Slashdot Mirror
National Governments and the Internet?
Plastic Man asks: "I am writing a paper on how other countries' governments are handling the internet including censorship, the quality and availability of ISPs, the deployment of broadband infrastructure, and the general levels of involvement by government in the making of such policies. Specifically, how much content different governments allow to reach their respective peoples, and how they choose what that content will be. Where can I find reports on end users' experiences in attempting to 'get online' in their home country? Any personal experience in making and especially enforcing these policies will be extremely helpful." So which countries have agreeable Internet policies, and which impose draconican restrictions on online communications? Firsthand reports especially appreciated, since these are the sorts of things which might otherwise go unheard.
Slashdot is not here to do your homework for you.
Slashdot is not here to be your babysitter.
If you cannot get your work done in a reasonable time on your own, then you have no business showing your face in polite company.
If we were to do your work for you this time, you'd just come back for more later. Listening to others makes you weak; you stop thinking for yourself.
America's civilization wasn't built upon the hard work of others. It was built by hand through the ethic of self help and self work. If you don't reinvent the wheel, you can't understand anything.
Start from the bottom. Go to your public library. It's there for a reason, so stop masturbating on slashdot and get your nose into a book. Look up the answer for yourself. There, that's a good boy. Now write the answer down on index cards. Put the index cards in your pocket and go home. Now you're ready to write your damn paper.
The internet has raised a generation of cultural and academic invalids. Parents don't teach their children anymore; they leave that job to the internet. But the internet isn't the world's largest library; it's the world's largest brothel. Anyone who lets his kids get an education there is derelect in his duties as a parent.
You must not allow your children to think for themselves. You must constrain their every action. If they are allowed to be free, then they will choose not to be like their parents. Don't let them. Enforce your will. It's your duty as a parent to mould them in your own image. That is what it means to be a Creator.
Take my advice. Shut down the computer, get out a book, and start using words again. And always do your own work for yourself.
The Crypto Law Survey is a great resource on crypto law worldwide, listing country-by-country. To give an example, some people might still believe that France has outlawed domestic crypto, but as you can see that's no longer the case.
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
The formerly state-owned Deutsche Telecom and its subsidiary company T-Online have driven its competitors out of business by offering a ridiculously cheap flat rate (cheap only by German standards, of course). Now that all providers who offered a flat rate are either bancrupt or in serious trouble, T-Online does not offer a flat rate anymore - and terminates all existing contracts. Accessing the internet over a low-bandwidth connection costs ~0.02 EUR/min.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
One of the propellors was a spy?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Which pilot, which plane?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Oh, you mean the time when a U.S. pilot endangered himself and 23 other crew members by diverting from his assigned mission to hit a faster, more maneuverable jet with his big, lumbering propellor driven airplane?
In other words, when we asaulted the Chinese fist with our nose.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The problem, of course, is who decides which ideas are dangerous? I'm not a moral relativist, but neither do I see the world as black and white. And I simply don't trust anyone else enough to do my censoring for me. After all, if I can't trust people not to fall for "dangerous ideas", how can I trust them to recognize which ideas are dangerous and which are merely uncomfortable? Or which ideas are harmless and which are sugar-coated poison?
It is also the greatest enemy of retailing. Only because consumers are kept ignorant, retailers are able to shove useless stuff upon them and not only have pay huge amounts of money on it, but also liking it a lot!
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Also, Bert-Jaap Koops's Crypto Law Survey.
I have a blog.
Look who has posted it...
Ask Slashdot: National Governments and the Internet?
Posted by Cliff on Monday April 16, @23:54
from the how-does-your-country-handle-it dept.
Internet Policies in Other Countries?
Posted by Cliff on Monday April 02, @02:17PM
from the how-do-others-do-it dept.
I am currently living in the Bahamas, you know, that small little island chain southeast of Florida. Our govt. currently has heavy restrictions on bandwith on and off the island. I work at a small ISP, and we are forced to route all our traffic off the island via satellite. This means we must tack on an extra 500ms latency on anything coming in, or going out. The satellite is also costing us about 10x what a simmilar connection would run if we were in Florida, only 100 Miles to the northwest.
We, (along with many other groups in this country) have been trying to deploy a broadband wireless network on the island, to improve local infrastructure. At the moment the only choice for "high speed" connectivity, is a 128k/64k cable modem. I hardly call that broadband. So, we (and many others) have had our plan for broadband wirelss worked out for over two years. No license. Bermuda on the other hand, is bursting at seams with offshore hosting services, and offshore banking, and so forth. Only because their govt. was insightful enough to see that the Internet is a requirement in any modern country.
