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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.

20 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. It'll never happen. by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
    1. Re:It'll never happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:It'll never happen. by Dramacrat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      There are over 36 million lines of COBOL code in the world, and they are all raping children.
    3. Re:It'll never happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

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

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

    1. Re:No authority by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

  3. 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.
  4. 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
  5. The internet to Prez Berlusconi: by Roland+Piquepaille · · Score: 5, Funny

    fuck.it

  6. Not the president by fondacio · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  7. It's About Time by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  8. 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/
  9. Beppe Grillo take on it by ilithiiri · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  10. Good by homer_s · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. 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 :)

  11. This man is a genius. by BumpyCarrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?
  12. 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.
  13. 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.

  14. 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.