something that offends you, or -God forbid- you might have to do your job as a parent and keep your own eyes on your own kids. Law enforcement, restricted again by law to using only the means they're legally allowed to use anyway by the Constitution, probably won't be as good at catching The Bad Guy. Piracy will still take place. But it is worth it, because the alternative is worse: a Big Brother state with mandatory pay-per-use media across all channels, perpetual copyrights and patents, and no concept of fair use whatsoever.
A friend of mine once told me about her travels to Europe. She had the oppurtunity to talk and interact with a good number of Germans and other Europeans. The biggest difference that she couldn't get over? Europeans do not value their freedom like we do in the US. I'm not sure what to think about that, other than you seem not to value freedom like we do.
Your accusation that we should be punishing and locking up lowlifes who spew racist garbage, while the majority of Europe let Milosevicz go unchecked is humorous.
let's recap:
U.S: let people speak freely. take action against those who kill based on race.
Europe: punish those who speak poorly. little action against ruthless leader ethnic cleansing.
I am not saying that the US is the protector of moral fortitude around the world. That is far from true. I agree that we have problems. I just had to rant a little after your hypocrisy remark.
As a citizen of this country I am sick and tired of the US' "big brother" attitude towards the world. I think this is in part due to us emerging largely unscathed from WWII and not being properly humbled (ie: get your country's infrastructure bombed into oblivion) and then enjoying economic superiority over countries that had. The other part is that the US is still subconsciously reeling from vietnam. I think in an effort to "prove" themselves, our government has decided to dominate other, less powerful, countries. This isn't big brother - this is schoolyard bully.
The US has absolutely no right to impunge on the soverenty of other countries. End of story. The WIPO and UN have both been forced down the throats of countries through economic means, and IP rights are still used as a bludgeoning tool by this country to extort less developed 3rd world countries' resources. In short, the US has no moral conscience beyond the dollar, and this is further proof. The internet threatens to take the rug out from underneath the US' economic superiority by enabling "global capitalism". This is putting this country into a neat problem of fighting itself - capitalism requires growth to survive, yet this country also has the conflicting goal of remaining economically superior. To maintain this (inevitably doomed to failure, I suppose) they are trying to leverage their current economic power to promote a global political climate that would allow them to maintain their vice on the global market.
I say you people in France do what you do best - take some of my unenlightened peers to school!
I wish that I could read the article in English on Babelfish, but my company has installed Cyberpatrol, which apparently blocks it! They also block Peacfire.org, Suck.com, TheOnion.com...
The G7 are the seven richest countries in the world: US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada + Russia makes 8
Why was this marked down as a troll?
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
The thing you don't realize is that the next step is to close the borders. Yes the Internet may be international, but it still is primarily dominated, both by presence and technologies, by the wealthiest countries in the world. No matter how much people dislike the US, the fact does remain that it is the wealthiest country on the planet.
And hate speech or nudity probably isn't the goal of arranging a cross border policy for stopping Internet crimes. Think breakins. Think denial of service. Think IP piracy.
The Slashdot review of it is here. Garfinkel gives numerous good reasons why invasions of privacy are dangerous. He points out that data that was collected for innocent purposes by European nations was later misused by the Nazis. Information once collected tends to be kept. It will enventually fall into the wrong hands. Let me put this bluntly: The US wants the power to investigate people so that the data can later be used for extortion, fraud, theft, and violence. That is what this must eventually lead to.
start shooting people. This country is fucked!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Scholars would also tell you that French philosophers created racism, fascism and a lot of extremely stupid ideas. You can never win them all I suppose.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
well let me disagree:
There is a big difference in the Forming of the USA and uniting long existing Nations into one State/republic/Nation/whatever.
Just look what problems we have in the EU which (at least that's what I hope) will be the government of Europe. (Your world government a order of magnitude smaller).
(And Europe has quite similar cultures compared with all nations of Earth)
But i agree on the other aspect you state.
"Wie immer sind alle Angaben ohne Gewähr"
Q: What about bomb-making information? Oklahoma City/Columbine, blah blah blah.
My old chem textbook had a lab on thermite in it...
icq:=22921393;
It's not the U.S. alone--the EU can't escape from responsibility and ridicule.
The Washington Post has a story from the conference. They point out:
Hey, my computers don't want to be protected by Big Brother, they want protection from Big Brother.
Even French President Chirac, who wields a lot in the EU generally, has come out against UCITA. Given the EU reaction to Echelon, it's possible (though I'd guess not probable) that there will be EU laws banning software that contains deliberately-written backdoors.
According to this arcticle on Wired:
The session drew up talking points for the July summit in Okinawa of the G8 -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, and Russia -- but did not propose a global "cyberpolice" or other new crime-fighting agencies.
It also states:
U.S. Assistant Attorney General James Robinson poured cold water on talk by French officials that Washington wanted to a global "cyberpolice" that could be a threat to civil liberties. He said U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno had never even suggested to him that she was interested in this idea and added: "That's certainly not been anything we have proposed here."
Curious... I checked other sources.
ZDNET has this to say: In his speech, Chevenement highlighted the trans-Atlantic gap by rejecting the idea of an international "cyberpolice" supported by U.S. officials eager to crack down quickly on computer crime. "Nothing could be more wrong," he declared. "Sovereign states can develop the capacity to act, first at home and then in international cooperation."
I don't think the CyberPolice issue is still on the table for the next summit in July. Of course, if everyone wants to get there panties in a wad about the U.S.'s meddlesome, high handed foriegn policies, please, don't let this stop you. Bash away.
Who's really responsible for this plan? Surely the government alone couldn't have come up with such an idiotic scheme. Anybody can be a little stupid--it takes millions, working in concert, to bring about such monumental boneheadedness.
Heh, the United States government is a group made up of millions of idiots...
It's not schizophrenia, it's human nature.
That's exactly my point about racism, in the parallel threads. Government policing of human nature is a bad idea - on grounds of religion, morality, ethics, pronounciation, whatever.
It's certainly not an easy problem to solve, and I don't claim that I have a better way. I just claim that the US reaching out across the ocean, trying to tell the world how to use the Internet, is going to become a huge embarassment.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Once The US and France reaches some form of agreement, time comes to China. If the US gets the ability to shut down non-US sites that break US law, China should be able to shut down US sites that breaks chinese law... And then we have Iraq etc...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
"The only reason the US is perceived as being so terribly racist is because the US is the *only* country on Earth that seems to actually care!"
To which you correctly replied:
Oh bull!
The United States is not the only country to care about racism, as anyone who has spent any time abroad in places like Germany or France can attest to. There may well be places (perhaps Japan?) where racism is not a concern, or is only a minor concern, but be that as it may, the United States doesn't even come close to having a monopoly on concern with respect to racism and bigotry.
But you then went completely off the mark when you went on to say:
It's political correctness, not caring. IMHO, if the US didn't make such a big deal out of racism and ethnic hatered, it would go away more quickly.
