The Coming Censorship Wars 197
KentuckyFC writes "Many countries censor internet traffic using techniques such as blocking IP addresses, filtering traffic with certain URLs in the data packets and prefix hijacking. Others allow wiretapping of international traffic with few if any legal safeguards. There are growing fears that these practices could trigger a major international incident should international
traffic routed through these countries fall victim, whether deliberately or by accident (witness the prefix hijacking of YouTube in Pakistan last year). So how to avoid these places? A group of computer scientists investigating this problem say it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to determine which countries traffic might pass through. But their initial assessment indicates that the countries with the most pervasive censorship policies — China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia — pose a minimal threat because so little international traffic passes their way. The researchers instead point the finger at western countries that have active censorship policies and carry large amounts of international traffic. They highlight the roles of the two biggest carriers: Great Britain, which actively censors internet traffic, and the US, which allows warrantless wiretapping of international traffic (abstract)."
to paraphrase a quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually the internet will treat the USA as damage and route around it.
skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
A society that uses Censorship must have something or someone to hide.
Re:to paraphrase a quote (Score:1, Insightful)
So what? Here's another quote:
As Confucius said, if rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy it.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:voluntary, domestic censorship only in GB (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll never happen... (Score:2, Insightful)
There will always be one ISP that does not monitor it's traffic. Why? Because that's where the business will lie once all the other ISPs have monitoring equipment in place (even if it is imposed upon by the government). Not to say this will be in the U.S., but there will always be that one country. And on top of this, who is to say that encryption techniques won't make this argument obsolete anyway? If monitoring does break out on a wide scale, I see many, many websites turning towards things such as IPSEC or HTTPS. Darknets will be thrown up and proxies from that one country that doesn't monitor its ISPs will spring up like weeds. The internet is on a global scale, and as such we've had the freedom as an international privilege for far too long to let it go now. Someone or something can try to bring down the internet, but I just don't see it happening.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
Have you not seen throughout history that those who censor end up censoring *everything*? Sure, first everyone can agree that child porn is bad, but if we don't speak out against this who knows what will be next.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm kind of on the fence about my country's censorship (The UK, that is). As far as I know, it's only child porn that is actively censored
The trouble is with that "as far as I know". Even the government doesn't actually know what's being censored. It's been completely handed over to a self-appointed body, with no oversight, no accountability and no appeal process. And why do you think it's only child porn being censored? Because the censors say so. What's wrong with this picture?
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I know, it's only child porn
"Where will it stop?"
As far as you know, only child porn. What you don't know is the problem with censorship in the first place.
Total frickin encryption, all the time (Score:3, Insightful)
If these piss-ant dictators and foaming moralists won't leave well enough alone, we'll just have to encrypt (TOR) the lot of it.
I am really serious. If we don't start using encrypted traffic
routinely and by default on the Internet soon, then doing so
will without doubt be made illegal.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem. Some censorship is critical to national security, or other types of security. Right now nuclear devices are too hard to build for any single idiot. Fusion research may change that. Would you want THOSE plans public ? Or censored ?
There is a difference between non public or under a NDA than censored. For example, is an author's work that he never published censored? No. Its simply not published. While nuclear blueprints would certainly be non-published, and in the contract to which you sell your soul to a country when you become a government officer, they may forbid you to release such documents. That is not censorship, that is just not publishing them.
Now if, someone were to write "How to make a weapon of mass destruction for under $200" and the government forbid people to buy the book or the book to be published and the creators did not sign a contract that forbid such action, yes, that would be censorship.
And for your comment on flaw finding, you assume that the average person can simply find a flaw by looking at detailed blueprints that an entire team of architects could not find. That is unlikely, most terrorists are average people having little to no specialized skills, they aren't a professional architect, they aren't going to be able to find these said flaws. Give a script kiddy the source to the Linux kernel and tell them to find a buffer overflow, they won't be able to do it. Similarly, an ordinary terrorist isn't going to be able to find these magical faults in buildings with the blueprints.
