Slashdot Mirror
Korea Kicking People Offline With One Strike
An anonymous reader writes "While there's lots of talk of 'three strikes' laws in places like France, it may be worth looking over at South Korea, which put in place a strict new copyright law, required by a 'free trade' agreement with the US (which was the basis for ACTA). It went into effect in the middle of 2009, and now there's some data about how the program is going. What's most troubling is that the Copyright Commission appears to be using its powers to 'recommend' ISPs suspend user accounts based on just one strike, with no notice and no warning. The system lets the Commission make recommendations, but in well over 99% of the cases, the ISPs follow the recommendations, and they've never refused to suspend a user's account."
Dear USA,
if your corporate leaders had not sent all your manufacturing jobs to China and India, your whole future economy would not depend on media production.
Fuck ACTA, and fuck the RIAA and MPAA.
I thought this was an article about the Koreans finding a way to make baseball watchable.
Isn't it odd that "free trade" agreements are never that? The more and more countries stop making their own laws with their elected officials and start offshoring lawmaking to para-governmental organizations with no oversight, the more and more countries slip into tyranny.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I know its a joke, but....
"More Sex is Safer Sex" by Steven Landsburg presents an interesting case on the severity of punishment not being a deterrent.
The chapter on LoJack makes the connection that, raising the penalty on car theft has generally resulted in only minor changes in the actual crime rate. I don't remember what he cited there, but the other side... the LoJack case was impressive. What they saw was that if enough LoJacks were sold in an area to raise the overall chance of being caught by about 1%, it correlated with a 20% decrease in car thefts!
It makes sense. With all but the worst prison gangs, most people don't want to get caught. Getting caught means public records, it means trouble finding jobs, it means having to explain to friends and family, etc. There are lots of reasons to not want to get caught, in fact, the entirety of the penalty (whether its decapitation or a slap on the wrist) is modified by the chance of being caught.
So even if the penalty is decapitation, thats only the penalty of getting caught. If I can reasonably expect to do something and not get caught, then why would the penalty even come into the picture? Its like driving a car with your kid in the back seat. If you get in an accident, your child could be killed. There is a chance of this any and every time that you drive a car for any real distance.
However, few people would say that this horrible and unlikely outcome is reason enough to never put their child in a car and drive. In fact, I have never heard the argument made. In fact, I have never even heard the argument made that one should limit or try to avoid that situation.... even though the "worst outcome" is clearly quite severe... the chances of that outcome happening are considered widely acceptable risk.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
And I don't mean "we looked at the evidence for the defendant and concluded unilaterally that he should be disconnected." I mean the right of the accused to defend oneself in a fair hearing. Due process is a fundamental part of the rule of law, and because it protects the innocent and guilty alike, states absolutely hate its inconvenience and the fact that it lets some of the guilty go free.
South Korea is remarkably forward-thinking in many ways, but apparently this isn't one of them.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Disclaimer: I'm just a paranoid stoner.
As someone involved with that habit and lifestyle, it's easy to notice the government's quite profitable agenda of socially marginalizing and exploiting parts of the population. Incentivize "proper" social conduct with the various perks of society with tools like credit scores and background checks, using jail as the stick when carrots fail to sufficiently motivate.
The x-strike laws strike me as a particularly transparent attempt to maintain this status quo. The internet has lead to the creation of online communities for just about every "unsavory" hobby, habit, or problem you could think of. The "wrong" people are no longer socially isolated; Legalization movements are making record progress; Government is losing control.
Somewhere at the top, someone finally realized the decentralized nature of the internet means standard models of exercising authority fall short. How to reassert control? Convince society of the necessity of elevating the internet to the level of the "gated community home, SUV, and health insurance," you know, out of the hands of those filthy subhumans who live outside the walls.
Copyright makes sense as the first step. Everyone already agrees on the vital role companies like the RIAA play in our economy, so we must take the privilege of internet from those who dare jeopardize its profits. Then, once it's socially acceptable to deny someone "the internet" for copyright violations, the floodgates are opened to deny it to anyone who displeases the powers that be. Internet privilege denial will become as standard a punishment as revoking a teen's driver's license is for almost any infraction these days.
"But Spazntwich," you say,"The internet is ubiquitous! You can't possibly prevent someone from getting on the internet!"
Of course you can't. Just like the government can't even keep drugs out of its own prisons. Ineffectiveness of a law has never been a reason to overturn one.
The internet's universal nature plays right into their hands. Any infraction, intentional or otherwise (remember citizen, ignorance is never an excuse!), will be a violation of probation/parole and place one back at the mercy of the authorities. Right where they want you.
Anyone who runs a Tor exit node needs to be either stupid enough to not worry, or sufficiently idealistic they are willing to take the risk of such an event in the name of free speech activism.
*raising hand*
Sufficiently Idealistic. Right here. Being disabled at birth meant I could not honor the family tradition of entering the military and fighting for my country. Probably a good thing, since I would have just ended up killing women and children in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Going to court to provide a litigation vehicle to strengthen the principles of Anonymity Through Reasonable Doubt? I'll throw myself on the grenade all day long and die with pride and honor. It's the least I can do for my fellow citizens and the cause of true freedom.