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.

Comments

It'll never happen.

[Chaos Incarnate]

Never happen. The mafia will just disappear him. ;)

Re:It'll never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, there's not only one mafia. The mafia you know is the sicilian mafia, whose focus is mainly on drugs and "pizzo" (a fee asked as an insurance that nothing happens to your possessions). In other regions in the south, there are 'ndrangheta (in Calabria), Camorra (in Campania, the region where Naples is) and Sacra Corona Unita (in Puglia, the "heel of the boot"). Then, you have the kidnappers in Sardinia.

Ndrangheta makes money mainly from kidnapping, "pizzo" and control, plus the usual stuff. Sacra Corona Unita is not very frequently in the news. Camorra is behind everything can be pumped money from in Campania: from drugs to pizzo to garbage collection and disposal, as you heard in the news recently, even to undertakers (yep, you read correctly). All these mafias are deeply rooted in the local behavior, with the population either supporting directly or indirectly. Moreover, they have strong connections with politics, either with the local Communes or regional administrations or even at the State level. It is not unheard of that some illuminated major has been found burned alive chained to his car just because he fired an employee, so in this picture, even if you want to change things, you really cannot.

Therefore, the mafia does what carries them money. They don't do strong public events if they can prevent it, because that would likely involve an outburst of police. Making Berlusconi disappear would be a very strong act, something that mafia is unlikely to do unless strongly menaced (something that happened with two judges, Falcone and Borsellino). Please note that politicians have been killed in Italy (eg. Aldo Moro) by extremist left-wing terrorists (the so called Brigate Rosse) which do not have anything to do with mafia.

In the north of italy (eg. from florence up north) mafia does exists, but because of the many southerns that moved in, and brought some activity. The people from the North of italy are very different, and they dont' like the southeners at all. Some actually consider them Italian-speaking africans.

Re:It'll never happen.

[Dramacrat]

I'd recommend "Gomorrah", written by a Camorra... 'expatriate', so to speak, in hiding in Sweden (or England?); the Camorra bosses stated he'd be dead by Christmas. It's been translated to English. The Camorra is easily the strongest, the most modern, as they evolved to a focus on sheer business and not the older trappings of the other 'clans' or organizations. All that aside: the AC above me is correct, as far as my observations since I've been here.

Re:It'll never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all.
Italy is a strange country. Basically every city is a different country, with different traditions, people behavior, food, dialect (which is unintelligible from italian). You can travel 30 km and find a completely different kind of Italy. The traditional image you have of Italians is mainly the one of the south, made popular by the emigration and movies. The productive North is seldomly known, and the administrative Center, with Rome, is in the news for political reasons.

So, when you speak about Italy and italians, you should keep in mind that it is a very strong generalization. Despite this, what can I say? I'm italian, I moved abroad since years, I won't go back, ever. I think Italy is a very nice country with all its arts and good food, but there are too many idiots and bigots.

Re:It'll never happen.

[rmav]

The people from the North of italy are very different, and they dont' like the southeners at all. Some actually consider them Italian-speaking africans.

You got almost everything right, but this broad generalization does not give the rest justice. I come from the north of Italy, even though I now emigrated to Germany. It is not that I do not like the southerners - I do not like the culture many of them have, and I do not identify myselfs with their values: A form of catholicism bordering with paganism, no sense of state, more respect for the mafia than the laws of the state, a sense of family so strong that you cannot "escape" it without being rejected by the whole local community, with obligations that go beyond the laws, ad so on...
An example: in Agrigento, 97% of the families do NOT pay the tax on tv sets, used by the state to fund the state TV, in my home town, Rovigo, however, 97% of the families DO pay this tax - and we are called "fessi", i.e. "dolts", or "nitwits", because of this and many similar examples.

But many notherners that did not fall to the rhetoric of the Lega Nord (The Northern League, our own "Parti Quebecois") can discern. People from Puglia are hard workers and have similar values to the north (they speak a VERY weird and interesting dialect, though, that can drive linguists crazy :-) and even in Sicily, the people of the town of Ragusa are proud to have a clean, efficient public administration and very little Mafia influence.

