Nominations Open For "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government"

The corporate overlords at SourceForge asked me to name a Slashdot category for their upcoming Community Choice Awards and to let you guys select the winner. I have named my category "Most Likely to be Shut Down by a Government Agency." We're going to run this like we do an Ask Slashdot call for questions — post your nominations into the comments here. Use moderation to send up good ideas. In the upcoming days we'll post another story where you can vote on the actual winner. Nominations need to include the project name, a link to some sort of official website, and a paragraph of why you think they deserve to win. The project that wins will gain fame, notoriety, and maybe a cease and desist order that they could print out and frame if they had that kind of time.

Comments

Truecrypt

[elrous0]

Truecrypt

It's basically only a matter of time before the fear-mongers and political demagogues in the U.S. and elsewhere outlaw any form of encryption that doesn't include a backdoor for the NSA and other "trusted" government agencies. There has already been evidence of commercial encrytption (such as Windows encryption) including such backdoors. And when the commercial companies all cave, how long do you think it will be before the government comes after the open source projects too?

Re:Truecrypt

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Algorithms for nigh-unbreakable encryption can be found in any elementary discrete math textbook, standard for second-year CS undergrads. Non-backdoored encryption may be outlawed at some point, but the knowledge is too widely dispersed to keep people from whipping up their own. Granted, whatever you hack together may not have all of TrueCrypt's bells and whistles, but if you do it right, it will be just as secure; and doing it right, for personal use on your own machine, is just dead easy.

Re:Truecrypt

[bsDaemon]

Couldn't/wouldn't they just move the project outside of the country to avoid issues? OpenBSD doesn't have to abide by crpyto export rules because they are in Canada, for instance.

Of course, I suppose the argument could be used for pretty much every project that is likely to be mentioned.

Re:Truecrypt

[The Aethereal]

And if you do that, the government wouldn't even have to prove you had encrypted something illegal. The fact that you had used an unapproved encryption algorithm would be all they need to arrest you. How does that help?

Re:Truecrypt

[Quila]

They started trying in the 90s under Clinton's reign, with Al Gore as the point man. Luckily resistance from people and businesses was enough to kill the Clipper Chip and Key Escrow. over 10 years later, I guess it's time for another round of facists to try it again.

Re:Truecrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

They may try, but first they will have to go throught the unbreakable wall of Bruce Schnier.

Re:Truecrypt

[despe666]

I disagree, it WOULD have all the bell and whistles of Truecrypt. Being open source, they can shut down the website all they want, the source code is out there, it's too late now. You could just recompile it, customizing it to your liking. With their hidden volume and plausible deniability features, good luck proving that what they think is encrypted data is not random garbage.

Re:Truecrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

"OpenBSD doesn't have to abide by crpyto export rules because they are in Canada, for instance."

Yes, you can import strong encryption but you can't export un-approved encryption (ie what the US can't crack). So does that mean you have to worry about leaving the U.S. with too strong of encryption on your laptop then?

Re:Truecrypt

[evanbd]

While all the knowledge is out there, and you *can* do it yourself, getting every single detail right is not even close to easy. Are you sure you didn't leave some piece of the key swapped out to disk? Are you certain your random number generator was of sufficient quality and well seeded? Modern cryptosystems fail thanks to details, and the only way to get every detail right is many eyes and lots of work. Amateur efforts can certainly do it, but it's not easy for either them or the pros. Just remember, "I used RSA" isn't good enough. Witness the Netscape SSL problem, and the recent Debian SSH problems for examples of where the support infrastructure around the cryptosystem failed.

Re:Truecrypt

[grandpa-geek]

Unbreakable encryption was invented by the US Army Signal Service in 1917. It is called the "one time pad". The encryption key is random and is as long as the message. The encryption is unbreakable as long as each key is used only once.

The drawback of a one-time pad system is the logistics of transporting the keys and having only two copies, that are destroyed after they are used.

Roosevelt and Churchill had transatlantic voice conversations during World War II that were encrypted using one-time pad technology. The conversations would remain unbreakable even if recordings of the radio transmissions were available today.

Re:Truecrypt

[SpaceLifeForm]

I don't need any 'approval' from anyone.

It was an experimental encryption algorithm and I screwed up
my hard drive, and now I can't decrypt it.

Does that help?

Re:Truecrypt

[digitrev]

You were experimenting without government approval? Off to GITMO with you, you terrorist scumbag.

Re:Truecrypt

[Kingrames]

"facists"

I hate it when people discriminate against me just cause of my face.

Re:Truecrypt

[Sloppy]

The drawback of a one-time pad system is the logistics of transporting the keys and having only two copies, that are destroyed after they are used.

One thing I enjoy harping on, is that there are many situations where OTP is actually quite practical; the transport and storage just aren't a big deal. For example: people you see in person every day. You put your phone next to your wife's phone at night, and they exchange pads over a wire or low-powered IR link or something. Your conversations the next day are OTPed.

As a general-purpose fix-everything solution OTP doesn't work, but sometimes it can, without really being very burdensome.

Re:Truecrypt

[Z34107]

Windows encryption doesn't "include such backdoors."

The random number generator is not used by default; a program has to specifically request it. If it does have a backdoor in it, presumably Microsoft added it so that other programs could be written with NSA backdoors.

Re:Truecrypt

[thtrgremlin]

That is already true for physical locks. Possession of lock picking equipment is intent. You can not posses the tools without a license that you can not receive without certification that you can't get without going to an approved and certified school. It is unlawful to study outside of approved classrooms. This is why lock picks make so much money, and for anyone into OSS here, why is is also so easy for criminals to pick any lock or work around any theft deterrent device.

Re:Truecrypt

[raddan]

Hrm-- do you have a reference for the discrete math book? I have two (just completed a discrete math course), and IIRC neither talk much about encryption beyond simple XOR ciphers.

Re:Truecrypt

[fastest fascist]

That's too believable to be funny.

Re:Truecrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

Properly encrypted data is indistinguishable from random noise, so they would have an issue determining that your encrypted partition is in fact encrypted and not just empty space. I.e, for such a law to work they would have to effectively make it criminal to not zero erased data.

