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Censorship The Internet Your Rights Online

Privacy International Internet Censorship Report 174

Posted by michael from the icmp-quench dept.
eric434 writes "The Register reports that Internet restrictions, government secrecy and communications surveillance have reached an unprecedented level across the world, from 9/11-inspired Patriot-esque laws to national internet filtering and corporate abuse of the legal system. Summarizing the Privacy International report, it's quite evident that we've not only approached but started down a slippery slope. In the words of Simon Davies (director of Privacy Intl.), 'The report sounds a warning that we must move quickly to preserve the remaining freedoms on the Internet before they are systematically extinguished.'"
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Privacy International Internet Censorship Report More

Privacy International Internet Censorship Report

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  • SPAM Laws (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bigjocker ( 113512 ) * on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:38AM (#7004475) Homepage
    That's why I oppose solving the Spam problem using laws and politics. We should oppose those laws as we opose any law that tries to control or censor any other area of the internet. How long until any of the Spam laws are used against the Net?

    The Spam problem is a technical one, and as such should be solved technically. Somebody once compared a political solution to the spam problem with the laws that make you use the seat belt, but this is not the same case. There are no rightful uses for crashing your car when not whearing a seat belt, but there are rightful uses for some mass e-mails (distribution lists, discussion groups, legally registered advertisement, etc).

    The current system is flawed. Blame it on the SMTP protocol or the administrators that use it without knowing it. There lies the problem and there it should be solved. There are great proposals for solving this (digital certificates or pgp signatures at the transport layer, etc), and I (as many of us are) am willing to adopt any new technology that should solve this problem, if it is incompatible with the current email technology, well, bad luck, somewhere the first step must be taken. Look at IPV6.

    • Re:SPAM Laws (Score:4, Interesting)

      by proj_2501 ( 78149 ) <mkb@ele.uri.edu> on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:41AM (#7004526) Journal
      It all depends on whether the marketplace digs in or not.

      We could easily phase in a mailsystem that's much less prone to abuse than SMTP.
      But will anyone use it?

    • Re:SPAM Laws (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lommer ( 566164 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:23AM (#7004965)
      The Spam problem is a technical one, and as such should be solved technically.

      No. This argument is made frequently on slashdot, and I am thouroghly (sp?) convinced that it is wrong. While the problem of spam may have technical aspects it is a different problem. Spam is a moral problem - it is a case of a select few people abusing a system for their own profit, thereby ruining the effective usefulness of the system for others. One persons right to infringe upon the rights of another in all other aspects of our society is primarily governed by laws, and I see no reason why the spam problem should not be either. Granted there are legitamite uses, and therefore such legislation must be careful to take these into account. However, this is an almost guaranteed certainty, given the current complexity of the legal system, adding such exemptions, checks and balances would be no problem - in fact it would be considered neccesary by many legal and constitutional experts.

      Opting for a purely technical solution has problems of its own. We have already seen some attempts at technical stopgap measures designed to stem the flood of UCE, but these have generally just resulted in an escalation in the tactics of spammers (e.g. faking return addresses, using trojan horses to create relays, etc.)

      The problem of spam is NOT a technical one. It is a moral one and its solution therefore lies in the legal system.
      • The problem of spam is NOT a technical one. It is a moral one and its solution therefore lies in the legal system.

        What are you, a lawyer?

        I feel sorry for people who believe that solutions to moral problems lie in the legal system. I don't think it's immoral to drive 16 mph in a 15 mph zone. I do cruelty is immoral, even when "legal." Please tell me, exactly how does the legal system solve moral problems?

        The problem with spam on Simple Mail Transport Protocol is that the it doesn't require authentica

      • It is a moral one and its solution therefore lies in the legal system.

