The more important question that remains is about preemptive censorship. Who can count the posts and other internet activities that don't make it into the monitoring software of the researchers because of blocking, filtering, whatever?
As technology improves, Chinese censors may need to deal with unprecedented transparency, but the researchers will certainly have to deal with ever more effective methods of controlling the Internet. And it is not clear who will come on top in this kind of arms race, especially in the short to medium run.
Besides, it isn't happening only in China, the push for censorship under various pretexts is very much active in the West too, as well as technological development that facilitates such filtering and a strong and concerted PR to justify the push.
I only expose myself to the Guardian and the Economist and they have not followed the cucumber debate closely, but I have the same feeling -- in general, the national press in the EU tends to cover the EU issues badly.
Aw, come on. The national governments do indeed appoint the candidates, and there are hearing sessions in the EP before the commissars are put forward and the commission is approved, but the process behind these appointments is in no way transparent, compared to, say, electing a national government.
The big countries and the important bureaucrats play complicated games with their clientelle in the smaller countries, there are all kinds of backstage games and agreements, etc. so in the end you get a "government" that is much more responsive to the cabal that runs these negotiations than to anyone else.
Then, there is the sad fact that the Commission is viewed as something remote and inaccessible by the voters in Europe (or at least by the people I know), and there is a lot less public scrutiny directed at them as well.
So, compared to a national government, the EC suffers less oversight, gets less feedback, and consequently feels more powerful.
I don't disagree, but to me it looks like in the US this is happening because more people find it acceptable, while in the EU it is mostly due to failure of the institutions. Well, or success, depending on where you stand. Incidentally, ACTA passed quite smoothly in Japan because the electorate is absolutely passive and can't be bothered to have an opinion, but now that it has been rejected in the EU, negative attitude has started to appear.
You can blame anyone you choose, but your reasoning is faulty.
In general, the leverage that the European citizens have over the EC is significantly smaller than the leverage the Americans have over their federal government. This is so because of the way EC commissars.... ops, commissioners are appointed to serve, and because of the complex patron-client relationships that exist between the various national political elites that make the appointments, the European Council, the key commissars and the major European "parties".
In this specific instance, the only body of the EU that represents the "little guys" directly, the European Parliament, rejected ACTA very clearly (and under massive grassroots pressure), so you cannot really blame the EU electorate.
What you are witnessing here is a small clique of euro bureaucrats gaming the rules of the EU, trying to subvert the will of this elected body. They are the ones who should bear all the blame.
Trade is good. Using "trade" as an excuse to subvert the democratic process and force via "international agreements" legislation that favors big business is neither good, nor acceptable.
BTW, the summary is wrong, it isn't the EU that is "trying to revive ACTA", it is the European Commission -- the unelected cabinet of Europe, way beyond any control from the little Europeans -- that is trying to do so. They are, for some reason, particularly sensitive to the needs of big business.
Not really, hence the emphasis on the first time I recall it happening. The removal of even mildly anti-government stuff began in the early 2000s, but it didn't end there. Later on quite a few sites in the.ru TLD were told first to remove anti-government discussions and news, then raided, then finally forced to move away from the runet altogether.
There are reports that on many occasions the FSB (Federal Security Service) has requested that ISPs and sites provide information on users. Things have gotten particularly bad since the mass protests during the 2010 winter and then around the elections in 2011 and this year.
It is not only the Internet, all media are being targeted. The editors of one of the leading newspapers, the Kommersant (critical of Putin), were sacked (by the owners, who are very close to Pu) because of the way they covered the elections in 2011, the independent radio Echo of Moscow saw some editorial changes, etc. etc.
Russia is descending back to something that looks a lot like the socialism of the Brezhnev era (or stabilitism, as people joke these days, playing word games with Putin's constant calls for "stability").
The Russian Internet has been under a very strong pressure to shut up from the political elite for a long time now (I got banned from a forum for the first time for criticizing Hutin in 2004 or thereabouts), but this law is like opening the proverbial floodgate of abuse.
Good luck fighting back. Democracy is a process, not a state -- unless the people are prepared to stand up for it, it goes.
