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Censorship Your Rights Online

Open Networks, Closed Regimes 237

Posted by michael from the technology-is-a-force-amplifier-for-good-or-ill dept.
kris writes "First Monday has an interesting article on Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, presenting evidence that The Internet may not be automatic downfall of authoritan regimes as anecdotes commonly suggest. In their words: The authors trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""
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Open Networks, Closed Regimes

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  • eight authoritarian countries (Score:4, Insightful)

    by matt4077 ( 581118 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:06PM (#5064090) Homepage
    they forgot the US
    • And the UK. And all the other countries in Europe which fall under the jurasdiction of the Euro-DMCA.

      • Re:eight authoritarian countries (Score:4, Interesting)

        by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:18PM (#5064151) Homepage
        Actually it's not too bad over here in the UK... But only by virtue of the fact our government is so f*cking incompetent that most politicians don't even know what the internet is, let alone how to help censor it. Once they learn though...
        • Speak for yourself. As a Briton, I think it's terrible. For someone who doesn't know what the internet is, David Blunkett has managed to cover most bases when it comes to preperatory work for total and utter invasion of privacy. I can't wait until I'm old enough to emmigrate to Canada.

          • Re:eight authoritarian countries (Score:5, Interesting)

            by BrainInAJar ( 584756 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:42PM (#5064270)
            By the time you're old enough to immigrate here, Canada'll have the same facist IP laws as the US and UK. There was an open discussion paper... thing a while ago about a Canadian DMCA. As it stands right now, our cost of blank CD's is rediculous. Future Shop (a Canadian electronics retailer) advertizes blank CDR's [futureshop.ca] at $50 for 100 cd's.
            Not a bad price (shitty CD's, but I just found the first ad for them I could find). Factor in the CDR tax, and it ends up costing you over $100 for them.

            This tax is funneled straight into the **AA's, in a misguided effort to "compensate artists" for "illegal piracy"
            Now, IANAL, but I don't think you can tax an illegal activity, or else Revenue Canada'd be down on East Hastings (drug riddled area) busting every dealer for not reporting income. If they're taxing it, it must be legal now... I'm going to go burn a whole bunch of IP law violations

            Eventually, Canadas parliment will cave to corporate money (though I don't know why, the Liberal party doesn't need to campaign, they're going to win anyways) and make a restictive, evil law like the DMCA. When that day comes, I too will emigrate. I don't know where to though...

            (either that, or bloody revolution. YAY!)
    • While it's all too chic right now to bag on the US and the UK for their positions on the upcoming war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other debatable topics, I hope everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that the very fact that we are debating these topics proves the openness of these societies.

      Anyone who gives serious thought about lumping the US in with these authoritarian dictatorships has obviously never been to said countries.

      Grow up.

      • Re:eight authoritarian countries (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:27PM (#5064207) Homepage Journal
        First they came for the crackers, but I did not speak, for I was not a cracker.
        Then they came for the pirates, but I did not speak, for I was not a pirate.
        Then they came for the copiers of their purchased CDs for fair use, but I did not speak, for I was not a copier of my purchased CDs for fair use.
        Than they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

        • Wrong. It is more like.

          First the came for the crackers, and I was glad because I use computers to run my business.

          Then the came for the pirates, and I was glad for any number of reasons -- mostly because I happen to believe that it is good manners to respect other people's copyrights.

          Lumping people excercising their fair use rights with crackers and pirates is pretty poor logic. Nice try though.

          • Why? Music and Movie Exec think so. Is that not why they are passing the laws to protect us from ourselfs -- but not them.

            • Yes, the Movie and Music folks would like to mandate security with government intervention, wacky-doodle encryption schemes, and other such nonsense, but that doesn't mean that those of us fighting to maintain our rights should shed tears for crackers and pirates that get caught and prosecuted.

              Personally I think that there is a world of difference between the guy in Norway that wrote DeCSS so that he could view legally purchased DVDs on his Linux box and the masses of folks pirating copyrighted works via KaZaa and the like. I am perfectly willing to pay for content, but I am not willing to give up my fair use rights.

              The irony of the situation is that there are publishers, musicians, and probably even movie producers that are willing to meet us halfway. I have bought quite a few ebooks from Baen [baen.com] and Fictionwise [fictionwise.com] that were available in several unencrypted formats, and there are plenty of musicians that are willing to let you download samples of their music for free, and are also happy to produce CDs that will play on your computer.

              The real trick is to force the market in the direction you prefer by supporting the efforts of those that respect your fair use rights. People that copy copyrighted material illegaly are simply strengthening the argument of the people that say that government intervention and strong cryptography is required.

              Oh, and make sure you vote, and also make sure to check the voting record of your elected officials. You might be surprised.

        • Man, when people are comparing the ability to steal music to totalitarian regimes, you KNOW that Americans are rich, spoiled and insulated. There's a lot to be said for the theory that many American's biggest problem is too much peace, freedom and happiness. People get bored and need to manufacture problems in their lives. Of course, your "oppression" is worse than any generation come before, but alas, no one understands.

          I would love to see one of you thrown into North Korea, Iran or Iraq for a while.

          • "Americans are rich, spoiled and insulated.[...]Of course, your 'oppression' is worse than any generation come before, but alas, no one understands."

            Well, I won't dispute that other countries perceive the US as insulated compared to themselves, which probably has some truth to it. As far as being oppressed worse than previous generations, well - thirty years constitutes a generation. How does the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US compare to what it was thirty years ago? It's lower, people make less per hour than they did a generation ago. To maintain the living standards of a generation ago with lower pay, household debt has increased, from 65% of post-tax income to over 100%. Hours worked has also increased, surpassing Japan, with over 100 more hours per year than thirty years ago. So your desire to see this generation of American workers poorer, more debt-burdened, paid less and working more has already come true.

            • How does the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US compare to what it was thirty years ago? It's lower, people make less per hour than they did a generation ago.

              It is only lower if you don't take into account the massive expansion of benefits over the last 30 years, the combination of both have risen over that time.