In DNA manipulation, some procedures aren't all that difficult, even to do in your own garage. Preparing a bioweapon isn't hard (it's not killing yourself in the process and delivering the weapon that are the problematic parts), perhaps it should be published how it's done, with extra emphasis on those parts where the terrorists that have tried had real trouble with (e.g. an ineffective delivery device for sarin gas was the only thing that prevented the tokyo subway from being filled with that gas. Can't have that ... let's publish a few DIY plans).
Exactly, so what though? It is improbable to impossible that an ordinary person could successfully make a devastating bioweapon. Even a skilled biochemist would have much, much, difficulty. Its equivalent to saying that an ordinary person could somehow make effective weapons that took a large team of scientists many years to do, and even then it rarely worked.
You assume that someone could, and would publish "How to make a bioweapon 101" and assume that the average terrorist could read, comprehend, and carry out the steps if they were in fact correct. You can't buy Anthrax at your local store, you aren't going to find old bottles of smallpox in an abandoned warehouse, etc.
Child porn stimulates abusing children sexually for financial gain. Censorship can prevent the financial gain, thereby lowering child abuse. Of course this is a good thing.
Sure, lowering child abuse is a good thing, but censorship is not the way to go. Already, child porn has been elevated to a thinkcrime. Where by not doing any action that directly harms anyone, you are committing a crime. You are, in effect making information illegal. Now, non-free governments always start by restricting things that are "bad", but soon "bad" encompasses more, and more things until you get a situation like China. What do you think that the Chinese think that their government is censoring? Not free speech, but immoral, and generally "bad" things.
Let's face it, censoring some things should be done. Basically anything that crosses a certain threshold of criticality and cannot easily be modified should be a secret, and it should be a crime to divulge such information to anyone who does not need to know. Everything from building weaknesses to certain scientific results ...
Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not about the censorship, that is an issue if you live in a country that does it, but the monitoring? I mean really, do you assume your traffic is private? If so that's a really bad idea. I've always assumed that my traffic going over the net could be watched. Governments aren't the only people who could watch you. For example at work, we have a packet sniffer to help diagnose problems. Usually it sits idle watching nothing. However we can watch any traffic we like, and can do so invisibly. If I want I can mirror a port and watch everything someone does.
So you should always operate under the assumption that your traffic could be watched. Your ISP, another ISP, your government, another government, a crafty hacker, etc all could watch what you are doing. That means that if what you are doing needs to be kept secret, encrypt that shit. Don't send passwords. credit card numbers, etc in clear text. Use things like SSH/SSL for important stuff. Heck use them for non important stuff too if you like, it isn't as though encryption hits modern computers that hard these days.
Point is I don't see why as an individual you'd worry if a foreign country is monitoring your traffic. They could just be one of many. I can see concern if your government is monitoring your traffic, and especially if they are censoring your traffic, but in general, assume shit you do on the Internet is watched.
Re:skibaldy (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't like the the truth, so you change the standard.
The US is a tyranny. No one can know the law or how it will be applied. Honestly pleading "not guilty" can be punished more than most felonies are. Anyone can be imprisoned indefinitely on the basis of unsubstantiated secret allegations. Financial transactions and private communications are heavily monitored. Property can be seized without due process - having more than $10000 in cash is considered prima facie evidence of guilt - you have no property rights, since they are suing the cash itself, not you. The ability to travel is no longer a right but a privilege contingent on showing your government-issued papers and not being on the "terrorist watch list", which is really just an alleged enemies list. No other countries except Russia and China imprison more people.
Your posts continually reveal further depths of moral bankruptcy and abject toadying to the lowest forms of parasitic usurping political scum. You have no place in this country, this world, this life. Your ugly idiocy befouls all that is good in mankind. I loathe your very essence and wish your evil spirit complete and eternal annihilation.
Re:skibaldy (Score:2, Insightful)
All Censorship Sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
This article points to one very real problem with censorship. Once one party assumes the right to censor then all parties, everywhere assume the same privilege. The simple fact is that any censorship, no matter how seemingly innocent, is an attack upon the freedom of all people in all nations.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
Child pornography is the rape of a child for the sexual entertainment of an adult.