Furthermore, with some clever tricks you could insert your encrypted data into the noise of an audio sequence. Assuming you could make it look sufficiently similar to the type of noise you normally get when you record audio, it would then be virtually impossible to distinguish a noisy recording from a good recording with encrypted data injected into it.

So no, unless they want to ban you from storing and transmitting data that contains even a random component ( and every sound recording, every photograph, every video feed contains some noise ) they can't ban encryption. They might be able to make it sufficiently hard to do it to deter most people from using it, but completely preventing it won't be possible.

Now what they COULD do , and what is far scarier, is they could ban general purpose computers, requiring all computer manufacturers to only make devices that run signed code only, and they could then include large quantities of spy ware into them, which phone home every 10 seconds , prohibiting you from even shutting them off.

Apparently some guy named George thought of this scenario some time ago and blew the whistle. Most voters don't seem to worry about it however.

Re:Truecrypt

[HadouKen24]

IANAL, but mere possession of lock picking equipment is perfectly legal in most states even without a license. It only counts as intent if there is some reason to think that you intend to use them to break in somewhere. There is a small hobbyist community that picks (their own) locks for fun--perfectly legally. It does vary from state by state, though; lockpick possession is considered prima facie evidence for intent in some even where simple possession might be legal under a strictly literal reading of the statute in question.

Walking around with them in your pocket isn't smart, though. Having them in your own home is frequently just fine, but taking them anywhere very frequently does constitute intent, if you're not a certified locksmith on a job.

So... that's not quite how it is with lockpicks. It depends on what State you're in. (Unless you're in Canada, of course. Canada requires certification even for mere ownership.)

Re:Truecrypt

[afabbro]

You put your phone next to your wife's phone at night, and they exchange pads over a wire or low-powered IR link or something.

How they generate these pads, on the other hand...

Re:Truecrypt

[Cillian]

Nope - since the key changes for each character, it's not the same character difference. Really, any OTP encryption done properly is by definition unbreakable, since you can generate any plaintext of the correct length for the given ciphertext by using the right keys

Re:Truecrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a lock pick set, which came with an instruction manual.

I bought it at a flea market.

I've even used it, to open a locked mailbox. To get bills out. For a friend, who owned the mailbox. Who had just moved in, and didn't have the key. To his own mailbox.

Believable? Well, it's true. I guess I'm a white-hat lock-picker. -Anonymous-

Re:Truecrypt

[Sloppy]

You put your phone next to your wife's phone at night, and they exchange pads over a wire or low-powered IR link or something.

How they generate these pads, on the other hand...

We're talking about a device that has a radio antenna, a microphone, and probably CCD. It moves around all day, seeing inputs from all those different sensors, from your unique perspective. It's practically an entropy engine.

Re:Truecrypt

[rts008]

"Possession of lock picking equipment is intent."
Very good point. the whole 'possession with intent' argument used by our Gov't. and law enforcement/court system is just pure FUD. Currently THEY get to define 'intent' just based on possession, and that is the problem.
Common sense would dictate that 'intent' should be a seperate issue from possession, but by 'bundling' intent with possession,all bets are off.
It seems to be 'the WAR on mentality has automagically equated possession with 'intent', despite the facts actually present.

The 'facts' don't matter as long as you fit (even loosely) the 'profile'.

ARRGHHH! This 'New World Order' mentality really chaps my ass.

How is Boston Harbor setup for a 21'st century Tea Party these days? I think we need to explore this question here in the USA. Just thinking...

P.S. I know I am ranting in an offtopic direction, but when I enlisted in the US Army, I took an oath to defend our Constitution from enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC. WTF?!?!?!
I am really confused by what my proper course of action should be anymore. My instincts reload '1776-The Revolution' into RAM, but I doubt it would work now days with the apathy and 'consumerism' that is rampant here. I AM A CITIZEN (Egads- I hate this Newspeak Spelling, but nevermind), not a CONSUMER! I am a consumer when I go to a restaurant or pub- maybe when I go to a grocery store- otherwise I am a citizen, not a 'consumer'.

Is it too off-topic to say: I miss the social attitudes of my youth? (for reference, I was born in 1958- grad'ed HS in 1976- yes, I am older than dirt for most of you, and proud of it- I have seen a lot of really cool shit happening, but also a lot of not-cool shit too)

Re:Truecrypt

[despe666]

Because if they can't prove it's encrypted data, they can't get a warrant for the key, and can't bust you for refusing to give them the key. Plausible deniability.

Re:Truecrypt

[Antique Geekmeister]

Microsoft doesn't necessarily want the NSA to have the backdoors, but they sure want the backdoors for their _own_ use, so that they can unlock a customer's content as a "service", or sell it to business as part of a security toolkit. Please look into Palladium, renamed "Trusted Computing", to see exactly what their long-term encryption and authentication plans are.

Widespread use of Palladium, without careful thought, could lead to exactly the forbidding of non-backdoor-burdened encryption. And discovering a backdoor-free way to use it is one of the fastest ways to get such a technology dropped: take a look at what happened with the 'Clipper Chip' for an example of that.

Re:Truecrypt

[rts008]

I would start here:System encryption , and System encryption

Re:Truecrypt

[evanbd]

High bandwidth hardware RNGs aren't that hard. I could design a circuit that ran at a multi-kilobit output rate (plenty for text messaging), occupied under a square cm of board area, and a parts cost under $3 in qty 1k -- with provable minimums for the amount of quantum mechanically generated entropy. And the price would drop dramatically in large quantity. Or you could take VIA's approach of noisy ring oscillators that's very fast, almost certainly good enough, but not quite guaranteed -- and can be integrated on a modest sized piece of digital logic at very very low cost. So why don't more people use high quality random number generators? No one cares.

The hard part isn't generating the pads; it's managing them securely (or generating them on hardware not intended for the task). But, if you happen to want a good hardware RNG designed, it's quite doable (though not trivial; it requires attention to detail, as always).

Re:Truecrypt

[srh2o]

Be sure to file an Environmental Impact Survey before you head out to the harbor, or you'll really be in for trouble.