The vast majority of people in the United States do care about racism and bigotry, and do want it to go away. So-called political correctness is an expression and a symptom of that concern. It is often an inane, silly, and sometimes plain ugly expression, but that doesn't make the underlying concerns any less real.
As to the notion that, if we "didn't make such a big deal out of racism and thnic hatred, it would go away more quickly" history does not support your assertion.
Indeed, some 500 years of history on the North American continent alone, including all 224 years of the existence of the United States of America, clearly contradict your assertion.
Progress on diminishing racial and ethnic bigotry and hatred was virtually nil in the 19th century, with the one exception of the banning of slavery (which the US was one of the last countries on the planet to do, and was arguably just a catalyst and otherwise a small side-issue of the civil war, the main fight being about state vs. federal authority and the limits thereof). The issue of racial and ethnic equality before the law, and racial and ethnic bigotry as a whole, was largely ignored until the civil rights movement put the issue on the table in the 1960's. Since then progress has been much more rapid and, while there is still much room for improvement, no one could reasonably argue that "by ignoring the issue" progress in racial relations would have been any quicker.
Quite the contrary, as the last 35 years of change vs. the 465 years previous attest to. Indeed, the only way to achieve change and overcome culteral intertia is through activism and pro-active measures, of which the civil rights movement was an excellent example.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
....In the argument here and what you have is pretty much the normal day to day operations of any squalid, corrupt, war-torn emerging dictatorship. We hear as much coming out of Sierra Leone or Nigeria eg. "we need to restrict the disruptive elements in our society if there is to be any hope of calling democratic elections". Oh yeah, sure, and all that mayhem, repression and killing, pay no attention to it, ahem.
Once you have the police in control of the media and/or the phones you've fallen into the abyss. Plain and simple.
And so it makes no sense at all to me to hire Billy the Kid to make a better bank vault. I mean, that's crazy.
:P
Heh, that's exactly what should be done, after all... who knows better about how to crack a safe than the guy who cracked the safe
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Geeze, it is /IMPOSSIBLE/ to physically hurt anyone over the Internet - the only thing you can possibly do is spread information...
Umm, no, but if I told you how, then I'd have to kill you.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Q: What about porn? My children will be scarred if they see a breast.
..."
A: So keep them away from porn sites. Only YOU know what your policy is, so only YOU can enforce it. In any case, it's not my job to raise your children.
Exactly! What's up with these parents? They want the government to protect their kids from the Bad Things(tm), because they're too lazy to get off their ass, and raise their kids themselves!
A lot of the dangerous things in life are tempered by guidance when you're young. I mean, what does the NRA keep having their members say?
"I learned to use a gun responsibly as a child. My father took me hunting, and showed me
Notice that the NRA doesn't say "guns are great! Free guns for everyone! Including little kids that have been watching too much Power Rangers!" (because their parents were lazy dips who probably didn't deserve to have kids in the first place!
Just because you don't like the pr0n or the martial arts flicks that I like to watch, doesn't mean that you have the right to bitch to the government about why I shouldn't get to watch them. And just like you can, and should censor for yourself the things you don't like, you MUST do the same for your kids!
Down with censorship!
What sort of world are we living in where the French are the voice of reason in ANYTHING?
Vive le France!
Actually, acts of racial hatred are illegal. But the thought of the government regulating speech of ANY kind is scary. Do you really believe that the governenment should control what people SAY or THINK? If someone wants to be a racist in their hear, how does one enforce laws concerning that? It would be the Salem witch trials all over again. I may disagree with the racist speech, but i would die to defend someones right to say or think as they see fit just as i would die to defend YOUR right to disagree and rebutt thier stupid ideas and beliefs.
What happens when one day a form of speech near and dear to you becomes labeled as "hatered" or "unacceptable"? Thought and speech have to be protected as an INALIENABLE right no matter how much we may disagree with what is being said. Why is it that everyone who chants on about their rights to display nudity or speech or whatever they may personally like in the name of "personal freedom" yet those same people always want the government to control the speech and thought of those who disagee with them? I agree with you that it is the responsibility of parents to raise their children, but your other comments are the epitomy of hypocicy. You complain about "puritan ethics" then say that a persons right to think or speak as they see fit shouldnt be an inaleinable right.
I just wish that everyone who thinks we should have "hate crime" laws and "hate speech" laws would stop for a second and think it through logically instead of emotionally. If the government can regulate Klan speech then it can regulate ANYONES speech. You should read 1984 sometime.
Selfgov.org "Government is at best a necessary evil, at worst- an intolerable one."--Thomas Paine
Well, afaik, Italy is a member, not Spain.
The eighth country on the list is Russia.
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Does anyone think that haven't been blithely pursuing 'cyber-criminals' through the networks according to wherever the trail leads so far? Do they just need to make this formal and write down some rules somewhere for the sake of actual legal proceedings: "Exhibit 'A', some router logs from er, some other country... That are valid because, er... And erm, evidence and civil rights there dovetail with local US civil rights because erm... Look, can't we just throw the son of bitch in jail?"
Aside: It's funny how racism only runs rampant in the one country that considers 'racial hatred' to be a protected, inalienable civil right.
Ignoring the fact that racism "runs rampant" in all countries, let's ask the question: how is that funny? It would seem to follow directly that a country that protects free speech will also have speech that people deem offensive.
Je suis un american, mais j'espere que la bon nation de France succede en vigueur des Américains abandonner leur postion.
Pardonnez-moi si mon Francais n'est pas tres bon...
Example: the concept of "incentive to racial hatred" does not exist in the United States. However nothing prevents the sites néo-Nazis based on the other side of the Atlantic to diffuse their propaganda in Europe via the Net...
The Internet has forced us to deal with our differences in a rather disturbing way. Our laws can not and should not be applied to people of other countries, but at the same time, they can't expect us to sacrifice our freedoms to comply with their agendas. (Not saying that trying to block nazi propaganda isn't a good agenda, but...where does it stop?) I am more worried about the USA's role in this not because I don't think we can come to an agreement, but because the Web has been overrun by corporations and media, who in turn have their own puppets in DC. I see a vision of trade agreement type laws being passed to regulate the 'net, with a very AOL-ish type of structure. You see the web your government has decided it's ok for you to see. And I'm not sure how to affect that outcome.
Stories like this one give me goosebumps. I keep them mentally filed with other unpleasant mind-candy, like 2 year olds on Prozac and the destruction of the rainforest...
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
The US and the FBI don't like Interpol. They'll listen to some crackhead on the corner before Interpol (Remember the first DDoS debaucle? The Euros had the correct answer but the FBI was too busy being important to take their head out of their ass and listen.)
.sig: Now legally binding!
Why use the UN. Isn't there already an existing international Police force - Interpol. Could they take on the role?
-----------------------------
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If you can't blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.
