Lessig Predicts Cyber 9/11 Event, Restrictive Laws

A number of readers are sending in links to a video from the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference last month, in which Lawrence Lessig recounts a conversation over dinner with Richard Clarke, the former government counter-terrorism czar. Remembering that the Patriot Act was dropped on Congress just 20 days after 9/11 — the Department of Justice had had it sitting in a drawer for years — Lessig asked Clarke if DoJ had a similar proposed law, an "i-Patriot Act," to drop in the event of a "cyber-9/11." Clarke responded, "Of course they do. And Vint Cerf won't like it." Lessig's anecdote begins at about 4:30 in the video.

Comments

Re:Just wait ...

[bky1701]

Until they just indiscriminately block all packets they can't identify. ISP are already itching to do that.

P2P and freedom of speech in one blow, what could be better?

Would this be enough to make us move?

[DoofusOfDeath]

Over the past eight years or so, I've occasionally ranted, and heard other people rant, about how I/we were just one more liberties-reduction away from moving to Canada, Europe, Antarctica, etc. But we generally just grumble for a while and then get used to the new "normal".

Is this any different? Are there any of us for whom this really *is* the straw that breaks the camel's back?

I just got back from Austria, and I've got to say, it's pretty fsck'ing nice over there.

Paranoid Linux is your friend

[thesuperbigfrog]

Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" describes a Linux distro called "Paranoid Linux" which has nice features for this kind of thing. Such as distro is already in the works: http://paranoidlinux.org/

Re:Just wait ...

[fishbowl]

Until the majority of people recognize that oppression has become intolerable enough that they become willing to kill or die in order to end it... it's probably not time.

The fact that people generally tolerate things is at least an indication that a call to revolution is not going to succeed.

I know people who have lived under martial law and genuine oppression. I laugh at Americans who seem to actually believe there is a spirit sufficient to outright spark a revolution.

Re:Just wait ...

[jeevesbond]

Which will hopefully, in turn, force us to create a better network.

As long as the masses can still get to their myspace, facebook and ebay, the majority of people won't care enough to make funding something of that scale possible.

This seems to be overly-cynical. People aren't bad at adopting new things, they just need a motivator:

• A killer application (no Reiser jokes please!), something that will make people switch. Must be tangible though, abstract concepts like freedom alone won't be enough. Freedom to troll Internet forums and freedom from the government snooping at what porn you're looking at is enough for some people. What's really needed is a big win, something like Wikipedia moving over to our better network, would make a vast number of the Internet follow.
• Fear. Wait for the government to start locking people up/bringing people in for questioning just based on their Internet browsing habits, then make sure everyone knows about it.
• Uncertainty. A whispering campaign is the order of the day, make sure people know they're being watched when online. No-one likes to be spied on, particularly by the Kafka-esque bureaucracies our governments have become.
• Doubt. Another aspect of the whispering campaign, make people think about how good the Internet used to be before the US government fucked it up.
• Abusing Firefox market share (well, not really). When surfing normally, Firefox could present a small banner at the top of the window: 'Warning: you are browsing unsafely, third parties may be watching this connection (switch safe browsing on)' pressing the 'switch safe browsing on' button could enable encryption, or whatever improvement is used to circumvent this law, on. If the site does not have a 'safe' version, another warning could be displayed, this will provide an incentive for site owners to update their systems to support the improvements.

Wow, the things Microsoft have taught me. Thanks Bill! Anyway, getting back to the point, the biggest risk to an improved network, is that legislation may be created to stop it being used. Most people are willing to bend the law a little, but not break it.

Incidentally, who was the bloke speaking after Lessig? He had some very good points about how the Internet on mobiles isn't taking off because of the huge fees carriers are demanding, and the assumption by venture capitalists that the Internet 'just works' by itself. Very insightful comments from him.