There's a great package available for dd-wrt called pixelserv. It's a basic web server that returns a single pixel image for unwanted resources through dns-poisoning. Combined with a list of tracking hosts it cuts ads and tracking (even youtube ads are removed) and none show in/. The package comes with a blank whitelist and a blacklist that affects the default list of unwanted ad/tracking websites. Runs on any router, even a 10-year-old Linksys 54G.
I've confirmed that the public network uses a different public IP (clients connected to it get a private IP), but I'd still like to be able to disable it.
Very interesting that it runs public WiFi even in bridge mode. So the modem must obtain two IPs from Comcast. I'd disconnect the internal antennas at this point. I cannot fathom running provided equipment of which I don't have control for my private networking. Only bridge mode and my own router/access point.
The short summary wasn't precise, I admit, but the point was slightly different. What the installer guy did should never be illegal regardless of intent. Let's consider someone coming to a car dealership and saying: "I'd like to buy a car to commit a crime, here's a full sticker price." The dealer wants to make money and sells the car. Guilty? Why should he be? Should the specific car salesman go to jail or the whole dealership closed (since corporations are people)? Let's imagine that some folks agree that selling a car in this case should be considered a violation of some sort. But it's not usually exactly black and white as "I want to commit a crime with your help" type of statement. What if the guy says "I want a car to transport marijuana"? Illegal? In what state? Should the sales guy know all the applicable laws? Does anyone know ALL the laws? What if the guys says "I want to transport cathinone?" or "I want transport schedule 1 substance"? Who should even know what specific schedule substance is? Should it matter if the whole conversation happens not at the dealer but at your large grocery chain between the guy and a cashier? Should cashier go to jail? Anyway, the intent should not matter and installing any traps in the car should be legal by anyone.
If he had claimed the training was for some other purpose and always told people to never employ these techniques during a real government polygraph and to always tell government investigators the truth he would not be in trouble.
It always amuses me how simplistic the arguments can become. If you just tell how to beat an abstract polygraph without mentioning the government you'd be fine! Nonsense. If the government doesn't like what you do, there will be a way to lock you in for a long time. Even if you do everything legal.
Here's a good example. A guy in California was installing hidden compartments in cars (traps). Those were very slick and he was careful -- it was impossible to detect that something was altered. There were no switches, opening such traps would require following some elaborate sequence, like opening specific doors, rolling down the window five times, starting the car seven times, whatever. Nothing illegal here. One may think that some uses for traps would be to store drugs but there could be many legitimate reasons (like storing cash or whatever personal items). So the installer asked if the traps are going to be used for anything illegal and refused to do the job if the answer was positive. Nothing illegal. Well, some lied and stored drugs and the DEA's job became more complicated and they staged the whole kangaroo court where the trap installer guy was convicted for 22 years! 22 years for not doing anything illegal, but the thinking was that he could have imagined that some traps could be used by drug dealers and therefore he facilitated drug dealings.
Interesting interview on the reasons behind the DST was on NPR with the author of "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time".
"The upcoming shift in the daylight-saving time change is designed to help retailers — and is a substitute for a genuine energy policy, says author Michael Downing. Congress moved the time shift up this year. Melissa Block talks with Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time."
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
No DST is fine with me.
The appropriate response to this violation would be to create a web page impersonating police officers and sending the link to everyone in the school and the newspaper. The content should be along the lines: "I'm officer John and officer Jack, we live at such-and-such address and we are very sorry for creating a fake Seattle Times page causing a wide outrage. Our kids Jill and Jack attending such-and-such school are feeling the heat too. We are sorry." To be believable, the page needs to have appropriate pictures of the officers, their kids (we have to think of the kids!) and all the addresses need to be correct, they didn't misspell Seattle Times, right? The overall content that they are sorry can be fake, just like the page they'd created.
Interesting, but the additional security to a physical key is not the "wireless" solution that is being discussed here. I'm still quite interested if there are any OEM wireless keys that actually don't use some type of rolling keys or challenge response.
I have a car that uses a wireless key. After browsing the web trying to find more about the security, I found that you could buy a programmer that connects to the car's data port and programs a new key. What was surprising to me was how relatively easy it is to buy such a device and how quick the programming process was (about 30 seconds). A thief would have to get an entry into the car first (breaking a window, perhaps), but once that is done, it's relatively easy to just drive off with a newly programmed key. What I did was to disable to data port, not permanently, but more of a need to use basis. Since it works on obfuscation, this is not a type of security to be mass produced. Not knowing how exactly the port is disabled, it will take a long time to make it work, so I don't expect a thief to start taking the car apart. Wonder if you can claim for the insurance that the port is disabled. There are many other ways to steal a car, I just want to prevent the easy ones known today.