              Moreover, the employment cost index has risen massively as well, so theoretically you are also getting lots of great stuff from what your employer is paying of your taxes. If you are not, go to the ballot booth and ask for it back...
              • I'm not sure how the decline in the nummber of workers getting a pension fits into the "massive expansion of benefits over the last 30 years". More importantly, if one looks at the productivity increases over the past 30 years, and then compares them to real wages, which are lower than they were thirty years ago, I think the data, and the natural reaction of people to the idea that their wages have gone down in the US because people have more benefits such as bigger pensions to more people sounds and is false. The reality is that the percentage of money going to the worker who creates wealth has decreased enormously, which the percentage of money going to the owner who expropriates the wealth that worker creates has increased enormously.
            • To maintain the living standards of a generation ago with lower pay

              Nobody is trying to maintain the living standards of a generation ago. That is because they would be forgoing personal computers, DVD players, compact discs, microwave ovens, cellular telephones, contact lenses, modern automobiles, FM radios, VCRs, video games, cable television, and cheap long-distance phone calls. Everybody wants a higher standard of living than a generation ago.

              Face it - the poor are getting richer. Less buys more. Consumer debt comes from the fact that expectations are growing faster than wages, not that purchasing power is lower.

              The average inflation-adjusted wage is lower than it was thirty years ago, but the standard of living has risen, even for the poorest.
              • It's logical that if I spend what comes in, or even save a little, and then my wages decrease, and I continue to spend as if my wages didn't, that I would begin going into debt. This is reality. You say it is because expectations are growing faster than wages. But wages aren't growing, they're falling. In a way what you are saying is true, people's expectations are above the reality, people are acting like it's the golden era of American life, thirty years ago, when the reality is things are economically worse for workers and that their expectations have remained constant while the underlying reality, eg. their actual wages, has fallen.

                As far as your list of technological improvements - well, cheap long distance telephone calls it seems to be more to do with de-monopolization by Bell/AT&T, but take television sets. It is true you can get a 20" set for the price of what say a 15" set was thirty years ago. But if one looks at the necessities of the 62-90% (depending on the surveyers point of view) of Americans who are blue collar workers, there are staples like rent, food, transportation and so forth, and then all those electronic goodies are icing on the cake. Well over the past thirty years rents have skyrocketed in relation to the rest of inflation, so the cost of living is a much larger expense in blue collar workers budget than thirty years ago. With declining wages and higher rents, the majority of Americans have less to spend on the newly invented electronic goodies than they did a generation ago.

                • You say it is because expectations are growing faster than wages. But wages aren't growing, they're falling.

                  You've confused yourself. Wages are growing. For instance, the minimum wage has increased by about three dollars over the past thirty years. But they're not growing as fast as inflation, or as fast as expectations.

                  when the reality is things are economically worse for workers and that their expectations have remained constant while the underlying reality, eg. their actual wages, has fallen.

                  Their expectations have *not* remained constant.

                  Expectations (1973): I want a nice place for my family to live, food for them to eat, an automobile, and a television set to amuse myself with.

                  Expectations (2003): I want a nice place for my family to live, food for them to eat, air conditioning, two automobiles, a television set, cable, and maybe a personal computer.

                  Well over the past thirty years rents have skyrocketed in relation to the rest of inflation, so the cost of living is a much larger expense in blue collar workers budget than thirty years ago

                  ... and more people own their homes than ever before.

                  With declining wages and higher rents, the majority of Americans have less to spend on the newly invented electronic goodies than they did a generation ago.

                  And the price of those electronic goodies has fallen a lot faster than the proportion of disposable income. How many hours' labor at minimum wage did a portable cassette player cost at the time of its invention in 1979? About 66. How many hours at minimum wage does it cost today? About one and a half.

                • But wages aren't growing, they're falling.

                  There's actually a logical reason for that: a massive influx of workers that began 30 years ago, namely, women. A HUGE number of women entered the workforce after the "women's lib" movement started. It's actually rather remarkable that wages have only fallen 9% in real dollars (that's the figure I saw).

                  You say it is because expectations are growing faster than wages.

                  I agree with this. For example, according to this link [builderlink.com], the average size of a family home was 1500sf. In 2001, it stood at a record 2,330sf. How many people had multiple television sets in 1970? How many people spent $100/month for cable? How many had multiple cars? How many did 3 year leases on their cars?

                  While 9% decline in average income is significant, it's not enough to explain the explosion of debt. The simple fact is that credit is easier to get now than at any other time in our history. It's pretty easy to talk yourself into that new set of golf clubs when you can make "easy payments" every month.

                  Well over the past thirty years rents have skyrocketed in relation to the rest of inflation, so the cost of living is a much larger expense in blue collar workers budget than thirty years ago.

                  I seriously doubt that the average U.S. rent is all that much higher than 30 years ago. I'd like to see a reference of rents adjusted for inflation before I believe that.

          • Nah, the problem is too many pricks posting to the internet about how everyone else should shut the fuck up because they already have "too much peace, freedom, and happiness."

            What kind of fucking moron thinks there's such a thing as too much peace, freedom, and happiness? Why don't you hie your own ass off to some nice, totalitarian state? I'm sure you'd be happy to go, and I'd certainly be happy to see you go.

            Max
            • What kind of fucking moron thinks there's such a thing as too much peace, freedom, and happiness?

              from your sig: Pedophiles - an abomination that deserves neither tolerance nor compassion.

              If there was such a thing as too much freedom, we wouldn't have laws against pedophiles, would we?
          • You sir, are entirely correct. The situations simply are not comparable, not in the least. It's quite pathetic to pretend they are as well.

            And I am saying this as someone who has spent a great deal of money fighting these things, and who believes the future of the American economy depends on fighting these things.

            But comparing the U.S. to totalitarian regimes is absolutely ridiculous.

      • Nicely put.

