Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mongoose on October 07, 2010, 06:10:04 pm
-
So in lieu of more explosive topics, here's something I (somewhat disturbingly) only came across a day or two ago. It seems as though our illustrious Congress has it in its head to enact a new law (http://demandprogress.org/blacklist/) that would allow the Justice Department and/or Attorney General to essentially create a "blacklist" of websites that ISPs would be legally required to restrict. Of course, the bill's ostensible (read: asinine) purpose is to fight copyright infringement, but it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see how that's just a first step. Last time I checked, I never signed up for the Great Firewall of China. So if you live in the US, sign this petition, contact your local representatives, and get the word out about this bull****. It's beyond ridiculous.
-
KILL IT !!!!
KILL IT NAO!!!!
RALLY TO THE BATTLE CRY!!!!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AzpByR3MvI)
-
We beat you to it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia#Proposed_future_legislation_.28mandatory_filtering.29)
-
Yeah, I'd heard about that. That's exactly why I want to see a ton of people *****ing about this here, so that the same thing doesn't happen. And they are, apparently: a group of over 90 software engineers, including most of the people who developed the protocols and technology to make the Internet possible, collectively signed a letter to Congress vehemently decrying the bill.
-
You guys too? :(
...Although the Australian filter proposal came about because of child pornography rather than copyright infringment, it still would have the same problems.
-
We already have something like this in Singapore. The list is mostly made of porn sites, but the government's looking into other alternatives, such as an optional website filter.
-
Denmark has it, too. Some German company did a study of our block filters -- Most of the sites on our list are gone or unavailable. The Germans managed to instantly get three of them shut down. So, instead of actually doing something about the child porn sites, we just prefer to block them. You can read the report here, in English: http://ak-zensur.de/2010/09/29/analysis-blacklists.pdf
-
Denmark has it, too.
If you can actually call something that any half-competent computer user can circumvent in less than two minutes simply by altering a few settings in windows, then yes, I suppose so. Personally I consider it little more than a very short-lived distraction as opposed to actual censorship :p
-
Denmark has it, too.
If you can actually call something that any half-competent computer user can circumvent in less than two minutes simply by altering a few settings in windows, then yes, I suppose so. Personally I consider it little more than a very short-lived distraction as opposed to actual censorship :p
Oh yeah, about that -- The filtering is done through DNS servers. If a user here goes to the settings of his connection(or router) and use, say, google's free DNS instead of automatic settings, then the filtering will be gone.
-
Awesome.
-
I think the point here is that none of us should accept measures like this. How can we propose to live in "free" societies if the government places restrictions on just how freely we can access information? As the website notes, Obama has spoken out against Internet censorship in other countries, particularly China, yet many Western democracies practice the same thing, and certain members of Congress are trying to get it back-doored here. It's about time to stand up and tell them to go **** themselves.
-
I think the point here is that none of us should accept measures like this. How can we propose to live in "free" societies if the government places restrictions on just how freely we can access information? As the website notes, Obama has spoken out against Internet censorship in other countries, particularly China, yet many Western democracies practice the same thing, and certain members of Congress are trying to get it back-doored here. It's about time to stand up and tell them to go **** themselves.
That's what a terrorist pirate would say! If you're not a pirate, you don't have anything to worry about, right? Just like if you have nothing to hide, talking to the police cannot possibly come get you in trouble, right! :D
Anyway, censorship is bad.
-
We've always been at war with Eastasia.
-
as much as i dont want my internets to be firewalled so i cant pirate rare black metal that i cant find in any store, and movies that i cant afford to see or dont ever come to our theater, or download tv shows i missed, or bizzare porn. i dont like giving my email adress to anyone with a political agenda. i think id just let my self fall off the grid and work on assembling a large gun collection.
-
You can always unsubscribe from their mailing list after you sign up, or just use a spare GMail account or something. They sent me one message about the campaign, but I get so little e-mail anyway that it wasn't exactly a big deal.
