Slashdot Mirror
Censorship is Changing the Face of the Internet
Lucas123 writes "Amnesty International is warning that the Internet "could change beyond all recognition" because state-sponsored censorship has spread from a handful of countries to dozens of governments that apply mandated net filtering, and because companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have remained complicit, according to a BBC story. '"More and more governments are realising the utility of controlling what people see online and major internet companies, in an attempt to expand their markets, are colluding in these attempts,"' said Tim Hancock, Amnesty's campaign director."
If you don't want problems with censorship, net neutrality, etc... make your own internet. No one said you have to use the main domain name system which the rest of the internet uses. And no one said you have to communicate purely via TCP in traditional ways. Most of these censorship systems are bricks which are designed to restrict clueless users who don't know about tunneling traffic through various secure & anonymous means.
At the extreme end of the scale, a country could do censorship on a "white list" basis where all the sites available do not allow user-submitted content. Trying to access any other port/protocol/IPs not on the white list would result in an error. This is where the real problems occur, as it blocks out even the most tech-savvy hackers.
Democracy hasn't seemed to work all that well lately, at least in a two party system.
What makes you think that? Did I miss a popular uprising that failed to affect the country?
Democracy is working just fine. If it seems like there's been little effect by the Nov 2006 elections, that's because only 4/12 of the federal democracy was up for review. Expect a stronger effect in 2008, when 10/12 will be up for review. And that 1/3 had more than a little effect, as the soon-to-pass immigration compromise underscores.
"could change beyond all recognition"
As opposed to... What? Change is expected - along w/unrecognizable traits.
"Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have remained complicit"
'remained' - remained..? You mean like they haven't taken any time-outs yet...? Or, they get together in Bermuda twice a year to compare notes and plan how they will rule...?
The gentrification of the internet is always a concern, I suppose, but I am reminded of a phrase that was coined 'long about the first time such topics popped up - "The internet interprets restriction as an interruption and routes around it."
Seems to me that one of the basics of (pointed) redirection is blocking and/or interrupting - fine, bring it on.
This will probably get modded troll or some such shenanigans but I've got to say it.
When anyone decides what can and cannot be said, everyone loses. I totally disagree with terrorism, and islamic jihad and all that crap. But I have to defend their right to say and believe in it.
Attack me, or my family and I'll kill them myself. But their crazy religion instructs them that we are evil and must be killed if their religion is to flourish. This is no different than the Catholic/Christian regimes of western Europe 500 years ago. It's the same damn thing. Do I agree with what they have to say? HELL NO. will I defend their right to say it? Yes.
Speech and action are very different things.
The freedom to speak, and the right to believe in even the most unpopular ideals is what made America great.
Unfortunately corporate sub-culture and sheep mentality is what is making America terrible.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
The two parties are working together to make sure no one else gets in and spoils their "party". For example, there is an excellent article describing how the presidential "debates" are controlled to prevent any other parties from gaining traction. They realized that Ross Perot got 90% of his support after the debates, so they created a system to prevent any other parties from being able to join by raising the bar high enough. The "Commission on Presidential Debates" which runs the debates, is totally run by the two parties. In the article, it quotes Walter Cronkite as calling the CPD an "unconscionable fraud".
The "debates" are also very carefully controlled (according to the article) of presenting the appearance of being a debate without actually being a debate, so as to pose no danger to the candidates, and so that important issues can be avoided.
Ron Paul, a current presidential candidate and member of the Republican party, said recently on the Daily Show that he is only a Republican because he couldn't get elected if he were a member of another party. He wrote an essay on how the two-party system disenfranchises voters.
Want to know why fascism (even if clothed in democracy) is on the rise? This is why.
There's nothing that brings in money more than a captive market, and the best way to ensure a captive market is via the force of law. Fascism is the merger of the corporation and the state, in such a way that the corporation appears to be a separate entity but really isn't. In a fascist state, the corporations are in primary control over the government.
Money is power. Guns are power. Control both and you control it all. Those who run the biggest corporations want that power, but also don't want to take the blame for the consequences of the use of that power. Control of a government gives them that isolation. That isolation is especially good in a pseudo-democratic society in which the population thinks it has some kind of control over who gets into office, and therefore doesn't think to blame anyone but themselves when those in office do the bidding of the corporations and not the voters.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Power needs only complimentary information available. You do not motivate groups of people by exposing them to contradictory information. Corporations do it with advertising, parents do it with cautionary tales, religions do it with fear of lack of immortality, and governments do it with force. The real question is how to build an international darknet that is impossible to oversee, and can "route around" the damage.
Anti-Globalism
Not a good idea.
Its enough for the major players to have a bad-enough label they can attach you (for the States for example, the terms "terrorist"/"terrorist simpatizer"/communist come to mind), so they can have the appearance of legality when censoring you. The appearance of legality matters a lot for governments that claim to represent the people.
By using spammer-like tactics, you'd just make it easier for them to place the "spammer" label on you (and easier for them to discredit your information by association which is an effective form of censorship in itself).
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)