Oh well, for now, I sit here on my dialup, waiting on a proper connection...
If you can't figure out my address, just drop me an e-mail and I will explain.
Are you interested in what influences the internet, or how national governments influence the internet? Corporations are likely to have far more influence than national governments, since it not kosher for a national agency to make recommendations to policies of foreign nationals, but corporations have precise influences on all governments (hence lobbying). If you want to know how national governments will influence the internet, I think it will be a struggle between what the government thinks is best for its society and what corporations convince national governing bodies is necessary.
I'm confused. This story even has a link to another, essentially identical slashdot story, excatly two weeks ago. You can't even claim ignorance. Um?
-Puk
April 16: Plastic Man asks: "I am writing a paper on how other countries' governments are handling the internet including censorship, the quality and availability of ISPs, the deployment of broadband infrastructure, and the general levels of involvement by government in the making of such policies. Specifically, how much content different governments allow to reach their respective peoples, and how they choose what that content will be. Where can I find reports on end users' experiences in attempting to 'get online' in their home country? Any personal experience in making and especially enforcing these policies will be extremely helpful." So which countries have agreeable Internet policies, and which impose draconican restrictions on online communications? Firsthand reports especially appreciated, since these are the sorts of things which might otherwise go unheard.
April 2: Panthro asks: "I am writing a paper on how other countries are handling the internet, including censoring, broadband infrastructure deployment, ISP availability and quality, and general involvement levels of governments in the delivery of content to their constituents. Any personal experience involving the creation or enforcing of such policies would be very helpful." It's always wise to know what internet policies are being enforced out there, if only to know what's been decided on by others, which policies you might want to implement and which ones you might want to avoid implementing at any cost.
The internet is, by its nature, a disruptive technology. By this I mean that it allows every connected person to be her/his own publisher, which up to this point has not been possible.
Thus, any premises that include "choice of content" are flawed because there is an implied comparison to broadcast technologies. Certainly broadcasters can be part of the 'net, but they are only a subset of it.
Look around. There are family snapshots, source code, opinions, recipes, audio, video, and more: every form of human expression that can be digitized and copied is available on the internet.
There is no one, true source of content, nor is there a means to effectively control the materials available. There are billions of possible users, each with his/her own unique method of communicating. Censorship becomes extremely difficult, and copyright law is (as has been pointed out) fatally flawed.
Attempts at control face problems with scale (those zillions of publishers...er, users), with form (cf DeCSS as a GIF, and cryptography in general), with language, and with mixed content (a page that has useful information along with objectionable content).
Copyright law faces its own problems, but the fundamental problem is that copyright is based on social contract: any "intellectual property" is valuable only if it is shared in some way, and can be profitable only if there is a virtual meter on that means of sharing. When everyone can potentially share, how do you regulate the balance between an artist's right to make a living vs. the always-understated right of the public to incorporate the art into culture?
All in all, no attempt at control will be successful -- either useful material will be eliminated, or "objectionable" material will proliferate.
The answer probably lies in trying to form a more reasonable social view, or even society -- people will naturally avoid that which they're not interested in, or which they find distasteful.
Every one of us should have the freedom to analyze ideas for ourselves to determine their validity. Furthermore I think it's important to have a variety of ideas to provide a counterpoint from which to refine the good ones, identify the flaws in the bad ones, and encourage people to consider alternate viewpoints in the quest for truth.
In my view I deem your idea bad.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
You see, the internet gives the means to question lots of cultural things people usually simply take for being true without thinking about it. Such ideas should not be regulated in any way. You are suggesting censorship for no good reasons. Do you really think Hitler's anti-semitic campain would have been more successful with the internet? Hell no. Because, in the WWII Germany, you could get shot for not believing in the system and criticizing it. With the internet though, you would have had millions of people invoking logical arguments against nazism. It's more likely that Hitler would have needed to ban 'net access for his troups, less they would have revolted at what was asked of them.
Religion is the best example of mass psychosis
Submitter of the April 2 story: devinsky@eng.buffalo.edu
Submitter of this April 16 story: devinsky@eng.buffalo.edu
He didn't like the answer he got the first time, so he tried again. Jesus, Slashdot, this is pretty bad - posting the same homework assignment from the same kid TWICE?
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Isn't this sort of like saying, "If you're deaf please raise your hand."
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Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Of course, there is probably some merit to both of these viewpoints. Certainly, commerce and society as a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the power capacity and access provided by the Internet. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural shifts; existing communications and media technologies simply may not be as efficient as Internet-based ones.
Will the Internet sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and confrontations for the pioneers in the Internet field. Whatever the final result is, it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.
