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Using P2P To Make Gov't Documents Easy To Find
Trinition writes "Kim Zetter wrote for Wired News that "While legislators in Washington work to outlaw peer-to-peer networks, one website is turning the peer-to-peer technology back on Washington to expose its inner, secretive workings." For once, we have a concrete example to point to when citing the merits of P2P."
Wouldn't "exposing secretive inner workings" make the US government want to shut down p2p even more?
" For once, we have a concrete example to point to when citing the merits of P2P."
Um...What about Bittorrent? Last time I checked it was the best way to download large files like Linux distros. Plus it makes it better to have more people downloading not worse, a big problem for huge servers with popular files. I can remember it taking FOREVER to get my first fresh Linux dostro downloaded
Some other comments are saying "But they will just want to ban it all the more!"
In fact, if we use P2P to broadcast all kinds of government dirty laundry, their attempts to ban p2p will look like an attempt to crack down on freedom of information.
It could very well be that free flow of information, anonymous and universally available, is a huge reason why world governments don't like p2p. Of course, the record industry's huge donations to Orrin Hatch don't hurt any either.
I say dump Cryptome onto p2p sites. Dump whatever you can. We have a loophole right now; better try and widen it while we can. We might even give pause to some of the criminals on capitol hill while we're at it.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
If people download these documents from kazaa or some other p2p network, who is to tell if the information in these documents hasn't been tampered with ? For fun or evil... ...which is why the outragedmoderates.org site gives explicit instructions to search for their username and download those files (in pdf form), and they only guarantee the accuracy of files hosted by them.
How can you judge if documents have been tampered with? Take a random sampling and find the originals (all are public documents) and compare.
Frankly, this is no more insecure than trusting everything Fox News has to say.
I don't think "For once" is a fair phrase myself. I have been using peer-to-peer technology for a few years now legitimately.
I use bittorrent to download Linux ISOs. I use ED2K to get community films and videos (Like the Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years for example.) Even my home network could be described as peer to peer as I have no server for 4 client machines.
All legitimate uses, no "For once" required.
...at The Importance Of... - basically he makes the very sound point that this obfuscated distribution system is entirely unnecessary. All US Government documents are public domain (non-copyrighted) so any web site could put them up for static download without fear of DMCA attacks. It would make them far easier to find just by using Google. Instead "I go to the outragedmoderates.org website, go to the "Government Document Library," look up the documents I want, ignore the fact that I could download them from the website, start a P2P program, enter a search for the document name and/or outragedmoderates.org user name, and then download the documents, remembering that if I don't download the documents from outragedmoderates.org I might be getting inauthentic files."
This is exactly what so many people should be doing in the open-source and free-software communities. We need to prove that many of these tools are only considered "evil" because they take away money from corporations. They are not, by themselves, tools of the devil.
This type of idea can be applied to many more things which can encourage social reform. Not just spreading information and accessing it easily (P2P and the Internet are doing just fine), but with opening tools and software/hardware solutions into the public domain. We need to figure out a way to develop software without fear of piracy (by making it free), and which still compensates those who spend thousands of hours toiling over it.
We should apply this idea at all levels. Move out of the dark realms of piracy and software cracks, and prove that we really DO have better ideas than the current industry.
-Dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
"Pretext?" As in, "I'm certain that as soon as someone drags a passerby into an alley and whacks him in the head with a brick, this will be used as a pretext to apply all kinds of anti-mugging laws to the city streets?"
As in, "as soon as somebody uses the network to commit a crime, the police will feel moved to enforce the laws they swore to uphold?"
Exactly. It's not "their own information" because there is no "they". It's *our* own information; we just hired some people to take care of it for us. (Yes, I do remember that there's a world outside of the U.S. borders, but this story ain't about you.)
If some of our hirelings sometimes act as if they don't see things that way, all the more reason for the rest of us to make sure that we act as though we do.
The basic issue is that laws directed at inanimate objects rather than at specific behavior are generally a bad idea.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
it also exposes their intentions... if p2p is proven to be an effective, democratic process for publishing government documents, and yet some right-wing republican fascist attack squad tries to pass a bill that outlaws all p2p use, forever (lest the terrorists attack), then it really truly exposes the intention of that party to confuscate and continue to keep government from answering for its responsibility to The People.
quick, everyone, get behind this effort to p2p'ize gov't documents and the public record. to fail to do so would be to let the Terrorist-Haters win...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Using P2P To Make Gov't Documents Easy To Find,
Using Gov't To Make P2P Operators Hard To Find
Exactly, how long do you think it'll be before we hear about 'terrorists' trading secret government documents over P2P?
Ok, reasons to use P2P:
Software downloads - I get all of my Linux ISOs from Gnutella and BitTorrent
Photographs - Yes, 99% of what's shared on Gnuttella in the way of images is porn. That 1% can be DAMN interesting.
Video feeds - Back when the towers fell, the Internet was slow, but usable. Major news sites were effectively dead, though. Gnutella was klunky then compared to now, but was still your best bet for getting video of what was going on.
Rare music - bands that have yet to make a name. Rare recordings from over seas that have never been for sale in the US. There are just so many GOOD things to listen to after you wade through the mainstream garbage.
P2P is a healthy, vibrant community of free speach. That means that a lot of the speach is the sort of thing you'd hear out of the average high school student, true, but that doesn't make the rare, considered speech any less valuable!
Some years ago, my father and I secured the public printed documents on the manageement of the State of Alabama Board of Education and the various schools in the state. We recompiled the data by hand typing into a database and extracted much valuable management information. When presented to Mary Jane Caylor (State Board of Ed.) she was dumbfounded. She said with much excitement, "Where did you get this data!" It seemed that she had requested from the Bureaucrats this data in this form and they had told her it was impossible to give it to her.
Making a long story short this data was used with the obvious suggestions to improve schools and their management nation wide. Schools are now evaluated by the development of their students. Unfortunately we have not extended this evaluation into the direct compensation and tenure of teachers.
The point here is that data available on paper may as well be locked in a safe regrards solving problems. This P2P use and posting of all public documents on the Internet is the key to management of governmnt. It is like taking the hot sun and shining it on the snow burrying our freedom. It melts it away!
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
"Many people get their latest [favorite_linux_distro] ISO images this way. It's very legitimate and has been going on long enough to show it's not an exception to the rule at all."
Actually, it may be viewed by legislators brib^H^H^H^Hlobbied by certain competitors of linux to be another reason to try to outlaw P2P.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.