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Next G8 President Wants To "Regulate the Internet"
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.
Typical from the people in power nowadays
Never happen. The mafia will just disappear him. ;)
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Since the "President of the G8" doesn't have the authority to do SQUAT, who cares?
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.
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
fuck.it
At least everyone will waste a lot of money.
What is the end game... how is government going to make it better. I can see (and support) investment in expansion. But they compare this to the financial crisis and the G8 regulating those markets. In my opinion the internet is not broken like the financial markets!
This could be viewed as an opportunity for the countries to work together but usually these things become opportunities to grab power as the AC above said... so rather than assist mankind it stalls out true progress.
There is a lot wrong with how the Internet is being used for scams, viruses, rootkits, etc. With a few countries working together then maybe more would be interested in joining in the cooperation.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Berlusconi is not the president of Italy. He's the prime minister. The president is Giorgio Napolitano.
The efficiency of a multinational organization and
the effectiveness of the Italian president will finally
make my internet experience safe and unoffensive.
This truly is a golden age.
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/
Whack him as crazy all you want, but the truth is that he's crazy and despotic. From TFA:
Berlusconi owns swathes of the Italian mass media.
The left-wing newspaper L'Unita wrote: "You can not say that it is not a disturbing proclamation, given that the only countries in the world where there are filters or restrictions against internet are countries ruled by dictatorial regimes: those between China, Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia."
And -
Any G8 move next year to "regulate the internet" led by Berlusconi is likely to attract criticism. He has often been accused of using his power to try to silence dissent. He lost a long-running libel battle against The Economist earlier this year after it said he was not "fit to run Italy" and was this week suing American critic Andrew Stille for defamation.
More on this guy - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/world/europe/02italy.html?_r=1&ref=europe
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Here for his post http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2008/12/open_letter_to_rupert_murdoch.html
Beppe Grillo is an Italian *comedian* turned blogger turned person fed up with the current state of italian affairs. He tried (so far in vain) to promote laws signed by the populace, which would not allow politicians to be in the Parliament if they have been convicted by courts.
On any other country (well, most of them) this would be implied, wouldn't it?
No chance!
Read on to http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/condannati_parlamento.php for the state of the art of the Italian parliament.
25 politicians in the Italian and European parliament convicted by courts.
Did they steal candy? No chance.
We're talking about judge corruption, extortion, that sort of stuff.
On topic: Berlusconi seems he'd like now to create a UNIQUE ID for every net citizen so that they'd be univocally identified on the Internet.
Sigh.
If anyone can hear me, slap some sense into me But you turn your head, and I end up talking to myself
The G8 internet, now with more fascism. Bringing a preWW2 mentality to homes globally.
I assume that since many people here support govt. regulation of industry and commerce, they should be all for this idea. I mean, if a complex system like the economy cannot function well without govt. regulation, a complex system like the internet cannot either.
It has been said before, and I will repeat it here.
The internet treats censorship like damage and simply routes around it.
This "war on free information" (isn't the the en vogue thing to call a power struggle?) like every other idealogical war, cannot be won, and is counterproductive.
With every "blow" to us (us being those that desire freedom of information) we simply grow smarter, stronger, and more sophisticated in our measures to ensure the integrity of our freedoms.
Our numbers are so so so so so much greater than theirs. Every time one of us is jailed, or sued, or defamed 10 pop up as replacements. Every attempt to silence our voices results in us retreating further and further into obscurity and anonymity.
I welcome an information war between those of us who want freedom of communication and those that don't. We, who have greater resources, intellect, and numbers, will prevail.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Since Berlusconi didn't expand on what he meant, the Register article is slightly alarmist. Maybe he wants to regulate download speeds, or legislate net neutrality? The bald statement of wanting to "regulate the internet" is worthless. If he did want to restrict freedom of speech, and an E.U. directive were put forward, it would still need to be passed into national law by the E.U. member states, and even if that occurred it could still be challenged at the European Court under the Human Rights legislation.
But realistically, the Internet is already regulated. Try putting a copy of Photoshop or pornography involving a 15 year old girl on your web page and see how long it lasts. The question is not whether the Internet is regulated, but the level of regulation. In China, criticising the government is prohibited. In the Middle East, pornography is prohibited. In the United States, reproducing commercial sensitive data is prohibited via copyright and patent laws, in Germany Nazi memorabilia is prohibited. Every society has its limits.
