Venezuela Is Blocking Access To the Tor Network (theverge.com)

An Access Now report finds that Venezuela has blocked all access to the Tor network. "The latest block includes both direct connections to the network and connections over bridge relays, which had escaped many previous Tor blocks," reports The Verge. From the report: According to network metrics, Tor access in Venezuela had recently spiked in response to recent web blocks placed on local news outlets. Unlike previous blocks, the latest restrictions could not be circumvented by using a censorship-resistant DNS server like those provided by Google and CloudFlare. For many Venezuelans, Tor seems to have been the only way left to access the restricted content. "This is the latest escalation in Venezuela's internet censorship efforts, as it blocks higher-profile sites with more sophisticated methods," said Andres Azpurua of Venezuela Inteligente, in a statement provided through Access. "This is one of their boldest internet censorship actions yet."

Comments

Re:Communism has never been tried

[Crashmarik]

Socialism works just fine. Just ask Norway, Germany, France and Canada. But if you're entire country's basic systems fall apart and the rest of the world decides to punish you with sanctions for no particular reason (besides maybe not liking your system of economics) then no amount of socialism can save you.

LOL except all the countries you list aren't socialist, they just have more government services than the U.S. and less freedoms.

Venezuela isn't dying from sanctions, for heaven's sake they are sitting on the worlds largest verified oil reserves and they can't even provide gas for their own use. That's from the government seizing the means of production and the people who made it work going ok lets see how you operate a refinery.

Or perhaps it was when the government decided to imprison bakers to solve their bread shortage ?

Or maybe it was from the government trying to control the currency exchange rates, so no one could actually pay for any imports ?

no it was the bad old capitalists and their sanctions. / facepalm

Political Theory 101

[Capsaicin]

Yeah! It is well known that Communism is the declared enemy of Socialism. See National Socialism and how those people felt about commies.

Just as German Socialist politician Julius Leber how the Nazi's felt about Socialists.

Firstly the NSDAP was 'socialist' in the same way the that the Democratic Republic of Korea is 'democratic.' Don't be fooled by branding.

OK, it's not exactly that simple: there was the Strasserian tendency within the NSDAP which could be described as 'socialist', and certainly as 'anti-capitalist.' But remember Hitler personally objected to the inclusion of 'Sozialistische' in the name NSDAP, when the DAP re-branded. At that time, of course, Drexler not Hitler was the head of the party, so Hitler just had to work with the name he got. And it is also true the early DAP and NSDAP policy documents contained socialist-like and anti-capitalist points. However, all that changed once Hitler took over the party, and despite the 'S' being maintained, the party quickly became avowedly anti-Socialist, as Ernst Röhm, among others, was to discover to his peril.

Hitler also became a huge supporter of the giant German corporations, who of all the institutions of German society, were the only significant ones to escape Gleichschaltung (whereas 'Socialism' means, in the first instance, the socialisation of the "means of production"). Unlike the current Venezuelan regime, he knew better than to kill the proverbial goose. To call the Hitler-led NSDAP "Socialist" is simply wrong.

Secondly, far from Communism being the "declared enemy of Socialism," note that Communist Parties, where they have come to power, have generally set up "Socialist Republics." You may recall the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics centred around Russia, which was, throughout much of the C20th, a not insignificant state run by a nominally 'Communist' party. Why?

Because according to Marxist theory, Socialism was the transitional state required for the accomplishment of Communism. Thus a Capitalist revolution (from Feudalism) was necessary to establish modern productive forces and create both the wealth necessary to enable Socialism and the Communism to be born, and also to create the industrial working class, who would be humanity's saviour.

Socialism, for which Marx described the distribution of wealth as "to each according to their contribution," was supposed to be a state run by this working class (the 'universal' class, for owning nothing they did not have the interest in out competing any other concern, as capitalists were doomed to do), which was to pave the way for Communism, where humanity reached a social adulthood where the apparatus of the 'State' was no longer necessary, and the state simply faded away. The distribution in this stateless Communist society was instead to be "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" (ie. FOSS extended to all goods and services in society). And note needs also includes that which allows people to express their ability, so, to stretch out the FOSS conceit: society would see to it that software developers are supplied with hardware concomitant to their requirements as well as an lmitless supply of Mountain Dew and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (or Peoples Dew and Peoples Doughnuts as they would then be called ;).

In any case, I'm not entirely convinced Venezuela is on this ineluctable road to paradise.