I do not consider them italian-speaking africans, even though sometimes I ask myself why the State did not agree with the Sicilian separatist movement that was active 1943-1948, then briefly again in the sities!

You know, sometimes it is easy to fall to rhetoric. Recently, in Germany, some calabrian people, connected with the Ndrangheta, have been brutally massacred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Luca_feud

I just happen to live 20 km from the german town of Duisburg, and for a few weeks the Germans looked at us italians with suspicions, like we all traveled with our "lupara" (a kind of rifle originally conceived to kill wolves threatening sheep) and ready to kill. I was deeply ashamed of my people and almost (almost) muttered "maledetti terroni" between my teeth ("maledetto" means "damned" and "terrone" literally means "peasant", but refers now in a derogatory way to southerners - like they call us notherners "polentoni", i.e. "polenta eaters").

But there is a deep difference between disliking them as a whole or finding some aspects of their culture at odds with the own concepts and ideals of a civilised, organised state. It is the difference between racism and identification with a set of values with no pretense at all of superiority.

Roberto

Re:It'll never happen.

[rmav]

I think Italy is a very nice country with all its arts and good food, but there are too many idiots and bigots.

And how is that different from any other country? Let take as an example the country where I live. Germany. Not much different. Idiots and bigots are an overwhelming majority in every country...
Roberto

No authority

[Forthan Red]

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

Re:No authority

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Since the president is the guy who decides on the G8 meetings toilet breaks, I think you will live to regret those words! With an unlimited supply of water and "one john to rule them all", Berlusconi will show the leaders of the world what happends when you cross him.

Re:No authority

[eggnoglatte]

Well, he does set the agenda for the meeting, so if he is serious, he could dedicate a fairly large chunk of the meeting time to this topic.

Now, theoretically the rest of them could just tell him off on this topic. But lets face it: they all need to justify being at a meeting that took a huge effort to organize with thousands of cops protecting them, tens of thousands of people demonstrating etc. In other words, they need a result. ANY result. Internet regulation is an easy topic in that respect, since the wish for some amount of control over the internet is widespread among politicians of many countries. So the meeting dynamics could very easily be stacked against common sense and individual right.

But what else is new?

Re:No authority

[sumdumass]

It isn't as much the black helicopters as much as it is the paint. I had a red and white helicopter once and as soon as I painted it black (white is a bitch to get bug splat from), it started doing weird things like flying over mutilated farm animals and following random people around the city and along the country side.

This behavior was very annoying because I originally got it to impress the chicks and that all ended when they would ask what the hell was i doing and my only reply was, it isn't me, I haven't had control since we took off. I ended up getting rid of it when I started receiving outrageous fuel bill when it decided to take off on it's own and do this shit.

Those other people might want you to think some organization is controlling them but I'm telling you, it is the paint. Those other people are wrong on a lot of things, Aliens don't just abduct dumb people either, the get the smart ones too. The smart ones just don't talk about it.

Enforcement not regulation is the answer

[Bryansix]

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.

Re:Enforcement not regulation is the answer

[JCSoRocks]

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.

Re:Enforcement not regulation is the answer

[Pandare]

In California, where several episodes of To Catch a Predator were filmed, there is potentially a civil claim to be made if it is the case that the film crew divulged private facts about the predator. Additionally, there is also a potential harm in that the show may present the predator in a false light, i.e. they are implying that the predator's intent is different than his actual intent.

The other two torts regarding privacy aren't applicable, since the guy agreed to enter the house of someone else where the crew presumably got the permission of the owners to film. So, it seems that they do not specifically need permission from the people being filmed to air their faces if they're confident that the guy actually did it. Since they work with the cops, it's safe to assume they only show the guilty ones, so those found innocent aren't being misrepresented. This is completely ignoring the entrapment claim that could be made in the criminal courts, since the question asked was do they need express permission.