The problem is that, of course, YOU'RE thinking "Breakins, DoS, privacy", which would be a great mindset for an International Internet policing agency to have. And the US delegates may even tout those as their primary issues, wooing all to their favor. But realistically, the US wants power over International policing of the Internet for the same reason any government has ever wanted control over anything; they want to regulate the IDEAS that US citizens have access to. They aren't interested in policing crime; they probably couldn't care less about legitimate, real criminal and security issues on the 'net. If the government here felt the same way about these issues as you and other informed 'netizens, there wouldn't be this problem...
If there isnt some kind of universal law protecting internet users then all of us using the wonderful WWW are probably gonna be hit at one time or another...even the guru's at slashdot aren't invinsible to the "denial of service" attacks that got em last week....i dont know how far you can take it but there needs to be a suitible punishment...glaicas!!
...the american government can shut the fuck up and go back to banging interns in the oval office.
The country cannot keep its own people fed, employed, or remotely cared for. Let the other countries take care of themselves. Let the 'Net go its own route, and worry about the people who need help instead of *possible* problems that are only spawned by large corporations with to much time and money already. (ie. RIAA, MPAA, need i continue?)
Thank You
"That is the whole point though. No one country could exert their particular prejudices over the net. Only things that are illegal in most contries would be illegal. It would be a sort of democracy of the values (i use values in the dictionary definition not the bullshit GOP sense) of all of humanity."
Sorry Charlie, but you are using the word "values" exactly in the "bullshit GOP sense. You are talking about imposing the will of the majority on the minority. You're majority may not be the Christian Coalition, but that is little to no relief. Democracy, btw, is a crock. Don't point to US as a positive example. Sure it is becoming increasing democratic as it goes down the tubes. It used to be a constitutional republic.
One of the nice things about having multiple countries/states is that if you don't like one, you leave. It's not always that simple, but that ultimate option is out there as a goal. If any single organization/government controls the internet, then you have nowhere to go (space?). You do realize how big the internet will be in the future, don't you? Having one entity control the internet is as asinine as having every computer run the same operating system.
And if you think that only the "worst of the worst" will get outlawed, then think once again Charlie. That's not how politcos work. It's more like this: OK I'll agree to outlaw pornagraphy if you agree to outlaw hate speech and you agree to outlaw political dissent and you agree to outlaw encrpytion, so we're agreed, everything is now outlawed.
"Sign up others and start building your own branch of the ProcessTree. You'll get a percentage of the payments that go to the computers below you in your branch organization."
This sounds like a pyramid-scheme. As soon as I see something like this I stay way clear of it. Pyramid-schemes suggest that you own others that you invite to the party, benefiting (in %) from all their work. It encourages selfish and unethical behaviour, like spam and conning. It's a bad way to promote an organizations, but can sadly be very effective.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
A "We hate your continent" Troll on the front page
"Why do WE feel the need to do this 'Play policeman and walk over any nation WE don't like' crap."
"WE do it to Mexico too."
"... WE decided we're going to do it for them."
"And why do WE get away with it?"
"WE grease palms..."
Thank you, Borg Collective. There is a new word out: it's called "I". You can find an introduction of its defintion and usage in Ayn Rand's "Anthem". Take care.
Europeans do not value their freedom like we do in the US.
This is an interesting point, and I think it should be clarified. It is not that Europeans value their Freedoms LESS than Americans, they value them differently. That's one thing.
The other thing is WHY this is so. I don't know the answer, but I suspect (uh-oh, opinion warning) that it's because Europe has seen the lines drawn and redrawn, and the fronts marched across the landscape so many times, that they have a different perspective about things. They tend to take changes and attitudes more in stride than Americans.
Americans tend to see things in absolutes, Europeans tend to see things in gradients. Americans think that gradients and shades of gray are a cop-out. Europeans think that viewing the world as Black and White (reference intended) is naive and almost childish.
I have an interesting observation. Racism in the US started to decline in the 60's, and the mental build-up for this started in the 50's... This was the same time that the 'revolutionaries', 'peacenicks' and hippies were cowering under grade-school desks, doing A-Bomb drills.
What's the point? Well, once the Red Scare came ashore, there was someone else to hate, so hating blacks became a little more difficult.
Europeans have a new ethnic group, religious group or political group to confront every election. Encapsulating a different group of people under a different label is a matter of routine, and so people take it less seriously.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
1) While it IS an MLM, it is NOT a Ponzi (aka pyramid) scheme.
2) Read the page about how you get kicked out if you are discovered or reported spamming.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Hmm? Racism is just as acceptable as anything else! Racism, satanism, liberalism, nudity ... who gets to distinguish between what is good, what is bad?
...)
... and noone would bat an eye. And they'd demonstrate until they were hoarse and dehydrated, daily, and go on screaming, and noone would respond. And the 95% of the citizens would be glad, that their right to free speech, no matter how distasteful, was continuously being proven by others ...
The things that you think good are not the things I think are good. Remember: there is no such thing as universal truth, and universal morality!
(Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that I don't believe racism to be negative -- especially since I'm not Caucasian
My view of a perfect world (note my) is one in which 95% of the citizens are generally unbigoted, open-minded, and generally 'righteous' (pick your definition). It would also have 5% of the population, make up of KKK members, espousers of violence against children and cruelty to animals, and all sorts of other undesirables.
And they would scream, and yell, and convince as hard as they could
The US has already passed "campaign finance reform" but like most things it caused more harm than good. The only good reform would be to repeal all the stupid laws. And McCain?! Get a grip, the guy spent years as a POW and as a politician he's trying to make every citizen a POW. If you are not a "poster child for freedom" then you ain't worth one lick of support.
I seem to recall a few books/movies by TomClancey about this very subject... and if i recall, they fought some of these issues .. ... per usual ... all comments are subject to dismissal due to "smokin' crack" .. sorry. bemis
"There should, however, be an internetworked place where the techno-idiots can feel safe {Internet 2 maybe?}"
Three letters: A O L
Well, it may not be legal per se, but according to Guliani its at least OK, if you're a New York City cop with a broomstick or 40 bullets and a gun, and your victim is an unarmed black male.
The original post was itself hypocritical, as the same racism exists in Europe (cf people killed in fires in Germany when skinheads burned housing for asylum seekers, Europe's appallingly weak response to Milosevic in Bosnia, etc.). But ironically the post was right on the mark in pointing out the presence of very same hypocricy it (inadvertantly) epitomizes here in the US.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Can I claim that cars should be banned because they kill people, polute the air?
Actually, you can. You can claim anything you like. Doesn't mean that anyone is going to listen.
No. This is plainly demagogic.
Well, no it isn't. There is a lot of evidence to support that claim. You could always argue that we'd be better off with fewer cars and more public transport: fewer accidental deaths and less pollustion if done correctly. Whether or not the argument is demagogic depends upon how you phrase it, and what sort of plan you have to solve the perceived problems.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I'd rather not have your laws enforced in my country all the same, pal.
