Slashdot Mirror
'It Is a Challenging Time for the Internet: We Must Not Let It Be Undermined' (internetsociety.org)
Andrew Sullivan, CEO and President of Internet Society, a decades old nonprofit organization which works on internet-related standards, education, access, and policy, writes: It is a challenging time for the Internet Society, because it is a challenging time for the Internet. For most of the Internet Society's history, the expansion and development of the Internet could be regarded as an obvious good. There were always those who simply opposed technological development. There were always those who wanted their own interests protected from the Internet. But Internet users historically benefited so much, so obviously, that skepticism about the value of the Internet itself was rare.
Things have changed. Every technology can be used for negative ends. The Internet still, plainly, brings gains in efficiency, convenience, and communications. Yet in the recent past, some of the negative uses have become apparent, which leads some people to ask whether the Internet is just too dangerous. This environment has produced a golden opportunity for those who always preferred a sanitized, tightly-controlled utility to the generative, empowering Internet. These forces claim that only national governments, treaties, laws, regulations, and monopolies can protect us from the problems we face. They do not want the extraordinary collaboration of the Internet. They think there is some mere political choice to be made between the Internet we have known on the one hand, and a tidy, regulated network on the other. If these forces are successful, we will all lose.
The Internet connects people because of its basic design. Each network that joins the Internet does its own thing, but together they are all richer and more reliable. A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter: without this essential feature, we do not have the Internet at all. For that very reason, we -- all humanity -- must not let this technology be undermined. We must face, realistically, the challenges that the Internet produces for us all; but we must face them collaboratively and together. The Internet is for everyone, because only everyone can make the global network of networks.
Things have changed. Every technology can be used for negative ends. The Internet still, plainly, brings gains in efficiency, convenience, and communications. Yet in the recent past, some of the negative uses have become apparent, which leads some people to ask whether the Internet is just too dangerous. This environment has produced a golden opportunity for those who always preferred a sanitized, tightly-controlled utility to the generative, empowering Internet. These forces claim that only national governments, treaties, laws, regulations, and monopolies can protect us from the problems we face. They do not want the extraordinary collaboration of the Internet. They think there is some mere political choice to be made between the Internet we have known on the one hand, and a tidy, regulated network on the other. If these forces are successful, we will all lose.
The Internet connects people because of its basic design. Each network that joins the Internet does its own thing, but together they are all richer and more reliable. A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter: without this essential feature, we do not have the Internet at all. For that very reason, we -- all humanity -- must not let this technology be undermined. We must face, realistically, the challenges that the Internet produces for us all; but we must face them collaboratively and together. The Internet is for everyone, because only everyone can make the global network of networks.
We're in the age of Fake News and Donald Trump.
it provides no value, except cdt pictures and porn
The internet is the source of all knowledge, true and false. We'd once thought that by giving people access to both in the marketplace of ideas, with no gatekeepers, the "true" would drive out the false.
We're now realizing, however, that this may not be the case. The false can drive out the true, because it can be crafted to play to people's wants and needs and prejudices.
This is a problem. Does it have a solution?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Well, he speaks highly of OxiClean so maybe it can keep the internet going.
A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter
Irony is the "negative uses" in recent past are all due to _centralisation_, which is entirely the product of the commercialisation of the internet and not it's _design_ ... assuming "negative uses" is referring to targeted manipulation on facebook, but also widespread censorship particularly China, Egypt etc which is due to ISPs + government being able to pressure or outright control such entities.
The biggest threat is the anti-intelectualism movement.
There is a growing population who just doesn't trust the experts. Either because their finding conflict with their belief structure (such as Evolution vs Creationism), or will find that it demands changes to their lives (Global Warming), or from people realizing what they learned in 8th grade science isn't actually fully true.
Conspiracy theories are now trying to discredit almost all science. Flat Earthers, Moon Landing Hoax. Expert in fields are being ignored for bar room half drunk talking points...
The internet seems to be spreading this movement by repeating and making these points more complex filling with half hearted examples to fill their minds with doubt.