        Again, why? Codifying morality into law causes immeasurable victimization of otherwise innocent people. We aren't talking about child porn, here, only useless wasteful e-mail. Why should I feel a need to hire an expensive lawyer just so I can feel safe in sending any e-mail, under your new systems of legal checks? Do you think corporate e-mail legal departments are a good thing? Can you propose educating the public in a manner that
    • You say that there are some good reasons for mass mailings and yet you suggest we eliminate the possibility to do them by technical means. This smells awfully like DRM. I don't want to lose the possibility to send anonymous e-mails when I really need it. I don't want the possibility to mass-mail completely eliminated either. Both things are some of the freedoms that we currently enjoy. To remove them just in order to solve the spam problem is unacceptable to me.

      A better analogy would be not seat belt laws,

  • You Ever Get The Feeling... (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Angry Mick ( 632931 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:39AM (#7004500) Homepage


    ...that all of these changes in copyright law, and collection of personal information is really just some giant, and perversely evil scheme designed to make marketing easier?

    • Re:You Ever Get The Feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by annielaurie ( 257735 ) <annekmadison@hotmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:02AM (#7004780) Journal
      Oh, I believe a great many people have that feeling. The current administration supports big business over all else, and the preservation of their assets and ability to make money is paramount. A large, docile population of people who just contentedly feed that personal information without becoming distressed is ideal.

      Take a look at the new additions to the anti-spam legislation; the "direct mailers" are now responsible for "self policing." In other words, the wolves have been given yet another key to the fold.

      We've had a "common enemy" created for us in Sadam Hussein while our actual enemy (Osama bin Laden) continues to elude us. I have no doubt this was done to induce patriotic feelings; no one, really, wants to make life harder for the soldiers or to appear to be comforting our enemies--even make believe ones. I suspect we'll queue up gladly to authorize airline security to pull credit reports--for example.

      All this is going to go swimmingly until enough of us have lost our jobs that we can't keep the money-making machine going any longer.

      As I read back over this, I'm surprised at myself. I'm your basic hardworking ordinary Boomer. Something in your short post must've struck a chord.

      Anne

      • The current administration supports big business over all else...

        This is bound to inflame the leftists out there.

        We need to make a distinction, and important one: The current administration supports big business' rights over the rights of the individual. This inequity is terrible and isn't specifically "republican" or "democratic." Rather it is a crime against the US Constitution and all US citizens. It is a sign of corruption that really can only be dealt with over the next several elections. We ne
      • The current administration supports big business over all else, and the preservation of their assets and ability to make money is paramount.

        What does the president's administration have to do with corporate privacy policies? Except in the rare case of a national security concern, they are mostly separate issues. If you insist on tying tech politics to presidential politics, I'll remind you that spam and spyware came to be major problems during the Clinton administration. Of course, this is all Al Gore's f

    • Well Ive been on a William Gibson bender so my view may be skewed but id say DAMN STRAIGHT BROTHER!

  • Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Interesting)

    by __aagmrb7289 ( 652113 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:39AM (#7004506) Journal
    Okay, so, I'm all for a call to arms to fight back and keep the Internet as free of restrictions, monitoring, etc. as possible. But this "report" is pretty factless and pointless. There doesn't seem to be a lot of connections between their points. I guess I feel the same way about this report as I did the propaganda about drugs I got from school - sure, I'm not particularly interested, so fine, I agree in principal, but why lie and mislead to make a point? I mean, I know WAY too many people who tried drugs because obviously the authorities were lying and so they were apparently trying to "protect" us against something good - so why not try it?

    I'm not saying this report is lying, but I am saying that it exagerates, and misleads. And we shouldn't support that kind of crap - ESPECIALLY about things that matter to us.
    • I know WAY too many people who tried drugs because obviously the authorities were lying and so they were apparently trying to "protect" us against something good - so why not try it?

      Good? How do you figure?

    • You raise some interesting points. You're right that we should carefully choose what we support.

      However, you are doing exactly what you accuse the article of.

      Your post is factless. You should give some examples of what you are complaining about, rather than just complain.

      There also doesn't seem to be a lot of connection between your points. What exactly does anti-drug propaganda have to do with this? It's unclear if you are comparing the Privacy International Report, the Register article or government

      • I'll do it for him (Score:4, Informative)

        by IthnkImParanoid ( 410494 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @12:19PM (#7005591)
        That has to be one of the most frustratingly vague article I've ever read; it's far below normal post-to-slashdot standards, and that's saying quite a bit.

