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The Coming Censorship Wars
KentuckyFC writes "Many countries censor internet traffic using techniques such as blocking IP addresses, filtering traffic with certain URLs in the data packets and prefix hijacking. Others allow wiretapping of international traffic with few if any legal safeguards. There are growing fears that these practices could trigger a major international incident should international
traffic routed through these countries fall victim, whether deliberately or by accident (witness the prefix hijacking of YouTube in Pakistan last year). So how to avoid these places? A group of computer scientists investigating this problem say it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to determine which countries traffic might pass through. But their initial assessment indicates that the countries with the most pervasive censorship policies — China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia — pose a minimal threat because so little international traffic passes their way. The researchers instead point the finger at western countries that have active censorship policies and carry large amounts of international traffic. They highlight the roles of the two biggest carriers: Great Britain, which actively censors internet traffic, and the US, which allows warrantless wiretapping of international traffic (abstract)."
We know for sure one thing that the UK tried to censor: the album cover image on Wikipedia. We only found out about that one by chance. Presumably they censor many more things like that, that we haven't found out about. And since the item in question had been openly on sale for many years, we know that it is certainly not illegal.
I found the Australian and Danish block lists on Wikileaks, and a random sample weren't blocked by my big-name UK ISP. I checked all the ones that looked like they shouldn't be blocked at all (shock sites, anti-abortion etc). I didn't want to look at all the child porn, but I tried about 5 and the home pages all loaded.
The censoring in the UK is at the level of the home user's ISP anyway, so there's no need to "route around" anything. It's inaccurate to say Great Britain (well, the UK) censors Internet traffic. The government has asked ISPs providing connections to home users to filter DNS requests for some websites. This is nothing like the Chinese Firewall, for instance.
Australia doesn't _yet_. The govt is trying to set up a system, but hasn't got there yet
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
... most terrorists are average people having little to no specialized skills, they aren't a professional architect, ...
You shouldn't make that assumption or use it in anti-censorship arguments. In fact a non-trivial number of the planners in terrorist organizations ARE such experts.
Osama, for instance, is/was a civil engineer and owner/operator of a major civil engineering firm. Not only is he such an expert but he had many more working for him aboveground and thus plenty of potential recruits for underground work.
It's pretty clear that the attack on the Twin Towers was well designed to take the building down, probably by experts working with the building plans: The building had a failure mode that could be exploited by heat (weakening the floor structures, which braced the supporting walls against buckling, so the floors would drop away and leave the walls unbraced) and the planes were fully fueled and banked just before impact so their fuel would be deposited on several consecutive floors.
Planners in terrorist organizations don't necessarily ever end up on the operations. Thus they aren't expended and a few of them can plan many attacks.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
> I don't think that it's possible to sue a stack of cash, no matter how big it is.
Actually it is. I picked the first example I could find from a little Googling, but here's the docket for the United States of America v. Thirty Thousand Dollars ($30,000.00) In United States Currency for your reading pleasure.
I also found this news article about how this works in another case, which is more than a little disturbing. You're simply not allowed to have too much cash these days. They think it proves you're doing something illegal. Even if they're right most of the time, I think it's terrible what they can do to the innocent.
You are labeled a Troll, but I do distinctly remember reading an article that explains that a lot of ISPs do actually route around the USA because of its surveillance policies. Actually, it was quite easy to Google for information: The Internet interprets the USA as damage and routes around it. Your Troll moniker is certainly unjust.