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Title: A Sneak Peek at a Fractured Web, Internet censorship is spreading and becoming more sophisticated across the planet
Source:
WIRED
URL Source: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72104-0.html?tw=wn_politics_7
Published: Nov 30, 2006
Author: By Mark Anderson
Post Date: 2006-11-30 07:45:53 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 610
Comments: 60
A Sneak Peek at a Fractured Web * Chinese Blogger Slams Microsoft * Progress Report for Net Censors By Mark Anderson| Also by this reporter 02:00 AM Nov, 13, 2006 CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Internet censorship is spreading and becoming more sophisticated across the planet, even as users develop savvier ways around it, according to early results in the first-ever comprehensive global survey of internet censorship. The internet watchdog organization OpenNet Initiative is compiling a year's worth of data gathered by nearly 50 cyberlaw, free-speech and network experts across as many countries, whose governments are known internet filterers. The study systematically tested if, when, how and by whom thousands of controversial websites are blocked in each nation. Last week, ONI researchers gathered at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School to begin hashing through their as-yet unpublished -- and in many cases, still incomplete -- findings. Wired News sat down with five members of the ONI team to catch a sneak preview of the study that, when it's published in the spring, is expected to set the gold standard for measuring freedom of expression across the internet. The spectrum of internet censorship, the researchers found, ranged from transparent to utterly murky. Perhaps the country with the most accessible filtering system was Saudi Arabia, said Berkman Center research affiliate Helmi Noman. "On their website, they have all the information of why they block and what they block," he said. "And they invite contributions (of other sites to be blocked) from the public." Vietnam, on the other hand, floats decoys. As ONI first documented this summer and confirmed in this year's study, the Southeast Asian regime purports to censor sexually explicit content. But ONI's computers found no such blocking in place. They did find, however, plenty of unadvertised censorship of political and religious websites critical of the country's one-party state. Sometimes a censoring government tries to conceal its filtering behind spoofed web-browser error messages. ONI discovered that Tunisia, for instance, masks filtered pages by serving a mockup of Internet Explorer's 404 error page. These supposed error pages stood out, because ONI doesn't use IE. "Rather than getting a page that says 'This page has been blocked,' you get a page saying 'Page not found,' designed to look exactly like the Internet Explorer 404 page," said Cairo-based ONI consultant Elijah Zarwan. Sometimes a censoring government apparently dips into the bag of tricks more commonly used by online extortionists and script kiddies. ONI researcher Stephen Murdoch of Cambridge University points to denial of service attacks on multiple opposition-party websites preceding countrywide elections in both Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. Although ONI cannot prove the government was the instigator, the government benefited from the attacks. If the state had nothing to do with the denial-of-service carpet bombings, some mysterious third party took big risks acting malevolently on the state's behalf. Indeed, speculates ONI researcher Nart Villeneuve of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, the difficulty in tracing the source may be why denial-of-service attacks may appear more and more attractive to governments. "There is some plausible deniability in a denial of service attack," he said. "Whereas if they send out a fax to internet service providers saying to block this site, and somebody leaks that fax, then we can directly prove that the government is blocking this site." Government filtering is beginning to expand beyond the bounds of the web browser, too. Last summer, Bahrain blocked all access to Google Earth, before yielding to global political pressure from bloggers and lifting the ban. Internet filtering can sometimes have clearly commercial motives, said Noman. "The (United Arab Emirates) block voice over IP, but they think they have a legal reason: The only telecommunications company in the country is the sole (legal) provider of telecommunications services. So going through the internet is a violation of the monopoly," he said. However, government censors don't have a corner on innovation. The new generation of censorship circumvention hacks are coming online too, though they're typically known only by the tiny percentage of users who are also geeks. Noman discussed a new breed of web browser and web applications that can use foreign web servers to disguise a user's IP address, and thus evade censorship protocols. He declines to mention any specific products, though, for fear of giving away too much information to the other side. More prosaic workarounds exist too. In Syria, Zarwan said, content from some blocked websites quickly translates into impromptu e-mail blasts from the website owners to its regular readers. "E-mail and SMS are probably more important than the web for political organizing," he said. One Syrian website used to "go after government members by name and was really fearless," said Zarwan. "It was quickly blocked. So they started sending (the site's content) out by e-mail. Then the government started blocking that e-mail address, and so he started a new e-mail address ... to the point where he was changing e-mail addresses three times a week." In Egypt, Zarwan added, activists from the local pro-democracy group Kifaya performed a similar trick, only using Yahoo Groups instead of e-mail. Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Iran, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus also have the distinction of making up the lion's share of Reporters Without Borders' new list of 13 Internet Enemies, released last week. Reporters Without Borders' Julien Pain is one activist eager to see ONI's final report next spring. "Five years ago, only a few countries censored the internet, or censored it at all efficiently," he said. "The first one to do that was China, and they were kind of a model for other dictatorships around the world." But we see now that it's spreading all over the world, and even in sub-Saharan African countries," Pain said. ONI is a collaboration between digital frontier organizations at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Cambridge and Oxford Universities in the U.K. Although many organizations, including ONI itself, have released progress reports on the state of internet censorship in individual countries, no one has to date attempted a comparative study of all of them at once. ONI's past work has been extremely thorough and up to date, said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch, so he expects the ONI survey will become the bellwether for internet free-speech researchers around the world. "I've found their work to be very impressive, because it's such a complicated field," he said. "It's not like other fields where at least it's static enough that you can draw some straightforward conclusions. This is hard work." One of ONI's worries, said project manager Rob Faris, is that the information it gathers will be used by censorious governments to refine their techniques and tighten their grip. "One of the things that we could do inadvertently in our work is to create a compendium of websites that should have been blocked by the standards of that country that haven't been blocked," Faris said. "We don't want to do their work for them."
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#1. To: All, yertle turtle, neil Mciver, christine, zipporah, historian1944, red jones, skydrifter, lodwick, robin (#0)
(Edited)
Hummmmm.
great article an observation of mine is that today there seems to be (for one reason or another) a lot less significant news reported on our sources that we get for this and other discussion forums. many of us remember that back in 1998-2001 period the news published daily on freerepublic was absolutely riveting and very significant. we don't have that any more for one reason or another. I mean we had posters back then telling us things of profound historical significance and backing it up with many articles. Today we have gossip. and those who remember the important things that were published on these forums are becoming more & more isolated. people increasingly feel that the tv is the source of truth and all dissenting views are false by definition.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
The unfettered spread of truth and information is a threat to Zionists and American big business elite. They shall use issues such as "terrorism" and "child porn" to achieve the ultimate goal: squash and chill political dissent. Newt floated an establishment trial balloon on this a few days ago.
In 1947, the UN created a perpetual war and named it Israel.
I remember that. My, the Zionists moved in and it seemingly changed overnight.
In 1947, the UN created a perpetual war and named it Israel.
I find it interesting that a lot of people who can be called 'computer nerds' because they focus their minds overwhelmingly on technical computer knowledge in order to make money have a sort of ideology that they are convinced is true. they say that it is technically impossible to censor the internet. It may be technically impossible to censor every single web page that is started up on a daily basis. But it is quite do-able for internet service providers regulated by government to censor 99% of whatever government wants to censor. Yet because they can't censor 100% a computer nerd will absolutely insist that censorship is impossible.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
In 1947, the UN created a perpetual war and named it Israel. Yep - and I remember Hillary saying that "The net must be controlled because it's so powerful" or words to that exact effect. They do not want us to have the ability to talk about them. Same with corporations. Isolated we're easy meat. Or cannon fodder.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Good point. And know that an entity does not have to control all the content, just most of it to effectively control the public discourse. 100% consorship is unnecessary. 80% will prolly do just fine.
