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Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

theguardian.com

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Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#51

Post by TakeBlaster16 »

ryandrake wrote: post #32
sojournerc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you organize protest with the government controlling communication? You have far more trust in the good will of those in power than I do.

Protests happened before the Internet. Before telephones, even. Neither are a requirement for people to communicate and organize.

This argument is almost never useful. Times change.

People survived hundreds of years ago without electricity or running water, so it should be perfectly fine if the government shuts off utilities for protestors, right?

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#52

Post by fein »

jliptzin wrote: post #29
zmgsabst wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID was the example I had I mind, where they censored medical professionals, politicians, and journalists who said lockdowns were a bad idea, questioned the data supporting mRNA (eg, Robert Malone), etc. But since you mentioned not covering a story — we also have the Hunter Biden laptop, which wasn’t merely not covered, but actively censored on social media during an election. (Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg admitted as…

Social media != the government

The FBI (government) told Facebook (private company) to censor things that aren't illegal, and they did. In this case, social media === government for all intents and purposes.

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#53

Post by clarkmoody »

jliptzin wrote: post #48
yourusername wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media censors partly because of pressure from governments that make it clear that regulation will be coming if they don't do it "voluntarily".

Examples of such pressure from the government? Do you mean when Trump threatened to remove section 230 protection from social media companies because he didn't like "the way he was treated" on their sites? https://www.npr.org/2020/09/23/916096008/justice-department-...

FB censored the Hunter laptop story during the election at the behest of the FBI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN3PIGLDscQ

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#54

Post by hotpotamus »

bediger4000 wrote: post #44
hotpotamus wrote: post #39

I run infrastructure for a company that provides medical records services to medical organizations located exclusively in the US and have to deal with the usual scans/exploit attempts that come with running services on the public internet. Somedays I think it's just bonkers that anyone in China or Russia or wherever is allowed to contact my servers. I know that the internet is a "network of networks" to use an older…

Not just China and Russia, though. Lots of weirdness from Turkey, Viet Nam and even Netherlands.

Well I added "wherever" as a catchall - public is pretty much public. And there's a chain issue - if you ban country A, but not country B, and A is allowed to connect to B, then A can still find a path through to you - it's all just one network with a near infinite number of paths.

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#55

Post by robryk »

ryandrake wrote: post #32
sojournerc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you organize protest with the government controlling communication? You have far more trust in the good will of those in power than I do.

Protests happened before the Internet. Before telephones, even. Neither are a requirement for people to communicate and organize.

We lost common access to the means that were used to communicate earlier. For example, anonymous and unrevocable access to the phone network used to exist in the form of payphones, which are being phased out.

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#56

Post by clarkmoody »

3pt14159 wrote: post #24
perihelions wrote: post #12

The US has this capability too. It's an expansive power and largely unchecked. https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ( " Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’" )

In my opinion, this is a good thing. It's akin to disconnecting gas mains during a bombing run or similar. War is war and we need real defensive measures for broad cyberattack. If it gets misused then we'll protest, etc. Edit: You can downvote if you like, but this comment of mine isn't made in bad faith. It's fair to worry about a global cyberwar and fair to point out that in-person protests are still a viable respo…

When is the last time the government has been held accountable to the people?

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#57

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I call out particular comments and users, I think I would come close to violating HN rules. I think I can talk about a few comments, not linked, without causing dang issues. I hope. - Second highest root comment talking about how people being removed from twitter isn't a big deal, its not 'my freedoms' and the real threat is the government putting people in prison and this other stuff just doesn't matter. - ctrl-f…

There is a giant chasm between “Twitter gets to decide what it wants to host on its own web site” and “government censorship of speech”. It’s not in the same ballpark. It’s not even the same sport. Nobody has the obligation to publish, broadcast, or amplify someone else’s speech. If you don’t like one particular social media’s content policy, choose from one of the dozens of others or one of the thousands of web foru…

"You have every right to go protest in that empty square over there."

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#58

Post by OrangeMonkey »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I call out particular comments and users, I think I would come close to violating HN rules. I think I can talk about a few comments, not linked, without causing dang issues. I hope. - Second highest root comment talking about how people being removed from twitter isn't a big deal, its not 'my freedoms' and the real threat is the government putting people in prison and this other stuff just doesn't matter. - ctrl-f…

There is a giant chasm between “Twitter gets to decide what it wants to host on its own web site” and “government censorship of speech”. It’s not in the same ballpark. It’s not even the same sport. Nobody has the obligation to publish, broadcast, or amplify someone else’s speech. If you don’t like one particular social media’s content policy, choose from one of the dozens of others or one of the thousands of web foru…

I will not go into the specifics of ideology or politics, but I will point out that I think your statements are valid but ignore the current reality.

Consider "Parler":

- They were trying to cater to users who were banned from twitter.

- They set up services using AWS. AWS Banned them.

- They built their own infrastructure to get around the ban.

- Google/Apple banned them from their mobile devices so no user could use them.

I think the current reality is a bit more complicated than it used to be. Or should be. Perhaps.

Re: Flicking the kill switch: governments embrace internet shutdowns

#59

Post by hotpotamus »

robryk wrote: post #46
hotpotamus wrote: post #39

I run infrastructure for a company that provides medical records services to medical organizations located exclusively in the US and have to deal with the usual scans/exploit attempts that come with running services on the public internet. Somedays I think it's just bonkers that anyone in China or Russia or wherever is allowed to contact my servers. I know that the internet is a "network of networks" to use an older…

If all your endpoints are at least somewhat under your control (i.e. the thing doesn't need to be accessible via a web browser on a vanilla computer) you can reduce "exploits" to "exploits of my implementation of TLS/my VPN of choice" plus the bootstrap issue. If the endpoints are not under your control to that extent, then I'd argue that "all the residential ISPs in US" is just as bad as "all of China/Russia" due to…

I'm not sure what you mean by implementation of TLS. It's just standard Java TLS libraries, though of course we can be pretty strict about which ciphers are in use - we do control the client to that extent and are typically pretty good about keeping on top of that at least.
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