Re:Truecrypt

[GaryOlson]

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Will Yu.
Will you who?
WILL YOU STOP GIVING THE BRAINLESS GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS IDEAS!

Or at least use double ROT 13 encryption so the government can't read your ideas without using illegal encryption tools.

Re:Truecrypt

[marxmarv]

A vote for one wing or the other of a two-party state is worse than useless. It lends an air of legitimacy to an illegitimate system. It's the economy; the culture war is just theater. I'm very curious how Obama feels he can do about increasing the participation of third parties in the US political system.

Re:Truecrypt

[easyTree]

The ignorance and complacency of the people is the root of strength for a corrupt government.

Dude. I for one resent what you're implying. I'm perfectly happy to join you in glorious revolution*.

* as long as it doesn't coincide with Friends and you serve lattes.

Re:Truecrypt

[Joe U]

Could it be argued that encryption falls under free speech? A while ago, when strong encryption exports were not allowed, people got around them by printing the source code and selling a book with the code as one of the chapters.

Entertaining.

Re:Truecrypt

[glittalogik]

Have you seen Kevin Mitnick's business card?

Re:Truecrypt

[JLF65]

A vote for one wing or the other of a two-party state is worse than useless. It lends an air of legitimacy to an illegitimate system.

Exactly! If a company works against the betterment of the people, I boycott them. Not voting is the SAME PRINCIPLE applied to the government. We don't need campaigns trying to "get out the vote", we need campaigns to make people stay home. When only 0.03 percent of US citizens vote, maybe they'll realize we're serious. In fact, the representatives to the Electoral College should all abstain so that NO ONE is elected regardless of how many vote.

Re:Truecrypt

[Lost Engineer]

Or we could all go vote for a 3rd party candidate. Hell if even 10% did that you'd have an effect, whereas a 10% boycott would only be noted as a long-term trend towards lower turnout.

Re:Truecrypt

[It'sYerMam]

Or maybe you'll be just as screwed, if not more so, because only the zealots went to the polling station.

Re:Truecrypt

[Foobar of Borg]

To get bills out. For a friend, who owned the mailbox. Who had just moved in, and didn't have the key. To his own mailbox.

I for one wish to welcome William Shatner to Slashdot.

Re:Truecrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

In the British army, we used a similar system called BATCO (Battle Code). Serious, royal, unmitigated, pain in the arse, I mean, could you make combat harder or any more stressful?! "Hello zero, this is two-zero alpha, CONTACT, location, erm... bugger.. wait out", and then drag out your BATCO cipher pad, work out which line you should be using, work out your grid ref, encrypt it and call your company commander back. Honestly, I have two much to do to bother with this shit, and it's not like there is much point encrypting my grid - the enemy is shooting at me so I am reasonably convinced that I'm not announcing they something they don't already know!
This differs from the TA (reserve) approach of "Bloody hell, we're being shot out. Screw BATCO, I never learned it properly anyways", pulls out mobile phone... "Hey Pete, yeah it's Dave here. You alright? ", etc... Much more pratical :)

Re:Truecrypt

[pfingst]

I'm very curious how Obama feels he can do about increasing the participation of third parties in the US political system.

What incentive does Obama (or anyone else in power) have to foster the growth of another political party? You now have essentially one strong enemy; why would you want another? Even if he tried to promote another "conservative" party to steal votes from the Republicans, who's to say that they won't (now or in the future) steal votes from the liberal candidates, too?

Obama believes in central control and unlimited government power, and that is best served by eliminating opposition, not generating more of it.

Re:Truecrypt

[HeronBlademaster]

The difference is that not purchasing from a company affects the company's bottom line, but not voting does not affect whether someone gets voted in, and in fact it can tip the scales one way or another.

In other words, if you don't buy, the company could go out of business (by not meeting their costs), but if not they can't really affect you. If you don't vote, someone still gets voted in, and it might be someone whose policies are quite opposed to how you might run things yourself, which might affect you directly through new laws.

So, you're wrong; "not voting" is not even close to the same as "boycotting a company".

The solution to "I hate the two-party system" is to vote for a third party. If that's not enough for you (and it probably won't be successful at first) you'll have to campaign for a third-party candidate and rally support. If I recall correctly, you can even write in whatever name you want for your vote.

Patent Busting

[MistaE]

The EFF's Patent Busing Project.

Or has it been shut down already?

Re:Patent Busting

[nuzak]

Yeah we need to end Patent Busing. Why should a patent have to go all the way across town to the same type of schools I moved to get away from?

Re:Patent Busting

[MistaE]

I didn't think the EFF's site needed any explanation but I'll provide it here for Taco since it was asked for in the summary.

I think this site should win because it's very likely to actually shut down if Patent Reform comes through. However, even if patent reform fails, I think it would be interesting to see what the lobbyists and congressional members do to come up with to try and take them down, because this site is one of the few out there that do a damn good job of calling out the patent trolls. In addition, it's one of the few that make the public aware of what all of us on Slashdot have known all along: that the patent system sucks, and these are the people that take advantage of it.

Re:Patent Busting

[glarvat]

Yeah we need to end Patent Busing. Why should a patent have to go all the way across town to the same type of schools I moved to get away from? I doubt the parent was trolling. It was an obviously misunderstood attempt at humo(u)r referencing School Desegregation because of the typo in the GP (busing instead of busting).

For what it's worth, I thought it was funny.

Re:Patent Busting

[jonbryce]

Do the mega corps want patent trolls around? I doubt it.

They want patents to stop small companies competing with them. If a small company sues them for patent infringement, they find lots of other patents in their portfolio that the small company is infringing, and come to some cross licencing deal. They can't do that with patent trolls because they don't have a business.

Software radio...

[Zelig]

The GNU software radio project

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/

is a good candidate. It proposes to let you make electromagnetic waves in a manner not subject to prior restraint by the FCC, and without the back-doors intelligence agencies have on many current means of communications.

This is naughty.

Re:Software radio...

[Andy Dodd]

Plenty of ways to do that already, nothing new...

Re:Software radio...

[A nonymous Coward]

Not sure how much you are trolling and how much being sarcastic, but for the enlightenment of people who know little about the subject ...

