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Some Countries Want To Ban 'Information Weapons'

DrgnDancer sends in an NPR piece on recent efforts to control so-called "information weapons" on the Internet. What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression." "At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' And that, in turn, would make it illegal under the UN Charter. 'Practically any information operation conducted by a state or a number of states against another state would be qualified as an interference into internal affairs,' Korotkov said through an interpreter. 'So any good cause, like [the] promotion of democracy, cannot be used as a justification for such actions.' The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat. One that must be managed by treaty."

4 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Many in eastern europe did turn to democracy by perpenso · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, it's not like they turned into a Democracy when the government finally collapsed.

    Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Georgia, etc did.

    The cold war was not waged exclusively against the soviet union. It was also waged against the soviet "client" states throughout eastern europe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact. Much of the info campaign was directed at these states.

  2. Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra by alta · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just because Russia propper isn't the most shining example of a Democracy, it doesn't mean that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan aren't.

    Sure, I'm sure there's corruption in some of those too, but by no means all of them.

    for some reason my control-v is broke right now, but looking at wikipedia it's showing a positive outlook on Latvia, Lithuaia and Estonia, and a 'very serious situation' in Turkmenistan.

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    Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
  3. Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Air America, the radio network, was a left-wing radio network in the US.

    It was a CIA fronted aviation company in the 1960s.

    I think you are looking for Voice of America.

  4. Sigh by thestudio_bob · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just because you came up with a new name for it, its still "censorship".

    Maybe they should call it "High Fructose Information Sugar" and people won't notice.

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