In passing, hardly anyone would think the site has crashed -- those who use it often will read the notice, and those who don't will only go there because they've seen the news of the protest.
Yeah. On a more serious note, the two bigger problems with this policy are the plausible deniability the government gains with it about just any kind of leaked document, as well as the subtle moral corruption that this kind of policy will institute among both potential leakers and journalists.
Government officials will without doubt be glad to be able to claim that any released inconvenient document is a (partial) fake and explain it away.
Both potential whistleblowers and journalists will now consider the possibility that they are being set up with a fake on purpose, and be less likely to question a questionable policy.
I see these two effects bringing more harm than benefit, but we'll see.
and predict that in another decade those of us who don't get the implants will be looking at those poor souls who got em with the feeling we get today when looking at the orbitoclast. No, doctor, if I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain.
Because there are elections coming, and Japan is sick of nuclear power, so everyone wants to appeal to them, all with their own perverse logic.
The ruling party (Demoratic Party of Japan, Minshuto), which split recently, is about to lose badly, and many DPJ MPs will try to save themselves by appearing to have some record for toughness and competence.
The major opposition party, the Jiminto (LDP, liberal democratic party) was in power during the time when the power plants were built, and it is LDP governments who made the rules and the regulators that created the conditions for this outrage. Naturally, the politicians from LDP will want as much distance from this Fukushima trouble as they can get.
There is then the bunch of minor, one-day parties each of whom wants as much credit for toughness as they can, so that they can ride the popular anger.
So, you get a drive for toughness out of the usual sleazy, self-serving motives.
Well, to start with a more obvious case, if a classified fake suggests serious government crimes have been committed, and a coverup is going on in a plausible manner, it creates an inducement to all moral people to leak it. Only sleazy cowards will keep quiet about things like war crimes or crimes against humanity, and even then they may be liable in front of the ICC anyway.
Yeah? I fail to see the difference clearly. When you carefully create circumstances that would facilitate leakage, that's so close to entrapment in my book, that it is practically the same thing.
to get foreign governments to doubt the veracity of whatever information their agents dig up
You can lie to yourself about the real purpose as much as you like, but since TFA says it is expressly a measure to catch whistleblowers, I'll call it a measure to catch whistleblowers. Also, never forget that a framework for dissemination of disinformation works just as well against your own people as it does against the foreign enemy. I'll leave you to guess avoiding whose scrutiny is more relevant to your politicians.
AKA entrapment. It is "counterintelligence" when you do it to the bad guys, who live abroad and hate you for your freedomz, not to the good guys who point out the bad things your government does. BTW, "domestic counterintelligence" was one of KGB's most important departments. They did exactly the same thing -- go after the people at home who were dissatisfied with the politicians.
I go out for a drink with Ted from time to time and I can assure you that he pictures himself slashing the throat of the CFO, taking CFO's pretty secretary right on the bloody desk, and then taking over the position all day long.
This is probably what the business is speculating, not what the reality is. The less time you have, the more you value it, and spending it on a long and tedious training for a few days in the worst conditions you've endured in your life for a view may not appeal to many.
Most mobile phones of the olden days, when NFC payments were first introduced, didn't use Linux at all. Felica was introduced in 2004. Mobile Suica in 2006 or thereabouts, long before the initiatives you link to. Besides, isn't iOS a BSD clone, just like the "Linux stack" allegedly used in "most Japanese phones"?
What "big target", this has been a feature of many phones in Japan for years, probably with deployment in the tens of millions. I haven't even heard of one successful virus.
Technically it could be done now. What would its legal status be?
Obviously, it will have the same "legal status" of a piece of paper printed from an automated printing facility. What is the legal problem that is worrying you?
What if the conversation was in a public place chosen so there were no humans nearby?
Does a tree make a sound when there's noone to hear? Is the cat alive or dead?
Slashdot Mirror
Why is that so? Should I also sell my MGA for scrap because it was made in 1956?
The more important question that remains is about preemptive censorship. Who can count the posts and other internet activities that don't make it into the monitoring software of the researchers because of blocking, filtering, whatever?