But we see now that it's spreading all over the world, and even in sub-Saharan African countries," Pain said. This is a historical pattern repeating itself in the same way the printing press, radio, television and now the internet evolve. First there is the "wild west" period of complete freedom of expression, then there is the "for the children!" regulation of adult oriented stuff, then the "that's unfair to minorities, women, the poor, etc" kind of censorship, then people get used to being censored. Once that happens, then there is a "fairness doctrine" or an "equal time" doctrine applied, so that "both sides" get equal access (ignoring any other "side" there might be to an issue); and eventually your information outlet becomes plain happy pap and vanilla ice cream, and to get anything really contraversial you have to stay up til 2 am. And you are effectively silenced. The Reichwingers thought they had this situation licked because they were able to counter all of the truth floating around out there with their massive disinformation sources like FOX Snooze and Limpballs and insHannitys. Instead, the truth got out anyway, which I am sure really, really pissed them off. Just like the votes against them overwhelming their Diebold cheating margins did. So how do they fix it? If they can't outshout you, they'll simply shut you up. What I'm saying is that free speech on the web has a limited temporal window, and that window is slowly shutting. If you love free speech and freedom, don't count on the internet to forever provide you an outlet. When in your life have you been able (other than on the internet) to get something you wanted to say out to a lot of people? Stand on a soapbox in a city park and you've got to get a permit and if you stray from what you are approved to say, expect to be arrested. Try to get truth in a letter to the editor and the editor has to approve it, which means his advertisers have to approve it also so you'd damn well not criticize the local car dealership, right? Try to get on television? You'd better blow something up or be famous, 'cause otherwise you have no chance. The people who profit from the current system want you to shut up. They will figure out a way to shut you up and make you like it. Just witness the amount of disinformation I got from the El Pee regulars about THIS site before I quit that one and began posting here. You need to use this time of relative freedom to say what you like and build networks and relationships with like minded people so that when the web is censored and this site shut down you still have the connections. The relationships are what is important. The mode of communication is secondary. Word to the wise.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
I say it's too easy to get around most censors for censorship to be effective. As long as the internet uses numerical IP addresses blocked sites can be accessed. Censors can block domain names, and individual IP addresses, but they can't block every IP address, otherwise, there is no internet at all. I think it's kinda funny really. Talk about a hopeless cause, trying to censor the internet... it's probably worse than trying to pacify Iraq at the moment. It is a waste of resources, and I think that forcing bad governments to waste resources is a good thing. In fact, it is probably the only way we can rid ourselves of bad governments... starve them and force them to waste their resources. Do you remember Carol Valentine's Waco Electronic Holocaust Museum? She did massive amounts of research on Waco and has the most complete online Waco resource ever assembled. At some point, she must have feared that it would be hacked and taken down. She packaged the whole site up as a zip file and offered it to anyone wanting to mirror her site. At one point, there must have been hundred of mirrors, including one I had up and running. Doing a google search for Waco Electronic Holocaust Museum got you pages of results. Now most of the mirrors are gone, but I'm sure that they would pop back up if ever needed. Mine would. :) Just another way around censorship.
"Rather than getting a page that says 'This page has been blocked,' you get a page saying 'Page not found,' designed to look exactly like the Internet Explorer 404 page," said Cairo-based ONI consultant Elijah Zarwan.
#2. To: tom007 (#0)
#3. To: tom007 (#0)
#4. To: Red Jones (#2)
many of us remember that back in 1998-2001 period the news published daily on freerepublic was absolutely riveting and very significant. we don't have that any more for one reason or another.
#5. To: tom007 (#0)
#6. To: wbales (#3)
Newt floated an establishment trial balloon on this a few days ago.
#7. To: Red Jones (#5)
regulated by government to censor 99% of whatever government wants to censor. Yet because they can't censor 100% a computer nerd will absolutely insist that censorship is impossible.
#8. To: tom007, All, yertle turtle, neil Mciver, christine, zipporah, historian1944, red jones, skydrifter, lodwick, robin, wbales, all (#0)
"Five years ago, only a few countries censored the internet, or censored it at all efficiently," he said. "The first one to do that was China, and they were kind of a model for other dictatorships around the world."
#9. To: Red Jones (#5)
Yet because they can't censor 100% a computer nerd will absolutely insist that censorship is impossible.
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#10. To: bluedogtxn (#8)
there are still more of us than there are of them. i can't help but to have some faith in the ingenuity of people to find a way to get around them. it is the world wide web afterall. hey, maybe some of your hope has rubbed off on me.
#11. To: bluedogtxn, christine, zipporah, (#8)
Actually, when this site is shut down, hopefully, they have a backup of everything, including users' email adresses, and it will pop up again at some numerical address and they will email that numerical address to every user and we will be back online in minutes. :p
You need to use this time of relative freedom to say what you like and build networks and relationships with like minded people so that when the web is censored and this site shut down you still have the connections.
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#12. To: Critter (#9)
your post put a big smile on my face
#13. To: tom007 (#0)
This article reminded me of this report I heard a couple of days ago: Toronto University Lab Develops Tool To Overcome Web Censorship
It's all "Diebolds" fault...