        The development of the Internet has lead to more horizontal and less vertical communication

        Huh? What does this mean, and how is it relevant?

        This study has found that censorship of the Internet is commonplace in most regions of the world.

        Exact definition of censorship? Can I get some sort of quantification of "commonplace" and "most regions" please?

        It is clear that in most countries over the past two years there has been an acceleration of efforts to either close down or inhibit the Internet.

        Apparently it's so clear no examples of such accleration are necessary.

        Some American cable companies seek to turn the Internet into a controlled distribution medium like TV and radio, and are putting in place the necessary technological changes to the Internet?s infrastructure to do so.

        Who are 'some american cable companies?' How? What sort of technological changes?

        Technological developments are being implemented to protect a free Internet

        Examples?

        I'm not disagreeing with their overall point, mind you, but the article reads like some people sat around creating a bullet point list of ways they've heard the internet being censored, and then handed the list to their 16 year old intern to fill out. Research? Journalism? The writers know not these things.

  • Sisyphus (Score:4, Insightful)

    by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:39AM (#7004507) Homepage Journal
    " ... it's quite evident that we've not only approached but started down a slippery slope.

    I prefer to think in terms of approaching and starting up the slippery slope of liberty ... rather like the labors of Sisyphus. The bad guys keep making the slope steeper and slipperier ... and the damned rock heavier ....

  • just a quick comment (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shymon ( 624690 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:39AM (#7004509)
    first off, no i haven't read the thing yet, just felt the need to say something on the whole privacy on the net thing. There will always be a balance between safety and freedom. in this case that freedom being our privacy. with absolute privacy any number of bad things can arise that we didn't intend. for example truly anonymous file servers could distribute kiddy porn or credit card and social security numbers at will, after all with perfect privacy there would be no way to trace them. and also having no privacy is also a very bad idea for reasons to obvious to state. so the balance is somewhere in the middle and, as i understand it from the article summary, it is simplu shifting in the direction of less privacy. what we really have to ask is if we want this greater safty at the cost of some of our privacy? which is most definately not a cut and dry problem in and of itself. so sorry about not having a factoid about some part of the article but i just wanted a balanced counterpoint to the inevitable bashing of the loss of privacy on the net.
    • Don't misunderstand this, but the redistribution of kiddy porn is a minor problem and tracking down people distributing it does not realy help much.
      The real big problem is the PRODUCTION of these things and regulation/monitoring on the net would have to be realy orwellian like, to help fighting the root of the problem for your example.

      Are you willing to give up (almost) all of your privacy, to help in a successful fight against kiddy porn, that solves this problem in its root?

      It is very difficult to find
      • Bah, when they do bust kiddy porn rings, pedophile rings, child sex slave rings, nobody gets in trouble. Because there are too many big names on their client list. There was a big bust in Denmark, I believe. Guy had two girls, 10 and 12, starving to death in his basement, who had been repeatedly sexually abused. There were the remains of several other children in his back yard. And he had a big list of names, including a lot of politicians and judges and police officers and foreign officials. Of cours

    • Your balance is a dangerous one. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lysium ( 644252 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:16AM (#7004897)
      I can meet someone at a diner, and swap porn and credit card numbers to my hearts content. Should resturant booths come equipped with audio/visual recorders to protect against this threat?

      ==============

  • Abuse of the Legal System (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ratamacue ( 593855 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:41AM (#7004522)
    corporate abuse of the legal system

    Remember, corporations only abuse the legal system because they can. The root of the problem is government, and the fact that government has the ability to continuously expand government year after year without limit. The bigger the government, the more complex, ambiguous, and exploitable the law. The solution is to eliminate the powers of government that make it possible -- not to expand government even more via regulation, taxing, etc (all of which are guaranteed to be exploited too). We need to impose strict limits on the scope and expense of government, or the system will continue to be exploited by its very nature.