.coms, .nets and .orgs has by far the worst record. The amount of vetting that any company has to go through to get a .ie URL (for example) is pretty substantial, but it's consistent, fair and means that there will never be a www.hotchicks.ie or anything similar.
.com as their own, there isn't a damn thing they can do about it.
In terms of enforcing legality of what is already on the Internet, I believe that the US, being responsible for all the
This problem originated in the US and, short of reclaiming every single
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
While of course, the US is well known for a very positive record on all matters to do with race and ethni...hold on, something's not quite right here.
Sad to say, we're all crap, no matter what country we live in.
The Internet (and especially usenet), is imo the only form in wich the Anarchist phylosophie was setup and worked for a long time.
But we've come to the limits of anarchyst systems. When too many people live in such systems the auto-police work becomes harder and harder.
The net used to be self-policed, this is not the case anymore because ISPs do not educate their "customers" since they do not know the unwritten rules they don't abey the rules. They apply the rules they used to live in : which are liberalistic and capitalistic. Such rules in an anarchistic environment tend to kill such society.
The Internet until 1994 was the Achievment of Anarchism. We now have the proof that Anarchy can't be applied to mass people, but that on a closed environement it is a viable system.
none Yet.
This will probably be yet another attempt by the US to implement International law as a fait-accompli, forcing the rest of the world to agree using political and, always more important, economic pressure. Typically this has worked well for the States, with Europe typically divided amongst themselves on petty issues and Asia staying out of everything that looks to hurt the stock-market. But with the EU chomping at the bit to test the limits of its new political and economic union, it will be interesting to see how they stand against the US's age-old bully tactics. And when was the last time you heard of Japan taking a firm stand on any issue that wasn't clear-cut economics, as far as the International arena is concerned? I'm guessing the US is in for a surprise this time, facing the most unified European front they've ever seen. And is Japan's standpoint a harbringer of things to come? I think it would be wise for the EU to catch this changing wind quickly, grabbing support where it arises. Perhaps they could change their name to the EBU (Everybody But the US) and start sending open invitations to the rest of the globe...
That is the whole point though. No one country could exert their particular prejudices over the net. Only things that are illegal in most contries would be illegal. It would be a sort of democracy of the values (i use values in the dictionary definition not the bullshit GOP sense) of all of humanity. the internet is a universal medium so maybe it is time we face it as the whole of humanity not as the fragmented bunch of nationalistic political states.
"High school chemistry textbooks have the same information, maybe we should censor those too?"
This has already happened. Whether it was intended or coincidence I can't say for sure, but I have my suspicions. Probably, "But if we publish that we could be sued if some idiot ignores the warnings and..."
Find a textbook from the mid-1950s. Say, Modern Chemistry by Dulle, Brooks, & Metcalfe. Turn to the chapter on nitrates. Read. Read the warnings, too. Now go look at a recent chemistry text. Notice that something isn't there?
Warning: Off-topicness follows.
This could be from fear of litigation and such, or it could be from high schools, in the USA anyway, trying to teach chemistry by the theory, as in colleges, rather than 'descriptive chemistry' as in the 1950s. The 1950s text is a good text. Reading it one gets a 'feel' for the subject, the detailed theory can (and should) come later, to answer to nagging "but why does.." questions. I have a suspicion that the subject is considered difficult and boring today as it is first taught in a boring and difficult manner.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
To circumvent due process.. I believe that was a major request of the Hitler regiem during the first years of WW-II, to protect the german citizens. It seems that the government here in the USA is still mining that vast information and idea database we captured during WW-II. Hitler was a genius/madman... He was able to control and manipulate the masses of germany, while the US government has a much refined propaganda machine running.. Things have changed in the 50+ years, we've became experts at manipulation, all the while history prepares to repeat it's self.
Back in the 50's we played with it, and learned that running around in a skirt screaming "you're a commie!" didn't work... This time it will be silent. and the offending parties will just dissappear.
I can see it coming, hell the first test of this world order is in out schools now! (can we say zero tolerance?) Everyone has seen that you CAN trample on a persons rights all you want, IF it's done for the sake of the "general good".
I know I sound like a "conspiriacy freak" or some nut. I just see what is happening, and remeber what has happened. It's coming, it cant be stopped, just accept it.
but then is there ANY country in the world that isnt hell bent on control?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Nicely put, but alas those on Capitol Hill (and an unfortunately large and influential proportion of their electorate) have not yet grasped the bizarre concept of "personal responsibility".
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
"Maybe the UN should have police powers over the internet."
;)
;) .
:8)
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
Maybe not
In practice, what's the difference between the UN and the US? The UN gets the flak, the US gets the credit and bosses everyone around.
OK, so China / USSR[1] have a bit of a say in the UN too... yippee.
To combine the best of both kinds of suggestion here, what I think we need is to form a totally independent Net - something where the governments keep their paws off, that regulates itself by technological means *only*. This suing-everybody mentality is blatantly immature and solves nothing. This legislating to remove freedoms thing is evil. The only times any legal body should be involved is when a net.action adversly affects the 'real world' (whatever that is
Excuse me while I invent utopia?
[1] or whatever they're called today
~Tim
--
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I've been reading about some of the war crimes trials/kangaroo courts that the UN has set up, specifically the ICTY. They are not carrying out these trials in anything that resembles a fair manner, never mind one that respects common legal practices. Prisoners held for years without trial, witnesses giving secret testimony and admitting lying on the stand (yet the trials go on), etc.
I wouldn't trust the UN any more than the US govt to "run" the Net. It's giving the fox the keys to the chicken coop. In fact, I wouldn't trust anyone (govt or corp or nonprof) to regulate the Net, it's to porous, and bureaucrats (since that's who'd "run" things) are notoriously corrupt in all their disgusting flavors.
In short, fuck the UN and the one-worlders, especially as far as the Net goes. And, if they (UN/US/whoever) try to somehow assert authority over the Net, new, secure nets can be built...
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
The U.S. gov't already thinks it has the right to run around patrolling the real world, why does it surprise anyone that they're pushing for the same all-encompassing bullying rights in the virtual world, too?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
What I will say is that my colleagues and I have seen this coming for a long time. The big questions here are:
Give the Man the Finger.
www.alarmist.org
"Aside: It's funny how racism only runs rampant in the one country that considers 'racial hatred' to be a protected, inalienable civil right."
Are you forgetting Germany, USSR, Cambodia? And, BIG FYI, "racial hatred" is not considered a "civil right". Speech is protected under the first amendment. I don't know what amendment covers emotion ("hatred"), but I'm damn sure techno-jerks like yourself will construct a way to detect that as well. Civil rights were introduced in like the '60s.