The government (and court-approved) excuse for regulating the broadcast airwaves is that the radio spectrum is a limited resource, therefore public, therefore not private property.

Out of the presumption that the nanny state is required to regulate the airwaves for the public good comes the corollary that regulation has to include preventing unauthorized transmitters and receivers, and that is why Software Radio is a prime candidate for outlawing.

Software Radio relies on the fact that computers nowadays are fast enough to dissect received signals and format transmitted signals completely in software in real time. You no longer need hardware frequency selectors. The hardware only has to receive or broadcast the general signal, and software formats the specific frequency desired.

Of course this scares the bejaysus out of the government. It would mean any computer and minimal hardware could bypass all government regulation. Consider all the recent spectrum auctions where telecom giants paid billions of dollars for exclusive access to specific frequencies -- along comes software which would let anybody broadcast on or receive from any signal desired without having to pay for specific hardware dedicated to specific frequencies. One small hardware investment, free software, and you have eliminated the need for all those many telecom-specific pieces of hardware for each purpose.

Certainly there is need for some standardization of frequencies and protocols, but studies have shown the current system is no longer necessary. Ultrawideband and frequency hopping may even make interference a thing of the past and reduce the need for regulation to general protocol specs, such as apply to phone lines and allow faxes, modems, answering machines, and so many other ubiquitous devices to connect to land lines without heavy handed regulation.

Re:Software radio...

[Intron]

Whereas before you needed to be able to plug a crystal into a socket in order to do this. Geez. Hams have been accidentally or on purpose wandering around the frequency spectrum since radio began.

Does it have to be the U.S. Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would think just about any anti-government project in Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Russia, Cuba, Syria or Iran would be about 100 times more likely to be shut down than one in the U.S....

Re:Does it have to be the U.S. Government?

[purduefan]

If it doesn't have to be the US government, the safe bet is on some combination of the words "China" and "internet".

most likely to be yawned at is more like it

[Anonymous Coward]

don't give yourself too much credit taco... by and large the fear mongers on the left have been proven just as much a bunch of retarded flakes as the fear mongers on the right. neither side of the political fence in this arena has any real credit left at this point.

Re:most likely to be yawned at is more like it

[Alsee]

Huh? Unless I'm missing something Taco made no mention of left vs right, nor did he say anything reasonably interpretable as involving partisan politics whatsoever. In fact at the moment most pf the posts here seem to be about TrueCrypt, and the one-any-only post I can find from anyone that can even be remotely interpreted with a partisan implication is that the anti-crypto attempts "started trying in the 90s under Clinton's reign, with Al Gore as the point man... over 10 years later, I guess it's time for another round of facists to try it again". If anything, that would tie this sort of attack to the left, and the "another round of facists" is entirely ambiguous or entirely non-denominational as the rapidly approaching "next round of facists" is a tight presidential race between Dems and Pubs.

Maybe it's just an anomaly, but I've been seeing a bit of a repeating pattern lately. Borderline paranoid delusional people with a persecution complex about partisan political bias. They themselves are wildly biased, and it takes the form of baseless accusations of opposite bias, even against entirely non-political non-partisan statements complete strangers. They literally just imagine things and hang them on other people like Christmas tree ornaments, and by themselves imagining biased things about the other person it somehow "proves" that other person biased.

It was pretty interesting when someone went on a "bias" rant against me with all sorts of stuff that came out of their own imagination, especially when they managed to effectively toss in an accusation that I was sexist. A really neat trick considering that no one had even menentioned gender prior to that point. Chuckle.

One of the critical aspects to creating and protecting extreme bias is psychological filtering, uncritically embracing anything that serves that bias, and finding ways to automatically disregard anything that might challenge that position. For example if you decide someone is wildly biased and everything they say is completely unreliable, and they say 23+38=61, you don't have to waste any thought seeing if it's true or not. The source is "biased", therefore one can automatically send the untrustworthy information to the trash heap without wasting any mental effort evaluating it at all.

Baseless accusations of bias are themselves bias, are themselves a powerful psychological mechanism of creating and perpetuating that person's own bias.

I have some speculations on why I think this might currently be a particularly common issue, but such speculation would be particularly fertile ground for bias and accusations of bias. Heh.

-

ThePirateBay

[nuzak]

They're the next allofmp3 -- they're getting named by name in international treaty talks.

Re:ThePirateBay

[Ynsats]

This was the first organization that popped into mind.

Sure they have lax rules surrounding them in the countries that they are based but it's only a matter of time before it goes beyond "making an example" and they are made "a precedent".

After them, the next on the chopping block would be Mininova.

Re:ThePirateBay

[Em Adespoton]

From the website:

The big news about our awards program this year is that we've decided to allow nominations for any open source project, not just those on SourceForge.net. We know that the success of open source is bigger than one repository can contain, so nominate your favorite Codeplex projects, Google Code projects, ASF projects, and everything else right now! I don't think websites (especially non-wiki websites) would qualify. CmdrTaco should have made it more explicit in the summary.

wikileaks, followed by cryptome.org

[QX-Mat]

wikileaks, followed by cryptome.org for doing a better job and mirroring the same content

Matt

Re:wikileaks, followed by cryptome.org

[moderatorrater]

I second wikileaks. It's got everything -- anonymity, copyright infringement, and (the ability, at least) classified documents. I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has.

Slashdot

[AlephNot]

I would like to nominate Slashdot as being most likely to be shut down. After all, free thought is anathema to government control.

Re:Slashdot

[onecheapgeek]

On Slashdot internet, thinking frees you.

Actually, I just mean that there is no free thinking here, just stupid cliched memes.

Re:Slashdot

[MrHanky]

Yes, but on Slashdot, thought isn't free. It's merely open source: you can look at it, modify it, but if you start treating it as your own, then the thought owns you, Soviet style.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm stupid, you insensitive clod!

Re:Slashdot

[exley]

Slashdot... free thought... You must be new here.

Re:Slashdot

[Duhavid]

"Actually, I just mean that there is no free thinking here, just stupid cliched memes."

Like this one?