    • Yeah, well, try voting. Make the change. The government means you and I in the USA, at least.

    • Re:Abuse of the Legal System (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's a rather typical Conservative viewpoint. "Regulation causes loopholes, so just lift the regulations. Corporations will behave themselves. Honest!"

      Bullshit. Tacitus doesn't know everything, you know.

      While I don't advocate *more* government, I do advocate the restriction of corporate rights as they are "applied" to the Constitution. Corporations aren't given the power...They take it, and the government is too scared or corrupt to take it back.
    • Reducing government will solve the problem, but not in the way you think. Corporations won't exploit the law anymore, because they won't have to--they'll be able to exploit the people directly.

      How much do you think your electricity, water, and telephone services would cost without government regulation?

      We're making progress as long as we force them to spend huge amounts of time and money crawling through loopholes, which are finite in number and closed at very little cost.

      The real solution is to return
      • How much do you think your electricity, water, and telephone services would cost without government regulation?

        A lot less than they do now, because without government standing in the way, competition would flourish. Competition drives the market price down. Remember, public utilities are essentially monopolies created and sustatined through the force of government. Monopolies have no incentive to provide efficient service or reduce prices; after all, the customer only has one choice.

        • Re:Abuse of the Legal System (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Government monopolies also ensure that services are distributed fairly and equally. The telcos only run line to rural areas because the government makes them do it.
        • I doubt anything I can say will change your deeply ingrained worldview, but here are a few points for consideration:

          1) An entirely free market tends towards a state of monopoly. Businesses will tend to conglomerate and use "unfair" tactics to keep their market share. Anti-trust is the only thing in this country preventing 100% monopoly. There is a wealth of evidence supporting this. Look at any major products/services...the majority of market share is usually dominated by two competing companies. By m
      • How much do you think your electricity, water, and telephone services would cost without government regulation?

        Er, how does 5 cents a minute sound?

        This isn't a matter of absolute regulation or absolutely no regulation, only a matter of reducing regulation as much as possible. It is arguable that nearly all regulation can be done away with, as all of it really is a variation on a theme: don't lie cheat steal or murder. It shouldn't take millions of pages of federal law to state that.
    • This argument, while popular with ideologists, is deeply flawed, for it assumes that corporations have no intrinsic power.

      It has been proven time and again that, without government restraint, corporations will act to form cartels and monopolies that control the prices of goods and services. They can also control wages in a similar fashion. And the only thing stopping them from completely co-opting elected representatives through bribery is legislation (ineffective as it often is).

      The proposed solution of

  • What is censorship? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:49AM (#7004615) Homepage
    This article seems to confuse the distinction between monitoring, censorship, and invasive monitoring.


    I have no problem with the government search websites and public areas of the internet. But, the line has to be drawn there. Without a warrant, the policing authorities should have the same right as an individual, as in looking into what is clearly visible. But, getting into snooping e-mail or hacking systems they must have a warrant, issued by a judge without rubber stamp.


    This is clearly different from censorship which is the prevention of publication of materials. Of course, you have a potential for censorship where you allow for a non-checked police checking identities of posters.

    • Censorship can come in many forms. Intimidation, for example, can be a form of censorship. While it doesn't include specific measures to prevent publication, the fear that one or more people might have of any ensuing consequences can be its own form of censorship. It's indirect, but it can be very effective.

  • Too many issues for a simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Polymath Crowbane ( 675799 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:58AM (#7004735)
    Unfortunately, this is about much more than Internet privacy. There are at least two major issues that are going to make solutions especially difficult:

    Whose ox is being gored? There is little consistency in the positions and posturings of those involved in the privacy debate. For example, we believe in freedom of expression on the Internet...except for those who promulgate hate speech (which is defined as speech I find offensive). We believe in respecting the privacy of those on the Net...except for those who I believe are abusing the Net (they're fair game for any abuse I choose to heap on them).

    National sovreignty: There seems to be two approaches to this: national sovreignty applies to every nation, except, of course, those nations with policies I don't like; and national sovreignty applies to no one, except, of course, those evil transnationals (and any other organization I don't like) who need to be under the sovreignty of every country.

    Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." It would appear that consistency of any kind is the hobgoblin of all of us. What this means is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, just as there is no one-size-fits-all ideologies. We are going to have struggle together to arrive at workable solutions. We're going to have to listen to those with whom we disagree and work together to create the best compromise we can.

    • "There is little consistency in the positions and posturings of those involved in the privacy debate. For example, we believe in freedom of expression on the Internet...except for those who promulgate hate speech (which is defined as speech I find offensive). We believe in respecting the privacy of those on the Net...except for those who I believe are abusing the Net (they're fair game for any abuse I choose to heap on them)."

      I don't know about anyone else, but I'm being completely consistent. The hate sp
    • Wow.... Personaly I think the only thing that should be restricted from the net are "things" like kiddie porn and snuff. in other words where someones rights ARE being violated in the act of production. As far as hate speech, I dont believe in thought police so hate away! Any how trying to crush groups like that tends to lend them cashe. In the case of National sovreignty id say what? I thought the us was the only country allowed to claim that(sarcasm intended)
    • For example, we believe in freedom of expression on the Internet...except for those who promulgate hate speech

      Who is we? There are many of us that understand free speech means free speech for all, whether we like it or not.

  • The technology curve (Score:3, Interesting)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... m ['oo.' in gap]> on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:02AM (#7004778) Journal
    Makes the discussion a little out of date.

    Anyone who wants to hide information or communicate securely can. Governments are trying very hard to keep up with the technological curve but IMHO they are falling behind, not moving ahead of it.

    It's not so obvious for western countries because we're right in the middle of the action, but it's clearer when you look at regimes like China, Vietnam, etc. where Internet access is seen as subversive (goddamn right it is!) and tightly controlled. Well, every time they block one route, another few routes open up.

    P2P illustrates the problem for controlling authorities fairly well. Technology is now so pervasive and powerful that any attempt to repress the flow of information simply generates multiple new communication routes. Human ingenuity is incredibly hard to suppress, and the more you try, the more it resists.

    The only way governments can regain control of the Internet is to license every connection and shoot or imprison every programmer. This is kind of unlikely.

  • I just don't totally agree (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cavemanf16 ( 303184 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:03AM (#7004781) Homepage Journal
    While there may have been all kinds of laws enacted that are pretty ridiculous, there will eventually be an equilibrium reached that is close to fair, but never perfectly fair for those involved. What I mean to say is that the "Internet" and its use will be regulated, there's no if's, and's, or but's about it. Everything gets regulated. Which is why I think humanity is always pushing forward to explore the next frontier, be it in medicine, robotics, communications, travel, etc.

    Think of some of the first automobiles. Flimsy, worked only part of the time, accident prone, unsafe, etc. and yet Americans and indeed the world embraced the new technology of the 'horseless' carriage with gusto once Henry Ford introduced a cheap way to manufacture and build them so that the masses could use them. The world economy benefitted from this new technology immensely.

    Yeah, some of our "freedoms" on the Internet have eroded TOO much, but eventually some semblance of order will be acheived, and off us techies and 'explorers' will go to challenge the Next Big Thing.

    I think this fundemental idea is why the Star Trek series has been so popular: it focuses on that "explorer" spirit. While most of the acting is corny at best, and some of the scripts downright absurd, we're drawn to "exploring the new frontier" theme.

    I, for one, welcome our new regulatory overlords.
  • Well... at least the powers that be are considering an Internet tax ban... that's a step in the right direction: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003- 07-31-tax-ban-advances_x.htm

  • Enough Already (Score:3)

    by Orne ( 144925 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:11AM (#7004863) Homepage
    The United States is not the source of the world's problems! I'm getting really sick and tired of "editorial journalists" who are so eager to dump on the USA that they don't bother to focus on the areas of the world where there are REAL problems:

    "The report notes numerous instances where Internet users have been jailed by authorities for posting or hosting political material. Such countries include Egypt, China and a number of Middle Eastern countries where the Internet is tightly controlled and heavily monitored."