Now the intellectuals are not innocent either, they will often have opinion in fields that they are not experts in. Like this Jellomizer guy who keeps on posting on Slashdot in areas that he hasn't any experience in, but is relying on summaries of expert opinions and not being able to really defend such viewpoints.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
So the solution is to destroy the world.
Wow, that was a great satire of the ridiculous views of modern progressives!
The destruction of the internet has commenced with the censorship of certain political views and other information deemed too dangerous to allow the unwashed masses to see. Some of these things are known as "hate speech" and then there are the supposed dangerous things like data files that can be used to build an "undetectable" plastic gun. None of these things should be censored either by the government or the private enterprises that are doing it. But it is being done, it will probably grow in commonality, and in 10 - 20 years there will likely be no real political discussion on the net, nor the sorts of things "dangerous" that you see now. There are detailed videos on Youtube for making TATP, triacetone triperoxide, the terrorist's favorite explosive. The stuff is so unstable that you don't want to look at it funny or it will blow up. We had a female EOD Army member that picked up a terrorist's device made of TATP, didn't know what it was, and accidentally dropped it. It blew off both her arms. Should the making of such a thing be banned? One would think maybe, but there are so many other ways to commit mayhem it seems futile. The very familiar gasoline can be made to blow up and it is universally available. Should something's ability to be dangerous allow it to be banned? Such banning will, as it always does, work to the advantage of the powerful and lead more easily to the sort of slavery and genocide that some groups commit mostly out of fear of the other. No one can control fear, it is there and we have to deal with it, and courage sometimes runs short, and then terrible things can happen. Should the oppressed have this information to fight back with? I think yes. So, I am against banning any information or opinion on the internet.
Story for you
Its almost as if people like you post that you and your experts are always infallible and to never be questioned the day after they fail. CNN not only failed hard, and took WaPo and NYT along with hundreds other "experts" they are still refusing to acknowledge their failure.
So we have direct proof of "experts" failing completely, and refusing to admit it. But according to you we are not to EVER question them. Experts also told us John Kerry was going to be president in 2004, and Clinton was guaranteed to win in 2016, but we better not question them.
You are an imbicle and are bragging to others how easily you can be led by the nose and you will never question what you are told. THAT is the definition of anti-intellectualism, you have been shown you are wrong and refuse to change.
Time for a new internet built upon the lessons of this failed internet
Let them have their sanitized and crippled network
For most of human history, deception and secrecy have been foundations of power. Secrecy: If people don't know what's going on, they can't oppose you. Deception: lying is extraordinarily powerful if you can't speak back. These two concepts have been used by elites for millennia to keep and maintain their power over us, and they like it that way.
Now, the internet is threatening to upset the whole apple cart. People can view with their own eyes and make their own decisions. These decisions are frequently not in the interests of our ruling class, so they must not be allowed to be discussed. Since the tech giants were recently elevated to ruling class stature, they are expected to do their part along with the media, and keep the masses under control. We can't have a free and open internet, because that would mean that our ruling classes might have to change. Brexit and Trump were clear warnings of what will continue to happen in the future if we don't change the internet from a free and open platform into a curated, walled garden where only approved opinions may be discussed.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
When AOL connected to the internet, the internet never recovered from the influx of stupidity, aka the Eternal September.
The only way to preserve sanity on the internet is to require some demonstration of basic competence, similar to how we require a license to fly an aircraft. We expect that you know what you are doing.
The internet we're getting is the one voted on by those AOL^h^h^hMyspace^h^h^h^h^h^h^hFacebook people who cared not a bit about the destruction they have wrought through their insistence on centralization and commercialization.
Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly?
– Because Janet Reno is her father."
- John McCain, 1998
Actually, Webb Hubbell is likely her father
Seriously.
It became exceptionally apparent to me in 2012 (jesus years) that the empowering aspect of "network of networks" was toast. Specifically, Google, including its chief internet evangelist and so called 'father of the internet' Vint Cerf, failed to defend the importance of the ability for ordinary users to host servers at home under the protection of Network Neutrality. In addition an active duty (afaik) US 'Navy Information Warfare Officer' 'shouted down' my arguments with 'doublespeak' here on slashdot by both simultaneously agreeing with everything I had argued about network neutrality to the fcc in a 53 page complaint against google, but ALSO implied that trying to compete with slashdot itself was something that just "OUGHT NOT BE DONE". Pure bullshit.