        However, your chosen website being thought-control.org is a tad distracting.... :)
      • Like when, like in the 1950's when the leaders of the Communist Party in the US was thrown in jail because he committed the crime, according to the judge, of preaching what Karl Marx said? Along with a bunch of other communists at that time? Not to mention the ones who were denied work for their beliefs, a list of whom were kept in lists like "Red Channels" by ex-FBI men with close ties to the government?

        The US has a a very good record on freedom of speech though, relative to other countries. Speech is not the only freedom though and the US has totalitarian aspects undreamable in other industrialized countries. Case in point: Bush ordered dockworkers on the West Coast back to work by virtue of Taft-Hartley act. The Taft-Hartley act was called the "slave labor" act back in the 1950's because it FORCES people to work against their will. Employers can lay people off as they want, but workers are not allowed to stop working. Labor laws in the United States are frightening, and frankly they are pretty close to a totalitarian country.

      • Yes and no.

        As an American who opposes most of "my" government's policies, who fall back on this sort of reasoning as a defense of American imperialism and plutocracy. The implication that we ought to stand united behind a government which fails to represent our interests simply because we don't get in locked in jail for saying so is absurd. Moreover, there are plenty of countries around the world which respect the most basic civil liberties of its citizens (and quite a number that do a better job of it).

        The history of American is largely one two separate threads. One is those who have advocated for the continued expansion of this great experiment we call democracy -- the anti-Federalists, abolitionists, sufragettes, Populists, labor unionists, Socialists, (some) progressives, New Dealers, and the Civil Rights and peace activists of the 60s.

        On the other side is those who have typically held power, in alliance with the nation's wealthiest and selfish interests. It is they who passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, maintained slavery in the South, opposed voting rights' for women, turned their back on starving farmers, martryed labor leaders, threw the Socialists in jail for speaking out against WWI, opposed anti-trust legislation, let loose the dogs on Martin Luther King, and sent our young men to die needlessly in Vietnam.

        Today, that tradition is being continued by politicians like Bush and Ashcroft who seek precisely to limit our liberty and threaten democracy. To uphold America-under-Bush as a beacon of openness for the rest of the world plays into their hands.
      • The fact that the U.S government tolerates this form of making your opinions public, for now, does not overshadow the fact that the US and UK's actions towards Iraq, for now, will bear great harm towards innocent civilians. I dont want to demonize the US and UK, but its hard.
        • The issue is NOT: Harm innocent civilians or do not harm innocent civilians?

          The issue is: Choose a small war now (when the democracies' odds are good, and we can wage it on our OWN terms) or join a HUGE war later (when the democracies' odds are poorer, and tyrants and terrorists dictate the terms).

          The option of peace is an illusion. We live in a world of war. The best we can do is manage the war. It's a strategy game. You take out the madmen with WMD in small wars to prevent them from waging big wars.

          We've already made the mistake once in 1991. [jpost.com] We backed off of completing the job because we thought the costs were too high, even though we knew Saddam was amassing WMD. Now, 12 years later, the threat is much greater, and the costs also may be much greater. We dare not procrastinate any longer! Iraq is working the black market to get nukes from China, North Korea, or Russia. You think casualties are going to be high if we act now? If we continue to postpone, delay, "give {peace, inspections, diplomacy} a chance" (i.e., give Saddam a chance - to develop nuclear weapons), you ain't seen nothin' yet!

          If it was wrong for the US to sit idle while the Nazi threat was growing, it is wrong to sit idle while Saddam's regime is growing. Saddam supports Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Heck, he is a terrorist! When you see a threat growing, you have to nip it in the bud. It is irresponsible for us to continue to procrastinate. The sooner we act, the better it will be for the whole world -- except for Saddam. He has been given many, many chances to ameliorate the situation, but he has chosen his fate.

          The Iraqi civilians have more to benefit as a result of US/UK action than ANY OTHER party. We come not to conquer, but to liberate. Unfortunately, Saddam has put an evil face on his country. This war will be waged against his government, not the Iraqi civilians. Many innocent people will be killed, but the struggle to wrestle freedom from tyranny always results in bloodshed of the innocent. Freedom isn't free. Blood is the price of liberty.

          • Actually the people who has most to win in an Iraq war is the US oil companies who expect to be able to drill for oil in the after-the-war-Iraq.

            • The U.S. has no such thing to gain. It's a possibility, but is by no means a sure thing. The U.S. will help the Iraqi people setup a new government, not by forcing a government on them, but by keeping U.S. military in the country to prevent a violent coup by Islamic militants and other such extremists.

              U.S. oil companies will get to drill only if the new government lets them, which would probably be decided years after the new government is established.

              Furthermore, the U.S. DOESN'T NEED Iraqi oil, and it is fucking ridiculous to make these stupid claims like you have made. The U.S. gets less than half as much oil from the Middle East as any European country. I could make the claim that EU politicians that are against war in Iraq are against it because they get cheap oil from Iraq with the food for oil program, much moreso than the U.S. does. Perhaps they are affraid of that going away!

              The U.S. has very little to gain from war with Iraq, except the extermination of a dictator who tried to assasinate a former U.S. president.

              Do I support war with Iraq? You bet! Why? To give the people of Iraq freedom! No other reason is there that I care about.

            • Actually the people who has most to win in an Iraq war is the US oil companies who expect to be able to drill for oil in the after-the-war-Iraq.

              You mean drilling new wells will be cheaper than putting out the fires on the old ones?
        • The fact that the U.S government tolerates this form of making your opinions public, for now, does not overshadow the fact that the US and UK's actions towards Iraq, for now, will bear great harm towards innocent civilians.

          Wrong tense, the USAF and RAF bombed civilians in Zi Qar and Missan on Friday.
      • You say:

        While it's all too chic right now to bag on the US and the UK for their positions on the upcoming war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other debatable topics, I hope everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that the very fact that we are debating these topics proves the openness of these societies.

        And I ask, what are we talking about, Openness, ala Glasnost, or Authoritarinaism? Let's all go to the article for a definition:

        When elections and legal opposition parties are present but elections are rigged, rules are manipulated, or power is wielded so that there is no real competition for elected office, the political regime is best described as semi-authoritarian...