I'm writing a paper on the editorial process of Slashdot. I'm trying to determine what factors are considered when a story is posted. In particular, I'd be interested in knowing the types of stories posted in relation to the drug intake, days without sleep, childhood traumas, mental diseases and lifetime concussion totals of the editorial staff.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
As a cheerfully third-world country (officially a "developing nation" since we're not deteriorating further right now) Trinidad and Tobago has a small but rapidly-expanding Internet sector, and precisely zero laws which specifically legislate it. Does "no laws" count? :-) Many third world nations are in an identical position, for instance most of the rest of the Caribbean.
Imagine this scenario down the road, being in violation of some countries laws where they are in sharp disagreement with the laws of that country. The absurd example would be China prosecuting the websites of exiled chinese nationals living in the USA.
This is not so absurd on second thought.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
But why doesn't anyone seem to notice that Saudi Arabia is one of the most impossibly repressive regimes on the planet? My time spent there was the worst time of my life -- starved for news, starved for entertainment, starved for stimulation, the whole damn country feels like a damn hypnotic state.
Four years ago, a friend was pontificating about East Timor and how the Indonesian occupiers were goin' down, man! (this was about a year before they actually did go down). I mentioned the Saudi situation, and he said "oh, they're going down too".
Still waiting. I would imagine a few people on the inside are waiting too. What really pisses me off is that not only is most of the stuff inside Saudi propanganda, but most of the stuff outside is too.
One simple rule for its versus it's
It's funny, we'll all bitch about censorship here in the U.S. until we read what other country's are doing and then we'll think: "oh, i guess it's not that bad here".
ya, not that bad until our government regulates/controls/censors something else. But then we'll read about how it is in, say Uganda, and then we'll think: "oh, that's okay I guess"
(sigh)....passifism will be the end of us
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
Have you tried the EFF's archive of internet censorship laws and information for the US and other Countries? It has bills, laws, and other information broken down by country and local region (state, etc). Check it out.
Why not donate to the EFF while you are there?
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
I haven't noticed any restrictions on what sites we can see, though some politicians and church leaders have talked about doing something.
But the biggest restricions here in Guatemala are cost and ignorance. A big part of the population can't read. And salaries here are a 10th of what they are in Canada, while the line costs 5 times as much. These things are very much a result of US government policies thru the IMF, etc, etc.
Do you think the US really is interested in getting the worlds 5 billion poor online?
As a proud and free citizen of the United States, I have free and unfettered access to the internet, because it is completely free (as in speech).
Except:
1. Access child pornography.
2. Commit treason, espinonage, or other subversive acts.
3. Access "pirated" MP3s.
4. Access the seven lines of code that can decrypt a DVD.
10. Use encryption technology that makes snooping through my personal correspondence hard for the FBI. (COMING SOON
1,124. Use products or services not authorized by the friendly Microsoft-Intel-AOL-Time-Warner monop^H^H^H^H^H conglomerate. (COMING SOON
Other than those things (and just a few more...),
I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT !!!
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords
Sorry dont feel like making a rambling post... So here goes China's newly passed laws
360 degrees of Karma
This not much but this site outlines the internet policy for the African continet. Also this site has an intersting over view of china's internet policies
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
The whole point of the Internet is that there are no more borders, and that there are no more cultural, racial, or economic distinctions. (This is assuming that you're on the Net .. there are huge cultural, racial, and economic factors that play into whether you can access the Internet or not, but that's a subject for another day.)
When a country like China moves to censor the Internet for its citizens, there are usually very specific reasons for it. In the case of China, you've got a totalitarian Communist regime that needs to keep its citizens away from news and information that has not been "sanitized" by the government. Truth is the greatest enemy of Communist oppression, and it is only by way of excessive censorship and filtering that China can keep its citizens from learning the truth via the Internet.
We've seen the same type of thing coming from the draconian content regulation of the leftist Australian government. A ban on "indecent material" may be laudable (if not ill-defined and unenforceable), but when you step in and censor gun-rights Web pages and basically anything that does not come from the anti-gun zealots, you're crossing a fine line between protecting your society and oppressing them. Fortunately, it appears that the tide may be turning and freedom-loving Australians are beginning to fight back.
The bottom line is this: technological solutions will never solve political problems. Political problems can only be solved by people. If China thinks that strong filtering can prevent its citizens from one day learning the truth, they are wrong. If Australia thinks that its filtering policies will stop gun advocates from learning the correct information about guns (such as crime rates that have not been doctored by the government), then they are wrong. And so the conclusion is this: either give your citizens complete access to the Internet, or none at all. There is no acceptable middle ground. (School libraries in the US would do well to learn this lesson, BTW.)