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Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

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Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#91

Post by ibebrett »

xtrumanx wrote: post #74
ibebrett wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and a decentralized system that can be used to plan and share murders/(horrible other things). It is totally legal (in the usa) for you to get together with your friends and talk about whatever you want, but it is not legal for you to get together and plan an overthrow of the government, or a murder. It's not good that a dangerous group has a new t…

Your comment can apply to any technology; from computers and radios to simple things like hammers and knives. Yes, dangerous groups could use those tools for evil but that problem shouldn't be attributed to the tool or their creators. Especially when the tool was not designed for evil and is not primarily used for evil.

I completely agree. That doesn't mean its a good thing that a dangerous group has a new tool

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#92

Post by ibebrett »

logfromblammo wrote: post #87
ibebrett wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and a decentralized system that can be used to plan and share murders/(horrible other things). It is totally legal (in the usa) for you to get together with your friends and talk about whatever you want, but it is not legal for you to get together and plan an overthrow of the government, or a murder. It's not good that a dangerous group has a new t…

You actually can get together with your friends and plan an overthrow of the government. That's exactly what the Free State Project is. It just so happens that their plot does not include violence or other criminal behaviors. And you can plan a murder. The conversation itself is not a crime. But it is very damning evidence if the prospective victim that was discussed actually turns up dead, showing that the crime was…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal)#United_St...

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#93

Post by logfromblammo »

ibebrett wrote: post #92
logfromblammo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually can get together with your friends and plan an overthrow of the government. That's exactly what the Free State Project is. It just so happens that their plot does not include violence or other criminal behaviors. And you can plan a murder. The conversation itself is not a crime. But it is very damning evidence if the prospective victim that was discussed actually turns up dead, showing that the crime was…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal)#United_St...

It seems the drug war subverts sensible legal principle again. I find the reasoning behind US v. Shabani to be completely abhorrent. And as a 9-0 decision, it's absolutely shameful. You can't reasonably prove that a conspiracy to commit a crime existed if the criminal act never actually happened. You would think that at least one justice would have thought that through a bit more, and dissented.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#94

Post by seanflyon »

waps wrote: post #73
bellerocky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the threats about being arrested for viewing the video struck me as weird too. It's a horrific video and I have no intention of viewing it but watching it makes you a criminal? Then again I'm totally OK with people being arrested for watching child pornography so there's some kind of gray line where even consuming content is no longer OK and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to figure out what goes in what bucket…

> Yeah the threats about being arrested for viewing the video struck me as weird too. A police officer explained this to me. They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ... These videos are made with one purpose only : to recruit more muslims to their cause. Assuming they know what they're doing, that'…

> They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ...

I take issue with this. They think someone is guilty of a real, serious crime, but they can't prove it so they want to convict them of something else. That is bypassing the concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#95

Post by jacquesm »

logfromblammo wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #28

This is one of the reasons I never felt that I could run a TOR or freenet node in good conscience. They have good uses but I can think of plenty of bad uses and I suspect that the bad uses will outnumber the good uses at any moment in time.

By Blackstone math, it is better than ten guilty men go free than one innocent be punished. How many pedo-pervs would you allow to trade images such that one political dissident may speak without fear of persecution?

Absolutely, but that does not mean that I'm going to have to enable 10 guilty men to perpetrate their crimes.

If a political dissident would approach me I'd more than happily attempt to smuggle his words out of whatever dictatorship he or she is currently living in, that would be my call to make. But whoever gets unfettered access to my network interfaces is going to have to be known to me in person.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#96

Post by seanflyon »

dangero wrote: post #15

I don't like what these guys are posting about but should we really abandon freedom of speech over it? Wouldn't that be an example of the terrorists winning?

I don't think "free speech" means what you think it means. Your freedom to speech, does not give me the obligation to publish your speech on my website.

In this case the Diaspora team is using their free speech to suggest that various pod administrators choose not to publish some particularly nasty speech.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#97

Post by logfromblammo »

jacquesm wrote: post #95
logfromblammo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By Blackstone math, it is better than ten guilty men go free than one innocent be punished. How many pedo-pervs would you allow to trade images such that one political dissident may speak without fear of persecution?

