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

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

#91

Post by GrandMasterBirt »

jm4 wrote: post #79
marknutter wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by favoring free communication over the internet you mean "my email will be private", I think you can safely assume large majorities will be in favor of it.

I am not so sure. We have seen this before. It goes something like this:"What's the problem with trading a little privacy for security? I don't have anything to hide." These people who have nothing to hide because they have never done anything wrong have ceded their privacy and rights at every turn. Why would the internet be different? Well, people are very protective of their email, that's why. Email is the key to a…

You are referring to Entrapment: If the authorities did not entice you to commit the crime, would you have? The point is in some cases the answer is yes, pedophilia is one of those cases. This sort of legal issue has to be dealt with with police-prostitutes picking up johns and then arresting them after payment.

The problem is that most people don't realize that you cannot solve complex problems with oversimplified solutions. The people are presented with "its safer if you give up this liberty because we can catch an extra pedophile" when the implications to the lost liberty is far greater than originally thought.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Ben Franklin

The same quote keeps coming up over and over and over by one of our founding fathers. And for damn good reason. Because people ignore this, and don't realize what they are doing.

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

#92

Post by seabee »

GHFigs wrote: post #56
jrockway wrote: post #21

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…

To be more precise, there are routes from the internet but not always back to it; not that I expect anthropomorphic Stuxnet to understand, it wasn't programmed with a brain.

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

#93

Post by GrandMasterBirt »

dantheman wrote: post #77
jellicle wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. If the question is "Should the government be able to access email to track down pornographers and terrorists?", the answer is that 99% of the population is in favor of it.

That's quite the claim and I don't believe it for a second.

Should the government be allowed to stop you in the middle of the street and ask you to strip naked and cavity search you on the spot to ensure you don't have a bomb somewhere on you or in your body so that you don't walk into times square and blow the place up along with you.

Ponder that. I doubt 99% of the pop will agree to this.

Sure its maybe 1 step up from email. However some people would agree with what I just said because of fear. Fear is powerful. We must not let it control us.

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

#94

Post by GHFigs »

dexen wrote: post #85
GHFigs wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They can't make country's networks secure by covering them with an `one-size-fits-all' global firewall either. Once they cover up all existing holes, new ones have to be `punched through' to achieve useful functionality -- opening new attack surfaces. Cat and mouse at best, countless hacks more realistically. Never mind inside jobs -- and also remember the Google hack springboarded from within via vulnerable IE. Coul…

They can't make country's networks secure by covering them with an `one-size-fits-all' global firewall either.

True, but I don't think that's central to what most governments are seeking to do, if it is as all. Even the US "kill switch bill" was almost entirely about things other than the so-called "kill switch".

Could you explain what does that `anthropomorphic Stuxnet' stand for?

The "anthropomorphic" bit was just me being excessively silly and forgetting that it's not a very common word even among native English speakers. My apologies. Stuxnet does not, in fact, giggle.

As for Stuxnet: As jrockway correctly pointed out you can secure a network against attacks from the Internet by not connecting it to the Internet. But, on the other hand, one of the most notable attacks in recent history, and one that I think that governments have in mind when thinking about cybersecurity, is an attack that targeted (and reached) systems which weren't connected to the Internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism is a term coined in the mid 1700s to refer to any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to non-human animals or non-living things, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts, such as god(s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet Stuxnet attacked Windows systems using an unprecedented four zero-day attacks (plus the CPLINK vulnerability and a vulnerability used by the Conficker worm) It is initially spread using infected removable drives such as USB flash drives, and then uses other exploits and techniques such as peer-to-peer RPC to infect and update other computers inside private networks that are not directly connected to the Internet.

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

#96

Post by dexen »

GHFigs wrote: post #94
dexen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't make country's networks secure by covering them with an `one-size-fits-all' global firewall either. Once they cover up all existing holes, new ones have to be `punched through' to achieve useful functionality -- opening new attack surfaces. Cat and mouse at best, countless hacks more realistically. Never mind inside jobs -- and also remember the Google hack springboarded from within via vulnerable IE. Coul…

They can't make country's networks secure by covering them with an `one-size-fits-all' global firewall either. True, but I don't think that's central to what most governments are seeking to do, if it is as all. Even the US "kill switch bill" was almost entirely about things other than the so-called "kill switch". Could you explain what does that `anthropomorphic Stuxnet' stand for? The "anthropomorphic" bit was just…

Oh, and here I was assuming the ((giggling)) `anthropomorphic Stuxnet' (the whole phrase) was a parabole for some other malware, spontaneous network effect (like the popular `routing around censorship') or perhaps a hacktivist group. Disappointed a bit now that you explained it, but thanks anyway :-) Somehow I've missed the fact that Stuxnet worked via good ole sneakernet rather than the usual kind of network.

Semi-related, there was that old sci-fi story by Stanisław Lem. A mad scientist was researching two AIs (based on organical matter, IIRC) that somehow communicated with one another in spite of some distance and thorogh screening of all known means of communication. The scientist was puzzled beyond comprehension; story's protagonist notes the scientist himself served as as unnwitting messenger -- as he (affectionaly) touched AI's chassiss, he subconsciously passed data by taping on 'em, probably somehow `programmed' to do so by the other AI. Oh well.

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

#97

Post by shareme »

I think I speak for many when I say:

When the G8 can let protesters have a peaceful protest during their session than we will believe their intentions in governing the internet as being for the common world good..

Until that proof shows up STFU..

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

#99

Post by keane »

GHFigs wrote: 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…

Hi GHFigs. I'm sorry you feel that way about the link I submitted to g8internet.com . I agree the "call" itself at http://g8internet.com/call-for-creative-action/ issued by FAT Lab, Free Culture Forum, Chaos Computer Club, Boing Boing and others provides little information. One reason there is little information is that the G8 is not the most transparent institution and much of their discussions and decisions are behind closed doors (not say, streamed live on the web).

However, the point of the link was not just to be to the call for action. The site itself, as you'll see if you scroll down, is meant as a collection of information. Links posted so far and found on the site include the following: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/17/fight-back-against-s.ht... (English) http://alt1040.com/2011/05/e-g8-la-balcanizacion-del-interne... (Spanish) http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2011/05/01/news/sarkozy_... (Italian) http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2011/05/16/manife... (French)

In the future, more links will likely be posted so if this is an issue that concerns you, you might consider bookmarking the site (which I am unaffiliated with).

Like I said, the G8 is not extremely forthcoming with what they plan to do and it is unclear to what extent the information they do release should be trusted. And so we have opinion pieces where people watching the general anti-democratic trend of certain G8 decisions express caution at allowing them to control the internet.

If you prefer to read euphemisms discussing what will take place during the talks ("the promotion of human rights and democratic freedoms"), consider the official site - http://www.g20-g8.com/g8-g20/g8/english/priorities-for-franc...

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

#100

Post by eliasmacpherson »

olalonde wrote: post #24
mahrain wrote: 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…

I think you defeatist in accepting the bastardisation of the term Democracy. Elections are term based not decision based. https://jolitics.com/ is an example of people voting online, it has potential improvement over what currently passes for Democracy. The Swiss system of local vote taking for many more local decisions is a better example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland

Democracy is used liberally as you say and it has come to mean something else other than what it was supposed to, this is the thing we should be fighting.

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