What they call "piracy" or "illegal downloading" is properly called copyright infringement (I don't think they refer to happenings in Somalia when they refer to "piracy"). The copyright infringement defines the infringement as "unauthorized distribution." So, if you distribute the copyright material without the proper authorization from the copyright holder you're committing a copyright infringement. Now, downloading itself is not the distribution, so downloading cannot be illegal (can, but not currently). It's the same idea as you walking into a grocery store to buy napkins and the store didn't have the proper clearance from the napkin manufacturer to sell those napkins, so the store might be in violation, but not you -- the purchaser. Same with downloading. It becomes murky with cases where files get uploaded at the same time as they get downloaded. But I don't expect the average user to know such details. But if you're just downloading, you're not committing the copyright infringement.
A few realize that it's possible to run a wi-fi client and a hotspot on the same card in a laptop at the same time. I had a similar experience with the hotel that allowed only one mac address connection. So I connected my laptop, created a new hotspot called "free wi-fi" and had it running all the time I was at the hotel without any credentials. At least I could connect all my devices and provide a useful public service at the same time.
...WiFi operates on UNREGULATED spectrum, which means anyone can use, and anyone must accept interference from other users...
and we did EXACTLY the same thing that Mariott was doing, for just that reason.... we also investigated the legality of it, and the conclusion we came to was that it was perfectly legal since it was on unregulated spectrum.
According to that logic, I can come with a router backpack and prevent all users from connecting to YOUR university network. Well, it's unregulated, right? You should accept the interference and you cannot ask me to leave (in fact, I can be on a public place to cause you enough of a headache, so all is a fair game).
How did Google get charged exorbitant fees for briefly recording unencrypted wi-fi traffic from their street view cars while everything they did was on an unregulated spectrum?
In my last several engagements, I purchased (on behalf of the clients) version of standalone Photoshop and CS specifically not to be tied to the CC model. Sure, the CC can tout constant updates, but what if I don’t need the updates? Who said that in 10 years the documents I create now can be opened with whatever CC updates get accumulated over the years? Those advocating newer is better, consider your Win7 machine gets automatically updated to Win8 when the company ships it and you’re in the middle of the project and a few things stop working. For critical tasks I want to preserve files, programs, not to be tied to some third party to hand me the critical tools.
"charge per photo" sign showing the cost per photo for licensing purposes -- i.e. you're allowed to charge for any commercial shot "license" and distribution rights are a part of that -- make sure you have them posted on all sides of your buses
The licensing contract that was not signed by the photographer will be null and void. Puff! This suggestion is equivalent of printing a t-shirt that says "anyone who looks at it owns me $100". Right, try enforcing that in court.
1. Detection rather than nullification. Maybe you can't prevent but you can at least know when,
Detection of the camera pointed in the unknown direction on the bus will be impossible.
2. Maybe you can use IR to fool the autofocus to one extreme or another?
Nearly all SLRs are insensitive to IR light when recording. And almost no camera today (still or video) is using IR to autofocus. Illuminating the area with a powerful IR light is damaging to the eyes -- yes it is like regular light except in the dark when the pupils are be dilated any powerful light can cause a damage. I was working on a device that had 3W IR LEDs and after a few minutes the eyes begin to hurt even when I was not looking at the lights directly.
And my owners want the traffic to clear in front of the limousine as the bus rolls into a congested area, but they are ok to have the traffic pile up behind the bus. We've done some testing with really loud honking but it proved ineffective. We don’t want to destroy other cars either, so no shooting torpedoes, please!
Music streaming services simply need to form an association so they can publish direct
This is very true. Recording and editing the music with the decent quality used to be very expensive. The analog consoles used to be hundreds of thousands of dollars producing similar quality what a thousand dollar computer with a decent audio card can do today. The studios nonetheless demand copyright ownership for offering studios (cheap now) and distribution service (also became cheap).
Similar state existed in photography where the equipment had astronomical cost and companies could offer equipment, hire photographers "for hire" and keep the copyright. Nowadays, is is nearly impossible to see contracts where the photographer does not retain the copyright on his/her images. Still, plenty of services are available that remove all the "negotiation" part when selling and advertising the images. The photographer is free to offer images for sale with multiple brokers and some have agreements where if an images available for sale on one service will be offered for sale on the other too. There's no reason the music industry cannot follow the same model. The musician will be in charge of the recordings.
