'Hactavists' Get $3M for Internet Monitoring

raceface writes "The CBC is reporting that a group from the University of Toronto know as the Citizen Lab has received a $3 million grant. They intend to use the grant money to monitor and determine who is blocking information access on the internet." The grant, given to an international project that fights censorship, was given to the group by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a Chicago-based institution.

Re:Political DOS?

[LiquidCoooled]

I am 100% in the opinion that the majority of DDOS attacks are spread through the media.

Its not a malicious action, but the news sites all spread word that foo.com is currently under attack, and the most obvious reader response is to click the link and try it for themselves.

"click. Oh look, google is still down what am I going to do? click click click, nope its still down."

IM.You: "Hey joe, have you heard that google.com is under attack?"
IM.Joe: "Click. Yer its down over here"

That's easy, I block it!

[Universal Nerd]

I understand the waves of hatred towards Google for their chinese policy but I believe most people REALLY do take their liberty of access to information for granted.

Corporations do what they must to protect their intrests - see Ambrose Biere's "Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility." Google does it in China because they want a presence there as MSN and Yahoo and whatever-else-there-is-out-there.

Freedom of access to information is not an unalienable human right, in today's world, it's a privilege so enjoy it before someone comes and snaps it up from under you.

Re:Good for them...

[Ed Avis]

I think there is a difference between facts about the world, such as a photograph of an event that happened, and pictures which are simply entertaining to look at, such as porn, or just intended to shock and cause offence, such as goatse [ragingfist.net]. It may be hard to distinguish in practice because the line is fuzzy - what about the Mohammed bomb cartoon for example? - but that doesn't mean they are exactly the same, as you claim.

Is Internet access the only measure of freedom?

[Jivha]

While I laud the initiative, I do(at the risk of getting negative karma) wonder why we're so fixated with Internet access as the sole metric for global freedom?

Is the press free all around the world? Do undertrials or accused enjoy fair trials everywhere? Does corporate money/advertising implicitly censor what we see in the media? Do citizens in democracies have access to all information that concerns them? Can the poor ever have equal chances to attend universities and schools?

I'm from India, a democracy and a market economy(mostly). I can say confidently that my answers to most of the above questions are "no". I'm guessing the same is true for countries around the world, including the US and the west.

So lets strive for unrestricted Internet access around the world, but lets also figure out what else comprises freedom for the non-/. folks out there.

Re:Good for them...

[Wordsmith]

The pointless is that fundamental to the idea of free speech and expression, is that no entity should be in charge of deciding what's worthwhile speech and what isn't. Ever. Some ideas ARE useless, and some DO have no value, but just you try and get 100 people in a room and have them agree over which ones are which.

In a truly free society, bad speech is answered with good speech, and those who hear both are empowered to pick for themselves. I can't argue against, for instance, neo-nazism, without first hearing what the neo-nazis have to say; and if we stifle them, their vile speech gets pushed underground, where it goes unrefuted.

Hacktivists? not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe a hacktivist is not one who simply monitors, but does something about the information which 'comes into their hands' ( ;) ).

So how can a government sponsored university which is simply monitoring the censorship without doing a thing to stop it hacktivist?

anyone?....

didn't think so...

Conditionally "free" speech

[dstone]

It's one thing to be able to see the Tienamin Square results unfiltered by Google, it'd be another thing to be spending a $3M grant on ways to sneak porn (or illegal stuff) past the government proxies.

I don't know that it's "another thing" at all.

There's "free speech", and then there's "conditionally free speech" (which, arguably, China already has). You may be a supporter of the latter concept, just to a different degree than the government in power.

If we analyze the actual content of speech and judge it "worthy" or "legal" then we allow governments and powerful moral majorities to silence anyone that doesn't share their values by simply labelling certain speech illegal or immoral. We're still left living in a system where we have to be scared that what we speak or write or share might offend someone because of prevailing political and moral values, and those values can change overnight and be subject to interpretation to server greater agendas.