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)."

Comments

to paraphrase a quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually the internet will treat the USA as damage and route around it.

Re:to paraphrase a quote

[unlametheweak]

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.

skibaldy

[skibaldy]

A society that uses Censorship must have something or someone to hide.

Re:skibaldy

[DavidR1991]

I'm kind of on the fence about my country's censorship (The UK, that is). As far as I know, it's only child porn that is actively censored, and whilst I don't mind it being censored due to what it is, it does spark the question "Where will it stop?"

The other problem is that they don't censor everything else that's illegal - so should they continue to censor child porn and nothing else, or censor everything illegal? Or abandon all censorship? It's a tricky conundrum once it starts to involve the law :/

Re:skibaldy

[Darkness404]

Take a look at the USA constitution to see where will it stop. The answer is, it won't ever stop. Whenever a government manages to circumvent a freedom for some "great" reason, they continue, and continue, and continue. First they let wiretaps be admissible in court, today, the government via the "Patriot" Act allows any US citizen to be wiretapped to fight against "terrorism". Its a downward spiral, first its always something that most people agree with, then they start rapidly expanding and next thing you know you are living under tyranny.

Re:skibaldy

[Darkness404]

So wait, tell me where this censorship is going to stop?

First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Have you not seen throughout history that those who censor end up censoring *everything*? Sure, first everyone can agree that child porn is bad, but if we don't speak out against this who knows what will be next.

Re:skibaldy

[mazarin5]

As far as I know, it's only child porn

"Where will it stop?"

As far as you know, only child porn. What you don't know is the problem with censorship in the first place.

Re:skibaldy

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:skibaldy

[Darkness404]

That's the problem. Some censorship is critical to national security, or other types of security. Right now nuclear devices are too hard to build for any single idiot. Fusion research may change that. Would you want THOSE plans public ? Or censored ?

There is a difference between non public or under a NDA than censored. For example, is an author's work that he never published censored? No. Its simply not published. While nuclear blueprints would certainly be non-published, and in the contract to which you sell your soul to a country when you become a government officer, they may forbid you to release such documents. That is not censorship, that is just not publishing them.

Now if, someone were to write "How to make a weapon of mass destruction for under $200" and the government forbid people to buy the book or the book to be published and the creators did not sign a contract that forbid such action, yes, that would be censorship.

And for your comment on flaw finding, you assume that the average person can simply find a flaw by looking at detailed blueprints that an entire team of architects could not find. That is unlikely, most terrorists are average people having little to no specialized skills, they aren't a professional architect, they aren't going to be able to find these said flaws. Give a script kiddy the source to the Linux kernel and tell them to find a buffer overflow, they won't be able to do it. Similarly, an ordinary terrorist isn't going to be able to find these magical faults in buildings with the blueprints.

In DNA manipulation, some procedures aren't all that difficult, even to do in your own garage. Preparing a bioweapon isn't hard (it's not killing yourself in the process and delivering the weapon that are the problematic parts), perhaps it should be published how it's done, with extra emphasis on those parts where the terrorists that have tried had real trouble with (e.g. an ineffective delivery device for sarin gas was the only thing that prevented the tokyo subway from being filled with that gas. Can't have that ... let's publish a few DIY plans).

Exactly, so what though? It is improbable to impossible that an ordinary person could successfully make a devastating bioweapon. Even a skilled biochemist would have much, much, difficulty. Its equivalent to saying that an ordinary person could somehow make effective weapons that took a large team of scientists many years to do, and even then it rarely worked.

You assume that someone could, and would publish "How to make a bioweapon 101" and assume that the average terrorist could read, comprehend, and carry out the steps if they were in fact correct. You can't buy Anthrax at your local store, you aren't going to find old bottles of smallpox in an abandoned warehouse, etc.

Child porn stimulates abusing children sexually for financial gain. Censorship can prevent the financial gain, thereby lowering child abuse. Of course this is a good thing.

Sure, lowering child abuse is a good thing, but censorship is not the way to go. Already, child porn has been elevated to a thinkcrime. Where by not doing any action that directly harms anyone, you are committing a crime. You are, in effect making information illegal. Now, non-free governments always start by restricting things that are "bad", but soon "bad" encompasses more, and more things until you get a situation like China. What do you think that the Chinese think that their government is censoring? Not free speech, but immoral, and generally "bad" things.

Let's face it, censoring some things should be done. Basically anything that crosses a certain threshold of criticality and cannot easily be modified should be a secret, and it should be a crime to divulge such information to anyone who does not need to know. Everything from building weaknesses to certain scientific results ...

Re:skibaldy

[drsmithy]

Child pornography is the rape of a child for the sexual entertainment of an adult.

Child pornography is also a 15 year old girl recording herself nude on her mobile phone and then sending the video to her boyfriend in his 18th birthday.

Re:skibaldy

[Kjella]

Child pornography is the rape of a child for the sexual entertainment of an adult. Distribution of the video is an added kick for the rapist - a lasting hurt for the victim - and can be quite profitable as well.

It can be all of those things. It's also the 17 year old girl I fucked all last night (age of consent is 16 here) sending me a sexually explicit pic of herself. Or according to the even more fucked up laws of Norway it can be a cartoon someone draw, any girl playing to be under the age of 18 or a story or any other form of work that sexualizes someone under 18. Censorers love people like you, because you take the worst possible a law can cover and use that as justification for the most overbroad censorship.

Re:skibaldy

[dryeo]

This is what I hate about some Americans. They actually believe the propaganda they have been fed about being so free. Meanwhile they can be sent to jail for possessing a seed. And if that isn't bad enough they also still have the left over feudal concept of felony where after getting caught with that seed their whole life is ruined, including having most of their possessions taken away.
They can't vote to change the unjust law that put them in jail. The rights that Americans consider basic like owning Firearms are taken away forever. And they call it freedom.
Even the way they appoint a new tyrant^w leader is totally corrupt with vote fraud considered OK, the politicians themselves put in charge of the election process so even basic things like the shape of a riding is totally corrupted.
In some states it is illegal not to show ID as well as how difficult it has become to simply travel.
It is considered perfectly fine that their overfull prisons are a hotbed of anal rape and they actually kill people.
I guess what it is is some Americans have a warped view of what freedom is.

Begun

[memorycardfull]

these [censored] wars have.