What really is killing the development of this market is the fact that one can sell "the ownership" under the current copyright laws. Once the labels buy the "ownership" of the recording they haven't produced, they can also buy the laws that benefit them and no so much help the musicians or the music industry in general. Kill the labels and let the artists to be the deciders of where the music to be played and it will increase the competition among services too -- bringing the new and innovative distribution channels.
When Microsoft and other companies try to fight copyright infringement, they essentially made the law that "making the product available" constitutes the infringement. It doesn't matter if anyone has actually downloaded the copyrighted material or used it in any way that might be illegal, the fact that the product was "made available" is a violation of the law and implies under hefty statutory damages without the owner needing to prove any damages. The corporations were successful at crafting the law that punishes such the behavior of sharing and essentially makes an individual who shares go bankrupt.
How would the same principle of overzealous punishing for "making available" work in the proposed case of personal data and DRM? Actually very simply. Only in this case the health care provider is the one who potentially "makes available" the personal data. Just as it doesn't matter whether the downloaded copyrighted material has ever been played/installed/used, the fact that it was made available is punishable. With personal data, once anyone's data is "made available" it would be irrelevant if it was used or misused, the mere fact of making it available should be punishable. And I don't mean a small fine. I mean jail time for those who approved the decision, the architecture, or made errors in code. As it is difficult to impose the same severity punishment that individuals face for sharing onto a corporation, it should be either a corporation to go bankrupt or responsible people going to jail. What will happen if such law gets passed? Since many executives will not like to end up in jail for proposing a stupid solution, the silly ideas will die out. So, if some provider decides to implement Microsoft's solution with DRM and an error in Microsoft DRM causes the data to be leaked, the Microsoft executives would face felony charges for not providing the appropriate safeguards and making the data available. Yes, I mean, you, Craig Mundie would become a felon! I completely support such a reciprocal implementation of the law.
Game money has to be converted to real money in order to have value. You would never try to pay for something outside of a game with game money, that would just be absurd.
Absolutely not true. When the number of players in a game is limited, then to reach the people outside of the game would require the "conversion" to some more accepted form of payment that is used by the outside group. Once more people start playing the same game, the conversion becomes less and less necessary. That is true for any type of monetary exchange.
Think of this as people in Europe are playing their game and exchanging Euros, but once a European comes to the US, using the same Euros is significantly more difficult without exchanging them to the US Dollars. However, if you find a person at the garage sale who frequently travels to Europe, he might be happy to accept your Euros without converting to dollars. The same becomes true of the Bitcoin, the more people join the "game" the easier it becomes to use it as real currency without doing any conversion.
The summary of the book seems to focus too much on the “criminals” and claims that the end of the internet is in the “unregulation” of the internet. While it is a factor, let’s not forget that the growth of the internet was also attributed mainly to the same factors. Internet gave power to ordinary citizens and it’s not possible to have that power and not to have anonymity. But with anonymity comes the criminal side as well.
The web is changing now. With every day we have less and less privacy. Large companies got to be very good at tracking everyone’s move on the web. Practically nothing remains anonymous on the web any longer. Getting an internet service in the US requires presenting a government-issued ID and SSN (wasn’t the case a few years ago). The ISP now start the deep packet inspection where everything becomes monitored and certain undesired connections are dropped. Welcome to the world of censorship where no lists will be provided of what exactly is censored. And that, not the “wild west,” will be one of the causes for the death of the internet.
There was an interesting article in Wired magazine on the topic: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/ It provides insights about how we, as users, choose the closed platforms (e.g. google, facebook). And the more we turn away from the true open and anonymous internet, the more irrelevant the internet becomes.
The hard part when anyone can publish anything is finding something worth reading.
Just have a/. comment voting system where readers/writers can "vote" on the articles. Very quickly there will be a select group of readers providing valid ratings, so give them more mod points. The good articles will bubble up to the top having higher rating. The "prestige" factor will be in having a high rating on such a site. And the karma will improve!
Slashdot Mirror
There's a great package available for dd-wrt called pixelserv. It's a basic web server that returns a single pixel image for unwanted resources through dns-poisoning. Combined with a list of tracking hosts it cuts ads and tracking (even youtube ads are removed) and none show in /. The package comes with a blank whitelist and a blacklist that affects the default list of unwanted ad/tracking websites. Runs on any router, even a 10-year-old Linksys 54G.
