Slashdot Mirror
New "Iron Curtain" for Russian Internet
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, points out a story about the Russian government's interest in expanding anti-extremism laws to include the blocking of websites and ISPs. The laws would match those already in use for the country's print media. Russian internet users may soon be forced to deal with the same issues facing Chinese citizens. Quoting:
"An official at the Russian prosecutor's general office, Vyacheslav Sizov, told the Russian-language newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that any web site that is determined to host what he terms 'extremist material' would be blocked from being accessible from within the Russian Federation. Given the Putin government's history with the media, 'extremist material' may be very broadly interpreted as any content unfriendly to the interests of the Russian government."
This is quite a disturbing trend in so called 'industrialized' countries (although Russia's industrialized status could be questioned). The lack of outside information and abundance government propaganda is why N. Korea is so scary. Many of the people there that have no access to outside information actually whole heartedly believe what the government tells them, and why wouldn't they, it's all they've ever known. All it takes is one new generation to grow up behind these 'iron curtains' and the governments have effectively indoctrinated an entire country with the ideals of a select few.
The stories about Putin and his hot gymnast girlfriend got a paper's license revoked. I imagine the internet rules would be as even handed.
Redundant meme censored.
Yes, I'm American and I think the Bush Administration is one of the likely targets of such an effort.
We have the Internet, it is free, information flows around the globe. For all the faults that might bring it has been hailed as an equalizer and liberator of peoples all over the globe. Freedom of information is the basis of the good inside an OLPC.
FTFA: Print (and television) media in Russia is already under either official or unofficial government control, leaving the Internet as the last frontier free of government scrutiny. "It is difficult to find anyone who is not against extremism but it depends on how the law is used," Center of Journalism in Extreme Situations director Oleg Panfilov told the AFP in response to the news. Panfilov noted that the government has used the law "selectively" in the past, but that it's still worrisome when the government tries to expand the law into new areas. Yes, we are all against extremism and extremists, but very few of us agree on what exactly those are. Such subjective terms should never be allowed to be enacted as laws. By allowed, I mean that free peoples should protest such laws, even if they are not in the country where it is enacted.
In times past it was said that Monarchy's that do not hang together will 'hang' separately. I think that time has not changed this at all, and many of the so called republics are merely facades for the ruling classes to hide behind.
Wow, that sounded a bit socialist or something, but I truly think that the Internet has the power to change things for the better. If the Russian people are unable to, perhaps we outside of Russia should make our voices known and heard.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Actually, I believe you were looking for: In Soviet Russia, internet browses you.
IMHO, one of the best way to use the democratic power of the internet would be to have internet communities buying stocks.
A bit like the so called "ethic funds" who buy stocks in companies with good ethics first, then try to influence the companie's decision according to that agenda (which many entities do, only they do so with an "ethic" agenda in mind")
As an optimistic person, I think that if the mass of internet users did that, they would be more powerful than the few rich people right now (that might need some math).
As for the details (in bulk):
- A central website, looking something like slashdot or wikipedia (although with far higher standards for accountability, no special power to foundators, or even better, a system with no admins (every modification on the site is automatic and public, with a hash system to prevent tempering).
- Someone's vote is weighted by the amount of money he gave to the site, but with a low (300$?) cap; you can invest more (and get the proportional revenues), but your voting power is capped.
- People vote for the stocks to be bought, and for the common voice of the community in stock holder's vote. Since an account is linked to real money, you don't have most of the problems with votes on the internet (bots, etc).
That would give more power to "public opinion", which oterwise tends to be to often disregarded. Even if the community is small, it's power can already tip the balance in many cases; think about the EFF, for exemple. With that kind of money, even if you can be majoritary share holder, you can already buy ads in the New York Times or things like that, and break the barrier for entering the "rich people/big companies club".
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
Just a few days ago there was a story here about new Russian law requiring Wi-Fi registration. It turn out they would require registration of commercial and non-standard equipment. Earlier there was a story about creating an isolated Russian Internet. It turned out they just want to use Cyrillic letters in domain names. There were many stories like this before and each time they were twisted to cause cries about dictator Putin and slavish Russians. Are these posted by "message force multipliers"?
P.S. I just followed up an "in Russia" clause with a statement in normal order. What is Slashdot coming to?
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Please, confirm for the record, that it is your belief, one or more generations of Americans have grown up behind an 'iron curtain' unable to get information from an outside source.