It may be true but you should not be *that* provocative. I thought the French were more subtle... ;)
the US has no more exclusivity on breeding rednecks than they have on innovatiing technologies ;)
Taking a look at the responses here and in those for the article on Canadian government databases gives me a really chilling picture of how many Americans see the rest of the world. Every time issues surrounding some foreign government's legal system comes up, someone always says something along the lines of "well, their a lot more socialist than we are" as if that explains anything.
/.'ers seem to take a wholly different view of the UK than they do of non-anglophone countries.
/. who has the faintest idea what kinds of language laws there are in Canada or France? In Canada, there are laws that require students to attend school in the majority language of their province unless they are willing to pay for a private education. In the US, the real situation isn't any different. Quebec has a law requiring outdoor signs to be have readable French content, as do several communities in the US for English. France and Canada require that some legally manditory documents be in French. The US does the same thing implicitly and explicitly, as do most countries.
/., it genuinely pisses me off to see a bunch of yahoos who've never lived abroad and who get their news from CNN tell me that country X is full of lazy bumpkins and country Y is in economic ruin when they don't know the first thing about those places. Try getting your views of the world from somewhere outside of bars for once.
I've lived in three countries in my life, the US, Canada and France, and if Americans think Canada or France are very socialist, it's only because their conception of what socialism is is piss poor. Japan, Australia, even Chile have social policies and government controls over the economy as great or greater than either France or Canada, yet few people here seem to see them as socialist.
A better folk political theory would be that the US is has the abnormal political system, with its worship of markets and disregard for good public policy.
Canada is not the home of big brother, nor are the French lazy. France has had higher productivity, greater increases in productivity and has traditionally been wealthier than Germany or the UK, yet I don't hear much grousing about lazy Germans and Brits on this board.
Furthermore, there is the noise about those countries not valuing free speech and/or privacy. True, both Canada and France have laws forbidding certain kinds of speech in some media, which are poorly enforced and whose legal status remains hopelessly unclear. That doesn't justify those laws, but it does make them largely meaningless. The US, on the other hand, is home to the Texas Food Libel law, making it illegal to say demeaning things about vegetables. It is a place where you can use legal pressure to close websites that translate copyrighted pages into "Swedish chef" jargon. In the US, free speech is reserved for those who can afford the legal fees (note that Babelfish does basically the same thing as the "Dialectizer" yet hasn't been hassled by BofA), while in both Canada and France such harassment is rare and often very costly to the harasser.
If you want to see a country with real free speech problems, look at the UK's libel laws. Look at the "LM vs ITN" lawsuit at http://www.informinc.co.uk/ITN-vs-LM/. Yet,
As for language laws, is there anyone on
As a non-American on
Metamoderation presents you with a list of moderations performed on articles. You decide if they were fair or unfair. Go to http://slashdot.org/metamod.pl to see if you're eligible.
A metamoderation discussion may be found at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl? sid=metamoderation.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Wait a second, does this stem from the recent lawsuits and regular policing action that the US has been involved with (i.e. MPAA, RIAA, I LUV U virus, Montrealer caught for Yahoo/CNN DDoS)??
Personally, I would like to see an international team of computer/law experts put together for the express purpose of tracking down DDoS attacks, virii, and general mis-use of the Net... But let's be reasonable... if the US has laws and "agencies" set-up to do this, is that any reason to give them a green light?
And what about international laws for computer crime? Might not developing those first be a smarter idea before going head-first into a potential court mine-field with authorities from different counties?
Soudns to me as though this is being done completely ass-backwards. =(
Chris
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
The sad thing is most of you don't realize what a f*cked-up country you live in. And that so many of your lawmakers apparently do not understand that the Internet is an international venue, and one cannot easily frisk electrons at the border to determine whether or not they constitute vicious Nazi hate speech (perfectly acceptable) or a bare breast (probably illegal.) Sheesh ..
First we gain police control on the net, then we add mandatory telescreens to every wall! But if France doesn't allow hate speech, then how will we have our mandatory 2 minute hate everyday. I gotta stop reading 1984.
My next Slashdot post will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
It's true that they don't know how to make an unbreakable vault, but they can look at one and say "That's a stupid place for that widget, because placing it there makes it easier to crack the safe," so many of the simple flaws could be easily identified.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Babelfish not half of product that some hard-with-read the text
(Babelfish doesn't half produce some hard-to-read text)
The point of the article is that activity that is illegal in the USA may not be illegal elsewhere, and vice versa.
I've got a proposal to make the net safe.. Although it may run against the current US proposal.. One of the key points is the transfer of responsibility from Janet Reno to an agency with more understanding of net technology, such as the National Dairy Council..
-
air and light and time and space
Ever heard of "sperm"?
Women are not self-replicating.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
When will the US stop existing in a vacuum? The world does not revolve around Washington, DC.
"We clobbered you with our McCulture, and now will pummel you with our Puritanical sense of ethics!"
Aside: It's funny how racism only runs rampant in the one country that considers 'racial hatred' to be a protected, inalienable civil right.
There is nothing wrong with sex and nudity. There is nothing wrong with sex on television - it is the parent's responsibility to raise their kids.
The IS something wrong with sex in the Oval Office.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I think US goes too far. First, US allows a monopolist to build a troyan-friendly operating system. Then it builds a non-secure internet. Then it allows anyone to track anyone on internet. And then US wants to police the whole damn thing. I think the rest of the world should really be worried about their security and not let one state alone police anything beyond its borders.
I don't see the hypocracy. The general rule the US goes by is "Your right to swing your fist, stops at the end of my nose."
You are comparing words to bullets. You can say you hate my guts, wish I were dead and I am subhuman, etc, but you can't do anything past that. US allows you to blabber your fool head off, but won't allow you to touch me in any way.
Milosevicz is using government resources to kill a select portion of it's population.
I will say lots of bad things about the US, and very few things I will say are the best in the world, but our free speech laws are the best in the world.
Also you are not making your moral argument very strong when you start off by bragging about causing someone else to lose their job so that you can financially profit from it.
- I like pudding.
I just woke up, hungover, and here is my naive hopefull thought of the week:
I would like to see a lawless alternative to the internet- totally unregulated, chaotic, repulsive, but free. There has to be a solution- or a series of solutions, since whenever the anti-internet(s), as I would call them, became widespread they would be standardized or challeged by a biased legal system and, thus, destroyed.
is this like Napster? sort of.
oops. I'm waking up...the hope is gone
Spoken like an ignorant jerk who's never been out of the continental USA..
;)
Actually, I was born and raised in Europe. I only came to the US to steal your job!
I've seen my share of racism and ethnic hatred, both there and here, and what I say comes from experience. Have YOU ever crossed 'the pond', or are you just venting gas?