Look at what happend to 4chan and "anonymous" over the last year of so. Somebody posted a video of Tom Cruise acting like...well...like himself. Scientology's attempts to take this video down caused a bunch of idiots to start posting videos on youtube and..well...acting like idiots. Scientology's further attempts to silence them have caused what started as a joke to turn into a national-news-making group of resourceful, hate-filled individuals bent on "dispelling your organization from the internet and systematically dismantling it blah blah blah"
I predict: Cisco makes a shitload of money selling filters
a shitload of jobs are created to maintain all the censoring equipment
a shitload of our money is spent to prevent us from communicating with one another
a shitload of computer illiterates get angry when whatever side effects of this "regulation" start occuring
a small number of geeks create a tool to allow a slightly larger number of geeks to continue doing what geeks have done since their beginning...that is: whatever they want.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Is there any guarantee that Berlusconi will still be Prime Minister in January? Historically they've changed governments more frequently than Cowboy Neal changes his pants... ;-)
Not today, not tomorrow, but someday you can expect content regulation to take place.
As we lose control little by little of our hardware, software, documents ( DRM ), its just a matter of time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
will make me take up arms. Food prices have gone up, there's no hope of retirement, the tap water is poison, they are spraying the sky with aluminum oxide, pulsing us with HAARP and now they want to regulate the internet!
I will start to take out these people by force if necessary once the internet becomes what it is not right now.
I say mod parent up. That's an excellent question.
I do support govt regulation of industry and commerce.
I support government regulation of the mechanical aspects of the internet, specifically net neutrality. I support internet privacy laws.
I do not support government regulation of the content of the internet.
I don't think that car manufacturers should be prohibited from making polka dotted ugly ass cars if they want to.
UTC
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
C'mon, censoring the Internet can't be that hard. Just get a Websense filtering appliance and stick it in the Internet's MDF.
The more mainstream the Internet becomes, the more it yields to dumb. Some people blame AOL. I blame humanity.
Dumb has large numbers behind it.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Truly, Prime Minister Berlusconi is a great man, a marvel, the pinnacle of international leadership, and an example to us all.
When Obama was elected as President, he was the first to compliment him on his suntan.
Do you see what I did there?
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.
I gotcher regulation right here! Fuhgedaboutit.
It is as if Jeffrey Archer or Robert Maxwell got to be prime minister of Britain.
He got rich by a combination bending the rules and having scantily dressed young women present the weather on his TV channels. Now he is in power he just stops all investigations into his activities.
He will just regulate the Internet so that no one can criticize him using it.
The internet is the freest and most unregulated source of information there is. Certainly governments would want to regulate this, as many facts that make them uncomfortable can be spread. The mainstream media cannot be counted on to report everything; look at their cheer leading for the Iraq invasion. Latvia even made it a crime to criticize their central bank policies, and bloggers can end up in trouble. The internet needs less regulation, not more. All we'll end up with with regulation is having to pay or bribe (directly or indirectly) some stupid government official to get business done.
SSC
... and aside from his loud but empty rhetoric will have no impact on the Internet in Italy, much less in the EC or G8.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I guess he wants to own the internet, just like he owns most of the mass media in Italy. Good luck with that!
-- Cheers!
Silvio owns EVERYTHING !!!
The old media moguls like Berlusconi and Murdoch are obviously pissed off at the internet. Advertisers now split their revenue between old and new media and there is now a voice outside of what the old media tells us.
Here in Australia, the home of Rupert Murdoch, we have a government trying to destroy the internet at every opportunity. I see in Italy they have a similar thing happening.
I guess i can take comfort in the fact it won't work.
Don't worry, there are at least a couple of reasons while it will never happen. 1) The guy is a complete moron, I'm sure he thinks the internet is "a series of tubes" (in italian: una serie di tubi) 2) Generally speaking, when it comes to politics, Italy is not the fastest country in putting bills through their legislative pace. It may take a decade or more before they even come up with an actual concrete proposal.
the internet regulates dictators.
I promise the "President of the G8" that we will fight any oppression and any restriction of our freedoms online, anywhere and anyhow.
Just remember who controls the bytes...
The internet routes around damage?
Great, let me know when my incoming line routes around the only ISP in the area.
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.
Berlusconi is proof that Italian fascism wasn't defeated in world war 2, it's proponents just got smarter about it. Wear a suit instead of dressing up in uniform and you can get away with anything.
If he were somehow able to pull this off (a laughable scenario, judging by the comments), alternatives would pop up pretty quickly (a non-Internet WAN?)
Did the person who originated that quote about routing around damage, anticipate countries the size of China literally making continent-wide firewalls and controlling communications with penalties of summary execution?
