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Open Networks, Closed Regimes
kris writes "First Monday has an interesting article on Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, presenting evidence that The Internet may not be automatic downfall of authoritan regimes as anecdotes commonly suggest.
In their words: The authors trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""
*calls up the La-Le-Li-Lo-Lu*
I have to ask you a question, since you appear to be German. How do you enjoy having all those US troups protecting your ass? If you don't like them their NOW, what about when the USSR was a threat?
I was making a milk shake when some uranium I had brought home from the lab fell into the blender. I had used the last of my milk, sugar and icecream on that milkshake, and all the stores were closed. So I drank it anyway. Damn, it was good.
When I awoke the next morning, my body was covered in green scales, even my pee pee. It looked pretty cool, so I jacked off a couple of times. The semen was a flourescent green that even glowed in the dark!
So anyway, as the day progressed, I noticed that I was growing. By sundown I was 20 feet tall, and by dawn I was 50 feet tall. All that growing made me hungry, so I ate the barrel-shaped Lucky Burger restaurant near my house. That was tasty, too.
Then I realized that with my new-found great powers come great responsibilities. So one by one, I tracked down and blasted the rogue LINUX programmers with my fire-breath. Then I ate them. They were okay, they needed a little pepper.
In retrospect, I'm glad this happened to me because now the world is free from those open-source, communist terrorists. Now decent, law-abiding Americans like the good people at Newsmax.com can continue the only way of life, the American way. God bless America! Remember 9-11!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
These tyrannical regimes, which are based entirely on force, are not going to honour the GPL license.
They'll use the open source code to plant all kinds of back doors and other spy gear on their version of Linux then make the binary compulsory to use in their countries and no one will ever see the source code.
They'll probably put a dumbed down GUI on it too.
What are we going to do - declare war on China because Linus is unhappy?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Has the US done anything to make any of the countries in Europe worry that we might invade them? No. And if the US wanted to, it would be no problem, due to the massive number of US troups they allow to stay in their countries.