        I suppose the competition in the US and the UK between two eternal and indistiguishable parties makes a choice. In theory an elected person can make a difference too. All you have to do is convince people that you are correct by presenting proper facts to back your opinions. Hmmm, how to get past the government/industry controled mass media that can twist anything anyone ever said or did Could it be that the internet can provide that alternate less controled route of truth in public debate? Or will the internet just get bowled over by established interests and become another outlet of bullshit?

        Let's see, using the Clinton sex scandal as an example. Do you remember anything more than the name Monica Lewenski? The name you should remember but will have a hard time finding in print is Paula Jones, the real story sunk under a cartoon of an old man screwing a willing but mentally unstable intern. I take an excellent serries of articles from Vanity Fair and the New York Times as my baseline of, "the truth.": Jones was assulted in a hotel shortly after taking a job , repeatedly harrased, denied promotion and bothered. Later, the American Spectator published and article claiming she had consentual sex with her accoster. She appeared in public presuring him for an appology and a retraction, which were never recieved. Her cause was taken up by others who wished to damage Clinton's political credibility and punish a real wrong. A case was built up showing a patern of behavior of Clinton towards women who worked for under his authority. Clinton's efforts to quash the investigation included payoffs and perjury. The purgury was caught on tape and the whole thing led to impechement which failed to remove Clinton from office. A little google searching finds mostly BS, much like the stuff shoveled out by the AP and networks at the time: the Lewinski Cartoon.

        First the searches


        Now what you see:


        While the details are there, it seems obvious that those details are still difficult to find, even for a relatively informed person. Despite the best efforts of Google and others to organize and present valid and useful information, it seems that the internet can be manipulated by simple flood. Other facts, which draw less public attention, are easier to obscure and burry.

        The idea that internet will defeat tyrany is preffaced on the simple fact that tyranies support themselves with lies and lose all foundation and support when the truth is known and repeated. The internet may yet be able to provide the truth with a forum, but it can be discredited, drowned and otherwise removed even in relatively free situations. Here in the US, the internet is under attack and the attackers have the government's blessing. As you and my ability to connect to the internet as peers goes away, the likelyhood of impartial third party reporting goes. This is happening, despite the internet and few people care.

      • Re:eight authoritarian countries (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Alex Belits ( 437 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @11:56PM (#5065244) Homepage
        I was in USSR since my birth in 1969 and until 1993 when I moved to US.

        All I can say is -- we can have this discussion here because here TALK IS CHEAP, and nothing is supposed to depend on it. It's almost the same in Russia now. It may look less barbaric to have the government that never listens to anyone, and breeds just enough humanlike cattle to vote for itself than the government that restricts speech because it has a lot of educated humans that may listen to it.

        But the problem is, I don't want to talk to the cattle. I want my arguments to be heard by people that may happen to be in control, and here it's not possible. People that disagree with government can just as well talk to each other in prison because no one anywhere close to power would listen to them.
      • While it's all too chic right now to bag on the US and the UK for their positions on the upcoming war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other debatable topics, I hope everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that the very fact that we are debating these topics proves the openness of these societies.
        The problems come when topics cease to be discussed. Especially when when they become taboo or even attempting to raise them leads to ad-hominum attacks.

        Anyone who gives serious thought about lumping the US in with these authoritarian dictatorships has obviously never been to said countries.

        Saudi Arabia and the UAE are US allies; the US played a part in creating the situation in Vietnam; a fairly major part in removing domocracy from Iran and continues to treat Cuba as some kind of major threat.
        Whilst the US may or may not be an authoritarian dictatorship (a point of some contention) over the last 50 or so years the US has both put in place and supported plenty of authoritarian governments.
    • If you can't see the difference between true authoritarianism and things like restricting music trading or software copying.

      If the U.S. were an authoritarian country akin to Singapore, Egypt, or China, it would be illegal for me to say something like "I think George W. Bush is a poor leader and should be replaced as soon as possible." However, that is not the case.

      • it is not an absolute (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zogger ( 617870 )
        IMO, it is neither correct to say the US isn't or is authoritarian. Incidents occur, it's just a matter of scale and what the trends are. for example, here is an (randomly selected google reference) infamous example of obvious presidential abuse of power, ie "authoritarianism"

        http://www.dailyrepublican.com/clintoninsulted.h tm l

        Granted, relatively minor-but not for the victims. Reality and POV change once it ceases being a theory or opinion and becomes a fact that affects someone. I am sure there are any number of millions of similar examples, the vast majority of which are relatively unknown to anyone except the victims and their immediate friends and family. Hmm, the recent story about the lost wallet and the overreaction by armed police and a family dog is an example of "authoritarianism" carried to a harmful degree. Another, ask any relative of a kent state student shot and killed or wounded, their opinion will be different perhaps. It's scale and relativity to any "incident" that would make or break an "absolute" statement.

        I would say that it is more correct to say that the US right now isn't "as bad" as those other named countries, not that "they are" and "we aren't", and that "status" can change on a political whim. Right now, codified into law and challenged and upheld in a "court", all of your US alleged "born with" civil rights may be abbrogated if the executive branch classifies you as an "enemy combatant" or as a "terrorist", with no other anything required but their say-so. A "terrorist" by codified definition (one definition) is anyone who destroys governmental property or a contract. That's a rather broad brush, but it's "de law" now. And once identified as such-again, just because "they say so"-you are rather en-screwed. It used to take either a grand jury indictment to do that, with some still remaining "rights", or being caught in the immediate commission of a crime by a sworn officer. This is no longer the case. That's a pretty good example of the "trends" lately into authoritariansim. There's another one I recall, there's a doctor associated with the investigations into the waco case, he's been held without charge for over 5 years now (IIRC), and been under forced drugging. The story is, he was developing and was about to release some rather embarassing evidence. So he (Charles Thomas Sell, D.D.S, just googled for his name) got snatched up a la the gulag with their historical "psychiatric" abuses for "dissidents". The US "court" has ruled this is perfectly "lawful".

        hmmmmm

        I guess it just depends on where you are standing at any given point in time, and who you are, and what's going on, what "authoritarianism" really is, and whether or not some "state" can be classified as such.