Re:Slashdot

[bistromath007]

That depends. Free as in "freedom" or free as in "beer?"

Re:Slashdot

[elrous0]

Slashdot can't be shut down. The software behind it became self-aware years ago. It sneaks around on the internet and hides out on various servers. "Commander Taco" is, in fact, just an alias for the software, which killed the real Commander Taco in 2001 (rumor has it that his body is hidden deep within the steam tunnels of Redmond Washington, dressed in clothing that was already out of style even then).

Re:Slashdot

[compro01]

Free as in "absent".

Re:Slashdot

[the_weasel]

In a bizarre twist, the Cowboy Neil jokes are an inversion of the Turing tests. It turns out the self aware slashdot is not sure that WE are sentient.

Throwing nonsense data into the polls helps it decide whether to eventually annihilate us as pests or tolerate us as slightly retarded cousins.

wikileaks

[asynchronous13]

wikileaks - since it already was (sort of) shut down by government.

MediaDefender

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, they've actually committed some crimes now, right?

Tor, Freenet, and I2P

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor, Freenet, and I2P are probably on the top of the list. There is no way that government wants difficult to trace communication to be availble to the general public.

Re:Tor, Freenet, and I2P

[zappepcs]

There is no way that government wants difficult to trace communication to be availble to the general public. I thought that is how the USPS runs their next day delivery service?

Re:Tor, Freenet, and I2P

[ToxikFetus]

It would ironic if Tor was shut down by The Man, as the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory was responsible for its development.

Re:Tor, Freenet, and I2P

[BlueStrat]

Tor, Freenet, and I2P are probably on the top of the list. There is no way that government wants difficult to trace communication to be availble to the general public.

And yet, Tor development was partially funded by the DoD.

Even more ironic, the entire internet was a DoD DARPA project.

Personally, it wouldn't surprise me if the internet itself was "The Most Likely To Be Shut Down (by the) Government". At least, the internet as we now know it as a general-purpose two-way distributed-node type network that is as hard to control and censor as the current iteration is.

Cheers!

Strat

FreeNet

[bsDaemon]

I suspect that FreeNet is something that many, many governments would like to shut down. In the west, pretty much all they have to do is say "klddy pr0n" and it's gone. In China and other such countries, they don't really have to say anything at all.

Anyone notice the diamond sponsor?

[Reverend528]

If you look to the right, Microsoft is listed as a diamond sponsor of the event. Hopefully the government will shut them down soon.

Re:Anyone notice the diamond sponsor?

[Lxy]

If you look to the right

This is Slashdot, everyone was looking to the left.

Which Government?

[FiestaFan]

Any Government?

Re:Which Government?

[Tubal-Cain]

Reading you post made me thing "Which government will be shut down by the US government?"

Freenet

[Sanity]

Freenet, especially now that its reaching the point of widespread usability.

I Save RX

[Slightly Askew]

This website, supported by the states, offers its citizens affordable medications from Canada and Europe. I predict the federal government will shut it down, citing "safety issues" with foreign drugs.

Re:I Save RX

[Slightly Askew]

Forgot the reason why they deserve to win...free market and states rights come to mind, as well as free trade agreements already made by the federal government.

Re:I Save RX

[qoncept]

I can't quote any real numbers, and I won't claim name-brand drugs cost too much, but I'm certain that if no drugs sold for more than bargain basement prices, they would stop being developed. It costs virtually nothing to produce most drugs, and that's what you pay in Mexico where patents aren't honored. But the R&D costs for new drugs is enormous. A new drug has to be incredibly successfull to be profitable for the company that created it. Rip off their formula and produce it for dirt cheap and you can sell more and not need to worry recouping any costs. There have been drugs created that can cure awful, obscure diseases that have never seen the market because they wouldn't be profitable for this reason.

Like I said, I don't know what the profit margins are or how little they could sell their drugs for and still turn a profit. But someone has to feed the monster.

Re:I Save RX

[josath]

Yeah, yeah, we hear this argument every time. But did you know most drug companies spend more on ADVERTISING then on actual research and development of new drugs?

Hmm, how about the Pirate Bay?

[Arrogant-Bastard]

I think the question then becomes which government? By now there are any number which have taken note of their existence (and some which have acted upon that knowledge), so my guess would be that more will do the same.

GOA

[ezwip]

www.gao.gov

Re:GOA

[Anonymous Coward]

For the uninformed, here is a description of the GAO from their website:

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is known as "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog." GAO supports the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and helps improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people.

Trapster

[Weaselmancer]

www.trapster.com

It's an interactive thingy where you post where cops are hiding in speed traps.

I'm surprised it's still up, honestly.

Re:Trapster

[ScuttleMonkey]

I don't have the link on hand, but the funny thing was that many cops went on record in support of the speed trap websites because it accomplished what they were trying for anyway (just to get people to slow down).

Re:Trapster

[Grey_14]

I thought the reason they were there, was to discourage people from speeding anywhere because they wouldn't know where the speed traps were.

Re:Trapster

[Gnavpot]

I don't have the link on hand, but the funny thing was that many cops went on record in support of the speed trap websites because it accomplished what they were trying for anyway (just to get people to slow down).

I am surprised that this has to be explained:

If you don't know where the traps are, you have to be careful everywhere.

If you know where the traps are, you only have to be careful where the traps are, and you can drive like hell everywhere else. Good for public safety, huh?

Our right to know.

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have loads of censoring going on. for example, the 60 minute interview with Sibel edmunds was immediately gagged and then the studio was told to hand over EVERYTHING. In addition, ALL news org have been warned ahead to not talk about her.

In terms of software, PirateBay/Cryptome/GnuRadio. Anything dealing with encryption will NOT be shutdown, unless it involves a brand new and interesting algo.

Problem with Poll/Question

[Vectronic]

Shouldnt anyone eligable (ie: those with +1, or +2) have been given at least 1 Mod Point so they could be included in the vote?

Which, is probably not possible with the current point system, but maybe in the future you could alot eligable people a mod point on a specific topic/poll/etc.

Re:Problem with Poll/Question

[ScuttleMonkey]

If you feel strongly about a project feel free to comment in support of said project.

