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The Empires Strike Back
Alien54 writes "Back when the Internet was young - oh, say, eight years ago - there was a school of thought that held that cyberspace was its own sovereign nation. For one thing, 'The Net perceives censorship as damage, and routes around it.' What government could control what was said on the Net? [...] Maybe it's time to change that into, 'Governments perceive the Internet as damage, and gang up on it.' So says Net War columnist Wendy Grossman in an article discussing the recent raids on Indymedia. She makes an interesting case."
four words:
amatuer orbital server farms.
cut down on those pesky armed intrusions and silly warrant nonsense.
Mr Rutan, could you loft my rack? thanks.
They weren't told but its under the assumption that Italy protested about pictures of there police force shooting protestors at the G8 summit.
Apparently they don't want people to recognize them for the ***holes they are.
When it comes to solving a crime, stopping terrorism, ect I'll gladly risk a single instance of "censorship" before I start whining
You need to understand that when it comes to individual rights governments must not be allowed to make exceptions. Not one, even in the investigation of a crime or terrorist activities.Some time ago GW Bush promised us that the new powers granted under the Patriot Act would never be used for anything but the investigation of terrorist activities. He even said "Trust me".
Yet those same powers have now been used to investigate college students who were alledgedly downloading mp3's from the internet.
Every potential for abuse by a government will be realized eventually. So the potential must not be allowed to exist. Governments around the world have repeatedly misled their own populations regarding the motivation for new powers, wars, censorships, etc.
Your previous military experience has no bearing on this subject. History however, does
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
It is, but you also have to consider not only Indymedia, but other cases as well.
In the Indymedia case it is interesting how Swiss (or Italian or whatever else) governments can simply go to any MLAT partner and seize anything they want for their "investigation." Were Indymedia or Rackspace in violation of the U.S. or U.K laws? I don't know, but it doesn't look that way since neither British law enforcement, nor FBI initiated this action. So, by the magic of the MLAT, you, as an online service provider or entity, are subject to the laws of other countries where you don't even operate or have anything to do with. Want to express your frustration with EU, World Bank, WTO, etc.? It only has to be "illegal" in one country, and your speech will be suppressed for all the rest.
The practice is becoming increasingly common - Yahoo! cannot list Nazi memorabilia in its auctions (the burden is on Yahoo! to make sure the French don't have access to them), Google cannot return advertisements for the words/phrases that are trademarked in the U.S., etc. So, the trend is that once you are online, you are subject to laws of all the nations that could potentially have access to your content or services.
I think it is premature to say that the Internet is doomed, but the beginning of this trend is troubling.