This brings up a couple of interesting questions for me:
Firstly, is putting this archive online the best way to preserve this information for the cultural group involved? Eventually information held in websites leaks out, there is no way to protect it forever.
Secondly, the privacy of this information has already been broken obviously. Anthropologists by their very nature come and take the information about how your cultural system works and then disseminate it as they see fit. To some extend the happy slide-night has probably already caused the damage.
If these people really want to keep their information private, then putting it online is a mistake in the first place.
(FWIW I've worked with Aboriginal communities).
The point really isn't the technology though, it's the centralised control and governance.
You can't sue the Internet to get access to things, there's no entity to stand up in a court. Meanwhile, Google or anyone else that stores this data can be petitioned. They have to obey the laws of where they operate.
Imagine I post content that's legal in my country that says 'George Bush should be hanged for treason'... meanwhile thanks to Google's centralised servers I find myself being extradited to the US to face charges of sedition...
Regarding technology, if everyone starts using this service to store their data they've also created a massive singple point of failure in the global information sphere.
You take the world's most successfully decentralised network, and for convenience and searchability you umm.... centralise it...
Take all the power of anyone being able to interconnect which allows free speech to flourish all over the world (even in China if you're wise enough) and then umm.... put it all into the control of one corporate entity in the United States.
Remember the situation with China... Google (as a corporatation) complied with the law and handed over private gmail information to the Chinese authorities trying stiffle free speech... now image if _everything_ is subject to that control mechanism?
Google is already so powerful that if your business isn't listed easily in the results you might as well pack up and go home... this just makes that problem even worse.
Basically Google wants to kill the Internet, to make it work better. AOL didn't die... the whole internet became AOL....
OK, so bit-torrent is the technology to move the data, but where is the content going to come from?
The obvious answer to my mind is bloggers.
Imagine getting your news not from CNN / Fox, but instead actually from someone on the ground living in an apartment in Baghdad while it's being bombed?
Get news reports on SCO vs Everyone not just from the media and court filings, but actually see image of the court building where it's all happening with bloggers telling us how they think the proceedings are going at the moment.
Blogging is the news network of tomorrow, and this is how it will be done.
Slashdot Mirror
This brings up a couple of interesting questions for me:
-
Firstly, is putting this archive online the best way to preserve this information for the cultural group involved? Eventually information held in websites leaks out, there is no way to protect it forever.
-
Secondly, the privacy of this information has already been broken obviously. Anthropologists by their very nature come and take the information about how your cultural system works and then disseminate it as they see fit. To some extend the happy slide-night has probably already caused the damage.
If these people really want to keep their information private, then putting it online is a mistake in the first place.(FWIW I've worked with Aboriginal communities).
The point really isn't the technology though, it's the centralised control and governance. You can't sue the Internet to get access to things, there's no entity to stand up in a court. Meanwhile, Google or anyone else that stores this data can be petitioned. They have to obey the laws of where they operate. Imagine I post content that's legal in my country that says 'George Bush should be hanged for treason' ... meanwhile thanks to Google's centralised servers I find myself being extradited to the US to face charges of sedition...
Regarding technology, if everyone starts using this service to store their data they've also created a massive singple point of failure in the global information sphere.
Let's just call it AOL+
You take the world's most successfully decentralised network, and for convenience and searchability you umm.... centralise it...
Take all the power of anyone being able to interconnect which allows free speech to flourish all over the world (even in China if you're wise enough) and then umm.... put it all into the control of one corporate entity in the United States.
Remember the situation with China... Google (as a corporatation) complied with the law and handed over private gmail information to the Chinese authorities trying stiffle free speech... now image if _everything_ is subject to that control mechanism?
Google is already so powerful that if your business isn't listed easily in the results you might as well pack up and go home... this just makes that problem even worse.
Basically Google wants to kill the Internet, to make it work better. AOL didn't die... the whole internet became AOL....
The obvious answer to my mind is bloggers.
Imagine getting your news not from CNN / Fox, but instead actually from someone on the ground living in an apartment in Baghdad while it's being bombed?
Get news reports on SCO vs Everyone not just from the media and court filings, but actually see image of the court building where it's all happening with bloggers telling us how they think the proceedings are going at the moment.
Blogging is the news network of tomorrow, and this is how it will be done.
My brother pointed out that this movie's got a definate Fraggle Rock element.
:
Humans / Fraggles
Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Zion Rock.
Machines / Dozers:
Work your cares away,
Dancing's for another day.
Let the Rebels play...