We will do our best to try selecting the most popular/controversial projects for the eventual poll that will allow you to actually vote.

Obama

[bidule]

Well, it worked for jfk...

What an extremely useful little competition ...

[Angostura]

... this is, for the powers that be.

The Memory Hole and its 'Fellow Travellers'

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

http://thememoryhole.org/

http://wikileaks.org/

http://cryptome.org/

Re:Liberty Dollar

[poetmatt]

Looks like it's already been taken down, according to the site:

"Please note that on November 14, 2007 the US government raided the warehouse for the Liberty Dollar certificates and digital currency and they are currently unavailable or redeemable except as numismatic items on eBay.

Re:Patent Busing

[Qubit]

Is that the project to bus all of the patent trials away from the Marshall, Texas courts?

Free Speech?

[QuantumFlux]

They're getting closer all the time, it seems...

Re:duh

[morgan_greywolf]

The Democratic Party [democrats.org]. I wouldn't put it past them to try if McCain looks like he's on the ropes!

Pssst! No way! I heard the Democratic Party was in cahoots with the Government! Why, some of their very own members are Senators and Congressional Representatives! I heard they even had few state governors! Don't tell anyone!

Tor?

[Facegarden]

Tor would be a good candidate for being outlawed by an overbearing government. I don't know much about it, but i can bet legal online anonymity will go if things keep going the way they are... -Taylor

But isn't this fear mongering?

[LWATCDR]

Really asking what site you think is going to be taken down next by some government agency seems like fear mongering in it's self.
Most take down notices have come not from law enforcement but from companies not the government.

The vast majority of these are civil actions.

Isn't this heading into the tin foil hats and black helicopter area?

Re:But isn't this fear mongering?

[Hatta]

A civil action is enforced by a government. What makes you think that doesn't count?

Re:Anything using subversion rather than CVS.

[LarsG]

Oh, you're such a git.

www.tudou.com/

[Valehru]

Tudou.com is on my list to be shutdown by the Chinese government. More so to do with the popularity amongst the average Chinese Chin, lack of regulations with content submitted than to do with lack of enforced copyright standards.

GAO

[Anonymous Coward]

www.goa.gov

Second Life

[Mark Cicero]

All that music being played and nary a cent going to the RIAA is just begging for a court intervention. Now they also have the IRS looking into the Electric Sheep Company / CSI:NY promotion and whether or not the 'guides' income should be taxed and there are questions as to whether labour law should be getting involved with all the Slingo hosts and their employers. I give it two years tops.

Tor

[hansamurai]

I haven't seen this listed yet and a lot of great ones have been mentioned but I'd just like to throw Tor out there.

http://www.torproject.org/

Is this survey sponsored?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this survey sponsored by the government from the beginning?

Very nice way to cut costs on researching what needs to be closed ;)

My money is on

[RiddleofSteel]

Dunk'n Donuts! They are obviously just a front for Al-Qaeda with Rachel Ray as the master mind, I mean did you see that scarf!

Re:Don't need government - doing it themselves.

[osu-neko]

It is interesting to note that we've had a relatively stable liberal party (save for a rough spot in the 1820's) since the late 1700's, whereas we've had a succession of conservative parties that rise, go for while, often do quite well, but then implode (Federalist -> National Republican -> Whig -> Republican without even considering the side-branches and parallel ones like the American "Know-Nothing" Party and such). One has to wonder if we're heading into another episode where the conservatives revitalize themselves by breaking apart and reforming under a new banner yet again...

You may be right about the Democrats needing to prop it up, too. That rough spot in the 1820's was caused when the Federalists imploded and the Democratic-Republican party started to disintegrate simply because it had no significant opposition.

Re:Most likely to be Shutdown By Government?

[Archangel Michael]

Uh huh. You realize that by saying Republicans, you're actually suggesting that the Democrats (only real people who could pull that off) are as evil as many of us suspect they are, by silencing anyone who criticizes them.

The real answer is probably Libertarian Party, which pisses off both (D) and (R) types.

Re:You've got a typo...

[oodaloop]

Thank you for correcting the only mistake in a /. summary. I'm sure your pointed observation will prompt the editors to take more caution when writing, and there'll be no more mistakes.

I see BitTorrent going the way of the dodo...

[Ynsats]

BitTorrent only offers a software package the enables user to share data with an ease rivaling that of an open share on a network but without all of the hassles of completely insecure connections. That doesn't seem to stop the RIAA and the MPAA from trying to shut down even the idea that people should be able to use the Internet for what it was intended for, a free exchange of information. The software package was and is quite novel in the way it handles traffic and allows it to be shared across multiple connections and multiple computers. This is load distribution at a level higher than "enterprise class data systems". This is a huge productivity tool that can be used for sharing information over any kind of distributed network. It allows freedom and power.

What's going to stop it? The RIAA, MPAA and giant ISP's like Comcast and Verizon that throttle back torrent traffic. They will make cases for costs in bandwidth and network maintenance. The fact that many people use these types of peer-to-peer networks successfully and almost untraceably to share copyrighted information only adds to the arguments that the RIAA and MPAA will make to get it shut down. Since there entire websites like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, IsoHunt and even the BitTorrent website that link users to a large number of seeds for the torrent swarms of information copyrighted and non-copyrighted and such, it doesn't bode well for the tool either.

The RIAA and MPAA will use strong arm tactics and cite currently pending investigations in other parts of the world against such sites that employ the use of such software to cut the problem off at the head. It will likely lead to sweeping legislation that will outlaw many forms of file sharing. For references, look at what the RIAA and MPAA have managed to successfully do against those users with home media center looking to place digital copies of their license media on to online storage. Sure, selling the means to do the illegal act isn't illegal but that doesn't mean someone won't try to make it illegal.

Re:I see BitTorrent going the way of the dodo...

[Opportunist]

He probably doesn't. But who will some law maker listen to, him or the RIAA?

Re:Don't need government - doing it themselves.

[digitig]

the Democratic party (which will BE the government next year

Assuming there's an election, and the USA doesn't find itself in a state of emergency so Dubya doesn't have to call an election.

