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Next G8 President Wants To "Regulate the Internet"

Posted by kdawson on from the good-luck-with-that dept.

antispam_ben writes "The President of Italy, which will have the Presidency of the G8 starting January 1, says he wants to use the future position of Italy to 'Regulate the Internet.' Italy's President Berlusconi appears to be a cantankerous character, prompting riots when Italy last had the G8 presidency in 2001. This will no doubt be a serious effort, but knowing the fundamental design of the Internet involves routing around damage, the efforts could be more amusing than threatening." Update — 12/5 at 00:04 by SS: Reader fondacio noted that Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's Prime Minister, not its President. He is Italy's G8 representative, and Italy will hold the presidency in 2009.

9 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. No authority by Forthan+Red · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since the "President of the G8" doesn't have the authority to do SQUAT, who cares?

  2. Enforcement not regulation is the answer by Bryansix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Internet does not need to be regulated. Instead what needs to happen is for all of the major countries of the world (including Russia and China) to start cooperating and prosecuting computer fraud where people misrepresent themselves to steal information and use it for personal gain. These laws already exist in most countries and the goal should be to extend them into the far corners of the globe along with a willing police force or the ability for Interpol to operate where needed.

    1. Re:Enforcement not regulation is the answer by JCSoRocks · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. This is a classic instance of creating more ridiculous laws, rules and regulations rather than simply enforcing what's already in place. I've seen the same approach used to try to "clean up" the Internet to get rid of child porn. Special filters and laws don't need to be created to ban child pornography from the Internet. There are already laws against it... just enforce them and leave the rest of us alone. To catch a predator is a great example - that show uses existing laws to nail those guys.

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
  3. Stop him! by Mathiasdm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What he is doing is useless, as Tor (for anonymous browsing), I2P (for anonymous fast downloading) and Freenet (for anonymous data storage) make such filters obsolete even before they are implemented.

    --
    Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
  4. Not specific enough! by jaxtherat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What the fuck does "regulate the inernet" actually mean? It could mean anything!

    1. announce plans to regulate internet
    2. ???
    3. profit

    --
    http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
  5. Berlusconi v The Internet by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I expect that Berlusconi's definition of "regulate the Internet" is "make it stop competing with my television stations". Italians are to get their porn exclusively from him.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  6. Re:Good by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Absolutely! No more allowing people just to connect to the Internet with any address they choose! Instead, I propose some sort of standard Internet Protocol address. And a central organization to assign everyone those addresses. Then, we can have some sort of header on every packet that will describe the source and destination address.

    Perhaps we could have a central organization who would assign names to those addresses. And they could standardize the naming schemes, and the protocols the naming servers use!

    nahh... that's just too much regulation :)

  7. The Internet is Berlusconi's worst enemy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the Internet is Berlusconi's worst enemy. His control of printed media and private as well as public televisions prompted the Financial Times to talk of a situation similar to North Korea.

    However, he has no control of what happens on the 'Net and he makes no money out of it.

    For both financial and political reasons Internet is bad for him.

    Unsurprisingly, the government hasn't done anything to increase the use of Internet in Italy and it now lags almost at the bottom of Europe.

  8. Memetic Manipulation & Differentiation by broward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    China, Australia and now Italy are moving towards Internet censorship. In 2006, at Defcon 14, I predicted that the Internet would move towards greater memetic differentiation to prevent widescale manipulation, that is, the ability to influence audiences would be dialed down to smaller and more local groups.

    http://www.realmeme.com/Main/about/Defcon14.ppt

    I wasn't sure of how it would happen, the mechanism which would start up but I know think "national security" is it.
    Here's an experiment I conducted last month along with a brief commentary.

    http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=gaming_calculatedrisk2

    After execution, I was surprised at how many foreign government hits I got, many of them associated with national security. I wouldn't underestimate what's happening. There are serious economic and cultural forces at work and self-preservation is involved.