Absolutely, but that does not mean that I'm going to have to enable 10 guilty men to perpetrate their crimes. If a political dissident would approach me I'd more than happily attempt to smuggle his words out of whatever dictatorship he or she is currently living in, that would be my call to make. But whoever gets unfettered access to my network interfaces is going to have to be known to me in person.

If the dissident could approach you to ask for your help, he wouldn't need to. You have to gamble on opening up that channel for anyone to use.

You have to pick your Blackstone Number. If the actual ratio of criminal to innocent exceeds it, you should not participate in Tor. Otherwise, you should.

As for myself, I don't think I'd go as high as 10, but I might be willing to enable as many as 3 people to anonymously commit the worst information-based crime I can conceive without my knowledge to enable one person to achieve the greatest assistance possible from safe and unfettered access to information.

Unfortunately, if I run a Tor exit node, I am likely to experience government persecution as the identifiable scapegoat for all that criminal activity that I was willing to tolerate for the sake of helping one person in need. By prosecuting exit node operators for traffic passing through, government policy effectively sets the Blackstone Number for everyone to zero, and damns the innocent.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#98

Post by jacquesm »

logfromblammo wrote: post #97
jacquesm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, but that does not mean that I'm going to have to enable 10 guilty men to perpetrate their crimes. If a political dissident would approach me I'd more than happily attempt to smuggle his words out of whatever dictatorship he or she is currently living in, that would be my call to make. But whoever gets unfettered access to my network interfaces is going to have to be known to me in person.

If the dissident could approach you to ask for your help, he wouldn't need to. You have to gamble on opening up that channel for anyone to use. You have to pick your Blackstone Number. If the actual ratio of criminal to innocent exceeds it, you should not participate in Tor. Otherwise, you should. As for myself, I don't think I'd go as high as 10, but I might be willing to enable as many as 3 people to anonymously co…

(1) I don't have to anything

(2) if someone is a dissident I'm willing to take significant risk on their behalf, but only after I've verified for myself that they are what they say they are.

I'm not entirely green in this respect, I've run a number of services that were borderline legal and have had numerous run-ins with the law because of this. I've decided for myself that the amount of abuse does not make it worth my while on the off chance that one day a dissident might make use of the service. Feel free to adjust your strategy according to what you believe is the right ratio, I've done this for myself already after building up a fair amount of experience with services that lent themselves a lot less to abuse than tor.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#99

Post by anelizat »

A stranger here, i stumbled on this thread as i've been mulling over Diaspora's reaction to ISIS's sudden and dreadful arrival. It's heartening to read these threads and consider your reasoned and civilized exchanges.

My own perspective is largely reflected in the early post of logfromblammo, which puts me in the extremist free (i.e., decentralized/uncensorable) speech camp, i guess. logfromblammo's observation that early adopters rarely come from (anywhere near) the mainstream seems an especially salient aspect of the good-with-the-bad argument in this case.

The only thing i'd add, as an old school free speecher, is that the traditional anti-censorship answer to bad speech is more good speech. ...still thinking about how that model plays out on a distributed social network (social networking being an activity i personally mostly avoid).

Anyway...GRATITUDE for the cogent, respectful conversation i've had the pleasure of eavesdropping on.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#100

Post by waps »

seanflyon wrote: post #94
waps wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah the threats about being arrested for viewing the video struck me as weird too. A police officer explained this to me. They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ... These videos are made with one purpose only : to recruit more muslims to their cause. Assuming they know what they're doing, that'…

> They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ... I take issue with this. They think someone is guilty of a real, serious crime, but they can't prove it so they want to convict them of something else. That is bypassing the concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

You may think that you'll vote to stop this, but you won't. Think about the consequences of your position for 5 seconds. If modern law cannot guarantee people's freedom from large-scale violence, then nobody, not me, not you, nobody, has any use for modern law. Abrogating law to prevent these things from happening, hell, even committing massacres against their forces, is perfectly acceptable behaviour. Islam does not fight with a distinction between civilians and military. So it's impossible to hit one and not the other. That cannot reasonably result in not hitting them. You may not agree, today, but if these things keep expanding like they have in the last decade, you will agree before another decade passes.
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