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G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

g8internet.com

51–60 of 108 posts

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#51

Here we go again. It's 2011 and our governments still don't understand the Internet. They don't understand that it's way bigger than them. They don't understand that it's not possible to monitor, govern, control, tax it, simply because it's so cheap and simple to circumvent any of these measures and there's plenty of motivation to do so.

Tell Chinese government how impossible it is to control the internet. The Great Firewall of China (GFC) is advancing very fast. Just a few years ago even an unencrypted proxy abroad would do the trick, and yet most people did not know how to set it up and did not care enough to find out. Nowadays even VPNs and SSH tunnels are commonly blocked. It is not trivial to bypass the GFC and it is only getting harder by the time.

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#53
post #29

This is a clear case where we see the idea that governments should represent the will of their citizens break down completely. Every power structure serves its own needs first. In areas where the interest of governmental systems and the citizens are in alignment, democracy can work - but when there is a conflict between the will of a power structure to extend its power and influence and the desires of the citizens, g…

While I agree with most of what you say, I'm not so sure " large majorities in favour of free communication over the internet " Do you have any data to back this up? My guess is that if you frame it the right way, most people would vote for censoring the Internet

To interested readers: there is an interesting auto-killed response from oelewapperke that can only be read if you turn on showdead in your HN account settings. I suggest enabling showdead and reading the comment.

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#54
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is highly overrated. What we need is a strong constitution that guarantees individual freedom. 51% of the population imposing their beliefs on the other 49% can lead to highly undesirable outcomes. Censorship, racism, systematic discrimination based on sexual orientation or religion come to mind. Democracy is fine as long as the role of the elected government is essentially limited to the protection of indi…

> 51% of the population 32% vote for candidate/party A, 33% vote for B, 35% vote for C. 65% are not represented. First past the post needs to go. :(

Canada has a 'majority' government with less than 40% of the vote. The depressing thing is that in the majority of areas that the Conservatives won, they won only because they purposefully split the vote between the Liberals and NDP who are politically a few notches apart.

Now we have the first government ever in a Westminster Democracy that the Prime Minister lost to a vote of no-confidence for breaching parliamentary conduct and we turn his minority government to a majority.

Fucking Canadians are idiots, 40% of them at least.

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#55
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that even the Great Firewall of China can easily be beaten by simply using Tor, however, it is now our democratic duty to prevent this from becoming a necessity in the western world.

Democracy is highly overrated. What we need is a strong constitution that guarantees individual freedom. 51% of the population imposing their beliefs on the other 49% can lead to highly undesirable outcomes. Censorship, racism, systematic discrimination based on sexual orientation or religion come to mind. Democracy is fine as long as the role of the elected government is essentially limited to the protection of indi…

Maybe relevant: "The results of cross-sectional and time-lagged analyses suggest that U.S. foreign policy is most heavily and consistently influenced by internationally oriented business leaders, followed by experts (who, however, may themselves be influenced by business). Labor appears to have significant but smaller impacts. The general public seems to have considerably less effect, except under particular conditions."

Who Influences U.S. Foreign Policy? LAWRENCE R. JACOBS and BENJAMIN I. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#56

Cyberterrorism is a bullshit argument. If you don't want your machines to be attacked from the Internet, don't connect them to the Internet. In fact, governments and big companies already do this! At work, we have an IP network called BARONET. It's like the Internet except it's not. There is a bridge on one machine that proxies HTTP requests from this network to the Internet. There are no routes to the Internet. This…

The trouble with this kind of thing from the perspective of government is that not everybody who runs important things does it. Those that do may not always do it well, and if they don't, there generally isn't anyone in government with the expertise or responsibility to tell them things like "if you actually cared about security, you wouldn't do that".

The other problem with it is anthropomorphic Stuxnet, which giggles like a schoolgirl when anyone says there's no route to the Internet.

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#57
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with most of what you say, I'm not so sure " large majorities in favour of free communication over the internet " Do you have any data to back this up? My guess is that if you frame it the right way, most people would vote for censoring the Internet

To interested readers: there is an interesting auto-killed response from oelewapperke that can only be read if you turn on showdead in your HN account settings. I suggest enabling showdead and reading the comment.

I read the comment, it seems heavily opinionated touting worldwide numbers with hyperbole and more. Overall it seems the poster has an axe to grind.

I'm not sure if it was constructive. However, the parent poster was asking for sources.

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#58
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with most of what you say, I'm not so sure " large majorities in favour of free communication over the internet " Do you have any data to back this up? My guess is that if you frame it the right way, most people would vote for censoring the Internet

To interested readers: there is an interesting auto-killed response from oelewapperke that can only be read if you turn on showdead in your HN account settings. I suggest enabling showdead and reading the comment.

I especially disagree with his/her views on Europeans. If anything, we are more sensitive on those matters than the US, that's why the world's dissidents seek refuge here.

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#59
post #45

The link doesn't actually provide any information. It's only waving it's hands in my face and telling me that I should be angry, telling me that a lot of different things are connected, and telling me that certain people are so inherently bad that anything they do or say is bad. That's not information, that's indoctrination. Of course, some jackhole will tell me that I must be horribly uninformed if my knee doesn't j…

More succinctly, "Where's the beef?"

Re: G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

#60
post #56

Cyberterrorism is a bullshit argument. If you don't want your machines to be attacked from the Internet, don't connect them to the Internet. In fact, governments and big companies already do this! At work, we have an IP network called BARONET. It's like the Internet except it's not. There is a bridge on one machine that proxies HTTP requests from this network to the Internet. There are no routes to the Internet. This…

The trouble with this kind of thing from the perspective of government is that not everybody who runs important things does it. Those that do may not always do it well, and if they don't, there generally isn't anyone in government with the expertise or responsibility to tell them things like "if you actually cared about security, you wouldn't do that". The other problem with it is anthropomorphic Stuxnet, which giggl…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism
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