#14. To: Critter (#11)
What about when it is a federal felony to re-open a banned (for your safety of course) site or to access a previously banned site? Because it will be. Or when christine's pretrial conditions of release say she cannot in any way access the internet until after her prosecution for "violating the Safe & Balanced Internet Act" is complete? You know you can go to jail for broadcasting radio without a license? Tee Vee too. Muslim radio re-broadcasters have been jailed for it. How long before the internet has similar laws? Once you need a license to open a website or a blog, you can kiss the outlaw internets goodbye. Because you know who will be enforcing the license restrictions? Licensed sites like El Pee or Fascist Republik or Democratic Underwear, who are making money by exploiting their licenses. Then the licenses get more expensive and there are fewer and fewer sites... This is not some paranoid fantasy. This is the history of the print and broadcast media. Why should the internet have a different history? Short wave (ham) radio is a "World Wide Web" also, is it not? Technician (July 1, 2003 question pool) General (July 1, 2004 question pool) Extra (July 1, 2002 question pool) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent Amateur Exams Select a License Class Technician General -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Old Amateur Exams Select a License Class Novice Technician General Advanced Extra
Actually, when this site is shut down, hopefully, they have a backup of everything, including users' email adresses, and it will pop up again at some numerical address and they will email that numerical address to every user and we will be back online in minutes. :p
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
#15. To: bluedogtxn (#14)
Then it's time for the shooting to start, is it not?
What about when it is a federal felony to re-open a banned (for your safety of course) site or to access a previously banned site? Because it will be.
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#16. To: Critter (#15)
Sigh. You'd have thought that about effectively repealing Habeas Corpus, wouldn't you? Or the feds taking away the right to a real jury trial where the jury decides both the facts and the justice of the case? Or the incremental destruction of both State's sovereignty and the Bill of Rights? I mean, you'd have thought the shooting would start, right? But we get one bomb from a Timothy McVeigh and that's the end of the talk of shooting. By his own standards (if you believe the official version) McVeigh was a patriot. Even by the standards of many folks here. But he blew up a bunch of people including kids in a daycare. Collateral damage isn't okay against the State, it's only okay when the State does it to others. I don't think enough Americans have the stomach for rebellion and what it really entails. It ain't "Red Dawn". It's "Apocalypse Now" combined with "Schindler's List" with a little "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" thrown in.
What about when it is a federal felony to re-open a banned (for your safety of course) site or to access a previously banned site? Because it will be. Then it's time for the shooting to start, is it not?
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
#17. To: bluedogtxn (#16)
Attacking innocent people is never ok, no matter who does it. The shooting should have started long ago, I agree. The 2nd American Revolution is about 93 years overdue, but it will come if current trends continue. I don't value my own life very much. What keeps me from taking huge risks is my kid, plain and simple. If I did not have to weigh her welfare in the balance, who knows how far I might have pushed the limits by now. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. There will come a point though, where staying alive just to be the last line of defense for our kids is not going to cut it. At that point, watch out.
But he blew up a bunch of people including kids in a daycare. Collateral damage isn't okay against the State, it's only okay when the State does it to others.
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#18. To: tom007 (#0)
"On their website, they have all the information of why they block and what they block," he said. "And they invite contributions (of other sites to be blocked) from the public." Vietnam, on the other hand, floats decoys. As ONI first documented this summer and confirmed in this year's study, the Southeast Asian regime purports to censor sexually explicit content. But ONI's computers found no such blocking in place. They did find, however, plenty of unadvertised censorship of political and religious websites critical of the country's one-party state. It's for the children.
