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Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

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Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#61

Post by pbhjpbhj »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #44

This is fantastic . It's great news. No, seriously. This kind of thing is exactly what's needed to make services like i2p ( http://i2p2.de ) popular enough to go mainstream. Or another way to look at it, oft-quoted, is: the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Did you miss the part about having your internet accessed revoked if a super-rich media giant catches you trying to sniff their money. i2p, tor, etc. will simply be interpreted by the rights holders as "is trying to steal(sic#) copyright material" and users will have their whole families internet access removed without trial or need to provide evidence.

i2p only works if you're allowed to access the internet.

# usually steal is used, as here, when the activity is actually mere copyright infringement; stealing requires that the material would no longer be available to the rights holder.

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#62

Post by pbhjpbhj »

foldr wrote: post #34
bumblebird wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it negates the whole point you put them in prison. At some point we'll get the human right to "not be in a cell". And then where will we be?

>Because it negates the whole point you put them in prison. So you think that being in prison would be perfectly pleasant just as long as you had a broadband connection? Some life you must lead.

So you think that being in prison would be perfectly pleasant just as long as you had a broadband connection? Some life you must lead.

As an office worker I went between an office of about 4 metres square (16m^2)shared by 2 staff and my house, which when I started was about double that size (including all rooms) and shared with my wife. I was let out my office for lunch but no recreation time.

Now I had significant freedom to go out and about, visit friends and what have you, but, yeah life can be hard.

Broadband should be a right as more government services are becoming accessible only online - my Mum volunteers in many capacities in a rural community where access to services for the elderly is becoming hard because internet (web) access is assumed. If my web access is removed it makes it harder for me to be a citizen (subject really but hey); harder for me to be a consumer, harder for me to be an active part of the workforce.

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#63

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bumblebird wrote: post #56
noste wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was also some call (Probably from EU) to give criminals in jail the right to a vote. Which I also strongly disagree with. Going by the stats at http://felonvoting.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=28... felony disenfranchisement is not that popular in western democracies.

I guess thats relevant if you believe things like this should be decided by the majority.

What sort of non-democratic regime were you thinking of that would give criminals a vote but would not follow the populous' voting decisions?

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#64

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bumblebird wrote: post #12

Linkbait. Why would this be anything concerning startups? Why would it discourage startups from starting up in Britain? How will it impact current startups? It won't. No real news here, just some silly politicians trying to show muscle, which will ultimately fail and be irrelevant.

If your startup is domestically based or requires important people to have home internet access, and that access can be completely removed if your kid downloads (or is suspected of downloading) something that big-media say is infringing their copyright, then can you see how that might disrupt your online activity.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and posit that internet start-ups generally do less well without internet access.

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#65

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bumblebird wrote: post #25
iuygfhn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you called your site say "hacker news" and some local councilor decided that "hacker" was offensive - under this law they can simply delete your domain registration.

Then you'd post about it on twitter+reddit and the whole baying mob of sheep that compose the modern internet would track down said councilor and make their life a living hell forever.

Yeah that councillor would never be able to visit reddit again. That would totally stick it to them.

Well they might have to change their username, or just never visit it, ...

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#66

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bumblebird wrote: post #54
cabalamat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said councillor probably wouldn't be on the internet. Or he'd only check his email once a week and wouldn't notice.

People on reddit+twitter hunt people down in real life all the time.

Only if they hurt animals.

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#67

Post by bumblebird »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #63
bumblebird wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess thats relevant if you believe things like this should be decided by the majority.

What sort of non-democratic regime were you thinking of that would give criminals a vote but would not follow the populous' voting decisions?

My point was that democracy is a horrible system, it doesn't work well, and you end up with idiotic laws decided just based on what the mob majority want. However, it's pretty much the best we've got so far, but that's not saying much.

Democracy is fine if the majority are sane, have good morals, etc etc. But the majority of people in the US believe in god :/ The majority watch "American idol" and think the height of cuisine is macdonalds. Doesn't bode well.

Just my 2c anyway...

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#68

Post by bumblebird »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #60
bumblebird wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would the modern internet be without groups of people getting completely outraged by things that they shouldn't really worry about. See also: Every person in the UK is caught on CCTV a billion times every single day, which is fed into a central database and used by the government. Every email is logged by the government. etc etc etc. This is the entire business model for "The daily mail" paper in the UK - get p…

Where would the modern internet be without groups of people getting completely outraged by things that they shouldn't really worry about. You may not be outraged by the curtailment of our freedoms by a man who is unelected and has been booted out of post twice (at least) and who is spearheading a new copyright initiative immediately after staying at the pleasure of a media magnate, said initiative doing nothing for t…

It's only a few months until the whole government gets kicked out - including evil mandleson and his cronies. I have quite a bit of faith the Conservative government will undo a fair bit of the damage Labour have done.

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#69

Post by thaumaturgy »

scscsc wrote: post #58
thaumaturgy wrote: post #44

This is fantastic . It's great news. No, seriously. This kind of thing is exactly what's needed to make services like i2p ( http://i2p2.de ) popular enough to go mainstream. Or another way to look at it, oft-quoted, is: the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

This has been on the tip of my tongue for a long while, so I might as well go ahead and say it now. I am ready to acknowledge the power of technology as much as anyone hanging around here. But I think that dismissing the computer/internet laws currently being passed by countries in the EU as being unenforceable, or being easily solvable by technology workarounds is a great fallacy and the most stupid thing in the wor…

Why not do both? Oppose the laws, protest the laws, and when that doesn't work, then develop new technology to get around the laws.

This is a cycle that has been happening for millennia. It's not new. Authoritarians come into power, then they amass power, and then they attempt to rule by force. Usually, people first welcome their new authorities, because they want order and they naively expect that authorities are on their side; then they begin to become disenfranchised; and finally, they begin to subvert the authority and eventually counteract it altogether.

The only novel thing here is the level of technology that we're dealing with now -- but that benefits both sides.

Look at China: they've developed probably the most advanced national communications surveillance and filtering technology in the world (depending on how deep your paranoia runs); and while that works for many people, others are still finding ways around it.

Or, look at BitTorrent. Media "authorities" attack centralized distribution; hackers develop decentralized distribution. Authorities attack centralized tracking; hackers develop distributed hash tables. Authorities attack the protocol itself; hackers develop a new protocol. Authorities attack unencrypted communications; hackers develop decentralized, anonymous, encrypted communications.

Eventually this cycle of escalation will lead to distributed networks -- "guerilla" wifi mesh networks are already being used in some places -- and the only way the authorities will be able to counter that will be to shut down wired, wireless, and cellular communications for the great majority of the population.

How long do you think that will remain popular?

Re: Britain's new Internet Law: Death of the Startup in Britain?

#70

Post by foldr »

bumblebird wrote: post #53
foldr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're in there to separate them from society. And that includes 'online' society IMHO - hence they should not have net connections. And presumably they shouldn't be allowed to send letters or have visitors either right? There's a "slippery slope" in both directions.

It's only feasible to send letters to individuals. Not society. Same with visitors. The two don't really compare.

What?
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