I've confirmed that the public network uses a different public IP (clients connected to it get a private IP), but I'd still like to be able to disable it.
Very interesting that it runs public WiFi even in bridge mode. So the modem must obtain two IPs from Comcast. I'd disconnect the internal antennas at this point. I cannot fathom running provided equipment of which I don't have control for my private networking. Only bridge mode and my own router/access point.
exactly
The short summary wasn't precise, I admit, but the point was slightly different. What the installer guy did should never be illegal regardless of intent. Let's consider someone coming to a car dealership and saying: "I'd like to buy a car to commit a crime, here's a full sticker price." The dealer wants to make money and sells the car. Guilty? Why should he be? Should the specific car salesman go to jail or the whole dealership closed (since corporations are people)? Let's imagine that some folks agree that selling a car in this case should be considered a violation of some sort. But it's not usually exactly black and white as "I want to commit a crime with your help" type of statement. What if the guy says "I want a car to transport marijuana"? Illegal? In what state? Should the sales guy know all the applicable laws? Does anyone know ALL the laws? What if the guys says "I want to transport cathinone?" or "I want transport schedule 1 substance"? Who should even know what specific schedule substance is? Should it matter if the whole conversation happens not at the dealer but at your large grocery chain between the guy and a cashier? Should cashier go to jail? Anyway, the intent should not matter and installing any traps in the car should be legal by anyone.
If he had claimed the training was for some other purpose and always told people to never employ these techniques during a real government polygraph and to always tell government investigators the truth he would not be in trouble.
It always amuses me how simplistic the arguments can become. If you just tell how to beat an abstract polygraph without mentioning the government you'd be fine! Nonsense. If the government doesn't like what you do, there will be a way to lock you in for a long time. Even if you do everything legal.
Here's a good example. A guy in California was installing hidden compartments in cars (traps). Those were very slick and he was careful -- it was impossible to detect that something was altered. There were no switches, opening such traps would require following some elaborate sequence, like opening specific doors, rolling down the window five times, starting the car seven times, whatever. Nothing illegal here. One may think that some uses for traps would be to store drugs but there could be many legitimate reasons (like storing cash or whatever personal items). So the installer asked if the traps are going to be used for anything illegal and refused to do the job if the answer was positive. Nothing illegal. Well, some lied and stored drugs and the DEA's job became more complicated and they staged the whole kangaroo court where the trap installer guy was convicted for 22 years! 22 years for not doing anything illegal, but the thinking was that he could have imagined that some traps could be used by drug dealers and therefore he facilitated drug dealings.
More details on the story: http://www.wired.com/2013/03/a...
This is a great news! If google (or any other search engine) decides to promote copyrighted material in the results, it will be a patent infringement!
Interesting interview on the reasons behind the DST was on NPR with the author of "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time". "The upcoming shift in the daylight-saving time change is designed to help retailers — and is a substitute for a genuine energy policy, says author Michael Downing. Congress moved the time shift up this year. Melissa Block talks with Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time." http://www.npr.org/templates/s... No DST is fine with me.
The appropriate response to this violation would be to create a web page impersonating police officers and sending the link to everyone in the school and the newspaper. The content should be along the lines: "I'm officer John and officer Jack, we live at such-and-such address and we are very sorry for creating a fake Seattle Times page causing a wide outrage. Our kids Jill and Jack attending such-and-such school are feeling the heat too. We are sorry." To be believable, the page needs to have appropriate pictures of the officers, their kids (we have to think of the kids!) and all the addresses need to be correct, they didn't misspell Seattle Times, right? The overall content that they are sorry can be fake, just like the page they'd created.
Interesting, but the additional security to a physical key is not the "wireless" solution that is being discussed here. I'm still quite interested if there are any OEM wireless keys that actually don't use some type of rolling keys or challenge response.
I haven't heard of a car key that you can just easily clone. The code is never static.
I have a car that uses a wireless key. After browsing the web trying to find more about the security, I found that you could buy a programmer that connects to the car's data port and programs a new key. What was surprising to me was how relatively easy it is to buy such a device and how quick the programming process was (about 30 seconds). A thief would have to get an entry into the car first (breaking a window, perhaps), but once that is done, it's relatively easy to just drive off with a newly programmed key. What I did was to disable to data port, not permanently, but more of a need to use basis. Since it works on obfuscation, this is not a type of security to be mass produced. Not knowing how exactly the port is disabled, it will take a long time to make it work, so I don't expect a thief to start taking the car apart. Wonder if you can claim for the insurance that the port is disabled. There are many other ways to steal a car, I just want to prevent the easy ones known today.