No one is questioning world-wide hatred and ignorance. The point of the comment is that in the US hating another race is your "God given right!", whereas elsewhere it's viewed as human nature, and NOT protected by the government. (Dictatorial regimes excepted, of course)
In the US, you can spew hate-speak at strangers, march in a white hood and burn a cross - and you're expressing your views. When Milosevicz goes on an 'ethnic cleansing spree', the US is up in arms, standing up for the underdog. Hypocricy, elevated to an art form.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
There are really two approches we can take to dealing with cyberspace:
1) The most liberal/open view, police powers only for truly egregeious cases, recognizing that different countries have different definitions of abuse of cyberspace, and that we have to take the broadest view.
Or
2) Trying to crack down for every law and with every opinion, trying to extend national reach beyond boarders and into other countries. Technologically impossible, politically difficult, socially devestating.
Sometimes, I wonder if countries, in dealing with the internet, aren't worried about law. They want to conquer and control new territory.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Some good may actually come of this. Normally, when the US government makes a riduculously unconstitutional power grab, it follows the DMCA and UCITA paradigm: it doesn't tell anyone. There is a difference, though, between are two least-favorite acts of legislation and this new cyber-policing nonsense. The former are manipulations of a corrupt system by businessmen who see no problem with using the force of law to make themselves wealthy (note: this is NOT capitalism!!!). The latter is a machination of the system *itself*. Even the most politically influential corporation is still really only after more money, when the political system itself comes crashing down on our rights its essentially because it wants to: a politician's real income isn't money, it's POWER.
/really/ saying is, "the US seeks to become as authoritarian as the USSR or China."
Anyway, back to the good news. What I see this proposal by the US gov't as is a confession. Here are representatives of what everyone still calls "the freest nation on earth", basically admitting that they don't give a rat's ass about freedom! When they said, "we want cyber-policing powers," what they were
Some days, the United States takes a step towards socialism; others, it steps towards fascism (as in this case of cyber-policing). But one thing's for sure, freedom is dead here. We might as well give the Statue of Liberty a whip instead of a torch and rename here the Statue of Authority.
MoNsTeR
(ps: Freud was an idiot)
It should not be the role of the government to step in and censor religious expression.
...
Sex and nudity is different, there is no reason that children should be exposed to it at the ages that they are today. This is not a free speech issue like religious expression, it is a question of morality and standards of decency.
The only reason these two issues are different to you, is because of cultural inertia. That is how things are viewed by you.
To me, religious fanaticism is much more objectionable and obscene than full-penetration on national television. Sex is a natural act. The belief that other people are lesser than you because God said so, borders on schizophrenia.
Well, actually, it only does so if someone elses God said so. If MY God said so, it must be true - right?
People have sex the world over, most of them in the same positions, but there are too many Gods to count. Even the Christian God is fractured into sects and factions, with the Southern Baptist God saying that 'the woman should humbly and happily submit to the will of her husband'. Yet spousal rape is illegal, even in S. Baptist territory.
In France, Scientology is considered a cult, and is pretty heavily regulated. Members are interviewed about their activities, annually, by the government. Should we go to war over their rights?
The point is that the government control over one thing, and not another, is pretty arbitrary, and societal ethics are what gives the government the chalk to draw the lines between issues.
It can be argued that the government should not impose moral or religious standards on a person.
It is pretty obvious that one government has no right to impose it's people's standards onto the people of another government - and that's what the US is trying to do with this Internet policing.
As for children being exposed to sex on television, pornography and those other festering issues... My parents handled that well when I was young. "Mommy, what are those two dogs doing?" was all it took for my attitude about sex, porn and rape to be set straight. My parents took the time to explain, instead of letting the TV-babysitter and schoolmates do it. For example, pornography has little appeal to me, it's only value is an occasional idea to try something new with the person I love and respect.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Racial Hatred Speech is illegal in france? That brings up two interesting thoughts.
1. Wow. Finally a country who does things right...
2. Why the heck do the French get away with Hating Americans then? (and the Excuse that Everyone else does isn't gonna cut it this time.)
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
I haven seen a good many people that are and are not for UN control of Computer Crime and International Policing actions. While I will reserve my own options on a world goverment, I must implore you people to read the UN charter and the UN declaration on human rights.
The UN IS NOT A GOVERMENT. you got ME? it is not.
It is by its very chater a confederacy of sovern states with no Supreme Authority.
If you people truly want a world govermnt then mabey you should take a look at American history at how the USA and CSA were formed. Even though the Latter lost the Civil war the goverment of the states the left were formed in a legal maner.
The only way a Supreme Goverment could be Formed would be by Call for a Sort of Global Constitional Convention in the Same way the founding father did when they relised the Articals of confederation Were not working.
The UN will fail us if we put it up to this sort of task and I sure as hell dont trust the US to respect the rights of Other nations NOT IN the G8
or G(-Insert you number Here).
I've had a lot of people argue the point with me but setting up the UN or the US for this sort of thing without some real forthough is Suicide for the freedom most of the world holds dear.
Isolation
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
For example, France won't extradite an US citizen if he risks death penalty, as there is no death penalty here.
A bit strange and fucked up: a rapist+murderer is sought by the french police, he ran for shelter in Portugal, which might *not* extradite him because he risks over 30 years in France, whereas 30 years is the maximum in Portugal. Had he risked less, he would have been extradited already ...
Actually I find the article rather uninteresting,
;) ).
but anyway here is a "human" translation
(sorry for the bad english)
G8 : States and corporations go for hunting 'cyberpirates'
--abstract--
Jean-Pierre Chevenement (France's interior minister) rules out the
creation, as the American suggest, of a world computer police that
could have tracked suspects beyond borders. Governments want to
convince corporations to invest in their own security.
How can an international 'Penal Code' can be established to fight all
forms of intrusions on computer networks ? This is one of the main
objectives of the most industrialized countries, confronted to an
upsurge of 'cybercriminality', this new kind of delinquency, sometimes
even terrorism, that threatens the interests of consummers, but also
corporations and states. Website cracking, destructive messages
transmissions like in the ILOVEYOU case, broadcasting of pedophilia on
the Internet : the cybercriminality exists in various kinds, their
common point being their ability to ignore borders so they can escape
any control. 'Net heavens', comparable to 'Tax heavens', might
proliferate, especially in Asia.
Since Monday the 15th, security in cyberspace is the theme of a three
day meeting of the G8 (most industrialized countries) in
Paris. Diplomats, magistrates, policemens, as well as members of
organizationss in charge of protecting private life have been invited
to chat with representatives of 150 of the most important companies if
the IT and communication sector.
" Points of Contacts "
This cinference is part of the process that was started in the Lyon
summit in 1996, when the G8 countries have adopted "points of contact"
to share their informations over cybercrime. The Paris meeting should
pave the way for actions of head of states and governments who will
meet in Okinawa, Japan, in July.