-
Internet censorship makes me laugh. Lawmakers fail to grasp that the internet is fundamentally different from radio or TV. You can't censor it, not really. Oh, sure you can have restrictions and blacklists and stuff, but anyone with a modicum of experience on the internet knows about proxies and how to change their IP. The internet is possibly the biggest can of worms in human history, now that its been opened it's never going to be closed again.
Put it this way: the idea of the internet can never be killed. It's like with Napster and its clones, they (eventually) killed it off, but that didn't stop file-sharing, people just moved on to torrents and file-storage websites like RapidShare. Some rebellious coder somewhere will just come up with a new form of networking if out of touch politicians seriously try to clamp down on the internet.
-
Internet censorship makes me laugh. Lawmakers fail to grasp that the internet is fundamentally different from radio or TV. You can't censor it, not really. Oh, sure you can have restrictions and blacklists and stuff, but anyone with a modicum of experience on the internet knows about proxies and how to change their IP. The internet is possibly the biggest can of worms in human history, now that its been opened it's never going to be closed again.
+1, unless you're China in which case you can be Chinese about it
Put it this way: the idea of the internet can never be killed. It's like with Napster and its clones, they (eventually) killed it off, but that didn't stop file-sharing, people just moved on to torrents and file-storage websites like RapidShare. Some rebellious coder somewhere will just come up with a new form of networking if out of touch politicians seriously try to clamp down on the internet.
I really like to think this but simultaneously I worry it's not as invincible as we hope.
-
I don't think any kind of internal pressure could do it, possibly in some countries they would get away with 'turning the Internet off', but certainly in the Corporate countries, that would be very difficult to achieve. There was talk once of limiting the Internet to purely busniess interests, but that was struck down by the industries themselves, since it removed a massive advertising tool.
A greater risk is some kind of catacalysmic failure in the backbone, it wouldn't destroy it, but I have the suspicion that the 'net that returned when it is repaired wouldn't quite be the same Internet that fell, chances are the opportunity to twiddle would be taken. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure to be honest, sometimes the right to anonymity is a wonderful and useful tool, other times it is just taken as an excuse to display the worst aspects of human ignorance and intolerance.
-
You've got nothing on these guys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_North_Korea)
-
You've got nothing on these guys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_North_Korea)
I feel like that's more along the lines of "lol, internets." :p
-
Internet censorship...in the US?
It's more likely than you think.
-
nice one
-
this reminds me of the "internet kill switch" mess that was flying around for a bit a while ago. i guess blacklisting is slightly better than that idea.
as for using google or other DNS servers to bypass, what makes you think the law won't require them to deny the same sites? even if workarounds DO work, saying "it's not really going to be effective anyway" is hardly a justification for having a law.
-
He who fights monsters...
-
Anyway, censorship is bad.
:nod:
-
BRETHEREN AND SISTEREN! IT IS NOT YET OVER!
To my horror, I looked in my inbox today and found this:
Thaeris--
Thanks to your help, we got the Internet blacklist bill tabled until after the election. But now the big guys are fighting back: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce just sent a letter demanding the Senate pass the bill as soon as they come back in November.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the most powerful groups in Washington -- you may have heard about the $75 million they're spending this year to get their favorite politicians elected. That's on top of hundreds of millions they've already spent on lobbyists. If they're going to take us on, we need to fight back.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce draws support from local businesses all across the country who join through local chambers of commerce. Many of these locals have no idea about the extreme agenda their money is supporting. So we're letting them know -- and pressuring them to quit today.
Can you write a letter to your local chamber? It just takes a second -- click here.
It's not just the Internet blacklist bill the Chamber has been pushing for. They've fought to let ISPs block BitTorrent and even tried to stop a treaty letting blind people share ebooks ("[it] creates a bad precedent by loosening copyright restrictions, instead of tightening them as every previous copyright treaty has done").