Or you can say: "There's no federal law making any downloading illegal"
What they call "piracy" or "illegal downloading" is properly called copyright infringement (I don't think they refer to happenings in Somalia when they refer to "piracy"). The copyright infringement defines the infringement as "unauthorized distribution." So, if you distribute the copyright material without the proper authorization from the copyright holder you're committing a copyright infringement. Now, downloading itself is not the distribution, so downloading cannot be illegal (can, but not currently). It's the same idea as you walking into a grocery store to buy napkins and the store didn't have the proper clearance from the napkin manufacturer to sell those napkins, so the store might be in violation, but not you -- the purchaser. Same with downloading. It becomes murky with cases where files get uploaded at the same time as they get downloaded. But I don't expect the average user to know such details. But if you're just downloading, you're not committing the copyright infringement.
A few realize that it's possible to run a wi-fi client and a hotspot on the same card in a laptop at the same time. I had a similar experience with the hotel that allowed only one mac address connection. So I connected my laptop, created a new hotspot called "free wi-fi" and had it running all the time I was at the hotel without any credentials. At least I could connect all my devices and provide a useful public service at the same time.
...WiFi operates on UNREGULATED spectrum, which means anyone can use, and anyone must accept interference from other users... and we did EXACTLY the same thing that Mariott was doing, for just that reason. ... we also investigated the legality of it, and the conclusion we came to was that it was perfectly legal since it was on unregulated spectrum.
According to that logic, I can come with a router backpack and prevent all users from connecting to YOUR university network. Well, it's unregulated, right? You should accept the interference and you cannot ask me to leave (in fact, I can be on a public place to cause you enough of a headache, so all is a fair game).
How did Google get charged exorbitant fees for briefly recording unencrypted wi-fi traffic from their street view cars while everything they did was on an unregulated spectrum?
In my last several engagements, I purchased (on behalf of the clients) version of standalone Photoshop and CS specifically not to be tied to the CC model. Sure, the CC can tout constant updates, but what if I don’t need the updates? Who said that in 10 years the documents I create now can be opened with whatever CC updates get accumulated over the years? Those advocating newer is better, consider your Win7 machine gets automatically updated to Win8 when the company ships it and you’re in the middle of the project and a few things stop working. For critical tasks I want to preserve files, programs, not to be tied to some third party to hand me the critical tools.
"charge per photo" sign showing the cost per photo for licensing purposes -- i.e. you're allowed to charge for any commercial shot "license" and distribution rights are a part of that -- make sure you have them posted on all sides of your buses
The licensing contract that was not signed by the photographer will be null and void. Puff! This suggestion is equivalent of printing a t-shirt that says "anyone who looks at it owns me $100". Right, try enforcing that in court.
1. Detection rather than nullification. Maybe you can't prevent but you can at least know when,
Detection of the camera pointed in the unknown direction on the bus will be impossible.
2. Maybe you can use IR to fool the autofocus to one extreme or another?
Nearly all SLRs are insensitive to IR light when recording. And almost no camera today (still or video) is using IR to autofocus. Illuminating the area with a powerful IR light is damaging to the eyes -- yes it is like regular light except in the dark when the pupils are be dilated any powerful light can cause a damage. I was working on a device that had 3W IR LEDs and after a few minutes the eyes begin to hurt even when I was not looking at the lights directly.
And my owners want the traffic to clear in front of the limousine as the bus rolls into a congested area, but they are ok to have the traffic pile up behind the bus. We've done some testing with really loud honking but it proved ineffective. We don’t want to destroy other cars either, so no shooting torpedoes, please!
Music streaming services simply need to form an association so they can publish direct
This is very true. Recording and editing the music with the decent quality used to be very expensive. The analog consoles used to be hundreds of thousands of dollars producing similar quality what a thousand dollar computer with a decent audio card can do today. The studios nonetheless demand copyright ownership for offering studios (cheap now) and distribution service (also became cheap).