For once, Europeans are less favorable to State intervention than
Americans. In their analysis of the new criminality related to
computer networks, the US favor a very repressive approach. The
Europeans don't want any 'cyberpolice' to have the right to violate
the private life a anyone in the name of the interests of the
states. "They tell that the Internet is a territory with no right,
that necessitates because of its own nature, a specific juridicial
regime or a cyberpolice that would go beyond the states frame and
their sovereignity. This is not true. The States keep the ability, and
the responsibility, to act on their own." declared JP Chevenement,
introducing the debates. The French stance is widely shared by
Europeans and Japanese.
The Americans were first favoring an all-repressive
system. Washington wanted
a system where the intelligence services of the whole
world could bypass judiciary institutions to track the criminals
faster. The US consider cybercriminality to be a national defense
priority issue. But their interest is mainly economics : they don't
want to slow the rise of electronic commerce, that is supposed to fuel
the american and world economic growth.
Confronted to European reluctance to engage in this crusade, the
Americans have moderated their stance ("put water in their wine"
"The American discourse has changed" says the French
delegation. Beyond the different initial positions, the G8 countries
now make a unanimous constatation that anonimity and
private life of everyone must be respected, but should not be a screen
behind which anything could be done.
"States Sovereignity"
Thus, the delegations try to harmonize the definition of 'cybercrime'
and to degine the procedures for an efficient cooperation within the
states' sovereignity. As an example, the notion of "incitation to
racial hatred" does not exist in the US. And nothing prevents US based
neonazi websites to broadcast their propaganda to Europe.
The G8 States have coordinated their opinions but they still need to
convince corporations to take their part of the responsibility. This
is the main goal of the G8 meeting in Paris, that gathers for the
first times the governments and the private sector. "The industrials
want anything and the contrary", says a member of the French
delegation. They want a maximum security for a minimum of cost. One of
the main difficulties met by the states is to convince ISPs to keep
during several months the date that they have, to allow the
preservation of elements of proof. Regulatory will on one side,
libertary aspirations of the "net economy" on the other : the conflict
that looms is far from being resolved.
And which of this multitude of diverse ethnic backgrounds are now part of the US? Holy shit! All of them, with a few ex-slaves thrown in! Yous haven't been out of Europe all that long, boys...
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
And whats wrong with not liking someone? You can't force me to like anyone. Do you see the pigeons hanging out with the crows? Nope. Its my right to form an opinion, and no one opinion is more right than the other.
And to quote Voltaire:
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
G8: States and large companies leave to hunting the cyberpirates
Jean-Pierre Chevènement excluded creation, as suggested it the Americans, from a world data-processing font which could have continued the suspects beyond the national borders. The governments want to convince the companies to invest in their security
Updated Tuesday May 16 2000
Lucas Delattre
HOW TO ESTABLISH a " penal code " international for better fighting against all the forms of piracy on the data-processing networks? Such is one of the first objectives of the most industrialized countries, which are confronted with a rise to power of the " cybercriminality ", this new form of delinquency, or sometimes even of terrorism, which is caught with the interests users of them, but also of the companies and States. Attacks of sites, transmission of destroying messages such as ILOVEYOU, diffusion of contents with character pédophile on the Net: the forms of the cybercriminality are very varied and have as a common point their capacity to be unaware of the borders for better escaping any control. Comparable with the tax havens, of the " paradises of the Net " are likely to multiply, in particular in Asia.
For Monday May 15, the security in the cyberspace has been the subject of a three days meeting of the countries most industrialized (G8) in Paris. Diplomats, magistrates, police officers, as of the members of the institutions charged to take care of the protection of the private life were invited to dialogue with the representatives of the 150 companies among most significant of the sector of communication and information technologies.
" POINTS OF CONTACTS "
This conference falls under a process which began at the Summit of Lyon in 1996, date on which the countries of G8 in particular adopted " points of contact " to exchange their information on the cybercrime. The meeting of Paris should release from the tracks of action for the heads of State and government of the countries of G8 which must be found in node with Okinawa, in Japan, in July.
For once, Europeans show themselves more " liberal " that the Americans. In their analysis of the new criminality related to the data-processing networks, the United States is in favour of a very repressive approach. Europeans, them, do not intend to give to unspecified " a cyberpolice " the right to violate the private life of each one in the name of defense of the interests of the States " Internet would be a space without right or the cyberspace, from its nature even, would require a specific legal status or a cyberpolice which would exceed the framework of the States and their sovereign competences. Nothing is inaccurate any more. The States preserve the responsibility, and the capacity to act ", declared the Minister of Interior Department French Jean-Pierre Chevènement, which introduced the debates. The French position is largely shared by Europeans and the Japanese.
The Americans, at the beginning, were in favour of a all-repressive system. It acted, with the eyes of Washington, to establish a system making it possible the services of information of the whole world to short-circuit the legal institutions to go up as fast as possible to the criminals. The United States considers that the cybercriminality is a stake of national defense of first command but their interest is also economic: they do not want to handicap the rise to power of the electronic trade, called to draw to the top the American and world growth.
In front of the European reserves to launch out in this crusade, the Americans put water in their wine " the American speech changed ", indicates one in the French delegation. Beyond the starting divergences, the countries of G8 make the unanimous report today that the respect of the anonymity and the private life of each one must be respected, but that it should not be a folding screen to do anything.
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES
One thus seeks to harmonize the definition of the cybercrime and to define procedures of effective co-operation within the framework of the sovereignty of the States. Example: the concept of " incentive to racial hatred " does not exist in the United States. However nothing prevents the sites néo-Nazis based on the other side of the Atlantic to diffuse their propaganda in Europe via the Net...
The States of G8 granted their violins but it remains to them to convince the companies to take their share of responsibility. Such is the principal object of the meeting of G8 in Paris, which gathers for the first time the States and the private sector " the industrialists want all and their opposite ", known as a member of the French delegation. In other words the companies want at the same time a maximum of security and a minimum of overcosts. One of the principal difficulties encountered by the States is to convince the Internet operators to preserve during several months the data they have, to allow the safeguarding of the elements of proof. Will of regulation of the States on a side, libertarian aspirations of the " Net economy " of the other: the conflict which takes shape is far from being solved. *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE ***
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
You won't get arrested for discussing Hitler. You might only get arrested for violating the rights of other people not to be discriminated against.
Speech is free in Germany, as long as it doesn't infringe the constitutional rights of others! Your own rights have to back off, if by you looking after them the rights of others would be violated. You, on the other hand, also have the constitutional right not to have your rights infringed. If, e.g., you were a nazi and kept all your racist toughts to yourself; nobody would have the right to discriminate you for being racist, as long as you wouldn't discriminate others.
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Maybe the UN should have police powers over the internet. So internet crimes thet become international matters fall under the jurisdiction of some UN task force. That way it no one country is infringing over another country's jurisdiction. I know the US uses their muscle to force things in the UN but it seems a little bit better to have to at least do this more subtly through the UN than doing it outright as simply the US.
