Details On Worldwide Surveillance and Filtering 125
An anonymous reader writes "Help Net Security is running an interview with Rafal Rohozinski, a founder and principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative, which investigates, exposes and analyzes Internet filtering and surveillance practices all over the world. Rafal provides insight on the process of assessing the state of surveillance and filtering in a particular country and discusses differences related to these issues in several regions, touching especially the United States and Europe. In the US, censorship is more difficult to implement if for no other reason than the court systems offer greater protections for freedom of speech. However, in both places surveillance is on the rise particularly as law-enforcement agencies become more adept at working in the cyber domain."
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Interesting)
If you go to that link, mouse over the comic to see the ACTUAL actual reality of the situation http://xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Nice job going for the cheap +5 (Score:2, Interesting)
>> The US has taken a few steps backward since 9-11 - but it still has greater protections over free expression than any other country of which I am aware.
You must not be aware of at least six other countries then, since the US ranked 7th over-all in the 2006 State of World Liberty Index (www.stateofworldliberty.org), and one should reasonably doubt the USA has moved up the scale since.
Re:Nice job going for the cheap +5 (Score:5, Interesting)
As opposed to the complete joke that is FOIA in the US, and the Patriot Act? The various porn regulations in the US, capriciously decided on a state-by-state basis? The DMCA? Software patents? Disney and the insanely extendend copyright laws? The very strange regulations in the US about publication of encryption technologies? "Hate speech" is an understandable concern both for crime prevention, and for free speech reasons. But in my opinion as an outsider, both Canada and Sweden are noticeably better about it.
For US citizens, the McCarthy era is still in living memory, for some of us. So are the 1960's and their repression of anti-Vietnam speech. I like to think we've progressed, and the Internet is very useful for getting around the current round of restrictions. But make no mistake, they still happen, sometimes in new guises.
Re:Unnecessary surveillance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sit in chat rooms, forums and social networking sites trying to connect nerds and geeks in pics to real life.
There are times when I wonder if the chat room nerd has any anchorage in real life.
That is the danger: Caught in the web [theage.com.au] [Oct 1]
My view is the deep fear of random flash mobs on any given topic. The more cops can just watch, the more they can build connections into protest groups.
The geek as revolutionary is ripe for satire.
I'm not convinced he could draw a crowd if he were handing out free beer in Munich during the Oktoberfest. Free Software Foundation - Windows 7 Sins [youtube.com]
Sedate the peasants with low wage jobs, cheap cars, short cheap holidays, cheap housing, free speech for all and the dream of a better life. If they are chasing beads and mirrors all day, no need for tanks in the streets.
It's really quite easy to spot the losers in the American political game: Embittered, cynical, and with bottomless contempt for the masses.
Re:Nice job going for the cheap +5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Swedish army (FRA) is snooping practically every packet going out of Finland.
BTW, Slahsdot does not have ssl connection ...
Kudos to samzenpus for this one... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nice job going for the cheap +5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, I can't believe you got modded up for that snibbling rant. All you did was criticize some programs way out of context as if you didn't understand them and bark about something that happened, was ended, and everyone agrees should never happen again.
The 60's are over, we have all moved on and no one things they should return. McCarthyism is long dead and will not resurrect in out lifetime and it's pointless to drag out FOIA, DMCA, Software patents and so on. The DMCA and Software patents do not limit speech, they limit what you can do with other people's speech. The FIOA is just rubbish, it's more then most countries have. And the Anti-Vietnam war speech often consisted of quite a bit of inflammatory speech and acts that provoked the other side. I mean calling soldiers baby killers, spitting in their faces, throwing pigs blood on them when they return, getting doped out of their mind and ignoring the fact that 90% of the soldiers were compelled by law to server their country during the war time. This doesn't even begin to mention the bombings by the anti war groups, the YAF who promoted anarchy and wondered why the man came down on them after they broke a dozen laws or the riots they created across the country like the big one in Detroit. Hell, a lot of the protesters provoked the other side just to get headlines when they broke and retaliated.
South America (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see any discussion of South America. There is almost no serious Internet censorship in any of the countries. Most have higher political and economic priorities over trying to be thought police of their citizens. I suspect that most of the monitoring going on is really related to true national security issues, not simply trying to control and manipulate the populations.
About a week ago Chile tried to introduce a law in to congress that would require ISPs to monitor and cancel accounts of users for P2P content. It was shot down with only 1 vote in favor in congress. Try that in the U.S. or European countries? Even if it was not constitutional, you would still see some right-wing "save the children" type try vote for it in mass and not even bother reading it.