Child pornography may be documentation of said rape, not the actual crime.
Distribution of the video is an added kick for the rapist
How do you know this? And should something be a crime because a rapist enjoy it?
a lasting hurt for the victim
I'm not a psychologist, but I have a feeling a victim of child abuse have much worse things to worry about than searching the web for images of themselves.
and can be quite profitable as well.
A lot of things are profitable, most of these are legal.
You are not an innocent when you download and retain evidence of a rape.
Is it illegal to own a copy or image of every type of crime evidence?
You are not an innocent when you are a client - a customer - who is in the market for more of the same.
What if you're not a client or customer, but just get everything for free?
The feeling I get here is that you simply think it's morally wrong, and want to ban it because of that. Then inventing random arguments to support it.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
Child pornography is the rape of a child for the sexual entertainment of an adult.
Child pornography is also a 15 year old girl recording herself nude on her mobile phone and then sending the video to her boyfriend in his 18th birthday.
Re:skibaldy (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet another person who doesn't understand the difference between a digital copy of something and a physical object. That analogy is really bad, and by using it you only make yourself look like a fool.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
Child pornography is the rape of a child for the sexual entertainment of an adult. Distribution of the video is an added kick for the rapist - a lasting hurt for the victim - and can be quite profitable as well.
It can be all of those things. It's also the 17 year old girl I fucked all last night (age of consent is 16 here) sending me a sexually explicit pic of herself. Or according to the even more fucked up laws of Norway it can be a cartoon someone draw, any girl playing to be under the age of 18 or a story or any other form of work that sexualizes someone under 18. Censorers love people like you, because you take the worst possible a law can cover and use that as justification for the most overbroad censorship.
Re:skibaldy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what I hate about some Americans. They actually believe the propaganda they have been fed about being so free. Meanwhile they can be sent to jail for possessing a seed. And if that isn't bad enough they also still have the left over feudal concept of felony where after getting caught with that seed their whole life is ruined, including having most of their possessions taken away.
They can't vote to change the unjust law that put them in jail. The rights that Americans consider basic like owning Firearms are taken away forever. And they call it freedom.
Even the way they appoint a new tyrant^w leader is totally corrupt with vote fraud considered OK, the politicians themselves put in charge of the election process so even basic things like the shape of a riding is totally corrupted.
In some states it is illegal not to show ID as well as how difficult it has become to simply travel.
It is considered perfectly fine that their overfull prisons are a hotbed of anal rape and they actually kill people.
I guess what it is is some Americans have a warped view of what freedom is.
All censorship is about control of information (Score:4, Insightful)
Before the internet the only way you could have a voice that told a story to a large amount of people was to publish it, which cost a LOT of money and had a gatekeeper (editor) to decide if it was suitable. If your story was exposing corruption within a corporation and that corporation sponsored that publishing house, you have zero chance of it getting published. Publishing is not just the cost of printing, but the distribution network to get it to a large number of widely spread out locations. You could print the story yourself which would cost a small fortune, then drive around delivering it yourself which would cost another small fortune in fuel bills. Then your next problem is how to recoup your money. That's just the print industry. TV and radio are even tighter controlled and much more expensive to break into.
The point is that before the internet the elite had control over the gatekeepers; the gatekeepers can now be bypassed by anyone with access to the internet.
Even when PC's were still very expensive and programs were still complicated, knowledge like how to put up a website was seen as having skills beyond the normal user, internet censorship wasn't really an issue. From there grew some things that weren't illegal at the time but gradually became illegal like publishing child porn. The only reason these types of things weren't illegal in the first place is that when the laws were written they didn't foresee this "internet thingy" and had to be amended to take it into account.
As PC's get cheaper and easier to use, as services pop up that make it easier and easier, not to mention cheaper or even free for average non-technical users to set up some web presence. Throw a stick and you find plenty of examples from MySpace, Facebook, WordPress etc. This means that all those voices who had knowledge of some wrongdoing now have a voice and are increasingly willing to use it. It means that everyone willing to try and scam someone from a safe distance now has a way to do it. It means that everyone with an agenda (good, bad or just sad) now has a way to organize and recruit.