Even many businesses find them too extreme -- in just the past couple days, several businesses and local chambers have decided to quit. With your help, we can turn this spark into a nationwide trend and deal a serious blow to our biggest opponent.
Click here to send a letter today. Don't worry, we'll deliver it for you.
Thanks again for being a fighter,
-- Aaron Swartz and the Demand Progress team
Kill the Czar and his minions! People, Unite! (...In a non-communist way, despite the allusion...)
But, seriously...
-
Net neutrality!
But no giant text plz.
-
I'm not sure what became of the net-filter our bloody pollies tried to push through a while though, think the supposed 'left wing' government is still trying to push it through (Oh the irony! The left wingers want teh net censored and the right wing doesn't! What is wrong with us :S ) But I think it's pretty safe to say it's died out (unless with the big NBN thing they hold all the ISP's to ransom that they will enforce the blacklist, even without legislating on it).
DDOS them a bit, maybe rile up 4chan, you'l be fine.
-
that sounds right to me. generally speaking, "leftist" government likes their fingers in everything while the "right" is willing to leave more stuff alone.
VERY, VERY generally speaking. [/flameshield]
-
that sounds right to me. generally speaking, "leftist" government likes their fingers in everything while the "right" is willing to leave more stuff alone.
VERY, VERY generally speaking. [/flameshield]
Generally speaking planets have no life on them. So generally speaking, you don't exist. :p
We're talking that kind of generality here.
-
Half the coalition wants internet filtering too. Being obstructionist just happens to be winning right now.
-
that sounds right to me. generally speaking, "leftist" government likes their fingers in everything while the "right" is willing to leave more stuff alone.
I don't think so - in general the left is associated with more economic control (oh god, socialism!) while the right is associated with more social control (oh god, authoritarianism! - USA PATRIOT, bans on various forms of behavior, so on)
They're both into control.
-
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.
-
that sounds right to me. generally speaking, "leftist" government likes their fingers in everything while the "right" is willing to leave more stuff alone.
I don't think so - in general the left is associated with more economic control (oh god, socialism!) while the right is associated with more social control (oh god, authoritarianism! - USA PATRIOT, bans on various forms of behavior, so on)
They're both into control.
While those of us who just want less control are apparently all just crazy. :doubt:
-
No, you're on a separate axis.
-
Good
|
Less Control--------------+--------------More Control
|
Politicians
-
AGAIN, IT IS NOT YET FINISHED!!!
Thaeris--
We just found out that they're bringing back the Internet blacklist bill for a vote on Thursday -- less than a week from now! We've spent the week meeting people in DC and I can tell you our petition is definitely making a difference. This bill was supposed to pass without objection, but now even Politico is calling it "hotly debated" -- all thanks to you.
The first vote will be by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Do you have any friends in California, Vermont, Wisconsin, New York, Minnesota, or Illinois who haven't signed the petition yet? Their senators will be the key votes in deciding whether this bill passes. Can you forward them this email and ask them to sign on at:
http://act.demandprogress.org/go/11?akid=20.172846.V_uZrE&t=2
Remember, this bill--in blatant violation of the Constitution--would let the Attorney General create a blacklist of websites that every American ISP would be required to block. Wikileaks, YouTube, and others are all at risk. Human rights advocates, constitutional law experts, and the people who invented the Internet have all spoken out against this bill -- but some of the most powerful industries in the country are demanding that Congress rush it through. The music industry is even having all of their employees call Congress to pose as citizens in support of the bill.
We need to fight back -- can you ask any friends you know to sign on at:
http://act.demandprogress.org/go/11?akid=20.172846.V_uZrE&t=4
Keep on fighting,
-- Aaron Swartz, David Segal, and the Demand Progress team
P.S. So far over 250,000 people have signed. Can you help us hit 300,000 before the vote next week?
This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is from today. Please respond in kind.
-
hell, I'm canadian, but as far as they're concerned, I live in 90210, just because its wrong.