The spectrum of internet censorship, the researchers found, ranged from transparent to utterly murky. Perhaps the country with the most accessible filtering system was Saudi Arabia, said Berkman Center research affiliate Helmi Noman.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#19. To: christine (#10)
Technically, the Internet as it is currently implemented is mostly open to the free exchange of information in the western world. The problem is that the gateways are owned and operated by corporations. Imagine that you get in your car and begin a trip. You get on the road you live on, drive to a larger highway and eventually take an entry onto the interstate. When you have reached your exit you leave the interstate and drive a highway to the road that leads to your destination. Now imagine that at every entry or exit to the highway or interstate a roadblock is set up where your vehicle is examined according to a set of rules designed to allow or prohibit access based on the outcome of how you meet the rule criteria. If you are not allowed access you might try the next entry point, where you will encounter the same set of rules. If the roadblocks are set up at every entry and exit point you have no hope of reaching you destination unless you can trick the rule mechanism by disguise, by piggybacking a system-trusted carrier, or by traversing to your destination without having to drive the highways and interstates. Even worse suppose that failure to meet the roadblock rules criteria were considered an illegal act. You are now a criminal. Every router on the Internet is a gateway to another network, beginning with the router at your home. Every router can be programmed to allow or not any kind of traffic. You can see how possible it would be for the routers, especially the routers acting as gateways to the "superhighway", to be programmed to deny access either coming or going for virtually any kind of information. At present most information is not blocked but you can be sure that the information is monitored and notes are being taken. In my experience I believe that the roadblocks are already in place and that there are mechanisms that deal with identifying the source and destination of information that is deemed dangerous or undesirable. Once the mandate for lockdown occurs the choices for several levels of control will be implemented and will range from subjective blocking of targeted sites to pulling the plug in extreme cases. In any event what this will mean is a curtailing of the free exchange of information. And a database entry for identification of any who believe they can buck the system. How do I know this? I've been an IT professional for twelve years and can see the writing on the wall. I have programmed routers for many of those years both small scale and medium scale. If the flow of anything can be controlled and manipulated it will be. The Internet is an example of a flow that can be controlled to the nth degree should it become necessary or desirable for the gatekeepers. It's only a matter of time. My feeling is that we should take advantage while we have it to spread awareness and truth, to communicate and solidify our relationships. When the SHTF the ability to communicate on this wonder called the Internet will quickly disappear.
i can't help but to have some faith in the ingenuity of people to find a way to get around them
#20. To: lightmind (#19)
[insert very sad face here]
#21. To: lightmind (#19)
In order to effectively limit the information that can pass through the "highway entrances" the internet would have to be shut down. I don't think there is a middle ground. If they selectively filter the actual content, 99% of all websites will be unreachable. Censorship is a waste of resources. It can be circumvented. Shutting down the internet is another matter entirely. Even selectively filtering content can be circumvented. Say a forum like this would be filtered since certain keywords appear all over the place. Well, it would not be too hard configure the scripting to replace the keywords with benignly named .jpg or .gif images of the words. It might look funny, but it would work. Like this: The The point is, no matter what they do, short of shutting things down entirely, we will get around it. :)
When the SHTF the ability to communicate on this wonder called the Internet will quickly disappear.
in 
has nothing to do with 
.
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#22. To: Critter, lightmind (#21)
i'm smiling again.
#23. To: christine (#22)
Short of killing us all, we will find a way to communicate. Just like short of killing every Iraqi, the Iraqis will find a way to keep killing our soldiers. The key is to make it cost more and more and still more to fight the unwinnable battle. Eventually, they will run out of resources before we run out of ideas or they will shut the internet down entirely. If they do that, does it not then become obvious that it is time for more drastic means of dealing with the vermin? :) Even Susy Homemaker will be POed that she can't do her ebaying. That alone might trigger AmRevII. lol
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#24. To: Critter (#21)
That must be why the MSM doesn't censor. Or the military, or governments, or corporations. A complete waste of resources indeed. "In order to effectively limit the information that can pass through the "highway entrances" the internet would have to be shut down. I don't think there is a middle ground." You are completely off base on this one. I suppose you, like me, have a list of resources that you routinely go to for your information. You know, places like F4UM. Now where would you go if these sites were not available? To approved sites? Maybe fauxnews? I know I feel deprived if my connection goes down or I can't reach a site that I depend on for my information. As I said many different levels of control can be implemented. "Even selectively filtering content can be circumvented. Say a forum like this would be filtered since certain keywords appear all over the place. Well, it would not be too hard configure the scripting to replace the keywords with benignly named .jpg or .gif images of the words. It might look funny, but it would work. Like this: " Trust me, the gatekeepers are well aware of this tactic. They already have AI to scan images for text (OCR) recognition. And one better... AI can scan images for coded patterns stored in image pixels. The technology has been around for years and is advancing in capability at a remarkable rate. No beef with you bro, but you have no clue. Anything we can do, they can do better. Yes there are and will be ways to circumvent the system. They are short lived and have to be constantly changed to work. The 99.99% who don't have the know-how or ingenuity to do it though will be forced to accept it as the norm. Any takers to the challenge risk breaking the laws legislated solely to protect the system. It's a system and all systems can be broken. But when a system is completely under control it can be very hard to beat. Witness the Drivers License system as a great example. How many people do you know who can work their way around that one without risk? Peace
Censorship is a waste of resources.