As people spend more and more time with online services which they are interacting WITH other people instead of being a target being sprayed with adverts from corporations in the hopes of leeching some cash for shit they didn't really need. Not only does that take their time and loyalty away from the traditional media companies, it also exposes them to different stories than they see in the mainstream, or different versions of the same stories. That's not to say everything they see / hear / read online is true, but then again that is also true of the mainstream media corporations who they previously DID believe to be true......before the internet made them skeptical.
Without this free access to publishing online, sites like wikileaks would never have gotten than knowledge to the masses. By "the masses" we're not just talking one country, we're talking "the whole planet". Well the whole planet who have not censored them. Without the internet that knowledge would never come out, and the corporations involved would continue to get away with murder because they control the gatekeepers of the knowledge. Any who step out of line have work addresses which can be visited by some "re-educators" with baseball bats. The internet has changed all of that, it's no surprise that the elite are scrambling around trying to silence stuff, they have a LOT of skeletons in their closets which would seriously damage their liberty, money or their reputation which they've carefully managed over the years by controlling the gatekeepers. In short, they have lost control, internet censorship is the only response they have to regaining that control.
Re:All censorship is about control of information (Score:3, Insightful)
I had a few more thoughts while making coffee and since /. won't allow editing of your own posts I'm forced to reply to mine, sorry.....it would have been in the post above if I chose not to publish before making coffee.
When people can set up as bloggers and gain credibility as a reliable source of information based on what they say, this has to be seen as dangerous to the mainstream. It can cut though a lot of money slushing around to get a controlled message out, only to find the controlled version is being dissected by someone with real credibility. When sites and forums offer an uncensored channel of feedback and reviews on something that the manufacturer won't (Apple I'm looking at you here) it can have a hefty impact countering the millions of dollars spent on polishing the message. Microsoft also fell foul of this with Vista being shown as the POS it is despite Microsoft trying to silence the dissenters and bribe the mainstream media. In Microsoft's case it meant that they shipped a dead product that nobody wanted. They had no choice after a while to advance Windows 7.
More and more people are starting to figure out that the last place you want to go for REAL information on a product is the manufacturers sites, as all you'll get there is a sales pitch designed to hype up the positives and not mention the negatives. Corporations know their messages are seen increasingly as sales pitches and are desperate to get the message out but from a source the consumer won't filter out. This is where the role of "independents" come in.
Before the internet these so called "independents" were still being controlled by advertising money etc. If Microsoft advertised in every PC magazine on the shelves, are any of them likely to expose one of Microsoft's crimes if they got a scoop on it? Now with the internet independents can establish themselves by their actions, and are not reliant on advertising by corporations who would rather shut their message down. This means there are REAL alternative voices drawing people away from their carefully controlled messages. Without the internet, if you got all your PC knowledge from magazines you'd be under the impression that Windows and PC's were the same thing, and that it was impossible to separate them.
The ban on online gambling in the US was never about protecting American citizens from harm, it was about protecting the Las Vegas profit streams as more and more American gamblers stayed at home and gambled online instead of visiting their establishments.
Re:skibaldy (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll answer that.
I'd like to point out that I fully agree with the grandparent, and yet also fully support gun ownership. Anything short of a lethal virus, chemical weapon, or fissionable material is fit for use by the average citizen, as far as I'm concerned.
I never understood the move to ban guns, myself. It doesn't make people safer, only less safe. People with no respect for the law or the rights of others are going to get their hands on guns anyway, so why disarm the general public and leave them to the mercy of the criminals?
Nevermind that with world-wide shift towards more authoritarian government, the last thing I want is an unarmed populace.
Re:skibaldy (Score:1, Insightful)
Seven Days magazine did publish directions on building a home-made thermonuclear bomb ( in recipe card format - serves 10 million).
Read it in summer camp about 30 years ago.
Re:skibaldy (Score:3, Insightful)
Governments, even the best of them, should be viewed as a necessary evil.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)