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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

#61

Post by chopsueyar »

vabole wrote: post #51
DrJokepu wrote: post #44

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 t…

That isn't really the internet, just a web proxy.

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

#62

Post by chopsueyar »

c1sc0 wrote: post #48
uast23 wrote: post #10

Every time such thoughts come up, I am reminded of how difficult it is to bring the world to a consensus. Easier said than done, it's pretty comfortable putting a regulation on paper but bringing it to practice can take a toll. Internet regulation does not stop at content policing and stopping malicious activities, it rather extends to creating difficulties in doing online business globally and taking a toll on innov…

"how many websites coming to China from outside do a successful business there (enlighten me)!" : and that's exactly the purpose. They don't want no pesky foreigners owning communication businesses. Remove the 'from outside' & you're talking about something totally different though: massive inernal internet stories do exist.

The Chinese intranet.

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

#63

Post by [deleted] »

nitrogen wrote: post #53
gizzlon wrote: 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.

[deleted]

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

#65

Post by khafra »

nitrogen wrote: post #53
gizzlon wrote: 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.

He definitely has an axe to grind, and the first Google result casts some doubt on the 90% figure: http://journal.webscience.org/138/

But his larger point remains intact: Freedom of the press/Internet is only an axiomatic good in educated America and Europe. It's on shaky ground in the rest of the world, which in a democratic referendum would make the educated population of America and Europe a rounding error.

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

#66

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

getsat wrote: post #28
olalonde wrote: post #24

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. :(

Considering that not all those eligible to vote, do vote, the numbers may be much lower, or perhaps higher.

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

#67

Post by knieveltech »

lallysingh wrote: post #38
knieveltech wrote: post #5

Keep your cowardly, sniveling, risk-averse, myopic, GREEDY fucking agenda OFF OF MY INTERNET! You've already done quite enough, thanks. I was going to come up with a more level-headed and well reasoned response here, but I guess the first bit really sums it up. There are days where I wonder if Academia didn't have the right idea with Internet 2.0. Whatever happened with that anyway?

Agreed. The truth is that us nerds won't like governments taking over the 'Net, but they're far more representative of its user base than we are. We're pretty dependent on the results of this 'civilizing' process in most every other aspect of life, why's it so surprising when it's applied here?

This doesn't come as a surprise. I knew this was coming the first time I logged onto the network in 1995 and was blown away by the fact that there where no enforced rules to contend with.

Halcyon days to be sure. Pre-spam, largely pre-ecommerce and you'd have to hunt to find an ad. Even when you did, it was kinda cool. Novel, like.

16 entirely too short years later the many too many (as Nietzsche would say) are fully entrenched on the network, bringing with them all of the social ills that are the hallmarks of their culture, a world I willfully turned my back on 16 years ago in favor of a dwelling place of the mind, inhabited by kindred spirits, which is not to say the likeminded.

No, this comes as no surprise, I just miss the network I grew up with.

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

#68

Post by waqf »

mahmud wrote: post #20
xorglorb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not an argument, that is a propaganda tool used against the easily-persuaded.

The easily-persuaded pretty much describes the majority of the electorate, at least in my country. The average American votes against his best interest. The official response to any opposition to totalitarian tactics is .. FUD. Something only less blatant than what I have written above.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but have you considered how you would disprove the alternate possibility that the "easily-persuaded majority" is a bogeyman conjured up by the media to explain why the candidate that everyone you know voted for wasn't elected?

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

#69

Post by CWuestefeld »

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…

Censorship, racism, systematic discrimination based on sexual orientation or religion come to mind.

...and for some reason, property rights and freedom of contract are always forgotten. But for a prosperous society, these are every bit as important.

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

#70

Post by marknutter »

gizzlon wrote: post #29
mycroftiv wrote: post #8

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

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.
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