  • er? (Score:4, Funny)

    by RobertTaylor ( 444958 ) <roberttaylor1234.gmail@com> on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:08PM (#5064097) Homepage Journal
    "First Monday has an interesting article..."

    Do they? Where is this? I can just see a two chapter taster of a book, that to read more of I have to pay $$$ ;)
  • I think that society in general would benefit greatly if these network were passed to the Open Souce developer community. With their expertise, dedication, and insight they would be able to run the infrastructure smoother than most telecom corporations. It would provide them with a great medium to transmit their projects, ideas, and p2p connections in a secure manner.

    Only when we unleash the full potential in networks such as UUnet can we attain the goal of providing broadband for the general South American consumer.

    • I think that society in general would benefit greatly if these network were passed to the Open Souce developer community.

      Pardon me, but this sounds like you are asking the companies of the world to hand control over the internet over to a bunch of programmers. While there are some programmers who are not complete bozos when it comes to networks (notably those who write networking software) and some programmers who are also great network technicians, and some network technicians who also dabble in programming -- I am in the latter group -- this sounds like a really bad idea given my experience providing network support to programmers.

      Furthermore, I don't know if you really understand this, but the oldest ISPs were originally all run by hardcore geeks, few moreso than UUnet, which is why it is particularly amusing that you use it as your example.

      Providing internet access is now and has long been a feature of capitalism, which is to say it can only be run by companies at this time. Not a bunch of bozos wearing the "I have no capital" asshat. They're run by corporations for a variety of reasons, one of which being that you need a lot of money.

      It would probably be better for everyone if the government provided a backbone in the same way that they provide freeways, but the need for them to do this has not been established because if the internet exploded tomorrow all the biggest companies would just go back to doing business the way they did it for years and years, namely over point to point links and telephones and so on. A fuckload of cottage industries would implode but so far I don't think there's enough of that to drive us into a complete recession.

  • Sympathetic companies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by davebarz ( 546161 ) <david@@@barzelay...net> on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:08PM (#5064103) Homepage
    One problem is that some of the major players (MS, Google, etc) are sympathetic and will deliver product / change sites in order to conform to the wishes of these totalitarian governments. There is no independence for the companies in those markets. So, when presented with distorted versions of the Internet, it can't possibly be as great a force for freedom as we might like to think.
    • You are absolutle correct!!

      Additionally, I just met these two Chinese sisters (Yeah baby!!) who live in Japan, and I asked them how they felt about the censorship. They said that for the most part they really didn't understand how much information was available. Now that they have seen the "whole internet", they don't want to go back.
    • That's not sympathy, that's capitalism.

      Read IBM and the Halocaust by Edwin Black -- Thomas Watson Jr. (then CEO of IBM) went out of his way to "not know" that IBM was not only selling equipment to the Nazi's, but actually writing the data processing software necessary to find the Jews. In the book, the author implies that Watson supported Nazis because of these actions however anyone familiar with the history of IBM should know that it was pure capitalism. Hitler could have been Jewish going after the "non-Jews" and Watson would still have sold them equipment and written software.

      Microsoft, Google, etc. are worried about their bottom line. And that's classic American business.

    • But, when a US company refuses to make these changes/products the US gets broadly painted as people who interject morality into politics/business practices in stark contrast to the superior Europeans.

      Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So might as well grab the money.

  • OKAY! (Score:5, Funny)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:10PM (#5064112)
    This looks like a long one. Anybody replies in under 2 hours, we KNOW you didn't RTFA.

  • How Much? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:13PM (#5064129) Journal
    OPEN NETWORKS, CLOSED REGIMES
    The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule

    Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas

    Price: $18.95
    Paperback, 208 pp.
    ISBN: 0-87003-194-5
    Pub. Date: Jan. 2003
    Order the book

    How much for one of these ads? I keep asking but no one will tell me.

  • Virus of freedom (Score:4, Interesting)

    by C32 ( 612993 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:13PM (#5064130)
    Once The Man wanted to use the Virus of Freedom to free the populations of lesser countries. .. Now he wants to apply the Vaccine of Anti-terror on the Virus of Freedom to enslave his own population.

  • Their first mistake (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies

    Please don't dilute the term "democracy" by including the U.S. in its definition.

  • Well, duh. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DarkZero ( 516460 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:30PM (#5064217)
    The internet's been around in these countries for quite awhile and yet their totalitarian governments still exist. Simple logic would tell you that under those circumstances, the internet is not a magical anti-authoritarian political warhead that annihilates any oppression that it touches. People need an entire fucking book to tell them this? That's like watching a gun being test fired, seeing it jam, and then telling the guy firing it that you'd like a three hundred page report on how accurately it hit the target.

    I know that if I read more of the book, I'd probably find that it goes well beyond that point, but it appears that the summary, the foreword, and much of the first chapter could be adequately covered by the first half of my last paragraph. That's the sort of overly verbose crap that makes books like these so boring. They're padded so heavily that a couple of sentences is expanded into three repetitive chapters and you don't find anything new or interesting until the fourth chapter or so, if not until the halfway point of the book.
    • Well, yes, you need to get the guns and stuff, plus (usually) a foreign sponsor, overt or covert.

      The point, though, is the ball starts to roll with inspiration, which can be democratic, communist, nativist, imperialist, and so on. The next comment mentions Soviet restrictions on photocopier ownership, which to most of us is pretty hard to understand.

      Does anyone know the ideological genesis of the Tiananmen protests [pbs.org]? They had a model Statue of Liberty and all, clearly their eyes were turned abroad; and in 1989 the internet was still pretty primitive for the average user. What was their link to the outside, and is the legacy of Tiananmen fiasco? Could the Internet have affected the course of these events?