Thank you.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... an iCurtain?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
The EU just passed a resolution making it illegal to publish "terrorist propaganda", even though the actual definitions are quite vague. That vagueness is incredibly broad: EU officials said the decision to punish propaganda, recruitment and training for terrorism through the internet filled an important gap in European legislation. America hasn't outlawed "terrorist propaganda" websites yet, but they are working hard to create the case that they need to -- they recently passed the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" , in which our government finds that: " The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States." The US government has been so busy pumping the notion that the Internet is recruiting terrorists at home that they have even claimed that terrorists hang out in the online game Second Life where they engage in information warfare .
In soviet russia curtain irons YOU!...
Please go fuck yourself. It's you who is anti-Russian here. You know why? Because when somebody says something bad about Putin or Russian government or newly enacted Russian laws, trolls like you pop up and say "you're all against Russia", EQUATING Putin/the government/the laws with Russia and thus INSULTING RUSSIA. My country - or shall I say "this country" to make you extra mad - deserves something better than these. And better than you, of course.
[...gets out "Karma Fire Extinguisher"...]
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
go to some of those places with low prison populations, rampant crime and corruption, and ask some residents there what they think about the discrepancy. i don't think you fill find patriotic pride in their response. i think you will find that people living in places with low prison populations and huge corruption would love to see some more american style prison population levels
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The Internet as it stands causes governments, regardless of party, left/right leaning, democratic, heriditary, authoritarian, fascist, or progressive, way more problems than it solves.
1. It makes many laws nearly impossible to enforce on people in your country (the various laws in France banning Holocaust denial, globalised P2P in less RIAA/MPAA friendly countries).
2. It makes it easier for corporations and other employers to provide services and product in your country while employing few if any of your citizens.
3. It creates a tax-gathering nightmare for revenue officials.
4. It provides free and open access for foreigners who are inclined to break your laws, and exploit and defraud your citizens. Commercially operated botnets and the total hijacking of e-mail for spam, protected with a wink and a nod by corrupt officials and organized crime sponsors are just the start.
5. Foreign militaries, paramilitaries, intelligence agencies, and terrorist groups have a direct, hard to trace, and nearly impossible to stop communications line into your country, on top of a map to attack your critical network infrastructure (and physical infrastructure too, if you're like the US and are stupid enough to connect power plant control systems directly to the Internet).
6. Critical Internet infrastructure, and new development is often at the whim of an unfriendly or hostile government. (though this government is generally the US in just about every case, with its control of ICANN)
Again, this is governments. The people don't like a lot of the negatives too, and that means that in general they are going to be pleased if action to cut off "bad actors" from flooding their inboxes with spam, or stopping the US government from controlling the DNS system, or the Chinese military from attacking their country, or Russian hackers taking their entire country offline if they do something that Russia doesn't particularly like. The fact that it gives governments nothing but nightmares is eventually going to create a lot of little internets, with countrycountry access governed by treaty. The Wile West was tamed a long time ago, and the Internet will be as well, just like every other frontier. You've just got to create a new one.
The reality is that US law enforcement is very good at catching certain TYPES of criminals, like petty drug offenders (BTW, most people in jail for gun offenses are really there for drug offenses). Because of "conspiracy" laws it's now incredibly easy to pin drug crimes on people, so we have very high conviction rates for this particular crime. We have very low conviction rates for corporate fraud, for example, because those people can actually hire/bribe police, lawyers, judges, politicians, etc. i wouldn't expect one country or another to have a lot more criminals than the next. This is batshit crazy. Do you really think the cultural environment doesn't contribute to the level of crime? Do you REALLY think their are the same number criminals per capita in, say, Iraq, Congo, or even Russia as there are in the USA? scandinavian countries and finland are dark and cold. the people there are usually morbid or drunk. hey, that's not a smear, don't take my word for it, ask any swede or dane or finn, they'll tell you the same. so the criminals there are passed out or its too cold to go outside Well, I'm of Danish descent and I find this pretty offensive. Yeah, Danes drink a lot. Americans drink a lot too and it seems the drunker they are the more crimes they want to commit, so this reasoning doesn't follow.
Most American criminals are in jail for drugs. One big difference between Denmark and the USA is that marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. are either de-facto legal or the penalties are very low. This alone could account for the low rate of incarceration in Denmark, but there's more to the story. Most people who end up in jail are effectively there because they're poor (this is easily proven). Danish society is much more egalitarian than the USA, so poor people that would turn to street crime in the USA (like drug addicts) have access to public assistance, housing assistance, and drug treatment. Prostitution is also legal in DK. So all of this together means there is little street crime. Relatively tight regulations means less fraud (though higher costs). Law enforcement tends to concentrate on teenagers, domestic violence (pretty uncommon in DK), traffic, and the occasional serious crime (like murder).