FTFFFFA: "fundamental design of the Internet involves routing around damage, the efforts could be more amusing than threatening."
Yes yes, those who actually understand what the intrawebs are, know that the internet works, exists and persists because it fundamentally routes around damage and congestion.
Ah but you can regulate vastly distributed decentralised self organising networks. No really. There is no question the result is quite damaging.
That is, if you consider an analogy of giving a neural network LSD or Heroin and call that your definition of regulation.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
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.
it will become much more fashionable
Of all things, I actually RTFA and it's The Register's fault:
Sadly, all too many people in the U.S. are lucky if they can find Italy on a map let alone know who is currently Prime Minister, etc.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Berlusconi is not the president of Italy. He's the prime minister. The president is Giorgio Napolitano.
Even the US convicted parliamentary can be elected. The logic is probably that if you bar anybody convicted being elected, then politically you can have a great might by just either threatening to convict people, or even eliminate your political foe by convicting them of something minor. Now I tend to agree that corruption crime should ANYWAY make them unelectable, but once you start flagging SOME crime as making you unelectable, where do you set the limit ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
If they plug the tubes, Linux (and FreeSWan) will be the plunger.
It may be a good thing for them to try.
We need more DNS based opportunistic end to end encryption.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
We Italian people feel really ashamed for having a such prime minister. It's the worst person I ever seen :-(
That's outdated. As a matter of fact, the latent hostility/diffidence/uneasyness has now fully shifted towards gypsies and (dark-skinned) immigrants.
Racism? No. Xenophobia? More like so.
When ideas fail, words become very handy.
Agreeing 100% with someone mod'd Informative is evidently the new definition of Troll.
Pardon me while I throw myself on the floor laughing.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
The Economist wins Berlusconi lawsuit
Sep 5th 2008 From Economist.com
In July 2001 Silvio Berlusconi, then prime minister of Italy, launched a lawsuit in Italy alleging that The Economist had defamed him in its article "An Italian Story", which appeared in our April 26th 2001 issue. The magazine cover bore the title: "Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy". We are pleased to announce that the Court in Milan has issued a judgment rejecting all Mr Berlusconi's claims and requiring him to make a payment for costs to The Economist. The full judgment, in Italian, is available here. The Economist will not be making any further comment. Mr Berlusconi is once again prime minister of Italy.
If you are not scared... you don't know Berlusconi and who is behind him.
is going to control internet. yea.
thats what berlusconi is. a total monkey, who grabbed the power with the help of his wealth, and press, and thinks that such stupid stunts can be pulled in civilized world.
you may ask whether i do not consider italy a civilized country.
well, in a civilized country monkeys or clowns do not grab power, and attempt insolence to the extent of trying to control entire WORLD's free speech.
Read radical news here
we need it
Read radical news here
I am.
This is arguably one of the most corrupt politicians active in Europe today we are talking about. Yet, through control of Italy's media, self proposed legislation making him immune to prosecution, a populist and eternally varying agenda, and a cabinet stacked with convicted fraudsters (convicted whilst working for his media organisations, I should add), he has proved to be quite a 'successful' politician.
All politicians are adept at playing people against each other, buying favours with promises, all the while keeping an eye out for number one, but if anyone can instigate (self-serving) legislation in the name of "regulating the internet", this man has that media / money motive, and, just perhaps, the means by which to do it.
... and to get away with them changed the judges and the constitution... there is a popular italian blog being translated in english, one of the most popular blogs in the world actually. http://www.beppegrillo.it/
he is a comician, his tones are satira, humor is one of the last things left to italians to stand such a corrupted government.
I find that the best way to achieve regularity is with a high-fiber diet.
http://www.allen-poole.com/
Lets regulate the wind too while we're at it - for all the good it will do.
If they are successful 'regulating' the internet, it will no longer be an internet.
The levels of stupidity are astounding.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Italians, eh?
There was also an Italian EU "bigman" who wanted to filter internet searches in EU and block terms like "genocide" and "bomb".
The former would have prevented EU citizens from finding the EU Commision's own documents about WW2, Srebrenica and Rwanda...
I don't believe in democracy I rather think it is the least worst system we had up to now. The reason I don't see democracy as a solve-all is that you are by definition (sorry for the elitism) asking people to vote which do not have any clue and let themselves take in by any populist agenda, or by ideology disjointed from facts.
But I still agree with you that conviction should NEITHER be an obstacle to be electable, NOR should convicted people get their right to vote removed.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org