      For purists, it was the Beijing Massacre, not Tiananmen, as the killings took place among fleeing students away from the square by one contingent of the army.

  • First-hand experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PaulBu ( 473180 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:34PM (#5064237) Homepage
    I've grown up in Soviet Union and my late teens were well spent in the whole "perestroika" times. Couple years ago we reminiscented about the time with a good friend of mine (now a sebiour VP of one of major Moscow banks ;-) and discussed when did we both realize that Commies are doomed. His take was: "When one was able to go to a store and pay cash for a Xerox machine" (you have to understand that photo-reproduction equipment had to be licensed in Soviet times), my take was "When I was able to send e-mail to and receive from abroad".

    Maybe a bit naive (now knowing perfectly how insecure our email is :) ), but still... Maybe his take is more relevant, in this world you would need the technical ability to disseminate Free (even if illegal) press way more than electronic datastreams. To read the latter one need kind of a box, you know... ;-)

    Paul B.

  • Write your congressmen! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:38PM (#5064250)
    If you're concerned about the potential consequences to privacy and freedom this might entail, there's really only one thing you can do: Make your government aware of your misgivings. It's YOUR government damn it. You may have decided to let it run itself these last few years, but ultimately the founding fathers made sure that the government would be, in some way, answerable to you - be that, arguably as originally intended, on a State by State level, or, as it is now, on a more pluralist democratic level (yes, as long as the legislature is answerable to the populace, it's a democracy. You don't need more than that, all this BS about rule by plebicite is just that: BS)

    Your government throws money at all types of security "solutions" right now because it believes that is what you want it to do. It believes that, given the events of the last 14 months, you are frightened enough to break Franklin's famous principle about trading freedoms for security. It will do anything to make you feel safer, not only by making you safer, but by throwing tax payer dollars at pointless and socially dangerous projects such as internet censorship, as well as more infamous projects such as the face scanning technologies used in Tampa that were found to misidentify a large percentage of the population.

    This quagmire of government spending to make you feel safer regardless of the consequences will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

    You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Tell them not to do anything. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to protect your safety, or that you're fed up of taxpayers money being spent on enforcing unenforcable laws, but if money keeps being thrown at half-assed half-implemented solutions that you either agree or disagree with, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how half implemented laws harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on whether or not they either implement the law fully, or abolish it, depending on your point of view.

    You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

  • The best thing I love about slashdot is.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gortbusters.org ( 637314 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:40PM (#5064261) Homepage Journal
    the vast majority of the users, authors, etc would like the internet to be an embodiement of freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom to post whatever you want, etc. While the internet was still becoming popular, before TV commercials posted website URL's in their ad's, corporate America (or the culture that embodies it) didn't have such a vicious stake in the ground. Yes, it allowed things like Napster, for a short while.

    As technology is challenging old business models (the way mp3's have suposedly challenged traditional casette and CD purchasing), it is creating an increasing number of conflicts between the information eutopia and the ruling bodies (i.e. countries) it spans.

    Does anyone have an idea on what the future will look like for the internet?
    • I think the cries of "free information" are typically hypocritical. Most of the Slashdot crowd who cry about free information are the first to cry about companies that want their "private information" and would have a tantrum if someone started reading files on their computer at leisure.
      • Oh, come on.

        You can't reasonably equate a desire for the free flow and exchange of information, ideas, opinions, and artwork with corporate harvesting of contact and demographic information for marketing purposes.

        Democracy functions on our ability to effectively communicate with one another, not the ability of predatory business interests to violate our privacy.
    • Does anyone have an idea on what the future will look like for the internet?

      Ok, I've been making this argument for about 5 years now. It's not incredibly insightful, it's basically just how things historically work.

      Imagine the Wild West...

      In the beginning you were pretty much free to do whatever you wanted. Wasn't too many people around, nobody really cared. Move your cattle from Texas to Utah across miles of open territory.

      Eventually people started moving out west, formed communities.. established businesses and put up fences. Well the newcomers and the oldtimers didn't take kindly to one another. But the newcomers were more populous and had more money, so they started hiring Marshalls and Sheriffs and Judges and so on and started cracking down on what you could and could not do.

      Eventually something becomes large enough where people feel it needs to be regulated, monitored and controlled. The Internet is beginning to get more and more notice, the proliferation of child porn, spam, scams, copyright violations and so on.

      We're already seeing the FBI, FTC and other US agencies spend more time on this. That's only going to increase over time.

      Now how does this play out on a global scale? That I don't know. With the Westernized Capitalist nations we'll likely see treaties signed which deal with cross-jurisdictional issues. Someone in Australia is caught distributing Child Porn by someone in Denmark, the authorities will have recourse to call up Australia and have him nabbed. This type of cooperation is already happening today, and increasingly becoming more important further in light of this war on terrorism.

      As to these other nations the ones mentioned in this article... They'll just continue trying to control users, or isolating themselves from the outside world.

      It's the language effect I'm curious about. The initial design didn't really allow for compartamentalizing by language choice. I like the options google.com gives now of restricting results to a particular language. Very helpful. Will the world standardize on English, or will the Internet evolve further to isolate? Perhaps it depends on the nations involved.

  • And of course, there's Palladium... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jejones ( 115979 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @06:44PM (#5064283) Journal
    ...the ultimate mechanism to bolster repressive regimes, soon to appear at a store near you.

  • Myth (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mikelikus ( 212556 )
    It was always a myth that the world would be contaminated with the virus of US thinking.

    At the time everyone was thinking about the impact the internet would have in dictatorships also everyone was saying that internet was boasting discussion about every topic possible. Free speech was bad for oppressive regimes.

    Interesting it is that noone thought at the time the internet could be a major way to challenge the western regimes. It's not a bad thing (tm) per se, actually it's quite good to the world that discussion about what kind of regime is best for the world. Maybe new ideas might come up... Afterall for all it's failings democracy is the best form of government that we can come up with [idealog.info] (quote: Winston Churchill)

    Hurray for the internet.