Similar state existed in photography where the equipment had astronomical cost and companies could offer equipment, hire photographers "for hire" and keep the copyright. Nowadays, is is nearly impossible to see contracts where the photographer does not retain the copyright on his/her images. Still, plenty of services are available that remove all the "negotiation" part when selling and advertising the images. The photographer is free to offer images for sale with multiple brokers and some have agreements where if an images available for sale on one service will be offered for sale on the other too. There's no reason the music industry cannot follow the same model. The musician will be in charge of the recordings.
What really is killing the development of this market is the fact that one can sell "the ownership" under the current copyright laws. Once the labels buy the "ownership" of the recording they haven't produced, they can also buy the laws that benefit them and no so much help the musicians or the music industry in general. Kill the labels and let the artists to be the deciders of where the music to be played and it will increase the competition among services too -- bringing the new and innovative distribution channels.
Restore Net Neutrality By Directing the FCC to Classify Internet Providers as "Common Carriers".
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-net-neutrality-directing-fcc-classify-internet-providers-common-carriers/5CWS1M4P
When Microsoft and other companies try to fight copyright infringement, they essentially made the law that "making the product available" constitutes the infringement. It doesn't matter if anyone has actually downloaded the copyrighted material or used it in any way that might be illegal, the fact that the product was "made available" is a violation of the law and implies under hefty statutory damages without the owner needing to prove any damages. The corporations were successful at crafting the law that punishes such the behavior of sharing and essentially makes an individual who shares go bankrupt.
How would the same principle of overzealous punishing for "making available" work in the proposed case of personal data and DRM? Actually very simply. Only in this case the health care provider is the one who potentially "makes available" the personal data. Just as it doesn't matter whether the downloaded copyrighted material has ever been played/installed/used, the fact that it was made available is punishable. With personal data, once anyone's data is "made available" it would be irrelevant if it was used or misused, the mere fact of making it available should be punishable. And I don't mean a small fine. I mean jail time for those who approved the decision, the architecture, or made errors in code. As it is difficult to impose the same severity punishment that individuals face for sharing onto a corporation, it should be either a corporation to go bankrupt or responsible people going to jail. What will happen if such law gets passed? Since many executives will not like to end up in jail for proposing a stupid solution, the silly ideas will die out. So, if some provider decides to implement Microsoft's solution with DRM and an error in Microsoft DRM causes the data to be leaked, the Microsoft executives would face felony charges for not providing the appropriate safeguards and making the data available. Yes, I mean, you, Craig Mundie would become a felon! I completely support such a reciprocal implementation of the law.
Game money has to be converted to real money in order to have value. You would never try to pay for something outside of a game with game money, that would just be absurd.
Absolutely not true. When the number of players in a game is limited, then to reach the people outside of the game would require the "conversion" to some more accepted form of payment that is used by the outside group. Once more people start playing the same game, the conversion becomes less and less necessary. That is true for any type of monetary exchange.
Think of this as people in Europe are playing their game and exchanging Euros, but once a European comes to the US, using the same Euros is significantly more difficult without exchanging them to the US Dollars. However, if you find a person at the garage sale who frequently travels to Europe, he might be happy to accept your Euros without converting to dollars. The same becomes true of the Bitcoin, the more people join the "game" the easier it becomes to use it as real currency without doing any conversion.
The summary of the book seems to focus too much on the “criminals” and claims that the end of the internet is in the “unregulation” of the internet. While it is a factor, let’s not forget that the growth of the internet was also attributed mainly to the same factors. Internet gave power to ordinary citizens and it’s not possible to have that power and not to have anonymity. But with anonymity comes the criminal side as well.
The web is changing now. With every day we have less and less privacy. Large companies got to be very good at tracking everyone’s move on the web. Practically nothing remains anonymous on the web any longer. Getting an internet service in the US requires presenting a government-issued ID and SSN (wasn’t the case a few years ago). The ISP now start the deep packet inspection where everything becomes monitored and certain undesired connections are dropped. Welcome to the world of censorship where no lists will be provided of what exactly is censored. And that, not the “wild west,” will be one of the causes for the death of the internet.
There was an interesting article in Wired magazine on the topic: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/ It provides insights about how we, as users, choose the closed platforms (e.g. google, facebook). And the more we turn away from the true open and anonymous internet, the more irrelevant the internet becomes.
The hard part when anyone can publish anything is finding something worth reading.
Just have a /. comment voting system where readers/writers can "vote" on the articles. Very quickly there will be a select group of readers providing valid ratings, so give them more mod points. The good articles will bubble up to the top having higher rating. The "prestige" factor will be in having a high rating on such a site. And the karma will improve!