#25. To: bluedogtxn, Fred_Mertz, aristeides (#16)
Actually, check out the movie, "Brazil" - just saw it again and amazingly relevant. A masterpiece, the current version has some scenes cut from the original theatrical release. Especially references to "terrorists".
It's "Apocalypse Now" combined with "Schindler's List" with a little "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" thrown in.
#26. To: Critter (#23)
Good one. I think Ebay is a safe bet for a "pass" as it is not a danger to the system.
Even Susy Homemaker will be POed that she can't do her ebaying.
#27. To: tom007 (#0)
Not that dirty a secret, but American vendors like CISCO and other smaller ones have implemented pure censorship for the Chinese. Like Yahoo turning over the name of Chinese dissidents to the Govt. Mirrors the IBM effort to Nazi Germany in the 1930's for their population census machines. "Privacy is dead; get over it" - Scott McNealy- SUN Microsystems - 1999
#28. To: swarthyguy (#25)
Excellent movie, ahead of it's time. A lot of people don't get it at all. A De Niro classic.
#29. To: swarthyguy (#27)
Corporations and government. A marriage made in Hell.
#30. To: lightmind (#24)
I never said there wasn't risk. I only said that it can and will be done. The resources required to filter every bit of text and every bit of every image going in both directions involving hundreds of millions if not billions of users will be an enormous drain on gov't. When things become so restricted that the gov't will resort to this, the risks will be worth taking, and when caught taking them, take a few of the buggers out with you on the way to the maker. If they think Iraq is a quagmire, wait til they force us to behave like Iraqis. lmfao!
How many people do you know who can work their way around that one without risk?
The Subversive Firearms Forums
#31. To: Critter (#30)
For crying out loud, you have an exalted, exaggerated view of the propensity of Americans to "resist". We gave in on Corps dictating afterwork behavior, (drug tests), now people are being fired for smoking. In America, fascism arrives via the personal; the flip side of the personal is political dictum of the 60's. No way, Jose, people have their credit ratings to worry about.
#32. To: swarthyguy (#25)
That is a great movie. Tortured by his family doctor in a baby mask, hands shaking the whole time...
Actually, check out the movie, "Brazil" - just saw it again and amazingly relevant. A masterpiece, the current version has some scenes cut from the original theatrical release.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
#33. To: lightmind (#28)
That is right, I was surprised at how much more relevant it seemed now, rather than the Scifi dystopic vision when it was originally released.
#34. To: swarthyguy (#31)
thanks for telling us how the internet is effectively censored in China. I agree with you about how many of 'us' have an exaggerated view of our ability to resist fascism.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
#35. To: Red Jones (#34) (Edited)
I know it's simplistic and who in his right mind could defend smoking anymore (moi!), but I regard it as a metaphor in our society - DeTocqueville's tyranny of the majority. Yesterday it was druggies, todays it's smokers and we all agree with that. Tomorrow?
#36. To: Critter (#30)
I'm not disagreeing with you on principle. I stand for the free exchange of information and individual determination. The ante of what we are willing to do to maintain our freedom of expression is becoming a high-stakes game. Every shackle of subservience and pressure of conformity placed on us just makes our load heavier and our resolve stronger. May the Human Spirit prevail! But you gotta admit, these guys are good...
#37. To: swarthyguy (#33)
Much like 1984, Equilibrium, and a host of others. It seems whatever we can imagine becomes reality. Remember Jules Verne and submarines?
#38. To: swarthyguy (#35)
I think you're pursuing a logical train of thought. and you are a little like detoqueville in that he saw us (americans) more clearly because he came from somewhere else. Like him, maybe 40 years ago you started out elsewhere, and can see the american predicament more clearly in some ways than some others. or I could be wrong. you came from India about 40 years ago. The americans cannot imagine some things.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
#39. To: lightmind (#37)
Richard Burton's last movie, IIRC, and one of the most depressing ever. However, the Eurythmics soundtrack, that was never used in the flick, IIRC was a great piece of rockandroll. Equilibrium, will google that.