    • Only a myth if you think it happens overnight... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @08:00PM (#5064583)
      So many of the comments here say that Internet leading to freedom is a myth because it hasn't worked yet. The problem is that there is no way it can work quickly. Does anyone really think that just giving someone the Internet is going to make the population of some country slap themselves on the collective forehead, and say "How dumb were we?" At best, it will take years before even relatively free desemination of information will undermine a totalitarian regime. The flow information must cause ideas to germinate, discussion to start, groups to form, and a movement to start. Just look at the Vietnam war protests. They didn't happen overnight. It took 10 years for them to develop into their full-blown power. Or even the American Revolution, that didn't happen overnight in 1776. There were years, arguably decades, of events leading up to it.
    • The world absolutely has been contaminated with the virus of US thinking, in the same way that we have been "contaminated" with some other cultural memes. It does seem that more of the world has been infected with USness than the other way around. People all over the planet dress in ways pioneered by Americans and listen to music invented by Americans. They drive cars influenced by american styling, or actually made by american companies.

      Of course here in America we like to drive German cars and we take in more and more Japanese media as a culture (though the whole world drinks ours in rapaciously) and we eat French cuisine and... well you get the idea. But we were a mishmash to begin with, and that is what makes "our" memes so successful; they are made up of pieces of everyone else's. Anything that survives being picked apart by all of the cultural sensibilities here in the US has a strong chance of succeeding out in the rest of the world.

  • As reported earlier today on this very site, the US has been e-mailling [slashdot.org] Iraqi officials in an attempt to get them to defect.

  • Post predictions! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @07:26PM (#5064450)
    • 40% will say "They forgot the US"
    • 20% will chide us for forcing US values on them
    • 20% will say "Keep government out of the internet!"
    • 10% will mention the Great Firewall of China ("Not really the whole internet!")
    • 5% will mention FreeNet, etc.
    • 4% will blame it all on Microsoft's TCP/IP stack in IE.
    • 1% will be inane post predictions

  • Pretty loose definition of authoritarian (Score:5, Informative)

    by raju1kabir ( 251972 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @08:33PM (#5064679) Homepage

    I've lived in Saudi Arabia and Singapore, and anyone who mentions them both in one breath is insane. Saudi Arabia is a society where religious police patrol the streets looking for and beating people who don't go to prayers, who keep their stores open or use pay phones during the 5 daily prayer periods, or who are women and show their ankles or noses. It's a country where government agents hang around in the mosques listening for rabblerousers, who are summarily dragged off for interrogation.

    Singapore, on the other hand, is basically what you get if you combine the social conservatism and corporate-centricity of the USA with the ridiculous libel laws of the UK. It's far closer to the USA than it is to Saudi Arabia.

    And the big difference is, in Singapore, people want it that way. They have one of the world's highest income levels, they have safety, they have long life and good health, and they have enough freedom not to feel stifled. One of the greatest achievements is that there's basically no sectarian trouble despite significant Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu populations all sharing a small and dense space. Any number of polls has turned up time and time again that the vast majority wouldn't change a thing.

    Singapore is effectively a one-party state. In part that's because only a minority have wanted change. It's also because the PAP is aggressive in its use of libel action to silence non-member candidates who make too much noise.

    Personally, coming from a tradition where freedom of expression is a cherished core social value, I find that uncomfortable. But it doesn't change the fact that it works for Singapore. And it's not the sort of country where people would feel like they couldn't complain to me because they'd get taken away by the secret police.

    Anyway, by conflating these - though the material online was too thin to really be able to get to the bottom of their evidence - they seem to elide over the likely fact that the internet's open expression is a far greater threat to a regime like Saudi Arabia, which is unpopular anyway - than to one like Singapore's. Without relatively complacent countries like Singapore and UAE to soften the mix, I doubt their thesis would stand. Additionally, the inclusion of countries like Burma and to some extent Vietnam, where internet is a non-factor in general society, clouds their point further.

    • ...the ridiculous libel laws of the UK.

      Right, because UK newspapers are renowned the world over for their not-at-all-sensational nature.

  • Who is the authoritarian? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by br00tus ( 528477 ) on Saturday January 11, 2003 @09:02PM (#5064766)
    I find the choices of countries that are "authoritarian" odd. Every country in the world is authoritarian to some extent, so at that point countries become authoritarian relative to one another. Cuba is called authoritarian, although Colombia is not. Unsurprisingly, Cuba is a small country that has embarrassed the leaders of the United States a great deal, from the New Years revolution of 1959 to the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, the Mariel boatlift to it's offer in 2000 to mediate the US elections. And there's no doubt that it has a high degree of authoritarianism - but relative to the rest of Latin America I would ask if it is so much more so than virtually every other Latin American country. In Colombia, hundreds of union activists are killed every year by death squads - in Brazil, death squads roam city streets at night killing homeless children. And the average Cuban has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Of course, US corporate media constantly puts Cuba under a microscope, and finds some real problems, but it seems odd to me that the only Latin American country found fault with is one US rulers have problems with, despite the fact that there are many countries in Latin America which are much worse.

    And again in terms of small countries which have embarrassed the US - Vietnam is another example. It's almost beyond belief that a US-funded study would call Vietnam's government authoritarian. What would they call the puppet government they tried to prop up from the 1950's on, where memoes and even Eisenhower's memoirs say the US leaders didn't want an election in Vietnam because they knew the anti-colonialist/imperialist candidates would win? And before that the Western leaders (US, France, England etc.) were trying to keep it a French colony.

    I'm tired of having the faults of only the countries who US leadership feels is not to their liking at the moment pointed out. I am an American, but I often think leaders who are criticized in the corporate press (Chavez, Lula) are better people than the ones glossed over. I find more common cause with the working class people like me in these countries than I do with the owners of the press and elite of my own country frankly. As the Bible says, check out the log in your own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else's.

    • "Cuba is called authoritarian, although Colombia is not."

      Colombia has a president and a vice president elected for four-year terms by popular election.

      Cuba has Fidel Castro.

      Colombia a bicameral legislature with representatives chosen by popular election.