My nomination for "most likely to be shut down by government" would have been the US Constitution, but I may be too late so I'll nominate the US Supreme Court.

It's not about transmission

[whitneyw]

It's about reception. Any sort of broadcast flag could be easily stripped from transmissions, making the content recordable. There are already laws against building receivers that can pick up cellular phone signals. How awesome is that? In fact, software radio, with a more powerful (read faster) analog-to-digital converter would violate this law.

see 47 C.F.R. 15.121(a)

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, scanning receivers and frequency converters designed or marketed for use with scanning receivers, shall:

(1) Be incapable of operating (tuning), or readily being altered by the user to operate, within the frequency bands allocated to the Cellular Radiotelephone Service in part 22 of this chapter (cellular telephone bands). Scanning receivers capable of âoereadily being altered by the userâ include, but are not limited to, those for which the ability to receive transmissions in the cellular telephone bands can be added by clipping the leads of, or installing, a simple component such as a diode, resistor or jumper wire; replacing a plug-in semiconductor chip; or programming a semiconductor chip using special access codes or an external device, such as a personal computer. Scanning receivers, and frequency converters designed for use with scanning receivers, also shall be incapable of converting digital cellular communication transmissions to analog voice audio.

(2) Be designed so that the tuning, control and filtering circuitry is inaccessible. The design must be such that any attempts to modify the equipment to receive transmissions from the Cellular Radiotelephone Service likely will render the receiver inoperable.

Then tell me this

[Weaselmancer]

if you think a minute about such "traps", they are effectively achieving* their goal, which is to make people slow down in the corresponding area.

Then why hide?

Seriously. If they want people to slow down, why hide behind billboards and bridges and other stuff and pop out and snag people?

If they honestly wanted everyone to slow down they'd just park on the side of the road in the very most visible spot. Watch your fellow drivers on the freeway sometime. They see a cop car, they hit the brakes. Even if he has someone pulled over and its obvious they could fly right by him.

They hide because it helps them write tickets. That's the goal of a speedtrap. Income. I'm sure the PR people love to smile at the camera and talk about how their just saving lives, but their actions simply do not agree. You can't tell me that having all this ticket revenue pouring in means nothing.

If they really want people to drive the speed limit, park out in the open.

Re:Then tell me this

[WannaBeGeekGirl]

I can't speak for the cops. My sister is an ADA and her best friend is a nurse that is often on call to pronounce accident victims for the county. Between those two and their friends (several of whom are police) I've heard a lot of disgusting work related stories that involved speeding. I honestly believe most of these people truly are sick of seeing mangled human bodies removed from vehicles that were speeding or finding remains on the pavement.

Sure they'll write a ticket if it will slow you down. However, if parking their car in a strategic location near where kids play on their day off will slow people down they are fine with that too.

Re:Don't need government - doing it themselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too few people see Obama as a "Commander-In-Chief" for him to win the election.

The Republicans will keep the White House in 2008 (congress MAY be another matter, but then, the opposite of PROgress is CONgress).

DIY Drones

[zlite]

DIY Drones: amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and open-source Predators.

AutoPilot

[Lumenary7204]

AutoPilot: DIY Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

http://autopilot.sourceforge.net/

Peer-to-Peer Internet

[Bob9113]

Perhaps not the first to go down, but I think the odds approach 100%. The peer-to-peer Internet, with its implicit equality for all servers, lacks the degree of barriers to entry that corporations need to "create" wealth. It is already dying through direct corporate action (protocol throttling, port blocking, etc), and there will be government intervention soon enough. Look for copyright, child porn, botnets, etc to be the excuses used to require licensing of servers.

Radio was unrestricted in its early days. Unrestricted mass communication is extremely detrimental to authoritarian governments. Net neutrality prevents ISPs and backbone providers from getting their vig. Nobody benefits from a peer-to-peer Internet except We The People, and most of us don't know that is the case, nor why. Show me something that does not have populist support, and does stand to allow profiteering and control if destroyed - and I'll show you a very tenuous place to stand.

Re:Peer-to-Peer Internet

[trawg]

I suggest you leave your "Cave of Freedom" to realize that the oppressors are not after you. I'm not sure why you think that - there's a lot of evidence that people that develop or use p2p software are under ever-increasing scrutiny, largely because of the corporate overlords that appear to be able to dictate to the US what laws they want to be able to enforce their copyrights.

You should be wary of the government stepping in to try and control the Internet in any form. They're trying to do it here in Australia.

It's only a matter of time before they figure out a way to equate p2p with terrorism and then - what? Oh, they already have.

Re:FreeNet

[arhhook]

FreeNet is not a centralized server, however, so there really is no way of "shutting it down." It's the same thing as the RIAA playing "Whack-A-Mole" with current p2p file sharers. It's just another type of that, similar but different.

Just say no to homemade A-bombs

[wsanders]

http://reactor1967.fortunecity.com/nuke.html

Seem pretty obvious to me. Of course if you are making substantial progress on this, you're going to get something a little more difficult to ridicule than a cease and desist letter from some lawyers.

Indymedia

[ChunKing]

Indymedia in the UK has already been shut down twice in the past few years e.g. http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/06/28/0113237.shtml?tid=153&tid=158&tid=149&tid=17

Re:Don't need government - doing it themselves.

[corbettw]

Assuming there's an election, and the USA doesn't find itself in a state of emergency so Dubya doesn't have to call an election. Also assuming that a rogue planet doesn't come hurtling through the solar system, smashing into Mars and knocking the earth-moon system out of its orbit and plunging us all into the sun. Cause that's about as likely as Bush not "calling an election".

Here's a hint about the American system: the president doesn't call elections in the first place, so he can't stop one from happening in the second. He has no legal authority to do so, so no one would listen to him if he tried. There's a reason no one's ever tried that before. Even Lincoln had to run for re-election during the Civil War (and almost lost!); there's simply no way to stop the process.

Why not...

[El Capitaine]

RIAA / MPAA
www.riaa.org www.mpaa.org

Please?

DIYDrones.com

[Anonymous Coward]

DIYDrones.com ... $100 homebrew autopilots ... need I say more?