1984
#40. To: Red Jones (#38)
No, from Inja, 1973, Nixonera, back in the days of souped up Barracudas and Javelin AMX's. American girls, however proved harder to decipher than car shifts.
or I could be wrong
#41. To: swarthyguy (#35)
Tomorrow? Us vs. Them is the name, obedience is the game. Divide and conquer. Maybe the most useful control tool in all history. Individualism is the enemy of the hive and must be destroyed for the greater good.
Yesterday it was druggies, todays it's smokers and we all agree with that.
#42. To: swarthyguy (#39)
Tagline: In a future where freedom is outlawed outlaws will become heroes. Equilibrium, will google that.
#43. To: lightmind (#26)
How can ebay be a pass, unless they pass everything that happens to come and go from ebay? There will be or can be, content on ebay that can be considered a threat. And what becomes of places like Yahoo or Google or MySpace? Do they go down without a fight? If they are going to filter content, which content? What keywords? Filter the word sex for instance... we get around it by typing s ex. If you filter s ex, then you have to also filter "Fred's ex wife" "Joe's ex boss" "Bob's expressed opinon", and so on down the line and could effect hundreds of thousands if not millions of sites. So where does the line get drawn? It can't be drawn. It's either we get around it, and they waste resources, or they close it all down. Even ebay isn't safe. They either have to close down ebay or let all of ebay content through the filters, and then we just use ebay to communicate. Another thought occured to me. Will they filter letters? Images of letters? How about: The An image depicting an A doesn't seem very harmful. And image named A.jpg shouldn't set off any alarms, especially if it scans as an A and has no other threatening code in the image file. So now they have to scan it for content, and it's placement along side other images? So we toss in a few other odd characters. So exactly what will be the criteria for blocking information? It seems to me that blocking domain names is the first filter. Then blocking specific IP addresses will be the next, after that, it has to be key words. Once we know what they are, we work around that by breaking up our keywords with spaces, odd characters, etc. Now they have to block any form of the keyword which will effect sites unrelated to the keyword, like ebay. So we allow ebay to come through unfiltered, right? So I auction a cheap item on ebay and include on my auction text or an image containing information I want to get to a particular group, like this week's code words for war, iraq and al qaida are foodfight, sandflealand and towelheadedboogeymen. People are intelligent in general. How long before we all figure out ways to disguise our keywords in plain site, like using the code words I stated above? I think most people would know what I meant, or close to what I meant without even telling them specifically, if I said the foodfight in sandflealand has nothing to do with towelheadedboogeymen. So now their system has to filter any form of foodfight, snadflealand and towelheadedboogeymen out there. It goes on and on. The only place it stops is at complete shutdown, including the ebays of the world.
I think Ebay is a safe bet for a "pass" as it is not a danger to the system.
in 
has nothing to do with 
and never did.
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#44. To: Critter (#43)
Someone admonished me for sending him an email about Friedman's latest banalities, where I entered the phrase "cocksuckingscumbagputz" in the text - He was surprised the censor didn't catch it, well, i didn't put any spaces in there so it apparently passed!
#45. To: swarthyguy (#31)
No I haven't. I believe most are like me. While I have a kid to raise, I am not taking any chances while there is any degree of hope that bloodshed can be avoided. I will put up with the bullshit that I can't stop, hoping that once the bullshit gets too heavy to bear, a lot of folks will say enough is enough and gather in sufficient numbers to put an end to it. In the mean time, I am not going to die a martyr, and leave my kid at the mercy of the state. However, once they leave me no choice...
For crying out loud, you have an exalted, exaggerated view of the propensity of Americans to "resist".
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#46. To: lightmind (#36)
I know we don't disagree on principle. I am actually enjoying the conversation. lol Some days I am rather pessimistic. Today, I'm trying to be hopefull and maybe spread some of that around. :) I think the human spirit will prevail, in the end. And yes, these guys are good, but not that good. You see, the bestest of the best do not seek public office, or employ, obviously. ;)
May the Human Spirit prevail! But you gotta admit, these guys are good...