To a certain extent. At least to identify certain people who are doing less than wholesome things, but not to prosecute. And if such a group were to be created, it shouldn't be in the States. They already do too much world "policing". Some odd nutreal country like.... Sweeden. Just a thought
- In the US, you can spew hate-speak at strangers, march in a white hood and burn a cross - and you're expressing your views. When Milosevicz goes on an 'ethnic cleansing spree', the US is up in arms, standing up for the underdog. Hypocricy, elevated to an art form.
While I'm not exactly proud of the US's actions in the former Yugoslavia, this rhetoric of yours is despicable. Since when is speaking racial hatreds on the same level as acting on them by killing people?.You can rest assured that if KKK members started going around the country today burning black people's houses and performing lynchings, the response would not be "oh well, that's life". Free speech is a protected right, but free action is not.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Such laws, of course, made perfect sense right after the war, as it could have lead to unwanted action.
However, consider this:
You have ideas outside of the mainstream. Let's say you speak out against nascent jewish nationalism and religious fervor in israel, which results in acts of opression and coercion of the palestinian people. Some might be offended by this and wish to violate your right to free speech through law.
The result is your trading free speech for comfort in the immutible moral standard from which you can not deviate.
What ever happened to the ages-old philosophy of the state of nature? I thought that nations were in a state of nature with each other (in that, there isn't anything that governs their behavior toward each other and that each nation is a sovereign power).. So, it seems that the US is infringing upon each nation's sovereignity.. Yes, it is true that there are things like the UN and the Geneva convention, but these are agreements/contracts among nations and do not infringe upon the sovereignity of these nations.
This needs to be nipped in the bud before it ever really gets started (the snowball effect)!
An international "cyber-police" organization seems like the most likely candidate to police the internet, however, is it really necessary to "police" the 'net? If a "hacker" broke in and commited some cyber-crime, it should be the responsibility of the victim to track down the hacker and inform the police in that country. I don't really know anything about internation law, but I think the victim could still file charges..
Of course, the above senario would require cyber-laws in each country. But that could be taken care of by an internation recommendational committee or the like.. Is Hobbes really wrong about the state of nature?
Not ONE of those people on the boards, in power, or who spoke know squat about anything other than how to talk. face it, they arent there as experts in anything other than flapping their lips.
There is no suprise when politicans, or "speakers" at events make things up, or flat out LIE to get their point across.. This is how the US congress works... LIE your ass off and try to convice others that your LIE is a noble LIE.
there is no truth when it comes to politics, or anyone in power. They are all just a bunch of rich men throwing money around because they cant be productive members of society otherwise. (Why be productive when you can be counter-productive!)
I take everything said from/to the UN and the Govt as 100% lies and non-truths... Why? because Al gore invented the internet!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Je suis américain, mais j'espère que la bonne nation de la France réussira à convaincre les Américains d'abandonner leur politique à ce sujet.
(Sorry, I used to be a French teacher. The instinct to correct lives on.)
The only reason the US is perceived as being so terribly racist is because the US is the *only* country on Earth that seems to actually care!
Oh bull! It's political correctness, not caring. IMHO, if the US didn't make such a big deal out of racism and ethnic hatered, it would go away more quickly. By making a government mandate out of 'getting along', you're just making the opponents more verbal. The resolution to racism is in proper education, not Federal dogma.
Everybody, everywhere, is bigoted. The fact that you think the US is the only racist country is a reflection of your own bigotry.
Never said it was the only one. It's the only one that is on a Crusade against human nature.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I disagree that the internet could not work on a large scale within the anarchic philosophy. What we are seeing now with the advent of "idiot usage" is a divergent paths that the internet must take in order to rise to it's potential. A policied system which would clean up the internet based on some internationally agreed standard while the old wires still support the free exchange of information that was allowed for in the original design should be set up. the current architecture is, and will remain a bastion of democracy and anarchy. This should not be replaced by beurocracy and facism. There should, however, be an internetworked place where the techno-idiots can feel safe {Internet 2 maybe?}
If we conduct periodic purges of the library based on the whims of the moment ("nudity is bad, now it's good; racism is good, now it's bad; cold fusion is a myth, cold fusion works great, no wait--it's a myth after all")
I agree that censorship is something we all have to fight, and nudity is the right example to pick up because its perception has changed a lot, depending on when and where it takes place and who you are. BUT you cannot say racism might be someday acceptable. Racism is the one of the simplest corrollary of man's stupidity and should be agressively fought, no matter the era, location or culture. Racism is a plague for humanity, has always been so and will always be.
But your nickname seems to be made of a mix of 'fascist' and 'slashdot','fascist' may explain your position...
--
gdon
For those who are interested, here is the Congressional Statement on cyber crime at the FBI site, dated February 29, 2000. The Private Sector Cooperation and Law Enforcement sections, I thought, were particularly interesting. http://www.fbi.gov/pressrm/congress/congress00/vat is022900.htm
I guess that you are just a bored troll that wants the europeans to bombard /. with angry posts.
If you are, you better watch your own bussiness and do not post so meaningless posts.
If you are not, well, you better turn off your computer, buy $0.05 of forest and get lost!
For everybody else,
Europe will probably never catch up with the US. But the ethnic problems arised by a Serbian dictator doesn't mean that all Europe is rulled by the racism. Can I claim that the US are a lawless land because there's so many people being killed everyday? Can I claim that cars should be banned because they kill people, polute the air?
No. This is plainly demagogic.
So, you can never cheer what the dictatorial-ruled Serbs have been doing recently.
We (Europe, the whole World) have had enough of this.
.
.
MaDuIxA PoWeR -----> Down with Phone Monopoly, Down with Cable Abuse http://maduixa.8m.com Linux Machine # 38068
Unless France's view was "ban all censorship, period" it isn't all that much more intelligent.
The Internet is not like television. The Internet is an enormous, distributed library. If we conduct periodic purges of the library based on the whims of the moment ("nudity is bad, now it's good; racism is good, now it's bad; cold fusion is a myth, cold fusion works great, no wait--it's a myth after all") we'll end eventually losing all the contents.
Q: So what about things like Napster and FreeNet? "How are artists supposed to make money?"
A: However they want. But technical progress will not and can not stop because of some individual's (or individuals') need for economic support.
Q: What about porn? My children will be scarred if they see a breast.
A: So keep them away from porn sites. Only YOU know what your policy is, so only YOU can enforce it. In any case, it's not my job to raise your children.
Q: What about bomb-making information? Oklahoma City/Columbine, blah blah blah.
A: There are so many answers to this I don't even know where to start. How about: "The same bomb-creating information that blew up an empty school last week can destroy an invading force next week." Or maybe: "High school chemistry textbooks have the same information, maybe we should censor those too?"
The only solution that works for all problems is education. Education requires information. Therefore censorship makes solving problems harder.
--
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Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
It's not surprising; after all, it is from France that the concept of human rights (as opposed to " property owner's rights ") comes from...
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