    Now, it's time for the world to make a serious decision. If we're going to keep putting our chips in with the United Nations, maybe it's time for the United Nations to step in and start acting against these fascist governments, and demand some real reforms. That's what the UN is for, for governments to get together, come up with some common laws, and rule when some nations are in contempt of those laws. And we find the same nations are violating their citizens rights over and over, and the UN does nothing. Then we have nations crying "Why won't the USA step in?" See Monrovia, Liberia... But the US doesn't want to be "the policeman of the world", yet we seem to be drug into that role over and over.

    Last time I checked, noone in the united states is prevented from legally acquiring any information they desire... you can get government records, money trails, electronic information, anything. We cry that there "might" be some infringement, yet we can't seem to find any evidence of some widespread conspiracy that the government is tracking our interests. But that doesn't stop our own media from trying to tear it down. It just saddens me that the Slashdot staff can't seem to separate their personal beliefs from "news".
    • I think you don't know what the UN is for:
      Here, take a look [un.org]
      I think the idea alone of many US citizens that USA should distance itself from the UN because the UN "does not do what it should" is VERY alarming.
      Yes, you can dismandle the UN by simply disregarding it's decisions and opinions (that is all it takes) , but then there is NO international body to protect peace. Then we only have the US who SAY they protect peace but , as any nation, you look after your interests. Do you think that this will imp

    • Re:Enough Already (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mikelu ( 120879 )
      If we're going to keep putting our chips in with the United Nations, maybe it's time for the United Nations to step in and start acting against these fascist governments, and demand some real reforms.

      We aren't putting our chips in with the UN. Ever wonder why they weren't helping us in Iraq? We didn't want them there. Nations in the UN wanted equal jurisdiction over the reconstruction of Iraq in return for aid in the invasion, etc. The current administration, however, wanted full control and declared

    • Re:Enough Already (Score:5, Informative)

      by jpetts ( 208163 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @12:05PM (#7005443)
      Last time I checked, noone in the united states is prevented from legally acquiring any information they desire... you can get government records, money trails, electronic information, anything.

      Oh yeah? Well how about the government's attempts to stop this happening: in this report [alternet.org] you can see how John Ashcrofy has been trying to undermine the FOIA. Choice quotes, one from the reporter:

      " In a memo that slipped beneath the political radar, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously urged federal agencies to resist most Freedom of Information Act requests made by American citizens."

      and a quote from Ashcroft's memo, which memo is the subject of the article:

      "When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records, in whole or in part, you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records."

    • Re:Enough Already (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MKalus ( 72765 )
      Now, it's time for the world to make a serious decision. If we're going to keep putting our chips in with the United Nations, maybe it's time for the United Nations to step in and start acting against these fascist governments, and demand some real reforms. That's what the UN is for, for governments to get together, come up with some common laws, and rule when some nations are in contempt of those laws. And we find the same nations are violating their citizens rights over and over, and the UN does nothing.

  • Not surprising. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by freidog ( 706941 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:13AM (#7004870)
    The government inevitably wants to control information. Well, i should say everyone wants to control it (i want everything written/said about me to be glowing and wonderful, don't you?), the government just has the power to do so.

    Today the 'free' western governmnets want to monitor people who visit web sites that encourage, or assist in 'terrorism.' (as defined by the government)
    Tommorrow, in the instrest of national security those same sites will be 'restricted access only.'
    After all, the leap from monitoring information (in this case those who view it) to restricting it is a short one.

    And then we've started down that slipperly slope between free exchange of ideas and security, and with all that is happening in the world, the government might have the people just scared enough to follow them down it.

  • Privacy, since when? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Richthofen80 ( 412488 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:18AM (#7004914) Homepage
    I don't remember ever clicking the EULA for the internet's privacy. I think that's because it doesn't exist.

    Internet access is something you buy. You don't have any privileges except for the ones extended to you by your ISP. If your ISP agrees to monitor/share/provide information, well, its no different than the post office giving your address to the FBI, or the RMV. If I own a small business and the FBI/CIA/FDA wants to know if John Doe was there, and what he bought, I'll let them know. The same process is true of the net. Suspcious activity is reported. That's the way it goes.

