Since the [RI|MP]AA discovered DRM can be easily cracked, it's now reduced to a legal line drawn in the sand between copyright holders and consumers. They're now trying to make it illegal to cross this line.
Heinlein is morally right with this quote, but has recently become factually incorrect: NAFTA's Chapter 11 guarantees current corporate revenue streams.
This is the most asinine article I've ever seen on TR. Muller's praise of Radio Free Europe neglects state propaganda and spoof broadcasts made by apparatchiks and, in more modern times, the Serbian government. Without a comprehensive communication infrastructure, these autocratic regimes would have quickly collapsed.
The exultation of Chinese faxes neglects to mention The Great Firewall and Falun Gong & dissident arrests made based on those faxes. Once a communication medium becomes widespread, it's nearly a necessity of daily life, making it prohibitively difficult for subversives to opt out of being monitored through that channel.
Yes, it's great that radio is ubiquitous, but radio is hardly high tech these days. High tech in communications is the Echelon system, which makes the relevant question not whether we are being monitored, but whether we are being monitored accurately. Only governments & large corporations can afford the sophisticated filtering software that does the eavesdropping today. This economic gap in monitoring technology will persist unless collective advocacy becomes commonplace.
But it is a testament to Orwell's foresight that we know so little of Echelon and the NSA. Without '1984,' we'd have succumbed to their agendas through attrition and our awareness of surveillance would be a given. Because of the reactionary forces conjured by Orwell's dystopian vision, these organizations have had to keep their surveillance activities secret, mitigating their potential for intimidation. For the great majority of us, this is a case of ignorance truly being bliss, but that's no salve to the odd subversive who's caught the other end of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, don't be trying to get flying pigs arrested!
Since the [RI|MP]AA discovered DRM can be easily cracked, it's now reduced to a legal line drawn in the sand between copyright holders and consumers. They're now trying to make it illegal to cross this line.
Heinlein is morally right with this quote, but has recently become factually incorrect: NAFTA's Chapter 11 guarantees current corporate revenue streams.
This is the most asinine article I've ever seen on TR. Muller's praise of Radio Free Europe neglects state propaganda and spoof broadcasts made by apparatchiks and, in more modern times, the Serbian government. Without a comprehensive communication infrastructure, these autocratic regimes would have quickly collapsed.
The exultation of Chinese faxes neglects to mention The Great Firewall and Falun Gong & dissident arrests made based on those faxes. Once a communication medium becomes widespread, it's nearly a necessity of daily life, making it prohibitively difficult for subversives to opt out of being monitored through that channel.
Yes, it's great that radio is ubiquitous, but radio is hardly high tech these days. High tech in communications is the Echelon system, which makes the relevant question not whether we are being monitored, but whether we are being monitored accurately. Only governments & large corporations can afford the sophisticated filtering software that does the eavesdropping today. This economic gap in monitoring technology will persist unless collective advocacy becomes commonplace.
But it is a testament to Orwell's foresight that we know so little of Echelon and the NSA. Without '1984,' we'd have succumbed to their agendas through attrition and our awareness of surveillance would be a given. Because of the reactionary forces conjured by Orwell's dystopian vision, these organizations have had to keep their surveillance activities secret, mitigating their potential for intimidation. For the great majority of us, this is a case of ignorance truly being bliss, but that's no salve to the odd subversive who's caught the other end of it.