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Net Users In Belarus May Soon Have To Register
Cwix writes "A new law proposed in Belarus would require all net users and online publications to register with the state: 'Belarus' authoritarian leader is promising to toughen regulation of the Internet and its users in an apparent effort to exert control over the last fully free medium in the former Soviet state. He told journalists that a new Internet bill, proposed Tuesday, would require the registration and identification of all online publications and of each Web user, including visitors to Internet cafes. Web service providers would have to report this information to police, courts, and special services.'"
Apart from internet cafes, which are blanketed with CCTV cameras, all users in Western nations also need to register to use the internet. Registration is with a third party, but the government has access to all third party information, so effectively the same thing. This is simply "the east" catching up with "the west".
People who felt the government shouldn't turn too big have largely been proved right when it comes to the area of surveillance - every Western nation will have total online oversight.
President Alexander Lukashenko is going a long way towards making identity theft even easier. Imagine how much simpler it would be to steal an identity with the existence of 'accounts' like this- especially as they aren't tied to specific addresses or machines, as TFA mentions that the requirements also apply to Internet cafes.
I wonder how much Prez Luka would like it if someone posted on 4chan under his "Internet passport?"
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
It seems unthinkable that this could happen in western democracies, but it is only a matter of time. The freewheeling and uncontrolled nature of the net was a grand experiment, but it is not tolerable to political power structures because they do not control it or even quite understand it. It can also threaten them (see Iran).
It's not politically feasible for most western governments to come out and take such steps directly, but it'll be rolled out slowly over time "for our own good", with each step along the way being justifiable to protect us against something that everyone agrees is bad.
The only way to fight this is for everyone to start using strong encryption for everything and protecting their anonymity even if it isn't always convenient, and even if they have nothing to hide. But that is less likely to happen than for Paris Hilton to win the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics.
I give the mostly-uncensored internet a total lifetime of less than 25 more years from the present, if we're lucky. For a while it'll be possible, but criminal, to access it anonymously, but eventually that'll become impractical as governments clamp down to protect IP/the children/stop terror/prevent civil unrest.
Wait, and watch.
How many times will "Hubicha Kokov", "Miles O'Toole" and "Leck Depolski" turn up before the scumbag authorities notice something weird? Along with appropriate "catch me if you can" software, of course.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Can somebody with more knowledge comment on what are the significant differences between Belarus and Italy? In Italy they are obliged to scan your ID when you want internet access and also they have to log many things and be sure to be able to correlate them with you. Free anonymous internet ("normal" open wifi) is forbidden as far as I know.
As a side-note in Italy if you're a guest your host (at least the "organized" ones, like hotels and such) are obliged to take all your data and report you to some authority. I'm sure there are many countries with the same requirement but the first one that comes to mind is Cuba...
The imminent suppression of free speech on the Internet likely foreshadows the same sort of suppression in Russia.
The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated. The Internet-capable folks in both countries are the only people who have access to uncensored news from the West. These people know the horrible state of their countries. Knowledge is power. Only these knowledgeable poeple can change both countries into liberal, Western democracies.
If the government censors the Internet, then both nations will become Chinese-style states. We Westerners will not see any political improvements in both Belarus and Russia within our lifetimes.
In fact, about "dissapearances", Facebook is a lot worse than this kind of thing.
People who were in danger in my country used to hide with acquaintances of acquaintances, making it hard for state intelligence to find them and kill them. Now that an easily accesible database links you to all you possible escapes, dissidence has turned a lot harder.