As technology improves, Chinese censors may need to deal with unprecedented transparency, but the researchers will certainly have to deal with ever more effective methods of controlling the Internet. And it is not clear who will come on top in this kind of arms race, especially in the short to medium run.
Besides, it isn't happening only in China, the push for censorship under various pretexts is very much active in the West too, as well as technological development that facilitates such filtering and a strong and concerted PR to justify the push.
I only expose myself to the Guardian and the Economist and they have not followed the cucumber debate closely, but I have the same feeling -- in general, the national press in the EU tends to cover the EU issues badly.
Aw, come on. The national governments do indeed appoint the candidates, and there are hearing sessions in the EP before the commissars are put forward and the commission is approved, but the process behind these appointments is in no way transparent, compared to, say, electing a national government.
The big countries and the important bureaucrats play complicated games with their clientelle in the smaller countries, there are all kinds of backstage games and agreements, etc. so in the end you get a "government" that is much more responsive to the cabal that runs these negotiations than to anyone else.
Then, there is the sad fact that the Commission is viewed as something remote and inaccessible by the voters in Europe (or at least by the people I know), and there is a lot less public scrutiny directed at them as well.
So, compared to a national government, the EC suffers less oversight, gets less feedback, and consequently feels more powerful.
I don't disagree, but to me it looks like in the US this is happening because more people find it acceptable, while in the EU it is mostly due to failure of the institutions. Well, or success, depending on where you stand. Incidentally, ACTA passed quite smoothly in Japan because the electorate is absolutely passive and can't be bothered to have an opinion, but now that it has been rejected in the EU, negative attitude has started to appear.
You can blame anyone you choose, but your reasoning is faulty.
In general, the leverage that the European citizens have over the EC is significantly smaller than the leverage the Americans have over their federal government. This is so because of the way EC commissars .... ops, commissioners are appointed to serve, and because of the complex patron-client relationships that exist between the various national political elites that make the appointments, the European Council, the key commissars and the major European "parties".
In this specific instance, the only body of the EU that represents the "little guys" directly, the European Parliament, rejected ACTA very clearly (and under massive grassroots pressure), so you cannot really blame the EU electorate.
What you are witnessing here is a small clique of euro bureaucrats gaming the rules of the EU, trying to subvert the will of this elected body. They are the ones who should bear all the blame.
Trade is good. Using "trade" as an excuse to subvert the democratic process and force via "international agreements" legislation that favors big business is neither good, nor acceptable.
BTW, the summary is wrong, it isn't the EU that is "trying to revive ACTA", it is the European Commission -- the unelected cabinet of Europe, way beyond any control from the little Europeans -- that is trying to do so. They are, for some reason, particularly sensitive to the needs of big business.
Not really, hence the emphasis on the first time I recall it happening. The removal of even mildly anti-government stuff began in the early 2000s, but it didn't end there. Later on quite a few sites in the .ru TLD were told first to remove anti-government discussions and news, then raided, then finally forced to move away from the runet altogether.
There are reports that on many occasions the FSB (Federal Security Service) has requested that ISPs and sites provide information on users. Things have gotten particularly bad since the mass protests during the 2010 winter and then around the elections in 2011 and this year.
It is not only the Internet, all media are being targeted. The editors of one of the leading newspapers, the Kommersant (critical of Putin), were sacked (by the owners, who are very close to Pu) because of the way they covered the elections in 2011, the independent radio Echo of Moscow saw some editorial changes, etc. etc.
Russia is descending back to something that looks a lot like the socialism of the Brezhnev era (or stabilitism, as people joke these days, playing word games with Putin's constant calls for "stability").
The Russian Internet has been under a very strong pressure to shut up from the political elite for a long time now (I got banned from a forum for the first time for criticizing Hutin in 2004 or thereabouts), but this law is like opening the proverbial floodgate of abuse.
Good luck fighting back. Democracy is a process, not a state -- unless the people are prepared to stand up for it, it goes.
In passing, hardly anyone would think the site has crashed -- those who use it often will read the notice, and those who don't will only go there because they've seen the news of the protest.