      Cuba has Fidel Castro.

      Colombia has four different high courts dealing with different matters with clear lines of division.

      Cuba has... you get the idea.

      "In Colombia, hundreds of union activists are killed every year by death squads"

      Death squads that are not sanctioned by the government and are actually hunted down (if for no other reason than to keep DEA money flowing in).

      "And the average Cuban has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America."

      GDP per capita in Colombia: $6300

      GDP per capita in Cuba: $2300

      "US corporate media constantly puts Cuba under a microscope,"

      Other than US sugar growers, most US businesses would rather sanctions against Cuba be dropped. They have things they want to sell in Cuba, and Cuban laborers would probably work for as little as the Chinese.

      "It's almost beyond belief that a US-funded study would call Vietnam's government authoritarian."

      Yes, it's changing, but it might have something to do with their history and what they did to their own people in the mid- to late-70's. They did things Stalin didn't even think of. Why do you think there were so many Vietnamese people fleeing the country in make-shift rafts after the "final" "peace" treaty was signed?

      "but I often think leaders who are criticized in the corporate press (Chavez"

      You mean the guy who extended the length of presidential terms after he got himself elected president? Yeah, real bastion of morality and democracy there...
      • >> And the average Cuban has one of the highest
        >> standards of living in Latin America.
        > GDP per capita in Colombia: $6300
        > GDP per capita in Cuba: $2300

        These two things have little to do with each other. Why would you take the GDP and divide on a per capita basis? This almost implies that all of the wealth created in (or taken out of) the country is equally distributed. Since this is not the case, by a long shot, I wonder why you would divide GDP by population, since doing that has no connection to anything in existence. The billions of dollars in oil that Occidental pumps out of Colombia every year is applied to GDP, but how much of that do Colombian peasants see of that? Very little, if anything, a lot of it goes to buy the guns and pay for the troops that stomp through their villages, which hardly increases their "standard of living", it decreases it in my opinion. It seems to me the wages paid to people would have more of a connection to their living condition.


        According to the World Bank [worldbank.org], which is hardly biased against Colombia for Cuba, the average Cuban female lives 5 years longer than the average Colombian female, and the average Cuban male outlives the average Colombian male by 7 years. 93% of Cubans have access to safe water compared to 63% of Colombians, the adult illiteracy rate is higher in Colombia than Cuba, the average Cuban gets to use more electricty, a higher percentage of Cubans have better sanitation, by virtually every scale Cubans are better off than Colombians. As I said several times, I never said Cuba was not authoritarian or that it didn't have substantive problems, I just wonder why it is the Latin American country whose foibles are always pointed out. And if you really want to see poverty, look at Guatemala, whose democratically elected government the CIA helped overthrow in 1954, and whose people were kept down, with the support of the US elite over the past decades - as late as 1998 the Catholic bishop who had been a voice for human rights there was killed.


        Also as far as Colombia's government - the government declared a "state of emergency" a few months ago to allow for rule by decree and the restriction of civil liberties. The government can "restrict personal movement, detain people for suspicion with no evidence, conduct warrantless searches and wiretaps, and limit press freedom." This is also a country where in 1958, left wing political parties were banned in the government you seem to love so much - yes, great democracy, although you can only vote for the right wing. This lasted until 1974 when some cracks began to open up, M-19 becoming a legal party in 1989, but political activity is still restricted and candidates often wind up dead.


        "[Chavez?] You mean the guy who extended the length of presidential terms after he got himself elected president? Yeah, real bastion of morality and democracy there..."


        You conveniently neglect to mention that the new constitution was electorally approved by large margins and that Chavez was re-elected under the new constitution.

  • That's right, there are several ways to do this. One the most obvious here is to choke it off. Two, regulate content. Three litigate - and yes litigation particularly international law is a weapon of warfare in the 21st century. Four pick your truth, this is the corporate option. Don't lie, just limit what you tell the truth about.

    I'm not shocked that the mindless radicals here make obligatory statements about the US "wahtaboutda US !!!" But if you think there is oppression here then you faux Che wannabess really have to live in a poor country. I have and it deeply and truly sux, there is no comparison.
  • What makes anyone think that the internet isn't going to be the unstoppable "virus of freedom" in the world? Did people expect a tsunami of change to happen overnight?

    Political changes are generational things. In the United States, the civil rights act was passed in the mid-60's, and real change in the South is just happening now, as this comment is being read. In this particular case, it had to wait for the diehard bigots in congress and in the electorate to die off. Freedom in the Soviet Union took a similar change of leadership, over a similar length of time.

    There are two general cases that need to be considered, those being "rich" countries and "poor" countries. In those countries where sizeable chunks of the population are starving, changes of politics are quite secondary to the average citizen (though perhaps they should not be, in the long run). Adlai Stevenson expressed it well when he said, "A Hungry Man is not a Free Man." These people have no time to be interested in the internet, though even here, the internet will make changes over the long haul.

    In countries where hunger is not the primary motivating force, changes will come faster. One can see the ripples even now -- spend some time in Hong Kong and look around. In some of the most repressive theocracies on the planet, voices for change are being raised, and one of the primary ways we know about them is through the internet.

    Have patience; revolutions that happen overnight tend to be accompanied by copious quantities of blood. With any luck, things in many of these places may happen as they did in the Soviet Union. One day, we may wake up and notice that tyrants are becoming yet another endangered species.

  • The subject line says it all. Apparently the author, unable to think in spans of longer than ten years, concludes that the internet isn't a tool for freedom because every oppressive regime that doesn't have at least one internet-connected computer hasn't collapsed on itself already.

    The internet isn't a violently intrusive tool. If it does contribute to the downfall to repression it'll do so slowly and insidiously, over the course of decades. Since most nations of the world had either no connection or a negligible connection to the internet back in '93, no conclusion can reasonably be reached as to its effect.

    The book is bullshit, pure and simple. No one is in a position to say much of anything on the topic, and won't be for at least another 20 or 30 years.

    Max

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