The game is over. In our heart of hearts we always knew the powers that be would eventually stop being clueless, and instead learn, adapt, and adjust. They have. OTOH a relative of mine once defended Germany's censorship (blocked commercial sales?, whatever it was it expired a few years back) of Hitler's Mein Kampf(sp?). The argument was that if the racist supremecists had equal access to free speech, they would ultimately succeed with genocide. It's not a view of humanity and free speech I agree with, but I accept how it has disempowered the internet generally.
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7522219498.pdf
I assume you're being satirical, but it's very difficult to tell. You might just be a total fucking moron.
Look at them trying to minus mod hide facts about the jews. Censorship's the jew way when they have to shut their squawking cocksuckers.
The "challenging time" never went away, we're just seeing people less inclined to take a hands-free approach with their services. Which is fine and all, but now that most web traffic goes through something like ten or thirteen domains, this is no longer the democratized Internet we envisioned.
Oh the sheer absurd irony! Racist false accusation coming from a jew, the most racist group of all time in their goyim cattle statements on non-jews.
You sure do link to JEWtube a lot you secret jew!
We swallowed asymmetric lines long time ago. Which basically means we accepted to consume more than we offer. It took me more than 10 years of participating on the Internet (I'm purposefully not using the phrase "using" Internet), to come to the conclusion that it's as important, if not more important what you offer than what you consume. It's time not only to restore "Net Neutrality" but also ban ISP-level NATs, port filtering and asymmetric links. Restricting and throttling uploads is restricting free speech. Want to listen what we say? It's cheap. Want to say something? Gonna cost you more than you can pay.
No, sorry, it's you who just lost all credibility by refusing to acknowledge reality.
Your partisan bias is your enemy.
Reason, common sense, knowledge, logic, analysis, debate, discussion, rationality, open mindedness. No one can impose a solution. It's up to each of us to use these tools on our own.
“We must not let it be undermined”
Wide spread censoring - Check
Limited access in rural areas - Check
Subscribers held captive by the communications cabals - Check
Tainted targeted search results-Check
Oversight organization headed by industry lobbyist - check
FCC actively stomping out competition and user rights - Check
Undermined? oops, too late.
I thought the internet was built by America, is that wrong?
RCP Data Picked because they list multiple polls and try to be non-biased even though it is nearly impossible to do so.
There you go. DeSantis given a RCP average of +6.7, won by +19.9. Is that "well within the margin of error"
For DNC Graham given an RCP average of +7.2. Gillium won by +2.9. Is that "well within the margin of error"
Lists all polls they included in their average. ALL well out of margin of error by multiples of margin of error. Not sure how all your experts can be off by 3-5x margin of error constantly and you still tell us they are experts. The only record your experts have is they are guaranteed to be wrong, every single time.
Experts wrong in 2016, experts wrong in 2018, and you seem to be the only idiot telling us we need to listen to them. You have won the dumbest poster on /. today, and that is only because PopeRatzo hasn't seemed to post yet.
...that is doing the undermining. Insert eyeroll emoji here:
You mean the fake news about Fake News. The deranged conspiracy theory that Putin knew years in advance that a failed game show host could be president, and set out to get him elected by spending a few thousand dollars on Twitter trolls in a $9 billion election.
And who's going to be your gatekeeper? The government? Which for the Chinese means the Chinese government? And so on?
Anyhow, the control issues were already lost by then. Postel wanted the DNS to be free, but the US government hijacked it.
But the crap above blaming the left gets modded +5.
Yea. Slashdot: filled with old white men mad that they are the minority class now. Go figure.
I quote:
"You can see Chelsea looks just like her sister. The clintons are the most corrupt murderous political couple ever. Hillary's actually a lesbian and a pedophile. She's also a high-ranking witch."
LUL
She lost, get over it.
Are you stupid? The entire purpose of the media narrative I'm criticizing is to excuse Hillary's loss to a failed game show host, and establishing censorship so the next Hillary will win.