Curing malaria is compounding the "limited resources" problem. Applying your reasoning suggests we should confiscate more, not less.
Yeah. On a more serious note, the two bigger problems with this policy are the plausible deniability the government gains with it about just any kind of leaked document, as well as the subtle moral corruption that this kind of policy will institute among both potential leakers and journalists.
Government officials will without doubt be glad to be able to claim that any released inconvenient document is a (partial) fake and explain it away.
Both potential whistleblowers and journalists will now consider the possibility that they are being set up with a fake on purpose, and be less likely to question a questionable policy.
I see these two effects bringing more harm than benefit, but we'll see.
and predict that in another decade those of us who don't get the implants will be looking at those poor souls who got em with the feeling we get today when looking at the orbitoclast. No, doctor, if I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain.
Because there are elections coming, and Japan is sick of nuclear power, so everyone wants to appeal to them, all with their own perverse logic.
The ruling party (Demoratic Party of Japan, Minshuto), which split recently, is about to lose badly, and many DPJ MPs will try to save themselves by appearing to have some record for toughness and competence.
The major opposition party, the Jiminto (LDP, liberal democratic party) was in power during the time when the power plants were built, and it is LDP governments who made the rules and the regulators that created the conditions for this outrage. Naturally, the politicians from LDP will want as much distance from this Fukushima trouble as they can get.
There is then the bunch of minor, one-day parties each of whom wants as much credit for toughness as they can, so that they can ride the popular anger.
So, you get a drive for toughness out of the usual sleazy, self-serving motives.
Well, to start with a more obvious case, if a classified fake suggests serious government crimes have been committed, and a coverup is going on in a plausible manner, it creates an inducement to all moral people to leak it. Only sleazy cowards will keep quiet about things like war crimes or crimes against humanity, and even then they may be liable in front of the ICC anyway.
Giving somebody opportunity is not the same thing
Yeah? I fail to see the difference clearly. When you carefully create circumstances that would facilitate leakage, that's so close to entrapment in my book, that it is practically the same thing.
to get foreign governments to doubt the veracity of whatever information their agents dig up
You can lie to yourself about the real purpose as much as you like, but since TFA says it is expressly a measure to catch whistleblowers, I'll call it a measure to catch whistleblowers. Also, never forget that a framework for dissemination of disinformation works just as well against your own people as it does against the foreign enemy. I'll leave you to guess avoiding whose scrutiny is more relevant to your politicians.
AKA entrapment. It is "counterintelligence" when you do it to the bad guys, who live abroad and hate you for your freedomz, not to the good guys who point out the bad things your government does. BTW, "domestic counterintelligence" was one of KGB's most important departments. They did exactly the same thing -- go after the people at home who were dissatisfied with the politicians.
I go out for a drink with Ted from time to time and I can assure you that he pictures himself slashing the throat of the CFO, taking CFO's pretty secretary right on the bloody desk, and then taking over the position all day long.
Unless the US recession continues indefinitely, this will change.
There is no need for more hurricanes, getting the same number, but stronger and with more rain is more than enough. And this is already happening.
And maybe they won't need any street lights, too, as everything will glow anyway.
This is probably what the business is speculating, not what the reality is. The less time you have, the more you value it, and spending it on a long and tedious training for a few days in the worst conditions you've endured in your life for a view may not appeal to many.
Doh. "Just like" => "just as 'open' as"
Most mobile phones of the olden days, when NFC payments were first introduced, didn't use Linux at all. Felica was introduced in 2004. Mobile Suica in 2006 or thereabouts, long before the initiatives you link to. Besides, isn't iOS a BSD clone, just like the "Linux stack" allegedly used in "most Japanese phones"?
What "big target", this has been a feature of many phones in Japan for years, probably with deployment in the tens of millions. I haven't even heard of one successful virus.
Technically it could be done now. What would its legal status be?
Obviously, it will have the same "legal status" of a piece of paper printed from an automated printing facility. What is the legal problem that is worrying you?
What if the conversation was in a public place chosen so there were no humans nearby?
Does a tree make a sound when there's noone to hear? Is the cat alive or dead?