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#47. To: swarthyguy (#44)
And when the filter is set to filter out any instance of the words above, in any context, they will filter innocent instances, but miss the more obscure but just as understandable: cork sogging sperm sack puds! :)
where I entered the phrase "cocksuckingscumbagputz" in the text -
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#48. To: Critter (#47) (Edited)
Ow, that's good. I'm considering using archaic words like slubberdegullion, morts, coxcombs, rakes, squibs, drabogue, fundament, wedding tackle etc, but then no one would understand. http://www.wealth4freedom.com/wns/Webster.htm
#49. To: Critter (#43)
Have you done any research on these companies? You might discover some interesting facts. There's no reason to believe they will go down without a fight because... except for a few light skirmishes the fight has been long over (if there was a fight at all). In the chicken pen of capitalism profit rules the roost. Still, I must be blinded by science. That the Internet is a danger to government is beside the point I guess. We all know that the government never reacts to elements that endanger or challenge it's authority. "The unavoidable fact is that the Internet is incompatible with a totalitarian system of government. Therefore, either we are a bunch of delusionary paranoids, and what we see happening in this country is only a figment of our feverished imagination, and, consequently, the Internet will not be banned, or we are right, and it will disappear. Actually, the disappearance of the current free Internet will serve as a litmus test that will accurately mark our final loss of freedom." http://ww w.newswithviews.com/public_comm/public_commentary7.htm http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/05/30/internet.records/index.html? section=cnn_tech http://news.com.com/Industry%2C+others+object+to+data+retention/2100- 1028_3- 6078689.html And what becomes of places like Yahoo or Google or MySpace? Do they go down without a fight?
#50. To: Critter (#46)
Well said and true. Our election system is broken. The wise, honest and compassionate would make the best leaders. Need I say anything about what we have?
You see, the bestest of the best do not seek public office, or employ, obviously.
#51. To: lightmind (#49)
I think we agree mostly. I think we only disagree on their ability to censor the internet. I don't think it can be done effectively without just shutting it down. I don't see any middleground. That the internet is a threat to totalitarianism? Yes. That they will try and censor it? Yes. Can censorship work effectively? I don't think so. Will they shut it down if censorship doesn't work? I think so, eventually. Shutting it down is a sign that things are about to get REALLY ugly...
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#52. To: lightmind (#49)
They all have on thing in common. They all live on advertising revenue and they need traffic. If the internet is censored to the point where there are only a few thousand "approved" sites, will they get either ad revenue or traffic?
Have you done any research on these companies? You might discover some interesting facts.
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#53. To: tom007 (#0)
This is all very interesting. I do think though that the advantage is held by by the censor busters. As long as there's a net and as long as commerce relies on, it, governments will be forced to have it in existance and suffer through the promotions of liberty and expression on it. Can they stifle it? Sure they can, but they'll never be able to quash it completely. They'll be about as successful as the War on Drugs (TM) is in keeping drugs out of the country, and probably less so.
#54. To: Critter (#51)
I can live with that. Thanks for the conversation, it's much appreciated. Likewise for all who inhabit this refreshing enclave of cyber real estate.
I think we agree mostly.
#55. To: swarthyguy (#40)
well we're very glad you are here.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
#56. To: swarthyguy (#25)
Thanks for the recommendation...I'll check it out.
Actually, check out the movie, "Brazil" -
#57. To: swarthyguy (#25)
The Terry Gilliam movie I really like is The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
#58. To: aristeides (#57)
That's a very well done adventure romp, great for kids and adults, but Brazil turns from a futuristic comedic light farce into a dark and chilling nightmare.
#59. To: Red Jones (#38)
An extension of that is our desire to like our violence make believe. We decry the graphical nature of the carnage shown on AlJazeera, for instance, where limbs and mutilated bodies are shown after a carbomb, dead American soldiers, or the results of a botched US attack. Meanwhile, depictions of fictional violence get more graphic and hyper real in HiDef slow motion. Sometimes I wonder about the mindset of Hollywood in depicting this carnage. I also wonder at the howls of outrage when we are shown the reality of war.
#60. To: swarthyguy (#59)
you are very perceptive, and the people who were born here are not as perceptive about the certain things you've been saying. that's what I was saying earlier. DeTocqueville was the same way. and DeTocqueville said it was odd how Americans liked the thrill of combat. I think that we are a very good people as peoples go. But we have our flaws. and we have our blind spots. there is a passage in bible that says all of the nations are given properties by the creator, that these properties vary from nation to nation, and that these properties are given to the nations to suit the purposes of the creator. IMHO - we are a very 'great' nation and we have a very great purpose as well. But this purpose is not our purpose. it is his purpose. our nation is but a tool, but it is a tool that will be used in a spectacular way IMHO. and we are not the ones who determine how we are to be used, not do we control it.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
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