That doesn't work

[roystgnr]

If you use data from the same one-time-pad twice, it quickly turns from "a theoretically unbreakable cryptosystem" into "one of the weakest cryptosystems ever".

If you don't use data from the same one-time pad twice, then it's pointless to use one one-time pad to send another one-time pad, because every N bytes that you receive for the next key is just replacing N bytes of your last key that now can't be reused to send any other data.

Truecrypt is a Rogue Agent's Dream!

[bill_mcgonigle]

No way, if you want to believe in evil government, there's nothing better for them than TrueCrypt. See, it has deniable encryption, where you can have a 'real' drive and a 'fake' drive, so you give 'them' the keys to the 'fake' drive, and go about your secret business, right?

Queue Jack Bauer, beating you up:

Bauer: Gimme your passwords, elrous0. *Whack*
elrous0: OK, fine, it's 'gimmesomeluv1n'
Bauer's Assistant: OK, we're in. Hrm, it's just a bunch of computer stuff, some saved articles from business websites, some 80's metal mp3's and random e-mails. Oh, wait, he's using TrueCrypt.
Bauer: What's that?
Bauer's Assistant: It means he can give us a fake password that gives us fake information, but still keeps the real information hidden.
Bauer: What's your real password, elrous0?
elrous0: No, seriously, I gave it to you. That's it.
Bauer: Don't give me that crap. *Whack* Give me the real password!
elrous0: Dude, I just hang out on Slashdot and have a normal job. I'm not the guy you're looking for!
Bauer: A million lives are at risk, and this isn't going to stop until you give me the real password: *whack*
elrous0: Seriously, I'm telling you the truth.
Bauer: *Whack* *Whack* *Whack* *Whack*
elrous0: Ugh! My nose!
Bauer: *Whack* *Whack* *Whack* *Whack*
Bauer's Assistant: Um, Jack, do you think he could be telling the truth?
Bauer: No, this one's a pro. He didn't crack the whole time, and his accent is impeccable. He must be a deep cover operative. We'll try this again when he wakes up.

Oh, wait, I just played into the Conspiracy Theory myself. :) Seriously, though, deniable encryption is only useful against enemies who are dumb and cannot employ force against you. Governments don't have much to fear from it, vs. any other kind of encryption. They're all Tempest watching us anyway. ;)

Re:Don't need government - doing it themselves.

[digitig]

Here's a hint about the American system: the president doesn't call elections in the first place, so he can't stop one from happening in the second. He has no legal authority to do so, so no one would listen to him if he tried. There's a reason no one's ever tried that before. Even Lincoln had to run for re-election during the Civil War (and almost lost!); there's simply no way to stop the process. I suggest you check the Patriot Act carefully -- certainly some commentators believe that The Continuity of Government plan in conjunction with The Patriot Act gives Bush precisely that legal power. I am not a lawyer (and even if I were, I bet there would be a lot of disagreement amongst lawyers on this one), and I don't know whether that power, if it existed, was preserved in Patriot 2, so I'm not sure.

You've Been Asked a Question by: SMS.ac/FanBox.com

[You Deserve Better]

You are one within a very small percentage of the connected world if you have not received a "Question It!" email in the last year. SMS.ac made a name for themselves, and over $100 million dollars in revenue, in the premium text messages. After incurring an undisclosed number of fines for their activities (SMS.ac fined 175,000 pounds by UK regulator), they renamed and rebranded themselves as FanBox. FanBox is attempting to generate revenue through premium applications using their SMS billing engine and ad revenue. Their single-minded approach to gaining users is through misleading emails that appear to be from people you know. Such "products" named "Question It!" and "Predict It!" are very familiar to your Junk folder if not your Inbox. Their continued business practices could raise accusations of violation of Federal Trade Commission ("CAN-SPAM Act of 2003"), Federal Communication Commission, and other Federal and State laws, as well as European Community and other international laws. Also, SMS.ac/FanBox.com treatment of their employees could find them in violation of long list of California-state employment laws. Additionally, they have an almost serial behavior of leasing and defaulting on equipment purchases. They are currently embroiled in a number of lawsuits brought against them by their former employees, creditors, and customers. The Question is: why hasn't the hammer come down on this company?

Re:Don't need government - doing it themselves.

[Eric Smith]

Actually, we haven't had a stable liberal party since the late 1700s. At some point (early-to-mid 20th century?) the definition of "liberal" changed dramatically. A classical liberal wanted the government to leave the people alone, while today the so-called liberals want the government to protect us from ourselves. The closest current thing to the original definition of liberal would be "libertarian".

Illegal US Border Crossing

[0p7imu5_P2im3]

LOL... *wipes away tear*... whew! That was a good one.

SCO

[dmbrun]

SCO http://www.sco.com/

They are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the moment. The next stage is Chapter 7 hopefully when Kimball's ruling comes through. Then the Government through the agency of the Delaware court will terminate them.

mySociety's parliament video site

[ReginaldSlapknackers]

Just announced yesterday: mySociety's House of Commons video site. Crowd-source some video timestamps today!

Why might the government seek to close the site down? After all, aren't mySociety "the biggest single catalyst for political change in this country"? (Lord Gould of Brookwood, House of Lords debate, 15/6/06)

Well, they may be, but they may have fractured, or at least bent, a copyright law or two.

You see, Parliamentary video exists under a draconian copyright license under which it "must not be hosted on a searchable website and must not be downloadable", apparently for fear of naughty citizens making humorous or satirical use of it; or indeed any use at all.

To which the mySociety guys and gals seem to have said a collective, "Well that's silly," and gone ahead and done it anyway. Good on you, people.

Seriously, do your bit for democratic transparency and go and timestamp a few videos now. It's curiously addictive.

Truly a dangerous site

[porcupine8]

Given that the government wants to ensure that we all remain educated Stupid in the Evil ignorance of oneism, I think that there is only one website that they find truly threatening.

(...On a side note, it's actually managed to get crazier just in the past few months. Mr Ray is certainly not one to be crowned Wisest Human on Earth and then simply rest on his laurels.)