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Irish Politician Calls For Crackdown On Open Source Internet Browsers
An anonymous reader writes "An Irish politician has called for tougher controls on the use of open source internet browsers. He said, 'An online black market is operating which protects the users’ anonymity and operates across borders through the use of open source internet browsers and payments systems which allow users to remain anonymous. This effectively operates as an online supermarket for illegal goods such as drugs, weapons and pornography, where it is extremely difficult to trace the identity of the buyers. We need a national and international response to clamp down on this illicit trade.' The politician added that the U.S. had 'taken action' to address this, but he seemed surprised that their solution was only 'temporary.'"
Call me when a bill to this effect has some chance of passing, otherwise I am not interested. There is no idea so dumb or ill-informed that there isn't going to be some politician, somewhere, proposing it. That doesn't mean anyone else in that legislature takes it seriously, possibly even the proposer isn't serious and is just mouthing off for political reasons. This just isn't worth anyone's time to read about.
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The only people who deserve no taxes in Ireland are those multinationals with accountants who drink a double Irish coffee with their Dutch sandwich.
"He starts by condeming browsers and proxies that help people browse the internet anonymously. Then he jumps to saying that anonymous browsing leads to trading drugs, weapons, and pornography. Then he commends the USA NSA for spying on Americans but is concerned that now that they have been caught Americans might do something about it."
Seems to me there was something else I heard about that was anonymous, and can be traded for all kinds of illegal things.
Oh, yeah. I remember now: cash.
This just goes to show how people who know nothing about computers shouldn't be in a position to make public statements about them. I mean, while we're at it, why don't we ban cars from driving on the road just so that bank robbers can't use them as getaway vehicles?
I mean, if we can complain about things that are going to bring the world down around our ears, surely stupidity outranks firefox.
Let us know how that works out.
I agree with the people above, it sounds like he's confusing Tor and Firefox. For my part, I'm a member of an on-line community and am dealing with their 64-year-old admin who refuses to let anyone post live links in the discussion forum because "it's a security risk" and won't allow any images, or media. She's wondering why this little web community is dying.
You sometimes need to keep old people away from the keyboard.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Pro tip, just because it is online, or open source, does not make human nature any different.
Some people will beat their spouse or hire a hitman. Some people will be addicts. Some will sell to the addicts. Some will fondle their niece.
Claiming some tool is enabling these behaviors and ignoring that tool's greater benefit greater benefit to society is either fear-mongering or blind unthinking fear (possibly instilled by other fear mongers). If the former, you are the worst kind of control hungry sociopath to use fear to restrict others. If the latter, you are a puppet and a simpleton. in either case, you do not deserve to be in any position of leadership.
Silence is a state of mime.
Did we learn nothing from the USSR and the Iron Curtain?
Yes. We learned how to do it better.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Just when you think that you have grown beyond caring, theses guys manage to poke beneath the shield and hit the "AAAAAARRRGGGHH" button !!
I am sorry for taking this seriously, but after the Bank Bailouts, the corruption, the incompetency, the cover-ups and the sheer fuck-wittery of the past
years, they attack OPEN SOURCE BROWSERS !!
What more can one expect from politicians that:
- kowtow-ed to the EU on the Maastricht Treaty re-Vote, (It puts the lotion in the basket, and votes again and again until the answer is YES)
- sold 3 generations of their own people out, in the form of a bank bailout for *private* non-system critical banks,
- have no concept of Justice whether social, civil or criminal
- have no concept of public probity, of duty or what to be a servant of the people actually means
- assume in blind arrogance that their own short-sighted, small-town, bigoted, religion-ridden, never questioned views are "NORMALITY"
and those of everyone else, are simply illegal.
In short. Olympic level Assholes.
Winking and smiling and smirking, crapping out their "hokesy/folksy" catchphrases, with constant shit eating grins.
Concepts such as free speech, right to privacy, equal treatment before the law, due process, ... are considered amusing or just dismissed,
womens' rights (especially reproductive rights),
out of hand, by these troglodytes.
For example, the implicit assumption that *all pornography* is simply illegal!
The US and Britain have blanket surveilled every Irish citizen for generations, and this cringing *lackey*
assumes that *law enforcement* was the purpose.
Call me harsh, but I interpret the failure of elected representatives to protect .the rights of their citizens,
in the face of blatant intrusions, as more than incompetence, more than failure.
It is treachery.
Following the usual, endless cycle, whenever social unrest threatens, the Haves in Ireland, ... the opposition is simply disenfranchised.
push the Have-nots to emigrate. Since, conveniently, the non-resident cannot vote, there
was, is and will never be any pressure on the ruling elite to change any of their policies
And nothing changes.
I dream of another Ireland.
A country where an informed electorate hold their elected leaders to account, demand the
definition and enforcement of just laws which protect individual and public rights.
A truly Free Ireland.
Until then, I apologise to the world that we are represented by these fools and that
you have to listen to their blather.
(R)ule in Hell or (S)erve in Heaven [R]?
He starts by condeming browsers and proxies that help people browse the internet anonymously. Then he jumps to saying that anonymous browsing leads to trading drugs, weapons, and pornography. Then he commends the USA NSA for spying on Americans but is concerned that now that they have been caught Americans might do something about it.
Would it be in poor taste to express a hope that the British come and show him how much fun being the object of 'security' is, like they used to? There's no cure for an authoritarian asshole quite like a bit of repression that he isn't in favor of....
Isn't an 'Irish Ted Stevens' a politician who contains enough whiskey that it's illegal to drive across the bridge to nowhere after drinking one?
I thought only the U.S. produced these idiots. I'm slightly less embarrassed to be an U.S. citizen.
So if the Dáil Éireann passes a law banning any browser containing any open source code, we'll have rid the world of Safari and Internet Explorer?
"There is no greater love than to lay down one's browser for one's friends."
A lot of people seem to think that while the credit card processors will charge retailers a fee for accepting cards, that somehow accepting cash is free...
It's really not, there are all kinds of costs to a business that takes cash. The retailer requires change to give customers, and the banks charge them for supplying small change... You also need something like a safe to store the cash in, and you face the risk of that cash being stolen and are likely to pay higher insurance costs to cover that risk. Similarly you will probably need to get that cash to the bank, which for any sizeable amount will probably mean hiring a cash courier service to take it for you. Large amounts of cash also attract the attention of the tax authorities, as its very easy to simply pocket some of the cash and never declare it for tax purposes.
All of these costs add up such that in many cases it's actually cheaper to take cards.
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Democracy creates these idiots. The problem is that politicians are expected to have opinions on everything, yet it's impossible to know everything. These people end up making decisions on things they understand little or nothing about.