Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Community Choice Award "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Govt"

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the make-your-sarcastic-vote-heard dept.

Last week we took nominations for a Slashdot category at the SourceForge Community Choice awards. Our category was 'Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government Agency'. Your nominations were tallied, and we arbitrarily selected a few that we think are the best. Today is the day where you can at long last determine the winner, using the incredibly scientifically accurate Slashdot Poll. Our nominees are Truecrypt, EFF Patent Busting, GNU Software Radio, WikiLeaks, Cryptome.org, Tor, Freenet, and CowboyNeal.

19 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. The Most Likely Choice... by Fragholio · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...has got to be WikiLeaks.

    Among the nominees, it's the biggest threat to the governments themselves. And make no mistake, the governments will deal with threats to itself before others.

    --
    412077696e6e657220697320796f7521da
    1. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by JediLow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But hasn't WikiLeaks already been shut down once?

    2. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by m.ducharme · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What exactly is illegal about Wikileaks? (no seriously, I want to know).

      --
      Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
    3. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Sure, some people might use WikiLeaks to do illegal things. But what's illegal about the site itself? Does it refuse to comply with DMCA takedown orders?

    4. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by packeteer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes and it wont be shut down again in the same way. They learned a lot from that shutdown. They are pretty paranoid about hosting in different jurisdictions and coming up with technical ways to get around any shutdown.

      --
      unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
    5. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by Garabito · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wikileaks can't very well violate an NDA that they never signed onto and all that.

      While Wikileaks can't be held liable for breaking a NDA that never signed onto, they could be sued for Tortious interference by helping a third party to break that NDA.

      Yes, I saw it on 'The Insider'

    6. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by packeteer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does it refuse to comply with DMCA takedown orders?

      Yes. It also refused to comply with any takedown notice according to any law. The way they dont get shut down is because they are hosted in many different jurisdictions. If they are breaking a law in an area they simply leave that area. They do often however break the law before they leave. This means they are blatantly illegal in many situations.

      There is not a distinction to be made between who uploads and who hosts the data in this situation. This is because wikileaks never denies to know what people are uploading. They admit that it is often illegal for both the uploader and the hoster. They accept this illegality without shifting blame to the leakers. They consider those that leak the data to be heros.

      --
      unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
    7. Re:The Most Likely Choice... by Danny+Rathjens · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is also a mirror of wikileaks residing in freenet. One of the few useful uses of freenet I discovered after poking around a bit after the recent new release. :)

  2. Missing option by phsdv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Missing Option: All of the above...

  3. Not a suggestion by petes_PoV · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Given that most governments now consider George Orwell's classic: 1984 more as an instruction manual than a warning, someone should make it clear to the govt. that we are not asking them to close these sites down.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Not a suggestion by Rick+Genter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe we should ask them to. They generally do the polar opposite of what we citizens want them to.


      There, fixed that for you.
      --
      Don't underestimate the power of The Source
  4. Re:Vote None! by zopf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    RIP OiNK :(

    --
    Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!
  5. Re:Vote None! by Saint+Aardvark · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They can't, legally, unless there's something criminal going on.

    You mean, like telling you how to decrypt DVDs?

    (Which, incidentally, is why I voted for the GNU Software Radio project. If "Think of the children!" is the constitution's rootkit, "Think of the IP!" is its moneyed, bastard son.)

    --
    Carousel is a lie!
  6. Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! by Steauengeglase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wouldn't call this scaremongering. Just having a little fun.

    There is something about geeks that leads them to be more suspicious of authority. Perhaps it is being ostracized at a young age or the fact that there are simply a lot of really dumb people out there who have somehow manage to get a little power.

  7. TrueCrypt by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Even though it would be delicious irony for them to shutdown TOR - after all, the US Navy created it - I would say TrueCrypt.

    TOR (and Freenet) is too easy to co-opt. Anyone can locally modify their copy of the software and deploy "spyware enhanced" entry and exit nodes. Traffic between the exit node and final destination is not (TOR) encrypted. Also, even if otherwise encrypted, traffic analysis is useful due to the fact that entry and exit traffic can be correlated.

    TrueCrypt, however, represents a real problem. While it would be easy enough to foist a back-doored version on to most potential TrueCrypt users, the people who are really serious about keeping their private information private, would build from source and be extremely careful about where they got the source from.

    On the other hand, truly shutting down an open source project is likely impossible. Also, it is virtually certain that the software has been extensively analyzed for implementation weaknesses, so it might be decided to allow users to think they are secure.

    --
    Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
  8. Re:So I'm guessing by maxume · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Did you get your joke backwards? I thought that fast flux DNS was used to obscure the servers while keeping the domain stable, not to obscure the domain while keeping the server stable...

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  9. Re:Most likely to be shut down by the government? by Kierthos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How's that?

    Would it be "course of Slashdot!" or "!esruoc fo todhsalS"

    --
    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
  10. Re:YouTube? by fbjon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You misinterpret the situation. Youtube won't be shut down because it has passed the cute cats litmus test.

    --
    True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
  11. Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! by grizdog · · Score: 2, Interesting
    More specifically, having been beat up in the playground by the same people who went on to become the authorities.


    There is something about geeks that leads them to be more suspicious of authority. Perhaps it is being ostracized at a young age or the fact that there are simply a lot of really dumb people out there who have somehow manage to get a little power.