I can't be arsed to find the source but a wiser person than me opined:
- Liberals believe people are intrinsically good, and that the environment around them makes them bad - whether that's society, the government, corporations, etc somehow they are pressured into doing the wrong thing when their basic nature is to do the "right" thing.
- Conservatives believe that people are intrinsically bad, and that people are prevented from exercising their base instincts & compelled to make better choices by society - whether that compulsion is fear, financial, social, or religious pressures, for example.
The fretting about "what the internet should have been" or that we somehow missed the Utopia we should have gotten relies exclusively on that former view, while that reality of the result more or less confirms the latter: that we're little more than deeply-tribal hairless apes, who when out from supervision, generally want to whack off, fling shit at anyone we can call "our enemies" and watch cat videos / "Ow my balls" 24/7.
Greater internet dickwad theory: it's really a thing, but if you think about it explains a lot of behaviors wherever humans gain some anonymity - not just the internet, but their cars, or as a citizen of a massive city.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photo... (thank you Penny Arcade)
-Styopa
CCP's Great Firewall is ruining Internet.
It's nice that you're representing two-spirits but let's be honest, how many two-spirits are there? By definition they compose a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the population. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of Elizabeth Warren types "identify as" (read: claim to be) two-spirit less because they genuinely believe that they are two-spirit, and more for the same reason that Otherkin claim to be dragons: because they desperately want to be special?
Sounds like they're asking for Libertarianism - small amounts of government to maximize the potential of people rather than to ensure maximum safety. We pay private companies for the roads (ISPs) ,we're responsible for our own protection or hire someone to protect us.
Good grief...
Look, if you still seriously doubt that Putin put his thumb on the scales, you're just in denial. The CIA and NSA say it's so, the leaders of both parties in congress and senate say it's so, Putin himself says he did it. Even Trump can't quite bring himself to deny it unconditionally any more.
The only argument is about how heavy that thumb turned out to be. In that context, I'd point out that the "few thousand dollars" was the spend on paid advertising - but that was a tiny fraction, way under 1%, of the total effort, which involved a team of >20 Russians employed full-time for two years or more.
Do you think that, given a team of 20 skilled hackers over 2 years, a compliant media channel, and a complete disregard of scruples or laws, you could sway the votes of 0.5% of the electorate over 3 states? I reckon I could do it.
Russiagaters have precisely as much evidence to back up their ideas as the Birthers, Chem Trailers, Lunar Conspiracy Theorists and Flat-Earthers do for theirs. But at least those fuckwits weren't desperately trying to start WWIII.
Pro tip: assertions, accusations and pleas that have nothing to do with Russiagate are not evidence.
Ever hear of William Randolph Hearst? Long before the internet existed, journalists were making stuff up to suit their personal agendas and printing false stuff (which drowned out the truth).
The solution of old was COMPETITION. When there were multiple newspapers with differing editorial positions the consumer of news could read multiple papers and see that not everybody agreed (for example) that war against Spain was necessary. Many of the problems we seem to be having with the net these days stem from lack of competitors with differi9ng positions; the people at Google and Twitter and Facebook all seem in agreement about nearly everything and they drown-out opposing viewpoints. No amount of government intervention will solve this and indeed adding government to the mix might well be the magic ingredient that enables actual fascism (not the fake comic-book-style fascism that idiots like Antifa *think* they are fighting) where government asserts control over society through the manipulation of politically-aligned cooperative corporations.
You mean the fake news about Fake News. The deranged conspiracy theory that Putin knew years in advance that a failed game show host could be president, and set out to get him elected by spending a few thousand dollars on Twitter trolls in a $9 billion election.