Relevant laws and cites include an RCFP advisory, and both Cal. Civ. Code  990, 3344 and Cal. Civ. Code  1708.8

And IANAL, nor do I claim any special knowledge of the law, but I'm taking my LSAT on Saturday, for whatever that matters.

Stop him!

[Mathiasdm]

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.

The internet to Prez Berlusconi:

[Roland Piquepaille]

fuck.it

Not the president

[fondacio]

Berlusconi is not the president of Italy. He's the prime minister. The president is Giorgio Napolitano.

It's About Time

[Sponge Bath]

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.

Not specific enough!

[jaxtherat]

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

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

Censorship - not Regulation

[earlymon]

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

Re:Censorship - not Regulation

[Vihai]

"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 Italy. Yes, Italy has a state list of sites to be filtered.

With the excuse of protection from child pornography they started state filter and they are now expanding them to block other inconvenient sites.

First online gambling sites not agreeing to pay italian administration their share.

Then sites selling cigarettes.

Then The Pirate Bay.

It is just a matter of time until they will block sites criticizing the government itself.

Re:Censorship - not Regulation

[earlymon]

It is just a matter of time until they will block sites criticizing the government itself.

You've nailed it in one.

Beppe Grillo take on it

[ilithiiri]

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.

Good

[homer_s]

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.

Re:Good

[MidnightBrewer]

Regulation of commerce != censorship of media.

The former is a matter of preventing industrial sharks from taking over and squeezing every last penny from consumers while offering sub-par service, the latter involves imposing someone else's subjective moral values on the general populace. Not the same thing at all.

Re:Good

[MobyDisk]

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 :)

hooray, win will ensue!

[blhack]

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.

Re:hooray, win will ensue!

[Miseph]

"Every attempt to silence our voices results in us retreating further and further into obscurity and anonymity."

Yeah, sounds like we're really winning the war on censorship and defending our rights to free speech... Here's a hint, if you have to say something in increasingly anonymous and more obscure ways, you're losing.

No government can ever prevent anything completely, only to degrees. The more they crack down, the more things will be done in secrecy, and the less people will actually do them at all. This is why the wars on drugs and terror have been such abysmal failures, they failed to curb the behaviors at all (perhaps even encouraging them!) and have had hardly any effect on the degree of publicity people who do them are willing to expose themselves to; by comparison, the war on child pornography has gotten people using increasingly obscure means of communication and distribution, kiddie porn still exists and probably always will, but I remember a time not so long ago when one could actually come across http sites openly hosting child porn for all to see.

This post is not intended to support or endorse any particular view on the issues it mentions, simply to state a point on government suppression in general.

The Internet is already regulated

[chrb]

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.

Re:The Internet is already regulated

[Adrian Lopez]

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.

Which is precisely why G8 is the wrong group to tackle Internet regulation. Every society has its limits, but no society has exactly the same limits as the others. G8 is too far removed from the public interest to do any good here, and the interests of those who would regulate the Internet too different to lead to anything but an unreasonable "middle ground".

Streissand effect

[blhack]

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.

Re:Streissand effect

[Tubal-Cain]

Somebody posted a video of Tom Cruise acting like...well...like himself.

You mention this and don't post a link?

Its inevitable

[nurb432]

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.

Can't be that hard

[mahohmei]

C'mon, censoring the Internet can't be that hard. Just get a Websense filtering appliance and stick it in the Internet's MDF.

This man is a genius.

[BumpyCarrot]

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.

Berlusconi v The Internet

[John Hasler]

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.

Own it

[tsa]

I guess he wants to own the internet, just like he owns most of the mass media in Italy. Good luck with that!

The Internet is Berlusconi's worst enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Memetic Manipulation & Differentiation

[broward]

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.

Stolen post (this post is not stolen (yes, it is.)

[Kagura]

Berlusconi is not the president of Italy. He's the prime minister. The president is Giorgio Napolitano.