New web rules

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7165987.stm
The new Labor government wants internet service providers to filter content
to ensure households and schools do not receive "inappropriate" material.

Hmm interesting turn of events. I'm sure the EU will watch closely and if it
works will start to impose the same standards across Europe. Of course the
stated goals could be achieved in simple practical ways which would work.
They won't, because the stated goals are not the real goals.

It seems to me the real target is to eventually undo the freedom of
expression and exchange of information and ideas that the interwebby kicked
off. Get the mass population reading off the proscribed menu again as it
were. Anyone agree?

 

They are trying to make the ISP's liable though. Some will close down,
thinking it too much like hard work, others will go on and start providing
nothing more than a Portal service, what else can they do?

The sensible target, the credit card and Merchant Service companies could
easily be put on the spot. Commercial porn could be taken off the web in a
couple of years (No bad thing IMHO). Of course traffic stats would go down
about 60% ;o)

It's the one way the EU could effectively target US hosted content, I'm
quite surprised they haven't jumped to it, particularly after it was used by
the RIAA quite effectively against allofmp3 (through mastercard and visa)

 

it's not a new concept. Google for "The Great Firewall of Australia"

 

Having more than a passing interest I'm aware but they seem to bre upping
the ante.

 

You make the card issuers liable. They err on the side of caution and pretty
much clean the place up.

 

It led to a good picture

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2250/2150930127_9c8a4282d1_m.jpg

 

This has been suggested in the anti spam community for years. With the
result that the card issuers have simply ignored any and all calls to do
something about it and continued to make shedloads of money from the
ignorant and the criminally insane.

 

Fortunately I am more optimistic!!

 

Or Felix Somm:

http://www.cyber-rights.org/isps/somm-dec.htm

 

Yes and no. 'No' first of all, as the Internet did not 'kick off' the
freedom of expression and exchange of information. Credit for that must go
to the invention of printing. 'Yes' in that what the Internet undoubtedly
achieved was to open this ability to express and disseminate information,
to the masses who previously would not have been able to get their ideas
any further than their neighbours or their family.

Regrettably, though, a cursory glance at 'the web' is all that is required
to note the mind-numbing _inanity_ of most people's 'contributions' to
'culture'. It's said that whilst everyone has a novel in him or her, in
most cases, it should stay there. The same could be said of the web.

UKRM is another example of how 'more' does not necessarily mean 'better'.
Usenet was once, a very long time ago, more or less readable but has for a
few years now become nothing more than a place where the uneducated go to
meet other fools of his genre, and spout hot air and meaningless crap.

Previously, being 'published' meant a minimum of intelligence. Nowadays,
being 'seen' on the Internet only requires the purchase of a computer and
Internet account. The result of this can be seen every day on UKRM and
elsewhere on the ''net', where most people should be gibbering into their
bedroom mirror and mercifully spare the rest of us their pathetic and
barely readable tripe. I'd suggest an intelligence test before you're
allowed to post, but UKRM would be reduced to two posters, and frankly I
quite like Ivan, but I don't fancy talking to him and him alone.

As for the control of the Internet, I'm surprised that anyone's erm,
'surprised'. I recall in the early days of PgP, reading the foreword to
the printed version of the User Guide, the writer (I don't recall who it
was) talking in glowing terms of a world where everyone used public key
encryption and where the freedom found in anonymity gave rise to a society
where governments would only have records of the information on us that we
saw fit to furnish.

Since then, the Establishment (aided and abetted by the media and the odd
terrorist atrocity) has contrived to make encryption sound like a 'nerdy
geek's affair' or worse, as being 'useful only to terrorists'. Governments
such as France have gone even further with their obscene (not to mention
ridiculous) law making strong key encrytion over 128 bits a 'weapon of war'
and thus until recently, quite simply illegal. I have a working copy of
PgP on my Mac and the appropriate plug-in for Mail.app. I know of two
other people who use it. Most people react just the way the Establishment
wants them to react: 'why should I use encryption, I have nothing to hide?'
Ask these people if they thus send letters without sealing the envelope, or
whether they routinely leave their home open and unlocked whilst they're
not there and their private documents like bank statements &c., and the
usual response is a pause and a 'oh ...'

Censorship and monitoring are inevitable, that much is sure. Governments
are, by definition, not to be trusted and so one can't really expect them
to trust _us_. They fear us. We are the 'great beast' to quote Alexander
Hamilton, and we must be controlled. Anyone who believes that
'traditional' methods of dissemination of ideas and information are free,
needs to be looking into the purchase of a bridge in New York.

D.

--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

Or rather, speaking.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Speaking other than word-of-mouth is necessarily limited to the distance
over which the human voice is audible. Historically, accurate
dissemination of information across geographical, linguistic or temporal
boundaries has been by the written word.

D.
--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

Ah, cane-cutting season again!

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Neither did the printing press. By definition the 'freedom' to disseminate
one's view via printed medium is limited to those rich enough to own a press
or to employ those who do.

The gulf between those with the means to pay for a printing which could be
read by millions and then to pay for it to be distributed widely enough to
reach those people and those with the means to fire off an electronic
message available to millions is very wide indeed.

So the printing press may be resonsible for the dissemintation of
information, but certainly not its freedom.

--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Aprilia RSV-1000R, Kawasaki ZX-6R, Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, DS#5, COSOC# Suspended, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Conceded, although I did, I believe, mention how the Internet had
'democratised' the matter.

D.
--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

Quite possibly, I'm well in to my 2nd bottle of wine from the local
vineyards of Cases de Penne, near Perpignon, where I holidayed this year so
I'm in no fit state to argue.

However, if you could ship a couple of bottle of this stuff ... les Pierres
Noire ... over to me that would be lovely. The charming young lady who sold
it to me (for 14 euros a bottle) said that they sold it in the UK, but I'm
damned if I can find it.

--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Aprilia RSV-1000R, Kawasaki ZX-6R, Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, DS#5, COSOC# Suspended, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Well I've discovered a very nice (i.e. not tasting like soup) Leffe that
weighs in at 9% [1], and I'm about to open the third bottle. I'm therefore
not in a fit state to argue about _anything_.

So despite the past nine months of vicious and wholly undeserved abuse from
UKRM, I'd like to wish you all a 'bonne et joyeuse année 2008'.

D.


[1] http://coughlan.fr/booze.jpg
--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

So transport then. Without it, nothing would "get out" whether it was
printed or hand written.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19