Yep, that's the one, a ridiculous conspiracy theory thrown out to discredit the criminal investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. You know, the one that Trump isn't even denying any more. He's switched from "it didn't happen" to "I didn't know about it" to "it wasn't illegal". I guess the next logical step is a Nixon style "It's not illegal if the president does it".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
being this person [slashdot.org] I'm clearly in tune with a lot of what your saying. But I'll emphasize that I think it is all about the server prohobition, and not nearly as much about the assymetry. If there was no server prohibition, but clear Network Neutrality level "packets are packets" Free Speech protection for home server operators, we would see the (vastly more) rapid advancement of home server software development. Alternatives to gmail/facebook/skype/evengooglesearch where legally there is no third party you've permitted to have non-end-to-end-encrypted access to your data. Instead, your data resides in your home, where the strongest possible fourth amendment protections are in legal force. Or encrypted copies with friends or other third parties whom you've decided to trust. The asymetry is of course hindering to what service level your home server can provide to the outter internet world, but there are so many things that can scale easily enough with quite limited bandwidth (think usenet/reddit, irc/twitter, facebook/catphotoblogging, squirrelmail/smtp/gmail, bittorrentlikedistributedprotocols/youtube). And as soon as the low bitrate applications of home server non-prohibition became popular, it would accelerate the removal of the assymetry problem, which, against my prior understanding, is apparently not so insurmountable- (random source found via duckduckgo search)
https://broadbandlibrary.com/full-duplex-docsis/
But my understanding is still that the basic asymetry with hybrid-fiber-coax cablemodem internet service, was a fairly reasonable engineering decision at the time given my past vague understandings and recent reading of the above article, given existing usage patterns. I.e. there was a predominant subscriber bias towards downstream bits, and therefore some arbitrary divvying up of the spectrum (diplex filter threshold) had to be made, until apparently more clever techniques were evolved (as the rosy view of FDX in that article seems to imply).
Seriously though, even at 128kbps limited upstream, there is so much that could be accomplished by home servers, I consider it likely an orwellian power oppression play that explains why Google/VintCerf couldn't be troubled to admit the utility of the feature as far as free speech is concerned. I.e. by designing into the system the requirement of the user to transact with an _otherwise unnecessasry_ third party server provider, free speech is dramatically impacted. I.e. there is a lot of speech going unsaid because people like me aren't willing to pretend like speech is free when its not (i.e. twitter/google/facebook having corporation-level-free-speech veto power over your speech because they OWN the server. Owning servers (that are usable because they are connected to the network and protected by Network Neutrality) is Empowering. More than most people realize, which is sadly why most people are denied the fruits of what such a Network Neutrality environment would provide.
https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12544638&cid=57218550
this person (slashdot seems to have some lowered timeouts for hitting the submit button recently, i.e. cut and paste issue)
FTFY. It's not people who learned a damned thing about Iraq claiming that that Putin is such a master chess player. One that he started grooming a lecherous businessman between one of his several bankruptcies to be president, yet completely unable to anticipate the blowback. Oh, and that genius Putin was dumb enough to collude with someone as dumb as Trump, which means the NSA/CIA/FBI would know, and so too would have President Hillary. Who had the election in the bag until she simultaneously slapped her base in the face while not bothering to campaign in a third of the country.
It's alllllll Russiagaters.
Which it isn't, if you're referring to the meeting between Junior and the Russian lobbyist who offered to give dirt on the Clintons. Which didn't actually give any dirt to the Trump campaign, but said lobbyist met Fusion GPS founder both before and after going to Trump Tower. You know, the same law firm behind the Steele Dossier. There's also more dembot swiftboating here, as the Clinton camp was perfectly happy accepting dirt on Trump from Ukrainians.
Pointing out democratic hypocrisy is invariably met with "she lost, get over it" or "that's whatabboutery". Tough cookies. Either you want Hillary indicted for collusion and actually paying foreign intelligence agents to swing an election (see Steele Dossier again), plus money laundering for the Hillary Victory Fund, or you're a partisan hack.
Yeah, sure - if there was no break in at the Watergate hotel, no secret tapes recorded in the Oval Office, and no Saturday Night Massacre. Just an unhinged conspiracy theory from Democrats and never-Nixon Republicans that Nixon was a crook.
Another plot hole: why would Russia try to interfere in an election were both parties have been virulently anti-Russian for over a century. Bush tore up the ABM treaty and ringed Russia with missile "defense" systems that would allow the US a higher chance of launching a first-strike and surviving the counter-attack. Obama overthrew a democracy on Russia's border, starting bringing it into NATO and had the largest number of troops in eastern Europe since WWII. To contain Russia's "aggression".
You guys have as much evidence as the Birthers and Chem Trailers have to back up their nutjob theories. But at least those wackos weren't trying to start WWIII.