    Internet access is not anonymous. STILL.

  • Making laws is one thing... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by i_r_sensitive ( 697893 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:39AM (#7005170)

    It's all well and good to legislate whatever your little heart desires. But, if the legislation is unenforceable, or a loose framework of loopholes...

    As an example, when the FTC introduced the centralized DNC list, and introduced new legislation setting requirements for telemarketing. One company manufacturing servers for this activity re-coded their application to work through the loopholes in the law. Another company in the same industry worked to ensure that their equipment would operate within the law.

    The point is this, without the legislation, neither company would likely have altered their products. The legislation did produce some action on the part of both companies. However, in all cases the reaction was not the intended or desired reaction.

    Yes, this is a technological problem, and must be fixed that way, occasionally though legislation is the event which provides the impetus of change.

  • Stupid Security Contest (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dashing Leech ( 688077 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @12:08PM (#7005483)
    What I found more interesting at the end of the article was the link to the Stupid Security Contest [privacyinternational.org] winners. My favorite winner is the Gunpowder Tea one because you think you know the outcome, but then it becomes even more baffling.

  • People are using 911 to promlugate agendas... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lodragandraoidh ( 639696 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @01:13PM (#7006117) Journal
    Government, Corporations, and other groups are using the September 11th attacks to further their agendas to restrict freedom. What of the now empty talk about Americans not changing - to continue doing what we would normally do? I guess the freedom to 'innovate' only applies to Corporations - only acceptable in ways that maintain the status-quo.

    The most disturbing thing about this is that government and corporations, while removing freedoms for the masses, are retaining those same freedoms for themselves. The reason there hasn't been a strong backlash against it is that people, in general, don't really understand what is at stake - the once open internet is being re-made as a broadcast medium based upon old 'programming' based paradigms.

    When networks are outlawed, only outlaws will have networks...

  • Freedom (Score:2)

    by pmz ( 462998 )

    How many Slashdotters out there feel that censorship is bad but restricting free trade is good? How many Slashdotters out there feel that domestic spying is bad but nationalized health care is good?

    How many people realize that there is no difference between censorship and tarriffs and that there is no difference between TIA and universal health care?

    I hope there aren't too many heads exploding over this. Or did I just create a mopping opportunity for someone who is unemployed? Oh, the sweet sweet irony

  • Media self censorship is equally dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)

    by possible ( 123857 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @05:45PM (#7008733)

    Government censorship is certainly dangerous, but I think the self censorship practiced by the media (including the U.S. media) is more insidious.

    Consider the story [kuro5hin.org] that the BBC ran in early 2001 about the theft of the U.S. presidential election. The BBC is not some indie rag, but the story was not picked up by ANY of the U.S. media until almost a year later (too late to do any good).

    Whatever you think about Noam Chomsky, his theory on media self censorship is worth hearing: The media doesn't make money by selling news to audiences. It makes money by selling audiences to advertisers. In other words, advertisers must be kept happy at all times. The media chooses which stories will be reported on, but more subtly, it chooses how issues will be framed. The choice between the "right" and "left" viewpoints on issues that we are given in our media is often a false dichotomy. Whole ranges of opinions outside the liberal/conservative framework are ignored.

    So pay attention. Don't rely on the news media to filter things for you. Get your news from multiple sources, including sources outside the U.S. Try out The Agonist [agonist.org] and TerrorWatch [terrorwatch.org] and some other samizdat news sites. Don't always believe what you hear about Arab news networks. It is your responsibility to educate yourself.


  • The problem is two fold. Media trying to comoditize the internet, control content and aggregate as much data on you as they can. Goverments wanting to aggragate all info they can get on you. Governments wanting to out right block your access to certain information. It's about being in control. They are are all ready in control.

    What are you going to to about it? What are you doing about it? I read this yesterday on the Register and though about it. I see this as a issue that as usual will resolve it's sel

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